Monthly Archives: September 2011

Disappointment 2050

Posted on 2011/09/30 by

The political transit bloggers are talking about the new RPA/America 2050 report on high-speed rail published by the Lincoln Institute, which recommends a focus on the Northeast and California. Unfortunately, this is not an accurate description of the report. Although … Continue reading →

Posted in Good/Interesting Studies, High-Speed Rail, Shoddy Studies, Studies, Transportation | 12 Comments

Quick Note: California HSR Could Save $4 Billion on the Grapevine

Posted on 2011/09/29 by

California HSR’s just-released July progress report, as reported on bakersfield.com, contains the pleasant surprise that switching the alignment from the Tehachapis and Palmdale to the I-5 alignment on the Grapevine could save $4 billion. Furthermore, the study indicating such cost … Continue reading →

Posted in Construction Costs, High-Speed Rail, Transportation | 14 Comments

Quick Note: ACS 2010

Posted on 2011/09/28 by

The Census Bureau has just released the American Community Survey numbers for 2010, using data calibrated to match with the 2010 census. At least, calibration is the best reason for why the ACS believes that New York went from 8,391,881 … Continue reading →

Posted in New York, Politics and Society | 6 Comments

Suburbanization of Poverty: What’s New?

Posted on 2011/09/27 by

The current trend toward suburbanization of poverty is worth examining. It is incontrovertible that on the whole, the American poor are moving to the suburbs. Simultaneously, city centers are gentrifying, seeing large increases in income, with an influx of rich … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Politics and Society, Urbanism | 26 Comments

Pedestrian Observations from Central London

Posted on 2011/09/26 by

As I got off the Underground, I was greeted by a fenced roadway without easy crossings. I found the way around a roundabout and started to walk toward the hotel where I was to meet my family, on the wrong … Continue reading →

Posted in Pedestrian Observations, Urban Design, Urbanism | 34 Comments

Travel Time to Work

Posted on 2011/09/22 by

The Census Bureau has a new publication about commuting in the US as of the 2009 American Community Survey. There isn’t much change from 2000 that’s mentioned, but one table of commute time piqued my interest. This is figure 8, … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation | 8 Comments

The Option of Profitable Transit

Posted on 2011/09/21 by

David Levinson’s post saying that transit should strive to restructure and be profitable stirred much discussion on neighboring blogs, including Human Transit (which broadly agrees with the idea if not the libertarian tone) and The Transport Politic (which does not), … Continue reading →

Posted in Consensus, Labor, Politics and Society, Transportation, Urban Transit | 17 Comments

Passenger-Miles Are Overrated

Posted on 2011/09/19 by

One of the pushbacks I got about my post on road boondoggles is that I didn’t control for passenger-miles of travel, and the number for car subsidies is much lower when one divides it by the appropriate number of trillions. … Continue reading →

Posted in Cars, Regional Rail, Transportation, Urban Transit | 24 Comments

Who’s Migrating to the Sunbelt?

Posted on 2011/09/16 by

It’s well-known that people have been moving from coastal US states to the Sunbelt for many years now. But who’s moving? Is it the upper middle class fleeing higher taxes or searching for cheaper houses, or perhaps the poor fleeing … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Society, Urbanism | 14 Comments

Quick Note: Comfort

Posted on 2011/09/15 by

While reading a thesis about tilting trains, I saw a comparison of passenger comfort on different modes of transportation. This includes the following graph (p. 30), which the thesis sources to a study of motion sickness in US children and … Continue reading →

Posted in Good/Interesting Studies, Studies, Transportation | 6 Comments