Transportist: July 2019

Welcome to the July 2019 issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers.  As always you can follow along at the  transportist.org or on Twitter.

New Interdisciplinary Master of Transport

The University of Sydney is pleased to unveil a new, interdisciplinary (Engineering, Planning, and Business) Master of Transport, and is accepting applications for Term 1 and Term 2 of 2020 now. Contact me if you have questions.

Transportist (the blog)

• Transport Poverty | A Political Economy of Access (free chapter)

• Taken for a Ride | Altmedia

• Following up on our article on Polycentricity,

  • I was interviewed on 2SER (107.3) radio (June 13, 7:30 pm) about polycentrism. Here is the podcast: https://2ser.com/three-cbds-in-one-city/  

  • Sydney 30-minute city vision in danger of being derailed

• Some comments on Hyperloop

• Friends of Erskineville: Conversation with David Levinson (with links to video recording)

• On Ideas

WalkSydney

• Surface treatments – a disutility from utilities.

• Phone Zombies: Distracted walking or distracting discussion? - by Rudy Botha

Conferences

• The call for papers for the 8th International Symposium on Transport Network Reliability in Stockholm has been announced.

• I present at the Transport Australia Conference in Sydney on 27 & 28 June 2019, the question was "Fuel excise does not exist, how do we replace that income stream by 2030?" the answer is to Phase in pricing, one electric vehicle at a time.

• I presented at TRISTAN on a General Theory of Access.

• I will be at COTA - CICTP next month in Nanjing (and Beijing for an event before that).

News

• Transit and Microtransit

  • Driverless buses can help end the suburbs’ public transport woes

  • Why Electric Buses Haven’t Taken Over the World — Yet

  • Sydney light rail cost blows out to at least $2.7b after settlement

  • NSW Rail Control Centre Opened (“Bigger than NASA”). [Of course there are more trains than rockets]

  • Driverless train moves in wrong direction, injures 14 in Yokohama [Not just Sydney]

  • Reviews of Sydney Metro (Who knew trains had so many teeth?)

    • Rogue Train Fails to Stop at Chatswood amid Sydney Metro Teething Issues

    • Sydney Metro Observations

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

  • Shifting Alliances Hint At New Balance Of Power In Autonomous Cars

  • GM is opening up Super Cruise hands-free driving system to more roads [200,000 miles of highway][Not sure how they are counting miles, I think it directional miles rather than centerline miles]

  • Transurban (Australia’s toll road monopolist): Safety pilot launched to test remotely operated vehicles on the 95 Express Lanes

  • Economics in Two Lessons: 21st century cars

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

  • Transurban to get compo [ed. note: compo is apparently compensation in Australian English] for disruptions caused by building its own road

  • Fiat Chrysler withdraws bid for Renault

• Human-Powered Vehicles/Bikes/Pedestrians/Scooters/eBikes/Last-Mile/First-Mile/Last-Meter/First-Meter/etc.

  • Chris Boardman at odds with DfT over zebra crossings in Manchester

  • Why Cities with High Bicycling Rates are Safer for all Road Users (YouTube)

  • Fewer kids are riding and buying bicycles, and the industry is worried

• Standards (Curbs, Mobility, etc.)

  • OpenStreetMap and curb regulations: A proposed approach - SharedStreets

  • Open Mobility Foundation — supporting “Mobility Data Specifications” (MDS) that was initially developed by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT)

• Electrification, Energy, Environment

  • The new plan to remove a trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere: Bury it

  • GM and Fiat Chrysler Unmasked as Tesla's Secret Source of Cash [It has to do with US CAFE standards]

• Land Use

  • How radial are journeys to work in Australian cities?

  • Is labelling the outer suburbs as ‘job deserts’ helpful?

  • Limited high-rise can halt sprawl and preserve our suburbs' character

• Retail, Wholesale, Logistics, Supply Chain, Freight

  • The Underground World of Barangaroo precinct

• Maps

  • History: From Paris with Love (ca. 1845) [Train schedule visualisation]

  • From Jobs to Education, Inequality in Mexico City Is About Access

  • Map Monday: Twin Cities Job Accessibility, Transit vs. Driving

• Equity and Justice

  • ‘People aren’t disabled, their city is’: inside Europe’s most accessible city

• Fantasy Aviation

  • Uber Air set to take off in Australia with flying taxi trial in Melbourne “Aerial ridesharing is being touted as a big part of future urban travel.” [I guess it depends on what you mean by the word “big”]

• Governance

  • Sydney CBD congestion tax would hit wealthy hardest: analysis

  • Top government adviser lists reforms needed to kickstart economy [Including road pricing]

• Miscellany:

  • What Works, by Politico (Some nice examplars)

• Technology

  • To Save The Science Poster, Researchers Want To Kill It And Start Over

  • Mary Meeker’s most important trends on the internet

Books

• A Political Economy of Access. (2019) By David M. Levinson and David A. King (Book 4 in the Access Quartet)

• Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners. (2018) By David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen. (Book 3 in the Access Quartet)

• Spontaneous Access: Reflexions on Designing Cities and Transport (2016) by David Levinson. (Book 2 in the Access Quartet)

• 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. (Book 4 in the Access Quartet)

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

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