Amtrak's Busiest Month in History

Last month Amtrak had its busiest month in its history. Nationwide ridership for May 2008 was up nearly 11%. For NPR's story, their reporter rode the Heartland Flyer, which travels between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Fort Worth, Texas. One rider on that train compared the price of a round trip ticket on Amtrak, $66, to the price for gas one-way in his truck -- $80. When this blogger checked on ticket availability for the Hearland Flyer for Friday morning, he found the train sold out.

Amtrak spokesman Mark Magliari says that half of the increase in ridership this year is due to the high price of fuel. As of today, Thursday, a seat in coach from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth, on Monday's train is $30.00. The trip of 200 miles in the most popular SUV in America, a Honda CR-V (22mpg), would cost $34.72 if you paid $3.82/gallon, the average price in Oklahoma City.


Photo from flickr user sheilaellen

Work Underway on Flying Car

In 2005 Milner Motors started work on a roadable aircraft now called the Milner AirCar. According to March 2008 issue (Starting on page 80 of this 132 page pdf) of Aerospace Testing International, that same craft is being readied for NHTSA crash testing and James Milner believes that the roadable section already exceeds Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) crashworthiness requirements and Federal Aviation Regulation requirements. The craft will carry 4 people and fly at 200 mph and reach an altitude of 25,000 feet. The aircraft engine should have 320bhp and the roading motor will be 40bhp and allow it to get up to 85 mph on the highway. The AirCar is expected to sell for around $450,000. The company will also be building a nonflying electric car of the same design.

A different approach to the flying car idea is Paul Moller's Skycar. Whereas the Milner craft will need to be driven to the airport for take-off, the Moller Skycar, being a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL)craft, will need no runway, and is not drivable as a conventional car at all. The Skycar is expected to have a top airspeed of 375 mph, reach 36,000 feet, and get you from location to location entirely by air. If you want one of the first 100 units, it will cost you around a million dollars. Moller has been working on developing a commercial VTOL craft for around forty years.

Images courtesy Milner Motors

Most and Least Fuel Efficient Cars

With the price of regular gas in the U.S. typically over $4.50/gallon many people are looking for more fuel efficient cars. Fortunately, the Department of Energy and the EPA have compiled a list of fuel efficiency ratings at fueleconomy.gov.

Toyota Prius Hybrid, $29K ; 48 mpg city, 45 highway
Honda Civic Hybrid, $24K ; 40 mpg city, 45 highway
Smart ForTwo, $14K ; 33 mpg city, 41 highway
Toyota Yaris, $17K ; 29 mpg city, 36 highway
Mini Cooper manual, $19K ; 28 mpg city, 37 highway
Toyota Corrola, $23K ; 28 mpg city, 37 highway
Honda Fit, $19K ; 28 mpg city, 34 highway

Among the least fuel efficient vehicles you'll find:

SUV
Mercedes-Benz G 55 AMG 4WD, $112K ; 11 mpg city, 13 highway

Minivan
Toyota Sienna 4WD, $42K ; 16 mpg city, 21 highway

Small pickup truck
Ford Ranger 4WD, $26K ; 14 mpg city, 17 highway

2 Seater
Lamborghini Murcielago, $500K ; 8 mpg city, 13 highway

Prices based on common configurations found in the San Francisco Bay Area from Cars.com.

Find the cheapest gas in your area (within the U.S.) through AAA's website. After you've entered your zip code, click on AAA Gas Price Finder.

Bloomberg Takes It to the Streets!

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com

The New York Times is reporting on a new experiment in New York City to have a "car-free zone" for three Saturdays in August. The article reports that

“If it works, we’ll certainly consider doing it again,” Mr. Bloomberg said, at a news conference in the East Village on Lafayette Street, which will be included in the route. “If not, we won’t. But we have never been afraid to try new ideas, especially the ones that have the potential to improve the quality of life

The area affected will be contained to Manhattan, from the hours of 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Some detractors worry about the impact on business, while others speculate that increased foot traffic will compensate. Cyclists were, however, uniformly positive in their reactions.

