If you’re still too young to be a transit geek, you might enjoy this news, emailed by a frequent reader:
Lego has recently released an excellent new Public Transport set (see
pictures attached), which my sons and I had lots of fun building and
playing with this last weekend. Continue Reading →
A few days back, frequent commenter Engineer Scotty did a much discussed guest post on the problems of travelling with small children on transit. He suggested, I thought, a reasonable range of accommodations that transit agencies should make (many of them good things to do anyway) and also talked through some things the parent can do to make the situation easier.
Scotty has twins, so he often drives a double-wide stroller/pram. To people who don’t like the company of small children, a double-wide pram seems to evoke the same emotions that a Hummer evokes in car-haters like myself. It seems huge, excessive, “in your face.” As Scotty observes, it can get on a bus in pretty much the way a wheelchair does, but like a wheelchair it takes a lot of space and demands some accommodation from other passengers if the bus is crowded.
It’s been interesting to watch this post’s reception for several reasons. First of all, a lot of this blog is about explaining concepts that not everyone has thought about, and on which many don’t have a strongly-held view. But when the subject is children on transit, everyone’s interested and everyone has an opinion. Scotty’s post was featured by Streetsblog, and it drove my traffic to a level not seen since Portland shock-blogger Jack Bogdanski attacked me for suggesting he pay the real price of parking in downtown Portland. Continue Reading →