News: Austin Rail 1st Phase, Maryland BRT Financing, Tampa Sales Tax, Vancouver WA LRT Tax Vote
| Tracks News - In this section you'll find news from cities around the country as well as interviews and general reporting on issues. It might be from a newspaper or a blog, but it counts as news. |
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Austin: Urban Rail First Phase to Cost $550M Austin American Statesman With urban rail's first piece likely to cost $550 million, and no more than half of that coming from federal grants, the City of Austin could need to ask voters to OK as much as $275 million in bonds, officials said this morning... Read On |
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Maryland: Special Districts Should Pay for BRT Washington Post A panel of advisers to Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) recommends increasing property taxes to fund express bus lanes along Colesville Road, Georgia Avenue and the Intercounty Connector, according to a highly anticipated report released Tuesday... Read On |
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Tampa: Agency Could Use Sales Tax for Service Increase Tampa Tribune Hillsborough transit planners have proposed a fare increase and service cuts to make up a budget deficit during the next five years. But looking ahead, HART leaders are now considering expansion of the system to keep pace with a growing number of riders - in part, by changing where the money comes from... Read On |
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Portland: Milwaukie LRT Gets Federal Funding Oregonian Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff today signed an agreement to commit 50 percent funding for the nearly $1.5 billion Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Transit Project... Read On |
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New York: LIRR East Side Plan Needs More Time New York Times Creating a Long Island Rail Road link to the East Side of Manhattan will take six years longer to accomplish than originally expected and will cost nearly $2 billion more than the initial estimate, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Monday... Read On |
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Vancouver WA: LRT Head Tax Could Go on the Ballot Columbian A public vote on light rail may yet happen this November if the C-Tran Board of Directors can get behind the latest idea: A $1 per employee per month head tax on area businesses to help cover the operations and maintenance of a new line... Read On |
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Montreal: Problems Facing Montreal's Transit System Montreal Gazette This spring, my wife and I spent three weeks in Italy and France. It was our first vacation with our son, Desmond, who was four months old when the trip began... Read On |
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Twin Cities: SW LRT Backers Will Seek DEED Funds Finance & Commerce The Metropolitan Council and business groups will continue to fight for preliminary engineering money for the Southwest light rail transit (LRT) line, even though the Minnesota Legislature denied a $25 million bonding request... Read On |
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Maryland: CCT Could be Built for Less Money Washington Post A transitway linking upper Montgomery County's fast-growing biotechnology corridor with the Metrorail system could be built four years earlier and for $310 million less than a state plan would allow, according to a privately funded analysis released Tuesday... Read On |
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Hartford: After 12 Years, Work Starts on Busway Hartford Courant It took three governors, more than a dozen years, and the pledge of better than $400 million in federal aid, but construction of the New Britain-to-Hartford busway officially began Tuesday... Read On |
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International: Anger Over Jakarta's Epic Gridlock Counterpunch (via @urbanphotoblog) If you take a train in Jakarta, be warned: the images that would unwind behind your windows could be too disturbing to bear for someone who is not a war correspondent or a medical doctor... Read On |
| URBANISM/HOUSING/CITIES |
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New Jersey: Cleanup Mapped for Jersey City Site Wall Street Journal Not long ago, city officials here and Honeywell International Inc. were at war over the fate of more than 100 acres of chromium-contaminated land on the city's gritty western edge... Read On |
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San Francisco: Transfer Tax for Mod Income Housing San Francisco Chronicle There may finally be a solution to helping middle-class San Franciscans who cannot afford to buy a home of their own in the city. Mayor Ed Lee on Tuesday will announce plans to create the city's first dedicated funding stream for moderate-income and affordable housing... Read On |
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National: How Housing Crisis Shafted Next Generation The Fiscal Times In sorting through the debris of the financial and economic crisis, some experts say that one of the most harmful and long-lasting effects is the demise of the "generational compact." .. Read On |
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National: Neighborhoods Affect Walk, Bike, Transit Washington Post The typical home in Logan Circle is likely to have more bikes than cars. About one in six Reston residents carpools to work. People in Langley Park walk more than twice as often as those in the rest of the region... Read On |
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Portland: Replacing Portland's Central City Plan Daily Journal of Commerce No other area of the country can match our region's depth of experience with building livable cities. In virtually all areas of city building, the planning jurisdictions of this metropolitan area have been innovators... Read On |
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Milwaukee: City's Urban Center Has Good Bones Journal Sentinel If you're worried about downtown Milwaukee's future, with a financially troubled shopping center, a stagnant office market and continued delays in developing the Park East strip, first consider its strengths, says Brad Segal... Read On |
