News & Notes

Pictoral> MTA Perseveres Through Hurricane Irene [The Architect’s Newspaper]

The Architect’s Newspaper looks at how the New York transit system faired during Irene. More photos, such as the one below, on the MTA’s Flickr page.

Photo (cc) MTAPhotos

Also see, Metro-North and the Aftermath of Irene, Damage Photos via I Ride the Harlem Line

Blackstone River Regional Rail [Pedestrian Observations]

Following up on my proposal for improving regional and intercity rail service between Providence and Boston, let me propose a line from Providence to Woonsocket, acting as an initial line of a Providence S-Bahn. The basic ideas for how to run a small-scale regional railroad, as usual, come from Hans-Joachim Zierke’s site, but are modified to suit the needs of a line with a larger city at one end. It is fortunate that the road connecting the two cities is not a freeway, and takes 24 minutes, allowing good transit on the same market to be competitive.

Photos of dangerous streets have been streaming in [Transportation for America]

After putting out the call far and wide for pictures of streets designed for speeding traffic at the expense of safe travel by people on foot or bike, we’ve been getting some great | and by great, we mean frightening and terrible | photos of inconvenient, poorly-planned, dangerous and downright hostile conditions for pedestrians.

Largest papers in Conn., RI take opposing sides on I-95 tolls [WPRI.com]

The fallout from our Target 12 revelation of the Chafee administration’s proposal to toll I-95 continues, as the largest papers in Rhode Island and Connecticut offered very different editorials on the idea this week.