DREAMLIKE DREAMLINER DISASTER CONTINUES!!!

Both NPR and the prestigious New York Times are reporting today on the new six month delay for Boeing's new 787 'Dreamliner' aircraft. Boeing's original announcement is here. This new delay supplements a host of other concerns, as outlined in the Times article:

Earlier this year, Boeing warned that a worldwide shortage of fasteners that hold the plane’s fuselage, wing and tail sections together was slowing down assembly of the first test aircraft. Last month, the company said that in addition to the fastener shortage, Boeing and its production partners had run into unanticipated snags involving the availability of certain specialized parts for the plane as well as the programming of its flight-control software. Mike Bair, general manager of the 787 program, conceded at the time that these problems had added “increased risk” that there would be delivery delays.

Could Dan Rather's spurious reporting record on George Bush's sterling past finally be vindicated through his predicted failure of the Dreamliner's fuselage?

Chilean Commuters Sue Over Transit System

Local transit in the Chilean city of Santiago underwent a major overhaul in the past year. The 3,000 private bus companies that competed for passengers over the past 17 years have been consolidated into just 10 companies under the new transit system, Transantiago. The new system add hours to the average commute time and has cost thousands of people their jobs as a result of getting them to work late. President Michele Bachelet has issued a formal apology to the people of Santiago for the debacle of Transantiago. Kirsten Sehnbruch, a scholar at Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies, explores the implications of Transantiago for Bachelet's presidency in a recent paper.

Founder of Ryanair passes on

The career of Irish airline tycoon Tony Ryan, founder of the low-cost passenger airline Ryanair is recounted in an obituary in London's Independent newspaper. Probably Ireland's most successful entrepreneur, Ryan revolutionized the European airline industry and made his country an important player in commercial aviation.

I'm From the Future

An article today from the Washington Post describes a new infrared system for applications in High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes. It explains that

The lanes are billed as the salvation of the suffering commuter. Solo drivers will be able to buy their way around congestion, while carpoolers will ride free. But the lanes' success hinges on finding a way to differentiate between paying and nonpaying customers without stopping every vehicle to count heads.

The system automagically detects the number of passengers in passing vehicles by bouncing infrared waves off of their skin. This marks a departure from computer vision-based approaches for detection in similar circumstances (for example, automated pedestrian detection).

Identifying Research Needs

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) has announced the availability of a new database designed to help researchers in the transportation community identify where their expertise and resources are most needed. The Research Needs Statements (RNS) Database serves as a central location for the storing, searching, and sharing of approximately transportation research needs statements that have been prepared and approved by 125 of TRB’s technical activities standing committees. Information in the database can be accessed in two ways, either by browsing through subject categories or committees, or by searching in an “advance search” format and specifying a title, index terms, committee, or subject category. Check out the RNS Database to learn how you might be able to more effectively contribute to research.

Bus Rapid Transit explained

The proposed East Bay Bus Rapid Transit program has attracted much comment in the local media, some of it ill-informed or hostile. (Why are so many people in "progressive" Berkeley scared of change and opposed to making life better for non-drivers?)

Wolf Homburger, a professor emeritus at ITS Berkeley, brings some measured judgment to this imbroglio, explaining how BRT works and what it entails for the region in Commentary: An Analysis of Bus Rapid Transit in the Berkeley Daily Planet.

(Image from AC Transit)

How parking raises the cost on everything

Critical thinking about the national obsession with providing parking space for private vehicles has been going on for several years, and is now beginning to attract attention beyond the academic world. An article in Salon.com, We Paved Paradise, reports on the findings of several city planning experts, including ITS UCLA's Donald Shoup, author of "The high cost of free parking."

(Image from Salon.com)

2007 Hybrid Truck Users Forum

PACCAR and Eaton Corporation hosted this year's Hybrid Truck Users Forum which took place at Seattle's Qwest Field Event Center on September 20th and 21st. According to Peterbilt's General Manager and PACCAR Vice President, Bill Jackson, "Our medium duty hybrid vehicles currently in operation throughout North America are performing extremely well, with customers reporting a significant savings in fuel economy of up to 40 percent." The fuel economy of heavy-duty hybrids is expected to reach 7% on the road and up to 90% at idle.
CALSTART, the event's organizer, describes the HTUF as "a national, multi-year, user-driven program to assist the commercialization of heavy-duty hybrid technologies."

