Investor Watch: January 15, 2026

Could a pilot personal rapid transit project at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport be one tool for decreasing traffic congestion? Atlanta Airport Community Improvement District leaders hope so.

BOST-WASH CORRIDOR

“With a population nearing 44 million, accounting for about 17% of the U.S. population but occupying only 2% of its landmass, the significance of the corridor as a sphere of consumption is indisputable,” writes Professor Jean-Paul Rodrigue about the Boston-Washington corridor. We talked to him about what this means for production and for transport of goods and people.

INVESTMENT PROFILE: CITY OF SCHERTZ, TEXAS

This fast-rising San Antonio suburb has emerged as serious contender.

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Rendering courtesy of Gensler and SANDAG

Today’s transit theme continues with Transportation for America’s newly released report, World-Class American Transit, which the organization says, “for the first time, details the level of investment needed to create world-class transit service in each of the 452 U.S. urbanized areas with populations over 50,000.”

The analysis finds that a $4.6 trillion investment across all levels of government over 20 years ($230 billion per year) would be required to build, operate and maintain a transit network that approaches the level of service within a cohort of 17 global cities that already have world-class transit systems. “While that represents a significant increase in current spending, it still falls short of the $6.3 trillion the U.S. is expected to spend on highways over the same period,” a Transportation for America press release notes.

To establish a benchmark for world-class service, the report evaluated a diverse global set of 17 cities and found that “each urban area’s transit fleet scaled with population, averaging over 130 transit vehicles in service per 100,000 residents. In comparison, the analysis finds that on average, American cities operate just 27 transit vehicles per 100,000 residents, offering just a fifth of the service provided by our peers.” (In metro Atlanta, the count is 15 transit vehicles.)

“Transit needs a moonshot — an ambitious vision for world-class transit across the country that matches the scale of the nearly 50,000-mile Interstate Highway System,” the organization concludes.

Site Selection, whose founder McKinley Conway as a Georgia State Senator championed the creation of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), weaves transit into coverage all year long, including “Cranes, Trains and Fewer Automobiles,” a September 2025 story by Kelly Barraza about Gensler’s new index for evaluating transit-oriented development, and this September 2024 story, “Spreading the Streetcar Love,” about the Portland Streetcar in Oregon.

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Ten SMEs and startups from Chile, China, Iceland, India, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and the United Kingdom were presented with 2025 WIPO Global Awards last July.
Photo courtesy of WIPO

Could a transit concept be among the winners of WIPO Global Award from the World Intellectual Property Organization? Today marks the opening of applications for the 2026 awards. The deadline for applications is March 31. The awards ceremony will take place in July in Geneva, Switzerland. That country, Sweden and the United States led WIPO’s Global Innovation Index rankings released in September.

The program celebrates small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups that use IP to grow their business and contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Categories include creative industries, ICT, health and agri-food, with a new sports category introduced this year in addition to ongoing recognition of best young entrepreneur and best woman entrepreneur. Last year the competition received 780 applications from 95 countries, a 20% year-over-year increase. “For a country, ensuring that its companies participate in the WIPO Global Awards means offering them a global launchpad, showcasing national industries, strengthening economic attractiveness and asserting its inventive identity on the world stage,” says a WIPO release.

Watch for an exclusive commentary by WIPO leadership on the importance of intellectual property to competitiveness coming soon to this space.

Photo by Pichan Sujaritsatit courtesy of Studio Locomotive and v2com newswire

Traffic congestion is legendary in the Greater Bangkok region of Thailand (13th worst in the world, according to INRIX). But you’d never know it when you’re having dinner on the Apsara Cruise boat, a former rice barge redesigned by Studio Locomotive into a full-service restaurant for the Banyan Tree Bangkok hotel.

“The riverboat now known as Apsara Cruise once journeyed the Chao Phraya River as a rice barge from the ancient Ayutthaya era, before Bangkok became the capital, transporting rice, sugar and other trade goods between large ships and riverside warehouses,” says a release from the design firm. “The ambitious remaking by Studio Locomotive preserves its heritage wooden cargo hull — as a below deck for motorization, full commercial kitchen and guest restrooms — and resonates the shape of vernacular bamboo canopy in a new superstructure, modified for all-season restaurant service.”

The dining cruise was recently named Bar & Restaurant of the Year at the World Architecture Festival Interiors. A five-course meal with wine pairing will set you back the equivalent of around $160.