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Lexington’s rainbow crosswalk is a safety hazard, federal official says

http://www.kentucky.com/news/politic...184775743.html

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- The Federal Highway Administration wants Lexington Mayor Jim Gray to remove a rainbow-themed crosswalk in downtown Lexington that was installed to promote diversity, saying it poses a legal liability to the city. — “While we recognize in good faith your crosswalk art was well-intended for your community, we request that you take the necessary steps to remove the non-compliant crosswalk as soon as it is feasible,” wrote Thomas L. Nelson Jr., administrator for the Kentucky division of the Federal Highway Administration in Frankfort, in a two-page letter to Gray.

- The crosswalk at the intersection of North Limestone and Short Street was painted in rainbow colors just before the June 25 Pride Festival. The Blue Grass Community Foundation sponsored the project through a grant from its Knight Foundation Donor Advised Charitable Fund. — The crosswalk at the intersection of North Limestone and Short Street was painted in rainbow colors just before the June 25 Pride Festival. The Blue Grass Community Foundation sponsored the project through a grant from its Knight Foundation Donor Advised Charitable Fund.

- Lisa Adkins, president and chief executive officer of the foundation, said in June that the rainbow crosswalk was intended to celebrate the city’s rich diversity and improve safety at a busy intersection. She said Wednesday that other cities in America have rainbow crosswalks and she has not heard of any concerns about them. — “Lexington prides itself as being an inclusive city,” Adkins said. “The crosswalk does that and adds to the downtown’s vibrancy.” The project cost about $10,000 to $12,000, she said, of which the foundation paid about $5,000.

- Nelson said in his Nov. 13 letter to Gray that rainbow-themed crosswalks and other forms of crosswalk art are not compliant with federal standards. “Allowing a non-compliant pavement marking to remain in place presents a significant liability concern for LFUCG (Lexington Fayette Urban County Government) in the event of a pedestrian/vehicle collision,” Nelson wrote. — “It also creates potential confusion for motorists, pedestrians and other jurisdictions who may see these markings and install similar crosswalk treatments in their cities.”

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCOCmIHVoAAU-S6.jpg

In the former Yugoslavia I nearly busted my head open on a slick mossy sidewalk and in Rome I almost broke my ankle stepping off a tram onto a broken curb. Those were legitimate liabilities, this is not. You would have to be mentally retarded to somehow get hurt because the crosswalk is painted like a rainbow. But somehow the most ridiculous part of the story isn't the federal order but the fact that it cost $12,000 to paint a rainbow on the pavement. What? Did they hire a plumber to paint it with $500 a gallon paint?

I love Toronto's new streetcars!

• Video Link[/QUOTE]

China built 2000 meter long solar highway with transparent concrete over solar panels

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/0...ar-panels.html

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- Qilu Transportation Development Group, a state-owned transport firm operating in Shandong, is completing a 2000 meter solar highway in China. The road’s composition is made of three distinct layers, with transparent concrete on top protecting the solar panels beneath. The bottom layer is a strip of insulation that will protect the panels from the earth’s elements. Chinese solar inverter firm Growatt has supplied its string inverters for the project.

- The Jinan South Ring Expressway creeps into the city and will not only plug into the grid but will also serve as a research prototype, with engineers from Tongji University – who developed the core technology for the project – stressing that in the future this solar-powered stretch of road could actually charge electric vehicles as they drive along it. Tongji University professor of transportation engineering Zhang Hongchao said that he hopes the solar highway can kickstart the development of a national network of smart roads.

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https://www.nextbigfuture.com/wp-con...430.jpg?x71037

I, for one, welcome our new orange robot overlords – and here’s why

http://www.thenational.scot/news/158..._here___s_why/

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- THE robots are coming to Glasgow – and they’ll be in a clockwork orange near you. We heard this week that the city’s subway will be the first fully automated train system in the UK, with no staff on board either to drive or open doors. The promo pics are slick. The driver’s cab will become a viewing platform. You’ll be able to walk from one end of the train to the other. Wheelchairs will be welcomed.

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http://www.thenational.scot/resource...ype=0&type=mc1

Japanese train barks like a dog to prevent accidents

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-f...where-42714353

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- Officials from the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI) say that a three-second blast of the sound of a deer snorting attracts the animals' attention, and 20 seconds of dog barking is enough to make them take flight. — RTRI researchers say the late-night tests, at times when deer congregate around railway tracks, have resulted in a halving of deer sightings. If proved to be effective, future plans include static barking sites where deer are commonly seen.

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https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/375/cp...-170789253.jpg

France Says No for Now to Johnson's Idea of Giant Channel Bridge

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/ar...hnson-suggests

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- France on Friday politely rejected Boris Johnson's idea of building a giant bridge across the English Channel after Brexit, saying that, while far-fetched ideas were worth considering, there were plenty of major European projects to finish first. — The Telegraph said Johnson believed a privately funded 22-mile bridge might now be an option, and would support increased tourism and trade after Brexit. — Building a 22-mile-long bridge across the Channel would therefore not be without its challenges, especially as the largest ships currently transiting the Strait have a height above the water line in excess of 60 meters.

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Dumbest. Idea. Ever.

Far From Boring: Meet the Most Interesting Tunnel Boring Machines

http://www.cat-bus.com/2018/01/far-f...ring-machines/

The Giant TBM

- Musk says he can build tunnels cheaper if he just makes them smaller. But in reality, it’s not small TBMs that are the future, but big ones. The cost of a TBM doesn’t get much higher as you increase its diameter. It is therefore cheaper to build one very large tunnel, rather than two smaller ones. So giant, linear tunnel building factories have been constructed, with some reaching up to 17.6m in diameter.

