Misguided safety rules from the Federal Railroad Administration are cited as the cause for all sorts of problems, from high-construction costs to pedestrian hazards to, ironically, worse safety outcomes. Which helps explain why Jarret Walker at Network blog Human Transit is alarmed about a new rule “requiring two-person train crews… for most main line freight and […]

Rhode Island has been investing in commuter rail — long distance service connecting Providence to Boston and towns in between. But lackluster ridership at a new park-and-ride rail station at the end of the line (by a Walmart!) is sapping support for much more useful investments, reports Sandy Johnston at Itinerant Urbanist. Anti-rail critics are piling on. The libertarian Rhode Island Center […]

Is every argument for buses also an argument against rail? It seems that, according to the half-baked logic of “anti-planner” Randall O’Toole, the answer is “yes.” The fervent rail opponent recently wrote that because Jarrett Walker at Human Transit penned an article arguing that race-based generalizations about bus travel are harmful, Walker must, ipso facto, […]

In the final installment of a three-part series on Wisconsin’s sputtering tech sector, Bruce Thompson at Urban Milwaukee notes that his home state ranks near the bottom of Democratic-leaning states on the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation’s “New Economy Index.” If a strong start-up economy is linked to Democratic voting patterns, as ITI’s data shows, […]