Today’s Headlines

  • Transpo Bill Caught Up in House Leadership Chaos (WaPo)
  • In Unprecedented Move, Feds Take Over DC Metro Safety (GGW, WaPo)
  • San Diego Passes $204B Long-Term Transport Plan (SD Union-Trib)
  • NJ Transit to Take Lead on Hudson River Tunnel Project Studies (NJ.com)
  • Why Experts Are Watching Houston’s New Bus System (PBS News Hour)
  • A Look at the “Go Boston 2030 Plan” (WBUR)
  • Will Louisville’s Strategic Plan Focus on Transit-Oriented Development? (WFPL)
  • Southwest Florida Focuses on Walkability (News-Press)
  • White House Honors Champions of Change, Including Memphis‘ Bike/Ped Chief (Biz Journal)
  • For Seniors, Learning to Ride Transit Amounts to Independence (WaPo)
  • Alexander Vucelic

    The San Diego $200 Billion Plan is a good read for any advocate. The compromises and struggles are evident. Mass Motoring has been lavishly subsidized for too long to change overnight. The change in at least in the right direction.

    estimated per capita driving of 23 daily miles in 2050 !

    Never happen.

    US Boomers will be mostly gone. Millennials will be in charge. They don’t drive nearly as much. Even Millennials who are forced to own cars drive less than 20 daily miles today.

  • davistrain

    I read that article on “Seniors learning to ride transit” and thought, “it was a lot easier when trains had conductors and buses just took pocket change.” Our new farecard systems make taking transit more complicated, and make it less likely for “choice riders” to leave the car behind and ride a bus–nobody wants to look stupid when trying to pay a fare. I could also add that balky ticket vending machines don’t help matters–it’s no fun to miss your train because of delays in buying a ticket.

  • davistrain

    The use of the term “Mass Motoring” intrigues me–is it a play on “Mass Transit”? I think this year might be considered the centennial of Mass Motoring, because 1915 is about when Henry Ford’s Model T production ramped up with the end of the “brass radiator” period.

  • Alexander Vucelic

    believe James Howard Kunstler coined the term. He is a doomer writer, rather flowery prose.

  • Miles Bader

    Kunstler is hilarious, his skewering of awful strip-mall suburbia is spot on, but he’s also completely nuts, and basically seems to just like hating stuff… ><

  • Miles Bader

    It’s a very sensible phrase actually, since the problem isn’t automobiles per-se (“motoring”), it’s their adoption as a universal method of transportation by the populace at large (“mass motoring”)…

  • Miles Bader

    Reasonably implemented farecards make using transit far simpler…

    Obviously the U.S. being the U.S., they often screw up the implementation details, but their goal is presumably quite reasonable, and the right thing to do is fix the problems with the implementations, not give up on the idea.

  • Alexander Vucelic

    yup

  • R.A. Stewart

    Too much of a cockeyed optimist, though. 😉