November 2012 Archives

David King on Bridge Collapse Causes Train Wreck:

"A train derailed in New Jersey after the bridge it was crossing collapsed. Here is a CNN story. At this point no one knows if the bridge collapse was the cause of the derailment (or was there something with the train that caused the collapse), but will this event serve as a reminder than we tolerate catastrophic failures of our infrastructure far more commonly than most people think? I am not confident that knowledge of potential failure will spur action, nor am I very confident that actual failure will change priorities to fix our infrastructure first. It seems most likely that we will continue to tolerate occasional failure even though everybody knows this is the wrong  way to go about things. Collective action problems are hard."

Volk et al (2012) Traffic-Related Air Pollution, Particulate Matter, and AutismAir Pollution, Particulate Matter, and Autism:

"Context  Autism is a heterogeneous disorder with genetic and environmental factors likely contributing to its origins. Examination of hazardous pollutants has suggested the importance of air toxics in the etiology of autism, yet little research has examined its association with local levels of air pollution using residence-specific exposure assignments.

Objective  To examine the relationship between traffic-related air pollution, air quality, and autism.

Design  This population-based case-control study includes data obtained from children with autism and control children with typical development who were enrolled in the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment study in California. The mother's address from the birth certificate and addresses reported from a residential history questionnaire were used to estimate exposure for each trimester of pregnancy and first year of life. Traffic-related air pollution was assigned to each location using a line-source air-quality dispersion model. Regional air pollutant measures were based on the Environmental Protection Agency's Air Quality System data. Logistic regression models compared estimated and measured pollutant levels for children with autism and for control children with typical development.

Setting  Case-control study from California.

Participants  A total of 279 children with autism and a total of 245 control children with typical development.

Main Outcome Measures  Crude and multivariable adjusted odds ratios (AORs) for autism.

Results  Children with autism were more likely to live at residences that had the highest quartile of exposure to traffic-related air pollution, during gestation (AOR, 1.98 [95% CI, 1.20-3.31]) and during the first year of life (AOR, 3.10 [95% CI, 1.76-5.57]), compared with control children. Regional exposure measures of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter less than 2.5 and 10 μm in diameter (PM2.5 and PM10) were also associated with autism during gestation (exposure to nitrogen dioxide: AOR, 1.81 [95% CI, 1.37-3.09]; exposure to PM2.5: AOR, 2.08 [95% CI, 1.93-2.25]; exposure to PM10: AOR, 2.17 [95% CI, 1.49-3.16) and during the first year of life (exposure to nitrogen dioxide: AOR, 2.06 [95% CI, 1.37-3.09]; exposure to PM2.5: AOR, 2.12 [95% CI, 1.45-3.10]; exposure to PM10: AOR, 2.14 [95% CI, 1.46-3.12]). All regional pollutant estimates were scaled to twice the standard deviation of the distribution for all pregnancy estimates.

Conclusions  Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, nitrogen dioxide, PM2.5, and PM10 during pregnancy and during the first year of life was associated with autism. Further epidemiological and toxicological examinations of likely biological pathways will help determine whether these associations are causal."

In general pollution has been going down in the US, and autism diagnosis has been going up. Some of that may be diagnosis issues (though the previously linked article suggests not). However, there is an interesting point, in the Volk article: "In addition, ultrafine particles (PM0.1) may penetrate cellular membranes." As we filter larger and larger pollutants from the tailpipe, we may be making more small pollutants (One way to reduce measurable pollution particles is to make them smaller, so they are no longer measured). For instance the as wikipedia says about the Diesel Particulate Filter "maintenance free DPF break larger particles into smaller ones."

WAMU reports @ Transportation Nation: Prediction: D.C. Area Highway and Transit Crowding Will Get Worse : "

The Washington metropolitan region faces worsening traffic congestion and transit crowding as its population and job growth expand over the next three decades, according to a forecast released on Wednesday by a regional planning group."

