Guangzhou, the southern Chinese megacity that is to host the 2010 Asian Games this month, has abandoned a plan to offer free public transit while the Games are on.
The plan was to ban half of all of the city’s private cars from the road each day (using an “even-odd rule,” a scheme by which certain license plates can be used only on certain days), and also to ban traffic unrelated to the Games from certain roads. In return, public transit would be free during the Games. Continue Reading →
Last month I did a radio interview for Alex Sloan of ABC 666 Canberra (the main public radio station in Australia’s national capital) on the broad future of public transit in that city, along with Monash University Professor Graham Currie. Much of what was said, especially about light rail and bus rapid transit, is true of any low-density New World city with populations under 1 million. ABC has now posted an MP3 of the interview here. Continue Reading →
The unglamorous but essential struggle over the spacing of consecutive stops or stations on a transit line is an area where there’s a huge difference in practice between North American and Australian agencies, for reasons that have never been explained to me as anything other than a difference in bureaucratic habit. In Australia, and in most parts of Europe that I’ve observed, local-stop services generally stop every 400m (1/4 mile, 1320 feet). Some North American agencies stop as frequently as every 100m (about 330 ft). Continue Reading →
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This blog assumes readers have decent critical thinking skills. They don’t need happy talk or vagueness; they need information and clear argument that explores real issues and trade-offs. Continue Reading →
Highlight of my transit tour of Los Angeles today: Vermont / Santa Monica subway station. It’s by Ellerbe Becket. Striking, certainly, but an entrance so ominous that if I didn’t know what it was, I’d guess it was a memorial to a horrible event. Enter under a heavy almond-shaped mass that looks like it’s about to fall on you, or perhaps a jaw about to close.
What’s so great about living on a cul-de-sac again? From the Oregonian:
Fallen tree blocks access to Lake Oswego neighborhood Continue Reading →
A study by GWL Realty Advisors suggests that the next generation may not values cars nearly as much as the current decision-making generation does. From Treehugger’s coverage: Continue Reading →
The remarkable busway network of Almere, Netherlands is impressive from the ground, as we saw in Richard Lenthall’s post, but it’s even more remarkable on Google Earth:
Richard Lenthall is the founder of Sight of the Navigator, a European travel and transit advisory website based in Amsterdam. It aims to improve tomorrow’s journey experience by bringing together transit providers and their passengers.
Transit and urban planners will no doubt be familiar with the “Bus Lane”, the concept of designating a lane or segment of road exclusively for the use of buses and other permitted vehicles. When properly executed bus lanes can save time over the same section of a journey made with a car, and provide operators the means to keep to timetables during the rush hours, both of which can promote the use of public transit. Continue Reading →
A San Francisco reporter emailed me yesterday with this question, regarding the city’s main transit system, Muni:
As you know, Muni set a goal in 1999 when the [San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency] board was formed, to have a 85 percent on-time performance standard. That was voted on in 1999 (Prop. E). Since then … the agency has yet to the meet goal or even gotten close to it. The highest it’s been was 75 percent a few months ago. … I wanted to ask if you if there is any danger for Muni to be so focused on this one standard? Are performance metrics evolving and why are they evolving? What else should Muni to be looking at as far as improving reliability?