Grist | Topics | 99 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 25 of 99
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
My other candidate is a bike Obama, transportation policy, and the highway bill	David Roberts	03 Jul 2008	Gristmill
Great story in CQ this week on bike politics. Did you know that Obama met a few weeks ago with 160 cycling advocates and promised them his support? I didn't. The 600-pound gorilla in transportation politics is the 2009 negotiation of a new highway bill, which according to CQ 'is already being touted as embodying the greatest overhaul of federal transportation policy since President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act into law half a century ago.' ...
Topics: presidential race 08, bikes, public transportation, placemaking, politics, Barack Obama (all these topics)

Derailed McCain just not that into Amtrak	Kate Sheppard	02 Jul 2008	Gristmill
Over at the Boston Globe, columnist Derrick Z. Jackson does an excellent job of highlighting John McCain's beef with Amtrak: For years, McCain, in the comfort of cheap gasoline for autos and airplanes, made Amtrak a personal whipping boy. Despite the fact that governments in Western Europe and Asia zoomed far ahead of the United States by supporting high-speed trains to relieve congestion, promote tourism and now as we are coming to know, save the planet, McCain has ...
Topics: elections, John McCain, Muckraker, news, placemaking, politics, presidential race 08, public transportation (all these topics)

Notable quotable Houston gets real about rail	Katharine Wroth	19 Jun 2008	Gristmill
'I'll say it loud and clear: No longer is the city of Houston waffling on rail. With gas headed to $8 a gallon and oil to $200 a barrel, we have to rethink Houston as the happy motoring paradise.' -- Houston City Council member Peter Brown, after the council approved the addition of five light-rail lines
Topics: placemaking, public transportation, quotables (all these topics)

Screwing the goose that lays the golden eggs Better cities, better growth	Ryan Avent	16 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The Overhead Wire directs us to a Christian Science Monitor write-up of a new Brookings report on how we might want to support metropolitan economies: 'If you're going to get serious about the economy, then you've got to get specific about how you're going to leverage metropolitan economies,' says Bruce Katz, director of the metropolitan policy program at Brookings. Even though America's 100 largest cities generate two-thirds of U.S. jobs and three-quarters of dom ...
Topics: placemaking, politics, public lands, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Sax and the City Found poetry on walkable cities	Gar Lipow	16 Jun 2008	Gristmill
This blog often addresses the importance of walkable cities and towns, localities that are really there -- that have a sense of place. A friendly acquaintance of mine, Jacqueline Smay (wife of popular music guru David Smay, who authored SwordfishTrombones) tossed off this charming note that is more powerful than any statistic: ... it was cold but not bitter out, Union Square was glittering with lights and ringing with the sounds of competing street musicians, and the si ...
Topics: placemaking, public lands, public transportation, San Francisco (all these topics)

High-speed train to victory? Swing states need green manufacturing	Jon Rynn	10 Jun 2008	Gristmill
Suppose you just became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic party, and suppose you really could use some of those Midwestern swing states in order to win the general election. Suppose, further, that you have mentioned how it would be a good thing to have high-speed rail coming out of Chicago, and that 'the fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America's future.' And further, suppose that there is a Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commissio ...
Topics: gas prices, placemaking, politics, public transportation (all these topics)

Richer, greener Focusing population growth in the right places will make us both	Ryan Avent	09 Jun 2008	Gristmill
The New York Times looks at the impact of high gas prices in communities across the nation today and concludes that increases are most painful in rural areas. Part of this analysis involves an examination of money spent on gas as a share of total income. The big middle of the country does badly, and Appalachia and the deep South do very badly. We can explain some of the excessive spending on fuel in these places by noting their dependence on trucks and the lack of ...
Topics: environmental justice, gas prices, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning, Washington DC (all these topics)