Another scare forecast from another Metropolitan Planning Organization. In general when reading these studies:

1. Will behavior not change in response to anything?

2. Will technology not change?

3. Will policy not change?

(On the positive side, they do use a 45 cumulative opportunity accessibility measure for transit).

Lecture #21 by Matthew E. Kahn (via David King)

Mike Spack vs. ITE: Why does the Institute of Transportation Engineers exist? 10 Ideas for Big Changes. See his post for the list.

I am disappointed Mike took down his spreadsheet, though I understand why. If he were at a University, they wouldn't dare. Frankly, the ITE trip generation data is mostly like a telephone book and can't be copyrighted, though its specific presentation (and maybe the regressions, though those seem pretty damn uncreative to me) can be. An analysis of that data is certainly fair game. An alternative though would be to set up a Trip Generation Wiki or Google Docs which is open, letting people upload their own data and updating the regressions automatically (since it is a pretty trivial spreadsheet operation).

I am thinking of unjoining ITE, my last professional organization (I quit APA a long time ago due to their profit-maximizing behavior since I gained nothing from the organization and they wanted a non-trivial share of my salary) over their heavy-handed, anti-public, guild-like behavior. If Mike were President, I would reconsider. The backwardness of ITE is one of many reasons Traffic Engineers are becoming increasingly unpopular.

Via MD: Dumb Ways to Die . The most popular rail safety video, ever.

Bill Garrison and I are completing the second edition of The Transportation Experience (first edition here), and are looking for people who are willing to read part or all of the manuscript (~750 pages + notes and references) and give us comments in the next few weeks. If you are interested and willing to review a pre-print, email me and I can send you something.

The Transportationist made Kottke's blog: What sort of town is Richard Scarry's Busytown?:

" From a planning and transportation professional, a deconstruction of Busytown, the fictional town that features in many of Richard Scarry's children's books, including What Do People Do All Day?, Busy, Busy Town, and my personal favorite, Cars and Trucks and Things That Go."

Scarry moved to Switzerland in 1968, and if nothing else, Swiss architecture permeates the old town center of What Do People Do All Day. The Town Hall of Busytown on the cover is nothing if not Tudor. There is a small gate through which a small car is driving. Something to note about the vehicles in Busytown is that they are all just the right size for the number of passengers they carry. The Bus on the cover is full, with a hanger-on. The taxi holds one driver in the front and one passenger in the rear. The police officer (Seargant Murphy) is riding a motorcycle. When he has a passenger, the motorcycle always has a sidecar. Similarly, each window in town has someone in it, sometimes more than one person. Of course, this is a busy town, so the activity makes sense. The cover of this includes the grocery store, butcher, and baker (no supermarkets in 1968 Busytown), one block in front of Town Hall. One thing to note about the Butcher is that he is a pig, and clearly butchering sausages.

New Yorker on Self-driving vehicles and ethics: Google’s Driver-less Car and Morality:

"‘Ethical subroutines’ may sound like science fiction, but once upon a time, so did self-driving cars."

In the end, "preservation of the driver" is where we will land, as there will never be consensus on ethics (this has been going round and round for thousands of years), but there is a consensus on the ethic of self-preservation. Hopefully this will be a rare occurrence.

Determining the strategy for self-preservation will inevitably be easier than determining the strategy for what others are doing, as the others (a crowd of people, other cars) is much less predictable. If everyone assume the other will do self-preservation, that is more stable than me trying to predict what you will do to avoid hitting me while you try to predict what I will do, ad infinitum. In short, if I assume self-preservation on your part and you assume it on my part, we are likely better off than if we assume possible altruism on each other's part. This might not always be the case though.

