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Nouvellecosse Aug 5, 2014 1:52 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wizened Variations (Post 6674800)
The key IMO to making what GO is trying to do work without electrification would be for smaller DMUs to run the same route during non-rush hours.

The out-of-hours GO train should address the need to serve a smaller number of passengers more frequently. Problem is, with double deckers being pulled by huge locomotives, that the for fewer passengers who use such trains, the resulting higher ratio of diesel consumption per unit passenger becomes "uneconomic."

While running passenger trains on mixed freight and passenger sections requires robust strengthening of locomotives and cars, even in the tank train US, the SMART project in California is looking at smaller than Budd like diesel cars with multiple dual door exits.
They have addressed the off peak need already. When the trains aren't running the GO buses (motor coaches) fill the role acting as express buses on the freeways. This works because the smaller number of passengers off peak can be served by the smaller, more economic vehicles, the highways aren't as congested off-peak so the trips are just as fast on GO bus, and it doesn't require using the rail corridors off-peak so it frees slots for intercity and freight traffic.

Odd why they would be focusing on adding rail service instead.

M II A II R II K Aug 5, 2014 3:26 PM
A Transit Plan To Make a Less-Stressful Zoo for Animals

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/0...nimals/375550/

Quote:
Bjarke Ingels Group, the architecture firm responsible for some of the most playful designs in the built environment, is getting serious about the animal kingdom. The firm is looking to design a zoo that makes for a less stressful experience for animals while still serving up a cohesive master plan—one that makes sense for gorillas, bears, lions, elephants, and tourists alike. Right now, the firm's solution is transit.

BIG just revealed new renderings for Zootopia, the firm's tentative expansion plan for the Givskud Zoo in Givskud, Denmark. The scheme features three loops, each focused on one of three continental themes: Africa, America, and Asia. Each loop will be designed around a different mode of transportation: Visitors will sail through Asia, bike through Africa, and fly through America. Since a gondola lift isn't exactly the quietest way to travel through a natural habitat, BIG—in a characteristically simple solution to a design challenge—suggests covering the cable cars, with mirrors.

The plan for Zootopia involves shelters and paths that more closely resemble the habitats that animals know from the wild. The transit vision doesn't have too much to do with the continent it accommodates (there is nothing especially American about the gondola lift). The Asia loop will be designed to be accessed by mirrored boats, whereas the African loop is made for mirrored bicycles. Everything is mirrored in an attempt to soothe the animals.

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Wizened Variations Aug 5, 2014 6:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse (Post 6680315)
They have addressed the off peak need already. When the trains aren't running the GO buses (motor coaches) fill the role acting as express buses on the freeways. This works because the smaller number of passengers off peak can be served by the smaller, more economic vehicles, the highways aren't as congested off-peak so the trips are just as fast on GO bus, and it doesn't require using the rail corridors off-peak so it frees slots for intercity and freight traffic.

Odd why they would be focusing on adding rail service instead.
Frequently run trains beat any alternative. The question is how cheaply can each train be run? The huge locomotive with double decker cars just does not cut it.

A particularly attractive DMU alternative. Not quite a tank, but, certainly an "armored car."

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/u...-dmu-cars.html

M II A II R II K Aug 6, 2014 6:16 PM
Why trams are a waste of money

Read More: http://www.economist.com/blogs/econo...ist-explains-2

Quote:
.....

Fans say streetcars are great tools for creating jobs and sparking urban investment. Developers like them because they run on fixed tracks, ensuring an official commitment to a secure route.

- Many point to Portland, Oregon, which launched America’s first streetcar line with modern vehicles in 2001. The service has helped contribute $778m in local development, against a project cost of around $95m. Plans in Atlanta and Tucson have similarly generated hundreds of millions in private investment and raised neighbouring property values.

- In DC, the long-anticipated streetcar network is expected to inspire between $5 billion and $8 billion in development within ten years, according to a study last year by the DC Office of Planning. The pending line along H Street in the city’s north-east has already lured a number of chic new restaurants there in anticipation.

- But for all this bullishness, there is no empirical link between streetcars and development. A 2010 survey of these systems in America by the Federal Transit Administration offered little evidence of concrete cause and effect. In the cities where streetcars have launched a wave of renewal, it is mainly because they are part of a larger, heavily subsidised development plan, with changes in zoning, improvements to streets and other benefits.

- Streetcars are also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, with huge up-front capital costs in laying down rails and buying cars. Tucson’s project ultimately cost nearly $200m and opened years late, in part because the city needed to clear utilities from under the tracks, install overhead electrical connections and repave much of the four-mile route. A 3.6-mile line in Cincinnati, Ohio, now under construction is expected to cost at least $133m.

- Federal grants have gone some way to help pay for these projects, but cash spent on streetcars displaces spending on other, more cost-effective forms of public transport like buses, which offer cheaper and more-efficient service but are considerably less sexy.

- All this investment might make some sense if streetcars offered an efficient way to move people around. But here, too, the evidence is flimsy. Riders—and especially tourists—may find streetcars less intimidating than buses, but these vehicles tend to offer slow journeys across walkable distances. European tramlines tend to be fairly long and isolated from other traffic, which ensures a swifter journey. But in America streetcars travel shorter distances along rails that mix with other traffic, so streetcars invariably inch along.

- And while these tracks may be reassuring to developers, they make it impossible to navigate busy streets: buses can ride around obstacles but trams must stay put and wait. Indeed, their slow speeds and frequent stops mean they often add to congestion. This may not bother tourists keen on a novelty ride, but it is no solution to America’s public transport problems.

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M II A II R II K Aug 6, 2014 6:19 PM
Vast profits that push up our train fares yet again

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/money/blo...ail-price-hike

Quote:
Britain's rail companies have designed a fares system aimed at bleeding dry three types of travellers: commuters who have to travel in the rush hour; anyone who needs to catch an inter-city train urgently; and foreign tourists. And in no other industry are the customers who pay the most treated with such disregard.

In a few weeks we'll find out just how bad the next round of ticket increases will be. The train companies have been given the freedom to raise prices using a formula based on RPI for the past decade on "regulated" fares (such as many commuter routes) and charge whatever they like for "unregulated" fares, which include many long-distance tickets.

That the train companies are still allowed to use RPI as the basis for pushing up fares is scandalous in itself. You might think inflation is 1.8%, because that's the last figure reported by the Office for National Statistics. But that was the CPI measure. The train companies use the RPI figure each July to set the following January's increases, and given that it was 2.6% in June, we can expect fares to go up by double the current rate of wage growth in the UK.

It will push the price of annual season tickets past £5,000 a year for growing numbers of travellers. For example, the cost of a Tunbridge Wells to London zone 1-6 ticket is likely to rise from £4,900 to around £5,025. Continental Europeans will (rightly) be staggered at what are now some of the highest fares in the world. The French pay a third of this for commuting, the Italians a tenth.

It's worth noting just how much fares have risen under this otherwise anodyne-looking formula. In January 2011 they went up 6.2%, in 2012, 5.9%; in 2013, 4.2%, and last year, 2.8%. Throughout that period, many workers have been lucky to get a pay rise at all.

In the unregulated part of the market, where no price caps apply, the train companies have nakedly adopted "yield management" techniques akin to a tout outside a gig screwing you for as much as possible.

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Innsertnamehere Aug 6, 2014 10:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wizened Variations (Post 6681094)
Frequently run trains beat any alternative. The question is how cheaply can each train be run? The huge locomotive with double decker cars just does not cut it.

A particularly attractive DMU alternative. Not quite a tank, but, certainly an "armored car."

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/u...-dmu-cars.html
I do know that it is costing GO $7 million additional a year in subsidies to run the 30 minute service each day, I think its around 40 additional trips made each day. So its costing around $600 a trip in subsidy.

Before the service upgrade off peak trains averaged around 300 passengers, I think it has dropped to the 200 range now. Average fare of $6, and its costing roughly $1800-$2000 a trip to run. I wouldn't be surprised if a smaller 3 or 6 car EMU (compared to the 10 car bi-level locomotives used today) could run that trip for a third of the cost.

rough numbers of course.

shadowbat2 Aug 7, 2014 3:55 AM
Australian commuters tip train cars to rescue man trapped in station gap

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/08...n-station-gap/

Quote:
SYDNEY, Australia — Dozens of people helped rescue a fellow commuter in Australia by pushing against train carriages to free the man whose leg had slipped between the platform and the train.

Closed-circuit footage released by the Western Australia State Public Transport Authority showed the man lost his footing while boarding the train at a station in the city of Perth on Wednesday.

A passenger alerted railway staff who stopped the train from leaving, local media said. When railway workers realized the man was stuck, they called on other passengers to help.

