August 31st, 2009 |
» City’s transit network would be reinforced with downtown and Côte des Neiges streetcar line.
Montréal was on a roll in the post-war period, opening its brand-new metro system in 1966, hosting the Universal Exposition in 1967, and providing a home for the Olympic Games in 1976. Charismatic Mayor Jean Drapeau wanted to define the metropolis as one of the most important in the Western hemisphere, building sports stadia and the like to provide physical evidence of the city’s importance. In the late 1970s, during the rise of the Québec sovereignty movement and the creation of French language laws, however, Montréal lost
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August 28th, 2009 |
The Federal Railroad Administration should take a page from the FTA’s playbook in establishing payment regimes for new fast rail projects.
The submission of final applications for high-speed rail funding on Monday was an important step in the growth of the U.S. federal government’s involvement in rail investment; the FRA will begin distributing a portion of the $8 billion in reserved stimulus dollars to a number of these proposals in early October. Though these applications were mostly for small investments such as double-tracking existing lines or building new bridges, states will submit more detailed applications for entire corridors in early October, and
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August 27th, 2009 |
It’s a daunting task, but we’ve got to improve transportation both in and between cities.
When discussing increasing spending on high-speed rail, questions of how funds should be prioritized frequently arise. Is it appropriate to spend tens of billions of dollars on new intercity rail lines when our inner-city transit systems are so deprived? Shouldn’t we focus our funds on the projects that are most likely to benefit the most number of people?
In a recent interview for a Russian business magazine, University of Minnesota Professor David Levinson, who blogs at The Transportationist, was asked about the effectiveness of high-speed rail in combating
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August 26th, 2009 |
» Fast rail link would connect London with Glasgow and Edinburgh in just over two hours.
Over the past few decades, the United Kingdom has fallen behind its European peers, having failed to develop intercity high-speed rail lines even as France, Spain, Germany, and Italy expanded their networks significantly. The completion of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in 2007, however, brought Eurostar trains from Paris and Bruxelles into London at high-speeds for the first time and whetted the country’s taste for faster trains. Since 2008, the Conservative Party has been campaigning actively for a new 200
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August 25th, 2009 |
The chairs are twice as wide as normal and are designed to encourage the less-than-fit to ride the subway.
The London Telegraph reports that Sao Paulo has begun installing special seats in subway stations designed to encourage the city’s most overweight to use the transit system. Brazil’s largest city has a 40-mile subway system that carries more than 3 million people daily.
Brazil, like most advanced countries, is suffering from an obesity epidemic, and the new seats are part of a government initiative to improve the lives of those who can’t fit comfortably in typical chairs. The seats’ very different shape and identifiable
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August 25th, 2009 |
Applications are for projects that are ready-to-go; another round of applications is due in October.
UPDATE: I’ve published a hard-hitting (numbers-based) rebuke to Ed Glaeser on the Infrastructurist tonight. Check it out.
After submitting pre-applications in July for more than $100 billion of high-speed rail projects, states got down to business over the past month, refining and improving their plans. Now, several states have submitted final, far smaller, proposals for construction that could begin right away.
Unlike the wild deluge of applications last month, capped by California’s request for more than $20 billion — the stimulus only provides $8 billion for the program in
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