» This week’s big news. Open thread in the comments.
Follow my Twitter account (@ttpolitic) to get news in real time.
On The Transport Politic:
- Amtrak Studies Florida East Coast Railway Service as State Advances High-Speed Rail
- Pennsylvania Calls Special Session to Resolve Transportation Funding Crisis
- As Congestion Mounts, Transit Agencies Consider Varying Pricing
- Milwaukee Officials Advancing Streetcar Project with Goal of Attracting More Federal Funds
Fun
- Fascinating video from 1973: The making of the 63rd Street Subway in New York City
Bikes and Pedestrians
- Next American City: Are pedestrian malls the future or the relic of antiquated thinking? http://bit.ly/ac8V8q
- After millions spent, Toronto bus bike racks criticized as being infrequently used: http://bit.ly/covoY1
- London reveals more details about its Cycle Hire scheme, which will bring 6,000 of Montréal’s Bixi bikes to the U.K.’s capital: http://bit.ly/9lnWMj
Buses, or Something Else
- Next American City: With a $775 million down-payment, the feds rush in to rescue bus service: http://bit.ly/aEKcXA
- Hartford, planning a busway to New Britain. Proponents: http://bit.ly/cU7bE8 Opponents: http://bit.ly/cGedR4
- Berkeley rejects full-scale bus rapid transit, afraid that the loss of car lanes would destroy business: http://bit.ly/bP8r9G
- University of Maryland putting stumbling blocks in the way of installing light rail Purple Line through campus: http://bit.ly/c12PiB
- Discussion of bringing streetcars to Denver’s Colfax Avenue: http://bit.ly/9093pj
Funding
- Jarrett Walker on Human Transit: Should fares be higher during peak hours? (Disagreeing with my own article on the subject earlier this week): http://bit.ly/cwL5gt
- San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies need one billion dollars a year to survive: http://bit.ly/atfj3U
- $1.4 billion transportation improvements for Virginia’s Tysons Corner, both roads and transit, could come from a new set of taxes: http://bit.ly/cdLqdR
Intercity Rail
- California High-Speed Rail Blog: Getting Caltrain and high-speed rail right: http://bit.ly/dhogT0
- CSX freight rail continues to hold up agreement on how fast to speed trains between Buffalo and Albany: http://bit.ly/9i07iE
- Brazil plans 1,500 km of high-speed links in addition to Sao Paulo-Rio line, which is to be ready by 2016: http://bit.ly/cns1CY
- Wisconsin picks a downtown location for Madison station along new intercity rail corridor: http://bit.ly/94L7LR
Image above: London Cycle Hire scheme, from Transport for London
One reply on “Weekend Links”
In response to your Tweet about Tel Aviv canceling its light rail, all I can say is that the writing’s been on the wall since the beginning. Israel decided to get private investment for Tel Aviv’s subway (downgraded to a subway-surface line), in line with the Anglo-American PPP notion. As soon as the financial crisis hit, the private funding dried up.
Even when I last visited Israel, a few months before the crisis, people who I told about the history of Second Avenue Subway shrugged and said it’ll be finished long before the Tel Aviv subway. They were probably right.
(Honestly, I’m not even sure the cancellation is a bad thing. The plan was rotten: the proposed route missed the city’s Central Bus Station, and served marginal corridors. And the subway-surface solution is dumb for the capacity Tel Aviv needs – either build it elevated, or keep it underground.)