Category Archives: cities

Roundabouts (traffic circles) are great. But traffic can be astonishingly good at navigating busy intersections even in their absence, and even without traffic lights. The point is that the absence of any traffic lights forces drivers to slow down and … Continue reading →

The NYT has a good article this morning on the “new subway math” – the way in which anybody refilling their MetroCard is going to have to do some rather recondite calculations in order to ensure they don’t end up … Continue reading →

Brad Aaron has news of developments with NYC’s congestion pricing plan. If you recall, the mayor put forward a proposal which now needs to be ratified by a whole bunch of constituencies, including the city and state legislatures. But before … Continue reading →

Matt Cooper says that he is "not a privatize-the-sidewalks kind of guy". Why not? It seems to be working pretty well in New York: A 150-square-foot sidewalk berth anywhere between 96th Street and Canal Street costs $4,749.29 annually, about $31 … Continue reading →

“This is one of the best investments — better than Merrill Lynch, which is going down the drain,” said a driver, Mahmoud Sadakah, 42. “This is a guaranteed investment, because it will never go down.” The market in NYC taxi … Continue reading →

Tim Harford addresses the perennial cost-of-living question: how come Moscow always seems to come top? Or, as his reader puts it, Just wanted to ask if there is an economic explanation for the fact that real estate in cities in … Continue reading →

Richard Florida doesn’t explicitly mention Ed Glaeser in his column today in the Toronto Globe & Mail, but it can easily be read as a direct response to Glaeser’s pessimistic view of Buffalo in City Journal. Glaeser says that any … Continue reading →

Justin Fox knows what needs to be done to keep New York competitive with London as a financial center: The immigration people at Heathrow are polite to non-UK-citizens and usually get them through the line very quickly. I know that … Continue reading →

Great news today: despite the city missing the application deadline, the federal
government has awarded
New York City $354 million for its congestion pricing plan.
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Yesterday, the New York congestion
pricing deal was big news.
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Aaron Naparstek of Streetsblog has details
of the congestion-pricing deal which was struck in Albany today, and I have
to say it’s a good one.
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Does subway congestion make congestion pricing more problematic, or does it, on the other hand, make congestion pricing more necessary?
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"If every American were given a house on a quarter acre, so that every
family of four had a full acre, that distribution would not use up half the
land in Texas."
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Building more roads might (or might not) reduce congestion. But mass transit allows much higher population densities, and a city with a high population density will be more vibrant, more economically productive, and more environmentally friendly.
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