Eric Jaffe

I'm the former New York Bureau Chief for CityLab, a site about urban life formerly run by The Atlantic magazine (and now part of Bloomberg media), joining as a regular contributor when the site launched in September 2011. I've linked a selection of memorable or popular posts below.

FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION SERIES
In 2014, I edited a special year-long series on the “Future of Transportation” and curated some of the most popular pieces for an accompanying e-book.

FEATURE STORIES

• The First Look at How Google's Self-Driving Car Handles City Streets 

• Google's New Self-Driving Car Is About to Hit the Streets

• Can a New Urban Highway Avoid the Mistakes of the Past?

• Transit Projects Are About to Get Much, Much Easier in California

• The Geographic Legacy of 'Seinfeld'

• The Staggering Geography of Bob Dylan's 'Never Ending Tour'

• The Incredible Rise of Off-Peak Public Transportation

• The Plan That Could Finally Free New York City From Traffic Congestion

• Downtown Cleveland Is Turning a Traffic Hub Into a Public Park

• The Cracks in Chicago's Grand Plans for the Bus

TRANSPORTATION

• The Ideal Commute Is Not Actually No Commute

• The Real Reason U.S. Gas Is So Cheap Is Americans Don't Pay the True Cost of Driving

• The Complete Business Case for Converting Street Parking Into Bike Lanes

• Why the People in Charge of Transit Systems Should Be Required to Actually Ride Transit

• What France Can Teach U.S. Cities About Transit Design

• Strange As It Seems, Cycling Haters Are a Sign of Cycling Success

• When Adding Bike Lanes Actually Reduces Traffic Delays

• Imagine: A World Where Nobody Owns Their Own Car

• Public Transit Is Worth Way More to a City Than You Might Think

• How Highway Construction Helped Hitler Rise to Power

• A New Yorker’s (Sadly Lopsided) Scorecard of Tokyo Transportation

• Why Are There Still So Many Train Stations Named Penn Station?

• Every City Needs Hong Kong's Brilliant Baggage-Check System

• The Strongest Case Yet That Excessive Parking Causes More Driving

• Why Aren’t Urban Planners Ready for Driverless Cars?

• How Panasonic Turned Car Commuters Into Transit Riders

• The Study That Brought Down Volkswagen

• An Unusual Objection to Less Parking: It Will Make Our City Too Nice

• A Wonderfully Clear Explanation of How Road Diets Work

• Where Electric Vehicles Actually Cause More Pollution Than Gas Cars

• The Myth That Everyone Naturally Prefers Trains to Buses

• America's Infrastructure Crisis Is Really a Maintenance Crisis

CITIES & BEHAVIOR

• The Real Source of America's Urban Revival

• Why the Wealthy Have Been Returning to City Centers

• Why People In Cities Walk Fast

• The (Pretty Much Totally) Complete Health Case for Urban Nature

• The Universal Pleasures of 7 PM

• What Can I Realistically Do About My Neighbor Who Has Really Loud Sex?

• The Neuroscience of Car Dependence

• City Life Changes How Our Brains Deal With Distractions

• Is Google Maps Changing Our Behavior?

• How You Cross the Street Largely Depends on Where You're From

• Which Mode of Travel Provides the Happiest Commute?

• Why the Trip Back Always Feels Shorter

• The Science of Cities Applies to Ancient Mexico, Too

LISTICLES / CHARTICLES / MAPS

• 77 Ways to Design the Letter 'M'

• 30 Things 'Back to the Future II' Got Right or Wrong About October 21, 2015

• The World's 15 Most Complex Subway Maps

• 18 Reasons America Should Adopt a Per-Mile Driving Fee

• Why More Northeast U.S. Travelers Take the Train Instead of a Plane, in 2 Charts

• 10 Tired Traffic Myths That Didn't Get a Rest in 2015

• 7 Fun Facts About the New York Subway’s New 7 Train Extension

• How San Francisco Got Its New Rider-Friendly Transit Map

• 5 Anti-Bike Arguments That Should Be Retired

• 7 Benefits and 1 Huge Problem With a World of Driverless Taxis

• 5 Subway Lines New York Hasn't Built But Should

• All the Ways Germany Is Less Car-Reliant Than the U.S., in 1 Chart

• What Tokyo Looked Like in 1945