The footage showed dozens of people rushing to help tilt the carriages to free the man’s leg.

“It’s really heartwarming I think, to find an incident like this where everyone pitched in,” transport authority spokesman David Hynes said.

The man wasn’t named, but local media reported that he was believed to have escaped injury and caught the next train.
http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com...ters.jpg?w=620

Nouvellecosse Aug 7, 2014 4:31 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere (Post 6682712)
I do know that it is costing GO $7 million additional a year in subsidies to run the 30 minute service each day, I think its around 40 additional trips made each day. So its costing around $600 a trip in subsidy.

Before the service upgrade off peak trains averaged around 300 passengers, I think it has dropped to the 200 range now. Average fare of $6, and its costing roughly $1800-$2000 a trip to run. I wouldn't be surprised if a smaller 3 or 6 car EMU (compared to the 10 car bi-level locomotives used today) could run that trip for a third of the cost.

rough numbers of course.
Buying and maintain two sets of rolling stock - one for peak and one for off-peak - would negate any savings from fuel economy. The only solution would be to replace all the rolling stock with DMUs due to their better scalability and either run them much more frequently at peak, or have really long, double deck DMUs with capacity as great as the current trains and run smaller consists off-peak.

But then having enough DMUs to meet peak capacity when most of them will be idle for most of the day is still very costly since 12 DMU railcars is much pricier than a consist containing 12 unpowered carriages and one locomotive - both in startup cost and in maintenance.

Ultimately if you want frequent, all-day service in a route thats primarily commuter oriented, you simply need to purchase stock that best serves the largest number of customers and simply accept that this typically means taking a loss outside peak travel times.

Nouvellecosse Aug 7, 2014 5:32 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wizened Variations (Post 6681094)
Frequently run trains beat any alternative. The question is how cheaply can each train be run? The huge locomotive with double decker cars just does not cut it.

A particularly attractive DMU alternative. Not quite a tank, but, certainly an "armored car."

http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/u...-dmu-cars.html
You first need to provide support for your first assertion before you can use it as the foundation for any additional conclusions.

You haven't made your case as to why, in this scenario, frequently run trains beat frequently run motorcoaches.

The benefits often attributed to a train include its higher capacity which is by far #1, but in this situation higher capacity isn't needed.

- Reduced noise is often cited when comparing buses with electric services like a streetcar or LRT, but a DMU isn't any quieter.
- Trains tend to have a smoother ride, but motorcoaches are much smoother than a regular city bus, and would drive primarily on high quality expressway. And still this is but one small advantage.
- The permanence of the route may also be cited, but the coaches can stop at the same stations.
- Trains may have lower fuel consumption per passenger due to lower rolling friction, but as mentioned in my previous post, that isn't an advantage when it requires buying and maintaining additional stock.
- Its theorized that trains have a psychological draw over buses in terms of attractiveness to passengers, but according to a study discussed on streetsblog.org, "...the researchers pointed out that negative perceptions faded as familiarity with better bus systems increased." and "The more comfortable and useful a bus system becomes, the more the preference for rail disappears..."

Yet in GO's case, the buses have the advantage of already being part of the operator's fleet since it also provides express bus service to places not actually on a train route. And as frequency drops off on those routes off-peak, the buses can simply be rerouted to provide off-peak service elsewhere. And they also help take traffic off the rails off peak, which frees up space for other rail traffic providing a similar advantage to what the trains offer during peak by taking traffic off congested roads.

It appears that your assertion is either dogma or a knee-jerk assumption rather than one reflected in the situation. If we were talking about electrified service on dedicated tracks, then many of the factors I mentioned wouldn't apply. But is this case you need to demonstrate why we should assume the trains would automatically be better. :shrug:

electricron Aug 7, 2014 1:51 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse (Post 6683114)
Buying and maintain two sets of rolling stock - one for peak and one for off-peak - would negate any savings from fuel economy. The only solution would be to replace all the rolling stock with DMUs due to their better scalability and either run them much more frequently at peak, or have really long, double deck DMUs with capacity as great as the current trains and run smaller consists off-peak.

But then having enough DMUs to meet peak capacity when most of them will be idle for most of the day is still very costly since 12 DMU railcars is much pricier than a consist containing 12 unpowered carriages and one locomotive - both in startup cost and in maintenance.

Ultimately if you want frequent, all-day service in a route thats primarily commuter oriented, you simply need to purchase stock that best serves the largest number of customers and simply accept that this typically means taking a loss outside peak travel times.
Hogwash! Transit agencies can run two different types of equipment efficiently. Here's two examples:
(1) GO runs BiLevel trailers for commuter trains, and UP will be running DMUs for all day regional trains. Both GO and UP are owned by the same transit agency.
(2) TRE has ran BiLevel trailers and RDCs for all day commuter trains. Additional maintenance expenses have been met with reduced fuel costs. TRE data shows 3 BiLevel trailers are cheaper to run than 4 RDCs, but RDCs are cheaper to run below that capacity, meaning 3 RDCs are cheaper to run than 2 BiLevel trailers and 2 RDCs are cheaper to run than 1 BiLevel trailer.

Fitting rolling stock to the expected demand is an effective way to reduce costs.

Nouvellecosse Aug 8, 2014 3:23 AM
The issue isn't with an agency having more than one type of stock for totally separate routes or services; it's with buying more than one type of stock for the same route for different times of day. The UP route will be using the DMUs exclusively.

As far as the Dallas situation, remember the main issue isn't just the maintenance cost, it's the purchase cost. We don't know how their equipment procurement works and it may have been some quirk in terms of funding loop holes for the stock in which they were able to get funding for the stock during startup more easily than operational subsidies, But this scenario is rare and not applicable to other services. You can look to commuter routes around the world and find few if any other examples of dual peak/off-peak stock whereas there are countless examples of the same stock being used all day despite low demand off-peak.

electricron Aug 8, 2014 7:49 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse (Post 6684395)
The issue isn't with an agency having more than one type of stock for totally separate routes or services; it's with buying more than one type of stock for the same route for different times of day. The UP route will be using the DMUs exclusively.

As far as the Dallas situation, remember the main issue isn't just the maintenance cost, it's the purchase cost. We don't know how their equipment procurement works and it may have been some quirk in terms of funding loop holes for the stock in which they were able to get funding for the stock during startup more easily than operational subsidies, But this scenario is rare and not applicable to other services. You can look to commuter routes around the world and find few if any other examples of dual peak/off-peak stock whereas there are countless examples of the same stock being used all day despite low demand off-peak.
Except for a short distance getting to the airport, GO and UP trains will be sharing the same mainline.
Other examples I could add is North County Transit in San Diego with Coaster trains using BiLevel trailers and Sprinter trains using DMUs - on different lines.

BART will be using DMUs on its eBART extension in Contra Costa County, different line

DCTA using DMUs as an extension of DART's green light rail line, different transit agency, same line, different tracks.

NJT using DMUs on its Riverline service, EMUs on NEC, BiLevel and single level trailers on NEC, and light rail in Newark and Bergen, same and different lines.

Transit agencies using different rolling stock is more common than you suggest. But I will admit not all of them do.

Nouvellecosse Aug 8, 2014 12:55 PM
Not sure why this is so hard to understand. This has nothing to do with whether or not they use the same track; ut's whether or not it's the same service. Two different services will each have its own exclusive rolling stock dedicated to that service which it uses 100% of the time that service it's being operated. eBART for instance is not going to be buying locomotive and coach consists like GO or Caltrain to use at peak times AND DMUs for off-peak, it will only have the one type of stock. Same for all the other situations. Unless they've won the lottery, an agency buys one type of rolling stock to use for a specific service - regardless of whether the service shares any of its tracks with any other service.

The question here is duplication.. If one set of stock is (or could be) going to be sitting totally idle at all times that the other is being used, then it cannot justify the purchase of the 2nd stock. If the stock will be operated simultanously because the two different services will be operated at the same time, then it has no choice but to have enough stock to operate both services.

M II A II R II K Aug 11, 2014 4:07 PM
Transit Projects Shouldn't Take Longer to Finish in 2014 Than They Did in 1925

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...n-1925/375851/

Quote:
.....

Not every modern transit project takes longer than one from a century ago, of course, and there are plenty of acceptable explanations for those that do. Construction technology is better today, but there are far more people, buildings, and interests to navigate. At their best, planning processes and environmental reviews both protect and involve the public in the projects that will affect the place they call home.

- Meanwhile, the federal government wants to speed up the planning-to-completion timeline for transit, too. In a virtual town hall last week, DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx urged lawmakers (multiple times) to help reduce delay for major infrastructure projects. Some means to achieving this end—conducting concurrent rather than sequential review, for instance, and eliminating duplicative processes—were outlined in the Grow America act that Foxx recently sent to Congress.

