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Transportation & Urban Policy

May 9, 2013

Bogus Study Behind Chinatown Bus Crackdown - Jim Epstein, Reason

In 1997, Chinese-born entrepreneurs began regularly scheduled long-distance bus services that picked up passengers on the street. Tickets were priced so low that it was hard to fig...

May 3, 2013

Pressured by Congress, States Picking Up Amtrak Subsidies -

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April 20, 2013

Tax Miles Traveled, Not Gas - Keith Crane, Wall Street Journal

The nation has long relied on federal and state fuel taxes on gasoline and diesel to fund highways. Because the more you travel, the more fuel you consume, and hence the more tax...

April 20, 2013

How to Make People Less Awkward in Subways - Keith Barry, Wired

Transit planners in New York are trying to design the ideal subway car interior by observing existing passenger behavior, and while their designs are still preliminary, thei...

April 18, 2013

The Recession Cut Down on Sprawl - Isaac Riddle, Next City

Good if not altogether surprising news for anti-sprawl advocates: Central business districts weathered the recession better than their suburban counterparts, according to a repor...

April 16, 2013

Transportation Investment Will Improve Growth - AFL-CIO

As a nation, we need to face that fact that austerity simply does not work. Our nation’s infrastructure will continue to crumble if we do not invest in its repair, and our econ...

April 11, 2013

The Tyranny of the Taxi Medallions - Rohin Dhar, Priceonomics

The life of a taxi driver is hard. When cabbies start a shift, they owe about $100 to their company as payment just for the opportunity drive a taxi. They might not break even un...

April 6, 2013

Silencing the Subway - Christopher Maag, Narrativel.ly

 Inside a high-tech effort to minimize the maddening racket in the New York underground....

March 22, 2013

Imagining a Real Transportation Revolution - David Roberts, Grist

 Recently, the National Academy of Sciences issued a massive report analyzing how to cut U.S. gasoline use in half by 2030, and beyond that, how to reduce transportation emis...

February 26, 2013

Public Transportation Is About Justice - Amy Dean, Boston Review

Wilhelmina Melrose is in her 60s. She is blind and diabetic. A resident of Boston’s predominantly black Roxbury neighborhood, Melrose gets to medical appointments, exercise...

February 22, 2013

The Case for Raising the Gasoline Tax - Valerie Karplus, New York Times

THE average price of gasoline in the United States, $3.78 on Thursday, has been steadily climbing for more than a month and is approaching the three previous post-recession peaks...

February 9, 2013

The Private Bridge Slowing Down Detroit - A. Robinson, Car&Driver

The international crossing inspired a lively feud between the public and private sectors....

February 7, 2013

Urban Mobility Report - Texas A&M University

The 2012 Urban Mobility Report builds on previous Urban Mobility Reports with an improved methodology and expanded coverage of the nation’s urban congestion problem and sol...

January 26, 2013

Uber's Owner Discusses Fighting the Taxi Cartel - Wall Street Journal

Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, talks about how he's bringing limo service to the urban masses—and how he learned to beat the taxi cartel and city hall....

January 4, 2013

Land-Use Expert: How to Foster Growth - Market Urbanism

 I recently spoke with George Mason University Law Professor David Schleicher about his research on land use law and economics. Here is our conversation including l...

December 7, 2012

Unhappy Birthday to the TSA - Jay Stanley, ACLU

November 25 marked the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Homeland Security Act, which created the sprawling Department of Homeland Security. Included in this new behemoth ag...

December 1, 2012

How Dirt Roads Will Shape the World's Cities - B. Fuller, City Journal

 Why the growing cities of the developing world need New York–style street grids...

November 30, 2012

Highways Should Be Funded with Electronic Tolls - Reason Foundation

 Since completion of the Interstate Highway System in the early 1990s, America has continued to rely mostly on motor fuel taxes at the federal and state levels to meet the n...