The Missing Links Public transit ridership is up, but no one's talking about a better system	Ryan Avent	06 Jun 2008	Grist Feature
But how long will they wait for infrastructure improvements? Photo: Sharat Ganapati One year ago, as America prepared for the traditional summer-driving crush, op-ed pages nationwide fretted over a disturbing trend. Only a decade earlier, oil had plumbed depths near $10 per barrel, and dirt-cheap gas had allowed us to roll over the nation's blacktop in vehicles of monster-truck ...
Topics: green living, placemaking, politics, public transportation, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Car culture on the skids USA Today: oil prices drive up asphalt costs, derail road maintenance	Tom Philpott	06 Jun 2008	Gristmill
For decades, public cash has gushed into building infrastructure designed to get us around in those little (or not-so-little) privatized pods. Indeed, the mobilization to create and maintain our road and highway network probably counts as our greatest public achievement of the last half-century. Meanwhile, while the highway rode high, our rail-transportation network crashed. Attacked and defunded by politicians and rejected by the public, Amtrak lurches on, barely. It's ...
Topics: gas prices, oil, placemaking, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Train of thought Rail and the coming changes in transport	Erik Hoffner	03 Jun 2008	Gristmill
National Train Day was marked this year on May 10, so it's not too incredibly late to mention two new books of note: John Stilgoe's Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape that came out in the fall says that rail is 'an economic and cultural tsunami about to transform the United States.' Maybe that's a little grand, but rail is definitely on the ascendancy, since it can move people and freight at a fraction of the energy usage vs. ...
Topics: books, energy, holiday, oil, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

Muddy footprints What a ranking of cities can tell us -- and what it can't	Eric de Place	30 May 2008	Gristmill
There's a big carbon footprint report out yesterday from Brookings. It ranks cities [PDF] according to their per capita carbon emissions. Sort of, anyway. Before I pick on it a little, I guess I should mention that Pacific Northwest cities do exceptionally well. Out of the 100 cities in the analysis, Portland ranks 3rd, Boise is 5th, and Seattle 6th. There's very little difference between them. That's wonderful and all, but the analysis only covers about 50 pe ...
Topics: climate, ecological footprint, greenhouse-gas emissions, placemaking, public transportation, Seattle (all these topics)

Notable quotable Yes we can! (ride bikes)	David Roberts	22 May 2008	Gristmill
'It's time that the entire country learn from what's happening right here in Portland with mass transit and bicycle lanes and funding alternative means of transportation. That's the kind of solution that we need for America.' -- Barack Obama, speaking to a rally in Portland, Ore., where an estimated 8,000 out of 75,000 attendees arrived on bikes (via Streetsblog)
Topics: Barack Obama, bikes, placemaking, politics, Portland, public transportation (all these topics)

Surely there must be some mistake	David Roberts	20 May 2008	Gristmill
Branch of U.S. federal government accidentally passes bill that would provide $1.7 billion in grant funding for public transit.
Topics: brilliance, legislation, placemaking, politics, public transportation (all these topics)

He doesn't say so explicitly ...	David Roberts	19 May 2008	Gristmill
... but this Paul Krugman column is about placemaking. On that note, don't miss our Smart(ish) Cities series.
Topics: placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

The transit surge is working Despite increased ridership, we need more funding as well as support for our trains	Jon Rynn	12 May 2008	Gristmill
Paul Krugman ponders the reason that conservatives are so enamored of the idea that speculators are driving up the price of oil: The odds are that we're looking at a future in which energy conservation becomes increasingly important, in which many people may even -- gasp -- take public transit to work. I don't find that vision particularly abhorrent, but a lot of people, especially on the right, do. And indeed -- gasp -- according to an article in The New York Times, 'Gas ...
Topics: energy, oil, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

Easy Rider Transit ridership up across U.S.		12 May 2008	News
Posted at 3:57 PM on 12 May 2008 Transit ridership has jumped across the U.S. as folks get tired of paying at the pump. From January to March, transit ridership jumped 10 percent in Boston, 8 percent in both Los Angeles and Denver, and 7.2 percent in the Twin Cities. In Philadelphia, transit ridership in March 2008 was up 11 percent from March 2007; in April, ridership in south Florida was an impressive 28 percent above the year before. "Nobody b ...
Topics: Boston, Florida, Los Angeles, news, Philadelphia, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

What's a Sustainable City, Anyway? Green-city ranking group SustainLane explains its methodology	James Elsen	12 May 2008	Grist Feature
With a chart-topping 26,000 people per square mile, New York City has to be smart. Photo: Tom Twigg How smart is your city? Take our quiz to find out. Back in 2004, the news emerged that two-thirds of the world's population might be living in cities by 2030. At SustainLane, we got curious about what cities were doing to handle that growth, and we began taking a closer look ...
Topics: green building, placemaking, public lands, public transportation, Smartish Cities, special series, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

