Matthew Yglesias Quotes

How we fund transportation in this country is broken. You all pay a gasoline tax, right? Well, cars go farther, we get electric cars, and so on. And then we do more with the money than just build roads. We do bike lanes and mass transit.

I'd ban all automobiles from the central part of the city. You see, the automobile was just a passing fad. It's got to go. It's got to go a long way from here.

We could live in a much better society if there was less personal car ownership.

In my first 100 days as Ontario's Minister of Transportation, I found a willing municipal partner in the City of Toronto that shares our goal of better, faster transit.

In March 2005, I was appointed to the board of the Santa Barbara metro transit district. I was incredibly optimistic about how public transportation can be the solution to help people live in the city and not need a car.

In Minneapolis, the overhead sky walks protect pedestrians from the winter cold and snow.

One of the challenges that Vancouver and cities across the country are facing is that we don't have a federal partner in terms of building for transit, not in the way we need.

'Green' cannot be allowed to become an excuse for stealth taxes. And nor should 'green taxes' be about punishment. Instead, they should represent a switch of emphasis. So if domestic flights are taxed, it should be on the absolute condition that the money is ploughed into improving the alternatives, such as trains.

When you're in N.Y.C. and they shut down one of the bridges, this is a movie!

We continue to subsidize highways and aviation, but when it comes to our passenger rail system, we refuse to provide the money Amtrak needs to survive.

The auto industry must acknowledge that a rational transportation policy should seek a balance between individual convenience, the efficient use of limited resources, and urban-living values that protect spaciousness, natural beauty, and human-scale mobility.

Growing up in New York City, my car culture is minimal. I rode on the train, the bus. I walked; I rode my bike, and when I was younger, I rode my skateboard.

What Paris has done right is to make it awful to get around by car and awfully easy to get around by public transportation or by bike.

We're investing record sums on buses and trains. We have a huge programme to encourage people to walk and cycle, and everyone up to and including the PM has been looking closely at how we can promote electric vehicles, hybrids, and other technologies.

Deep walkability describes a city that is built in such a way that you can move from one area to another on foot, on bicycle, on transit and have an experience that remains a pleasant one, that you feel you are welcome not just in the neighborhood but moving between neighborhoods.

We must do all we can to reduce congestion in our urban areas and increase access and mobility in our rural areas, and this extra funding will help us get there.

Infrastructure deficit is an issue in all urban areas.

Investing in rail is an easy way to reduce congestion, cost, and energy consumption and make our producers more competitive.

In Chicago, we have a century-old transit system that desperately needs updates to keep up with increased capacity.

Even before you get to self-driving vehicles, there's just a huge amount of positive things that happen to cities when you do ridesharing.

People want subways, folks... subways, subways. They don't want these damn streetcars blocking up our city!

Mobility in India is going to be different from the West. In America, people would look at an autorickshaw and say, 'This is a passing thing.' But in India, you know it will stay because it is fast and convenient.

We are not opposed to public transportation. We are opposed to wasteful boondoggles.

Our goal was to completely change transportation. Change traffic. And make it possible to get anywhere you want to go without owning a car.

I'd be quite happy if cars were banned from central London. Why are we not using little tuk-tuks rather than big black cabs?