November 29, 2012

Private Cab Services vs. Racism - Latoya Peterson, Racialicious

Can disruptive technology provide a fix for social issues?...

November 23, 2012

We're Building Too Many Airports - Steven Malanga, City Journal

Willis and Vivian Bramstaedt planned to live out their days on a farm in rural Beecher, Illinois. But two years ago, they got a disturbing letter from the Illinois Department of ...

November 14, 2012

Driverless Cars Are Coming Sooner Than You Think - B. Dumaine, CNN

Autonomous vehicles are coming -- and sooner than you think. How the commute, the shipping industry, and the car itself will never be the same....

November 14, 2012

Natural Gas: A Step Away from Carbon - Don Sherman, Car & Driver

The answer may have been under our noses all along. Natural gas (NG), the same energy source we use to fry our bacon and to warm our living rooms, is finally under serious scru...

November 1, 2012

Maybe New York Shouldn't Rebuild Its Subways - R. O'Toole, Antiplanner

After Hurricane Katrina, some people argued that we shouldn’t rebuild New Orleans, not simply because it was below sea level but because the city was economically and politi...

October 29, 2012

Housing and Transportation Costs Outpace Income - NHC

Average moderate-income household in 25 largest U.S. metro areas spends nearly 60 percent of income on housing and transportation...

October 25, 2012

The Third Industrial Revolution Has Just Begun - Eli Dourado

Bob Gordon released a provocative working paper (ungated) back in August that made quite a splash on the blogs. It is an extreme, more pessimistic version of Tyler Cowen&...

October 22, 2012

Notes on Riding Amtrak - Clark Whelton, City Journal

When I booked my ticket, taking the night train from Albany to Cleveland seemed like an offbeat idea, maybe even fun....

October 1, 2012

The Many Ways Driverless Cars Will Improve Life - Brad Templeton

(This is a special article summarizing how the design of cars can change due to robocars. Consider the rest of the site for a more top level introduction to the big concepts or the...

September 28, 2012

Driverless Cars Would Reshape the Transit System - A. Madrigal, Atlantic

The big opportunity of robocars isn't the cars themselves; it's how they could create a far more efficient transportation system....

September 27, 2012

The World Has Reached Peak Automobile - The Economist

“I’LL love and protect this car until death do us part,” says Toad, a 17-year-old loser whose life is briefly transformed by a “super fine” 1958 Che...

September 14, 2012

Get Used to 30-Minute Commutes - Tim De Chant, Per Square Mile

“How far should you live from work?”I pondered that question a few weeks ago after perusing American Community Survey data compiled by Charlie Gardner. It showed that ...

August 23, 2012

How Far Should You Live From Work? - Tim De Chant, Per Square Mile

Thirty minutes at most, according to the wisdom of the crowds....

August 17, 2012

Keep Philly Cyclists Alive - Allyn Gaestel, Next American City

 It’s no secret that Philadelphia has seen a dramatic uptick in cycling in recent years. The two-wheeled revolution is not a passing fad, and city planners have been ...

August 4, 2012

America's Hidden Parking Policy - Charlie Gardner, Old Urbanist

With discussions about on-street parking tending to focus on high-demand metered spaces in retail districts, the fact can get lost that the overwhelming majority of on-street par...

August 4, 2012

Amtrak: $16 Hamburgers and Make-Work Jobs - Josh Barro, Bloomberg

I live in New York City, so I've eaten my share of $16 hamburgers. If a hamburger costs that much, it's usually pretty good. It had better be!...

July 25, 2012

Transportation and Climate Change - Transportation Research Board

Summary of Key Information highlights the key findings of a variety of studies on the subject of climate change and its ramifications for the transportation sector conducted...

July 25, 2012

America's Ever-Expanding Commutes - Charlie Gardner, Old Urbanist

I've been looking through the mean commuting times recently released as part of the 2010 ACS estimates for metropolitan statistical areas.  Although a lot has been written a...

