Blog Entries of Note...

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From Streetsblog San Francisoco:

Caltrain Will Boost Bicycle Capacity But It’s Still Not Enough

Caltrain like many other systems including UTA is having issues with the number of bicycles that are trying to use the service.

Columbus and Its Mall: This Marriage Can’t Be Saved

Has our love affair with the malls come to an end and what can be done with these big spaces like the moribund Cottonwood Mall project?

Living a Car-Free Life

Story of a couple from San Francisco living a car free life.

From the California High Speed Rail Blog:

Lindbergh Field HSR Station Plans Emerge

Project to incorporate a new terminal at the San Diego airport that will have direct access to the San Diego light rail system, Amtrak and the high speed rail lines.

From the Xing Columbus Blog:

Cleveland to Build Ohio’s First Bike Station

Nice article about bike stations which we should soon have at Central Station.

From the Transit Miami Blog:

Sprawl is Dead, says Obama

Big talk, but will it lead to any action?

From the Overhead Wire blog:

Sunday Backlog Links

Some great comments about transit in Los Angeles plus other aritcles that you may find interesting.

Three Projects is Waaay Too Many

Apparently the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina (a city I once lived while working in NASCAR) thinks that working towards three transit projects at once is too much. I guess he would think were positively wacko here in Utah...

Imagine This Story Times Millions

My question is, there is so many property rights advocates coming out of the woodwork especially in Denver because of light rail construction, did these people say anything when people were losing their homes to the interstate highway system?

From Streetsblog LA:

Community Plan for Boyle Heights a Test of Planning’s Promise

Los Angeles City planning has stated it plans to work with neighborhoods to create plans that the citizens want. The new Boyle Heights plan will put that promise to the test.

From Biking in LA: The Pedestrian Free Crosswalk

Pedestrians are banned from a Westwood intersection despite the presence of pedestrian signals. Planning at its finest to improve the life of the automobile.

From Streetsblog:

An Attempt to Create Empathy in Drivers

Will signs make drivers think about pedestrians more?

Streetfilms: A Conversation With Congressman Earl Blumenauer

Interview with the very vocal pro transit and bicycling Earl Blumenauer out of Portland, Oreogn.

From the Sprawled Out Blog:

Kid-friendly senior housing proposed - JSOnline

Most senior developments are designed as being anti-children. However, a growing number of older people are having to raise thier grand children due to various reasons so a development in Milwaukee will be designed for those raising their grandkids.

From the Seattle Transit Blog:

New Zipcar office and city partnership are big steps in company’s effort to expand

Car sharing is being expanded in Seattle but we are still waiting for it in Salt Lake City. Plus it would be nice if it was a locally owned company.

From the RT Rider Blog:

Stimulating transit

Senate approves money for transit projects.

From the Jacksonville Transit Blog:

JACKSONVILLE AND FLORIDA BLOW THE STIMULUS

Florida will not be getting any stimulus money for transit.

Blog Entries of Note...

Image via WikipediaFrom the Stephen Rees Blog comes:

Citta Slow

How walking, streetcars (trams), and bicycles will play an important roll in the future. We need to change our priorities to build our future.

Economy has builders eyeing a return to rental apartments

Interesting perspective on the rental laws in British Columbia and comparing them to the rather landlord friendly laws here in Utah.

From the Denver Infill Blog comes:

Lessons from Detroit

What lessons can be learned from the problems of Detroit? Detroit is the ultimate example of what happens when the urban core is abandoned in favor of automobile suburbs.

Both sides of my family comes from the Detroit area so I can attest to all the problems that Detroit has and it can be largely contributed to the abandonment of the urban core.

From the Xing Columbus Blog:

LEED-ND

Should a building built in a car dependent area be able to get LEED certification? Currently the answer is yes, but should it be?

From the Trains for America Blog:

Seattle Times: A coming rennaisance for intercity rail?

State politicians talking about HSR, but still directing stimulus towards roads

As I have stated before, I will believe we will have change in the philosophy in transportation when I see it happen. Too often there is more talk and little action.

