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Rail signal upgrade 'could be hacked to cause crashes'

Read More: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32402481

Quote:

A hi-tech signalling system that will eventually control all of Britain's trains could potentially be hacked to cause a serious crash, according to a scientist who advises the government. Prof David Stupples told the BBC that plans to replace ageing signal lights with new computers could leave the rail network exposed to cyber-attacks. UK tests of the European Rail Traffic Management System are under way.

Network Rail, which is in charge of the upgrade, acknowledges the threat. --- "We know that the risk [of a cyber-attack] will increase as we continue to roll out digital technology across the network," a spokesman told the BBC. "We work closely with government, the security services, our partners and suppliers in the rail industry and external cybersecurity specialists to understand the threat to our systems and make sure we have the right controls in place." --- Once the ERTMS is up and running, computers will dictate critical safety information including how fast the trains should go and how long they will take to stop.

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http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/med...41e050b952.jpg

The real story behind the demise of America's once-mighty streetcars

Read More: http://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/...history-demise

Quote:

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Whatever happened to all those streetcars? --- "There's this widespread conspiracy theory that the streetcars were bought up by a company National City Lines, which was effectively controlled by GM, so that they could be torn up and converted into bus lines," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. But that's not actually the full story, he says. "By the time National City Lines was buying up these streetcar companies, they were already in bankruptcy."

- The decline of the streetcar after World War I — when cars began to arrive on city streets — is often cast as a simple choice made by consumers. As a Smithsonian exhibition puts it, "Americans chose another alternative — the automobile. The car became the commuter option of choice for those who could afford it, and more people could do so." --- But the reality is more complicated. "People weren't choosing to ride or not ride in some perfect universe — they were making it in a messy, real-world environment," Norton says. The real problem was that once cars appeared on the road, they could drive on streetcar tracks — and the streetcars could no longer operate efficiently.

- What's more, in many cities the streetcars' contracts required them to keep the pavement on the roads surrounding the tracks in good shape. This meant that the companies were effectively subsidizing automobile travel even as it cannibalized their business. And paying for this maintenance got more and more difficult for one key reason: many contracts had permanently locked companies into a 5-cent fare, which wasn't indexed to inflation. --- Especially after World War I, the value of 5 cents plummeted, but streetcars had to get approval from municipal commissions for any fare hikes — and the idea of the 5-cent fare had become ingrained as something of a birthright among many members of the public.

- The public had little sympathy for the traction magnates who'd entered into these contracts. Today, many progressives and urbanists are boosters of streetcars, but back then they were often seen as a bastion of corruption — especially because of their owners' history of violent strike-breaking. --- Because of these factors, some streetcar companies began going into bankruptcy as early as the 1920s, when they were still their cities' dominant mode of transportation. Huge costs and the falling value of fares forced them to cut back on service, steadily pushing people to the convenient, increasingly affordable automobile.

- By the 1950s, virtually all streetcar companies were in terrible shape. Some were taken over by new municipal bus companies, while a total of 46 transit networks were bought up by National City Lines — the holding company linked to GM, as well as oil and tire companies, that's at the center of all the conspiracy theories. While it's true that National City continued ripping up lines and replacing them with buses — and that, long-term, GM benefited from the decline of mass transit — it's very hard to argue that National City killed the streetcar on its own.

- It's also not exactly right to say the streetcar died because Americans chose the car. In an alternate world where government subsidized each mode equally, it's easy to imagine things playing out quite differently. So what killed the streetcar? The simplest answer is that it couldn't compete with the car — on an extremely uneven playing field.

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https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jXG...truction.0.jpg

Transit Visualization Client, or TRAVIC, takes public data from 249 transportation networks, across five continents, and puts them onto one, animated map. The only caveat is that some data point movements correspond to schedules, not real-time realities

http://tracker.geops.ch/?z=12&s=1&x=...64&l=transport

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/m.../091ac32dd.gif

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/m.../39f983cff.gif

Highways gutted American cities. So why did they build them?

Read More: http://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/8605917...cities-history

Quote:

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The 48,000 miles of interstate highway that would be paved across the country during the 1950s, '60s, and '70s were a godsend for many rural communities. But those highways also gutted many cities, with whole neighborhoods torn down or isolated by huge interchanges and wide ribbons of asphalt. Wealthier residents fled to the suburbs, using the highways to commute back in by car. That drained the cities' tax bases and hastened their decline.