The "ITSL Roadshow"

The week of September 24 saw members of the ITS Library take to the road to spread the word. First off was Kendra Levine, visiting ITS Irvine on Tuesday the 25th to speak about the Library and its outreach services, followed next day by a visit to ITS UCLA to address new students at its Fall Orientation. While in the neighborhood she called in on our friend Matt Barrett, director of the MTA Library in downtown Los Angeles.

Meanwhile on Wednesday the 26th, John Gallwey traveled to speak at the Fall Orientation for new graduate students at ITS Davis. Recent circumstances had deprived him of a car so he journeyed by train. This proved so pleasant that he resolved, after years of driving between the Bay Area and Davis, to use this mode for future trips.

Lastly and by no means least, Library Director Rita Evans was in Sacramento on Thursday the 27th to speak at the Informational Resources For Transportation Research workshop at Caltrans headquarters. Her co-presenters at this program for Caltrans engineers were Susan Haake, director of the Caltrans Library and Laura Melendy, director of the ITS Technology Transfer Program.

Catch a ride in a Cybercar

Tired of driving the same old way? Want a new form of mobility that bridges the gap between an automobile and public transportation? Can you envision yourself in a cybercar? See what the Europeans are doing ... and will it ever catch on in the U.S.?

Germany Greenlights Maglev

Germany's rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, and the state of Bavaria have signed an agreement with Transrapid -- a consortium of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp -- to build a magnetic levitation railway. The new maglev, the first regular maglev service outside of China, is estimated to cost $2.6 billion.

38 Gallons of Fuel Wasted Sitting In Traffic

That's the nationwide average -- 38 gallons -- of wasted fuel per driver stuck in traffic each year. This is according to the Texas Transportation Institute's recently released 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report. The average for San Jose drivers is 54 gallons per year. The study's authors, Tim Lomax and David Schrank, estimate that traffic congestion cost the U.S. $78 billion annually from 4.2 billion hours in lost productivity and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel.

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Time: Freeway Congestion is Not So Good

After this week's Cookie Time, from 3:30 to 4:00 in the ITS Library, the Transportation Seminar will commence in the Bechtel Engineering Center, Room 240. We will be regaled this week with a talk, Freeway Congestion, Ramp Metering, and Tolls, given by Prof. Pravin Varaiya. The abstract-

The Cell Transmission Model of a freeway with multiple origins and destinations is used to compare four schemes to reduce freeway congestion: (R) ramp control only; (T) one lane is tolled and ramps are uncontrolled; (B) bottlenecks are tolled and ramps are uncontrolled; (RB) ramps are controlled and bottlenecks are tolled. In the base case no ramps are metered and there are no tolls. It is found that (T) is inefficient and likely to leave all travelers worse off than in the base case; (R), (B) and (RB) can achieve efficient freeway utilization; (B) can eliminate queues, but has adverse spatial and equity side effects; (RB) minimizes these side effects. (RB) is likely to be much less costly to implement and maintain than (T) or (B).

Prof. Varaiya holds the Nortel Networks Distinguished Professorship in our very own Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. Having previously taught also in the Department of Economics and heading the PATH program, he currently studies communication networks, transportation, and hybrid systems. If you miss this talk you will definitely look like a sucker.

Rather Than Dream, Rather Says Dreamliner a Disaster

Dan Rather is making a splash this week with an expose on the composite materials used in the fuselage of the new Boeing Dreamliner due out in 2008. Rather explains in the article that

One of the selling points of the new 787 is lower maintenance costs. Because the composite airframe won't corrode or rust, Boeing says the maintenance costs will be cut by thirty percent. They also say that detailed visual inspections on a periodic basis should be sufficient to detect serious damage to the composite material.

