Interesting transportation things

[Innsertnamehere]

depends on the quality of the BRT, which varys between curbside lanes to fully grade seperated corridors. I've ridden essentially all kinds, and none of them are too appealing. In the end of the day you are still sitting in a bus with the cramped space and loud engine.

[GlassCity]

Well it's not like subways are exactly spacious and quiet either. I personally have never found rail to be that much more comfortable to ride than bus. Speed and frequency is really the only thing that matters to me.

[Nouvellecosse]

I haven't ridden anything officially titled BRT, but I've ridden plenty of buses which is obviously the type of vehicle they use for BRT and although the fact that true BRT is separate from traffic would (theoretically) make it faster, it wouldn't have much effect on comfort. And personally I find buses generally noisy and uncomfortable, but I agree the speed and convenience are more important.

[Busy Bee]

Alstom fined $772m in US for 'brazen' and 'astounding' foreign bribery schemes

French engineering business hit with record fine in the US over bribery claims in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

By Alan Tovey | 22 Dec 2014

A record fine of $772m has been imposed on French company Alstom by US authorities to settle allegations the business paid bribes to win contracts.

The company, which makes makes trains and equipment for the power and energy industries, on Monday agreed to pay the penalty following claims it bribed government officials to win contracts in countries including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The fine – the largest ever in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – came after Alstom agreed to plead guilty to violating internal controls and record-keeping regulations.

According to US prosecutors, Alstom paid a total of $75m in bribes to secure $4bn in projects around the world with a profit of approximately $300m.

Rest of story

[M II A II R II K]

Why Sweden Has the World's Safest Roads

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...-roads/384153/

.....

In 1997, Sweden implemented its now-famed “Vision Zero” plan in hopes of eradicating all road deaths and injuries, and it has already cut the deaths by half since 2000. In 2012, just one child under seven years old was killed on a road, compared with 58 in 1970.

- The Economist earlier this year took a look at the data: the number of cars on the road and the distance driven have doubled since the 70s, yet just 264 people died in road crashes in Sweden last year, a record low. That represents just three deaths per 100,000 people, and compares to 5.5 in the European Union and 11.4 in the US.

- How has Sweden done it? “We are going much more for engineering than enforcement,” Matts-Åke Belin, a government traffic safety strategist, told CityLab recently. --- Sweden has rebuilt roads to prioritize safety over speed and other considerations. This includes the creation of “2 + 1″ roads, three-lane streets consisting of two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other; the extra lane alternates between directions to allow for passing. That design saved roughly 145 lives during the first 10 years of Vision Zero, according to the Economist.

- Sweden has also created 12,600 safer pedestrian crossings with features such as bridges, flashing lights, and speed bumps. That’s estimated to have halved pedestrian deaths over the past five years. The country has lowered speed limits in urban, crowded areas and built barriers to protect bikers from incoming traffic. A crackdown on drunk driving has also helped.

- Others are studying the Swedish model. New York has also adopted a Vision Zero plan, which includes the implementation of slow zones and increased police enforcement of speeding laws. As a result, it’s never been safer to cross a street in New York City. Just 131 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents this year, a record low.

.....

[SHiRO]

• Video Link

[M II A II R II K]

Russia Is Building A New High Speed Train That Will Travel To Beijing In Just 48 Hours

Read More: http://www.businessinsider.com/russi...-train-2014-12

Russia plans to build a new high speed railway, with trains that would speed from Moscow to Beijing in just 48 hours. At the moment, it takes about seven days to commute between the two cities and the route requires changes.

- According to Romanian website Glasul, the Kremlin has awarded the project to China Railway High-speed (CRH), a subsidiary of the state-controlled China Railway (CR), which is working in a joint-venture with the local firm Uralvagonzavod. CR is famous in the train industry for operating the world's only magnetic levitation train in an urban area, the Shangai monorail.

