Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Trains

Glaeser Goes Out With a Whimper

By Ryan Avent | Aug 19, 2009 | 20 Comments

For those just tuning in, economist Ed Glaeser has been writing a four-part series on the potential costs and benefits of high-speed rail at the New York Times‘ Economix blog. He began three weeks ago with an introduction. The following week he addressed direct costs and benefits from a hypothetical line, and last week he […]

Ed Glaeser’s Rail Fail

By Ryan Avent | Aug 12, 2009 | 32 Comments

The story so far: Ed Glaeser recently began an effort to assess the costs and benefits of constructing high-speed rail lines at the New York Times’ Economix blog. Last week, he posted his first substantive take on the issue, an attempt to estimate direct costs and benefits from a hypothetical line between Houston and Dallas. […]

Senate Starts Climate Push With Nods to Jobs, Energy, and Transportation

By Elana Schor | Jul 7, 2009 | 1 Comment

Total U.S. emissions in 2007, with transportation in blue at right. (Photo: FHWA) The Senate is taking its first public steps toward combating climate change — and while the U.S. DOT was absent from this morning’s hearing, the chiefs of the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency reminded lawmakers that transportation must play a key […]

Missing the Point on High-Speed Rail

By Ryan Avent | Jul 6, 2009 | 15 Comments

Ed Glaeser is a fantastic economist. He has done magnificent work analyzing the economics of urban growth and written indispensable papers on the connection between housing regulations and migration. But when the man picks up his pen to write a piece for public consumption, he tends to take complete leave of his senses. I realize […]

Meridian, Mississippi: What Trains Can Do for a City

By Sarah Goodyear | Jun 3, 2009 | 4 Comments

When President Obama announced his plan for a national high-speed rail network earlier this year, one of the people invited to attend was the Republican mayor of a city you’ve most likely never heard of — Meridian, Mississippi. And one of the rail routes, running from Atlanta to New Orleans, went right through Meridian. The […]