That infrastructure thing Congestion pricing might come in handy	Ryan Avent	12 May 2008	Gristmill
Speaking of our crumbling public facilities, CBO Director Peter Orszag testified in Congress on Friday and detailed the country's infrastructure needs. They are dire, in some cases. He notes in a related blog post (yes, the CBO director has a blog): Although capital spending on transportation infrastructure already exceeds $100 billion annually, studies from the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, and elsewhere suggest that it would cost ...
Topics: placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

C'mon ride the train, the Coachella train Festival-goers hop free ride -- and stay car-free, too	Sarah van Schagen	06 May 2008	Gristmill
As we've reported in the past, music festivals across the country are making moves to be more sustainable -- mostly involving recycling efforts, compostable utensils, and biodiesel generators. But this year's Coachella music festival, held in Indio, Calif., April 25-27, took an interesting track, chartering an Amtrak train to transport festival folk to and from L.A. The Coachella Express was set up by the creative minds behind Global Inheritance, a group focusin ...
Topics: green living, music, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

Oil hysteria, part 2 Are low gas prices an inalienable right?	Jon Rynn	02 May 2008	Gristmill
I'm listening to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) talk to Thom Hartmann on Air America. Sanders is arguably the best senator in decades, and understands, as he just explained, that we need to transform our energy system toward renewables. But he also said something to the effect that 'we have to get gas prices back down.' I can't blame him -- particularly in his state of Vermont, rural people are getting slammed by high gas prices, because they have to drive long distances. ...
Topics: energy, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, renewable energy, sprawl, Vermont (all these topics)

Obama on rail transit A candidate finally discusses public transit ... at a random lunch	David Roberts	01 May 2008	Gristmill
So I'm looking at this pool report from a run-of-the-mill day in the Obama campaign. Barack and Michelle dropped by to have lunch with an Indiana couple, Mike and Cheryl Fischer. Mike works in Amtrak's Beech Grove shop, as his family has for generations. Notes the report dryly: "No news." But I scan down a bit to the middle, where Barack's talking to Mike about his impending layoff at Amtrak, and suddenly my mouth is hanging open. Says Obama:The irony is w ...
Topics: Barack Obama, placemaking, politics, presidential race 08, public transportation (all these topics)

The unbearable tightness of oil markets America is ill equipped to handle expensive oil	Ryan Avent	30 Apr 2008	Gristmill
The Times' Jad Mouawad has written a piece describing the state of the world's oil market. It is, in a word, tight. Production volumes have been flat at best, and consumption growth has continued. Kevin Drum comments: I imagine that a global economic slowdown will flatten oil consumption a bit over the next year or two, and eventually higher prices will rein in demand more permanently. On the other hand, we've seen oil prices double three times in the past eight years wi ...
Topics: economy, energy, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Oil hysteria Let's rebuild our national rail network instead of repealing the gas tax	Jon Rynn	17 Apr 2008	Gristmill
At the rate things are going, any money that would be available for global warming mitigation is going to go into subsidizing the oil used by airplanes, trucks, cars, and heating oil so that most Americans do not become hysterical -- or am I being hysterical? From Michael T. Klare's latest article: Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionabl ...
Topics: energy, fossil fuels, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, urban planning (all these topics)

Don't celebrate this holiday We need to be freed from gas, not the gas tax	Ryan Avent	17 Apr 2008	Gristmill
John McCain's proposal to institute a gas tax 'holiday' during the summer driving season is as clear an example of a pander as one is likely to see during election season, but its inclusion in a major economic policy speech suggests that this is no easily ignorable one-off. As Joseph Romm notes, any hope progressives might have had that the maverick, straight-talking conservative could bring some principle to the table on climate and energy issues has now gone out the win ...
Topics: energy, gas prices, John McCain, oil, placemaking, politics, public transportation, regulation (all these topics)

WTF?	David Roberts	08 Apr 2008	Gristmill
They're submerging subway cars to make artificial reefs?! Nobody tells me anything.
Topics: oceans, placemaking, public transportation (all these topics)

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