- The Moscow-to-Beijing direct route will measure about 7,000 km (4,340 miles), effectively three times further than the longest high speed railway in the world, the Beijing to Guangzhou train, which is also operated by CRH. Glasul reports that the new railway is a top priority for both the Chinese and Russian governments, having been discussed directly by the prime ministers of the two countries, Dmitri Medvedev and Li Keqiang, in recent bilateral meetings.

- The new route will probably replace the mighty Trans-Siberian railway, connecting St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. Firstly, the old route doesn't go through Kazan, a city that in recent years has become more and more central to the Russian economy. Secondly, and more importantly, it takes about 15 days to travel the Trans-Siberian route from start to finish, which compared to 48 hours for the new line, sounds like a heck of a long time.

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[M II A II R II K]

Imagining New York City's 42nd Street With No Cars


http://vision42.org/ - Vision42 is a citizens' initiative to re-imagine and upgrade surface transit in Midtown Manhattan, with a low-floor light rail line running river-to-river along 42nd Street within a landscaped pedestrian boulevard.




http://www.fastcoexist.com/3040314/i...t-with-no-cars

[Busy Bee]

I'm all for it.

[Innsertnamehere]

Dead or dormant? Proponents, opponents weigh in on status of east-west highway proposal

PITTSFIELD, Maine — The proposal to build a $2.1 billion, privately funded east-west highway connecting two Canadian provinces through Maine is not dead, just on the back burner, a spokesman for the plan’s main proponent said Monday.

“We have sort of lowered the temperature on that project a little bit for a whole bunch of reasons,” said Darryl Brown, program manager for the east-west highway project at Cianbro Corp. “We still are very passionate about the fact that this corridor is much needed and certainly would provide a transportation alternative to the west and upper midwest, particularly in this time of global economy.”

“But in terms of actively pursuing some of the things that need to happen, we have not been as engaged as of late as we were a year ago,” Brown added. “There are other projects that Cianbro is involved in that take precedence.”

Company workers are still “spending some time on this determining where the best routing possibilities would lie,” he said. That’s about the extent of their efforts, he said.

Proponents and opponents agreed that the project is at least dormant.

“I would say it is in the slow lane, maybe the breakdown lane, certainly not the fast lane,” said Jym St. Pierre, Maine director of Restore: The North Woods, an environmental group that opposes the plan.

“I think it is on life support,” said former state Sen. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, who supports the idea. “I am beginning to wonder if it will ever be built because the people who are for it are not as enthused as the people against it. The people who are against it are just worked right up. It is a political hot button.”

http://bangordailynews.com/2014/12/3...hway-proposal/

Interesting project, even if it is a highway. Would drop the drive from Toronto to St. John from 13-14 hours to 11 hours.. Quite a bit faster compared to the current route of staying in Canada. Provides very little in terms of benefits to people actually in Maine however, but it is also privately financed.. Interesting thing happening where a major infrastructure project proposed in the US isn't actually going to benefit the US.. Always thought that Northern Maine should have stayed in Canada, it would have made this highway a no brianer, but now international politics are involved and the fact that it mainly benefits Canada instead of Maine has a whole "Us vs. Them" attitude going on with locals.

[Nouvellecosse]

Who cares if it benefits them or not. If they don't have to pay for it and it isn't actually going to harm them then what do they care?

Not that I'd actually use it. If I did take temporary leave of my mental faculties and decide to drive to Quebec or Ontario rather than fly, I sure don't want to need my passport and have to tell some American border guard all my business just to do it.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Who cares if it benefits them or not.

The people of Maine care if a new freeway hacked through their beautiful landscape only benefits some other nation, of course. And who would pay to maintain it, and plow it during the state's long winters?

[Nouvellecosse]

When it comes to sticking noses into what others do with their own private money and land, that would apply to almost any private or commercial interest. Would the people of Maine would be horrified if I made a clearing for my new house in their beautiful state without it benefiting them too?? Sorry but that's just silly. If it can pass an environmental assessment and is not hurting anything it's none of anyone's business (other than perhaps a few direct neighbours).

