Local initiative in Huntsville, Alabama aims to improve security by banning problem customers across 18 bars

One of the first issues I got involved in in DC had to do with the overconcentration of liquor stores in my downtrodden neighborhood.  Such is linked to increased crime and community problems ("The Association between Density of Alcohol Establishments and Violent Crime within Urban Neighborhoods," Alcohol, Clinical and Experimental Research).  

I had learned about Seattle creating special zones to limit the sales of single bottles of beer, as an attempt to limit those problems ("Seattle may extend alcohol-sale limits to much larger area," "City tries to curb liquor sales," Seattle Times).  In 2003, the Washington Post published a story on those efforts ("Neighbors fight beer sales") and I got my picture in the paper (albeit on a slow news day)..

I wasn't against the sale of alcohol in managed situations (restaurants and taverns) unlike my neighbors, who couldn't see the difference in effect of on premise consumption of alcohol versus off premise consumption ("Restaurants and liquor licenses--How much is too much on H Street?," blog, 2005).

But the fact is, with establishments that are more alcohol-forward than food forward, with entertainment, music, dancing, etc., drinking can fuel violence.  I advocated for better security plans, and places did have them.

From "Bar Brawls," University of Toronto Magazine.

But one big problem is the focus not on sequestering and having the police deal with perpetrators, the plan is "to move them outside, off the premises, where it is no longer our problem."

All that does is displace the problem, it moves it from inside the club to outside, and the problem continues.  The media is full of articles about such problems all around the country, culminating in shootings and sometimes, deaths.

A consortium of clubs in Huntsville is dealing with this proactively, by maintaining a list of problem customers/people who have been banned, sharing the list across their 18-member group, and not permitting them to enter the premises to begin with ("North Huntsville bars band together to blacklist troublemakers across 18 venues," Fox 54/Rocket City News). 

The network allows participating venues to share information about patrons who have caused problems at any location within the group. When security staff scan a customer's identification at the entrance, the system immediately alerts them if that person has been banned from another business in the network, showing the duration of the ban, the reason for it, and which establishment issued it.

... Jabar Westbrook, owner of Goodtimez Billiards and other north Huntsville businesses, said the system addresses a common problem where troublemakers simply move from one venue to another after being ejected.

"Sometimes it's the same people going from place to place causing trouble, and so we're just trying to create consistency where no matter what, those people who are troublemakers can't just go somewhere else," Westbrook said.

This program makes a lot of sense, allowing bars to be proactive, instead of reactive.  It expands the range of options discussed in Assaults in and Around Bars, 2nd Edition (Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Arizona State University).

DC: Professional Tennis and a new football sports complex | The missed connection for good planning, transit, and intensifying uses where appropriate

Rock Creek Tennis Center, Washington DC.

The National Park Service has put forth a tender to rehabilitate the William Fitzgerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park ("Feds seek private money to upgrade tennis center that hosts DC Open," Washington Post).  From the article:

The National Park Service this week issued a request for proposals seeking a long-term lessee to renovate and operate the aging tennis complex in Rock Creek Park, calling for at least $25 million in private investment and setting an unusually compressed timeline for bids.

The request was posted late in the day [December 17th]. Proposals are due Jan. 20, just 34 days later, with the agency indicating it hopes to have a lease in place as soon as March.

The short term of the tender makes people think the project is dialed in for venture capitalist Mark Ein, who runs the tennis tournament there.

Area resident Binta Robinson had the great idea of marrying the tennis center to the plans for the development of a new football stadium at the RFK campus, based on the example in Miami and the tennis complex integrated into the Hard Rock Stadium there.  I thought it was a great idea, and wrote about it ("You get what you plan for: the multi-use Miami Hard Rock Stadium versus typical football stadiums | Washington Commanders").

I also submitted public comments on the stadium project ("Public comment period: Redevelopment at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus | Closes December 19th").  Those comments were due two days after the release of the Tennis RFP.

But obviously, these two projects are not seen as potentially complementary but located the stadium. Although Ein owns a stake in the NFL Commanders football team as well.

Google Earth view of the Rock Creek Tennis Center in between Rock Creek Park and the residential neighborhoods east of 16th Street NW.

A big problem with the tennis center and the Mubudala Open there is that it's located in a neighborhood, not in a place with multiple transportation options--definitely not Metrorail access, and limited parking.  It's not the kind of use that's congruent with neighborhoods.

Of course, given it's DC and that it's the Park Service, lack of vision shouldn't be a surprise.

This is what I call "designing conflict in," when the purpose of planning (not that there is planning going on here, more like project management) is to "design conflict out."

It's not that I don't believe in mixed use places.  But placement of uses ought to use the Dutch method where uses with high transportation demand are put into places where the infrastructure (road, transit, bike, pedestrian) already exists ("ABC Zoning: An Integrated Approach to Mobility Planning," Dutch Cycling Embassy).

In the Netherlands, there is a decades-long tradition of steering the cars to the highways in order to create more safety and more room for other users on the subordinated networks. In the Utrecht SUMP, the strategy aimed strongly for cars to use the ring road around the city in order to free up space for cyclists in the heart of the city. And the mobility strategy is not only about the routing of cars, but also about the strategic planning of parking places and traffic management. This all can help to create more space for other modes in the heart of the city.

While the Dutch, unlike the US, are focused on maximizing the shift of trips from motor vehicles to sustainable modes, the general point pertains.  Put high demand for traffic uses in places where the infrastructure already exists, to leverage existing public investment.  

