Evergreen Point Road transit stop in progress by Washington State Department of Transportation.

Why is the US behind other countries in building transit? 3D printed housing, NASA’s carbon dioxide insights.

Why the US is so bad at building transit: The United States spent more than $47B on 1,200 miles of new and expanded transit lines from 2010 to 2019, but still lags relative to the rate of transit construction in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Aaron Gordon notes that the US builds less public transit per urban dweller than its peer countries, and that what has been built recently is in sprawling metro areas that do not support transit well. (Aaron Gordon | Motherboard)

3D-printed homes for people experiencing homelessness: Icon, an Austin-based startup, is building six small homes outside the city in a community it dubs the “Community First! Village.” Icon designed a 3D printer to build the homes, believing that the approach may substantially drive down construction costs and ease delivering shelter for homeless individuals. (Adele Peters | Fast Company)

NASA’s carbon dioxide insights: A new NASA study analyzed carbon dioxide emissions from 20 major cities around the world with its first direct, satellite-based evidence that shows as a city’s population density increases, the carbon dioxide it emits per person declines. The study utilized a “top-down” approach to inventory emissions, using satellite-derived estimates of the amount of carbon dioxide present in the air above an urban area as the satellite flies overhead. (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech)

Replica not sharing its data sources: Replica, a startup that simulates virtual models of cities and their movement, has shown reluctance for over a year to give Portland Metro sufficient information about its privacy protections. It has failed to provide the transit agency a full report proving that its system is secure from the reidentification of actual people. (Kate Kaye | Fast Company)

Minnesota wants to limit city development rules: In an effort to lower housing costs, a bipartisan group of Minnesota lawmakers have proposed a bill that would bar cities from dictating what materials homebuilders must use or specify that new homes have big garages. Another bill would allow duplexes in any part of Minnesota for single-family homes and ensure cities are making room for higher density housing. (Eric Roper | Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Quote of the Week

“The design of sustainable communities is not about green technologies. It’s about the underlying code. It’s about zoning. It’s about the building code. It’s about property taxes. In most communities, property taxes, in fact, incentivize people to build bigger rather than smaller because we don’t have a progressive system of property taxation. So these kind of boring things about zoning, and about taxes and about building codes—that’s where the change is going to occur.”

Maurie Cohen in Fast Company talking about what the most equitable size home might be.

This week on the podcast, planners from the SFMTA talk about updating a trolleybus yard and adding housing on top.