We've posted the slides and a printer-friendly version of our subway expansion report, A Better Billion!
Slides: transitcosts.com/ABB_Presenta...
Printer-friendly PDF: transitcosts.com/A_Better_Bil...
NYT write-up: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/n...
The OG interactive: transitcosts.com/a-better-bil...
It seems like for it happen they (the governing politik) need to find someway to add rapid transit to the area before spending double digit billions to create another subway desert of sorts
to tunnel under SSY you need a TBM launch box somewhere to stat the tunneling, so you would also need dig the launchbox.
Since you are digging the launch box site and excavating stuff, there is a non-zero chance that the site can allow for a station to be constructed at the same site.
LIE line needs a portal southeast of SSY to connect to the existing 63rd st tube connection. Guess what can we do with that portal when the TBM are done pushing :7
@eensari.bsky.social for Dr. Elif Ensari's BlueSky handle. :D
@egoldwyn.bsky.social, @ndhapple.bsky.social, Dr. Elif Ensari and I are all going to talk about a portion of the report. I'm also happy chat about the report after the Q&A session!
We at the Transit Cost Project are hosting an event on our most recent report, "A Better Billion", at 370 Jay St in Brooklyn on March 4th.
If you are interested in hearing about the planning proposal in person and ask your burning questions on the report, RSVP on Luma here: luma.com/ub7q20a6
Power capabilities aside, I don't see HSR doing 350kph in the the snow with third rail :3
Now I want a (12) train shirt to go with this.
Some immediate points of improvement comes to mind:
- Longer consists beyond married pairs to free up more space for seating on passenger cars
- a 2-2 seating config and central vertical poles for higher standing capacity during peak hours
- more M9A style digital signage and PA
Zefiro 250 (CRH1A-A) and its China Rail predecessor Regina X55 (CRH1A/B) are Swedish intercity EMUs originally intended for intercity frequent stop services. The Regina X55 (CRH1A/B) even have a single large door design similar to the M7/8/9s. They are also high floor.
Abstract for Transportation for the Abundant Society: A growing chorus known as the abundance movement seeks to overcome artificial scarcity in the built environment—especially housing. Yet this movement’s signature goal of increasing housing production collides with a central driver of scarcity: development restrictions rooted in traffic concerns. Advocates often assume that building more housing will generate support for needed transportation reform. Experience suggests otherwise. In auto-dependent regions, adding housing without reconfiguring transportation tends to reinforce the logic of restriction. Unlocking abundance’s promised feedback loops requires re-grounding transportation policy in its relationship to land use. This Article makes two contributions. First, it introduces into legal analysis a core urban-planning framework: transportation accessibility, which evaluates system performance by users’ ability to reach destinations. Though facially modest, anchoring policy in accessibility would depart sharply from a century of practice, with significant implications across state and local government law. Second, drawing on 13 original interviews with current and former transportation officials, the Article develops a novel account of institutional barriers to reform. Far from the marble corridors and mahogany courtrooms where law is articulated, transportation policy is functionally made in the unglamorous offices of state and local government. We call this institutional crucible—shaped by agency culture and industry convention as well as hard law—“transportation policy linoleum.” It helps explain why proven, seemingly unobjectionable reforms routinely wither. The Article closes with a policy playbook designed to help accessibility break through the linoleum and deliver abundance.