This is doubly true given the amount of public investment for infrastructure that will be going into the RFK site. (Sadly, DC has already truncated the possibility of adding streetcar service within the RFK campus, "s.")

Big transit/sustainable mobility stories of 2025

Obviously this isn't everything.  But what sticks out to me.

=========

Congestion pricing in NYC.  In January I wrote that the introduction of congestion pricing in NYC was already the biggest ground transportation story of the year ("The most momentous transportation story of 2025 has already occurred: imposition of NYC's congestion zone").  Basically the results are in ("New York's Congestion Pricing Is Working. Five Charts Show Hows," Bloomberg).  It's working exactly the way it's supposed to.

As far as business effect goes, I worried about business relocation.  That may or may not be an issue.  But visitation to the core of Manhattan is up, and so are sales tax revenues, and reduction in storefront vacancies.  Plus MTA has $500+ million to invest in transit.

Protesters demonstrate outside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul's Manhattan office. Yuki Iwamura/AP

We have to remember that the Trump Administration is still fighting the congestion zone in court ("New York’s Congestion Pricing Succeeds as Trump Fights to End It," Newsweek).

That Gov. Hochul cancelled it ("The Politics That Derailed Congestion Pricing in New York," New Yorker), then reversed course, in part because of sustained public opposition to her decision ("‘Slap in the face’: outrage after New York governor halts congestion pricing," Guardian).  In the end, the price dropped from $15 to $9.

The second biggest story is ongoing financial crises for most transit systems, whose business models were crushed by covid and the shift to work from home.  Many systems have half or fewer the number of riders pre-2020.  And special federal funds for transit were increased under Biden, and not under Trump.

-- "San Diego transit at a crossroads? MTS boasts robust ridership recovery — but faces financial crisis," San Diego Union Tribune

In the SF Bay area, a referendum campaign is underway for two ballot measures to provide additional funding to all types of transit in the region.

Chicago area systems are getting a $1.5 billion payment from the state for the next few years ("Illinois enacts $1.5 billion plan to stabilize Transit and Avoid Service Reductions," Governing).

Philadelphia still needs a long term solution for SEPTA funding, as the Republican dominated State Legislature isn't particularly interested ("SEPTA got stopgap relief, but still needs a sustainable long-term solution," Philadelphia Inquirer, "Credit Shapiro for more SEPTA funds, but still need long-term fix,"  Philadelphia Tribune).  Etc.

Trump Administration uses crime incidents to demean and defund transit.  Using one-off terrible crimes to say transit is unsafe ("US threatens to withhold funds from Boston, Chicago transit agencies," Reuters, "Trump administration threatens to pull New York transit funds as it questions anti-crime efforts," AP, "Deadly stabbing on Charlotte train highlights America's transit safety challenges," ABC11), the Trump Administration used this event as an excuse to suggest defunding transit ("Trump Admin Issues New Threat After Charlotte Train Killing," Newsweek).

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, “Safety needs to be the top priority of elected officials. Citizens don’t want federal dollars going to public transportation that local leaders refuse to keep safe!”

The fact is, transit is safer than driving ("We Need a Reality Check on Crime, Safety and Transit," "New York City’s Subway Is Actually Safer Than Your Car," Bloomberg).  

As one of the implementers of broken windows policing in NYC said, "there are always going to be high profile one-off incidents, regardless of the overall program of crime suppression."

Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence, University of Chicago Press.

The big thing is the availability of guns ("A fighting chance: A new book challenges conventional wisdom on gun violence and suggests new approaches to solving the problem." University of Chicago Magazine), such as in LA ("Person fatally shot on L.A. Metro bus in Exposition Park," LA Times), where a fight between young adults erupted in gun violence and death on a bus.  

DC has a problem on the Metrorail system.  NYC has a problem with people who have extreme mental health issues.  SEPTA a problem with gun violence.

Problems in Minneapolis ("Metro Transit boosts uniformed security presence on light-rail trains," "What a week’s worth of rider text messages reveals about Metro Transit’s problems," Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and Seattle ("How Seattle-area transit is pushing back against crime," ), etc.

I still haven't gotten around to opining about how the BART system in San Francisco is using urban design interventions to improve safety at transit stations ("Can BART bring a Civic Center-style revival to another dilapidated S.F. station?," SF Chronicle).

Fare evasion countermeasures.  NYC, DC, and SF are installing much more difficult to evade emergency exit systems.

USDOT: all in for roads but not road safety.  Changing the funding criteria and basically eliminating transit infrastructure funding going forward ("T4America statement on USDOT proposal to eliminate federal transit funding"), same with sustainable mobility ("Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed ‘Hostile’ to Cars," Bloomberg) in favor of roads.  

Lots of road safety projects were cancelled because they think safety and diversity of users meaning not just automobile operators, are "woke."

Bike share growth in Toronto.

Bike share use in NYC, Washington, DC, Toronto ("How Bike Share Toronto got big — and what it will take to keep rolling," Toronto Today, "How Bike Share went from death’s door to one of Toronto’s fastest-growing ways to travel," Toronto Star) and Boston ("Bluebikes’ popularity has skyrocketed. This map shows where they are used most and where they lag," Boston Globe) is exploding.  

 DC's system launched in 2010, so it seems to me that it takes a long time to reach critical mass (see Diffusion of Innovation, ("Bikeshare Beat: Capital Bikeshare records over 6.1 million rides in 2024, fastest growing system in US," Greater Greater Washington and "Citi Bike, 10 Years Old and Part of New York’s Street Life," New York Times).  