- So why did cities help build the expressways that would so profoundly decimate them? The answer involves a mix of self-interested industry groups, design choices made by people far away, a lack of municipal foresight, and outright institutional racism. --- "There was an immense amount of funding that would go to local governments for building freeways, but they had little to no influence over where they'd go," says Joseph DiMento, a law professor who co-wrote Changing Lanes: Visions and Histories of Urban Freeways. "There was also a racially motivated desire to eliminate what people called 'urban blight.' The funds were seen as a way to fix the urban core by replacing blight with freeways."

- The roots of the interstate system go back to the 1930s, when General Motors, AAA, and other industry groups formed the National Highway Users Conference to influence federal transportation policy. --- These groups realized the nation's transportation system needed to be reframed entirely — as a public responsibility. After all, most cities had just ripped up their streetcar networks because they were privately owned systems that weren't making money. The auto industry didn't want the same thing to happen to highways. --- So "there was a really successful effort by people with a stake in the automotive industry to characterize road-building as a public responsibility," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.

- The first step was changing how roads were funded. In the 1930s, there were already privately owned toll roads in the East, and some public toll highways, like the Pennsylvania Turnpike, were under construction. But auto groups recognized that funding public roads through taxes on gasoline would allow highways to expand much more quickly. --- They also decided to call these roads "free roads," a term that was later replaced by "freeways." Norton argues that this naming shift was essential in persuading the federal government — and the public — to shift away from tolls. "It started with calling the roads drivers pay for 'toll roads,' and calling the ones that taxpayers pay for 'free roads,'" he says. "Of course, there's no such thing as a free road."

- The plan's key contributors included members of the auto industry (including General Motors CEO Charles Erwin Wilson) and highway engineers. Curiously, urban planners were absent — the profession barely existed at the time. --- "Highway engineers dominated the decision-making," says DiMento. "They were trained to design without much consideration for how a highway might impact urban fabric — they were worried about the most efficient way of moving people from A to B." --- As a result, the official plans dictated that highways cut directly through the core of virtually every major city in order to bring commuters from newly growing suburbs in and out.

- State and city politicians accepted these plans for a variety of reasons. In an era when suburbs had just begun to grow, DiMento says, "local politicians saw urban freeways as a way of bringing suburban commuters into city." Some local businesspeople supported them for similar reasons. --- But an unmistakable part of the equation was the federally supported program of "urban renewal," in which lower-income urban communities — mostly African-American — were targeted for removal. --- "The idea was 'let's get rid of the blight,'" says DiMento. "And places that we'd now see as interesting, multi-ethnic areas were viewed as blight." Highways were a tool for justifying the destruction of many of these areas.

- The new freeways also isolated many other neighborhoods, ushering in their demise. Combined with federal housing bills that paid developers to tear down existing housing stock and replace it with high-rises, they resulted in the continued decimation of huge swaths of many cities. --- "Many neighborhoods, predominantly black, were wiped out and turned into surface parking and highways," Norton says, noting Black Bottom and Paradise Valley in Detroit, historical neighborhoods that were torn down to make way for I-375.

- But not all the highways got built. Many city governments opposed them from the beginning — and in San Francisco, DC, and elsewhere, key segments were blocked by a coalition of local officials and residents. In New York, activists led by Jane Jacobs successfully prevented construction of I-78 through Lower Manhattan, which would have torn up much of Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Lower East Side. --- "The explanation, in almost every case, is that the relatively well-off, influential people in those cities were able to stop the urban highways that would have gone through their neighborhoods," Norton says, pointing to Wisconsin Avenue, in DC, which was slated to become a highway but never did due to the protest of wealthy residents of the city's Northwest quadrant.

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The yellow book planned for several highways to cut across Manhattan. (Public Roads Administration — Federal Works Agency)

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6fe...low_Book.0.jpg

The yellow book called for I-80 and 280 to connect near the Golden Gate Bridge. (Public Roads Administration — Federal Works Agency)

https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5d7...rancisco.0.jpg

In DC, highways that would have run through the city's Northwest and center were never built. (Public Roads Administration — Federal Works Agency)

https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2KJ...low_Book.0.jpg

These highways would link distant cities but also thread through downtowns, allowing people to drive as quickly as possible from home to work and back. This vision was distilled in a massive, one-acre diorama GM built for the 1939 World's Fair in New York called Futurama:

https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8WI...uturama2.0.jpg

Roads were certainly designed by and for the car companies, ripped neighbourhoods apart {mostly poor black ones}, and were bad urban planning but the idea was never to destroy downtown cores. In fact it was quite the contrary............they were suppose to invigorate the downtowns or so it was thought at the time.

