Transportist: October 2024
Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow on Mastodon or RSS.
Sustainable Transport Strategy & Policy Course
The University of Sydney is organising a Short Course on Sustainable Transport Strategy and Policy. It should be good, with several international speakers. (Thu 24 Oct 2024 - Fri 25 Oct 2024 - 2 sessions, 14 hours total). Details and Registration HERE.
Posts
Media: The Leader: Join the Activity Bayside Ride and Walk on Sept 8. Which I hope you did, though most of you did not.
Some Additional Comments on Sydney Metro
Sydney Metro opened in late August 2024. I was interviewed by Yan Zhuang of the New York Times. Here is an excerpt of Sydney Metro Expands, Opening to Celebrity-Level Fanfare: (August 23, 2024), where I am the damper on the hype machine.
The new section, which connects Sydenham, an inner-west neighborhood of Sydney, to Chatswood, in the north, runs under the city’s business district and crosses under the Harbor Bridge. It is the second part of the metro project to open, after a northern section that started operating in 2019. Several more segments are under construction, expected to open over the next decade. They all form part of a new rail system that updates and integrates with Sydney’s existing rail network, which was mostly built between the 1850s and early 1900s, said David Levinson, a transportation professor at the University of Sydney.
The news media covered the opening in breathless terms. The national broadcaster ABC described a ride on the metro as “a bit like something from a science fiction movie.” One journalist marveled at “just how much space there is for commuters.” Broadcasting live from inside a moving train, another reporter said, “I am hanging on for dear life here.” (The trains can travel up to speeds of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, per hour, according to the transportation agency for New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital.)
To be clear, the new trains are not revolutionary. They resemble, on a smaller scale, the subways of Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong. The metro was built by a consortium led by Hong Kong’s MTR rail company.
“It’s not something super amazing,” Professor Levinson said. “It’s state-of-the-art, but lots of systems are state-of-the-art.”
Research
Links
This Rory Sutherland video (he’s a famous and entertaining UK ad man) talks about travel behaviour and is pretty good.
Secret report lays out costs of infrastructure in Sydney, these costs are absurdly high
Waymo shows AVs safer than humans
recall last month: Waymo hits 100k riders per week
Barbed wire telecommunications networks by Lori Emerson, who has a book coming out
Western Sydney Airport snares Singapore Airlines with 24 hour offering (the subsidy to attract the airline is commercial-in-confidence)
Hacking Kia Cars [This one is supposedly solved, but it suggests many vectors for Connected Vehicles to be hacked]
CO2 emissions are falling globally (maybe), total CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise.