In a move questioning the embattled Rather, 'Wired Blog' contributor Aaron Rowe submits this criticism (found here)

While there is a lot of weight behind the argument that composite materials are not as well-studied as aircraft aluminum, the reasoning behind the flurry of recent articles may be faulty. First off, if a plane crashes, the composite frame will definitely not be the only source of toxic fumes. Second, high performance composites have been used in fighter aircraft and for years. Sports cars, race cars, and train cars made from composite materials have endured fantastic crashes. Claims that the impact toughness of carbon fiber is inadequate may be premature.

Rather's supremely ridiculous speculations on the military career of President and Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush may have prompted some of Rowe's questions about the reporter's legitimacy. In a move highlighting Rowe's journalistic prowess, he cites a manufacturer of composite planes who says that there is "no reason to believe that composites cannot be made every bit as strong as aluminum." Everyone knows that the most reliable source on a product is the one who stands to make the greatest profit from its sale.

Parking for Desperate Housewives

Some people don't like the idea of parking in spaces marked "Parking for Desperate Housewives." A new form of advertising is spreading across Southern California parking lots and my soon be making money for parking lot owners all over the country.

FasTrak is the fastest ... not always

SF Chronicle sleuths Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross uncover a shocking truth behind the FasTrak-only lanes at Bay Area toll plazas. The success of the FasTrak program -- up to 4000 new users per day -- has led to some backups rivaling the combo FasTrak/Cash lanes.

“Shared Space” – Can roads be safer without traffic signals?

According to a recent article from Reuters, the town of Bohmte, Germany, will abandon its usage of traffic lights and stop signs in its downtown area in an attempt to improve road safety. Bohmte is not alone in its efforts. The “Shared Space” concept, developed by Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic specialist, is being fulfilled in seven pilot projects across the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, the U.K., and Belgium. In the U.S., officials in West Palm Beach, Florida, have been successful in slowing down traffic and reducing accidents by also following the concept.

The Shared Space philosophy embraces the goal of creating more space for human beings by allowing motorists and pedestrians to share equal rights of way. Wide boulevards previously designed to only accommodate motor vehicles are being converted into narrow streets with widened sidewalks.

Monderman touches upon his somewhat radical approach to traffic calming where he explains that roads that may appear to be more dangerous are in fact safer.

An entry in Wikipedia further discusses the objectives, practice, and the pros and cons of a traffic engineering philosophy that suggests that pedestrians and drivers can indeed occupy road space in a more compatible manner. This unconventional approach to driving behavior, road design and road architecture, may one day make, at least in certain areas, traffic signs and signals obsolete.

U.S. Senate Approves of Some Things, Disapproves of Others

Yesterday the United States Senate passed a transportation spending bill that will now be returned to the House of Representatives for approval. The bill was passed without a proposed waiver of Davis-Bacon Act, a law that requires fair wages for federally-funded public works projects, for bridge renovation projects. The bill has added US$1 billion for such projects in an amendment to an earlier version. Funding was also augmented for the I-35W bridge due to efforts by the junior senator from Minnesota.

50 Worst Cars of All Time

LA Times columnist Dan Neil devotes special attention to each and every one of his fifty selections for the worst automobiles ever built in his article for Time.com.

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Hour: Big Rigs Gone Automatic

This week's Transportation Seminar features ITS Berkeley alum, Dr. Jacob Tsao, who now teaches at Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering . He'll discuss current research in automated trailer steering. Triple trailer trucks, such as the one shown above, now operate in 20 states in the U.S. Problems with safety and inefficiency due to improper tracking can be reduced or eliminated with automated trailer steering. Improving Safety of Large-Truck Operations with Automated Trailer Steering For Fuel Efficiency,Emission Reduction and Productivity examines the fuel efficiency and sustainability of truck automation.