- Such calls are a step in the right direction (if not exactly new), but local planners don't need to wait for state or federal governments to reduce project delay. By harnessing data analytics and borrowing the concept of "lean production" from the tech industry, local planners and officials can implement and improve small projects on the fly—from better bus queues to smarter street designs. The mindset can shift from years to months, days, or even hours.

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M II A II R II K Aug 13, 2014 5:34 PM
Open data and driverless buses: how London transport heads to the future

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...us-oyster-data

Quote:
When 19th-century engineers decided their new-fangled locomotives could be driven underground beneath London's crowded streets, they began a tradition for technological innovation that the capital's transport system has never lost. Today the cutting edge has moved from steam to cyber, but the driving force is the same as it was for the Victorians – how can more people be moved more quickly and efficiently through the capital's jumbled, crowded streets?

- At the heart of this is no nimble tech startup, but the capital's transport authority, Transport for London, which vaunts its record as an innovator in the field with some justice, according to the experts. --- "It's a tradition that goes right back into the beginnings of London Transport," said Professor Stephen Glaister of the RAC Foundation. "One reason they are so important is simply that they are so big. For example, what London buses does tends to influence what the manufacturers do ahead of anyone else."

- That scale, he says, has helped the city take a lead in everything from adopting diesel-electric hybrid buses, to revolutionising ticketing systems, he said, pointing to integrated travelcards in the 1980s, through to the Oyster card in 2003 and now contactless payments. "With London being so big and so dense, the economics of public transport have been much more favourable. It's worth spending money on new technology."

- Although the hard engineering continues to develop, with the major east-west link Crossrail claiming to have pioneered new techniques in construction of its stations and tunnels below the city, nowadays new capacity is being unleashed by less tangible developments: sharing information, networking signals and simplifying travel for customers.

- Christian Wolmar, the transport historian and prospective Labour mayoral candidate, gives qualified approval to the idea that TfL is a hotbed of innovation. "Their record's not bad in this respect. But they are a massive organisation in one of the biggest and most successful cities in the world. If they weren't at the leading edge of technology it would be going badly wrong." He cites ticketing and traffic control systems as "fantastic" but believes there remain areas badly in need of an update – namely the congestion charge cameras.

- "Photographing number plates is not leading edge technology. They should be looking at a more sophisticated system. In other countries you get an in-car device. This is just about policing a frontier: it's time for something better." Glaister concurs that London still requires upgrades, pointing to road signals that were pioneering but "very much of their day". He adds: "That's always a problem with early adoption - you then have the oldest equipment."

- Wolmar agrees that TfL's scale makes it well placed to take advantage of the possibilities opened up by new technology. "Innovations normally can't be self-financing: whether it's building underground lines or developing car clubs, innovation often comes from the public sector that takes the risk in the early stages before the private sector starts making money. That's happened throughout history."

Areas of ongoing innovation include:

• Contactless payments

• Access to bus seating

• Automatic operation

• Open data

• Managing the traffic

• Managing the pedestrians

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Eightball Aug 15, 2014 2:03 PM
High ridership for Phoenix light rail

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/08/1...or-wants-more/

M II A II R II K Aug 27, 2014 5:23 PM
Helsinki’s Plan to Make Private Cars Obsolete

Read More: http://www.navigantresearch.com/blog...-cars-obsolete

Quote:
Helsinki, Finland, has proposed a strikingly ambitious mobility on demand system that presents the logical extension of current innovations in passenger travel. The city plans to create a subscriber service that would let users choose from, and pay for, a range of transportation options through their smartphones. The options will include conventional public transit, carsharing, bikesharing, ferries, and an on-demand minibus service that the city’s transit authority launched in 2013.

- Globally, carsharing membership has grown around 28% since 2010, with Europe as the leader in this sector. Navigant Research’s report, Carsharing Programs, forecasts that global carsharing members will surpass 12 million in 2020. The rise of on-demand ride services, such as Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar, are also transforming the way city dwellers use taxi services. Taking on the highly regulated taxi business, these companies face considerable opposition, but at this point, it will be hard to put the genie back into the bottle. Bikesharing and even scooter share services are also spreading. Today’s young urban dwellers expect to be able to use an array of transportation options to suit an array of needs, at the touch of an app.

- Helsinki’s program has the potential to tie into other transportation innovations, such as the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) – more carsharing programs are deploying EVs as a selling point for their service – and autonomous vehicle technology. Wireless charging would also support schemes like Helsinki’s by ensuring that shared EVs are recharging when parked, rather than relying on the driver to remember to plug in. --- Faced with dwindling demand in mature markets like North America and Western Europe, automakers are exploring a range of new services to offset lower demand and to gain a competitive edge. Farsighted companies will look to begin selling mobility as well as vehicles, changing transportation as much as the IT and energy sectors have changed.

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ssiguy Aug 28, 2014 4:17 AM
Transit projects touted by every environmentalist often come in way over budget and late or don't get built at all due to the endless environmental reviews. I still don't know why you need huge environmental reviews when going down current streets or currently operated rail corridors. What if they find something small..............are you going to indefinitely close the rail line or street?

The environmental lobby for transit infrastructure almost unanimously does more harm than good. They often take so long and cost so much money that they give the NIMBYs time to get organized and put an end to the potential lines.

The environmental lobby is just that, another lobby that lives off government largess. They are just as hungry for money as the oil companies they love to hate.

M II A II R II K Aug 29, 2014 5:49 PM
Conservatives Learn to Love Infrastructure

Read More: http://www.bloombergview.com/article...infrastructure

Quote:
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In general, American air travel is terribly annoying. Anytime someone we know comes thorough either airport, the conversation invariably touches on the sad state of U.S. infrastructure. Vice President Joe Biden compared LaGuardia to a third-world country. There are improvements coming, but it has been ever-so slow.

- Repeated calls for improvements -- and recent stimulus spending -- are starting to have an impact. Of the four major terminals at LaGuardia, two have seen big improvements. Delta Terminal D is a fairly new construction, and its interior was recently updated. Terminal C is still being renovated, and from what I have seen they're doing a nice job. Even on the dreaded Long Island Expressway, resurfacing has been accomplished from the city to Roslyn. It was started and completed quickly.

- Even conservative groups are starting to drop their irrational fear of everything government does to call for specific infrastructure projects. The American Enterprise Institute is pulling back from its dalliance with a fabricated fantasy world to focus on the real world. Michael R. Strain, a resident scholar at the AEI, argues in a Washington Post op-ed for more infrastructure spending. Ignore the partisan debate within and instead focus on the repair and improvement portion.

- Strain advocates for more state and local control. And he argues that the focus should be on “identifying high-social-value projects — upgrading shipping ports and airports; repairing power grids, bridges, roads, and schools; working to shorten commute times; upgrading everything with 21st-century technology.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iGKlrdq7LvJ0.jpg

M II A II R II K Sep 6, 2014 2:24 PM
Toronto lags other Canadian cities in building transit: Pembina report

Read More: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014...na_report.html

PDF Report: http://www.pembina.org/reports/fast-cities-report.pdf

Quote:
.....

A new report released Friday by the Pembina Institute shows that much of Toronto’s success in attracting people to transit is based on old investments in subways and streetcars.

- But our continuing devotion to those subways is not cost-effective, and it threatens Toronto’s success in attracting riders that other cities are trying to emulate, according to the report. The study compares Toronto transit to four other Canadian centres: Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa. It shows that Toronto still has the most transit and the most ridership. But, as the city’s election campaign kicks into high gear, the report suggests politicians step back and look more broadly at how other cities are building transit, said Pembina’s Ontario director, Cherise Burda.

- It points to the perils of dithering over yet another round of subway plans. --- “It’s not to say we shouldn’t build subways. Of course we need to keep doing, that but the subways we’re going to be building are for the next generation, and this generation is stuck in traffic,” she said. --- In the past 20 years, Vancouver built 44 kilometres of SkyTrain and bus rapid transit (BRT). Calgary built 29 kilometres of light rail and BRT. Toronto opened only 18 kilometres of new rapid transit in the same period. Those cities moved ahead by diversifying their systems, building transit that can be realized faster and serve more communities, said Burda.

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http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/t...arge.promo.jpg

M II A II R II K Sep 22, 2014 1:42 AM
A System to Cut City Traffic That Just Might Work

Read More: http://www.wired.com/2014/09/a-new-s...le-and-useful/

Research Paper PDF: http://media.jgao.org/pubs/roadrunner_itswc2014.pdf

Quote:
.....

