Interesting transportation things

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

The Japanese Think They Can Build a Maglev for $8 Billion

Read More: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...hably_low.html

That's a picture of the German maglev, the Transrapid, not the Japanese one. Somebody goofed. The German one can be built a lot cheaper than the Japanese one, however, iirc.

[M II A II R II K]

• Video Link

[M II A II R II K]

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2014/01/21...ee-households/

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2014/01/21...ee-households/

The data set brackets much of the Great Recession.

As a result, the table needs to be further broken down into cities where the ability to afford a card is more of an issue, and, those cities where this ability might be less of an issue.


Cities where the Ability to afford a car is more of an issue

Detroit
Baltimore
Chicago
Indianapolis
Milwaukee
Jacksonville

Cities where the Ability to afford a car is less of an issue*

New York
Washington DC
San Francisco
Seattle

These four cities are among the top 10 that have recovered the quickest from the depths of the Great Recession. Consequently, I suspect that more of the reduction of car ownership reflects the freedom to choose to own a car or not.

[amor de cosmos]

Wednesday, January 22, 2014 14 Comments
Ford CEO: More Cars in Cities “Not Going to Work”
by Angie Schmitt

It’s the last thing you would expect to hear at the Detroit Auto Show from the CEO of Ford Motor Company. But last week, Ford’s Alan Mulally showed some ambivalence about the role of cars in major cities.

“I think the most important thing is to look at the way the world is and where the world is going and to develop a plan,” Mulally said, according to the Financial Times. “We’re going to see more and more larger cities. Personal mobility is going to be of really ever-increasing importance to livable lifestyles in big cities.”

Mulally said Ford has been trying to adapt to changing consumer preferences since the Great Recession. Americans have been trading giant SUVs for smaller cars. Young people have been purchasing fewer cars altogether, a phenomenon Mulally said might be reversed by cheaper cars.

But he also said he wasn’t sure what role Ford would play in the future of transportation in big cities. According to the Financial Times, Mulally said that adding more cars in urban environments is “not going to work” and that he was interested in developments in “personal mobility” and “quality of life.” Then he seemed to indicate Ford is interested in getting into transit, car sharing, or other models that don’t align with private car ownership.

“Maybe [our focus] will be on components; maybe it’ll be on pieces of the equipment,” Mulally said. “I don’t know.”

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2014/01/22...going-to-work/

[LMich]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2014/01/21...ee-households/

The crazy thing about Detroit is that literally until earlier this week, service for the city's mass transit system had been cut and ridership had plummeted, accordingly along aside this trend of fewer households without a car. It's like, really, how can you mess that kind of trend up? And, yet they've managed to. So, you've basically just stranded every new potential captive rider until the expanded service was proposed for DDOT, last week, and even that's just pittance compard to what was lost.

You have these suburbanites complaining about how no one in the city has a job, but you've had people having no real regular access to suburban service jobs, and when they get them, getting fired because of the region's shoddy, unreliable mass transit network, and when you pose the question about properly funding transit, it always ends up being a stalemate. So, you want people to have jobs to improve the economy, but you won't support even a pittance to fund the crappy transit system as it is, let alone expand it, to get people to jobs they can keep? **head desk**

[amor de cosmos]

From: Bob Sheth, Electric Forum, More from this Affiliate
Published January 24, 2014 07:35 AM
EV's only in city centers?

Should governments give serious consideration to electric car only city centres?

Over the last 12 months the subject of electric car only city centres has been discussed on numerous occasions although so far no government has been brave enough to push through any formal regulations. The authorities continue to encourage the use of electric vehicles within city centres, assisting with creating a network of recharging stations, but perhaps they could be doing more?

Only a few days ago we wrote about an expert in the field of electric vehicles who is suggesting that financial incentives should be focused towards commercial operations such as taxis and vehicle fleets. The idea is that taxis and vehicle fleets cover the most mileage per annum compared to your traditional motorist and therefore electric vehicles will be more visible under this particular strategy.

