2017 will be a big year for transit openings around North America. What will come in the years to follow has a lot to do with the Trump Administration.
"There are major transit infrastructure projects under construction throughout North America thanks to significant interest from local officials and support from national governments."
Thus, Yonah Freemark summarizes the state of transit investment in North America heading into 2017. The only looming threat to the surge of public transit investment: the potential that the incoming Trump Administration will gut expected federal funding for transit projects.
Setting that threat aside, Freemark dug through the Transit Explorer database and summed the total transit infrastructure investment ongoing around the continent:
New rail and bus routes are being built by virtually every large metropolitan area in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Almost 800 route-miles of new transit infrastructure–most of it with dedicated lanes–is now under construction, at a total cost of almost $80 billion, to eventually serve some three million daily riders.
Freemark also notes a few themes with which to analyze the aggregate transit project data, such as the aforementioned questions regarding the future of transportation policy and the country's increasing use of automobiles at the expense of public transit options.
Hat tip to Angie Schmitt for sharing the article at Streetsblog USA.
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