Good stuff elsewhere

1. Washcycle , in "Purple Line Series"

2. mentions a six part series on the Purple Line from Just up the Pike.

3. Frozen tropics links to a 4 part series in Wired about bus rapid transit -- you know my feeling about that probably but you need to know about it in order to be critical...
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

in North America, people won't stand for the patron densities on buses that they do in successful BRT implementations in South America...

4. I was a bit mean about an idea from some consultant about saving Detroit via Canadian immigration--he completely misses the point about what the real issues are in the Michigan economy. See "Tale of Two Border Cities" from All About Cities and the link to the original blog entry.

5. The Artful Manager blog from the Arts Journal has an interesting blog entry, We manage what we measure, so let's measure what we value, about how New Jersey is doing a school-by- school arts education census.

6. Act for Transit has a swift fundraiser for the Purple Line in October.

7. I disagree with the entry "Consider This for the Smart SmarTrip," in the Commuter Page blog about steep discounting of fares for those with Smart Cards, at least in terms of the idea of tagging visitors with much higher charges. (1) we don't want people who don't know the streets to be driving on them; (2) they pay for the system through their federal taxes as well as visitor taxes; and (3) it's probably not all that much money in the great scheme of things.

8. Plus they link to "a great video about Velib' from New Zealand's TV3 titled 'Bikes hoped to lessen Paris traffic woes'. Velib is the bike sharing system in Paris.

9. The Commuter Page blog also links to a Streetsblog entry linking to an essay from noted Danish architect and urban planner, Jan Gehl of Gehl Architects. The essay is "How to build a place for people, not for cars". It's not the most amazing piece but... this is a most amazing piece by Jan Gehl, Close Encounters with Buildings.