Infra Views Archives - Page 76 of 168 - InfrastructureUSA: Citizen Dialogue About Civil Infrastructure InfrastructureUSA: Citizen Dialogue About Civil Infrastructure

Infra Views

Getting to the Route of it: The Role of Governance in Regional Transit

Thursday, October 16th, 2014

ENO CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION
TRANSITCENTER
…Could regional governance be at the root of problems faced by transit systems in other regions? Some regions have struggled to create universal farecards with updated technology. Other regions have targeted investment to new projects while neglecting the core network. Many regions struggle with coordinating service and interfaces between different operators or transit modes. If regions attempt to solve these problems without resolving their governance issues, they—like Chicago—may be fighting a losing battle.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Eno, Eno Center for Transportation, Forth Worth, Minneapolis, New York City, St. Paul, TransitCenter
Posted in Funding, Infra Views, Local, Policy, Public Transportation, Transit

Comments Off on Getting to the Route of it: The Role of Governance in Regional Transit

Automobiles, CO2 and Fuel Efficiency: Trends From 1975 to 2014

Monday, October 13th, 2014

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY Overview of Long-Term Trends While the most recent annual changes often receive the most public attention, the greatest value of the Trends database is to document long-term trends. This is because: 1) year-to-year variability can reflect short-term trends (two examples are the Cash for Clunkers rebates in 2009 and the impact of […]

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: cars, CO2, Efficiency, Emissions, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA
Posted in Clean Air, Environment, Infra Views, Pollution, Sustainability

Comments Off on Automobiles, CO2 and Fuel Efficiency: Trends From 1975 to 2014

Access Across America: Transit 2014

Friday, October 10th, 2014

ACCESSIBILITY OBSERVATORY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Accessibility is the ease of reaching valued destinations. Accessibility can be measured for various transportation modes, to different types of destinations, and at different times of day. There are a variety of ways to define accessibility, but the number of destinations reachable within a given travel time is the most comprehensible and transparent—as well as the most directly comparable across cities. This report focuses on accessibility to jobs by transit. Jobs are the most significant non-home destination, but it is also possible to measure accessibility to other types of destinations. Transit is used for an estimated 5% of commuting trips in the United States, making it the second most widely used commute mode after driving.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: Accessibility, Accessibility Observatory, Pedestrian, University of Minnesota
Posted in Employment, Equity, Infra Views, Jobs, Public Transportation, Transit, Urban Planning

Comments Off on Access Across America: Transit 2014

New York City: Subway Station Conditions

Thursday, October 9th, 2014

Structural components and architectural components

OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK STATE COMPTROLLER
The New York City subway system includes 468 passenger stations, which are used by 5.5 million riders each weekday. The system is operated by New York City Transit (NYCT), the largest subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Over the past 32 years, NYCT has renovated 241 subway stations at a cost of $4.5 billion as part of its station rehabilitation programs. Under these programs, each station was fully renovated to a state of good repair, including structural and architectural components. Once the work was completed, however, NYCT moved on to the next station for rehabilitation without committing the resources to maintain the renovated stations.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, MTA, New York, New York City, NY, NYC, Office of the New York State Comptroller, Subway, Thomas DiNapoli
Posted in Aging Infrastructure, Infra Views, Local, Public Transportation, Transit

Comments Off on New York City: Subway Station Conditions

Future of Rail 2050

Wednesday, October 8th, 2014

This graphic depicts countries and territories with 2050 urban populations exceeding 100,000. Circles are scaled in proportion to urban population size.

ARUP
This thought-piece focuses on the passenger and user experience. The journeys imagined here are intended to generate a conversation about the future and provide the big picture context for future planning and decision-making by the rail industry and by governments. They are also intended to set out a forward-looking and inspiring vision for rail. With the increasing pace of technological change, perhaps the more imaginative scenarios will come to fruition. The case studies indicate trends taking place in rail. They are early signs of possible directional change, and reveal directions in which the future could be heading. Whether these become more widely implemented remains to be seen.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: Arup, China, HSR, India, Population Growth
Posted in Competitiveness, Global, High Speed Rail, Infra Views, Public Transportation, Smart Growth, Sustainability, Technology

Comments Off on Future of Rail 2050

Re-Programming Mobility: The Digital Transformation of Transportation in the United States

Tuesday, October 7th, 2014

RUDIN CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION & POLICY MANAGEMENT
For decades, transportation experts have anticipated a sweeping technological transformation of the way Americans travel, and the transportation system they use to do so. That transformation has arrived, as the same digital technologies that have reshaped other sectors of the economy, from finance to retailing, are rapidly re-wiring the networks that provide mobility to hundreds of millions of Americans. The changes associated with these innovations are being felt at all scales – from individual trip planning to the design and management of regional mass transit systems.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: New York University, NYU, Rudin Center for Transportation & Policy Management, Wagner
Posted in Buses, Infra Views, National, Public Transportation, Technology, Transit, Urban Planning

View 1 Comment on this Infra Views post »

Health Benefits of Carbon Standards for Power Plants

Friday, October 3rd, 2014

Figure 1: The Co-Benefits of Carbon Standards Study

HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: CENTER FOR HEALTH AND THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING
BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the nation’s first-ever carbon pollution standards for existing power plants on June 2, 2014. The EPA-proposed Clean Power Plan would achieve a 30% reduction in carbon emissions from U.S. power plants below 2005 levels by 2030 (USEPA 2014a). Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important greenhouse gas and a major driver of human-induced global climate change. Fossil-fuel-fired power plants are the single largest source of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the U.S. They emitted 2.2 billion tons of CO2 in 2012 (AOE 2014) and currently account for 39 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions (USEPA 2014b).

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: Boston University, Center for Global Health and Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Harvard University, power plants, Public Health, Syracuse University
Posted in Energy, Environment, Global, Hazardous Waste, Infra Views, Policy, Pollution, Sustainability

Comments Off on Health Benefits of Carbon Standards for Power Plants

Wisconsin DOT Projections vs Reality: An Analysis of Traffic Trends

Thursday, October 2nd, 2014

1000 FRIENDS OF WISCONSIN
Wisconsin is undergoing a marked shift in how people in the state are choosing to travel. Data show that the number of miles driven in the state has fallen, or has levelled off in the last ten years. This is in sharp contrast to previous decades, when people drove more each year, since the creation of the Interstate System in the 1960’s.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, WI, Wisconsin, Wisconsin Department of Transportation
Posted in Highway, Infra Views, Local, Roads

Comments Off on Wisconsin DOT Projections vs Reality: An Analysis of Traffic Trends

Intergovernmental Challenges in Surface Transportation Funding

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

All Levels of Government Fund Highways and Transit

THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
This analysis examines the role that each level of government plays in paying for highway and transit infrastructure (referred to here as “surface transportation” or “transportation”), the key problems facing this multilayered system of funding, and their causes. In addition, it identifies central principles that policymakers need to consider as they weigh options and consider solutions.

View this complete Infra Views post...

Tags: Federal Funding, Government Spending, Pew Charitable Trusts
Posted in Bipartisan, Competitiveness, Funding, Infra Views, National, Policy

Comments Off on Intergovernmental Challenges in Surface Transportation Funding