-- "Shared Mobility's Role in Sustainable Mobility: Past, Present, and Future," Annual Review in Environment and Resources

Sadly, in many places, systems are minimally used or have shuttered operations, including high profile cities like Minneapolis ("Nice Ride shuts down pioneering Minneapolis bike share program," Minnesota Public Radio).  

It's important to figure out what separates successful places from the unsuccessful ones, to increase biking uptake.

Bike Share Toronto 2024 Business Review

One factor obviously is infrastructure along with urban form. Scale too.  

Plus, E-bikes have made a big difference too.  Although in response, cost per trip is higher.  I was always critical about e-bikes in the flat core of a city ("(Still) tired of mis-understanding of the potential for e-bikes," 2015) but it's not for me to say how people "should be using" bikes.

And of course, whether or not there is public subsidy as part of an overall transportation planning program.  Systems relying on sponsorship, like Minneapolis, fall apart when they can't replace sponsors.

-- Better Bike Share Partnership

Matt Elliott, a columnist for the Toronto Star warns us that as systems are successful, depending on the operator, they can focus more on extracting more revenue from riders, rather than improving the system ("Why dark clouds loom over Bike Share Toronto, despite its undeniable success," 2030 Bike Share Toronto Growth Strategy - Ride More, Connect More, Toronto Parking Authority, Presentation).

Here’s the problem. The TPA report, after justifiably bragging about its recent success, spends much of the rest of the document laying out ways to extract more money from the Bike Share riders who have contributed to that success. That includes “new revenue streams” like “loyalty programs, digital advertising networks, feature upsells, and advanced reservations.” It reads like a road map that could easily lead to what the tech writer Cory Doctorow has colourfully called “enshittification” — the process whereby online platforms and services decline over time as they change from focusing on what benefits users to what benefits their bottom line.

You know it when you see it. It usually starts when a service that previously offered a reasonable price and a good user experience begins constantly trying to sell you on their Premium Extra VIP Plus program while also showing unskippable ads for weight-loss drugs.

This decline can be an insidious process that starts with good intentions. For instance, Bike Share has had problems with dock and bike availability, especially at peak times of day. From the TPA’s perspective, allowing people to reserve a bike in advance for a small fee might seem like a good way to ease frustration. For users, however, a much better approach would be to add more bikes and docks in areas with high demand.

A swarm of Lime Bikes in London.

Note that the Economist argues dockless bike share is a key component to the success of bike share in London ("London has become a cycling city It shows how dockless-electric bikes could transform cities").

They argue that London is a cycling city now because of dockless bike share.).  

If one secret is making the bikes really electric, the other seems to be making them really dockless. Previously, bike-hire schemes offered a patchy service: it was often hard to find a bike and it could take ages to find a designated parking space. Today, London’s operators have more bikes. But critically they have negotiated relaxed parking rules, including on residential streets, meaning their fleets fan out widely. Lime claims that 97% of Londoners in its service area live within a two-minute walk of one of their bikes. As with Uber, it thinks users open the app if they know convenience is only a few minutes away.

This is run by operators separate from the TfL operated bike share system.   But parking and storage can be a big mess.

Slow as molasses new transit lines in Toronto ("Why does Toronto insist on taking the ‘rapid’ out of rapid transit?," Toronto Star), "City, TTC taking steps to improve service speed of Finch West LRT, Chow says," CBC).  They won't give streetcars priority over cars.

... But any Torontonian will tell you that just because the line is there on the map doesn’t mean it will get you where you need to be in any kind of hurry. Toronto has the distinction of running the slowest streetcar system in the world.

This is because the city and the TTC don’t consider it any kind of priority to make rapid transit rapid. They design these lines and choose how to operate them to ensure they are slow. On purpose. If that wasn’t clear before, it has become so in the debates at the TTC board and city council that have followed Torontonians’ astonished rage at the sloth-like performance of our new $3.5 billion LRT line.

Authorities decided to put 18 stops on an 11-kilometre route. They decided the vehicles should travel below 25 km/h (less than half the speed of the traffic beside them) through intersections and when approaching stations, assuring they will never get up to a decent speed. They decided the vehicles should stop endlessly at red lights and also be forced to wait for single-occupant vehicles make left turns or U-turns. They decided, quietly, that instead of the promised 33 minutes for a trip across the line, 48 minutes was a reasonable stretch goal — something to aim for after the slower “soft launch.”

Note that this is an issue for bus systems in most places as well.  Cars get the priority.  That should change.  Transit vehicles move far more people. 

Montreal REM expansion in Canada.  The REM is what some people call "light metro," and is a new complement ("Montreal’s New Rail Line Is the Future" Canada has forgotten how to build fast, cheap transit. A new megaproject has the fix," Maclean's), to the famed Montreal subway system, built and funded by the provincial pension system as an investment.  

But the thing is that it is above ground in most places.  Montreal's subway is 100% underground, so it can operate during terrible snowstorms.  Not the REM.  

Although to me, REM is a ripoff of government.  They get paid 75 cents per kilometer per passenger traveled per ride for 99 years.  That seems like a lot of money to me.  A 10km trip costs $7.50 Canadian ($5.45 US) to the government.  A good deal for the Pension Fund.  It would have been cheaper for local government to pay.  Financing through third parties is always more expensive.

