high speed rail posts, articles, and infographics

China Transportation Briefing: Filling the Finance Gap

May 15, 2012 by TheCityFix - produced by EMBARQ
with 80 views

China is encouraging more private sector involvement in the transport sector. Photo by Thomas Stellmach.Our monthly China Transportation Briefing shares interesting news and noteworthy research related to China’s transportation and urban development. The goal is to help people who are interested in solving China’s urbanization... [read more]

Defying Criticism, U.K. Government Finalizes Plans for High-Speed Rail

January 18, 2012 by Next American City
with 56 views

Whatever the recession’s effects on government budgets, infrastructure development in Europe continues to advance at a steady pace. The United Kingdom government affirmed last week that it would move forward with the construction of a £18.8 billion ($29 billion) high-speed link between London and Birmingham, due for opening in 2026. This in spite of draconian cuts across all sorts of public services, both in Britain and across the continent. [read more]

Why California Must Focus on Rail & Transit

January 9, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 162 views

Imagine a scenario by which our country’s most populous state, notorious for freeways, traffic nightmares and smog, could reduce driving by 3.7 trillion miles by 2050 (compared to trends forecast under business as usual), the equivalent of taking all cars off the state’s roads for 12 years. Imagine saving 140 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050, reducing oil consumption by an amount roughly equivalent to seven years’ worth of all US offshore oil production. Imagine saving some 3,700 square miles of California farmland, forests, recreation areas, and other currently open space that would otherwise be lost to sprawl. Imagine eliminating 140 premature deaths and 105,000 asthma attacks and respiratory symptoms each year. [read more]

5 of the Best Transport Blog Posts of 2011

December 27, 2011 by This Big City
with 215 views

The way we get around our cities is a critical factor in their sustainability. Here are 5 of the best blog posts we’ve featured on This Big City in 2011 exploring that very topic: Is the Supervia Highway a Wrong Turn for Mexico City? ‘While urban highways are being destroyed around the world, Mexico City is preparing to build another one... [read more]

Does High Speed Rail Have a Future in the US?

November 22, 2011 by Bob Leonard
with 364 views

A hot topic within the transportation sector these days concerns the epic possibilities of a national network of High Speed Rails. Obama’s failed Jobs Bill dedicated $10 Billion towards furthering the technology and implementation. Here at Earthgarage we are wondering if a High Speed Rail program is this administration’s... [read more]

Do We Hear $100 Billion?

November 3, 2011 by David Levinson
with 81 views

LA Times: California HSR is now more expensive: Bullet train cost estimates to rise: "Bullet train cost estimates rise to $98.5 billion. In a key change, the state has decided to stretch the construction schedule by 13 years, completing the Southern California-to-Bay Area high speed rail in 2033 rather than 2020." And now my estimate... [read more]

5 Cities, 5 Congestion Solutions

August 30, 2011 by This Big City
with 1,187 views

Congestion problems are different in every city, as are the solutions. Here are five cities with five different congestion innovations, each of which has been featured on This Big City in the last two years: Amsterdam – Congestion in Amsterdam is not only caused by cars. With the average Amsterdammer owning 1.5 bicycles, it’s... [read more]

Life at the Speed of Rail

June 23, 2011 by Next American City
with 237 views

Life at the Speed of Rail began as a project to explore how high-speed rail could transform American life in the coming decades. Andrew Colopy and I were given carte blanche to imagine a competition that calls on the design community to answer this question. We could have picked a particular location, say, along one of the currently planned high-speed rail corridors, and we could have asked entrants to focus on the real-life consequences of rail in a particular city. But we were less concerned about receiving design solutions to any particular high-speed rail challenge than the overarching challenge of bridging the design and transportation communities, and asking the design community to envision the impact of high-speed rail. [read more]

Should Amtrak Be A Public-Private-Partnership?

June 23, 2011 by TheCityFix - produced by EMBARQ
with 220 views

Congressman Mica's proposed bill would separate the highly trafficked Northeast Corridor from Amtrak and give ownership to the Department of Transportation. Photo by Professor Bop. Two U.S. Congressmen want to bring competitive bidding and private sector involvement into building new high-speed rail for the country. The bill proposed... [read more]

Deutsche Bahn and Siemens partner for world’s most advanced train network

May 11, 2011 by Laurent Martin
with 751 views

On Monday, Germany’s state-owned rail operator Deutsche Bahn and Siemens AG confirmed an order for 300 of the most advanced high-speed trains in the world. In what amounts to a Hail Mary pass, the beleaguered Deutsche Bahn is pouring EUR 6 billion into 250km/h ICx train service through 2030, which they hope will restore DB’s... [read more]

Mapping Distance on Time - Paris Crunch

March 11, 2011 by Fabian Neuhaus
with 685 views

As we all know from experience, maps generally focus on the physical quality of the space. They follow the box like idea of pace a a container with objects and chart these features one after the other in metric separations. Creating a mesh of abstract relationships. How frustrating this can be in practice everyone has probably... [read more]

Sustainable Design: San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Center

February 10, 2011 by The Dirt ASLA
with 957 views

San Francisco’s 1.3 million square foot Transbay Transit Center is expected to open in 2017 with a LEED Gold rating, writes Metropolis’ POV blog. While the building is expected to require lower amounts of energy than a similar conventional facility and help avoid the addition of CO2 emissions over the long-term, the... [read more]