From the Overhead Wire blog:

Prop 13 Hangover

Prop 13 which cut property taxes to existing homeowners has some unintended consequences which is discussed in those post.

Replay 10.16.07: Vienna's Ringstrasse

Great information about how Vienna's multi-modal transportation network is put together in the downtown area.

From Streetsblog.org:

Who’s Really Footing the Bill for Roads?

From the Seattle Transit Blog:

Colorado Railcar Gone: What is next?

Colorado Railcar who was the only builder of DMU's in the United States that built an FRA compliant self propelled rail vehicle has shut down operations.

Thank God For Walkable Neighborhoods

Especially when you live in Seattle and it gets on of its infrequent snow falls that shut down streets and highways.

From the Light Rail AZ Blog:

A "Grand" Opening, indeed

Yes, another Meca to the automobile has fallen to light rail. Phoenix opened their first light rail line last weekend with an estimated 90,000 people ridding that first day. Now maybe Phoenix can start rebuilding their downtown area and make it more livable.

From the Jacksonville Transit Blog:

PHOENIX GETS IT - FLORIDA DOESN'T

While Phoenix gets its light rail system up and running many cities in Florida are still behind the 8 ball.

From the Intermodality Blog:

A new streetcar era?

Explains the difference between streetcars and light rail.

Blog Entries of Note...

Image by Amber Rhea via FlickrFrom the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

Where the Sidewalk Continues…

In September 2006, NJ Gov. Jon Corzine launched a five-year, $74 million statewide pedestrian safety initiative that included money for several NJDOT pedestrian safety programs, traffic calming infrastructure, “traffic-stat” technology, and increased inter-agency coordination. Two years in, the results are visible around the state.

This is what we need in Utah, a program to improve pedestrian safety.

From the Xing Columbus Blog:

62 New Bike Racks Installed in Past Three Months

Columbus, Ohio has installed a large number of bike racks around their city recently. One of the problems many bicyclist face is the lack of facilities to park their bikes. The next time you are out see how often you see bike racks available.

From the Overhead Wire Blog comes:

Pushy SF1

Another great entry from the Overhead Wire about so called free market and new urbanism.

From Streetsblog LA:

Metro Making Room for Bikes on Their Trains

Metro in Los Angeles actually banned bicycles during rush hour periods but is now reversing itself and doing the same thing as UTA: removing seats from trains to give more room for bicycles.

Transportation for America Launches Legislative Campaign

Campaign to improve transit and rail infrastructure.

From the Steve Munro Blog:

Diesels, Not Hybrids, At Least For Now

Back when UTA implemented the fuel surcharge people scream why doesn't UTA buy more Hybrid buses (UTA currently has three in the fleet). In Toronto, they have decided to order more diesel buses because the batteries are only lasting a quarter of the time they were supposed to.

From the Orphan Road Blog:

Parking Ruins Everything

Some interesting information about a couple of different boroughs in New York.

Blog Entries of Note...

Image via Wikipedia Since I will not be available to post tomorrow, here is the weekly blog posts I found of interest:

From the Bike Utah Valley Blog:

Bikes on Trains & Buses

Interesting comments about the problems up in Portland with bikes on transit. If you listen to some people you would think that UTA does nothing right, while it is not perfect it is not the evil empire some people make it out to be.

From the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

At National Conference, NJ Cited as Leader on Bike Policy

Utah ranked 11th out of the 50 states which is not too bad although it could be better. We need to be working on multimodal solutions such as the bike route next to the TRAX line in Draper.

From the California High Speed Rail Blog:

Ghettoizing Rail

Once again talks about the importance of integrating rail service to provide a better network of service.

From the Xing Columbus Blog:

Should States Raise the Minimum Driving Age?

Of course parents and students hate this idea and to make matters worse, the poor design of most new schools makes it virtually impossible for anyone to walk to school. I think the major issue here is not the age that drivers get licenses but the fact that there is not alternatives.

I won't even get into the fact that people are allowed to cheat on their Utah drivers tests...