DC dumping the streetcar ("DC makes yet another bad decision about streetcars: will replace the one line with a so called "fancy" bus | The Vision Thing," "Budget cut means D.C. Streetcar will shut down in March," Washington Post).  

This is the endgame for a poor planning process from "start" (not the initial planning) to finish.  I joke that DC and Seattle started streetcar planning in 2003.  Seattle got the first line in 2007.  DC in 2014.  

Also, the city received an unsolicited offer from the private sector to run and grow the system (that's how it's done in Portland, Oregon, home in the US to the first modern streetcar).  But they blew it off.

What could have been: "The DC Streetcar May Run to Benning Road Metro in 2026," DC Urban Turf.

As DC plans to build a new stadium for the NFL football team, the current streetcar alignment is adjacent, and could have been leveraged to provide service within the campus as a complement to bus and subway service, and link to more subway stations as another mobility alternative.

Relatedly, Minnesota's pathetic Northstar commuter railroad is closing--by not extending it to St. Cloud it wasn't particularly useful ("Minnesota's Northstar Commuter Rail to Be Replaced by Expanded Bus Service Network," Hoodline), cities in the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system are trying to opt out--an anti-transit State Government doesn't have DART's back ("So You Want to Leave DART?," D Magazine), and plenty of communities, like Illinois, refuse transit extension to their communities ("Huntley backs out of planned Metra station for new passenger train service between Rockford and Chicago," Lake County Scanner).

Electric bicycles.  E-bikes, unlike electric cars, do actually shift environmental metrics by reducing car trips ("For some parents, minivans are out and e-bikes are in," Boston Globe, "The best bike gets you out of your car," Bicycling, "How electric bikes reduce car use," Transportation Research: Part D), whereas EVs replace gasoline car trips, still creating traffic congestion and maintaining automobile dominance in the transportation planning paradigm.  But the lack of standards for equipment, safety, weight etc. create problems.

Safety/We need national standards.  Many communities are beginning to regulate electric bikes more closely in the face of deaths and accidents ("Molly’s Last Ride Twelve-year-old Molly Steinsapir crashed onto the pavement from a Rad Power e-bike and never woke up. With a poorly regulated e-bike industry, who is responsible when a child dies?," Bicycling).  

And complaints of reckless riding by pedestrians and motor vehicles operators.  Many in the micromobility world criticize this regulatory action, saying that accidents and deaths are still worse when it comes to motor vehicles.  Sure.  

True.  But working to reduce needless deaths wrt road safety (e.g., Vision Zero) should be the priority.  E bikes don't get a pass  ("14 year old riding an ebike on the sidewalk AT 25MPH, hits woman, she gets traumatic brain injury," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "Santee poised to ban e-bikes for children under 12 City will work with schools, community to educate them about the tougher regulations," San Diego Union-Tribune, "Toronto is looking at licences for e-bikes. Here’s why that may be better for delivery riders — and pedestrians," Toronto Star, "It’s getting hard to ignore e-bikes’ dangers: If drivers of cars are responsible for their crashes, drivers of e-bikes are responsible for theirs," Boston Globe).

Plus, because of the weight of an e-bike (too much for me right now), brakes need frequent adjustment.

So should standardization of rules across the US.  Many types of electric "bikes" are more akin to motorcycles, capable of speeds much higher than a typical "analog" bicycle, say the super riders can do 20mph.  Duffers like me, more like 12 mph.  There are even electric "bikes" that go faster than 28mph.  Those aren't bikes, they are mopeds/motorcycles.

Bankruptcy.  Not unlike the beginnings of the auto industry, the new technology of electricity powered bikes leads to lots of new entrants.  But there are far more entrants than there is demand.  

A few years ago a technology leading e bike company, Van Moof, went out of business, stranding users.  Although it was acquired and restarted by a firm specializing in sports equipment.

Rad Power Bikes, a company which has set up stores around the country, but is based in Seattle, just declared bankruptcy ("Seattle e-bike pioneer files bankruptcy, owes millions," Seattle Times).  And I'd been looking at that company for a bike, because I like the design.

Gondolas in Paris: the Transit City paradigm.  Paris, which continues to expand its system of train, subway, and tram (light rail) transit ("Map of the Grand Paris Express, Europe’s Larctgest Transit Expansion Project," The Urbanist), has added gondolas to the mix ("Europe’s longest urban cable car is unveiled over dazzling capital city," Metro UK, "In the Île-de-France region, a cable car to reduce urban inequalities," Le Monde).

The new line, the first of its kind in the French capital, has been designed to connect the city’s isolated outskirts, poorly served by trains and buses, to the Métro network. At 4.5 kilometres long, the route links Métro Line 8 in Créteil to Villa Nova in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, and passes through Limeil-Brevannes and Valenton on the way.

The cable car system — which features 105 gondolas with 10 seats each — is expected to carry around 11,000 passengers per day above Parisian streets. While the new cable car is the longest in Europe, it still lags behind the longest in the world, which connects the Bolivian cities of La Paz and El Alto over 20 miles.

Although to be fair, projected ridership is equivalent to a medium usage bus line.  OTOH, offering much faster trips and greater access and connectedness on "social urbanism" grounds.

The Le Monde article makes clear it took a long time, about 20 years, from idea to fruition.   But it was also implemented.  It's an example of the idea that to be a "Transit City" you have to keep investing in and where practical and needed, building new infrastructure.

