transit

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A Few Minutes with Darrin Nordahl

By Jason Leppig / On May 8th, 2012
We had a few minutes with author Darrin Nordahl and asked him his thoughts on how to transform transit. Island Press: Why are Americans so obsessed with driving? Darrin Nordahl: Cars deliver a sense of freedom and thrill. The former may only be a perception, as traffic choked streets hardly make one feel liberated. But the thrill of driving is undeniably real.
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Lessons from Los Angeles: Make Transit Hip

By Darrin Nordahl / On April 18th, 2012
There will be many accolades bestowed upon Los Angeles at this year’s American Planning Association conference. And no doubt many of them will be reserved for L.A.’s forward-thinking transportation policies; well deserved, since public transit generally lurks in the collective blind spot of Los Angelenos. But there is one strategy transit strategy that will likely get overlooked at the conference, and it is perhaps Los Angeles’ greatest feat.
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The Crash, Peak Oil and Resilient Cities

By Peter Newman / On December 9th, 2008
How did the crash happen? Over-inflating the economic balloon with debt that was vulnerable to rises in oil price. What do we do about it? Use non-oil-based projects and approaches to generate economic growth or else we are going to make things worse. In detail.... Peak oil theorists have been squabbling about when the geological peak will happen but in economic terms it happened in 2005 when the production of conventional oil (cheap oil which can be produced under about $65/bbl) peaked.
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The Answer to the US Financial and Housing Crisis

By [node:field_contributor] / On September 15th, 2008
Much ink and paper profits have been spilt over the past few months over the financial and housing crisis.  Almost all of it has been focused on the short-term consequences of the US housing industry structurally overbuilding the wrong product in the wrong location; the fringe of our metro areas.  The market does not now and will not in the future want this product, as I have mentioned in previous postings. The only parallel to the current structural change was in the 1950s and 1960s when Americans were abandoning our citie
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TOD Opportunities

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 28th, 2008
San Francisco ranks at the top in walkable urbanism on countless surveys. In the Brookings' survey I released in December of 2007 (Footloose and Fancy Free; A Field Survey of Walkable Urban Places in the Top 30 US Metropolitan Areas, www.brookings.edu/walkableurbanism), it ranked #3. In the recently released version 2.0 of Walk Score (www.walkscore.com), the city of San Francisco (as opposed to the metropolitan area I ranked) ranked #1. Yet take a ride on the CalTrans commuter train from downtown Sa
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Where the Next Big Real Estate Opportunities Are

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 21st, 2008
In these recessionary times, it is easy to be depressed....and there is good reason given how poorly this economy has been managed and the many fundamental financial imbalances (private and public debt, declining dollar, declining confidence in the US economy and financial system here and abroad, massive unfunded liabilities, trade and budget deficits, etc, etc.). Whether the US dollar remains the global reserve currency and US Treasury bonds the lowest risk, hence lowest cost, global asset are both in doubt.
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Eco-Density - Coming to a Town Near You

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 8th, 2008
Over the next few months or the next year or two at most, a new concept will be embraced by real estate developers, civic leaders, and environmentalists; eco-density. I hijacked the term from the mayor of Vancouver, who coined it to explain why he was a proponent of much higher density development around rail transit stations. In spite of devising a very clever term, his concept and term were viewed quite negatively.
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Financial Power of Walkable Urban Development

By [node:field_contributor] / On June 30th, 2008
I recently stumbled on an example of the economic power of walkable urban development, which can be sparked by rail transit and appropriate mixed-use zoning. A small Washington Post item in the local news section, buried on page B4, announced the sale of two pieces of land by the Metro transit agency (it could just as easily have been another government agency or for that matter a private party) to real estate developers. The land is located in a formerly very troubled southeast neighborhood, adjacent to the Anacostia River.

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