Head Injuries on the Rise in Pennsylvania

In 2003, Pennsylvania repealed its universal helmet law. If you're over 21 and you have more than two years' riding experience, you can now ride without a helmet in Pennsylvania. The authors of a paper to be published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found a 32% increase in head injury deaths and a 42% increase in head injury-related hospitalizations in the two years after the helmet law was repealed -- and that's after taking into account the increase in motorcycle registrations. A University of Pittsburgh press release summarizes the finding of the report, "Changes in Motorcycle-Related Head Injury Deaths, Hospitalizations,and Hospital Charges Following Repeal of Pennsylvania’s Mandatory Motorcycle Helmet Law," was co-authored by Kristen J. Mertz and Harold B. Weiss of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

According to an article in Hanover, PA's Evening Sun, 20 states have laws requiring all motorcycle riders to wear helmets, while 27 states have laws that require minors or passengers to wear head protection. Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire have no helmet laws.

Hypermiling - Green alternative or just Cheap?

Photo courtesy of Simply Marvelous.

There are many different responses to rising fuel prices- driving less, complaining more, using more fuel efficient vehicles, or making your current vehicle more fuel efficient. One group has taken common tips to for fuel efficiency to the extreme- Hypermiling.

Hypermilers have six core techniques:

1. First (and most important) step: Start recording your gas mileage. Easiest way? Use your trip odometer.


2. Do you drive aggressively and not know it?


3. How long are you sitting still at red lights?


4. Keeping moving in traffic congestion


5. Slowly accelerate after stops


6. Your cruise control saves gas

Both NPR and CNN have profiled Hypermilers recently, and it's clear that it's attractive to people as both a way to save money and to help cut down on emissions.

Record wingsuit flight over Galway Bay

Image courtesy of Galway Advertiser.

Swiss wingsuit master Ueli Gegenschatz has broken the record for such flights. Jumping from a skydiving craft 14,760 feet over the Aran Islands in Galway Bay he flew unaided to the mainland, a distance of almost 11 miles. Aided by a tailwind he achieved a speed of 155 miles an hour, taking just 5 mins 45 sec to reach Connemara Regional Airport before parachuting to the ground.

(Another stunning picture of Gegenschatz directly over Inis Mór, Aran's largest island, can be seen on the BBC's report.)

Gasoline, a bargain still

Image courtesy of Slate.com.

In a Slate.com article, "Gasoline is cheap", business correspondent Robert Bryce points out that the current price of gasoline in the US is only slightly higher than it was in 1922. British motorists pay $8.38 per gallon, while drivers in Turkey pay three times as much as their US counterparts. For those of us who cannot get over the shock of the $4 gallon of gas, a related article describes the Five Stages of Grief and gasoline prices in America

Go Green! Go Used!

Photo courtesy of Parker's.

Wired published an article that might make you think about the next vehicle you purchase. Worried about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming? Leaning towards a hybrid because they're better for the environment? Wired breaks down the emissions produced by building a hybrid car versus those emitted by a sensible used vehicle:

If a new Prius were placed head-to-head with a used car, would the Prius win? Don't bet on it. Making a Prius consumes 113 million BTUs, according to sustainability engineer Pablo Päster. A single gallon of gas contains about 113,000 Btus, so Toyota's green wonder guzzles the equivalent of 1,000 gallons before it clocks its first mile. A used car, on the other hand, starts with a significant advantage: The first owner has already paid off its carbon debt. Buy a decade-old Toyota Tercel, which gets a respectable 35 mpg, and the Prius will have to drive 100,000 miles to catch up.

We're quite fond of the Daihatsu Charade, which looks like an egg and gets great mileage.

Is the Bay Area Ready for Congestion Pricing?

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

In August 2007, the US Department of Transportation’s Urban Partnership Program made $158.7 million available to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to relieve traffic congestion. In order to receive the funds, SF hopes to introduce a variable toll on Doyle Drive, a connector to the Golden Gate Bridge. This would encourage drivers to switch to public transit or drive during less congested times of day.

Federal funds are at risk, however, as Marin and San Francisco argue about the fairness of tolls on the bridge and Doyle Drive. The board of directors of Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District voted on May 9 to consider a congestion-based toll for the bridge but what impact that will have on Doyle Drive tolling remains to be seen. The SFCTA has issued a Toll Feasibility Fact Sheet that outlines how the electronic tolling would work.

The proposal is meeting from resistance from North Bay drivers who characterize it as an attempt by San Francisco to make them help pay for the rebuilding of outdated and seismically unsafe Doyle Drive. Others argue that this is a regional problem that needs to be addressed from that perspective. The public will be able to weigh in at a bridge district hearing July 11.