- A large diameter tunnel becomes really interesting for the construction of a metro, if it is large enough to fit not only the tracks, but the station platforms inside it. These large tunnels can also house other necessary infrastructure: siding tracks to park trains at night, ramps so trains can cross over from one level to the other, evacuation paths, power substations — all items requiring space and cost.

http://www.cat-bus.com/wp-content/up...lona-3-tbm.gif

https://i.imgur.com/XeGduuQ.jpg?1

http://www.cat-bus.com/wp-content/up...tle-tunnel.jpg

The Vertical TBM

- Let’s say you’ve built your metro line using a giant TBM, and installed platforms inside the tunnels — you’ll still need to access those stations from the surface. Traditionally, you would dig some access shafts. This may be slow, labor-intensive, and complicated if there’s ground-water. But in the interesting new world of tunnel technology, there’s a TBM for that: the “vertical shaft sinking machine”.

http://www.cat-bus.com/wp-content/up...e-overview.jpg

The Diagonal TBM

- We could now build our subway line deep underground inside giant tunnels, and vertical shafts down to provide elevator accesses. The thing is, if you want a lot of people to access your station, you need escalators, which move many more people per hour. This means we want tunnels to be neither vertical or horizontal, but built at the 30 degree angle of escalators.

- In 1997, Saint-Petersburg opened an extension of its line 5, very deep underground. But one 102m deep station, Admiralteyskaya, wasn’t opened until more than a decade later, because they couldn’t figure out how to build a connection to the surface. For all this time, trains just ran through this ghost station but didn’t stop there, since there was no connection to the surface. The problem was that there are a lot of museums and heritage buildings nearby and the ground is composed of a soft soil.

http://www.cat-bus.com/wp-content/up...-schematic.jpg

The Rectangular TBM

- One issue with traditional TBMs is that they build tunnels with a circular cross section. But the internal cross-section of tunnels usually needs to be rectangular; generally we want a flat bottom, walls going straight up, with some relatively constant ceiling height. If we use a circular TBM to build a tunnel, we have a bunch of wasted space on the sides. This can be especially an issue when space is at a premium, or if we want to build tunnels as close as possible to the surface.

- This is especially true for underpasses, which have to be as close to the surface as possible and which also have a relatively small height (as little as 2.2m) but require a good amount of width (4m and more). Traditionally, these would be constructed using cut-and-cover: the road would be dug up, the tunnel placed in, and the road rebuilt on top. This can be a major disruption to the surface roads above.

http://www.cat-bus.com/wp-content/up...lar-digger.jpg

http://www.cat-bus.com/wp-content/up...M-Cropped.jpeg

China to unveil 600 km/h maglev train in 2020

http://www.ecns.cn/m/cns-wire/2016/10-26/231727.shtml

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- CRRC Corp. Ltd., China's largest rail transport equipment maker, will start research and development on 600 km/h maglev trains that would consume 35 percent less energy compared to those abroad. Plans also call for a 40 degree centigrade decrease in temperature in its electromagnets and a 6 percent lower weight.

- Construction on the maglev rail line will adopt electro-magnetic suspension (EMS) technology, which is mature enough and can be quickly adapted in the engineering, the company said. The firm will also begin R&D on cross-border high-speed trains that can run 400 km per hour as well as safety assurance technology for rail traffic systems.

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USA Transit Desert Mapper:

https://alltransit.cnt.org/gap-finder/

Seattle plan for free transit for students among most generous in nation, mayor says

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...on-mayor-says/

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- Mayor Jenny Durkan’s proposal to make buses and light rail free for public high-school students would make Seattle the largest city in the country to offer free transit service to students, the mayor’s office said. Fewer than half of bus agencies across the country even offer a discounted (half price or better) fare for high-school students, according to the American Public Transportation Association. --- About 7,000 of those students — those who live more than 2 miles from school — get a free pass from the school district, but only during the school year. Bellevue, Lake Washington, Highline and Mercer Island school districts have similar programs. An additional 2,700 low-income Seattle high-school students get free year-round ORCA passes.

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Originally Posted by Busy Bee (Post 7996729)

No doubt about the cost. I'm sure that probably includes the cost of proposing it and getting it approved and doing whatever government approval processes are required even for small projects, and the paint probably is pretty expensive - but nonetheless, $12,000!?!? If it took two union workers a full day of work at a cost of, say $800 per day per worker (including salary, benefits, and everything else to employ someone), that's $3,200, then if the paint was $500 per color, there are 6 colors, so that's another $3,000, leaving nearly an additional $6,000 to cover any administrative costs associated with planning and execution.

Versus what could have been accomplished by allowing a community group to temporarily paint them with exterior house paint or something for a month around Pride that would probably have cost $300 in paint and no salary and maybe $300 more to cover costs of removing the temporary colors after Pride.

^Yep . Bonkers I tell ya

Drivers now deployed on Singapore's driverless MRT trains to improve reliability

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...ve-reliability

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- SINGAPORE - In a case where humans are still superior to machines, Singapore's driverless MRT lines are now being manned to raise reliability. SBS Transit, which operates the North East and Downtown lines, told The Straits Times it started manning every North East Line (NEL) train last October. NEL was the world's first driverless heavy-rail system when it opened in 2003.

- SBS Transit spokesman Tammy Tan said it initially manned NEL trains during peak hours and on every other train, but "we reviewed the arrangements and now we have someone on board every train throughout operational hours". "We have staff on board our driverless trains not only as a reassurance to commuters, but also for operational contingency," she told The Straits Times, adding that trained staff on board makes for quicker service recovery.

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https://static.straitstimes.com.sg/s...?itok=WRWDRdoq

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