Two MIT researchers think they’ve got a better way of doing things. They’ve tested out a new method—and won an award doing it—that eliminates the need for the cameras and sensors in the streets that see where cars are going. That makes the system as a whole much more flexible and useful, since borders can be changed on the fly to reflect actual traffic conditions. As an added bonus, the system doesn’t just penalize drivers for entering certain zones, it helps them avoid them altogether.

- The “RoadRunner” system, developed for Singapore by graduate student Jason Gao and his advisor Li-Shiuan Peh, issues a digital “token” to each car entering a congestion-prone area. Once a given number of tokens are assigned, a car can’t enter unless another vehicle leaves. Everyone else gets turn-by-turn directions to avoid the area. In computer simulations using data from Singapore’s Land Transit Authority, Gao and Peh saw an 8 percent increase in average car speed during periods of peak congestion. They also did a small scale test in Cambridge, Mass. to prove the technology works.

- The exact details about how pricing would work aren’t important just yet. What’s innovative about RoadRunner is the way it liberates the tracking system from infrastructure. Singapore now requires all vehicles to have a dash-mounted transponder, which is read by radio transmitters on gantries (overhead structures like the ones that hold road signs and traffic lights) built at entry points to congestions zones.

- Gao and Peh fit cars with transponders roughly the size of a standard electronic-toll device like E-ZPass or FasTrak. They run on 802.11p, a standard similar to Wi-Fi but with a larger broadcast range, and communicate wirelessly with a central server. It may be possible to embed the technology directly into cell phones in the future.

- The big advantage to this system is that urban planners can actively manipulate the location of congestion zones in real time, without the need for construction. “With our system, you can draw a polygon on the map and say, ‘I want this entire region to be controlled,’” Gao says. “You could do one thing for a month and test it out and then change it without having to dig up roads or rebuild gantries.”

- That flexibility “has some very interesting implications,” says Sarah Kaufman, adjunct assistant professor of planning at New York University and digital manager at the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation. “It could help to re-route drivers around major temporary events (such as UN sessions here in NYC that gum up traffic quite a bit).” Tolling can be adjusted based on changing road priorities. The bit about the directions to avoid the demarcated zones is less impressive, Kaufman says. “The problem I see is that a lot of people are not driving through congested areas, but to them. Because congested areas are where their jobs are.”

M II A II R II K Sep 22, 2014 4:23 PM
Global shift to mass transit could save more than $100 trillion and 1,700 megatons of CO2

Read More: http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso

A Global High Shift Scenario PDF: http://www.itdp.org/wp-content/uploa...nario_WEB1.pdf

Quote:
More than $100 trillion in public and private spending could be saved between now and 2050 if the world expands public transportation, walking and cycling in cities, according to a new report released by the University of California, Davis, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Additionally, reductions in carbon dioxide emissions reaching 1,700 megatons per year in 2050 could be achieved if this shift occurs.

- Further, an estimated 1.4 million early deaths associated with exposure to vehicle tailpipe emissions could be avoided annually by 2050 if governments require the strongest vehicle pollution controls and ultralow-sulfur fuels, according to a related analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation included in the report. Doubling motor vehicle fuel economy could reduce CO2 emissions by an additional 700 megatons in 2050.

- “The study shows that getting away from car-centric development, especially in rapidly developing economies, will cut urban CO2 dramatically and also reduce costs,” said report co-author Lew Fulton, co-director of NextSTEPS Program at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. “It is also critical to reduce the energy use and carbon emissions of all vehicles.”

- The report is being released Sept. 17 at the United Nations Habitat III Preparatory Meeting in New York, in advance of the Sept. 23 United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, where many nations and corporations will announce voluntary commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including new efforts focused on sustainable transportation.

- “Transportation, driven by rapid growth in car use, has been the fastest growing source of CO2 in the world," said Michael Replogle, co-author of the study and managing director for policy at ITDP, a global New York-based nonprofit. “An affordable but largely overlooked way to cut that pollution is to give people clean options to use public transportation, walking and cycling. This expands mobility options, especially for the poor, and curbs air pollution from traffic.”

- The authors calculated CO2 emissions and costs from 2015 to 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario and a “High Shift” scenario where governments significantly increase investments in rail and clean bus transportation, and provide infrastructure to ensure safe walking, bicycling and other active forms of transportation. It also includes moving investments away from road construction, parking garages and other steps that encourage car ownership, freeing up resources for the needed investments.

- Under the High Shift scenario, mass transit access worldwide is projected to more than triple for the lowest income groups and more than double for the second lowest groups. This would provide the poor with better access to employment and services that can improve their livelihoods.

.....

M II A II R II K Sep 25, 2014 2:54 PM
Personal Rapid Transit Is Probably Never Going to Happen

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/09/...happen/380467/

(ATN): A Review of the State of the Industry and Prospects for the Future PDF: http://transweb.sjsu.edu/PDFs/resear...t-networks.pdf

Quote:
.....

Though the concept has been around for half a century, only five completed systems in the world can be reasonably defined as personal rapid transit: those in Morgantown, West Virginia, which opened in 1975; Rotterdam in The Netherlands (1999); Masdar City in Abu Dhabi (2010); Heathrow Airport in London (2011); and Suncheon Bay in South Korea (2014). While there's been a noticeable uptick in the past 15 years, four projects in that span is still, in the report's own words, "not enough to claim that there is an active market sufficient to support an industry."

- That's especially true if you consider that four of the systems hardly qualify as full-fledged. The podcars in Masdar and Suncheon are really just shuttles at the moment. The one in Rotterdam is a feeder that links suburban offices to a rail station on a guideway that isn't even exclusive all the way. And the one in Heathrow is basically an alternative to an airport people mover. Other proposals and plans have surfaced in this time—an elevated podcar system in Tel Aviv being the latest—but nothing has come of them.

- The Morgantown system shows the promise of personal rapid transit, and probably explains why the idea has hung around for so long despite rarely being realized. Transit advocates like it because such systems have the potential to reduce car reliance in cities. Transit opponents like it, too, because the on-demand service, relatively private pods, and direct-to-destination trips kind of make it public transportation without the whole bothersome public thing.

- Upon closer inspection, it's this attempt to be everything to everyone that creates some problems for personal rapid transit. As more people use the system, it becomes less able to accommodate individual demand for destinations, which renders it more of a traditional rail transit system—but without enough capacity to handle rush-hour crowds. Meanwhile, the direct-to-destination element still can't beat the door-to-door service offered by taxi networks. In other words, personal rapid transit reproduces modes that already exist in the city, only less effectively.

- Then there's the problem of integrating such systems into the existing urban landscape. Between the need to dedicate lanes to high-capacity transit, create space for cyclists and walkers, and reduce road capacity overall where possible, there's just not much room for new low-capacity fixed systems on city streets. That leaves elevated podcar systems, which opens up a world of complexity with existing city infrastructure—exemplified by an awkward image in the Mineta report showing a PRT line blasting through sidewalk trees above the heads of pedestrians:

- For airports and new cities, PRT could supplement other mass transit systems rather effectively and encourage people to live car-free lifestyles by providing them destination-to-destination service with minimal walking to and from stations. In newly built environments, PRT could be constructed cheaply and it could be installed in such a way that does not disrupt its surroundings. But there aren't many Masdars out there. And regardless, there's an even simpler reason why it's probably not going to happen for podcars: driverless cars.

.....



http://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/cit...lead_large.jpg

dubu Sep 26, 2014 12:11 AM
http://i462.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps63b0ec91.jpg

cool electric bike, perfect for the nw

THE ENCLOSED PEDELEC BIKE

edit: it isnt electric but it should be

Busy Bee Sep 26, 2014 1:58 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by M II A II R II K (Post 6742950)
Personal Rapid Transit Is Probably Never Going to Happen
Good Riddance. #dumbestideaever #foolserrand #makesnosense #weirdandsillyfromthesixties

M II A II R II K Sep 26, 2014 4:04 AM
It works great as a horizontal elevator system within a large complex.

GlassCity Sep 26, 2014 4:28 AM
I never understood the difference between PRT and cars.

fflint Sep 26, 2014 7:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by GlassCity (Post 6744252)
I never understood the difference between PRT and cars.
PRT combines the spacial wastefulness of cars with the inconveniences of public transit.

KevinFromTexas Sep 27, 2014 12:55 AM
http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local...alks/16287483/
Quote:
Austin City Council approves rainbow crosswalks

KVUE.com 6:21 p.m. CDT September 26, 2014

AUSTIN -- Downtown Austin just got a little more colorful.

