Category Archives: Rail infrastructure

New streetcar lines in St. Louis and Milwaukee

Posted on December 24, 2018 by Christopher Winters

Two Midwestern cities—St. Louis and Milwaukee—both acquired new streetcar lines in November, and I went and rode them last week. The lines are comparable in size. Both are miniscule given that they’re in urban areas that are dozens of kilometers across. … Continue reading →

Posted in Rail infrastructure, Transportation, Urban | 1 Comment

“Transit villages” in Hong Kong that predate the use of the term “transit village”

Posted on December 2, 2018 by Christopher Winters

Hong Kong has four quite distinct urban rail systems: [1] the MTR (Mass Transit Railway), which consists of approximately 231 km of modern urban rail lines that run throughout the special administrative region; it incorporates the formerly separate lines of … Continue reading →

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The Queens Quay renovation in Toronto

Posted on August 2, 2018 by Christopher Winters

When I was in Toronto, I also explored a much smaller project: the renovation of Queens Quay. Queens Quay is a short (3.3 km) street along Toronto’s “Harbourfront.” Over the last forty or so years most of its western 2 … Continue reading →

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Toronto’s extends its subway even further into car country

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Christopher Winters

I spent several days in Toronto this month. This was perhaps my twentieth trip to Toronto since 1966. I had been a witness over the years to Toronto’s astonishing transformation from a socially conservative place whose inhabitants were mostly of British … Continue reading →

Posted in Rail infrastructure, Transportation, Urban | 1 Comment

The skyscraper apartment buildings (and some other distinctive features) of Panama City

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Christopher Winters

I spent a few days in Panama City at the end of January. I had been there only once before, in 2012, before the Metro opened. It’s a surprisingly distinctive place. Panama City’s most astonishing feature is surely its skyline, … Continue reading →

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Some notes on Hong Kong’s newish waterfront “promenades” and on its other pedestrian facilities

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Christopher Winters

Hong Kong is perhaps best known in the world of urban studies for its extraordinarily high transit share. Public transit accounts for a larger percentage of journeys in Hong Kong than in any other city in the world. Something like 77.6% of … Continue reading →

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Harbin and Vladivostok

Posted on October 12, 2017 by Christopher Winters

I was in Harbin and Vladivostok last week. These two cities may be in different countries, but they are only 500 km apart and have a common late-19th-century origin as Russian railroad towns. Harbin was the administrative center of the … Continue reading →

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Detroit’s new QLine streetcar

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Christopher Winters

Most of the new, short, slow, and infrequently-running streetcar lines built in the United States in the last few years appear to have been constructed at least to some extent for reasons having little to do with any possible role as transportation facilities. Many seem … Continue reading →

Posted in Rail infrastructure, Transportation, Urban | 1 Comment

Waiting for traffic lights to change on the new Expo Line

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Christopher Winters

When I was in Los Angeles three weeks ago, I naturally rode the new Expo Line between Santa Monica and downtown a couple of times. I can confirm that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has a hit on its … Continue reading →

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Fantasy transit in Chicago: a proposal

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Christopher Winters

Building urban rail lines has always been expensive, and one of the consequences of this is that many more lines have been proposed than built. The shelves of Northwestern University’s excellent Transportation Library, for example, contain approximately 75 books or reports … Continue reading →

Posted in Rail infrastructure, Transportation, Urban | 7 Comments