The Future of Community Design
Road reformers want to demolish aging center-city freeways to make up for old racial harms. It’s a bit of a stretch, but it may be an effective argument.
Some New York legislators have proposed using federal infrastructure funds to revive the city’s streetcars, providing a nostalgic alternative to the bus. But transit advocates think the money should be used elsewhere.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot pledged police reform while campaigning for mayor, but two years later and the Chicago Police Department looks much as it did before she took office. Many are upset with the lack of change.
The replacement of the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel will eliminate a massive bottleneck and save Amtrak and MARC trains an average of 7 hours every weekday. The project will cost $4 billion and will be named after the Maryland abolitionist.
Gov. Greg Abbott discussed his plans to spend at least $250 million to continue the construction of a Texas-Mexico border wall. The governor has already started accepting donations for the project.
America’s largest city has a transit system under stress, and an ongoing battle between cars, bikes and pedestrians for control of the streets. Yet mayoral candidates are saying little about the transportation problems.
Six city-owned properties will be considered for affordable housing developments by the city council in an attempt to combat rising land costs. Half of the proposed sites are in wealthier parts of the city.
Five years after winning the Smart City competition, Columbus, Ohio, now believes it is better equipped than other cities to address EV implementation, climate change and the digital divide.
Many California tech workers are moving out of the state’s Bay Area and into neighboring Boise, which is driving up housing costs, increasing development and causing resentment among local Idaho residents.
In the first quarter of 2020, the city’s police solved 31.7 percent of major crimes compared to 36.8 percent the year prior. The drop could be attributed to COVID-19 and social unrest caused by the killing of George Floyd.
Federal funding formulas need to evolve to help regional governing bodies to accelerate both large and community-focused projects that have an impact across these large population clusters.
The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority is looking to incorporate public transit into the region’s development conversations, as a way to incentivize and influence growth in the area.
A new report estimates that 674,433 Coloradans lack access to Internet service that can provide speeds of at least 25 mbps. The new numbers are 4.2 and 3.7 times greater than those provided by the federal and state governments, respectively.
Left turns are dangerous and slow down traffic. One solution? Get rid of them. New research shows that limiting left turns at busy intersections would improve safety and reduce frustrating backups.
Consultants have found that the public library branches in the less affluent, southern parts of the city are smaller, receive less circulations and have lower numbers of overall visits. A new library funding plan may address the discrepancy.
Municipal utility districts seem to work in the Lone Star State. They have increased the housing supply, using lighter regulations, resulting in downward pressure on costs. Now, they may be catching on elsewhere.
Any new federal infrastructure program should provide states and localities with the flexibility to tap the private-sector innovation and expertise that can produce new revenues, meaningful savings and operational efficiencies.
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors has unanimously supported an idea to create a program that allows students and low-income people to ride Metro’s trains and buses for free.
The two hundred miles of high-speed railway rely upon dense urban growth around transit stations to achieve long-term success. But as California and San Diego birth rates and population decline, some worry it’s too costly a risk.
Lawmakers have proposed $209 million of the multibillion-dollar bill for pollution and traffic initiatives in the Denver area that focus on marginalized groups impacted by the building of the highways decades ago.
The pandemic caused Orange County, Calif., to move its public town halls online to accommodate COVID-19 restrictions. Even as those restrictions begin to lift, it’s unlikely that the online town halls will stop.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will have a budget deficit of $1.5 billion by 2024 if ridership does not return to pre-pandemic levels. But many regular users have said they won’t be riding the subway post-pandemic.
A new state board in New Hampshire offers a speedy, non-judicial way to challenge onerous local land-use decisions. It’s a way to prevent a hot housing market from overheating.
The pandemic has broken commuter rail’s business model, which relies on boutique services for white collar workers. Fixing it means more trains, better platforms, high-tech fare systems and fewer workers. Can it be done?
The Massachusetts city will shift some response protocols away from the police to a clinically trained civilian response team that will not carry firearms. The city will spend more than $400,000 on the new department.
The new bureau will work to tackle hate crimes, white supremacy and biased policing across the state and will work closely between the community and law enforcement. It will also consider reparations for Black Californians.
To avoid rebuilding billions of dollars worth of rail infrastructure, transit officials are looking to replace diesel locomotives with battery-powered ones. NJ Transit and LIRR are both testing electric alternatives.
High-rise buildings made out of timber have long been judged flimsy and fire-prone. That isn’t true anymore. But their construction depends on how amenable government regulators are to wooden towers.
It leaves families living in squalid conditions, trapped in segregated neighborhoods. Rather than spending billions on socialized shelter, we need to put money in their pockets to give them choices.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s new Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program will provide $1 billion to improve Internet access for tribal governments, colleges and organizations.
Most Read
Finance
