High-speed rail may still be a distant vision in the United States, but conventional passenger rail is having a resurgence.

Writing in Fast Company, Benjamin Schneider offers a hopeful vision of U.S. passenger rail, which is being infused with historic levels of federal funding. Schneider admits that the $66 billion federal investment in trains “will not yield revolutionary changes to passenger rail,” it will help improve and expand service for many U.S. train riders. “On several rail-friendly corridors—big city pairs less than 300 miles apart—train travel will go from an eccentric travel option to a perfectly logical one.”
Pointing to new train cars on Amtrak’s Midwestern lines, Schneider writes, “State-of-the-art rolling stock is the most vivid sign that train travel is no nostalgia trip. It’s modern, it’s efficient, it’s comfortable, and it’s only getting better.”
Schneider points out that improvements to conventional rail—rather than the more glamorous high-speed rail—“will cumulatively impact the lives of many more Americans, much sooner, than multigenerational infrastructure projects like California High-Speed Rail.”
The article lists several impactful projects in states across the country, such as Colorado’s new Front Range Line, expanded service between St. Paul and Chicago, and improvements to a popular Southern California train line threatened by coastal erosion.
FULL STORY: Amtrak is having a renaissance across the United States

Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing
Manufactured housing communities have long been an affordable housing option for millions of people living in the U.S., but that affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?

Americans May Be Stuck — But Why?
Americans are moving a lot less than they once did, and that is a problem. While Yoni Applebaum, in his highly-publicized article Stuck, gets the reasons badly wrong, it's still important to ask: why are we moving so much less than before?

Research Shows More Roads = More Driving
A national study shows, once again, that increasing road supply induces additional vehicle travel, particularly over the long run.

Which US Rail Agencies Are Buying Zero-Emissions Trains?
U.S. rail agencies are slowly making the shift to zero-emissions trains, which can travel longer distances without refueling and reduce air pollution.

San Diego School District Approves Affordable Housing Plan
The district plans to build workforce housing for 10 percent of its employees in the next decade and explore other ways to contribute to housing development.

Lawsuit Aims to Stop NYC’s ‘City of Yes’ Zoning Reforms
A lawsuit brought by local lawmakers and community groups claims the plan failed to conduct a comprehensive environmental review.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Moreno Valley
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
City of Cambridge, Maryland
Newport County Development Council: Connect Greater Newport