cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/43191242

Feb. 13, 2026

https://archive.ph/gBRoW

Free buses? Really? Of all the promises that Zohran Mamdani made during his New York City mayoral campaign, that one struck some skeptics as the most frivolous leftist fantasy. Unlike housing, groceries and child care, which weigh heavily on New Yorkers’ finances, a bus ride is just a few bucks. Is it really worth the huge effort to spare people that tiny outlay?

It is. Far beyond just saving riders money, free buses deliver a cascade of benefits, from easing traffic to promoting public safety. Just look at Boston; Chapel Hill, N.C.; Richmond, Va.; Kansas City, Mo.; and even New York itself, all of which have tried it to excellent effect. And it doesn’t have to be costly — in fact, it can come out just about even.

If free buses strike you as wasteful, you’re not alone. Plenty of the beneficiaries would be people who can afford to pay. Does it make sense to give them a freebie? Yes, if it improves the life of the city, just as free parks, libraries and public schools do. Don’t think of it as a giveaway to the undeserving. Think of it as a gift to all New Yorkers in every community. We deserve it.

The fact that everybody is suing LINX, the main contractor, makes it seem like they are in fact the ones screwing things up, rather than LAX. I just want it finished!

Podcaster interviews Executive Director of MoveLA to talk about existing and future plans of transit in LA.

What do you all think about this article?

I will agree the A line isn’t exactly amazing, but I also don’t completely agree with some assertions and experiences from the author. The author mentions how long it takes to get to the extremes of the A line, but the A line isn’t exactly meant to travel across vast distances quickly, its meant to provide connections along its routes. I do agree it would be nice to go from Pasadena to long beach very quickly, (in the same way with the E line being able to get to santa monica from East LA quicker), but we’d need to develop an additional tracks to allow faster service and/or priority to the line. Those can be done later. It feels like for a lot of LA’s history, creating train lines is important because of how hard it is to do, and how much harder it will be in the future.

I don’t quite agree with the author’s bad experiences on the A line. Yeah there are definitely bad times where the train smells horrible, or weird alarm things happen, but it is extremely rare in my experience and hasn’t dissuaded me from using it.

Paris continues to rock it on transit construction. It takes decades to modernize and refurbish a tier 1 city's infrastructure and they're well ahead of schedule on supporting the city's needs with new metros, trams, biking, and pedestrianized infrastructure.

Viva la France!

https://web.archive.org/save/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.webuildvalue.com%2Fen%2Finfrastructure%2Fmetro-paris-subway.html

Granted they've not been able to completely get around short-haul flights just yet, but they're getting there.

It has 10-minute headway!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30206481

As it turns out it doesn't actually cost that much on regular transit, there's an AIRPORT SURCHARGE because it's an "airport train".

No wonder Americans don't use public transit, even when the system exists it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to use.

Source

Yes, I know I'm inviting controversy with that title -- but the fact remains that Brightline has problems that make it very far from ideal. Criticism is warranted if the US is to have solid HSR at the level that Europe or Asia do.