Meanwhile proposals in DC for connection between the Rosslyn Metrorail station and Georgetown, Staten Island to New Jersey ("Bayonne mayor gives aerial gondola plan a thumbs up," Staten Island Advance) and Los Angeles ("Metro votes to approve Dodger Stadium gondola project despite protests," Los Angeles Times) languish.

Passengers wait Saturday at the new Star Lake Station. (Karen Ducey / The Seattle Times)

Transit expansions.  Are still happening, with projects that predate the Trump Administration.  One notable is Seattle ("New light rail stations open with South King County party," Seattle Times).  Each expansion generates a lot of new ridership, much more than say the Silver Line did for Metrorail in Suburban Virginia.

Last year’s extension to Lynnwood opened up the northern suburbs; this year’s stretch into Redmond welded together the tech-heavy Eastside; and now the jump to Federal Way is anticipated to be a boon for workers and students in South King County.

Up to 23,000 riders a day are expected to board or exit a train at the three new stations, boosting ridership along that 1 Line spine from the current 110,000 daily average. The Eastside’s 2 Line carries about 10,000 passengers a day, but its popularity is expected to grow once it connects with the 1 Line next year.

It's an example of how I say that transit infrastructure, done right, can have the speediest return on public investment, so it should be seen as an economic development measure.

Vision Zero/Road Safety.  For another entry, this is too long as it is.

Meanwhile, many legacy cities continue to lag

Pittsburgh.  AP ran a story, asking the question, "How does Pittsburgh have 20,000 vacant homes -- and a housing shortage?."  The reason for the large number of vacant properties is because more suburban housing was built than there was demand, hence housing abandonment in Pittsburgh.  

This is abetted by the fact that the Pittsburgh metropolitan area isn't growing all that much. The population has been stagnant since 2000, and shrunk some from 1990 to 2000.

Cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis etc. have the same problem.  Hence many vacant lots and abandoned buildings ("Vacancy: America’s Other Housing Crisis," Bloomberg).

From a filtering perspective, if you want to live in the city, there are plenty of options--e.g. houses that today cost over $600,000 could be bought in 2003 for under $125,000.  But if not enough people want to live in the city, the overhang of vacant properties remains.

Another point is how much demand is there really?  One example is a small developer, believing that the relatively low income Hill District "needed" more upscale housing to appeal to new market segments, hasn't been able to sell the houses ("Six new townhomes. Zero buyers. And one developer on the brink," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). 

I think the headline of the AP story is misleading, because it doesn't discuss at all a housing shortage in Pittsburgh.

DC.  The market turned in favor of urban living--the federal employment engine was strong and grew further as a result of the government response to 9/11 and the need for improvements in security technology ("Understanding the DC housing market: demand for urban living, not the construction of new housing, is the driving force," 2021) and vacant housing was rehabilitated and occupied.

Only with the Trump Administration's recent destruction of the federal government, especially for jobs and agencies based in DC and the suburbs, has DC's housing market turned downward ("DOGE Is Dampening the DC Real Estate Market," Washingtonian).

Public Land banks.  But when they do want to live in the city, the properties need to be rehabilitated and the cost can be extremely high relative to costs of existing housing.  The AP article argues that Land Banks, public authorities that acquire and sell vacant properties, are a potential solution.  

Philadelphia.  Photo: Matt Rourke, AP.

But most move particularly slowly with many bureaucratic hurdles and are usually underfunded ("City Council grills Land Bank on selling only 1,017 vacant properties in over a decade," Philadelphia Inquirer).

In Detroit, the Land Bank there has more recently acted as a developer to get buildings in shape for sale or rent.  Some neighborhoods have done better than others, and so the Land Bank is criticized for differential effects ("Detroit's land bank says it has led a city housing revival. The jury is still out," Detroit News)

Nonprofits. Various nonprofits, in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere, also do this kind of property rehabilitation, sometimes with the aid of receivership statutes, providing the ability to clear confused titles and cancel outstanding liens.

Lesson: focus.  Most of the successful nonprofit efforts focus on particular neighborhoods, aiming to build a critical mass of improved housing, rather than take on a scattered site approach.  This is tough though politically, because everyone wants their neighborhoods to be improved.

Luxury Apartments Are Bringing Rent Down in Some Big Cities

 According to Bloomberg.  

This is the filtration/filtering argument, that as newer housing is added, people move up to better housing, and in turn are replaced by others moving up similarly.  

I've argued in strong market cities, where housing demand is greater than supply, that filtration doesn't work. Demand for housing means that there isn't a lot of movement even when new supply is added, because demand remains greater.  So lesser quality housing is priced upward without commensurate improvements.  This has been confirmed by recent research.

I argued that only over long periods of time do new additions to housing supply--being priced at the top of the market because prices reflect today's cost for land, labor, materials, and financing--reduce prices.

So in the cities discussed by Bloomberg, the issue is that housing supply, finally, is greater than demand, hence the price drop.

In Salt Lake, at a public meeting last month, the planning director said a vacancy rate of 15% was good, because that put a damper on housing prices ("Apartment glut in SLC leads to lower rents and incentives from landlords," KSL).

After four years of record supply and double-digit rent growth, now there is a glut, leading to competition, heavy concessions and an average drop in rents of 8.25%.

Smith said that while rents are stable in most areas outside of Salt Lake City, they will start increasing if in-migration grows and the glut of apartments is absorbed.

