reCycle: An Innovative Bike Rental Program

Logo by Jeff Horton of Commuter Services of North Florida Several years ago my alma mater Florida State University attempted a spectacularly unsuccessful bike-sharing program (click here for more on bike sharing).  They painted a number of bikes a bright yellow and then set them in various locations around campus, unlocked.  The idea was that students would use them to get from one building to...

Understanding the 53s

There are a number of different funding mechanisms provided by the Federal Transit Administration that all start with the number 53, taken from 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53, but the two most important ones, financially speaking, are 5307 and 5309.  FTA Section 5307 funds are non-discretionary funds, meaning they go out every year to eligible recipients and are distributed to regions on an urbanized area formula...

Filling the First and Last Mile

Whether a transit system resembles a wagon wheel, a spider web, a plate of pasta, or a nice tidy grid, it is always a network, threads connected by intersections and central points.  By definition there are always gaps in the coverage—the spaces between the lines—even in as dense a system as, say, New York’s. Transit is very good at getting people from A to B, but the distance from B to the...

On the Other Hand: Rethinking Shelter Advertising

In response to our story on shelter advertising, Bill Brinton has a very different take on the encroachment of ads into public space. The citizens of many cities in this country desire to improve their communities’ appearances and to reduce sign clutter along roadways.  In November 2009, an overwhelming majority of voters in San Francisco approved a ballot initiative to halt the placement of...

How to build a streetcar in 6 easy steps

United Streetcar is now building modern streetcars in the United States (click here for the story).  This graphic illustrates the process of building one.  Click on the image to enlarge and use Ctrl+mouse wheel to zoom.

Round Up: Transit Property Names

Transit property names make for a lean alphabet soup.  Especially among older agencies, acronyms condense the lengthy and the specific (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District) into the pat and the convenient (SEPTA, NICTD), monikers small enough to fit on tokens and double as logos.  But there are only so many words available for describing...

Hybrids: Leaves on the Nevergreen Tree

Yahoo’s green blog had a post a few days ago that listed writer Lori Bongiorno’s green hypocrites.  One of them was certain hybrid owners: “Owns a hybrid, but drives all around town alone. The kind of car you drive is just one part of the transportation equation. Walking, biking, carpooling, and taking public transportation when you can are also important. Try to drive the most fuel-efficient...

The High Cost of “Major Service Change”

The headline on Phillip Matier’s and Andrew Ross’s story just sounded bad:  “BART spending $800K to define three words.”  It is easy to imagine the public saying “That’s more than 250,000 per word,” or “I’d have done it for half that.”  In fact, commenters on the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle story had lots of other three-word proposals like “Clean the Trains,”...

Streetcar Maiden, USA

Portland's first streetcars made in USA. Courtesy United Streetcar Skoda is a legendary firm dating from 1859 that has made weapons, brewing equipment, bridge parts, airplanes, and automobiles (now a separate division owned by Volkswagen).  Today the Czech company makes steam turbines and condensers, but the few Americans who are aware of Skoda probably know the company because of its transit...

Population Pyramids II: How to Build

The raw data from the census in Excel. Following up on Population Pyramids I which shows the story-telling power of population pyramids, this post explains how to create them. Negotiating the labrynth of the U.S. Census Beureau can be a challenge so this link will take you right to the 2008 ACS 1-year Data.  Under the 2008 tab in the blue area chose Subject Tables from the list at right.  Select...

Losing Our FedEx Moment: Farewell to Charters

Gainesville (FL) RTS will not be running its Gator Aider that takes Florida fans from malls and new urban developments to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on home football game days this fall (2010).  A private charter operator Fabulous Coach Lines answered RTS’s charter notice and is going to operate a new service renamed the Navigator (one hopes it will be printed as NaviGator).  It will cost $10 (over...

Keeping Riders

Saleswoman Deanna Droira-Garcia very suddenly lost her ability to drive when she began having epileptic seizures.  As a result she was riding Tri-rail down in Miami, Florida, and saw a car card advertising a competition for the best stories on why riders use and value transit.  Before her seizures, Droira-Garcia had driven not only to work, but for work as she traveled to make sales calls.  She...

Anatomy of a Good Stop

Bus stops are the sentinels, the grunts, the pawns, the privates, the foot soldiers of every transit agency.  Unlike bus depots and rail stations, glory hounds all with their cover, vending, restroom facilities, security and more, the bus stop stands alone, ignored until activated by the presence of a human.  Then it is a flag in the breeze calling for service until the vehicle departs and the bus...

Population Pyramids I: Snapshots of a Place

If your community were a junior prom, a population pyramid would be its photograph.  Girls on the left, boys on the right, all clustered by clique, or in this case, by age group.  These handy planning tools graphically illustrate the age and sex composition of a place (city, state, nation, whatever) in a simple, immediately accessible way and should be included in any analysis of said place whether...

The Met in Metro

  Shelters on the Sprinter Line in Charlotte are unique identifiers but also part of the urban fabric. Photo courtesy of CATS. Art has historically been public, civic – both a product of and contributor to collective identity.  From Egyptian glyphs to idealized Greek athletes, from Roman triumphal arches to intricate altar pieces, art condescends to tell us something about who we are, where...