On Sept. 25, 2014 the Austin City Council passed a proposal for rainbow crosswalks on Bettie Naylor and 4th street.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...80354463_o.jpg
https://www.facebook.com/austinpride...type=3&theater

dubu Sep 30, 2014 9:22 PM
• Video Link

driverless shuttle

M II A II R II K Oct 1, 2014 12:54 PM
Edmonton: what a great transit debate looks like

Read More: http://www.humantransit.org/2014/09/...ooks-like.html

Quote:
.....

Unlike many transit debates, this one is about a real issue that affects the entire city: how to balance the ridership goals of transit with the competing coverage goals, where "coverage" means "respond to every neighborhood's social-service needs and/or sense of entitlement to transit even if the result is predictably low-ridership service."

- When I briefed the Edmonton City Council last year, as part of their Transit System Review, I encouraged the council to formulate a policy about how they would divide their transit budget between ridership goals vs. coverage goals. This solves a fundamental problem in transit analysis today: too often, transit services are being criticized based on their failure to achieve a goal that is not the actual goal of the service. For example, almost all arguments about how unproductive North American bus service is are based on the false assumption that all bus services are trying to be productive.

Nothing makes me happier than to hear elected officials debating an actual question whose answer, once they give it, will actually affect reality. This is what's happening in Edmonton now. So far, articles in Elise Stolte's series have included:

- A nice backgrounder on the whole issue, in which I was interviewed.

- Iveson_mapMayor Don Iveson scribbling a hand-drawn map of his ideal Frequent Network, rich with evocative ball-point ovals and clear hints of grid, and explaining the Frequent Network concept that is the foundation of many high-ridership networks.

- A city councilman from an outer suburban district arguing against too much service to his own low-density constituents: "If you want good transit," he says, "live where it already exists."

.....

M II A II R II K Oct 1, 2014 1:12 PM
The 4 Transportation Systems You'll Meet in the Future

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...future/380904/

Website: http://reprogrammingmobility.org/

Quote:
.....

Re-Programming Mobility conceives four fictional-but-fact-based urban-mobility scenarios set in roughly 2030. The 15-year window is far enough away for mobility to be uprooted—the U.S. interstates were largely completed between 1955 and 1970, after all—but still close enough to be reshaped by public input. While each scenario feels a bit far-fetched in its own right, together they offer plenty of food for thought to anyone concerned with the future of urban movement.

- There's something here for everyone to like (and hate). Townsend says no scenario is intended to be a favorite or ideal, and expects the "real outcome" to be a mixture of each. "Really, the purpose of the scenarios is to try to get people to understand the messiness of the future," he says. "There's not a single technology, or a single decision, or a single economic force that's going to shape the outcome. It's actually the interplay of lots of different forces, including the policy and planning choices we make. That's what we're trying to call people's attention to."

Atlanta, 2028

For years, metro Atlanta suffered terrible traffic congestion, brought on in large part by sprawl and decentralization. In response, Atlanta decided … to sprawl more. This scenario supposes that Atlanta resisted calls for transit and transit-oriented development and instead tried to "grow its way" out of traffic problems. Facilitating this shift are solar-powered roads run by Google—G-Roads—were driverless cars connect commuters to the city at 90 miles an hour. Congestion does fall in this scenario, but exurbs and edge cities expand considerably.

.....

Los Angeles, 2030

Driverless cars have arrived in the Los Angeles of 2030, but they don't play nicely together. L.A. roads carry a mix of tiny Google pods, bigger luxury models, and low-cost Chinese knock-offs—each with varying degrees of automation and poor overall connectivity. The result is enormous congestion. (Adding to the problem, driverless cars now circle in traffic to avoid paying for parking, increasing vehicle-miles traveled by 30 percent.) Youth interest in transit has waned, because digital disengagement is just as easy in a driverless car as it was on a train.

.....

New Jersey, 2029

Major climate events have crushed New Jersey's road network, but from the wreckage has emerged an incredibly sustainable mobility system based on bus-rapid transit corridors. Commuters can arrange a BRT trip on demand or rely on predictive schedules developed by Big Data. The suburbs have collapsed around BRT hubs situated within walkable areas near bike-share stations. Private cars still exist, but they're heavily tolled to pay for BRT upgrades, and commute time into New York has fallen considerably.

.....

Boston, 2032

In this scenario, Boston becomes a dense city to the extreme degree. Freed of possessions by the sharing economy, young people flock to micro-apartments just 135 to 160 square feet in size. The possessions they do own exist in local warehouses, with a system of driverless valets to pick up or drop off items on demand—a sort of "goods cloud." Autonomous bikes thrive, reducing the need for car-ownership and creating streets friendly to pedestrians by day. At night, however, driverless urban freight vehicles take over the roads to replenish and relocate the shared stream of goods.

.....



Atlanta had become a garden city on a once-inconceivable scale, providing millions of people access to both urban amenities and the countryside.


http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/.../1b167e681.jpg




No one had ever considered the risks of incomplete automation, and now planners everywhere are trying to figure out ways to accelerate the adoption of these technologies and avoid getting stuck in transition like LA.


http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/.../5204e7848.jpg




The nation’s most densely populated state, which had reached the limits of sprawl ahead of all others, was now a model of planned, transit-oriented development. By crafting a novel, uniquely American approach to mass transit, New Jersey had preserved its economy and its landscape.


http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/.../cbe1afcba.jpg




In less than a generation, Boston had splintered into two new cities, living side-by-side but rarely touching—one of people and one of stuff, one existing by day, the other by night.


http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/.../b8cce2a49.jpg

llamaorama Oct 1, 2014 5:21 PM
Electric trucks powered by overhead wire similar to trolley buses planned for Long Beach area to reduce pollution caused by diesel trucks serving port:

Los Angeles Is Building an E-Highway

Quote:
The road would eliminate truck emissions, and is being tested in a corridor that connects the port to downtown.
link

Picture from article:

http://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/cit...lead_large.jpg

M II A II R II K Oct 2, 2014 1:54 PM
How the Shinkansen bullet train made Tokyo into the monster it is today

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/20...japan-50-years

Quote:
.....

The world’s first high-speed commercial train line, which celebrates its 50th anniversary on Wednesday, was built along the Tokaido, one of the five routes that connected the Japanese hinterland to Edo, the city that in the mid-1800s became Tokyo. Though train lines crisscrossed the country, they were inadequate to postwar Japan’s newborn ambitions.

- The term “shinkansen” literally means “new trunk line”: symbolically, it lay at the very centre of the huge reconstruction effort. All previous railways were designed to serve regions. The purpose of the Tokaido Shinkansen, true to its name, was to bring people to the capital.

- All foreign visitors to Japan invariably ride the trains and come away with the same impression: Japan’s public transportation is the cleanest, most courteous in the world, run by uniformed, be-gloved men and women who still epitomise a hallowed Japanese work ethic that most companies struggle to maintain in an economy that has remained sluggish for two decades.

- But the most vital aspect of this efficiency is that trains run on time, all the time. This is not just a point of pride. It is a necessity, given the huge number of people that have to be moved. Transfers are timed to the split second, and the slightest delay has the butterfly effect of delaying connections. The Shinkansen is no exception, as exemplified by the “angels”: teams of pink-attired women who descend on a train as soon as it arrives at its terminal and in five minutes leave it spotless for the return trip.

- In an interview in the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper last week, Takashi Hara, a political scholar and expert on Japanese railroads, said the policy of extending the Shinkansen was promulgated by Kakuei Tanaka, Japan’s prime minister from 1972 to 1974. “The purpose was to connect regional areas to Tokyo,” Hara said. “And that led to the current situation of a national Shinkansen network, which completely changed the face of Japan. Travel times were shortened and vibration was alleviated, making it possible for more convenient business and pleasure trips, but I have to say that the project just made all the [connecting] cities part of Tokyo.”

- And where the Shinkansen’s long tentacles go, other services shrivel. Local governments in Japan rely heavily on the central government for funds and public works – it’s how the central government keeps them in line. Politicians actively court high-speed railways since they believe they attract money, jobs and tourists. In the early 1990s, a new Shinkansen was built to connect Tokyo to Nagano, host of the 1998 Winter Olympics. The train ran along a similar route as the Shinetsu Honsen, one of the most romanticised railroads in Japan, beloved of train buffs the world over for its amazing scenery – but also considered redundant by operators JR East because, as with almost all rural train lines in Japan, it lost money.

- Meanwhile, the bullet train has sucked the country’s workforce into Tokyo, rendering an increasingly huge part of the country little more than a bedroom community for the capital. One reason for this is a quirk of Japan’s famously paternalistic corporations: namely, employers pay their workers’ commuting costs. Tax authorities don’t consider it income if it’s less than ¥100,000 a month – so Shinkansen commutes of up to two hours don’t sound so bad. New housing subdivisions filled with Tokyo salarymen subsequently sprang up along the Nagano Shinkansen route and established Shinkansen lines, bringing more people from further away into the capital.

