TIL there is a brand new $4.5 billion bridge between Detroit and Windsor sitting unused because it has gotten caught up in Trump's petulant trade fight with Canada prospect.org/2026/06/08/g...
Monday's Most Read # 1 - Transit-Oriented Development Can Help Cities Grow. Which Urban Areas Are Doing Best? link.theoverheadwire.com/j8nrc Urban Institute @yonahfreemark.com
ryan cooper
Interesting read (as usual from @yonahfreemark.com): transit service levels, ridership & housing unit growth in large metros. Some surprises among ranking of transit service miles provided per capita by metro but less surprising a strong (not absolute) relationship between service levels & frequency
The Overhead Wire
Kate Lowe (she/hers)
Will the trade war leave a new bridge just sitting over an international waterway?
Awesome news, as it creates the groundwork for the Q train to connect with the 2/3, A/B/C/D, & 1 trains, improving connections between the east & west sides of Manhattan.
If you really wanted to do something wild & impactful, you'd keep the tunnel going past Broadway, under the Hudson, & into NJ.
New York City just reported its lowest murder rate in recorded history www.amny.com/news/may-202...
DUSP alumni representing!
"...income group stratification sharpened post-pandemic. By 2024, low-income renters, on average, spent 57.6% of their income on rent, as nominal incomes at the lower end of the wage distribution struggled to keep pace with rising rental rates."
www.chandan.com/post/the-k-s...
I've been arguing for the 125th Street crosstown extension of the Q only since.... 2008
Thanks to an expansion to Bellevue that opened in late March, the Seattle region's light rail system is now the most-used in the US.
@mclindblom.bsky.social confirms: Sound Transit is reporting about 155,000 daily trips on its Link light rail services www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
In total transit ridership per capita, the highest ranked large urban areas are:
1—NYC
2—SF
3—DC
4—Boston
5—Seattle
6—Chicago
7—Philly
8—LA
9—Portland
10—Salt Lake
www.urban.org/urban-wire/t...
Most large urban areas throughout the US have increased their housing supply near transit over the past four decades, encouraging more residents to live in n…
From 1980–2022, NYC urban area added ~700k housing units near rail stations. Other top performers on this front were DC, LA, SF & Chicago.
Despite their rail networks, the Dallas, Miami & Atlanta areas added 5% or less of their housing in rail-adjacent neighborhood.
www.urban.org/urban-wire/t...
The Second Avenue Subway is New York City’s biggest mass transit project, and its second biggest infrastructure project, just a little less expensive than the massive Water Tunnel Number 3, w…
Cool thing alert: New York is letting the MTA do environmental review just for the tunnel for 125th Street Q train extension, instead of doing SEQRA for the entire project at the same time, saving the MTA at least $175 million if the crosstown train gets built nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/06/05/h...
Yonah Freemark
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin claims Mamdani is "absolutely destroying a great city"
A one-off legislative tweak will let the MTA keep its tunnel boring machine underground between subway expansion phases.
I'm catching plenty of reader comments that say "What about New York?" "What about Chicago and Washington, D.C.?" A little known subtlety, found in the National Transit Database, tells us that metro Seattle transit use is slightly more per capita than Chicago, and similar totals to Philly.
