Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Light Rail

Pod People Wage War on Light Rail, Other Reality-Based Transpo Projects

By Brad Aaron | Jun 5, 2009 | 228 Comments

Writer, cartoonist, cyclist and transit advocate Ken Avidor points us to this video, which he used in a recent Daily Kos diary entry. Writes Ken: The Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Pod People are always challenging me to prove that PRT promoters are anti-Light Rail Transit (LRT). Here is a video by one of these libertarian, […]

Barcelona, 100 Years Ago: A Model for Streets Today?

By Alex Marshall | Apr 3, 2009 | 23 Comments

This film, as featured on YouTube via Infrastructurist, shows the streets of Barcelona a century ago, taken from the front window of a tram going down the street. It’s an amazing film. The central avenues of this Catalan city are so vital, so alive, a mix of every activity. Then the film compares the old […]

Wiki Wednesday: Zürich, Where Transit Gets Priority on the Street

By Ben Fried | Mar 11, 2009 | 6 Comments

Ready for some transit system envy? This week’s StreetsWiki entry comes from Livable Streets member Andrew Nash, who fills us in on how surface transit became the mode of choice in Zürich, Switzerland: Photo: Nicholas Kibre/Wikipedia The first thing one notices about Zürich is that trams are ubiquitous downtown. The city considered changing its tram […]

Streetfilms: Take a Ride on the Seattle Streetcar

By Clarence Eckerson Jr. | Mar 10, 2009 | 15 Comments

Seattle’s South Lake Union Streetcar is a 1.3-mile line that opened in December 2007, the first leg in the city’s commitment to new transit and light rail. It passed the half million passenger milestone in its first year, surpassing ridership projections. The streetcar features many top-of-the-line tech amenities, including real time arrival message boards, solar-powered […]

Transit Blamed for Suburban St. Louis Crime

By Brad Aaron | Oct 30, 2008 | 17 Comments

Last week Freakonomics picked up a story from the Riverfront Times that connects an uptick in shoplifting, fighting and other crimes in the St. Louis suburbs to a two-year-old expansion of the city’s MetroLink rail system. Ask virtually any store manager at the Saint Louis Galleria about shoplifting, and you’ll invariably get two responses: One, […]

Texas Governor Rick Perry Celebrates 18 Lanes of “Freedom”

By Brad Aaron | Oct 30, 2008 | 20 Comments

Texas officials this week marked the opening of new lanes on the Katy Freeway, a stretch of Interstate 10 that runs 40 miles west from downtown Houston. The state has added 20 miles of interior lanes, including 12 miles of HOV lanes, which officials say will eventually be converted to variable-rate HOT use. The rebuilt […]

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