Global Cities are Building New Transit Lines, U.S. Falling Behind

Red Line Subway Cars (Photo by The Port of Authority)

Every day at The Overhead Wire 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 (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

Rest of the world building subways: Big cities around the world are building more and more metro lines to accommodate residents’ transportation needs. But while construction continues and networks expand the United States falls further behind on building new infrastructure. Los Angeles and Seattle are expanding fixed guideways, but many other major cities such as Boston, New York, and San Francisco are not. (Benjamin Schneider | Fast Company)

Paris’ Olympic bike revolution: Highlighted by the Olympic Games currently taking place in the city, Paris has been making changes to streets to promote cycling and reduce dependence on automobiles. Key streets have been pedestrianized, bike share and transit options expanded, and 250m Euro have been pledged for bike infrastructure. The changes show what a little political will can do to move a city forward more sustainably. (Ron Johnson | Momentum Magazine)

Transforming Gowanus: The Gowanus neighborhood, named after a notoriously polluted waterway in Brooklyn has seen a huge transformation since a rezoning effort began in 2016 and finalized in 2021. Permits have been issued for over 7,400 housing units in an area that was slow to change due to its lack of access and history as an industrial center. Now a group of residents monitor the progress to make sure they get out of the change what was promised. (Karrie Jacobs | The Nation)

Saving yourself in storage: Writing in Slate, Judie Poole tells a story about her mother losing homes during the financial crisis but keeping storage spaces in hopes of getting it back one day. She hoards and keeps and saves everything but money in hopes of putting it back together again as she stays with family and friends. In the end she captures what a lot of people have been feeling when explaining why she keeps things that remind her of the past, she’s tired of losing. (Judie Poole | Slate)

Reducing transportation through land use: Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States but while other sectors are seeing movement in reductions the transportation sector has been relatively stubborn. But places that have greater densities in housing and jobs also have lower emissions because of less travel. This should inform investments in transit oriented development and related infrastructures that can ultimately reduce emissions. (Yonah Freemark | Urban Institute)

Quote of the Week

Today’s report shows that the Ulez is working even better than expected. The expansion to outer London is already having a significant effect – driving down levels of pollution, taking old polluting cars off our roads and bringing cleaner air to millions more Londoners. We are now set to get London’s air to within legal limits by 2025, 184 years earlier than previously projected.

-London mayor Sadiq Khan in The Guardian on the impact of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone on air pollution in the city.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re joined by Kevin Kelley, founding partner and principal at Shook Kelley. We talk about his book Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places that Bring People Together.

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