Streetcars Made in the U.S.A.

Mass Transit, Mobility, Portland, Sustainable Transport, Trams, United States No Comments »


American streetcar manufacturer Oregon Iron Works turned to European company Skoda to get ideas for its new 10 T3 Streetcar Prototype, which will be open to the public this summer. Photo by United Streetcar.

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood made his appearance at the formal unveiling of an American-made streetcar — the first to be manufactured in the United States in nearly 60 years.

United Streetcar, a subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works, developed the light rail vehicle at a local factory in compliance with the Federal Transit Administration’s “Buy America” requirement that any vehicle purchased with federal funds has at least a 60 percent domestic content and undergoes final assembly in the United States. According to Rail magazine, United Streetcar’s vehicle contains 70 percent domestic content. (Read more about the history of modern streetcars in America here.)

United Streetcar President Chandra Brown said, “We see a market for this modern streetcar, as more and more cities look to fight congestion and have rail play a role in local economic development.”
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The French Get Funny for Car-Sharing

Car Culture, Car Sharing, Cars, France, Hummer, United Kingdom, United States, Video No Comments »

Originally posted by Noah Kazis at TheCityFix DC.


World Streets shares this very funny French ad for a car-sharing company.

The translation of their slogan is “It’s almost your car.” In another ad, the same man is eating a messy sandwich in the car and dripping on himself when someone knocks on the door.

How off message can these be? Read the rest of this entry »

Mobility-Driven Companies Shake Up the Bikesharing Market

Bicycles, Bike Sharing, Cycling, Project Financing, Ridesharing, Sustainable Transport No Comments »

Originally posted at TheCityFix DC.


Montreal’s Public Bike System (PBS), also known as “Bixi,” provides a competitive alternative to the bikes-for-advertising business model. Photo by amlibrarian.

It seems that D.C.’s 10,000+ SmartBike members may have to wait some time for the District’s promised ten-fold expansion. ClearChannel Outdoor, the advertising giant that operates SmartBike, has little interest to expand the pilot, according to news last week from the Georgetown Metropolitan.
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What’s New at TheCityFix DC

Announcements No Comments »

If you haven’t been following dc.thecityfix.com, our new local edition for Washington, D.C., here are some highlights. Hopefully you’ll like what you see and become a regular reader over there, too!

D.C.’s “State of the Air”: F: D.C. fails the national air pollution report card. Why is D.C. air so bad and what can be done about it?

DC Density: Bigger, Broader, or Faster?: Should D.C. lift its height restriction? A summary of the debate and my position: that we should lift the ban outside of downtown to build up density the fastest.

BRT vs. Light Rail for the Purple Line and Purple Line BRT vs. LRT, Round 2: A more local story about a proposed circumferential transit line around the city and whether light rail or bus rapid transit makes more sense for the route.

It Takes a Village to…Build a Car?

Cars, Clean Vehicles, Fuel Efficiency, Futurism, Innovation, Mobility, Open Source, Sustainable Transport No Comments »


Open source technology: Software companies do it. Why not carmakers? Photo via Riversimple.

What if you could revolutionize the way cars are designed and built by opening the process up to input from the entire community?

That’s exactly what Riversimple is trying to do. The UK-based car company will license its energy-efficient automobile designs (available under Creative Commons non-commercial license) to the 40 Fires Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that will invite engineers, designers, lawyers and other car business experts to comment on high-level design matters, for example, the use of hub motors.

On its wiki, where most of the discussion will happen, 40 Fires writes, “all we really care about is that the license works to ensure that the cars can be built in hundreds of different variations around the world, by local companies and entrepreneurs as well as big multinationals if they like, and that no one company (whether Ford or Riversimple) can dominate the market and keep the ideas to itself.”
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Treehugger: Top 5 Greenest Cities

Sustainable Transport 2 Comments »


Portland, Oregon is often seen as a sustainable transport success story. Photo by Ben Amstutz.

Last week, Treehugger published its list of the world’s top five “greenest” cities to visit, based on…well, the author’s judgment.

1) Portland, Oregon, USA
2) Freiburg, Germany
3) Zermatt, Switzerland
4) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
5) Austin, Texas, USA

To read the rationale for choosing each city, click here.

Montgomery County Moves to Urbanize

Bicycles, Cycle Paths, High Density, Mixed Used Neighborhoods, Land Use, Mass Transit, Metro, Real Estate Development, Suburbs, Transit Oriented Development, United States, Urban Planning, Washingon DC No Comments »

Typical cul-de-sac construction in Maryland. Photo by Vidiot.

Aerial photograph of suburban housing in Maryland. Photo by Vidiot.

The BeyondDC newsfeed yesterday just blew my mind. Of yesterday’s five headlines, each and every one is about some part of Montgomery County embracing a more sustainable, more urban land use pattern. Let’s go through them one by one:

Read more at The City Fix DC…

Reduce Car Culture to Increase Access to Healthier Food

Accessibility, Car Culture, Land Use, Sustainable Transport, United States, Urban Planning, Walking, Washingon DC 6 Comments »


By reducing parking space requirements, cities can reduce car culture - and encourage the development of healthier grocery stores - in underserved areas. Photo by Wenzday01

Today, the New York Times alerted me to a problem that I had no idea sustainable transportation could solve.

It’s well known that low-income urban neighborhoods are “food deserts,” where supermarkets are rare, understocked and overpriced. Greater Greater Washington ran a great piece detailing this phenomenon in the District earlier this year. What’s more, I’ve been familiar with attempts to increase access to supermarkets, including in D.C.

The New York Times, though, mentioned that one of the strategies New York City is using to attract more supermarkets into food deserts is to change the city’s zoning laws that would “free smaller supermarkets from having to supply parking spaces.” Reducing or eliminating parking minimums for new development is good urbanism. But if it can help provide affordable, accessible, and nutritious food to low-income residents of the District - which is already a District goal - the planning commission has one more very good reason to wean us off of cars.

Read more at The City Fix DC…

CityCenter DC: Density Breeds Sustainability

High Density, Mixed Used Neighborhoods, Land Use, Project Financing, Real Estate Development, Sustainable Transport, United States, Urban Planning, Walking, Washingon DC 1 Comment »


A graphic rendering of the proposed “Central Plaza” of CityCenter DC. Illustration via CityCenter DC.

There’s been a lot of big transportation news in the last two days. Between the Purple Line vote and Sec. Ray LaHood and Rep. Jim Oberstar’s competing proposals for the transportation bill (a topic that you should definitely follow over at DC Streetsblog), there are a lot of major political decisions being made about transportation.

At the same time, some of the most important changes needed to create a sustainable transportation system in D.C. have nothing to do with transportation at all. For example, redeveloping the old convention center site downtown would be a major victory for sustainable transportation in D.C.

Read more at The City Fix DC…

Purple Line Update: Planning Board Passes Unanimously

BRT, Bus Rapid Transit, Buses, Mass Transit, Metro, Metrobus, Suburbs, Subway, Sustainable Transport, United States, Urban Planning, Washingon DC 1 Comment »


Map via PurpleLineMD.com.

Great news today: The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, the region’s federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), unanimously approved the inclusion of the full Purple Line project in the region’s long-term plan.

Read more at The City Fix DC…

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