Cities and Countries

Cleveland's first venture into Bus Rapid Transit -- a 10-mile route called the Health Line -- was turning heads before it fully launched, attracting planners from other cities looking to boost transit ridership. Now that the ribbons have been cut, the Plain Dealer's Steven Litt hails the finished product:

Yesterday Miami became the latest American city to pull off a big car-free event, when an estimated 2,000 people (including mayor Manny Diaz) took to the streets for Bike Miami. Mike Lydon at Transit Miami reports:

The rumors were spot on. Yesterday DOT announced a 35 percent increase in commuter cycling. This year, an average of more than 12,500 cyclists were counted crossing DOT's screenline -- a set of checkpoints leading into the Manhattan CBD -- up from about 9,300 in 2007. It's the biggest jump in raw numbers since the count began and the largest percent increase since 2003, when the count went up 36 percent. Overall, cycling in the city has doubled in the past six years. (See the stat breakdown in this PDF -- the full version of the bar graph at right is on page 5.)

Here is a mesmerizing time-lapse video from Spacing Toronto and photoblogger Sam Javanrouh. The clip shows traffic moving through Toronto's pedestrian scramble -- a.k.a. priority crossing, a.k.a. Barnes Dance -- installed at Yonge and Dundas Streets last August.

Last week Freakonomics picked up a story from the Riverfront Times that connects an uptick in shoplifting, fighting and other crimes in the St. Louis suburbs to a two-year-old expansion of the city's MetroLink rail system.