Energy and environmental concerns have led to much attention on fuel efficiency and sustainable development. A class of large trucks called “longer combination vehicles” (LCVs) currently operates on designated highways in 20 states of the US. Although they provide high fuel efficiency and productivity, they also pose safety and infrastructure hazards. A major source of such hazards is off-tracking – the phenomenon that the rear wheels of a truck do not follow the track of the front wheels. A major category of LCVs is the Triple, consisting of a tractor and three 28-foot trailers, and some Triples also suffer from continuous sideway sway while cruising on the highway. We propose the concept of automated trailer steering to overcome these problems. Vehicle-dynamics models and steering algorithms have been developed. Computer simulation suggests that off-tracking can be virtually eliminated; it also provides a clue for the reason of the continuous sway of some Triples. Systems issues about expanding current LCV operations will be discussed as well as a new mode of freight transportation enabled by automated trailer steering – Short Trailer Combination Vehicles (STCVs).

The Transportation Seminar will be in 240 Bechtel from 4:00-5:00 PM. Cookie Hour precedes the seminar in the ITS Library, 412 McLaughlin Hall, from 3:30-4:00 PM.

A New Way To Push Tin

The Daily Cal reports that ITS Berkeley a grant from NASA to improve the nation's air traffic control system. From the article:

The campus Institute of Transportation Studies will receive $502,000 for each of two years to evaluate possible methods of relieving the nation’s overburdened aviation system.

Mark Hansen, professor of civil and environmental engineering, will be the principal investigator for the project, along with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Maryland, College Park.

Hansen said that currently air traffic controllers are often unable to predict exact arrival times of aircraft, leading to delays and causing aircraft to circle above airports because of traffic backup on the ground.

“We are studying a new case in which each airplane arrives at the airport at a specific time,” Hansen said.

There have been many criticisms of the current air traffic control system: It's out dated because they still use strips of paper (ACM, registration required). It's overburdened. Some also say the current system can be unsafe.

In response, the FAA has announced the launch of a GPS based air traffic control system. A GPS based system is certainly safer than a Buddhist based system.

Some new and old wonders

The current issue of the Economist's Technology Quarterly contains some interesting items on innovations in transportation, including German research in small hovercraft, news of a sea-going automobile, and the story of the introduction of electric buses in London a century ago.

(Picture courtesy of The Economist)

BART: 35 Years of Service

This week BART celebrates the 35th anniversary of their train service. What would the San Francisco Bay Area be like without BART? Smog ridden and painfully congested? BART has previously been named one of the Top 10 public works projects of the century as well as great planning disaster. Happy birthday, BART!

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Hour: Going Olympic.

After last week's cookie hour was a resounding success, this week's should prove to be as exciting. Cookie Hour is today in the ITS Library from 3:30-4:00 PM. The Transportation Seminar will then commenceat 4:00 PM in 240 Bechtel. This week's speaker is Professor Philippe Bovy, the IOC Olympic Transport Advisor. He will be giving a talk entitled: Transport and mobility management challenges for the world's largest mega-event: 1992 to 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Here's the abstract:

With about 300 world class events concentrated during 16 Games days but spatially spread over more than 60 competition, training and non-competition venues, the key transport challenge of Summer Olympic Games is to provide safe, convivial and reliable mobility for 1 to 1,5 million daily additional travel journeys. Six distinct client oriented transport schemes must be simultaneously operated 24 hours a day, during all the Games including Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Transport challenges are particularly tough since specific client groups (athletes, sport and media logistics, key VIPs) cannot tolerate any travel uncertainties and delays. Due to Olympic world visibility, the highest possible security protection shall be embedded in all transport operations. Since Sydney 2000 Olympics, policies of 100% spectators by free public transport, of Olympic accredited vehicle movement on a fully dedicated Olympic reserved lane network and of environmentally sustainable traffic management are gradually implemented and optimized. In short, Olympic Summer Games are one of the most unique “transport and advanced mobility management laboratory in the world” and a significant contribution towards more sustainable mobility developments.

The Beijing olympics are a little less than a year away. We here at the ITS Library are more interested in the preparations for the Olympics, than the games themselves. Their new rail lines to the Olympic Village are quite the undertaking. The only thing more interesting about the Olympics are the mascots.
Come on by and say hi.

