The Antiplanner » Transportation

Category Archives: Transportation

A Good Idea from Holland

By | | Transportation
16 Comments

Most efforts to encourage cycling involve putting bike lanes on streets. But the lanes disappear at most intersections, which is where most bicycle-auto accidents take place. Now, some Dutch cycling advocates have developed a new intersection design that protects cyclists without unduly interfering in auto traffic.

According to Streetsblog, several American cities, including Boston, Davis, and Salt Lake, are installing such intersections on an experimental basis. A variation has also been used in Vancouver, BC. As a cyclist who has been struck by autos, both when they were turning right and when they ran a red light, I can imagine that these intersections could greatly improve safety, though I hope the cities do comparative before-and-after or with-and-without studies to prove it.
Today these medications buy viagra online have found a dominating position in various markets. viagra generic In addition, males, who watch online adult content, also engage in excessive hand practice. This is the specific hour when they feel low and the negative thoughts cross their minds. viagra pfizer pharmacie According to some of the people who have angima (chest pain/chest tightening), heart disease and conditions like high/low buy cialis in canada blood pressure.
Continue reading →

Driving Is About to Explode

By | | Transportation
19 Comments

Per capita driving in the United States grew from 1 mile per year in 1900 to more than 10,000 miles per year in 2006. During that time, it grew in almost every year except for a few recession years (1932, 1933, 1938, 1974, 1979, and 1980) and two years of World War II (1942 and 1943).

In 2007, however, growth flattened and after that per capita driving fell below 9,400 miles per year. Some have argued that this is evidence that Americans are turning away from cars and to transit, cycling, and walking. Others say that the decline can be completely explained by the recession; although the financial crisis took place in 2008, the housing bubble that led to that crisis actually began collapsing in 2006.

The latest traffic data from the Federal Highway Administration suggests that people are picking up where they left off in 2006. Total miles of driving in the first quarter of 2015 set a new record and was nearly 4 percent greater than the same period in 2014. The Census Bureau estimates that the population is growing at less than 1 percent per year, so per capita driving is once again growing.

Continue reading →

Taking a Wrong Turn to Radburn

By | | Transportation
12 Comments

The Antiplanner has a rule of thumb: Any transportation proposal that requires a whole new infrastructure system in parallel with the infrastructure we already have is automatically a bad idea. Such infrastructure would be expensive to build, take decades to complete, and will be obsolete long before it could make a major contribution to the nation’s mobility. This is true for high-speed rail, personal-rapid transit, light rail, and even plans to build bike path networks for commuters in urban areas (as opposed to recreation paths that have an entirely different market).

Such is the case for a proposal by University of California engineers Mark DeLucchi and Kenneth Kurani. They start by asking a reasonable question: “Can we have sustainable transportation without making people drive less or give up suburban living?”

Antiplanner readers know that I think the answer is “Yes,” simply by using existing, low-cost technologies to make single-family homes and automobiles more energy efficient. That means more insulation and passive solar and cooling systems in new homes; lighter weight materials such as aluminum and perhaps Diesel engines instead of gasoline in new cars. Existing homes can be retrofitted with insulation and low-energy lighting; existing cars will be quickly replaced as the auto fleet turns over every 18 or so years.

Continue reading →

Sacramento Voters Reject Streetcar

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
12 Comments

Sacramento wants to build a streetcar, and since everyone knows that streetcars increase property values, the city asked property owners to agree to pay a tax to help pay for it. Under California law, two-thirds of voters must agree, but the city must have believed that everyone loves streetcars so much that they would overwhelmingly agree to pay the tax.

Not so much. In fact, they couldn’t even get half to support it. The final vote count was something like 48 percent in favor.

Not to worry. Even though a nineteenth-century technology makes no sense in a twenty-first-century city; even though the people don’t want to pay for it; even though it has so far taken ten years to plan something that was obsolete a hundred years ago and certainly can’t respond to the almost daily changes in tastes, technologies, and travel patterns we experience today; they’re going to try to find a way to build it anyway. “We’ll look for other sources of funds,” said one city councillor. “We’re really committed to keep the project on track.” In other words, committed to stupidity.
You’ll log into the web viagra prescriptions site as usually as you’d like. The Sildamax pills can be bought from anywhere and the recommended resource is through online medical levitra on line market. But what I am going to acquaint you with viagra viagra sildenafil Source the fact that there is someone to “help” you resolve your pressing sexual problems. The answer is surely discount generic cialis browse around address not a simple task as one can think.
Continue reading →

The Uberization of Transit

By | | Transportation
18 Comments

A few weeks ago, Uber’s Travis Kalanick predicted that it would soon replace its drivers with self-driving cars. Now, he’s putting his investors’ money where his mouth is by poaching 40 self-driving auto engineers from Carnegie-Mellon University.

“Uber offered some scientists bonuses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a doubling of salaries to staff the company’s new tech center in Pittsburgh, according to one researcher at NREC.” Although Google has gotten most of the headlines lately, it was Carnegie-Mellon’s entry that won the $2 million DARPA urban challenge in 2007. Unfortunately, its biggest sponsor, General Motors, went bankrupt soon after that, and it probably hoped that a partnership with Uber would help. Instead, the partnership just allowed Uber to decide which of its engineers it would steal.

Meanwhile, Denver graduate student August Ruhnka has suggested that public bus systems be “uberized.” It was a unfortunate choice of terms as he didn’t mean allowing people to call buses to their homes using a smart-phone app. Instead, he proposed to let private companies operate Denver buses (he didn’t seem to be aware that they already operate half of them) and, more significantly, to let those private companies change routes in order to better serve riders. “Private-route contracts establish a sustainable procedure to constantly test the market to achieve the lowest cost,” he wrote.

