The Met in Metro

  Shelters on the Sprinter Line in Charlotte are unique identifiers but also part of the urban fabric. Photo courtesy of CATS. Art has historically been public, civic – both a product of and contributor to collective identity.  From Egyptian glyphs to idealized Greek athletes, from Roman triumphal arches to intricate altar pieces, art condescends to tell us something about who we are, where...

Through the Looking Glass

This is a visual metaphor of the Philly streetcar, an anachronistic machine that does not fit well into the contemporary urban fabric. Photo by Scheib. It looks like transit, sounds like money, and smells like politics.  It must be Philly’s Girard Streetcar Line. Philadelphia is home to over 118 miles of bona fide, in-the-asphalt, exposed streetcar rails, the greatest quantity in the country. ...

A Distinction Subtle and Broad

A SEPTA maintenance streetcar is followed by a passenger streetcar in west Philadelphia. Photo by Bill Mohnahan of Friends of the Philadelphia Trolleys. It is one of the great ironies of American life that suburban sprawl—a low-density pattern of development that is difficult to serve with public transit—was created by public transit.  Frank J. Sprague created the first successful electric...