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...

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...

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...

Go Figure: Figure-ground as a Land Use/Transportation Tool

It has long been widely recognized by many city planners, urban designers, architects, landscape architects, and historic preservationists, that, among many other influences, a viable community has a balanced relationship between building mass and open space that gives it a sense of compactness, spatial definition, and is in human scale. A typical figure-ground. This concern is even more relevant...

To Get to the Other Side

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” is the start of what is probably the first or second joke we ever hear in our lifetimes (my favorite response is one I saw on t-shirts in Texas:  “To prove to the armadillo it could be done!”).  That old saw came to mind when I was talking to my friend and professor of transportation planning at Florida State University Gregory Thompson (he also wrote...

Transit Shelter Advertising: Shelter Brought to You By . . .

Shelter image Michal Zacharzewski   Off-site advertising bans make ad-sponsored shelters tricky.  Why the California 9th Circuit Court of Appeals might be the new BFF of JTA.  The video is excellent.  Mike Miller, Jacksonville Transit Authority Director of External Affairs, has been showing it to citizen groups, neighborhood associations, civic organizations, elected officials and others. ...

Cutting the Cord: Streetcars without Wires

  At the Americana at Brand in Glendale, CA, the money saved on overhead wires could be spent on lavish appointments for the streetcars themselves. Photo Gomaco Trolley Company. We tend to think of streetcars as operating on a fixed guideway.  The majority of the world’s streetcar systems, however, move between two of them, the unobtrusive rails in the ground and the power lines that run overhead...

Like Peas and Carrots: Co-locating facilities and transit

  For more than 100 Years the Reading Terminal Market has been the grocer, deli, cheese shop, bakery, and so mucyh else to commuters in Philadelphia. Steam Locamotives once stopped overhead but now Reading is served underground by SEPTA. Photo Scheib Shoppers could always tell when the train arrived by the sound of 700,000 pounds of steel laboring to a halt a few dozen feet overhead.  The Reading...

Moscow Metro II: Buried History in the Moscow Metro

To say that the Park Pobedy (Victory Park) station is deep is to say that the Moscow Metropolitan is just a good way to get around.  Mounting the escalator, one immediately recalls the posters in the metro showing a station attendant, young, blond, and cute, in her blue uniform.  She smiles beguilingly and the text reads “Yest’ Vykhod.”  There is an exit.  This is reassuring.  The escalators,...