Adam Butler is an Australian blogger and advocate of Zero Fare Public Transport. Recently, Adam posted a column on his website called The Public Transport Bandwagon. It’s an excellent piece of writing with an interesting hook. As Adam explains, the Victoria government in Australia has recently spent over $1 billion dollars on an automated ticketing system....
(This is Part 2 of a 2-Part piece on the Bondada-Neumann Study from the late 1980’s. In Part 1, I focused on the issue of Familiarity. In Part 2, I discuss the differences in perceptions between planners with cable experience and those without.) Bondada and Neumann’s discovery that transit planners and engineers had little familiarity...
(This is Part 1 of a 2-Part piece on the Bondada-Neumann Study from the late 1980’s. In Part 1, I focus on the issue of Familiarity. In Part 2, I’ll discuss the differences in perceptions between planners with cable experience and those without.) In the late 1980’s two civil engineers from West Virginia University (WVU)...
Last night I went for a ride in San Francisco. I was on the west coast learning about various cable systems and I was at the end of a long week of traveling and research. I needed room to clear my head, get out of the hotel. I found myself jumping on a cable car at...
I just returned from touring the Mandalay Bay and City Centre cable transit systems in Las Vegas. There’s much to say about both, but I’ll leave a more complex analysis for another day. When it came to american public transit back in the late 1800’s, cable cars ruled the roost. One of the major hassles...
For most of the 20th century, the cable industry had been a hodge-podge of European, Japanese and American companies each jockeying for their piece of the blossoming ski industry. Some companies specialized in manufacturing, others in operations and maintenance. Privately owned and maintained systems were common. There were dozens of players but few titans. Like...
Because we’ve always done it that way is not an effective way to justify your organization’s methods, strategies and actions. Especially when it’s clear they’re not working. Because we’ve always done it that way is nothing more than an excuse. At best, it’s lazy and fairly benign. At worst, it’s an enemy of change and...
… into unexpected places. Trouble is, most of the places they flow into are totally obvious when you step back and examine the landscape. Last month when I was in Whistler touring the Peak 2 Peak I had a remarkable encounter. I’m no skier, and certainly didn’t look like one that day. Of the handful...
Pitting drivers against transit users is cheap and easy politics and it doesn’t help anyone (except maybe the politician). Drivers aren’t inherently against transit any more than transit users are inherently against cars. That just becomes the end result when you make both groups fight over the little slivers of road space we currently have. (For...
Back in 1990 Grace Manufacturing had a lot of scrap steel lying around and it was sharp. Instead of throwing the steel out, they decided to turn that waste into revenue. So was born the Microplane, an incredibly sharp wood shaving tool. It sold fine, but nothing special. Then along came Lorraine Lee of Ottawa,...