As cities grew, the first suburbs arrived, and cars became common freeways were thought of as a way to help downtowns. Transit ridership was declining and freeways were considered a fast alternative to bring people into the city and when freeways and suburbs were in their infancy they did precisely that.

It was the thing that they did not fore see that caused much of the decline of the urban cores............suburban shopping. When freeways were in their infancy there was no such thing as a mall or even basic shopping centres. People still headed into the cities on those new freeways to do their shopping but the malls and suburban stores changed all that.

As shopping became available in the new suburbs the populations soared with young families and due to the white flight the wealthy whites left the urban centres with smaller populations and much poorer ones.

Urban planners who dreamt up these freeway systems did not have the goal of destroying their downtown cores but many saw it as a way to make them flourish as those new suburbanites would still have a fast route downtown for work, shopping, and entertainment.

The freeways started and helped with the decline of the urban cores but in reality it was suburban shopping centres and malls that really put the nail in the coffin.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...ak-save-lives/

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net...-combined2.png

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net...-combined1.png

Considering the constant threat of budget cuts and the fact that Amtrak’s entire yearly budget is only $3.5 million, it’s no wonder the expensive safety system wasn’t immediately put in place:

http://d35brb9zkkbdsd.cloudfront.net...05/amtrak2.png

America's crumbling infrastructure

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/america-s-crum...170349892.html

Quote:

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The American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent report card gave America’s infrastructure a D+. And according to the World Economic Forum, the U.S. ranks 16th in quality of overall infrastructure, behind countries like France, Spain and Japan.

- Our roads, for example, require a lot of maintenance, especially after a long winter. All those potholes and rough roads cost drivers an estimated $324 a year spent on car repairs. Many roads are often jammed with traffic. Forty-two percent of America’s major urban highways are considered congested. And that costs the economy an estimated $101 billion in wasted time and fuel each year. It’s not just the highways and roads. Around 70,000 bridges are structurally deficient, which means they’re not unsafe but are in poor condition due to deterioration.

- So why is America’s infrastructure beginning to crumble? Maintaining and improving infrastructure is expensive — really expensive. According to the ASCE report, an estimated $1.7 trillion is needed by 2020 for our surface transportation to be improved. --- State and local governments largely finance infrastructure in the U.S., but when they’re short on funds, infrastructure moves down the priority list. The federal government provides crucial funding through something called the Highway Trust Fund, which gets its revenue mostly from a gas tax. It’s 18.4 cents per gallon, but it hasn’t been raised since 1993.

- Over the years, Congress has passed a series of fixes to keep the fund going, but it is expected to go broke on May 31 if lawmakers don’t act quickly. On May 19 the House passed a two-month extension, and it is expected to also pass in the Senate. Still, a more permanent fix is needed. Politicians on both sides of the aisle agree that this is a critical issue. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in January, “We’ve got to find a way to deal with America’s crumbling infrastructure.” --- But so far for Congress, and even the White House, the road forward doesn’t include raising the gas tax. And they can’t see eye to eye on other spending to allocate for infrastructure either.

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• Video Link

New York Central Railroad - 1950's - "The Big Train" - WDTVLIVE42

• Video Link

Pennsylvania RailRoad 1946 "Clear Track Ahead!" - Historic Trains in America

• Video Link

This App Wants To Help Public Transit Compete With Uber

Read More: http://www.fastcoexist.com/3045156/t...pete-with-uber

Quote:

For those that have the cash, it keeps getting easier and more compelling to avoid public transit. Private buses like Bridj and Leap Transit crunch data to give people the fastest commute possible. UberPool and Lyft Line find riders going in the same direction to offer an option that's cheaper than a taxi and as much as twice as fast as waiting as a bus stop.

- "The almost-universal adoption of mobile technologies has already shifted consumer and rider expectations in many respects, and mass transit is realizing they need to adapt very quickly," says Doug Kauffman, CEO of TransLoc, the startup, which is building an app to help agencies quickly identify where riders are actually traveling so cities can start to offer services tailored to those needs. --- "Private transportation is a very popular investment right now, which means there is a big influx of cash and a lot of new companies that are able to innovate very quickly," he says. "This puts a lot of pressure on public transit to respond and establish what role transit will play in the future."