The End is Near

Reuters reports today that the United States gasoline supply has hit a 2-year low. While the article explains a dip in supply often happens at the end of the summer, long-term fossil fuel availability is the subject of much speculation. J.H. Kunstler is one such speculator and his recent book, The Long Emergency, envisions a future without petroleum-based transportation (here is a teaser of his dystopian vision).

Contra Kunstler, Robert Bruegmann of the University of Illinois argues in his book Sprawl: A Compact History that the benefits to a society from petroleum use greatly outweigh the risks. It is also argued that concerns regarding petroleum use are exaggerated. Kunstler's rebuttal can be found here.

A 'Brave New World' of Telecommuting

TheRecord.com has a story on a Halifax, Nova Scotia man who uses an automaton as a proxy at his office in Waterloo.

The man's coworkers have adjusted well to their new robotic overlord.

Bridge Reopens for Tuesday's Commute

Construction crews working on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge finished their project and reopened the bridge ahead of schedule. The job, which closed the busiest toll bridge in the nation for most of the Labor Day weekend, was for the demolition a 350-foot section of the upper deck of the bridge just east of Yerba Buena Island and to roll a new, 6,700-ton section into place. Caltrans closed the bridge at 8 p.m. Friday and set aside 81 hours for contractor C.C. Myers Inc. to finish the job in time for this morning's commute.

Flying cars and airborne saucers

A page from the BBC highlights the research of aviation engineer Dr. Paul Moller and his prototype of a flying car, which he sees as an answer to traffic congestion. The small VTOL craft ascends to just ten feet off the ground. Moller, based in Davis, California has been building and researching unusual aircraft for many years. In 1967 he developed a saucer-shaped hovercraft, as shown in a page from the Transportation Futuristics online exhibit.

(Picture courtesy of the BBC)

Paul McCready, aviation pioneer

National Public Radio has a web page with interviews, photos and audio celebrating the life of Paul McCready, Jr., the pioneer of human-powered flight who has died at the age of 81.

This photograph shows the Gossamer Albatross, powered and piloted by Bryan Allen, as it crosses the English Channel in 1979. Mr. Allen is interviewed on the NPR site.
(Photo courtesy of Don Monroe)

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Hour: Back with a Vengeance!

Tomorrow is not only the last day of August in 2007, but also the first Transportation Seminar and Cookie Hour for the 2007/2008 academic year.
Cookie Hour will be in the ITS Library (412 McLaughlin Hall) from 3:30-4:00. Library staff will be providing the treats. They may look like this:

(Who doesn't love free, vegan cupcakes? Don't be confused. There will be cookies, too.)
After Cookie Hour the Transportation Seminar will commence from 4:00-5:00 in 240 Bechtel. The speaker will be Adam Meyerson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department, University of California, Los Angeles. He will be speaking about Approximation Algorithms for Orienteering and Deadline-TSP.
Come on by and say hello!

Feds to Stop Baller Blocking ATC

NPR reports that the United States federal government has approved a US$1 billion spending package to "begin modernizing the nation's air traffic control system." If you have Ebsco you can view a more detailed explanation of what those in the know call ADS-B (short for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast). Wikipedia has a pretty extensive article on the matter as well.

I myself will remain skeptical of the claims that by modernization and consequent increases in capacity there will also be an improvement in on-time performance.

I Can Has New Deck?

Photo courtesy of jeffc5000.

The Bay Bridge will be closed Labor Day weekend. After the major information campaign by Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, everybody in Northern California and beyond shouldn't be surprised come Friday night when the bridge is closed. Over $1 million has been spent to advertise the closure. Despite this effort, some travelers won't be satisfied. Hopefully engineering firm C.C. Meyers will work as efficiently as they did on the MacArthur Maze Meltdown.

If you do need to cross the bay this holiday weekend, plan ahead. BART will be running trains around the clock to compensate.

High Time for High-Speed Rail in California?

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSA) held a public meeting last week to hear public input about the proposal for a high-speed rail line crossing over from the Central Valley through either Pacheco Pass or Altamont Pass. Their draft proposal is open to comment until September 28, 2007.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that legislator support for the $37 billion project could wane if the proposal to connect the trail line over the Altamont Pass and via a bridge to San Francisco passes.

