Amal Ahmed

Cities can dramatically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by rezoning single-family housing areas for denser, mixed-use developments.

Ridership is still down, inflation, labor costs, pensions, and other operating costs are up, and many systems are slashing service. This is bad.

Memphis's iconic trolley service was recently shut down — and now, as agencies across America come up against hard fiscal realities, much of its bus service is on the chopping block, too.

A long-fought high speed rail project may be coming back from the dead — and what happens next could be instructive for other communities hoping to someday run trains in highway-dominated states. 

“Across the country, more and more cities are finding a simple way to lower housing costs: increase downtown development anchored in public transit and improve the environment by removing mandatory parking minimums,” Rep. Robert Garcia said.

“They’d discuss budgets, billions and billions of dollars — and it’s obvious who their interests are,” she says. “I was there every month and never once did I hear them say, ‘People who are living in their grandma’s home, that’s their inheritance — [we want to make sure they] are being paid equally as all the big businesses downtown.’”