While there are pros and cons with regards to electric vehicles, with some experts suggesting additional power requirements have their own impact upon the environment, there is no doubt that diesel/gasoline vehicles do impact air quality. Indeed a number of reports have suggested that the likes of asthma and other similar ailments are encouraged by air pollution caused by vehicle emissions.

http://www.enn.com/sustainability/article/46937

[JonathanGRR]

Originally Posted by amor de cosmos

Ford CEO: More Cars in Cities “Not Going to Work”
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2014/01/22...going-to-work/

Well, Henry Ford apparently dabbled in creating interurban cars with internal combustion engines, so the move of Ford into other transportation fields wouldn't be too exotic.

Railway Review

[M II A II R II K]

Why trains may switch to natural gas instead of diesel

Read More: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment...tead-of-diesel

The diesel-burning locomotive, the workhorse of American railroads since World War II, will soon begin burning natural gas — a potentially historic shift that could cut fuel costs, reduce pollution and strengthen the advantage railroads hold over trucks in long-haul shipping.

Rail companies want to take advantage of booming natural gas production that has cut the price of the fuel by as much as 50 percent. So they are preparing to experiment with redesigned engines capable of burning both diesel and liquefied natural gas. Natural gas "may revolutionize the industry much like the transition from steam to diesel," said Jessica Taylor, a spokeswoman for General Electric's locomotive division, one of several companies that will test new natural gas equipment later this year.

Any changes are sure to happen slowly. A full-scale shift to natural gas would require expensive new infrastructure across the nation's 140,000-mile freight-rail system, including scores of fueling stations. The change has been made possible by hydraulic fracturing mining techniques, which have allowed U.S. drillers to tap into vast deposits of natural gas. The boom has created such abundance that prices dropped to an average of $3.73 per million British thermal units last year — less than one-third of their 2008 peak.

.....

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Why trains may switch to natural gas instead of diesel

Read More: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment...tead-of-diesel

The big railroads that operate in the US- BNSF, UP, NS, CSX, CP, CN, and KCS, all have had a long experience with alternate fuels. The classic example involved converting from coal fired steam engines, to diesel.

Since WWII, railroads have experimented with oil (and coal?) fired turbine locomotives, and, oil powered steam engines. I am sure, too, that LNG has been discussed at great length, also.

The biggest advantage of diesel powered locomotives is that diesel is easy and safe to store, resists ignition during train accidents, has a higher burn temperature than LNG, and, uses very proven technology from the fuel tank through engine design.

However, IMO, LNG has a role in freight switching engines where LNG could be stored close to where it is used. Another possible use might be for locomotives that would run 24/7 that would provide electricity to jump start diesels. Maybe, too, urban commuter trains would be a good candidate as the pollution benefits and short distance traveled by commuter trains would make centralized LNG stations very practical.

[scalziand]

COMIC SAAAAAAAAAAANS!

[Busy Bee]

Originally Posted by scalziand

COMIC SAAAAAAAAAAANS!

There's probably many that don't know what the joke is here. As a graphic designer I say well done, well done indeed.

[scalziand]

^I'm just glad someone else on here got the joke.

[M II A II R II K]

The Largest Free Mass Transit Experiment in the World

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...nt-world/8231/

Last January, Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, did something that no other city its size had done before: It made all public transit in the city free for residents.

- City officials made some bold predictions about what would result. There would be a flood of new passengers on Tallinn’s buses and trams — as many as 20 percent more riders. Carbon emissions would decline substantially as drivers left their cars at home and rode transit instead. And low-income residents would gain new access to jobs that they previously couldn’t get to. As Mayor Edgar Savisaar likes to say, zeroing out commuting costs was for some people as good as receiving a 13th month of salary.

- One year later, this city of 430,000 people has firmly established itself as the leader of a budding international free-transit movement. Tallinn has hosted two conferences for city officials, researchers and journalists from across Europe to discuss the idea. The city has an English-language website devoted to its experiment. And promotional materials have proclaimed Tallinn the "capital of free public transport." --- The idea has been very popular with Tallinners. In an opinion poll, nine out of ten people said they were happy with how it’s going. Pille Saks is one of them. "I like free rides," says Saks, a 29 year-old secretary who goes to work by bus. "I have a car, but I don’t like to drive with it, especially in the winter when there is a lot of snow and roads are icy."

