Long time passing

Hail Mary passes, hotdogs, and one’s own life:  the longer the better.  Add streetcars to the list.  The Toronto TTC takes streetcars very seriously and they are about to add 130 foot vehicles to their fleet.  These are streetcars, not light rail.  They are a single car in length, but a multiple-articulated car with four bends, 5 sections with special seating areas for families, wheelchair ramps,...

A Tale of Two Cities’ Streetcars

Philadelphia and San Francisco are rarely compared to one another.  One is America’s founding city, the other America’s European city.  One is east, the other west.  The city by the bay is known for its mild winters and cold summers and the City of Brotherly Love isn’t.  But there are some interesting similarities, and unfortunate differences, in the streetcar lines both cities operate the...

A new angle on the B&A and the ramp

Here is news.  On a conference call last week with Dean Perkins, ADA Coordinator for Florida DOT, someone brought up boarding and alighting areas (B&A) on rural road segments, i.e. ones that do not have curbs and gutters.  The question was:  is it a problem if the sidewalk and B&A are flush with the road instead of being elevated five or six inches as would be the case with a curbside stop? ...

The local

Local is hip.  Local is cool.  Local is sustainable.  Transit is local.  Many transit operators put icons or other information on transit maps to help passengers locate Walmarts and regional shopping centers whose profits go to Bentonville, Arkansas, and New York City among others.  But what about local places?  Even if the transit operator is Veolia, MV Transportation, or First Transit, the...

Caught in the shame phase

Nothing looks more out of place at the intersection of two suburban roads than a pair of storm troopers.  The second most out-of-place looking thing at the intersection of two suburban roads is anyone else. We can talk about low service frequencies, long walking distances from bus stops to buildings, and exposure to the elements as the worst part of serving suburban areas with transit, but in my experience...

Accidents happen, be careful out there

The author + abrasion In an emergency situation there are two kinds of time: slow motion and missing.  The driver-side wheel of the Ford crossed the solid white line of the bike lane in a way that was instantly clear to me would continue.  A guttural yell escaped my lips, something primitive that once may have announced the killing of a wild boar or signaled victory in battle.  I think it contained...

Developers: Make it your own

Real estate developers are often understandably frustrated when dealing with government red tape: concurrency, zoning, impact fees, and the rest.  In Tallahassee the builders of new development, especially when it is dense student housing, are usually called upon to incorporate some transit facilities for their future residents to use and typically these requests don’t go down well.  This...

The measure of the scale

The book Transit Maps of the World by Mark Ovenden gives a splendid overview of how metro/subway maps evolved to chuck the twists and turns of roads and rivers and instead just show a schematic of how stations relate to one another.  The straight lines and 45-degree angles of transit maps have become standard in metros from Moscow, to London, to Atlanta, and even some bus system maps (here).  Not-to-scale...

The Trains from Hoboken: An NJT Appreciation

The PATH train (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) is quite possibly the most attractive thing between Harrison and Exchange Place, the last station before crossing the Hudson River and entering Manhattan.  The train rolls quickly and smoothly along the Hackensack River through urban New Jersey, often in sight of New York City.  This is the New Jersey that resonates in the collective American consciousness,...

When Peaks are Plateaus

Peak hour, whether by motorcars as recorded by traffic counters or as additional vehicles put into service by transit agencies, takes its name from the way these data points appear on a graph.  In the morning and late afternoon more people use roads and usually more transit is provided so those periods have predictable spikes.   Not every transit agency has those peaks in service, including the...

A Weak Platform: The streetcar as development tool, not transportation

A person born in Tampa, Florida, or nearly any other significant American city in 1888, the year Frank J. Sprague produced the first successful electric streetcar in Richmond, Virginia, would live his youth knowing only the streetcar as a regular means of mechanized transport.   He would marry in a church within earshot of the clang of a streetcar bell and take his own young children on trips downtown...

Focus People!

I was friendly with an editor at the local newspaper and he mentioned to me that he was going to try out a new limited service route our transit agency was about to launch.  The day after the new service was initiated I called him to ask how his trip had gone.  “Perfect,” he said.  “It really went off without a hitch.”  I was, of course very glad to hear that.  I was then very surprised...

On Vilano Beach the Public Space Comes First

A beatiful new fountain in front of the decrepit trailer park on Vilano Road shows the commitment to improving the public space. The trailers are now gone. He is a clumsy phoenix, but the fat Blue Bird of Happiness may become the symbol of Vilano Beach anyway. The once chipped and faded 8-foot fiberglass sculpture in roughly the same shape as a snowman is bright and blue again.  The decrepit Vilano...

What’s in a B&A?

The place where a passenger alights (gets off) a bus has long been a semantic haze. Is it the bus stop? A landing pad? Is a shelter pad the same thing? Well, in case you have not come across this addition to the 2006 Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) yet, we now have a common name for it: the boarding and alighting area, or B&A. The stop itself is where a bus (or...

Buses, Cars, and a Bike on Tennessee

The City Commission in Tallahassee, Florida is considering restriping a 2-mile stretch of U.S. 90 for bus, bicycle, and right turn only use.  It is a controversial plan to say the least, but a major concern has been how bikes will work with cars and buses on this arterial running along the north edge of Florida State University.  This is the only section of U.S. 90 (aka Tennessee Street) that is...