Also, if it's being built by private money I hardly think it would be maintained by the state. It would be a toll highway that would support its own maintenance.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by fflint

The people of Maine care if a new freeway hacked through their beautiful landscape only benefits some other nation, of course. And who would pay to maintain it, and plow it during the state's long winters?

it would be a privately constructed and operated toll road. So the private company would pay to plow it, police it (under contract), and maintain it.

If this was a highway in the US running from one state to another I feel the opposition would be a lot less fierce. Its the whole us vs. them thing that is getting in these peoples minds.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

it would be a privately constructed and operated toll road. So the private company would pay to plow it, police it (under contract), and maintain it.

If this was a highway in the US running from one state to another I feel the opposition would be a lot less fierce. Its the whole us vs. them thing that is getting in these peoples minds.

In other words, simple pettiness...

[Nexis4Jersey]

That proposal is not very popular in Maine...but i'm sure it will be rammed through...

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

When it comes to sticking noses into what others do with their own private money and land, that would apply to almost any private or commercial interest.

Who currently owns the lands in question? Are they in private hands? Or are we talking about just another one of those corporatist privatization schemes?

Would the people of Maine would be horrified if I made a clearing for my new house in their beautiful state without it benefiting them too?? Sorry but that's just silly.

The silly thing is your attempt to equate a single family house with a border-to-border freeway, as if they're somehow indistinguishable in the impact they make on the environment and the landscape.

I get it, you're Canadian and your nation would be the sole beneficiary of this private freeway, so you support it. And I get that Maine's governor is such a corporate lackey that you and yours will probably get to pop champagne corks, no matter what the local population wants. What I don't get is the pretense that there's no legitimate reason to oppose such a thing.

[Nouvellecosse]

There's nothing silly about my comparison as these concepts are scale independent. If a private entity buys land and wants to spend their own money to use their land for a legal purpose, then the same principles apply.

And let's face it, Maine is huge, and there are already highways running through it so obviously they're not opposed to the general principle of them. So feigning environmental concerns is totally disingenuous. And the highway would not be near the major population centers.

And I'm no more biased by the fact that I'm Canadian as you or the residents of Maine are as Americans. Neither of us can claim to be more or less impartial than the other so playing that card is ridiculous.

[Aylmer]

I'd rather see an upgraded rail link between Montreal and Halifax (via Sherbrooke, Maine, St.John and Moncton). You could cut travel times from St. John to Montreal about 3.5 hours at 200 km/h and, if the next government gets around to HSR, you could be in Toronto in only 5.5 hours vs. 14 by car even with a new Maine highway. Montreal-Halifax would be cut down from 13h by car to less than 6h by train.

By effectively cutting the distance between the Maritimes and Central Canada in half, I definitely see an economic argument for a rapid link: universities and businesses in the Maritimes would be able to access an enormous market in Ontario and Quebec in a way which they'd never be able to do with a highway.

Might be interesting.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I'd rather see an upgraded rail link between Montreal and Halifax (via Sherbrooke, Maine, St.John and Moncton). You could cut travel times from St. John to Montreal about 3.5 hours at 200 km/h and, if the next government gets around to HSR, you could be in Toronto in only 5.5 hours vs. 14 by car even with a new Maine highway. Montreal-Halifax would be cut down from 13h by car to less than 6h by train.

By effectively cutting the distance between the Maritimes and Central Canada in half, I definitely see an economic argument for a rapid link: universities and businesses in the Maritimes would be able to access an enormous market in Ontario and Quebec in a way which they'd never be able to do with a highway.

Might be interesting.

Universities and businesses in the Maritime already have access to the enormous market in Ontario and Quebec by land, sea, and air.

The capital costs to build a new rail line requires multiple trains a day. VIA can't even afford the operating costs of a daily "Ocean", how you expect it to ever afford multiple trains a day is beyond me?

I guarantee you that a new highway or turnpike will see more than one vehicle per day. Whether it sees enough to actually turn a profit is debatable, but that's the risk of private enterprise just like it is for jet airliners.