- Riders using TransLoc's app, currently a prototype, give it permission to follow their route as they ride. That data builds maps that agencies can use to make routes more efficient, and eventually offer on-demand services. Someone could, for example, someday use the app to request a bus, and the system could quickly crowdsource a route to pick up several riders with a small bus or van.

- "It would help agencies provide a transit service that is truly rider-centric: Vehicles coming to you, on your schedule, taking your location and destination into consideration," says Kauffman. "When asked, most people say they don’t use mass transit because it requires significant time and effort to reach their destination. Take my commute, for example–-by car it’s 10 minutes, by bus it’s 90 minutes. This is not unusual, and it reduces the number of people for whom transit is a good option. We can help transit do better."

- Some cities, like Helsinki, are already experimenting with similar systems. Transloc thinks that on-demand systems may become common. --- "I think it’s possible that all transit agencies will include an on-demand service as part of their overall offering," Kauffman says. Fixed routes won’t and shouldn’t be eliminated entirely; there’s still a big place for them in any transit system. Balancing the two is the ideal, so while an on-demand option may not be viable for every agency, the platform we’re building makes it possible for agencies to do that if they choose."

- Public transit, with $40 billion in funding every year, is unlikely to go away anytime soon. But integrating new technology may help it keep more customers, get more people out of cars, and keep a vital service efficient for those who can't afford other options. --- "Public transit is intrinsically linked to jobs and social mobility," says Kauffman. "If public transit becomes only for those who can’t afford the private alternative, and the service provided is less than ideal, it limits people’s opportunities. We know public transit can thrive with investment and innovation in a way that serves everyone well. That’s why our mission is to take it from last resort for some to first choice for all."

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http://a.fastcompany.net/multisite_f...-with-uber.jpg

http://h.fastcompany.net/multisite_f...-with-uber.jpg

The above may bolster public transit or destroy it. We are seeing revolutionary changes in transportation being brought about by apps like Uber but one has to wonder whether another profession will simply be converted into very uncertain McJobs . Just as in retail, which has been converted into McJobs in the last generation and customer service devolved into crap, one has to wonder what will happen as taxi and bus driver jobs get converted into who knows what.

^^^
Not into McJobs, but into no jobs! Autonomous Cars!

(I am aware that no jobs is not a good thing, but if there is one lesson that history teaches us, it is that society will endeavor, no matter how drastically it is forced to change.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatman (Post 7044181)

But I think we will be seeing more and more who cannot afford cars of the future. A McJob or non-job will not allow it.

^^^
But autonomous cars will be even more affordable than human-driven cars. A recent estimate is 7.4 times cheaper!

This is done because with autonomous cars you buy the service, not the vehicle. Hailing an autonomous taxi with your smart phone - or subscribing to a regular commuter service in which a car arrives at your house at the same time every day - is such an efficient use of vehicles and infrastructure that owning a car will not ever be able to compete. No insurance, no registration, no maintenance, no car washing, no garage, no driveway, no parking fees, no tolls, no speeding tickets...

Why would anyone own a car if they didn't have to? We say we love our cars, but I'm convinced we love the convenience of our cars, not the actual vehicles themselves. Once the convenience of the car can be separated from the ownership, human-driven cars will go the way of horses. (Horses existing now for recreation or tourism, but not for any practical utility.)

The culture of ownership needs to die - at least when it comes to transportation. Everyone who owns a car suddenly thinks they are transportation engineers and know better than the actual professionals what is needed. The professionals can prove that 'road diets' and complete streets and public transit are the best configuration for traffic and economic security, but no one believes them, because from a driver's perspective the problem is just that the road isn't wide enough. Once the illusion of control is removed, and engineers with real knowledge of how transportation works are given real authority to implement the proper solutions, transportation will undergo a renaissance into something that is more equitable to all modes, affordable to all, and extremely energy-efficient (ie, non-polluting).
There are negatives to autonomous cars, but they are so overshadowed by the positives that it's hard to take them seriously.

Plan to Build Tower at Grand Central in Exchange for Transit Upgrades Is Approved

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/ny...-approved.html

Quote:

The New York City Council voted on Wednesday to approve plans for a developer to build a 63-story office tower just west of Grand Central Terminal in exchange for $220 million in transit upgrades.

