A QUICK LOOK AT SOME OF THE STATISTICS THAT MAKE YOUR CITIES WORK (OR NOT): Trips taken on public transportation in US: 10.7 billion Trips taken each weekday: 35 million Value of public transit industry: $48.4 billion Amount of carbon emissions reduced by a person switching to public transit: 4800 pounds/year Gallons of gasoline saved...
Let’s just say that a train that can lay its own tracks is pretty impressive. Not Chinese Tunnel Bus™ impressive, but impressive enough. I’ll let the video explain: Found via Gizmodo, The Presurfer and Neatorama.
A month ago I asked people for information about 9 relatively unknown or isolated cable systems around the world. Marielle Brown offered to write a guest post about the troubled Maokong Gondola in Taipei and I was more than happy to accept. The Maokong Gondola originally opened in July 2007, but was closed shortly after in...
I recently discovered a new site advocating for Urban Gondolas in Spokane, Washington. I have no idea the person(s) behind the site and it’s currently slim on details, but that’s okay. After all, it’s only a couple months old and these things take time to build up content, community and resources. Refreshingly, there’s no route or...
This week Cleantechies reports on an innovative plan by the Paris Metro to use excess heat generated by riders and vehicles to heat a nearby building. You read that right, generated by riders. The essence of the plan is rather straightforward: Humans generate a large amount of body heat. When humans use underground transit systems,...
The 1950’s Looney Toons animated short Rabbit Fire is perhaps one of the best-known of all Bugs Bunny cartoons. It’s an influential piece of work that’s invited all kinds of scholarly conversation. In it, the confused and generally helpless Elmer Fudd is hunting for rabbits. Self-servingly, Bugs Bunny convinces him that it’s not actually rabbit-hunting...
Elevated roadways, busways, light rail lines, subways, automated people movers and cable cars are far cheaper to build than underground systems. They’re not as cost-effective as street-level systems, but street level systems are subject to all the whims and unpredictability of intermingling with other forms of traffic. Problem is, most architects, urban designers and politicians...
A QUICK LOOK AT SOME OF THE STATISTICS THAT MAKE YOUR CITIES WORK (OR NOT): Portugal’s version of Jane Jacob’s “Eyes on the Street”: Senioritas Traffic fatality rates in Bronx, NY: 4 per 100,000 Traffic fatality rates in Kansas: 40 per 100,000 Traffic fatality rates in smart-growth, transit-oriented centres: 1/4 of sprawling centres Number of transit riders each day...
It ain’t cable transit, but who cares? You know you’d ride it if you had the chance. Presenting, the Fantasticable:
A thought experiment: What if you took anywhere from one third to one half of the commuters off the road each and every workday? How would that change things? Well for starters, your commute would be far more pleasant, whether you were a driver or not. Congestion and delays wouldn’t be nearly as harsh as...