The Transportist: September 2018

Welcome to the September 2018 issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow along at the blog or on Twitter.

Posts

• A Political Economy of Access - Reviewers Wanted

• Does bike sharing have a future in Australia?

• Dr. Chelsey Palmateer: The Distribution of Access

• To make better streets, we must first measure them

• On the Four Paths

Conferences

• Save the date for the World Symposium on Transportation & Land Use Research #WSTLUR in Portland, OR July 13-15, 2020

Jobs

• University of Sydney - Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Data Analytics in Logistics & GIS at ITLS

News

Automated, Autonomous, Driverless, and Self-Driving Vehicles, and Semi-Autonomous Systems

• Waymo topped 9 million miles in August 2018. They are doing a million miles a month in automated mode.

• Waymo just laid out its vision for a driverless future Plus, there's a way it can actually make money. - qz.com

Shared Vehicles/Ride-sharing/Ride-hailing/Taxis/Car Sharing

• China’s Didi suspends carpooling service after another female passenger is mudered - TechCrunch

• Uber gears up for shift to bikes on short trips - FT

• Toyota Investing $500 Million in Uber in Driverless Car Pact - WSJ

• Mike Munger on non-ownership - Arnold Kling

• McFeely: West Fargo man victim of 'vomit fraud,' - wday

• Uber Hit With Cap as New York City Takes Lead in Crackdown - NY Times

Electric Vehicles [and Renewable Energy]

• There are now more than 1 million EVs in Europe after sales soared by + 40% in the first half of the year.

• Using a crane and concrete blocks to store energy for later retrieval - Kottke

Human Powered Vehicles/Bikes/Pedestrians/Scooters/eBikes/etc

• In Charlotte: For July:

  • Shared Bikes: 27,453 trips, 19,430 miles, 0.7 mile average

  • Electric scooters: 100,273 trips and a 139,215 miles, 1.4 mile average

• Horace Dediu (asymco) has a new podcast: Micromobility

• Cycle, walk, drive or train? Weighing up the healthiest (and safest) ways to get around the city - The Coversation

• To Get Ready for Robot Driving, Some Want to Reprogram Pedestrians - Bloomberg [This is perhaps the worst idea. And there are many bad ideas]

• To make streets walkable, empower pedestrians to cross anywhere - Ben Ross

• Push for pedestrian crossings to always be green - couriermail.com.au

• CityCycle initiative has turned around, with a 35 per cent increase in patronage - Brisbane Times

Human Driven Vehicles, Signs, Signals, Sensors, and Markings, and Roads

• After 60 Years, I-95 Is Complete - Bloomberg

• Transurban gets green light from regulator to bid for WestConnex - smh

• Our new PM wants to 'bust congestion' – here are four ways he could do that - The Conversation

• We hardly ever trust big transport announcements – here's how politicians get it right - The Conversation

• Are Australian bridges safe, and can we do better? - The Conversation

• What Brought Down This Bridge in Genoa? - citylab

• 'Immense tragedy': Motorway bridge collapse in Italy leaves dozens dead - smh

• End to traffic congestion predicted but we may have to give up control of our cars to achieve it​ - news.com.au . [Centralized control is a bad idea]

Transit

• Melbourne orbital rail proposal - Daniel Bowen

• Sydney's Airport Line operator seeks greater share of revenue pie - smh [It's a privately built and run subway line. The fares were initially set absurdly high, til the government subsidized them at non-airport stations. Evidence that profit maximizing ≠ welfare maximizing.

• Inside the train chaos and how a balloon shut parts of the system down [Narrator: It was software.] - SMH

• The Dynamics of Bus Bunching - Alon Levy

• Bus Pollution Is a Blast From the Past [It's down 90% 2000-2018] - Streetsblog

​Land Use/Architecture

• This Town - SMBC (comic)

Justice/Equity

• U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question - WaPo

• Parents fined for letting kids walk to school unsupervised [Queensland] - SBS

• Undeterred by violence, students close Dhaka's roads to demand justice [For traffic deaths!] - smh

Kerbs and Sidewalks

• How Coord enables real-time payment for parking

Retail, Freight, Waste, and Logistics

• Rio Tinto delivers first iron ore with autonomous train - Logistics Magazine

• Driverless Grocery Delivery in Phoenix Could Start This Fall - Phoenix New Times

• Food delivery service Foodora to exit Australia - smh

Technology History

• Google map of all trolley lines in US c. 1957.

• Analysis | How 2,000-year-old roads predict modern-day prosperity - WaPo

• What Can and Cannot Be Planned​ - Mike Munger

Education

• Default lecture capture: In defense of academic freedom, safety and well-being - Julie Cupples

Isochrones and Maps

• New York City in Timespace - Gradient Metrics

• Atlas of Urban Expansion - Sydney

• 25 Years of Urban Growth and Density Change in 66 Cities - Reddit

Aviation

• All hail the flying taxi Some of the world’s biggest companies are scrabbling to develop flying cars. Tom Vanderbilt asks whether they are likely to take off - 1843magazine.com

Fantasy

• A hyperloop route between St. Louis and Kansas City is under serious consideration. The Verge

Research & Data

by Us

• These Are the American Cities Where Transit Access to Jobs Is Getting Better - Streetsblog

by Others

• 'Beware Fake Econometrics' by Rob Bain in Infrastructure Investor (pdf)

Books

• Metropolitan Transport and Land Use: Planning for Place and Plexus (2018) by David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek.

• Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners. (2018) By David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen.

• Spontaneous Access: Reflexions on Designing Cities and Transport (2016) by David Levinson.

• The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape. (2017) By David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek.

• The Transportation Experience: Second Edition Garrison, William and Levinson, David (2014)