"I can't believe anyone is serious about a proposal that would put a bridge or a tunnel right through the middle of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose. "That's not going to happen."

Governor Schwarzenegger allocated $20.7 million for the project, far less than the $104.2 million the high-speed rail board requested.

An article in this month's issue of Metro Magazine highlights the proposal, and discusses some of the hurdles the CSHA faces. Many proponents of the high-speed rail argue that the line will reduce the amount of traffic on major north-south corridors by mitigating the dependence on automobiles. CHSA's executive director says of the project:

“We get a bad rap because we are attached to our cars, but it’s because we don’t have a choice. When we do have a choice, we use it,” Morshed says. “Once it’s there, people will use it. They always do.”

First A380 Tickets Up for Auction

Seats on the first flight of an Airbus A380 will be auctioned off starting today on Ebay. The flight will be from Singapore to Sydney on October 25 and tickets are expected to fetch upwards of $2,550.00. Every seat on the Singapore Airlines A380s will be equipped with a PC running Redhat Linux -- and those PCs in first class will come with a 23" monitor.

NHTSA Establishes Gag Rule

Employees of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration may no longer be directly quoted in the press. This new policy was enacted by NHTSA's head, and Bush appointee, Nicole R. Nason. Now only Nason can issue official statements ... something she has yet to do.

BART appoints first woman General Manager

At a special meeting on August 23 the BART Board of Directors appointed Dorothy Dugger as the District's eighth General Manager. Ms. Dugger, who has worked for BART since 1992, previously served as Deputy General Manager and is the first woman to lead BART in the District's 50 year history.

How Safe are the Streets in San Francisco?

The Streets of San Francisco are making headlines again. This is not an invitation for you to sit down in front of your TV & be captivated by the 1970s detective series. Rather, it is to bring awareness to traffic safety concerns in San Francisco and the puzzling rise in the number of fatal traffic collisions in the city this year. Check out the August 23 front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle for a look at accident statistics involving pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists, and what city officials plan to do to deal with this current surge in collisions.

Officials contend, however, that data for this year alone should not discredit the enforcement efforts of the past several years which have led to a significant reduction in injury collisions.

What can city officials do to ease the situation? They might consider consulting the Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety Indices developed by researchers at FHWA’s Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center. The indices provide a set of models that allow practitioners to identify those intersections that present the most safety concerns to pedestrians and bicyclists.

Further collision trends and analyses can be found in the San Francisco Collision Report
while a report by UCSF’s San Francisco Injury Center and the Department of Public Health
provides overall injury statistics, with a chapter devoted to motor vehicle and traffic-related injuries.

Cryptanalysts Gone Wild!!!

Here is a cryptanalysis paper on some deficiencies with the KeeLoq cipher program that may be used for your little key clicker thing if you own a Chrysler, Daewoo, Fiat, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, Volvo, Volkswagen, or Jaguar vehicle.

I know it's not quite as titillating as encryption for inter-vehicular ad hoc wireless networks like in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), but I'm only human.

Segway Driver Attacked By Wild Turkeys!

According to KTVU.com, "Wild turkeys went after Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory technician recently as he rode his Segway to the office.

They chased him and pecked at him according to a local television reporter who witnessed the entire incident.

The turkeys have wandered the grounds of the lab for years, but they've apparently gotten very bold lately."

NAHSC documents now online

In August 1997 the National Automated Highway System Consortium (NAHSC) held Demo '97 in San Diego to show off highway automation technologies. To mark the event's tenth anniversary the documentation of Demo '97 and other NAHSC work is available on the PATH website.

NAHSC material has not been widely available until now, as most of the reports that NAHSC delivered to the U.S. Department of Transportation between 1994 and 1998 were not published, existing only in a handful of hard copies. The documentation includes the NAHSC newsletter AHS Update and videos of the demonstrations.

LA Looks to Update Long-Range Transportation Plan, Finds Huge Funding Shortfall

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority board met to review the financial aspects of its long-range transportation plan - how much money is, or could be, available to fund a wide range of transit and highway improvements. The Los Angeles Times reports a shortfall of about $26 billion dollars between projected revenue and the cost of various projects.

