Posted on Monday June 29th by Jebediah Reed | 122
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- In NYC the cost travelling by subway–a trip that might take you anywhere from Far Rockaway to Pelham–now costs an extra 25 cents. “Taking Us For A Ride,” quips the Post. (NY Post)
- A bank is paying only $200k per year for naming rights to a busy Brooklyn subway station. Will urban infrastructure just become another corporate branding opportunity–perhaps even an individual status symbol? Then again, there’s no shortage of branded subway stops already in NYC, including Times Square. (BLDGBLOG, Kottke)
- Ad Age looks deeper into the phenomenon on a national level. The streetcar line in Tampa has been branded by a utility. A bus line in Cleveland has been named for a medical clinic.
- More than half of the federal highway stimulus money has been allocated, but only 1% has actually been sent out to the states. (USA Today)
- As of 2007, anyway, the US was continuing to suburbanize–exurbanize, more accurately–at a fast clip. Outlying counties grew nearly twice as fast as central ones since 2000. (New Geography)
- Jim Oberstar, a lawmaker known for valuing good policy and loathing political gamesmanship, continues to fight a lonely battle to get a new transportation bill passed into law this year. CQ offers an excellent survey of the obstacles he faces. (Congressional Qtrly)
- The two proposed fast train lines from greater LA to Las Vegas might both be built, says one advocate. And an often overlooked factoid: There was Amtrak service between the cities until 1997, when it was canceled. (Next American City)
- Did shady deals between transit agencies and investment banks–a certain kind of goofy and complicated tax shelter called a SILO–contribute to the DC Metro accident? It may have been one reason WMATA didn’t replace some older, less safe cars. (Streetsblog DC)
- While most of the vacation industry is desperately slashing prices, the cost of a rental car in the US has skyrocketed in the past year — nearly doubling at airports. The reason? Rental companies have trimmed fleet size. (NY Times)
- Highly charming: a fellow who must have invested hundreds of hours in finding every letter of the alphabet in the terrestrial shapes of Google Earth–what kind of crazy intersection makes a ‘B’? (Some Guy)
June 29th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Might want to take a critical look at whatever is posted at New Geography. It is a pro-sprawl site.
“As of 2007, anyway, the US was continuing to suburbanize–exurbanize, more accurately–at a fast clip. Outlying counties grew nearly twice as fast as central ones since 2000.”
Problem is they don’t provide the actual numbers. I suspect outlying counties are “growing faster” than central ones simply because more people already live in the central ones so even with the same number of people moving to the central ones, the rate of grow would be higher for the outlying. A fast rate of growth is typically a symptom of a small denominator. They should actually report the actual numbers instead of percentages.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Richard -
Familiar with the site.
2007’s oil price spike is I think going to be seen as the long term high water mark for sprawl in this country. So this finding is not all that surprising to me. What would be interesting is to see–using the exact same methodology–whether trends have started to reverse since then.
Using county lines is not exactly an ideal method though, of course.
JR
June 29th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
[...] Google Earth Typography June 29th, 2009 admin Leave a comment Go to comments The alphabet in satellite imagery of Slavonia. [via] [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
The BRT line in Cleveland is named after two hospitals that fall along its route; and one is a globally respected hospital, at that.