Transit

There’s a new global benchmark for rating bus rapid transit projects. Yesterday the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy released the BRT Standard 2013, which lays out the requirements for bus routes to qualify as BRT and scores 50 systems in 35 cities around the world as basic, bronze, silver, or gold based on various criteria. The idea, which ITDP has been refining since a beta release in 2011, is to provide a concrete definition of what BRT is, and a reference for politicians, planners, and advocates who are interested in creating new BRT routes, as well as to rate the quality of existing systems.

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley are zeroing in on what irks transit riders so much they stop riding.

As driving continues to stagnate in America, transit ridership keeps rising. Last year saw the second highest annual ridership since 1957, despite the fact that the nation's busiest transit systems had several days of blackout due to Superstorm Sandy.

Friday's transit forum hosted by Transit Workers Union Local 100 and a coalition of rider advocacy groups offered an opportunity for a more more detailed discussion of transit policy than this year's mayoral race has seen so far. While the candidates offered few specifics about how they would improve transit for the millions of New Yorkers who depend on trains and buses, clear differences emerged, especially on the question of how to increase funding for the debt-ridden MTA.

Just hours before her final State of the City address today, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn released a report on the challenges facing middle-class New Yorkers. But her vision has a conspicuous blind spot: the transportation costs consuming more than one in ten dollars of the average NYC household budget.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, whose entertaining quotes about Mike Bloomberg have been ricocheting around New York's political circles today, could teach a thing or two to the candidates running for mayor here in NYC. Yesterday, "Boris from Islington" called in to a radio talk show with a recorded question for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg about Parliament's profligate spending on cars for political leaders. It's a question New Yorkers can appreciate.

Civic pride, attachment to community -- what does that have to do with how you get around? According to a recent study commissioned by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, possibly quite a bit.

By the looks of it, my humble hometown of Washington, DC, is winning the transit space race. The region currently has 45 transit projects either planned or underway -- and one that's stalled. You may have heard of the Silver Line to Dulles Airport, but a new map from Reconnecting America proves that that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to transit starts in the DC area.

Following the recent deaths of two subway passengers who were pushed onto tracks, TWU Local 100 is urging operators to slash train speeds as they enter stations, the New York Times reported yesterday. A TWU flier, which you can view here, advises operators that “Preventing a [run-over], and saving yourself the emotional trauma and potential loss of income that go with it, is worth a few extra minutes on your trip.”