- But researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden who are evaluating the program found more modest results. They calculated an increase in passenger demand of just 3 percent — and attributed most of that gain to other factors, such as service improvements and new priority lanes for buses. In their analysis, free pricing accounted for increased demand of only 1.2 percent. --- What’s more, they found that traffic speeds in Tallinn had not changed — a sign that drivers were not shifting over to riding transit as intended. Actually, the researchers said, if any modal shift is happening, it’s that some people are walking less and riding transit more. Their study notes criticisms of free transit as a “second-best pricing scheme” for discouraging automobile use, less effective than increasing the price of parking, gasoline or using the roads.

.....

[electricron]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

The Largest Free Mass Transit Experiment in the World

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...nt-world/8231/

Wow! Giving away free rides didn't help ridership much, if any. Very interesting.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

The Largest Free Mass Transit Experiment in the World

After chewing this up a bit, I was struck by how Tallin, Estonia, is only about 20 years into the automobile age, due to having spent from August 1939 - July 1941, and from the fall of 1944 to 1994 under Soviet domination (From July 1941 to the autumn on 1944 the city was under German domination.)

In the period since 1994, Estonia has relished it's freedom. And a lot of that freedom includes the freedom, if one can afford it, to drive one's own car.

In a sense, Estonia today, is like the US in the 1920s where, for the first time, people do NOT have to take a tram, a train or a bus. For the first time, people do not have to smell people en route to work, to shop, or to go to entertainment venues.

Making bus service free in Tallin, IMO, had a less significant ridership effect than doing something similar might in a city long accustomed to bumper to bumper traffic.

In Estonia (as well as in Russia) and in most former members of the Soviet Bloc, people that can afford a car are just having too much fun driving to return to Soviet style buses, no matter how sleek they appear to be.

[Nouvellecosse]

I cant imagine it having much effect anywhere honestly. Using a car is already so much costlier than using transit (like several times more and a magnitude of hundreds of dollars per month) that if people are willing to shell out to buy, power, and maintain a car when transit was already so much cheaper, then eliminating the cost of transit altogether won't make that much of a difference. If they could already save $500/month by getting rid of the car and switching to transit, is increasing the saving to $550/mnth going to really have that much impact?

[ssiguy]

^ I agree to an extent.

If you need a car for work or just want one to make things easy then you are going to buy one, case closed. Where this would make a difference is families that maybe have 2 cars where they may decide to ditch the second one. I appreciate in Estonia very few people have 2 cars but it is common in Canada.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

After chewing this up a bit, I was struck by how Tallin, Estonia, is only about 20 years into the automobile age, due to having spent from August 1939 - July 1941, and from the fall of 1944 to 1994 under Soviet domination (From July 1941 to the autumn on 1944 the city was under German domination.)

In the period since 1994, Estonia has relished it's freedom. And a lot of that freedom includes the freedom, if one can afford it, to drive one's own car.

In a sense, Estonia today, is like the US in the 1920s where, for the first time, people do NOT have to take a tram, a train or a bus. For the first time, people do not have to smell people en route to work, to shop, or to go to entertainment venues.

Making bus service free in Tallin, IMO, had a less significant ridership effect than doing something similar might in a city long accustomed to bumper to bumper traffic.

In Estonia (as well as in Russia) and in most former members of the Soviet Bloc, people that can afford a car are just having too much fun driving to return to Soviet style buses, no matter how sleek they appear to be.

You sound absolutely elated, you know, as if you've totally dropped the pretense of being objective, and you're just rolling in completely political, philosophical, and ideological talking points and buzzwords. lol

[202_Cyclist]

I saw the electric Coca-Cola delivery truck again on Wednesday. Perhaps I am too much like a little kid but it is always exciting to see that.