- The Shinkansen’s focus on Tokyo, and the subsequent emphasis on profitability over service, has also accelerated flight from the countryside. It’s often easier to get from a regional capital to Tokyo than to the nearest neighbouring city. Except for sections of the Tohoku Shinkansen, which serves northeastern Japan, local train lines don’t always accommodate Shinkansen rolling stock, so there are often no direct transfer points between local lines and Shinkansen lines. The Tokaido Shinkansen alone now operates 323 trains a day, taking 140 million fares a year, dwarfing local lines. This has had a crucial effect on the physical shape of the city.

- Deepest of all is the new Tokyo terminal for the latest incarnation of the bullet train – the maglev, or Chuo (“central”) Shinkansen, which is supposed to connect Tokyo to Nagoya by 2027 and is being built 40m underground. The maglev is the next technological stage in the evolution of high-speed rail travel. It is meant to be a morale booster for Japan’s railway industry, which no longer boasts the fastest trains or the biggest ridership in the world, distinctions that now belong to Japan’s huge neighbour to the west.

- The Chuo Shinkansen will cut the time it takes to get to Nagoya to 40 minutes, theoretically putting the central Japanese capital within commuting distance of Tokyo – in much the same way that the proposed HS2 will make Birmingham a bedroom community of London. “The Chuo Shinkansen will make Nagoya feel like a suburb of Tokyo,” said Hara.

- If you have any doubt about that, consider that the maglev – short for “magnetic-levitation”, and known in Japanese as “linear motor car” – has to move in as straight and as level a line as possible in order to reach the speeds that will make it the fastest train on Earth. But since Japan’s topography is mostly mountainous, 86% of the journey will be underground.

.....



http://static.guim.co.uk/ni/14120760...ain_011014.svg

202_Cyclist Oct 2, 2014 2:33 PM
The Highway Really Is Raising Your Blood Pressure
 
I am not aware of any adverse health effects of living next to bike lanes.


The Highway Really Is Raising Your Blood Pressure
Is building housing developments near major roadways a bad public health practice?

Sam Sturgis
Oct 1, 2014
CityLab

http://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/cit...lead_large.jpg
Image courtesy of City Lab.

"People may heart New York, but cities in general are hard on the ol' ticker. As previously reported by CityLab, exposure to traffic noise may increase rates of hypertension. Living near a foreclosed home could increase your risk of heart attack, too. Now, another heart-health risk factor has been added to the list: living close to major roadways.

New research from the Journal of the American Heart Association indicates that those living adjacent to large roadways may be at greater risk to develop high blood pressure. Among 5,400 San Diego women, high rates of systolic blood pressure were 9 percent more frequent among those living 100 meters or less from freeways, freeway ramps, and major arterial roads compared to those living 1,000 meters or farther. Given that one-third of American adults are estimated to suffer from high blood pressure, these results could have important urban planning implications. Could a move to build residences away from major roadways, for example, improve public health? (Even though that convenience factor might be what brought you to the city in the first place?).."

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/...essure/380992/

electricron Oct 2, 2014 4:00 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist (Post 6752405)
I am not aware of any adverse health effects of living next to bike lanes.


The Highway Really Is Raising Your Blood Pressure
Is building housing developments near major roadways a bad public health practice?

Sam Sturgis
Oct 1, 2014
CityLab

http://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/cit...lead_large.jpg
Image courtesy of City Lab.

"People may heart New York, but cities in general are hard on the ol' ticker. As previously reported by CityLab, exposure to traffic noise may increase rates of hypertension. Living near a foreclosed home could increase your risk of heart attack, too. Now, another heart-health risk factor has been added to the list: living close to major roadways.

New research from the Journal of the American Heart Association indicates that those living adjacent to large roadways may be at greater risk to develop high blood pressure. Among 5,400 San Diego women, high rates of systolic blood pressure were 9 percent more frequent among those living 100 meters or less from freeways, freeway ramps, and major arterial roads compared to those living 1,000 meters or farther. Given that one-third of American adults are estimated to suffer from high blood pressure, these results could have important urban planning implications. Could a move to build residences away from major roadways, for example, improve public health? (Even though that convenience factor might be what brought you to the city in the first place?).."

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/...essure/380992/
Interesting reports. If noise was the root cause of the high blood pressure higher occurrences, will there be a followup study close to higher capacity railroads which are just as noisy?

Swede Oct 3, 2014 7:10 AM
That noise is bad for you is already a well established fact, isn't it?

Here in Sweden, the regulations for new build housing has had noise regulations for decades. Regulations that need to be updated since they're stale and stiff.

How do we reduce noise then, to make cities more livable? The way to do it is already known, but a very hard sell politically:
Lower the speed limit to 30 km/h. On all streets in an urban area. That would reduce noise immensely.
As to railroads the trick is to get noise barriers as close to the source of the noise as possible (i.e. as close to the rails as possible). Ideally there's be noise barriers between parallel tracks even. Hard to retro-fit and a nightmare if there is ever snow.

M II A II R II K Oct 6, 2014 12:59 AM
The Koch Brothers’ War on Transit

Read More: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/09/2...ar-on-transit/

Quote:
Transit advocates around the country were transfixed by a story in Tennessee this April, when the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity made a bid to pre-emptively kill Nashville bus rapid transit. It was an especially brazen attempt by Charles and David Koch’s political network to strong-arm local transportation policy makers. But it was far from the only time the Kochs and their surrogates have taken aim at transit.

- The Kochs also have plenty of ties to widely quoted, transit-bashing pundits like Randall O’Toole, Wendell Cox, and Stanley Kurtz — people employed by organizations that receive Koch funding, like the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation, and who spout the same talking points against walkability and smart growth. Fake experts like O’Toole and Cox have been making the rounds for ages, but the Nashville BRT story raised new questions. How many local transit projects are drawing fire from the Koch political network? And what impact is it having?

- Ashley Robbins, policy manager at the Center for Transportation Excellence, which supports transit ballot measures around the country, said the Nashville case was an eye-opener. ”We’re definitely going to be watching it as we see more conservative efforts pop up in Milwaukee and Oregon as well,” she said. “We’re starting to keep an eye out to see if it’s going to be a trend.” --- In Tennessee, the local Americans for Prosperity chapter failed to enact the transit lane ban, but it did undermine and weaken the Nashville BRT project, which won’t be as robust as first planned. The Nashville example got us wondering where else Koch-backed groups are attacking local transit projects.

Indianapolis

- Americans for Prosperity Indiana was a leading opponent of efforts to expand transit in the Indianapolis region. The group lobbied state officials to kill legislation that allows Indianapolis to hold a tax referendum to expand its transit network. --- Americans for Prosperity was unsuccessful in completely stopping the Indiana legislation, but it made its mark. The language of the bill that eventually passed was amended to forbid the Indianapolis region from pursuing light rail with any funds raised from the tax.

Virginia

- Americans for Prosperity Virginia fought a new tax in Loudoun County to pay for Metro’s Silver Line extension. The organization issued robo-calls calling the extension a “bail-out to rail-station developers,’’ according to the Washington Post. The county Board of Supervisors voted to proceed with the project anyway.

Boston

- A report by the Pioneer Institute created a “manufactured controversy” over the costs of service at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Ellen Dannin wrote in Truthout earlier this year. The Pioneer Institute is part of the State Policy Network, a group of think tanks with “deep ties to the Koch brothers” according to the Center for Media and Democracy [PDF].

- According to one of the institute’s studies, maintenance costs at the MBTA are “out-of-control,” but Dannin, an author of two books on labor issues, wrote in Truthout that Pioneer relied on metrics that were bound to arrive at a predetermined outcome. For example, it chose to compare bus maintenance costs on a per-mile basis, a standard that puts a dense, crowded city like Boston at a disadvantage.

Florida

- Koch-backed organizations were instrumental in sinking Florida’s high-speed rail plans. In 2000, Sunshine State voters passed an amendment to the state’s constitution requiring the state to establish high-speed rail exceeding 120 mph linking its five major cities. But when Governor Rick Scott was elected in 2010 in a wave of Tea Party governors, he fell in line with fellow members of the Republican Governors Association who were killing rail projects on Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Jersey.

- Scott hired the Reason Foundation — where David Koch is a trustee — to write a report about the proposal. To the surprise of no one, the foundation’s Wendell Cox found the project would cost way more than projected [PDF]. Scott used Cox’s dubious claims as the basis for killing the project. Since that time, private investors have taken up the project, which is, in itself, pretty compelling evidence of the financial feasibility of the concept.

