The Twin Cities’ Orange Line bus rapid transit project ought to be a slam dunk. According to Sean Hayford O’Leary at streets.mn, it will provide frequent service and travel times similar to the region’s successful light rail lines, which carrying tens of thousands of passengers daily. At just $150 million to construct, the Orange Line will be a bargain. But dysfunctional regional politics may cut off $45 […]

Even though the Democratic Party’s strongholds are in cities, we probably won’t hear much about urban transportation and development policy at the Democratic National Convention this week. City issues seldom get much play when political parties are focused on scooping up swing votes in the suburbs. But Hillary Clinton’s VP choice, Tim Kaine, is the former mayor of Richmond, Virginia, […]

When Portland launched its bike-share system last week, it became the biggest American city to go live with a “smart bike” model. The system allows users to drop off bikes anywhere within the service area, as opposed to the more prevalent “smart dock” model, where users pick up and return bikes only at fixed stations. James Sinclair at Stop and […]

Earlier this week tech entrepreneur Elon Musk released his updated “master plan” for Tesla, including some thoughts on how autonomous mini-buses will supplant today’s transit and “take people all the way to their destination.” Like every Musk pronouncement, this one got a lot of buzz — but it also drew some healthy skepticism. One reason to doubt Musk’s plan […]

Tuesday was a very exciting day in Portland, as the city celebrated the launch of its long-awaited bike-share system, Biketown. The network makes 1,000 bikes available in an eight-square mile area of the city. Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland shot these photos of the opening festivities and crunched some numbers from the first 24 hours of service. While it’s too early […]