- Plans for the skyscraper, called One Vanderbilt, have been at the center of long-running negotiations to improve the bustling subway station at Grand Central, particularly on the overcrowded 4, 5 and 6 trains on the Lexington Avenue subway line. As part of the deal, the developer, SL Green Realty, will build new subway entrances as well as a pedestrian plaza at street level, a public hall in the building’s lobby and other upgrades.

- The approach has been viewed by some proponents as a model for how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority can pay for some projects as it grapples with a $14 billion shortfall in the agency’s $32 billion proposed capital plan. The authority’s chairman, Thomas F. Prendergast, has called on state and city officials for more money. --- On Wednesday, as part of the deal, the Council approved zoning changes that were needed for the office tower to move forward. The changes allow for new, taller office buildings on the five-block stretch of Vanderbilt Avenue.

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http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/...-master675.jpg

Does America’s Transportation Future Really Need More and Bigger Roads?

Read More: http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2015_05_27_...d_bigger_roads

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The only argument during the debate last summer was for more roads. If we assume we’ll drive tomorrow the same way we drive today then as U.S. population grows, everyone will buy cars and drive, causing more congestion. To reduce congestion, the argument goes, we need to build more and bigger and wider roads.

- Yet several studies debunk that last notion. While adding road capacity temporarily reduces congestion, the capacity quickly fills up again. But, what about the first part of the argument: does an increasing U.S. population necessarily mean more cars and more driving? --- To answer, I modeled independently the adoption of and impact on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) of four emerging mobility solutions—new business models or technologies poised to transform the U.S. transportation system—with a business-as-usual (BAU) and accelerated case. Each modeled solution is market-driven with profit potential, and all would increase affordability, convenience, and mobility for consumers.

1. SMART GROWTH

Smart growth principles guide planning in urban and suburban neighborhoods toward more compact developments with less sprawl. Two key principles are walkability and mixed-use zoning. As the name implies, walkable, mixed-use neighborhood means that most daily activities are within walking distance.

One popular method to quantify walkability uses Walkscore, which maps out walking routes to nearby destinations (e.g., restaurants, grocery stores, schools), measures the quantity of destinations in the area, and outputs a score between 0 and 100. Since daily activities make up more than 75 percent of trips in the U.S., living in a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood can dramatically transform mobility, eliminating most driving needs. A comprehensive Victoria Transport Policy Institute study found it could reduce residents’ VMT up to 20 percent.

A 2013 survey found 50–60 percent surveyed prefer to live in a walkable neighborhood, often found in dense urban centers. But, it’s not just for urbanites: in Washington, D.C.—one of the U.S.’s most walkable cities—half of the walkable neighborhoods are in the suburbs. Developers and investors also see the value in these neighborhoods, which command higher rents and housing prices than those in sprawling suburbs. Right now, about 5 percent of the U.S. population lives in these neighborhoods.

2. CAR SHARING

Car sharing includes many different business models. I focused on station-based models where users pay annual subscription and hourly use fees. This is conservative since I don’t consider other mobility services—peer-to-peer, point-to-point, and bike- and ride-sharing—that could one day be integrated into a single-payment on-demand mobility system not unlike smartphone packages today that offer phone minutes, texting, and data bundled together.

Car sharing is growing as consumers, millennials especially, find it more economical to use a shared mobility service than to own a car. Car sharing has already expanded rapidly from 50,000 to nearly 1.5 million U.S. members between 2004 and 2014. And this growth reduces vehicle ownership—every car-share vehicle eliminates 9–13 personal vehicles, with users selling their car or deferring buying one—and reduces total number of vehicles on the road by using cars that are on the road more efficiently via higher utilization rates.

Also, because hourly rates and subscriptions better reflect the total cost of the vehicle (insurance, maintenance, capital, and fuel), drivers of shared cars are more aware of the true costs of car ownership and actually drive less and make more-efficient trips. More-efficient and reduced trip-making combined with lower vehicle ownership points to 27–44 percent fewer VMT for car-share users.

3. SMART PARKING

Despite roughly three non-residential parking spaces per vehicle in the U.S., we’ve all cruised around—burning fuel, wasting time—looking for parking. In fact, drivers searching for parking represent about 30 percent of vehicles on the road in cities. Smart parking solves this by equipping parking spaces with sensors detecting occupancy, then integrating this data with smartphone apps directing users to empty spots.