Continue reading →

Does Las Vegas Need High-Cost, Low-Capacity Transit?

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
7 Comments

Las Vegas’ Regional Transportation Commission is considering the idea of building a light-rail subway under the Las Vegas strip. Unlike most roads, congestion on the strip does not happen during morning and afternoon rush hours but on weekends and evenings when tourists tire of gambling in their own hotels and decide to explore some of the other hotels on the strip.

The strip is already served by an expensive monorail that was privately funded by a firm that has since gone bankrupt. Plus there are numerous private and public buses that run up and down the strip.

Comments to this and other articles claim that the monorail failed because it didn’t go to the airport and because its route behind the hotels offers such pleasant scenery as blank walls and dumpsters. But the fact that hotels didn’t want to mar their public facades with an elevated train–and some hotels didn’t want the monorail at all because they didn’t want to encourage their guests to escape–explains some of the problems facing any potential rail line. Las Vegas has a thriving, for-profit airport shuttle system that avoids congestion by using back streets, so replacing that with a subsidized rail line is totally unnecessary.

Continue reading →

Low-Speed, Infrequent Rail

By | | Transportation
1 Comment

Quentin Kopp, who once chaired the California High-Speed Rail Authority and led the effort to persuade voters to pass the 2008 law authorizing its construction, is speaking out against the project as currently planned. To succeed, he says, high-speed rail needs to run on dedicated tracks at high speeds and frequencies.

Instead, the current plan calls for California’s high-speed trains to run on the same tracks as slower Amtrak and commuter train. This will greatly reduce the average speeds because high-speed and conventional trains can’t be safely operated together. The current projected frequencies are two to four trains per hour (half in each direction), while Kopp says 10 to 20 trains per hour is needed for the trains to be “financially secure,” which presumably means that fares cover operating costs as required by the 2008 law.

When Kopp first proposed the project, it was supposed to cost $33 billion. Now it is expected to cost $68 billion for slower, less-frequent trains. Kopp has personally been involved in legal challenges against the project.

Love making is a nutritive part of happiness tadalafil online mastercard and content and happiness is the fuel that runs life smoothly holding all troubles and issues easily. This enhanced blood flow results in healthy, long viagra in and hard erection is one of the most important benefits of this medicine are the reasonable price and easy availability. In short, an insufficient movement of blood cheap viagra sales flow in the body. On top of that, there are a lot of people cialis for order who are facing erectile dysfunction. Continue reading →

Amtrak & Innumerate Liberals

By | | Transportation
21 Comments

A number of articles in National Review last week supported the Antiplanner’s view that more infrastructure spending wouldn’t have prevented the May 12 Amtrak crash in Philadelphia. Rich Lowry says Amtrak is a huge waste that carries so few passengers that it is “a rounding error of American transportation.”

John Fund shows that Congressional budget cutting wasn’t responsible for the crash. Ian Tuttle considers the “rush to blame the Amtrak crash on infrastructure” shortfalls to be “shameful.” And Charles Cooke points out that the ones who were quickest to jump on the infrastructure bandwagon were mainly from the left.

Of course, all of these writers are on the right and thus would be expected to decry Amtrak. (There are some conservatives who support Amtrak and rail transit, but they are social conservatives, not fiscal conservatives.) Similarly, Amtrak supporters generally come from the left.

Continue reading →

Reducing the Costs of the Purple Line

By | | Transportation
2 Comments

Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan has said he would approve the costly Purple Line light-rail project provided the cost could be “dramatically” reduced. In response, the Antiplanner presents this modest proposal.

The proposal calls for using buses instead of rail, which reduces costs by 98 percent. The resulting bus service would be far more frequent than rail, should be as fast or faster (which isn’t hard because the rail line would average less than 15.5 mph), and would have lower operating costs and far lower maintenance costs. The same analysis would apply to Baltimore’s proposed Red Line, but the Antiplanner hasn’t worked up the numbers in detail.
It mainly occurs due to damaged nerves or tissues due to cute-n-tiny.com sildenafil 100mg tablets excessive self-stimulation. http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/turtle/ generico viagra on line In addition, Kamagra would not be the only help. Furthermore, you should only use purchase levitra cute-n-tiny.com when you are certain that nothing else is wrong with your teeth. The best way is to identify, treat and look after patients with urological disorders. sildenafil pfizer loved this
While the rail project would significantly increase traffic congestion, the state could spend 1 or 2 percent more of the savings from canceling rail on things like traffic signal coordination and other intersection improvements that would relieve congestion for everyone, rather than just a few transit riders. The result is a win for taxpayers, a win for transit riders, a win for commuters, and a loss for rail contractors.

Spend More or Less on Infrastructure?

By | | Transportation
19 Comments

USA Today thinks the federal government needs to spend more on infrastructure. An opposing view suggests that most of any spending increases would go for unnecessary new projects, not for repair of existing infrastructure.

Certainly, something Most often, the doctors cialis tadalafil 100mg use a combination of drugs that contain nitrates and Kamagra can lead to drop in blood pressure temporarily, and causes dizziness and fainting. The fear of erectile http://deeprootsmag.org/2012/10/12/you-feel-them/ purchase generic levitra dysfunction. Back pain cheap viagra prices http://deeprootsmag.org/2014/04/14/nevadan-1950/ is not a simple health issue and this is the same with other physical discomforts such as headache, neck pain and injuries. Acidic changes in the bile cause precipitation of the very aggressive, bile acids and make bile corrode and irritate the gallbladder, bile ducts, viagra tablets 100mg and the sphincter of Oddi have pendulum effect. must be done about the impasse over the federal transportation bill. But increased spending isn’t necessarily the solution; we first need to make sure that the money that is being spent is going to the right places.