Back when I rode the New York subway, I used to be a compulsive car-switcher. Too crowded at an odd hour? Funny smell? Easy, just go to the next car. Sadly, a purse-snatcher has ruined the fun:
In December 2005, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority made it illegal to move between the cars of a subway train. Before that, it had been illegal only to ride between cars on a moving train, said Paul J. Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit.
The result has been a sharp increase in the number of tickets handed out for moving or riding between cars, to 3,600 last year from 700 in 2005. This year, the police have handed out 1,955 such summonses.
This new regulation will probably do nothing to stop robbery and will likely only bother panhandlers and the people who try to escape them.
Was this an easy headline to write. DART can't do an end-run around the FTA and build a tunnel - or some sort of direct connector - to Love (airport) Field for their Green Line extension. The FTA deems the cost too high and ridership and benefits too low. The FTA probably didn't take into account the endless years of having to listen to Europeans whining about how they can't understand why the train doesn't go directly to the airport to the locals, which will surely be worth tens if not hundreds of millions to them after a while.
Seriously though, a "one-seat" ride (the current plan will require a shuttle of some sort between the airport and the nearest Green Line station) has large benefits in passenger ride times, less hassle factor - especially with luggage, and increased ridership due to these and other factors. I didn't look at the details of the connection, but I wonder what DART and the Dallas metro area is sacrificing in the final outcome. Maybe not much - Love Field might not have the traffic to get above "just being friends" with DART. Locals?
Google made news with the introduction of their route maps and itineraries for public transit (only available for a few cities at this time, Boston not included). But the NY Times picks up on Google's real transit initiative: a super-impressive shuttle bus network for its employees (via The Ground Floor). The buses serve about 1,200 Googlers, run on bio-diesel, and feature leather seats, wifi, bicycle racks, dog-friendly seats (canine companions are welcome at the Googleplex), and sms updates on late arrivals. And, like the cafeteria, the shuttle is free. For Google it's nice being green and all, but the best part is that the shuttle is a major recruiting tool. There is even anecdotal evidence that the real estate market is tighter near the shuttle stops.
I used to work in silicon valley, and traffic there does suck. There is also a big contingent of progressive companies that are not afraid to support alternative means of getting to or otherwise getting ones work done. Google seems to have upped the ante with their shuttle-transit network that ferries employees from around the bay area to their corporate offices in Mountain View.
The article indirectly makes an interesting point though - is it better to continue down this route of shuttling your employees from everywhere, or does it make more sense to give them a housing subsidy to live near work as facebook has done, and make more rational commuting choices (subsidy or preference)? Reasonably, that sort of higher-level policy question is not completely within the company's domain - they are just doing what is easiest and cheapest for them to attract the needed talent. At least the shuttling is more energy efficient than not. It's far better than the lowest common denominator that is the standard in the US of everyone drives from wherever they are.
In the discussions how to overhaul funding for the Milwaukee and other regional transit providers, a couple things of note have come out of Wisconsin. The expansion of the Southwestern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority to oversee the region's transit providers and their funding. Probably the most interesting thing is the proposal to drop emissions testing on the idea that air quality is improving and most cars (since 1996) have been built with improved emission standards. The money that was spent on emissions testing would be used toward transit.
Check out the oscillating light bar on the top of this S2 Metrobus headed to Federal Triangle. Doesn't that remind you of someone special? Say a Knight Industries Two Thousand?
While there's no word from WMATA if we'll start hearing the voice of William Daniels over the intercom or if bus drivers will become hearth-throbbing David Hasselhoff's, WMATA is getting all techno-saftey.
The light bar is apparently a low-tech way to alert pedestrians to buses, even though recent bus-pedestrian mishaps have been driver error. A more effective and more high tech solution using ultrasound is undergoing testing.
Seymor is on 50 buses already and its designed to help bus drivers avoid cars and other objects in their most critical blind spots, along the sides of the buses.
Six sensors which are attached to the sides of the buses, emit a high frequency sound wave. The waves bounce off large “hard” objects and echo back to the bus. If another vehicle, or a bicycle gets close, amber warning lights flash on three mounted dashboard displays and an alarm sounds, alerting the driver of the hazard.
WMATA even has an interesting video of the system in action:
Now if only they could employ an ultrasound zapper to prod cars out of bus lanes and passengers past the back door we could get to work quicker and safer.
Re-linking Hoboken and Scranton by rail (previous post) is getting more favorable press. The draft EIS is done. Interestingly, the link would be shared freight-passenger rail, which seems to make sense (although the two services don't always coexist happily on busy routes). Now the advocates have to (keep) making the case so they they get local and federal support.
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Was this an easy headline to write. DART can't do an end-run around the FTA and 