Full funding for the proposed projects would largely reshape the Los Angeles County landscape, as shown in Transit Corridors, a map that illustrates future project lines and modes. Commuters crawling along the freeways can only dream of such a scenario.

The terminal tower

A page in the San Francisco Chronicle website gives a preview of three proposed designs for a high-rise building on the proposed Transbay Terminal. Whichever of these plans is chosen will produce the tallest building on the West Coast. The Chronicle cautiously calls the competition "a gamble in city-making that could redefine San Francisco in the sky and on the ground."

Meanwhile, online prankster Jim Leftwich offers a bold vision of a redefined San Francisco.

Link between cellphone yakking and accidents questioned

Conventional opinion, and most previous research, on cellphones and driving has been challenged by Saurabh Bhargava and Vikram Pathania, graduate students of economics at UC Berkeley. Their report "Driving Under the (Cellular) Influence: The Link Between Cell Phone Use and Vehicle Crashes" summarizes their study of crash statistics and cellphone usage by drivers between 1987 and 2005 in all U.S. states. They were surprised to find little correlation between crashes and cellphone use.
A summary of the research, including Bhargava and Pathania's ideas on how their findings might be explained, can be found on the UC Berkeley news site.

New Biometric System Introduced at SFO

The new SFO fast-pass technology Clear was launched yesterday to much fanfare.

Clear is part of a new wave of biometrically-based technologies being deployed at airports across the United States. These technologies provide airport customers with expedited security lines in exchange for voluntarily submitting their fingerprint, iris, and retinal data, which are linked to the customer’s other personal information (see Airports International, vol 40 no 3 pp 28-39 for further information).

While the federal government monitors these programs under the Registered Traveler's program (RT), the creation of biometric databases is, apart for privacy issues, a cause for concern for some. One such critic is Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben who notes that, when biometrics was first implemented, it was used solely for the control and regulation of recidivist criminals.

US DOT announces who gets the Urban Partnership money

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced today the five metropolitan areas to whom they awarded the Urban Partnership Agreements (UPAs). The winners are:

• New York
  
• Seattle
  
• The Miami and Ft. Lauderdale metropolitan area
  
• The Minneapolis and St. Paul area
  
• San Francisco

Each of the winners will still need to submit traffic studies for their respective projects before receiving the money. Twenty six cities applied for the the program's funding. New York's $354 million will go towards congestion pricing in Manhattan. Seattle will use its $139 million to charge tolls on the Highway 520 floating bridge. Miami's $63 million will go towards installing variably priced toll lanes on I-95 between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Minneapolis will spend use it's $133 million to add High Occupancy Toll lanes to I-35. San Francisco's $159 million will help establish a congestion pricing plan for the downtown area.

Investigators have found a possible "design issue" in I-35W bridge collapse,
the BBC News reports.

Creaking infrastructure

"A bridge too far gone" is the title of an article in the current Economist, describing the sorry state of America's transportation infrastructure and the country's shortcomings in transportation finance.

Drive a big car in London? Pay up or give up.

The tides of public opinion and personal finance appear to be turning against big cars, at least in the UK. They are regarded as increasingly uncool, and those with the chutzpah to drive big vehicles will soon need big wallets too. An article in the Christian Science Monitor outlines how the city of London's authorities plan to introduce higher rates of congestion pricing, aimed at discouraging the use of large automobiles. Meanwhile it seems that more drivers in the UK are turning to smaller, more environmentally correct vehicles.

NY Subway Flood!

An article yesterday from Reuters describes flooding on Wednesday in the NY subway system.

For those interested in a more technical discussion of NYC subway waterproofing, or waterproofing tunnels in general, Tunnels and Tunnelling International has recently had a few good articles that just *might* tickle your fancy!! The May 2007 issue discussed in brief a few complications with the water table for the construction of the 2nd Avenue cavern in NYC (see pp 21-22). Here they explain that they will not block inflowing groundwater completely for the project but rather slow it and pump the rest. We will see whether or not, given these recent floods, this strategy remains the same.