Smart parking transforms driving in two ways. First, individual trips are more efficient, with cruising for parking eliminated. While this has minimal impact on VMT— circling the block only adds up to 0.5 miles per leg of a trip—it can have significant fuel and time savings. Second, there are also system-wide impacts that my model does not account for. As cruising vehicles are removed from the road, congestion eases for cars traveling through. And the collected data on parking usage combined with smart growth means cities can reduce parking requirements and repurpose existing parking.

Adoption of smart parking is just under way, with pilot programs in San Francisco, New York City, Kansas City, and Boulder, Colo., to name a few. Despite the hurdles, smart parking’s future looks promising: as pilot programs scale, the convenience far outweighs the frustration of finding parking.

4. CONNECTED, SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES

Self-driving vehicles are defined by level. Levels 1–2 (adaptive cruise control, lane change assist, collision avoidance) require full driver engagement and are available on current vehicle models. For levels 3–4, the car drives itself with minimal driver intervention. Connected refers to vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications (V2X): cars talk to other cars, dynamically reroute around traffic, and “call ahead” to traffic signals to avoid sitting at empty intersections.

First, some 90 percent of crashes are caused by human error and these could be nearly eliminated by self-driving cars, saving thousands of lives. As a secondary benefit, crash-related congestion—accounting for approximately 25 percent of congestion events—would be avoided. --- Second, recurring stop-and-go traffic (think rush hour) could be eased through platooning/highway driving with reduced headway, dynamic rerouting, and traffic flow smoothing. Self-driving vehicles can thus double to quadruple highway capacity without expanding the highway, making for smoother, faster trips—although this will require significant market penetration.

Because these technologies require consumer familiarity, comfort, and acceptance, and have significant technical hurdles to overcome, I assume their adoption will be similar to other in-vehicle technologies. This means 25–30 years before they represent 90 percent of vehicle sales (with stock turnover, a smaller percentage of total U.S. vehicles). Level 3–5 automation may see its first commercial iteration in 2020 if Google succeeds; for broader availability beyond luxury markets, costs need to decrease and volumes increase, as with any other emerging technology.

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Putting it all together, the business-as-usual model output shows that these solutions reduce VMT 15 percent by 2040, stopping VMT growth at 2030 levels (using the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s projections as the baseline even though these projections—that VMT will continue to increase despite a decade of flat growth—are generally poor at predicting future traffic trends):

http://i.imgur.com/lymOYKX.png?1

In the accelerated case, where infrastructure spending focuses not on building more roads but enabling these solutions, VMT growth stalls by 2020 and then decreases. Mobility as a service, the sharing economy, and connectivity offer greater affordability, convenience, and mobility than car ownership—and businesses, developers, and investors profit.

http://i.imgur.com/Vq7XYaL.png?1

Proposed just this month: a new high-speed rail linking Asia to Europe.

http://fortune.com/2015/06/04/americ...bullet-trains/

https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpres...jpg?quality=80

^^^
It's a nice chart, and a cool idea. But I liked a different chart from the same article, one that shows Amtrak ridership per route:
https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpres...jpg?quality=80

I'd always known that the NEC was huge, but I'd never considered how it makes every other route look non-existent. I hope that bill that would allow NEC operating profits to stay in the North East to pay for upgrades moves forward. How is that coming along, anyway?

Market Street will strictly limit vehicles, despite Uber outcry

Read More: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...et-6331508.php

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The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors unanimously approved a series of simple changes designed to reduce the number of collisions and speed transit travel on the city’s busy main boulevard.

- Under the plan, called Safer Market Street, drivers will be unable to turn onto Market Street between Eighth and Third streets. It would also extend the red-painted transit-only lanes from Eighth to Third streets, and install eight white passenger loading zones, four parking spaces for the disabled and a new yellow commercial loading zone on side streets.

- The goal is to tame the stream of buses, streetcars, delivery trucks, taxis and ride services, and private cars that make Market one of the city’s most dangerous streets. The stretch includes four of the city’s top 20 intersections for pedestrian injury collisions and the top two intersections for bicycle injury collisions.

- “The only way to drastically reduce the number of collisions is to drastically reduce the number of vehicles,” said Tom Maguire, the agency’s director of Sustainable Streets. “That’s the purpose of this project. It is not about taxi regulations. It is not about Uber.” Uber officials objected to the plan because it would allow taxis on Market Street — and in the transit-only lanes — while ride services such as Uber and Lyft would have to abide by the turning restrictions like all other private vehicles.

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