July 12, 2012

An Airline Merger We Don't Need - William Swelbar, Charlotte Observer

 The first 10 years of the new millennium for the U.S. airline industry is often described as the “lost decade.” During that period, virtually every U.S. legacy carrier file...

July 11, 2012

The TSA Should Be Made to Follow the Law - Jim Harper, Cato @ Liberty

A year ago this coming Sunday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the Transportation Security Administration to do a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its use ...

July 7, 2012

Are There Any Safe Teen Drivers? - Sandra Rosenbloom, MetroTrends

 In 2010 almost half of 17-year-olds, two-thirds of 18-year-olds, and three-fourths of 19-year-olds were licensed drivers. Sadly, motor vehicle crashes are the single larges...

July 5, 2012

The High Cost of Cheap On-Street Parking - Cap'n Transit Rides Again

Last week I promised you another explanation for the crazy law that was passed by the New York State Legislature, essentially outlawing small curbside bus companies. (For a madde...

July 5, 2012

The Great Streetcar Conspiracy - Randal O'Toole, Cato

Streetcars are the latest urban planning fad, stimulated partly by the Obama administration's preference for funding transportation projects that promote "livability" (meaning li...

July 2, 2012

The Reason U.S. Mass Transit Is So Bad - Josh Barro, City Journal

 Advocates of mass transit like to point out that it isn’t the only form of transportation that gets public subsidies. In particular, road construction and maintenanc...

June 29, 2012

Detroit's Leveling Empty Neighborhoods - M. Krauser, Next American City

 Detroit Mayor David Bing has promised to demolish 1,500 abandoned and unsafe houses within the next 90 days, according to the Detroit Free Press....

June 25, 2012

The Death of High-Speed Rail in California - T. Senik, Public Sector, Inc.

In the nearly four years since it was passed by popular ballot initiative, California's statewide high-speed rail project has become a stand-alone metaphor for all of the patholo...

June 20, 2012

Transportation Is Too Complex for One Bill - Chris Papagianis, Reuters

There are about 1 billion cars on the world’s roads today. By mid-century, forecasts have that number climbing to 4 billion. Meanwhile, Congress is mired in a debate over w...

June 20, 2012

The Need for Decentralized Transit - Sean Chen, Next American City

Increasing growth in New York City’s outer boroughs has not been met with equal growth in public transport access or options, according to a report released today by the Cen...

June 18, 2012

Our Obsession with Cars Is No Accident - Jeremy Hsu, Scientific American

The auto industry campaigned against the relatively bloody rise of cars in the early 20th century via TV, the term "jaywalker" and school safety patrols...

June 18, 2012

The Odd Reason We Save Old Buildings - R. Goodman, Chronicle

"One entered the city like a god. One scuttles in now like a rat."Almost 50 years ago, when a demolition project reduced New York City's Penn Station from a monumental vaulted hal...

June 6, 2012

Legalize Buses - Diana Lind, Next American City

Last Thursday, officials from the federal department of transportation closed down 26 bus operators who provide service in chinatowns along the East Coast, citing safety violation...

June 1, 2012

The Top 10 Highest-Traffic Highways in America - The Daily Beast

May 29, 2012

Why Walkable Neighborhoods Are Far Pricier - Emily Badger, Atlantic

Instinct probably tells you that you’ll pay a lot more to live in a downtown apartment, above a grocery store, next to a bar strip and within walking distance of your work ...

May 1, 2013

Obama Knocks Republicans Over Poor U.S. Airport Rankings

April 30, 2013

TRANSPORTATION

April 30, 2013

Obama Announces Charlotte Mayor Fox as Transportation Pick

March 1, 2013

Amtrak: Record Traffic in 2012

February 25, 2013

Virginia GOP Governor Raises Taxes for Transportation Plans

February 20, 2013

Congress Looks for Road Funds

February 13, 2013

Ray LaHood Defends Obama's Passenger Rail Plans