Laura Stonehill, a student in the dual-degree program in Transportation Engineering and City Planning at UC Berkeley, won First Prize in the American Planning Association’s Transportation Planning Division’s 2008 competition for her paper, Congestion Pricing on Doyle Drive. Congestion pricing in this context, she notes, would serve not only to reduce demand during peak traffic times but also to generate funds to reconstruct the connector to the Golden Gate Bridge. She recommends addressing concerns of North Bay residents, being open with the public about the pricing scheme and its objectives, and setting prices so that congestion is actually mitigated. The success of such a project is critical since it would be the first large-scale application of congestion pricing in the U.S.

Welcome to the Fast Lane

Photo courtesy of Salon.com.

Have you heard the news? Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is the newest member of blogosphere with Welcome to the Fast Lane. Peters writes:

This new opportunity will allow me and others here at the Department to speak with you and engage in an earnest conversation about our nation’s transportation system…and, I hope, have a little fun while we’re doing it.

So go over there, subscribe to their RSS Feed, and let the U.S. Department of Transportation know your opinions!

14,218 Flights Over the U.S.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is a computer generated animated depiction of airline flights over the United States from late night March 19th to early morning March 21st 2005. The work was created by artist Aaron Koblin based on data collected from the Federal Aviation Administration. In the movie, a frame of which is seen here, the bright blob towards the lower left is Hawaii, the bright blob just upper left of center is Southern California, and the lines comming into frame from upper right are trans Atlantic flights. Several different methods for displaying this same set of air traffic data can be seen in Koblin's YouTube video. For the entire month of March 2005 the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports 996,240 revenue departures.

They might stop for this

Saw this mentioned on the Environmental Design Library's site. An interesting concept for a crosswalk signal that no-one could possibly fail to notice, from the designer Hanyoung Lee. It's a virtual wall composed of plasma laser beams containing images of people crossing. It seems it would be good at controlling pedestrians too.


Image source: Yanko Design.

In-Vehicle Alcohol Detectors for the Masses

The rate of repeat DWI offenses has been cut by over 40% in the U.S. and Canada by the use of ignition interlock devices. These are small, hand held breathalyzers that work in conjunction with an aftermarket ignition cut-off switch which allows a driver to start their car only if they pass their on-the-spot blood alcohol content test. 37 states now offer ignition interlocks as an alternative to license suspension for many DWI offenders.

The success of this program has prompted the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to explore the feasibility of alcohol detection systems for all cars. Such a system would need to be, according to the newly launched Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety website, "far less intrusive – they must not impede sober drivers from starting their vehicles. They would need to be capable of rapidly and accurately determining and measuring alcohol in the blood."

Sources: AutoWeek, 1 800 DWI LAWS.

Image: AutoWeek

Visualizing Bus Routes

Photo courtesy of R. Justin Stewart.

The most classic and oft cited visualization of a transit network is probably Beck's original map of the London Underground. Minnesota based artist R. Justin Stewart has a new piece that maps out the route and schedule of a Minneapolis bus line from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m., with distance as the horizontal axis and time as the vertical. Definitely a new way to look at transit networks.

Via VisualComplexity.

Berkeley Lecturer Emeritus W. Homburger in BDP

photo courtesy of ITS

W. Homburger's (Institute of Transportation Studies Lecturer Emeritus and former acting director) recent talk to the Berkeley City Commons Club was written up this week in the Berkeley Daily Planet. The topic concerned, among other things, the proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) designed to ease traffic issues in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay (most notably, for Berkeley residents, eliminating a lane on Telegraph Avenue for BRT operations). Homburger is skeptical of this project, noting that, despite his general support for some associated measures,

AC Transit wants to spend capital funds, which is money with a ribbon-cutting at the end. [...] When’s the last time you saw a ribbon-cutting for maintaining a building?

Homburger goes on to explain that more robust support from local citizens is necessary for the proper implementation of such a system. He is not without his critics, however. A blog entitled Friends of BRT Blog has written a recent post criticizing some of Prof. Homburger's thoughts on BRT in the East Bay (which came in the form of another article in BDP). Charles Siegel, of the Berkeley-based Preservation Institute, explains in the blog post that

Homburger claims that "loss of a pair of lanes on Telegraph will increase congestion and the anger of residents on parallel streets where backups are already formidable." In reality, the BRT project would actually reduce, not increase, the number of cars entering the neighborhood.

For example, AC Transit analysis forecasts that the number of vehicles traffic crossing a line just north of Ashby Avenue stretching from Sacramento Street to College Avenue during the afternoon peak hour in 2025 would be 15,400 without BRT and 14,900 with BRT - a decrease of 500 cars. In addition, AC Transit could provide traffic calming devices to protect residents of streets near the BRT line.

