TransitCenter's Best Worst Most of 2016 - TransitCenter
December 12, 2016
TransitCenter’s Best Worst Most of 2016

The year in brilliant, confounding &

lamentable transportation developments.

 

1. Least-vetted gigantic multi-billion transit proposal unveiled during an annual mayoral address: Bill de Blasio’s “BQX”

2. Best piece ever written about Uber and public policy: Wired/Aarian Marshall’s “3 hot tips”

3. Most flabby, overused term: “Smart cities.” Here’s transit use in a few of our “smartest” cities

4. American city that’s killing it: Seattle’s rail ridership has tripled and bus ridership continues to skyrocket

5. American city that’s killing transit: Washington, D.C., obviously

6. Transit savages: ridership is actually up on Boston’s T despite trains that conk out, catch fire and derail 

Photo by Florian Penzkofer for Universal Hub

7. Best Fake Agency Twitter Feed:  @mbtasnafu 

8. World’s best Mayor: Anne Hidalgo of Paris continues to remove roads and expand walking, cycling and transit


9. Best “better in Europe” coverage: our look at Paris trams

10. Harshest dollar per person transit investment: We declare a tie! Honolulu struggles to build rail system at $9.5 billion for 119,000 projected riders, while the Fort Worth Transportation Authority invests one billion for a projected ridership of 13,000

11. Hotter than Hotcakes award: More cities catch on to reorganizing bus systems around frequent service

12. Literal Gordian Knot of a bus route: DC’s W2/W3


 

13. Best response to bus underperformance: Charlotte transit boss John Lewis reads advocates’ position, launches bus system reorganization

14. Worst: NY’s MTA claims “they’re already doing it” in response to Bus Turnaround recommendations

15. “Ooh shiny!” knucklehead award: To any outlet who wrote non-satirically about the Chinese “straddle bus”  

16. Best & Worst amNY covers: Bus Turnaround vs. Melo

17. Most Times-ian local story: Brutal finding a cab during Ramadan

18. Most glorified sidewalk masquerading as urban transportation project: The Atlanta Beltline

Dustin Chambers for the New York Times

19. Worst bus tech choice: USB over TSP in New York


20. Weirdest tenet in the automated vehicle cult: when the taxi drivers become robots, people will sell their cars

21. Best ‘This is Fine” Transit moment – Montreal bus / car sledding

22. Best gif we won’t get to use to criticize the president’s transportation policies 

23. Best way to defend transit during the next four years: Donate to your local transit advocacy organization

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