In Salt Lake, the blog Building Salt Lake reports, "Rent is falling in Salt Lake City. It’s putting the squeeze on low-income housing developers," that the "glut" has made it hard to rent out lower income "affordable housing."

Tracking waste water for diseases/epidemiology

The website WastewaterScan is a dashboard reporting out on various markers  for infectious disease found by studying waste water.  But only for those places collecting and reporting the data.  So you can get it for Salt Lake City, but not Washington, DC.

Holiday transit decoration

Many transit agencies run holiday trains.  In NYC it's a retro train running on Sundays.  Chicago goes all out ("Who’s behind the CTA holiday train? Santa and the elves, of course.," WBEZ/NPR).  

The Canadian Pacific Railroad, now CP Kansas City has run a Holiday Train on their system for decades.

And the Metro-North (and METRA) commuter lines.  Metro-North New Haven photo by Gregory Grice.

ABC4 in Utah reports, "UTA gets festive by decorating Ensign Peak radio site with 3,000 feet of Christmas lights," that the Utah Transit Authority has put holiday lights on its radio signal tower.

Reddit reports holiday treated transit in Moscow.  The one that struck me as different is for a light rail vehicle, although some commenters figured it might be AI generated.

In Dallas, DART has a decorated light rail train ("DART rolls out decorated holiday train, buses," Community Impact).

Montgomery County Maryland (and others) do buses.

I haven't been able to find images of Hanukkah decorated transit in Israel.

Little Free Blockbuster in Salt Lake City

KUER/NPR reports, "Salt Lake City’s 1st Free Blockbuster is a fun antidote to streaming sticker shock," that a Salt Lake woman, Kate Kowalczik, has created a branch of a Little Free Blockbuster, a version of a Little Free Library for lending and returning videos.  

Since LFLs are about taking books, not returning them, it will be interesting to see how this works out.

I have read complaints by some LFL sponsors that people who sell books online come through and take everything from their libraries.

Big Time College Sports Teams should lose their tax exempt status

 Was the focus on an opinion piece in the Washington Post, "It’s a strange ‘charity’ that pays fired football coaches $228M," calling attention to the high salaries of coaches and the outlandish costs of contract buyouts.  

In Pennsylvania, some county courts have ruled that the high salaries of nonprofit hospital presidents are such that local properties may/or not be eligible for tax exempt status, because the impact is similar to for profit hospitals ("“Eye-popping” executive salaries led these hospitals to lose their property tax benefits," Lown Institute).  But two years later, the Philadelphia Supreme Court reversed the decision ("Pennsylvania court rejects nonprofit hospital property tax exemptions," RSM).

One of the issues, is like with professional sports where private equity is increasingly buying into teams ("What is behind the growth of private equity in sports?," JPMorgan), is that the same thing is on the verge with college football and related sports.

In the past five years, private equity firms have acquired stakes in teams across all four of the major U.S. professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL), and nearly one in five teams now has some level of PE involvement. What’s driving this surge?

Sports team ownership was once the preserve of the uber-wealthy, and that is still largely the case. But as the total valuation of sports teams in the four major leagues approaches $500bn, and with the average NFL team valued around $7bn, some franchises are growing even beyond the means of the wealthiest buyers. Private capital investors taking minority stakes allow ownership and risk to be shared among a larger group of investors, bringing an infusion of cash for opportunities such as the development of stadiums and surrounding properties.

The University of California private equity investment fund wants to buy into the BIG Ten League ("Michigan is a hard no. Where does Ohio State stand on Big Ten private equity deal?" USA Today, "But some of the universities like Michigan, are opposed ("UC Investments puts $2.4 billion Big Ten deal on hold amid pushback from Michigan and USC," New York Times).  From USA Today:

As part of the proposed deal, UC Investments would earn 10% of the Big Ten’s media and sponsorship rights earnings for 15 years, after which it could sell its stake. The remaining 90% would be divided among the schools, with payouts varying based on a university’s earning potential.

... At a previously scheduled meeting of Michigan's Board of Regents in October, members Jordan Acker and Mark Bernstein criticized the idea of bringing private equity into the conference, calling the deal "reckless" and "short-sighted." Bernstein, the board's chairman, specifically compared the deal to a "payday loan."

One of those members went as far to say that Michigan would consider leaving the Big Ten when the current media rights deal expires in 2036 if the deal goes through without unanimous approval.

... USC has also expressed some concern with the deal, though it hasn't gone as far as Michigan. USC's issue seems to stem from its position outside the top tier of member institutions. The deal currently calls for a tiered distribution of funds based on a school’s market value. Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State would be in the top tier and could receive as much as $190 million. The other schools would get anywhere from $110 million to $150 million.

But University of Utah, a decent football team but not often in the top 10, just pulled the trigger, and sold a portion of its sports operation to Otro Capital ("Utah approves partnership with private equity firm," ABC).  The expectation is that the sale will generate $500 million.

Otro Capital, based in New York, is the first for-profit company that will handle finances for Utes athletics. Decisions will still be made by athletic director Mark Harlan, but a new company called Utah Brands & Entertainment will oversee the department’s resources. Otro Capital will be a minority owner in Utah Brands & Entertainment. This will mark the first university partnership with a private equity firm in college sports.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rice-Eccles Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025.

Utah Brands & Entertainment will preside over tickets sales, stadium events, broadcasting, concessions, licensing, brand content and finance. However, coaches and athletes will remain with the athletics department. Fundraising will also remain with the school.

