Subways, Stadiums and the Return to Cities

Rendering of proposed Major League Soccer stadium in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood.

Every day at The Direct Transfer we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

David Beckham wants to build a Miami stadium with no parking: International soccer star David Beckham wants to build a 25,000-seat stadium in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood to bring Major League Soccer to the city.  The developers want people to take water taxis, Metrorail, and the Metromover to the stadium because they won’t be building any parking. They hope this decision starts a paradigm shift for major events. (Miami Herald). Read more.

Watch China’s subway systems grow: Check out this gif image of subway expansion in China over the last 30 years, which demonstrates the incredible amount the country has built in a very short period of time. It kind of puts the US to shame. (Inverse). Read more.

Were it not for smart design, the Times Square massacre could have been worse: Last week’s fatal auto rampage in Times Square was tragic, but far more lives could have been lost were it not for bollards that the driver eventually crashed into. We should be installing infrastructure like this in more places to make cities safer for people. But beyond that, we should also consider just how frequently we downplay auto deaths. (New York Magazine). Read more.

Trump wants to sell out, literally: As part of its infrastructure plan, the Trump administration wants to privatize the country’s transportation assets. As part of the plan, the administration wants local governments to sell assets to the private sector, saying it could then spend the proceeds on new infrastructure projects. Critics say that’s no way to run a government meant to serve citizens, not turn a profit. (Washington Post) Read more.

Is the “return to cities” a myth?: Using county census data and USPS household data, economist Jed Kolko lays out a hypothesis that states most American cities are continuing to sprawl while only a few “star” cities are densifying. While we often talk about a national overall trend, it appears that most growth patterns are local. (New York Times) Read more.

Quote of the Week

I am not defending specific practices of any agency. But the geometry remains what it is. If you want affordable transit service, you’re going to have to walk to it. That’s the math that makes fixed route service inevitable. Transit people all over the world have understood this since long before Uber’s CEO was born.

– Jarrett Walker of Human Transit, discussing Uber’s most recent move to make their Pool service more like a bus.

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