Category: Transportation

Transit Elevated Bus: That’s not a bus, it’s a big train

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In the last few months, an idea in search of a solution, has emerged from China: a giant car-straddling bus which would soar above waiting traffic below. Which sounds awesome; I’ve been to Beijing – the ring roads are some of the most congested pavement on earth. Let’s go to the grey lady with, China’s Straddling Bus, on a Test Run, Floats Above Streets:

If you’re driving in a Chinese city in the none-too-distant future and your car is engulfed in a smooth, humming metallic belly, don’t panic. It may feel like an alien abduction, but probably it’s only a colossal, street-straddling bus.

The idea of a bus so large, high and long that it could virtually levitate above congested streets seemed surreal when presented at an expo in Beijing in May. But it came a step closer to reality this week, when a prototype went for an experimental spin in Qinhuangdao, a seaside city in northern China.

But having about 7 feet of vertical clearance for cars to go underneath feels like a disaster waiting to happen. And this isn’t a bus – it’s a new type of light rail vehicle. You can see the running rails on either side of the vehicle, below:

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It appears that the rail system is a running guide rail and the propulsion is by rubber tires, very similar to Paris Metro rubber tire subway cars.

teb-3If the goal is to densify the street and overlay many different modes of transport, this might be your ticket. It is interesting if you don’t have the time or money to build heavy rail or subway system, or don’t have the right of way to build surface rail. This feels like a solution when your constraint is to not reduce vehicle miles traveled in low-occupancy vehicles, or you cannot densify a lane of traffic by using light rail or even high-value bus rapid transit.

Putting my pendant hat on: let’s stop calling this a bus (because it isn’t).

 

 

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Should the Port Authority Be Split Up? Of course not.

Citing “a history of conflict between these folks at the Port Authority,” Christie said that the way to resolve the feud between the states was “taking the Hatfields and McCoys and moving them to separate homes. Because they haven’t been able to get along with each other, despite my best efforts, the best efforts of Governor Cuomo, and many of our predecessors.”

via Should the Port Authority Be Split Up? – WNYC

This is ridiculous.

This article even points out that, Christie has blocked reform at the Port, while staffing it with political appointees who had no transportation experience.

So, Governor Christie wrecks the car by putting a political crony at the helm, then has the gaul to complain that the Port Authority is poorly run. This is reaching peak chutzpah.

Of course the Port Authority should be run better – so stop having the two Governors pick the Chairman and CEO’s and have a professional talent search pick the best and brightest leaders with a transit and transportation background.

A breakup would have a catastrophic affect on the tri-state, with redundancy upon redundancy created. This is exactly why Metro North, Long Island Rail Road and NJ Transit are more inefficient than if all three were combined under one railroad.

The Mad World of Mini Metro

So here’s your mission, should you choose to press that “Start” button: To serve a sprawling boomtown where your transit funds quickly have diminishing returns, where your main tool is a flexible but low-capacity metro (or is it a bus system?), and where hostile politicians will pull the plug on your system at the first sign of failure. Not too different from many places in America, is it?!

via TransitCenter – The Mad World of Mini Metro.

Least Car-Dependent Neighborhoods in New York

Shane Phillips of Better Institutions has done yeoman’s job in putting together census tract boundary files illustrating Non-car mode share of Major cities. I’m most interested in New York City’s data, which is available both as tabular data and the very pretty map below:

What would really help this map, would be a way to overlay both the New York State Senate and Assembly Districts, along with the New York City Council Districts. Each overlay should show the name and contact information of our representative. This would help immensely in reaching out to our electeds when they start getting cold feet about rebalancing the street back to people, and away from cars.

The Continuing US Bikeshare Saga

For those not keeping score at home, here is the situation on the US urban bikeshare situation:

Alta Bicycle Share is the Portland, OR company who is the overall contractor which runs bike share systems in Columbus, OH, Chattanooga, the Bay Area, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, and the largest, New York City. They used technology from the Montreal-based integrator Bixi (also known as the Public Bike System Company) which has filed for Canada’s version of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Forbes has a good rundown on the 5 Big Debts In The Bixi Bike Sharing Bankruptcy, but a primary contributing factor to Bixi’s woes are that they had ditched their long-standing software partner 8D Technologies.

