A 2012 report on the return of tramways to France by the Ministry for Ecology, Stustainable Development and Energy has been added to the Research Center best practices database.

Reconnecting America today released an updated interactive map showing all of the fixed-guideway transit projects in the United States.  You can read more about the project in this Reconnecting America News report or you can go directly to the map here.

A trio of reports have been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

An April 2012 article from the Journal of Public Transportation entitled "Bus or Rail: An Approach to Explain the Psychological Rail Factor" has been added to the Research Center best practices database. The article by Milena Scherer of ETH Zurich and Katrin Dziekan of the Berlin Institute of Technology explores whether there is an inherent preference for fixed rail transit among transit riders and why. The research found a preference for using rail, assum­ing equal service conditions, of 63 percent for regional train and 75 percent for trams compared to bus services. The rail factor is highly loaded with emotional and social attributions, the researchers note, and account for 20–50 percent of the share in the different schemata for bus, rail, and tram.

"Light Rail Without Wires: A Dream Come True?" a 2004 article by John D. Swanson of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, has been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

A Federal Transit Administration Office of Planning and Environment document from 2008 discussing how FTA might evaluate the potential economic development impacts of projects applying for New Starts funds.

The phase one land use study for the proposed District of Columbia streetcar system has been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

As the returns came in late last night from elections all over the country, a few big tickets passed handily while a some others crashed and burned.  Several smaller regions rejected tax measures that would have supported expansion of vital services while larger projects such as bus and rail improvements in Durham North Carolina and Cincinnati Ohio had winning days.  22 of 28 projects have passed this year in an analysis put together by the Center for Transportation Excellence which has a listing of the results.