Infrastructure Finance.

• Position: Brief Article

"All Aboard"

Kay, Jane Holtz

Planning, October 2000, pp. 14-19.

After its introduction in the 19th century, the railroad is finally making its way into the traffic-choked landscape of the urban West. This article focuses on the newest generation of rail and how it is helping cities curb sprawl and increase center-city development. The author says that "light rail" is the fourth generation of rail. She follows the introduction of railroads in the 1800s, the reliance on rail as a way of avoiding high gas prices in the 1970s, and the rail expansion of the early 1980s and 90s that was led by cities like San Diego and Portland. In this fourth generation, new rail lines are being built in car-oriented cities like Dallas, Phoenix, and Denver. Spurred by the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (now TEA-21), light rail has seen a 44.2 percent increase in miles of track over the past decade. With so many new...