Of course the East Bay BRT project is still in its planning stages, so no commitment has been made one way or another by AC Transit on the matter. Information on the proposal can be found here.

-J. Chipman

Peak Oil and the Future of Transportation

photograph courtesy of flickr

The current issue of Cal Transit's Transit America serial has an interesting article on the issue of peak oil (here on p 7, in PDF). The article, written by the mayor of Huntington Beach, California, Debbie Cook, opens with the following:

Core to all U.S. transportation planning is the assumption that oil will always be abundant and cheap. This premise continues to dominate every regional transportation plan in the country and drives our auto-centric development patterns. But what if this assumption is wrong? What if we are near the peak of world oil production? It then follows that our assumptions on construction costs, gas tax revenues, travel and aviation demand, mode choice, and growth patterns are also wrong. It would mean that our fossil fuel-based energy future is in jeopardy and that we are not prepared.

Cook then goes on to provide some quantitative metrics indicating that the global community is indeed already in such a situation. Peak Oil, Cook explains, will yield a problem for transportation energy of a magnitude such that the United States' federal government will have to initiate policies to strongly militate against potential catastrophe.

A more passionately articulated position can be found in J.H. Kunstler, whose website can be found here. His book, The Long Emergency, speculates on this potential catastrophe and demonstrates to readers just how deep runs the modern world's dependence on oil as an energy resource.

-J. Chipman

Open Skies

This Sunday -- March 30, 2008 -- the Open Skies agreement between the United States and the European Union will take effect. The liberalization process has been in the works for over 15 years and currently involves more than 120 bilateral agreements. And this one between the U.S. and the E.U. has probably the greatest potential for economic impact. With this agreement, U.S. and E.U. airlines will be able to choose their own routes and set their own fares as they choose. Before Open Skies, scheduled air carriers were subject to any and all restrictions placed on them by the countries to which they flew. Governments of any country allowing international flights were required only to adhere to regulations set forth in the original Chicago Convention, which in 1944 led to the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The current edition (7MB pdf) of this convention, which Open Skies will augment, provided basic guidelines such as:

• "The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory."
  
  
• "No state aircraft of a contracting State shall fly over the territory of another State or land thereon without authorization by special agreement or otherwise, and in accordance with terms thereof."
  
  
• "No scheduled international air service may be operated over or into the territory of a contracting State, except with the special permission or other authorization of that State, and in accordance with the terms of such permission or authorization."
  

It is the purview of Open Skies to allow airlines to fully compete in a free market. Whether or not this will benefit air travelers remains to be seen.

Image: KLM Cargo

Transit Oriented Book Lending

Have you ever gotten to the train station and discovered that you forgot to bring a book to read on your morning commute? Well if your commute starts at BART's Pittsburg-Bay Point station, that will soon be no problem. Simply go to the library book vending machine and check out any one of 400 titles available. The Contra Costa County library system, with grants from the California State Library and the Bay Area Library and Information System, will be installing Bokomaten book vending machines -- made by Distec AB of Sweden -- in three area BART stations. Hold your library card up to the machine to allow it to scan the barcode, browse through the inventory of titles displayed on the screen, select your book and about 20 seconds later out pops a real hard-copy volume in a plastic case which you then return to your local Contra Costa County branch library before the end of the three week loan period. See the machine in action: search for "Bokomaten" at http://www.youtube.com.

Thanks to S.D. Tannenbaum for the heads-up.

Photo courtesy San Jose Mercury News.

$31 Million In Valuables Missing From Luggage

A Fox News affiliate in Kansas City has gained access to a Transportation Security Administration database which reveals that $31 million worth of valuables has gone missing from luggage at American airports over the past three years. Due to heightened security theft of luggage from baggage carousels is down dramatically in recent years, but total luggage theft is up. It is believed that the majority of stolen items are being taken by baggage handlers employed by the airlines and even by TSA workers. One former baggage handler in Kansas City said that the when luggage is in the baggage hold area waiting to be loaded onto the plane it's particularly susceptible to theft. "You will have one person down there and all they are doing is transferring bags to different carts. It only takes one person. So you would just be in a room by yourself." The Kansas City reporters tell us that the airports with the worst record luggage security include LAX, with over 2,300 complaints, Newark, Miami, JFK, and Seattle.

As Cory Doctorow points out in his Boing Boing post, the stolen goods were "pilfered in transit after the TSA inaugurated its no-locks policy on checked bags."

Image courtesy proidee.co.uk