Also see "The risks and rewards of Utah’s private equity plans: Will others around college sports follow?," The Athletic.

Separately, Travis County, Utah is suing the University of Texas Club, a members-only private club that is an operation separate from the University, for property taxes ("Travis County sues UT Club over unpaid property taxes," Daily Texan).  It's reasonable as its a for profit business that happens to be located on nonprofit land.  There's really no public purpose.

Travis County filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Austin Independent School District, the city of Austin, Travis County, Travis County Health Care District and Austin Community College, which are all eligible to receive the county’s local property taxes, including taxes from the club, according to the lawsuit.

At the club’s cheapest membership level, it requires a $350 initiation fee and $125 monthly dues for non-faculty and staff members, according to the club’s website. It was recently renovated in 2024 and is the “epicenter of exquisite dining, first-class events, lively watch parties, vibrant social gatherings, and a celebration of Texas sports,” according to the website.

Increasingly, especially with massive television broadcast rights payouts, it seems that college football teams, and basketball, should be responsible for the payment of Unrelated Business Income Taxes (UBIT) as television revenues should not be considered a primary purpose of providing football as a university spectacle or opportunity for student athletes. 

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Also see "Stadiums and arenas as the enabling infrastructure for "money-making" platforms" (2014)

Anaheim, hotels agree to divert some tourism funds toward workforce housing

 Tourism taxes of various sorts, on hotel room rentals, rental cars, restaurant meals, etc., are collected and depending on the locality, in their entirety are used to promote tourism, may contribute to a community's general fund, and in some exceptional and creative uses, to support a multi-faceted approach to the tourism economy and its local effects, one of which is the increased price of housing, making it much harder for workers to live close by.

Anaheim is a leader in allowing tourism taxes to be used for housing ("Anaheim, hotels agree to divert some tourism funds toward workforce housing," Orange County Register).

By contrast the State of Utah stated that Grant County's use of the tourism tax revenue stream to support tourism support services like salaries for trail ambassadors is unsupportable ("County eyes $1M in reimbursements to resolve tourism tax dispute," Times-Independent).  

The tax, collected from overnight visitors at hotels, campgrounds and vacation rentals, is used to promote tourism, support recreation and film production, fund convention meeting rooms and museums and help manage the impacts of tourism on local communities.

A significant portion of the proposed corrections involves the Moab Trail Ambassador Program. Operated by Grand County Active Transportation and Trails (GCATT), the program stations seasonal staff at popular recreation sites to educate visitors, distribute supplies, monitor trail conditions and promote responsible trail use.

... In a 2024 audit, the state auditor’s office found multiple issues with Grand County’s use of tourism tax funds — including the use of TRT promotion funds to pay Trail Ambassador salaries in 2021 and 2022. The office said the ambassadors’ work, which they reduced to “providing water and encouraging tourists to stay on trails” as mitigation rather than promotion and said their salaries should have come from the mitigation category instead.

To me it indicates the regulations around the use of the tourism tax revenue stream are flawed.  But intriguing over the difference between "promotion" and "mitigation."

The historical antecedents of rail-based transit oriented development

Today, many transit "nerds" lament how countries like Japan have amazing railroad stations replete with stores and other amenities, or that MTR in Hong Kong is an active developer and a significant amount of their annual revenue comes from property leasing, not just rider fares.

What the nerds fail to recognize is that for that to work, you need incredible passenger volumes.  "Small" stations in Tokyo have at least 100,000 riders per day, allowing the creation of great places that are also attractive to non-train users.

Even in the US, Grand Central Station and Penn Station aren't great places for retail ("MTA struggles to fix the dead mall under New York City," Crain's New York Business) despite their relatively high volumes of riders.  

The food hall at Grand Central Station in better days.

Other cities, even DC or Philadelphia or Los Angeles, with grand stations have a difficult time as well.  Smaller places have no real chance.

That being said, subway systems like DC's have been quite good at fostering economic development, even though it can take decades for the effects to fully play out.  One success in particular has been the infill New York Avenue Station ("NoMa: the neighborhood transit built," Urban Land).

But the reality is that most of the areas served by Metrorail in DC's core, both commercial districts and neighborhoods, have significantly improved in the almost 50 years since the system began opening.

 And because government agencies aren't especially good at entrepreneurship, most of the direct benefits have been reaped by real estate developers, although cities benefit from the tax revenues they generate.

A thread on Reddit got me to thinking about the antecedents that laid the foundation for today what we call transit oriented development.

Before trains there were the waterways--rivers, oceans, ports, canals--and bumpy roads that weren't a network.  Before electricity, water was also used as a form of power for industrial operations in particular "mills."  Lowell, Massachusetts created a set of canals so that flowing water could power all sorts of industry. 

Erie Canal.

Before railroads, George Washington thought what became Washington, DC would become an excellent location for commerce, by developing the C&O Canal to provide access to the nation's interior.  But canals took a long time to dig, especially when they were dug by hand. 

Railroads ended up overtaking canals for the primacy of commerce--although barge traffic is still significant today in some places--because they could serve locations beyond proximity to a river.

Freight Train services facilitated industrial development, transporting raw materials to plants for reproduction into final products, transporting finished goods, agricultural products, etc.  

Food companies trading at the national scale developed in response to railroad-based transportation created the foundation of the mass market of the US as a whole, rather than goods being produced and traded more regionally, because of the high cost to get goods to market before train service existed.  