Los Angeles

- The Reason Foundation was also critical of the Los Angeles Exposition Line extension, a $2.5 billion, 15-mile light rail line that will connect Santa Monica to downtown. In May 2012, the week the first phase opened, Reason conducted a “study” in which staff went to Expo Line stations and counted passengers.

- Researchers counted 13,000 passengers, short of the 27,000 daily ridership forecast for 2020. The organization concluded that even by “the most optimistic figure Reason can come up with,” ridership projections had been “vastly inflated.” --- Proponents of the line argued that counting passengers during the first week of service wasn’t a fair way to measure its long term success.

.....



http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-conten...rs-620x412.png

M II A II R II K Oct 13, 2014 5:58 PM
The Future of Transportation Is Not All Flying Cars

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...g-cars/381333/

Future Of Transportation Series: http://www.citylab.com/special-repor...ransportation/

Quote:
.....

American cities have started a gigantic pivot away from complete car-reliance toward multi-modal transportation systems that balance the needs of drivers alongside those of bus and train riders, pedestrians, cyclists, and taxi users. Instead of only a car key in our pocket or purse we have a metro card and a bike-share fob and a smartphone with an e-hail app. We're going to need roads where we're going, but we don't need just roads, and we don't need to use them the way we use them now.

- That's the clearest lesson to emerge from our Future of Transportation series, which began nine months ago and wraps up today, some 85 stories later. Writers reported from pretty much every big city across the country: from Boston down to Miami in the east, Minneapolis to Chicago in the Midwest, New Orleans and Houston in the South, Salt Lake City and Denver in the mountains, and Seattle to Los Angeles in the west. Meantime, experts and planners and officials shared their thoughts and local lessons that can apply to cities of all shapes and sizes. In both a physical and intellectual sense, we covered a lot of ground.

- Much of that travel came by modes other than automobiles. The trends in public transportation range from mobile ticketing to all-day service demand to quicker project completion to fully automated systems. The related rise in transit-oriented development is both promising from a mobility standpoint and potentially troubling from an equity one. Bus-rapid transit and light rail will both play big roles in our multi-modal future, and if they're designed right, streetcars can, too.

- High-speed passenger rail—some of it privately funded—has been slow going for now but remains potentially transformative. Bike-share has arrived in a major way, and electric bikes may soon follow. Even the oldest form of human transportation will also get a fresh start with new sidewalk and shoe technology (power laces notwithstanding).

- Some of the most-shared articles in the series—at least to date—touch on Portland's new multi-modal bridge that bans cars, Denver's multi-billion-dollar push to become the leading transit city in the West, how to make cycling more popular among low-income city residents, and whether the best way to end drunk driving would be to end driving altogether.

- Judging by reader comments, the pieces that sparked the most discussion include Nate Berg's adventures in a Tesla electric vehicle; Yonah Freemark's analyses of light rail systems and the federal government's failed high-speed rail plan; and Emily Badger's clear case for raising the cost of driving. Jeff Speck's triumphant look at why urban roads should be 10-feet wide instead of 12 is hot on these heels despite coming late to the game.

- This interest in alternative modes doesn't deny that highways and cars will still play a dominant role in the future of city mobility. But the edges of that domination are inching inward. Some cities are pushing against increasing traffic congestion with new forms of road pricing. Others are attacking the problem with wholesale shifts in land use and grand new plans for densification. Parking will become greener, odd as that sounds, and potentially less plentiful.

- Roads and traffic lights alike will become more intelligent. Most urban interstates are here to stay, but some will be torn down in an effort to return cities to the people. Those Millennials that do eventually buy cars may be able to snap a dashboard selfie to celebrate the occasion.

- The biggest wild card in tomorrow's transportation, of course, are driverless cars. They're pretty much here—we learned that much up close when we got the first live look at how Google's autonomous car is learning to navigate city streets. Cities and states are already preparing for the not-so-distant day when these cars will hit the market and the roads. But enormous questions remain about the ultimate impact they'll have on urban mobility.

- In the brightest scenario, driverless technology combines with smartphone-based, on-demand taxi service to all but eliminate car-ownership within the city and complement transit access in the suburbs. In the dimmest, the ceaseless flow of driverless traffic might grind our streets to a halt, and we'll be wishing for flying cars after all.

.....



• Video Link

New Brisavoine Oct 15, 2014 7:28 PM
The new express subway lines of Paris, with their completion dates. The map was published yesterday, following the press conference by the French prime minister on Monday.

The map shows the 208 km (129 miles) of new lines and extensions planned before 2030 (mostly in tunnels).

http://m0.libe.com/infographic/2014/..._at=1413281063

initiald Oct 17, 2014 4:14 PM
The transit systems of the Triangle area of North Carolina have started working together for marketing and branding purposes. They are dropping their former transit system names (DART, CAT, C-Tran, etc) and will be GO Raleigh, GO Durham, GO Cary, GO Chapel Hill, and GO Triangle (which is intercity bus system for the two metro areas.)

All the buses are being repainted with new liveries; same design but the transit systems are color coded:

http://raleighpublicrecord.wpengine....10/GObuses.jpg

Are there a lot of other metro areas that work together like this? Here more info.

Swede Oct 20, 2014 10:12 AM
^That's an interesting take on making transit more integrated in an area without a single transit agency. I like it.

Busy Bee Oct 20, 2014 1:31 PM
Yep. Good stuff. As a graphic designer this reminds so much of my senior information design project in college.

Leo the Dog Oct 20, 2014 3:17 PM
Love how the colors correlate to the schools.
Chapel hill - Carolina Blue
Durham - Duke Blue
Raleigh - NC State Red

M II A II R II K Oct 22, 2014 11:38 PM
Bullet Trains Aren't Magic

Read More: http://www.bloombergview.com/article...s-aren-t-magic

Quote:
.....

Forget the ideological arguments about cars versus mass transit, sprawl versus density: These cities are getting to the point where it is lot less physically possible to move more people around without putting in dedicated bus lanes or more rail.

- Maglevs -- which run along a dedicated transitway using high-powered magnets that keep them levitating above the guides, rather than being attached with wheels to a track -- have a lot to recommend them over high-speed rail. They are more expensive to build than conventional rail, but their frictionless movement allows for higher speeds and much lower maintenance costs.

- On the other hand, they also have drawbacks, such as the fact that you can’t run other trains on those tracks. This is one reason Maglevs are faster -- they don't share tracks with poky freight and commuter trains. The drawback is that your new infrastructure project only increases your downtown-to-downtown capacity; it doesn’t do anything to enhance intracity or city-to-suburb transport.

- To see why this matters, consider one issue facing California’s high-speed rail system: how to get people to the train. People making comparisons between air travel and the promised three-hour Los Angeles-to-San Francisco commute include the time to get to the airport and clear security in their calculations of the time required for an air journey.

- That makes train travel look competitive. But, of course, you should also add in the time needed to get to the train station. And in L.A., that time may be longer than it takes to get to an airport, because the sprawling metro area has multiple major airports (Burbank, LAX, Long Beach), allowing people to fly in and out without spending too much time on the dreaded 405.

- A single high-speed rail station in downtown Los Angeles would divert some trips, but when you add in a long drive, it would be decidedly inferior to air travel for anyone who was planning to be elsewhere in the city. This is markedly different from Northeast Corridor's Acela rail service, to which flying is superior only for the relatively small number of people who happen to live near an airport.

- If you just add intercity mass transit without increasing the number of people you can move around a city, one of two things happens: Ridership will stay far below expectations, or you’ll dump more people into your overloaded streets, making local congestion worse. This is why there’s a good argument for high-speed rail over Maglev -- when you’re not running high-speed trains, you can move some commuters point to point.

- For that matter, there’s a good argument for not building the Maglev at all and instead investing the money in better commuter rail. But that doesn’t get us any closer to the really important goal, which is letting me ride a Maglev.

.....



http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iMDYyufHq2zI.jpg

aquablue Oct 23, 2014 6:47 AM
The fact that Americans have shunned HSR as a people is appalling - i'm talking votes at the polls and budget allocation.

In Europe, one can travel from Paris to Milan in 7 hours. It takes 6 hours to get from DC to Boston. That's ridiculous. The airports are clogging up. There is no room for expansion in NYC, the airports will be full up by 2050 as no expansion can take place due to Nimbies. If HSR isn't possible on the NEC, then nowhere should be doing it. Might as well give up now. NEC is the perfect place. However, california is doing it... a place where it makes less sense as the cities are incredibly sprawling.

