With so many crossovers in private operations, public data, and private uses, our future transit agency would blur the line between public and private sectors in a way we haven’t yet pioneered. The challenge is one of governance, bureaucratic turf, organizational development, planning, and public policy, not simply one of technology. Technology is just a tool, and our human institutions can either make use of it or try to ignore it. — urbanomnibus.net

In New York City history and lore, the Second Avenue subway is the Loch Ness Monster crossed with the Abominable Snowman. Politicians, transit planners, and everyone in between have witnessed this East Side subway line face countless stops and starts [...] And yet, the Second Avenue line has become a beacon for New York's future and a symbol of the numerous challenges facing a global city that must, in light of massive costs and slow build-outs, expand its transit network to stay competitive. — citylab.com

Miami is one of several U.S. cities promoting the value of better city infrastructure and the existence of alternative modes of transportation, as emphasized in the Miami DDA Masterplan. In collaboration with the initiative, local non-profit group DawnTown hosted the Alternative Mobilities competition, which asked designers to create a new meeting space in Downtown Miami's Central Business District for people using these alternative transit strategies. — bustler.net

So it’s official: Americans are choosing public transportation in record numbers. The American Public Transportation Association announced this morning that the U.S. made 10.7 billion mass transit trips in 2013, the highest figure in 57 years.

The story here is not of a sudden resurgence, but rather a slow, steady climb over the last decade, back toward ridership levels not seen since the 1950s. — theatlanticcities.com

The days of rummaging frantically for the card that gets us onto public transit may be over.

A team of engineers from MIT has created the 3D-printed "Sesame Ring," which has an embedded RFID tag that lets you tap it to a RFID-based fare reader and hop on. — The Atlantic Cities

Elon Musk's Hyperloop announcement resulted in quite a bit of skepticism. We'd like to think that has less to do with the feasibility of Musk's concept and more to do with the massive mass transit failures of the past.

And there have been some doozies. — wired.com

Hyperloop is a new mode of transport that seeks to change this [transit] paradigm by being both fast and inexpensive for people and goods. Hyperloop is also unique in that it is an open design concept, similar to Linux. Feedback is desired from the community that can help advance the Hyperloop design and bring it from concept to reality. — Tesla Motors

The Jury of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station competition was unanimous in the highly anticipated selection of the final winner: the beautiful vaulted roof-scape designed by Australian/Swiss team HASSELL + Herzog & de Meuron with London-based Purcell as heritage consultants. The entry by Eduardo Velasquez, Manuel Pineda and Santiago Medina was announced as Winner of the People's Choice Award. — bustler.net

The public is invited to vote for their favorite entry from a field of six finalists in the Flinders Street Station Design Competition, an international, high-profile architectural competition to rejuvenate and restore the historic Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia. The shortlist sports some big names, including Pritzker Prize winners Zaha Hadid and the team of Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. — bustler.net

French designer Patrick Jouin has shared with us his latest project for client JCDecaux – a high tech bus stop (free Wifi anyone?) situated at the corner of Boulevard Henry IV and Place de la Bastille in Paris. Jouin has collaborated with JCDecaux on urban furniture since 2007, most notably for Vélib, the public bicycle sharing system in Paris. — bustler.net

Yes, it's still a bus shelter, but the idea is to make it both more useful and more of a social space. People may come here for a range of things other than catching the bus, so that social interaction and the life of the street intermix with waiting to produce a more vibrant, interesting, and safe environment. — humantransit.org

A safe, clean, on-time ride. That's all most of us expect from the Chicago Transit Authority. But why not ask for something more? Station architecture that puts zing in the journey and elevates the city around it. That's what we get at the crisply modern new Morgan "L" station on Chicago's Near West Side. — chicagotribune.com

“This project presents a novel approach to U.S. locomotive development, looking to technologies of the past to inspire solutions for today’s sustainability challenges."
- Sustainable Rail International President Davidson Ward, 2010 School of Architecture graduate from the College of Design at the University of Minnesota — UMNews

Behold the Subway Terminal Building, hidden in plain sight in the middle of downtown LA, where at one point during the 1940′s over 65,000 riders were shuffling down into the depths of Los Angeles to board a train which traveled beneath the busy streets. And, fittingly, it’s just a block from where you might board the Red Line subway today. — gelatobaby.com