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.

Visit the Are We There Yet? home The Denver Broncos and a resurgent Payton Manning take on a Chargers team Monday night. These division rivals have no love lost and will seek to keep each other further away from the post season with a win today. In the realm of complete communities, unlike on the gridiron, San Diego and Denver compete in different divisions. San Diego competes with the heavyweights, with just over 3 million residents, while Denver falls in the middle division, where regions between 3 million and 500,000 population compete. That in part may explain why Denver brings home straight “A’s” in Living, Moving, Working, and Thriving, while San Diego has three “Cs” and a “B.” Denver’s competition isn’t generally as fierce as San Diego faces in the top tier. In many cases, San Diego does a better job on individual metrics than Denver. San Diego has a higher share of households who live near…

In 2003, the Transport Research Board held its 9th National Light Rail Transit Conference in Portland. Among the papers pressented then was discussion of how light rail system designers can plan at the start for innovative operational practices to expedite train movements. The article, "Designing New Light Rail: Taking Engineering Beyond Vanilla," has been added to the Research Center's 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.

The Puget Sound Sage report "Transit Oriented Development that's Healthy, Green & Just: Ensuring Transit Investment in Seattle’s Rainier Valley Builds Communities Where All Families Thrive" has been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

"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.

Transit Cooperative Research Program Report 153, "Guidelines for Providing Access to Public Transportation Stations," has been added to the Research Center best practices database. The report offers guidelines for providing access to rapid transit stations, describes a station access planning process, and provides a high-level station access planning tool.