It's time for the American people to all travel to Europe and see what they are missing out on. I guarantee you that rail friendly politicians would be winning more votes.

M II A II R II K Oct 24, 2014 6:28 PM
What France Can Teach U.S. Cities About Transit Design

Read More: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/...design/381742/

Quote:
.....

American light rail systems have had modest success and modern streetcar lines have questionable transit value, France operates 57 tram lines in 33 cities that together carry some 3 million passengers a day and create a fantastic balance of mobility options for urban and suburban residents alike—all built in the last 30 years.

- "We have little streetcars here that carry a thousand people a day. They have lines that carry a hundred thousand people a day," says Gregory Thompson, chair of the light rail committee for the Transportation Research Board and retired urban planning scholar at Florida State. "What's the difference?" --- The difference largely comes down to what the French call "insertion," but what Americans would simply see as street design.

- French cities typically install (insert, if you will) tram tracks onto public right-of-ways—streets, alleys, plazas and the like—even if that means removing car lanes or street-parking spaces to do so. To accommodate trams, streets are often redesigned in full to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists and other potential transit riders. For the most part, trams get exclusive lanes that cars can't use; it's not that the French don't drive, it's that cars don't automatically monopolize city streets.

In a presentation at the Rail-Volution meeting this September, Thompson and colleagues Tom Larwin and Tom Parkinson outlined five principles that French trams embrace:

• They tie cities together. French tram lines typically extend from urban fringe to urban fringe via the city center.

• They require high-performance transit vehicles. That means large capacities, all-door entry, train-style off-board fare payment, level boarding, and signal priority.

• They have widely spaced stops. Tram stops are spaced far enough apart to improve travel times, but they're placed at critical transfer points with feeder buses or other major lines.

• They reach major destinations. That's a given for good transit, of course, but French tram lines emphasize access to college campuses, office complexes, health centers, and malls, in addition to major suburbs and downtowns.

• They form the core of a larger transit network. Bus lines are reconfigured to serve major tram stops, and fare programs encourage easy transfers from mode to mode.

- None of these lessons are especially innovative. But that's the point. The French "art of insertion" isn't some unattainable initiative that American cities can't understand (name aside). Rather, it's more like a blend of America's existing complete streets movement with some core principles of strong surface transit. That's the "main lesson" of the French method, in Thompson's mind.

- "You want to figure out where you want to locate lines to serve major destinations, then you want to use the road system to get from here to there," he says. "Streets are a resource. They're a right-of-way that goes from building façade to building façade. You should not think of them as entirely just infrastructure for moving automobiles. There's lots of different claimants on the use of that space, and a major transit line can be one of those claimants. And it can be made not to be some intrusive monster but to function along with the urban fabric."

- To be sure, these are differences between French and U.S. cities that complicate the international exchange of tram insertion. The French government is generally more supportive of public transportation; the country's 1996 clean air act, in particular, encourages transit development at the expensive of car travel. The public good often trumps NIMBY interests in France, preventing long battles that end with building costly transit tunnels. (The one new French tram that does run underground, in Rouen, is often seen as a mistake.) Critically, French localities have dedicated transit funding in the form of a payroll tax.

.....



http://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/cit...lead_large.jpg

M II A II R II K Oct 30, 2014 4:35 PM
Henning Larsen Architects to design train station for new Danish town

Read More: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/10/16/hen...re-town-vinge/

Quote:
Danish studio Henning Larssen has won an architecture competition to design an S-train station that will form the main transport hub in the centre of Vinge, the 350-hectare future city that will be built in the Frederikssund region, north of Copenhagen.

- The train station will connect the new city with neighbouring regional areas, as well as Copenhagen, and is expected to be built by 2017 ahead of the city's completion in 2033. Henning Larsen Architects had already created the master plan for the town, which will be the largest urban development project in Denmark to date and home to over 20, 000 inhabitants.

- "The easy accessibility to Vinge through public transport will increase its overall attractiveness, motivating businesses to establish in either the city centre or in the business area just north of the centre," said Henning Larsen Architects in a statement.

- Buildings of varying heights situated along the tracks are intended to integrate the station into the larger city infrastructure. "From the high-density environment of the city centre, the architecture gradually transitions to lower, more open building typologies, scaling down the building stock towards the surrounding open landscape," said the architects.

.....



http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/201...zeen_784_0.jpg




http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/201...zeen_784_1.jpg




http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/201...zeen_784_2.jpg




http://static.dezeen.com/uploads/201...zeen_784_4.jpg

M II A II R II K Nov 8, 2014 6:56 PM
The difficulty people have in getting to jobs makes unemployment unnecessarily high

Read More: http://www.economist.com/news/financ...-unnecessarily

Quote:
IN THE OECD, a club mostly of rich countries, nearly 45m people are unemployed. Of these, 16m have been seeking work for over a year. Many put this apparently intractable scourge down to workers’ inadequate skills or overgenerous welfare states. But might geography also play a role?

- In a paper* published in 1965, John Kain, an economist at Harvard University, proposed what came to be known as the “spatial-mismatch hypothesis”. Kain had noticed that while the unemployment rate in America as a whole was below 5%, it was 40% in many black, inner-city communities. He suggested that high and persistent urban joblessness was due to a movement of jobs away from the inner city, coupled with the inability of those living there to move closer to the places where jobs had gone, due to racial discrimination in housing. --- Employers might also discriminate against those that came from “bad” neighbourhoods. As a result, finding work was tough for many inner-city types, especially if public transport was poor and they did not own a car.

- Others, like Edward Glaeser, another Harvard economist, suggest that spatial mismatch is overblown. There may indeed be a correlation between where people live and their chances of finding a job. But the connection may not be causal: people may live in bad areas because they have been shunned by employers, either for lack of skills or because of racial discrimination.

- Researchers could calculate the distance between homes and job opportunities but struggled to estimate how much time it would take to get from one to the other by car or public transport. And the research was marred by small samples, often all from a single city.

- A new paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, avoids these pitfalls. It looks at the job searches of nearly 250,000 poor Americans living in nine cities in the Midwest. These places contain pockets of penury: unemployment in inner Chicago, for instance, is twice the average for the remainder of the city. Even more impressive than the size of the sample is the richness of the data.

- They are longitudinal, not cross-sectional: the authors have repeated observations over a number of years (in this case, six). That helps them to separate cause and effect. Most importantly, the paper looks only at workers who lost their jobs during “mass lay-offs”, in which at least 30% of a company’s workforce was let go. That means the sample is less likely to include people who may live in a certain area, and be looking for work, for reasons other than plain bad luck.

- For each worker the authors build an index of accessibility, which measures how far a jobseeker is from the available jobs, adjusted for how many other people are likely to be competing for them. The authors use rush-hour travel times to estimate how long a jobseeker would need to get to a particular job.

- If a spatial mismatch exists, then accessibility should influence how long it takes to find a job. That is indeed what the authors find: jobs are often located where poorer people cannot afford to live. Those at the 25th percentile of the authors’ index take 7% longer to find a job that replaces at least 90% of their previous earnings than those at the 75th percentile. Those who commuted a long way to their old job find a new one faster, possibly because they are used to a long trek.

- Some suggest that governments should encourage companies to set up shop in areas with high unemployment. That is a tall order: firms that hire unskilled workers often need to be near customers or suppliers. A better approach would be to help workers either to move to areas with lots of jobs, or at least to commute to them.

- That would involve scrapping zoning laws that discourage cheaper housing, and improving public transport. The typical American city dweller can reach just 30% of jobs in their city within 90 minutes on public transport. That is a recipe for unemployment.

.....



http://cdn.static-economist.com/site...025_fnd000.jpg

M II A II R II K Nov 14, 2014 7:57 PM
Where We Should and Shouldn’t Build Roads in the Future

Read More: http://www.wired.com/2014/08/grawk-roadmaps/

Quote:
Roads are great for agriculture and industry, but they can also be a huge problem for the environment. And more roads are coming, especially to the developing world, where the needs for economic growth and environmental justice are most at odds.

To balance these tensions, a team of geographers made a global map they hope will act as a “large-scale zoning plan” for new roads. They’ve got their work cut out for them. According to a 2013 study by the International Energy Agency, humans are going to pave 15.5 million miles of road by 2050. Ninety percent of this is expected to take place in developing countries.

The researchers approached the problem initially by making two base maps. The first rated the world’s environmental value pixel by pixel taking into consideration things like biodiversity and proximity to protected areas. Using similar estimations they made another map that showed economic value of future roads based on the agricultural value of the lands they connected.

.....



The top map shows environmental value; the bottom economic value. W. Lawrance et al./Global Road Map

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uplo...nvironment.jpg




http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uplo...road-world.jpg


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