If you just have to know more about waterproofing tunnels than this small quip provides, then the April 2007 issue may sate your edgy tastes (pp 50-52). This article covers the topic in question from grouting and temporary control to high quality concrete and sprayed membranes. I won't even go into the microbial method (but you sure can!).

I'll post up some links to these articles if I can find them, otherwise the items can just be found in the library.

Segway Group Folds

Segway scooter user group folds due to lack of interest
by Ron Harris

The device that was supposed to revolutionize urban transportation seems unable to even hold on to a proper fan club.

The Segway Enthusiasts Group of America is disbanding because of inactivity and an absence of candidates for its board of directors, said the group's treasurer, Fred Kaplan.

FAA Grant to Study Bay Area Airport Gridlock

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission will use a $585,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to study ways to avoid gridlock at Bay Area airports. The SF Chronicle reports that among options to be considered are persuading airlines to resume flying larger aircraft, developing high-speed rail, expanding capacity at major airports, and better use of the area’s general aviation airports.

MTC’s most recent Regional Airport System Plan was updated in 2000 and also considers alternatives.

And to the south, passengers using Los Angeles International experienced flight delays in four of every five flights. But as the Los Angeles Times reports, that’s better than the national average of one in three. Overall system performance is so bad that fully one-third of all flights during January – June 2007 were late.

Highways are a Series of Tubes

Senator Ted Stevens said "The Internet is a series of tubes."
Prof. Carl Ross from University of Portsmouth would like to see highways as a series of tubes.

Professor Carl Ross's innovative concept for an enclosed 'double-decker highway' would not only help cut road congestion but also significantly reduce the levels of harmful gases emitted by cars being released into the atmosphere.

Open double-decker highways already exist in Mexico City, but the mechanical engineer's vision sees the roads walled and roofed in soundproof plastic to trap carbon dioxide.

The poisonous emissions would then be blown into filters or 'scrubbers' much like those used on submarines and space shuttles for decades.

I-35W Bridge Collapse Myths And Conspiracies

I-35W Bridge Collapse Myths And Conspiracies

By John A. Weeks III

http://www.johnweeks.com/i35w/i35wmyths.html

Are Hybrids No Longer Hip?

NPR looks into sales of new hybrid cars and asks if interest is falling beyond the Prius?

A recent survey suggests the number of people interested in buying a hybrid has actually dropped in the past year.

Some 180,000 hybrid cars and SUV's were sold in the United States in the first six months of 2007 — about 3 percent of total sales.
...
But While the Prius has become mainstream — it was the sixth-best-selling car in May — many of the other hybrids on the market have fallen short.

Rusty Hefner, director of market analysts at Hybridcars.com, says that part of the blame for that may lie with dealers.

from the Oakland Tribune, 8/6/07
Minnesota collapse gives Bay Area bridge riders pause

Low Carbon Fuel Standard for California

"A Low Carbon Fuel Standard for California. Part 2, Policy analysis" coordinated by Daniel Sperling, director of ITS UC Davis and Alex Farrell, director of the TSRC at UC Berkeley, was published on August 1. Outlining policies to achieve the state's goal of reducing the carbon content of gasoline to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions, it is the first statement of its kind in the world. Part 1 of the report, which described several technological means towards carbon reduction, was published in May.

The full story is available from the Environmental News Service.

See the full text of Part 1 and Part 2 of "A Low Carbon Fuel Standard for California." They are also available on the websites of the TSRC and ITS at UC Davis.

Minnesota Bridge Images

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) has published a number of high-quality images of the I-35 bridge that collapsed on August 2. A video of the event has been found that will aid in determining how the collapse progressed.

MPR bridge collapse images

Collapse of Bridge 9340 on I-35

In 2000 the University of Minnesota Department of Civil Engineering carried out an assessment of stresses and strains on the I-35 bridge for Minnesota Department of Transportation. The 2001 report concluded that "the bridge should not have any problems with fatigue cracking in the foreseeable future."