Table of Contents CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 I. ABUNDANCE AND TRANSPORTATION POLICY 6 A. The Rise of Abundance 7 B. Transportation as a Binding Constraint 10 II. THE PURPOSE OF TRANSPORTATION POLICY 17 A. What Counts as Success? 18 B. From Mobility to Access 20 C. Transportation Policy Spillovers 24 1. Housing affordability 24 2. Climate mitigation 28 3. Roadway safety 29 III. OPERATIONAL BARRIERS TO REFORM 32 A. Network Effects and System Interdependence 33 B. Operational Complexity and Risk 34 IV. LEGAL BARRIERS TO REFORM 36 A. NEPA and the Dawn of Conservation Primacy 36 B. Judges as Planners: California’s CEQA Regime 40 C. Judges as Planners Around the Country 44 1. Minnesota and comprehensive planning 44 2. Washington, D.C. and density review 46 3. Montana and constitutional penumbra 46 V. TRANSPORTATION POLICY LINOLEUM 48 A. Policy “In Books” and “In Action”: 13 Interviews 48 B. Fragmentation and Coordination Failures 49 C. Path Dependence and Institutional Lock-In 53 D. Legal Risk and Defensive Administration 55 VI. A POLICY PLAYBOOK FOR ACCESS 57 A. Behavioral Data as Participation 57 1. Ex ante participation 58 2. Ex post participation 59 B. Realistic Alternatives Modeling 59 C. A More Honest Cost-Benefit Analysis 60 1. Requiring cost-benefit discipline 61 2. Accounting for opportunity costs and externalities 63 CONCLUSION 64
ToC continued, plus first bit of text from article: A central claim of the emerging “abundance agenda” is that in the physical world, more is more: more housing, more clean energy, and more infrastructure to support both. Abundance brings the American promise of plenty into policy, arguing that government should expand capacity—so that individuals can access the good life and society can advance climate goals, scientific discovery, and prosperity. In both its academic and popular expressions, the ideologically diverse movement contends that law has created artificial scarcity and that the remedy is to loosen outdated constraints and rebuild state capacity so government can build and approve major projects—housing, transportation, energy, health—more quickly and reliably. Abundance draws on a substantial literature diagnosing law-made supply constraints in American public policy. Its core question is pragmatic: how to clear regulatory blockages to enable more building. Scholars have long identified such blockages at the intersection of land use and transportation, from highways to high-speed rail. Yet even improved megaprojects would not meet most Americans’ daily transportation needs. And the connection between transportation policy and abundance remains underdeveloped, even as political interest grows.
✨ introducing… ✨
🌇 Transportation for the Abundant Society 🚅
"Abundance" says our problem is artificial scarcity—especially housing. But you can’t build your way out if transportation policy still treats traffic flow as sacred.
Transportation is the binding constraint. ssrn.com/abstract=538...
I think it is more akin to proving how good presentations and illustrations of a fanatical concept get people excited for the wrong reasons. It hasn't fully rotted through.
Yet.
Aim:
- Relieve Line 8 at its busiest overcrowded segment
- form the basis for future N-S Express at the hardest segment
- Connect to Shanghai Railway station for further north extension into Baoshan
- from Yangsi for a southern extension down to Pujiangzhen, a high density residential community
Metro Area: Shanghai
A 10-Mile Subway deep-bore North-South Connection between Shanghai Railway Station and the Yangsi District in Pudong.
Type: DC1500V 100kph 8-Car Type A Trains with average station spacing of 1.2-1.5 km.
Momentum, Supercharged.
Some questions I ask whenever I see a crayon like this:
I don't think we wrote it to be synergistic in the first place.
Hi Zohran, we at the Transit Cost Project just published a report planning for how the New York City can build affordable housing and good transit together - all year long, for 40 years.
Let's plan a city that plans for the future, together.
transitcosts.com/a-better-bil...
No notes. Love the header image @davecolon.bsky.social
nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/02/02/f...
I am now off the clock, so I am officially, formally, incredibly thrilled that 'A Better Billion' is now in the world. And it's absolutely surreal to help with something that ends up with a feature in The New York Times. -- transitcosts.com/a-better-bil...
Dare to Dream,
Ambition to Build.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
A big thanks to Bloomberg CityLab to cover the project!
It has been fun working on the A Better Billion project over the last couple of months. You can check out the full StoryMap here: transitcosts.com/a-better-bil...
Also the gift article link to the NYT coverage of our plan;
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/n...
This "beigeness"accompanied me through high school 🙃
The period before alignment announcement invites the most discussion and is exciting. Though the current images for the OTT-MTL section are not inspiring confidence at all.
Line 5 and 6 can be the prime examples of Jumping-out-hole-we-dug-for-oursevles-ism. I still remember the time when I saw the TTC getting award for best transit system in NA (2017-ish).
H(C)opium: maybe Line 3 can avoid these pitfalls and try to build a REM-esque service in Toronto.
I wrote a thing.
Build trams, but build them well.
Understanding what tramways are, what they do best and how to employ them.
open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...
To me, this One Seat Ride favourtism is more copium and hopium about perceived reliability than actual blanket reliability metrics. More consistent and predictable headway spill over to increased travel certainty and deconstruct One Seat Ride desires.
