The Transportist: August 2017
Welcome to the August 2017 issue of The Transportist. As always you can follow along at the blog or on Twitter.
Announcements
Roderick Distinguished Lecture (31 August 2017) - University of Sydney campus
Opening: Chair in Public Transport (ITLS - University of Sydney)
Transportist Posts
Media Appearances
Transport News
Transit
We should do more to privatize bus systems - Marginal Revolution
'We won't need train and bus drivers': Transport Minister's prediction - SMH
Customised bus services set to go on trial in 2018. - Straits Times
New streetcar lines have hindered residents' access to jobs, report says - NOLA
Roads
Cuomo Calls Manhattan Traffic Plan an Idea ‘Whose Time Has Come’ - NY Times
When an 850 per cent profit jump just isn't enough (Transurban) - SMH
Sydney motorists deliver super profits for Transurban - again - SMH
RIP Bertha: Final piece of Seattle's giant tunneler removed from pit - KOMO
The Simple Solution to Traffic The way we can make traffic disappear. - YouTube
AVs
Apple said to be prepping self-driving employee shuttle service - TechCrunch
Tesla’s Push to Build a Self-Driving Car Sparks Dissent Among its Engineers - WSJ
Waymo Built a Secret World for Self-Driving Cars - The Atlantic
Winner-take-all effects in AVs. - Benedict Evans
The Big Problem With Self-Driving Cars Is People - Spectrum IEEE
CVs
EVs / Energy
Volkswagen Engineer Gets Prison in Diesel Cheating Case - NY Times
The Model 3 Is Further Proof of Tesla's Asymmetric War Against the Auto Industry - The Drive
HPVs / Bikes
Cycling fines soar in first year of harsher penalties in NSW - SMH [And use is down, and crash rates are up]
SVs / Taxis
Uber to end post-trip tracking of riders as part of privacy push - Reuters
Uber chooses a surprising new leader: the CEO of Expedia - WaPo
One-ways, Open Jaws, Closed Loops, and more: A day of Uber journeys in Chicago - Medium
Lyft’s radical experiment in charging for free parking - Bloomberg
Uber to add in-app chat feature to help riders, drivers find each other - Strib
Canals
Land Use
Revealed: the secret $1.6b plan to fund Parramatta light rail - SMH
Rich SF residents get a shock: Someone bought their street - SF Chronicle
Equity / Justice
Phoenix Man Awaiting Deportation After Failing to Buy a Light-Rail Ticket - Phoenix New Times
The Lost Dream of a Superhighway to Honor the Confederacy (Jefferson Davis Highway) by Erin Blakemore / The Atlantic
“Vehicle obstructing” aka “license to kill” bills list and their outcomes so far - Lisa Schweitzer
Safety
Fantasy
A few points to keep in mind when reading any upcoming story about the Hyperloop (first off, it's not a Hyperloop) - Observational Epidemiology
Aviation
Qantas plan to fly non-stop to New York and London from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane - Traveller.com.au
Why we don't commute with helicopters - BoingBoing
Isochrones
Leaving town at rush hour? Here’s how far you’re likely to get from America’s largest cities. - WaPo
Why Even the Hyperloop Probably Wouldn’t Change Your Commute Time - NY Times
Theses and Dissertations
Research
By Us
Di et al. (2017) Indifference Bands for Route Switching.
Zhu et al. (2017) Measuring Winners and Losers from the new I-35W Mississippi River Bridge
By Others
Clearly Marked Bicycle Lanes Enhance Safety and Traffic Flow (Sharrows not so much)
'You just need a bit of peace': The reason Sydneysiders prefer their cars to public transport - SMH discussion of Jennifer Kent talk