From Transit Miami:

Miami’s Newest Urban Square?

Miami’s Newest Urban Square, Part 2

We already have an advantage over Miami as we have Pioneer Park. Yes it has its issues but it has the potential to be that Urban Square of Salt Lake City. Of course the isolated suburbanites will still fear the park for some time and even after its clean up with still tell stories about the problems but that's their problem.

From the Overhead Wire:

BART thinks about Peak Period Pricing

The Seattle METRO system already charges more in the peak period than in the off peak periods.

Blog Postings from this week...

Image via Wikipedia First up from the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

In NJ, “Son of Toll Hike” is Born

While Utah looks at the possibility of its first toll road, the New Jersey turnpike authority is looking to increase toll charges in order to replenish the state highway trust fund. A portion would go to the New Jersey Transit project to build additional tunnels from New Jersey to Penn Station in New York to deal with train congestion out of the area.

From the Denver Transit Stop Blog:

Public Private Partnership Pilot Program (Penta P)

This talks about the RTD in Denver looking at Public-Private partnerships in order to get some lines built in its Fastracks program.

The author has an excellent description of the various types of partnerships and how they work so it is differently worth a look.

From the Xing Columbus (Ohio) Blog:

Money Never Disappears for Sprawl

The blog mentions that Ohio has instituted a policy of fix it first meaning that it will fix existing highways before starting new ones.

From the Transit Miami Blog:

Boondoggle

A couple of weeks ago an article was published in some magazine that listed the biggest boondoggles (by who's classification?) and Transit Miami points out while its own project the expansion of Metro Rail has not happened so far, you have to question some of the others on the list including the unique Sydney Opera House.

From the Transbay Blog:

Sunday Streets and More, This Labor Day Weekend

San Francisco closed a street to create a pedestrian fair.

From the Overhead Wire:

Making San Francisco More Accessible by Amtrak

There is a couple of ways to get to San Fransisco by Amtrak. First by long distance train you can get off in either Emeryville or Oakland and take a bus to the San Fransisco or if your on one of the corridor trains you can take BART from Richmond (which I did on multiple occasions).

However, the post points out about the disconnect between local, state and national carriers which was pointed out in the intragration series.

Battlefield NIMBYism

Article from New Jersey were NJ Transit wants to put commuter trains on a existing rail line but people who run a revolutionary war battlefield think railroad tracks are a blight and should be eliminated.

From the RT Rider:

The cost of free parking

Growing a transit lifestyle in barren soil

John talks about difficulties in buidling a transit lifestyle in Sacramento. You can see the comparisons to many places in along the Wasatch Front.

From the N-Judah Chonicles:

Just What IS A "Green Bus Shelter" Anyway?

Putting grass on top of a bus stop shelter makes it a green shelter?

From the CTA Tattler:

Higher gas prices mean big CTA ridership increase

Chicago is also having a major increase in ridership in both rail and bus.

Pedicabs in Downtown and the surronding area?

Image via WikipediaHere is an article from Xing Columbus and a link to a more thorough article talking about the use of Pedicabs in the downtown Columbus, Ohio area.

When most people think of Pedicabs Japan and China come to mine as big user of Pedicabs. However, pedicabs are slowly being accepted in certain areas around the country. So how about pedicabs in Salt Lake City? With our wide streets Pedicabs would be able to be in the curb lane while automobiles could use the other lanes.

The big benefit of pedicabs is that they are cleaner since they do not have motors plus they offer a unique travel experience. However, some people don't like the Pedicabs especially the automobile cab industry who usually fight against pedicabs including a vicious fight going on in Los Angeles. In New York pedicabs have become too successful and many groups are trying to get them restricted to benefit of the Pedicab opponents.

Pedicabs would make getting around downtown that much easier plus offer a unique Asian influence to the area. Say you just have a nice dinner at one of our nicer independently owned restaurants, you could use one of the pedicabs to get you a the couple of blocks over to the nearest light rail station.

Pedicabs, a another possible piece of our transportation puzzle.