Infrastructure

When he took office last year, Rahm Emmanuel inherited a city in which a sheen of new projects hid a crumbling infrastructure. With a laundry list of initiatives, the mayor is intent on retaining the city's place amongst the world's great cities.

July 16, 2012 - The Guardian

Not only are transit systems subsidized, but so are America's roads. While some advocate for the reduction of road subsidies to better incentivize transit use, Josh Barro argues for more effective ways to make mass transit work better.

July 15, 2012 - City Journal

America's fundamental levels of governance are changing, writes Anna Clark in Next American City, who uses examples from Detroit and Cleveland to ascertain what the stakes are when cities cede public sector work to third parties.

July 15, 2012 - Next American City

Efforts to expand bicycle-friendly infrastructure across the country have revealed the importance of comprehensive planning. Peter DeMarco reports on ways in which planners in the Boston area are trying to fill in the gaps in their emerging network.

July 14, 2012 - Boston.com

Michael Kimmelman reports on the strong ties that exist between the economic and social well-being of a city and its architecture, infrastructure and public spaces, as evinced in Bogotá, Colombia.

July 14, 2012 - The New York Times

Jeremy Rosenberg examines why Thomas Jefferson may have had more of an impact on the development of Los Angeles than you might suspect. The city's street grid can be traced back to this American founding father.

July 13, 2012 - KCET

Milton Lindsay examines America's efforts to build a national system of high-speed trains and finds mixed results in the nation's eleven intended corridors.

July 13, 2012 - Next American City

Completed years ago, the true cost of Boston's "Big Dig" is finally being tallied. Unfortunately, for residents of Massachusetts, the tab is far from paid, imperiling funding for other necessary transportation projects, reports Eric Moskowitz.

July 12, 2012 - Boston.com

As plans progress in many large cities to cap their below-grade urban freeways, smaller cities, like Ventura, California, are looking to benefit from similar proposals.

July 12, 2012 - Ventura County Star

A new report by the McKinsey Global Institute finds that the global consuming class will grow by 1 billion people by 2025, and undergo a profound geographic shift. Cities and businesses should prepare for this shift with targeted investments.

July 11, 2012 - McKinsey & Company

After a much heralded vote on July 6 in the state Senate, the embattled CA high-speed rail project is now eligible to receive $7.9 billion in state and federal funds, but formidable obstacles remain, not the least of which is finding $60 billion.

July 10, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

President Obama signed the transportation bill known as MAP-21 on July 6 that also maintains low student loan rates, ending the three-year process of three-month extensions of SAFETEA-LU. He praised the bill as bipartisan and job-saving.

July 9, 2012 - The Hill's Transportation Blog

Seattle's innovative Residential RainWise Program provides tools for stormwater management at home, in the hopes of reducing flooding, safeguarding property, and restoring the area's waters for people and wildlife.

July 8, 2012 - Global Site Plans - The Grid

Unsurprisingly, most of the projects compiled by the company KPMG called "Infrastructure 100: World Cities Edition" are in expanding countries like China and Saudi Arabia. Tyler Falk pulls out some favorites.

July 7, 2012 - SmartPlanet

It all depends on who you ask, argues David Alpert. Ratepayers have pushed for buried lines before; now, there's reason to doubt it would cost as much as the utility company once quoted them.

July 6, 2012 - Greater Greater Washington

A common criticism of streetcars are their relative slow speed combined with high capital and operating costs. Still, streetcars are being constructed in both large in small cities to help incentivize development.

July 6, 2012 - The Naked City

In the coming days readers will learn more about America's new transportation funding plan MAP-21, which will guide surface transportation planning through 2014. In this piece, Tanya Snyder centers on changes to the popular TIFIA lending program.

July 5, 2012 - Steetsblog Capitol Hill

On Tuesday, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted 5-4 to support extending D.C.'s Metrorail to Dulles Airport, ending months of uncertainty over the project's fate.

July 4, 2012 - The Washington Post

In order to save Coney Island from dwindling unemployment rates and high poverty levels, developers rezone the 46-year-old amusement park, but the plans may never actually leave the paper.

July 3, 2012 - The Brooklyn Bureau

Editorial draws attention to the impact of global warming on our cities and advocates planning for climate change.

July 2, 2012 - Los Angeles Times