#Citibike

In February Alta and 8D announced that they would be working as a joint venture, effectively cutting Bixi out of the loop: Bixi’s former partners become key competitors:

Under the deal announced Monday, 8D will provide software, electronics and docking stations, while Alta will operate the systems. They have not decided which bikes to use, 8D CEO Isabelle Bettez said in an interview.

She said 8D will consider making an offer to buy Bixi’s operations.

“We expressed an interest two years ago, but we were shut out of the process,” Bettez said, noting Bixi chose which companies were allowed to bid.

And just the other day Montreal – who effectively owns Bixi now as a ward of the City – stated that Offers for Bixi’s international arm not satisfactory:

The city of Montreal has admitted efforts to sell Bixi’s international arm are not going well. Four serious bids were submitted, none of which were satisfactory, Pierre Desrochers, chairman of Montreal’s executive committee, told reporters Monday.

He did not provide the names of bidders or the value of the proposals but said the terms offered did not meet the minimum requirements. In one case, it would have taken the city 75 years to get its money back.

Saddled with $46 million in debt, Bixi has been under bankruptcy protection since January.

It would make complete sense if Alta and 8D could buy the beleaguered Bixi, as long as the overhanging debt was renegotiated with their creditors. Per the Forbes article, Bixi has the following debt:

$38m Montreal
$11.0m Alta
$5.3m NYC & Chicago for late delivery
54.3m in debt

At what point should Montreal take a haircut and equity in any new Alta/8D joint venture? I would venture soon enough, if they continue to not get bids. This is what is always a hazard in direct public-owned ventures: it is hard for politicians to say “we are not going to make our money back, let’s close shop and make the best of the situation.” Say what you want about entities such as the Port Authority (which has been degraded by Gov Christies appointees) or the Empire State Development Fund (which sometimes acts as a funnel to developers), but they are as many steps away from the public trust so they can be a bit more nimble.

Just today, the Citi Bike Manager Resigned:

Justin Ginsburgh, the manager of the beleaguered bike share program, has resigned, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Ginsburgh, 33, has decided to become a special adviser to Peter Lehrer, the principal of Lehrer LLC, a firm that manages large construction projects.

As The News reported Monday, the company operating the Citi Bikes, Bike Share NYC, has repeatedly failed to meet several monthly performance standards in its contract with the city.

And The Wall Street Journal reported that the program was losing money and was seeking to raise tens of millions of dollars to stay in business.

Mayor de Blasio has ruled out a city bailout, but it is possible the city might allow the operator to raise its fees, including the $95 cost of an annual membership.

This is probably for the best, as a better-run Alta is required, but the city needs to get behind bike sharing as another mode of transportation. If they are willing to subsidize ferry trips to the tune of $2.5 million annually for 3,500 daily riders, why not something similar for bike share which just yesterday 13,906 people used the bikes on one of the coldest days of the week (it was in the 30’s with a Nor-Easter wind) and the year-to-date average is 10,837 riders. In winter. In this winter.

Investing in different ways for people to get where they are going is very much a public good. Investing and maintaining our roads, sidewalks, subways, rail, ferries, taxi & limousine, and bikes creates a choice network. This network allows people the opportunity to customize their journey amongst different modes. This fundamentally increases all of our personal liberty.

New York State Transportation Equity Alliance Transportation Equity Conference Notes

The conference started up with the now familiar fact that public funding for transit continues to be cut as agencies’ debts climb.  A major problem is that the gas tax no longer amasses the needed revenue to keep up with the maintenance of our infrastructure, let alone funding new projects.  These issues are past the point of identification, and now we must start finding solutions.

New York State Transportation Equity Alliance Transportation Equity Conference Notes

Dumb Ways to Die – by the Melbourne Metro Trains

Melbourne Metro Trains has released a new ad campaign about train safety with perhaps the cutest video about death I’ve ever seen:

A three-minute animated music video, written by McCann ECD John Mescall, is the centre piece of the campaign. The video highlights the many dumb ways there are to die, with being hit by a train – a very preventable death – among them.

Mescall said: “We’ve got people eating superglue, sticking forks in toasters and selling both their kidneys. But truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and we still couldn’t come up with dumber ways to die than driving around boomgates and all the other things people do to put themselves in harm’s way around trains. The aim of this campaign is to engage an audience that really doesn’t want to hear any kind of safety message – and we think dumb ways to die will.”