Rising Demand for Transit Could Be a “Turning Point”

7:06 AM PDT on July 17, 2008

CNN broadcast yesterday a relatively in-depth piece on U.S. cities scrambling to meet rising demand for mass transit.

With a fight over billions of dollars of federal transportation funding set to heat up immediately after the swearing-in of the next president, this may very well be the most important transportation policy story of the next 18 months. The battle lines are already being drawn up:

In this corner: smart growth, green collar jobs and mass transit.

In that corner: Auto makers, asphalt pourers and the drill, drill, drillers

From CNN:

Some observers such as Dr. Robert Lang, an expert on urban affairs and planning at Virginia Tech University, say the gas crunch could be a turning point in perceptions of public transportation and how cities plan development.
Consumers are beginning to believe the high prices are a result of structural changes in the global economy, not the result of a single event like Hurricane Katrina, which produced a period of high fuel prices earlier this decade, Lang said.
That change in perception is providing more momentum for some cities that were already moving away from six-lane highways and suburbs dozens of miles apart, to a series of urban centers connected by light rail and other mass transit systems.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

Rising Demand for Transit Could Be a “Turning Point”

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