public transportation

Is convenience the drug that salves commuting guilt?

I sometimes catch the bus at the busy Fremont intersection of 34th and Fremont here in Seattle. I'd estimate that at least 90 percent of the vehicles heading west over the Fremont Bridge have one occupant. This, of course, frustrates me to no end.

Here are all these people heading in the same general direction, at the same time. I've often wanted to stand on the side of the road with a sign that reads, "Your car seats four, why are you driving alone?"

So, why are they driving alone? Richard Seven attempts to answer this question in the most recent edition of The Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest Magazine.

Personal Rapid Transit

I've oftened wished the bus would "appear" when I arrive at the bus stop. Such daydreaming often led to ideas about somehow combining personal vehicles and public transit. As usual, mine is not an original idea, as Jeremy Faludi over at WC points out:

Wouldn't it be nice to have a bus waiting for you every time you walked up to a stop? And wouldn't it be nice if the bus just went to your destination, without stopping anywhere else in between? The main reason people drive is for convenience like this. But if public transportation were as cheap as a bus and as convenient as a cab on roads with no traffic, why would anyone bother driving anymore? That's the idea behind "Personal Rapid Transit", an idea that's been around for forty years, but is still struggling to see the light of day.

What is PRT? This, according to Jeremy:

The basic idea is having an elevated track with personal-sized cars, only big enough for 2 to 4 people (and normally used for solo trips). Cars on the main track always go at full speed, with cars shunting off to side tracks for entry & exit at stations. These stations would be located a reasonably short distance from each other so users would never have to walk too far to get to a stop, and stations would always have empty cars waiting for the next user to arrive. This individualized service would be made possible by having all the vehicles automated--no human drivers in the system, just smart network-management software.

Head on over to WorldChanging to read more. What do y'all think?

Google Transit

I was going to write something about the just-debuted Google Transit -- a very cool new tool from Google that aspires eventually to have all the nation's local transit information in one easy-to-use tool -- but Jeremy Faludi went and did it for me. So go read that.

Umbra on bicycle commuting

Dear Umbra, My question regards my daily half-hour (each way) bicycle commute through fairly heavy city traffic. I’ve been wondering if the benefits (exercise, sunshine, free and fast transport) are outweighed by the negatives (primarily breathing in diesel and other exhaust, but I’d also throw in the risk of almost getting run over, despite the […]

Another case of copyright infringement?

Riding public transit is a good thing, right? And you would think that easily accessible maps would encourage more people to ride the bus or subway, or current customers to ride them more often. And you would also think that transit authorities would be thrilled to hear that their maps are now available to millions of iPod users. There, you'd be wrong.

From Wired we learn that William Bright, creator of IPodSubwayMaps.com, was asked to remove maps of the New York City subway system as well as San Francisco's BART. Both New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority and Bay Area Rapid Transit claim that William was guilty of copyright infringement.

After complying, William produced his own map of each system. The one for BART is now available on his site, while he is awaiting legal advice on the one for NYC since his map used the same fonts and colors of the MTA.

And unlike BART, William is "offering it up there for anyone to use and modify."

Update [2005-9-26 13:55:44 by Chris Schults]: I'm not sure why, but you get "This Account Has Been Suspended" when you try to visit IPodSubwayMaps.com. Hopefully William simply forgot to pay his web or domain hosting bill while fending off the MTA and BART.

Update [2005-9-26 15:18:45 by Chris Schults]: The site seems to be working fine now.

Meet the world’s first hybrid-cab driver

Like any self-respecting cabbie, Andrew Grant has a talent for small talk. But when the conversation turns to his prized 2004 Toyota Prius, things get a bit more animated. Andrew Grant. “Gave Cameron Diaz a lift once,” he says matter-of-factly, leading me toward the Vancouver curb where the curvaceous car is parked. “Oh, yeah? What […]

A visit to Iceland spurs dreams of a hydrogen future

The loneliness of the long-distance rider. I have seen the future, and it works. The 111 bus rolls quietly up to the Mjodd terminal in eastern Reykjavik at 11:19 a.m., and I climb aboard. For 45 minutes, we cruise through the suburbs and then to the central square downtown, picking up and discharging eight passengers […]

Do they ever really work?

This Treehugger post on a Toronto bikeshare service reminded me of my hazy days in Missoula, MT. (The weather was plenty clear, mind you ...)

While I was there, a bikeshare service called Freecycles was launched with great fanfare, flooding the streets with clunky green refurbished bikes -- free to use for anyone! For a while they were an iconic sight around town. Of course, I never rode one, and didn't know anybody who did, except as a novelty. Then there were fewer, and fewer, and then the program disappeared with a whimper.

And it's not a surprise, I guess. Who exactly is supposed to be the target user for bikeshare services?

Umbra on whether to visit national parks

Dear Umbra, We are considering a driving vacation this summer with the intent of visiting as many of America’s wonderful national parks as we can — both to enjoy them and to add some money to their coffers, which have been depleted in recent years. But as we all know, burning up lots of gasoline […]