E.g., instead of just a handful of stove manufacturers or battery makers today, most big cities had their own firms, because of the expense of shipping super heavy items.

In time, passenger railroad services helped to develop cities more generally, but also "suburbs," more bucolic places in a metropolitan area not too long a trip from "the city." An astute conductor for the New York Central Railroad recognized he had repeat riders "to the city," and proposed a reduced rate to ride, "commuted" from the regular rate.  It spawned the term "commuter."

The streetcar, in various iterations, facilitated residential development outside of the core of center cities, which were pretty much developed.  These are referred to as "streetcar suburbs" by the academics (Streetcar Suburbs: the Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900).

In the DC area, Chevy Chase is a classic streetcar suburb.  Takoma Park is a classic railroad suburb (Chevy Chase: A Home Suburb for the Nation's Capital).

Within the city, outer areas from the central core, like Mt. Pleasant or H Street NE were opened up to development by streetcar services.

Business districts around train stations.  For both passenger railroad stations and termination points for the streetcars, usually a small commercial district developed, focused on the sale of convenience goods, often times the area around the station may have had tenements, apartments, boarding houses, etc., in part serving railroad workers, but also providing lower cost housing.  

This was true at two different scales, the areas around city train terminals, and the stations serving suburban and rural communities.

Grand Central Station.  According to the Smithsonian Magazine, "New York’s Grand Central Terminal Helped Provide the Blueprint for American Cities. It Happened by Accident."  Trains serving the city ran on the surface, using coal powered locomotives.  It was dirty and grimy.  

Grand Central Station as the first example of Station Area Planning.  Terrible train crashes resulting in multiple deaths led the New York Central Railroad to create a new station, where the yard and tracks serving it were undergrounded, leading to a newly constructed grand station.  To pay for it, they built a deck over the railyard, and then leased those spaces to developers of office buildings, hotels, and other commercial establishments.

The station, bringing together multiple train lines, led to the concept of the "Union Station" or Terminal served by multiple railroads, rather than each firm ending service at its own station.  (Chicago today is a great example of that form of service, as some of the stations predating Union Station still exist.)

Still, creating Union Stations was hard because railroads competing and didn't want to lose what they thought of as their competitive advantage.

Grand Central Station as a civic monument.  The Station is also notable for harnessing the architecture and design around the station as a civic monument and anchor of the city.  Special attention was paid to the design of the station in all aspects, including entryways, waiting areas, retail services including food, and travel to and from the platform--GCS is far superior to Penn Station when it comes to "herding" passengers on and off the trains.

The Santa Fe Railroad versus the Transcontinental Railroad.  President Lincoln initiated the transcontinental railroad project as a national building exercise, linking east to west.  Union Pacific Railroad, from Omaha, and Central Pacific, from Sacramento, met in Utah, creating a nationally serving freight and passenger rail service by connecting to eastern railroads.

But the transcontinental railroad had/has a problem.  It served the northern and upper central parts of the West, which are underpopulated, although still with plenty of business for railroads. But not as much business compared to other areas.

The privately created Santa Fe Railroad, serving the southern and lower central parts of the West, was much better positioned to facilitate and take advantage of commerce ("How the Santa Fe Railroad Changed America Forever," Smithsonian Magazine, "The Entrance of the Santa Fé Railroad into California⁠," Pacific Historical Review).  

Astutely, the company created cities at prominent locations served by the railroad, pairing them with economic development programs (most all the railroads did a form of this) and marketing the areas to future residents ("Santa Fe Railroad Built Empire," Los Angeles Herald-Express), "Railroads and Real Estate - The Pacific Land Improvement Company," Orange County Historyland) and tourists.

The large scale Western National Parks drew millions of tourists arriving by train 

A parallel firm, The Fred Harvey Company, working with the railroad, developed hotels and restaurants along the line, and in the national parks.  The park concessionaire firm Xanterra, has its foundation in the Harvey Companies.

Extension of the Santa Fe to Chicago further facilitated the development of rail-based commerce.  Montgomery Ward created the first large scale retail catalog operation in Chicago, leveraging access to the railroads meeting there, serving all parts of the country.  Etc.

Brightline Florida and modern TOD.  Is a new private passenger railroad service between South Florida and Orlando, home to Disney World.  They intend to extend service to Tampa and possibly at some point, Jacksonville.  

I argue the reason they can make it privately, maybe--right now they are losing tons of money--is because tourists arriving in Orlando don't need a car once they are at Disney World.  

Rendering of a future train-served Downtown in Stuart, Florida.

Anyway, they claim to be driven by real estate development as a significant source of future revenue.

I'm somewhat doubtful, although development is happening at their stations, because of the relatively low usage of the train, plus the fact that station locations don't necessarily lend themselves to development the way they might in Japan or Hong Kong, or even in Downtown DC.

But the real estate believes otherwise  ("Shaping Florida’s Urban Future With Transit-oriented Development," NAIOP, "Beyond the Tracks: A Valuation Expert’s Guide to the Stuart Brightline Station," Walter Duke & Partners).  

Ironically, the State of Florida is a classic example of antecedent TOD as it was opened up to development by Henry Flagler, a founder of Standard Oil, and his creation of the Florida East Coast Railway (Henry Flagler: The Astonishing Life and Times of the Visionary Robber Baron Who Founded Florida).

Although, like other transit infrastructure projects, its creation is having a positive effect on the residential real estate market too ("Home price boom along Brightline train route in Florida," New York Post).