Imagine a scenario two cars driving fast around a narrow curve on the side of a mountain which don't detect each other until two late. The best standard routine is for both cars to swerve to their right (or their left, but everyone must agree). If one swerves right and the other left, they collide and kill everyone involved. If I anticipate you will try to be self-preserving, and I am self-preserving, we can call the same (standard) sub-routine. But if on the left is a cliff (down) and the right is a relatively flat piece of land, we might see both altruistic cars going off the cliff, or both selfish cars swerving to the flatland, both scenarios killing everyone. But if both have a standard routine, we can save at least one of the cars. The scenarios are endless.

Marginal Revolution discusses as well.

FH sends a link to this very nice visualization from the City of Melbourne: 24PM their pedestrian monitoring system data:

"The City of Melbourne's 24-hour pedestrian monitoring system (24PM) measures pedestrian activity in the central city and Docklands precincts each day.

The system, which comprises 18 sensors, counts pedestrian movements to give the City of Melbourne a better understanding of how people use these precincts so we can manage the way they function and plan for future needs.

The online visualisation tool is an interactive map of these sensor locations, which enables users to see pedestrian counts on particular dates and times and compare data."

Continuing on where are they now:

Nexus group alumnus Ning Li and Nexus group alumna, Wenling Chen, his wife, both work for Virginia DOT and are proud parents of 7 month old Jay. Ning was just selected by the National Safety Council as a Rising Star of Safety, one of the few in transportation. This is the second major safety award Ning has won.

The reason given was:

“In an effort to develop strategies for reducing Virginia’s roadway departure crashes, Ning identified and addressed a major defect in Virginia’s RD [Roadway Departure] crash data. Through collaboration with national peers, Ning verified the national scope of the defect and brought the issue to the attention of the Federal Highway Administration. As a result, FHWA released an official memorandum in 2009 on a new RD crash definition and criteria. Not only were Ning’s suggestions adopted in the memo, FHWA staff also acknowledged his ‘significant contributions to the important highway safety effort.’”

The Economist on Pilotless aircraft: This is your ground pilot speaking :

"Progress is being made, a conference in London heard this week. It was organised by the Autonomous Systems Technology Related Airborne Evaluation and Assessment (ASTRAEA), the group staging the British test flights. This £62m ($99m) programme, backed by the British government, involves seven European aerospace companies: AOS, BAE Systems, Cassidian, Cobham, QinetiQ, Rolls-Royce and Thales.

It is potentially a huge new market. America’s aviation regulators have been asked by Congress to integrate unmanned aircraft into the air-traffic control system as early as 2015. Some small drones are already used in commercial applications, such as aerial photography, but in most countries they are confined to flying within sight of their ground pilot, much like radio-controlled model aircraft. Bigger aircraft would be capable of flying farther and doing a lot more things.

Pilotless aircraft could carry out many jobs at a lower cost than manned aircraft and helicopters—tasks such as traffic monitoring, border patrols, police surveillance and checking power lines. They could also operate in conditions that are dangerous for pilots, including monitoring forest fires or nuclear-power accidents. And they could fly extended missions for search and rescue, environmental monitoring or even provide temporary airborne Wi-Fi and mobile-phone services. Some analysts think the global civilian market for unmanned aircraft and services could be worth more than $50 billion by 2020."

Updated Nov 28, 2012 (Louisville to ACC, New 4 Conf Scenario)

I have long been more interested in NCAA sports conference realignment than with NCAA sports, though when younger I followed hoops and some college football. With the B1G 10 admitting Maryland and Rutgers, this stuff just got personal. I grew up a Maryland fan, and as such, an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) superioritarian. That is, if the Terps did not win the Conference, it was just because the ACC competition was superior. This of course really only applied in basketball. I taste the bitterness of Maryland with Albert King and Buck Williams facing off against Ralph Sampson, Jr. (not III) of Virginia, or Duke.

Now Maryland has been raptured into the B1G 10 Conference, so as a Minnesotan I might actually see them more often, but it is wrong somehow.

It is not especially wrong from a geographic perspective. The distance from Nebraska to Rutgers is 1292 miles. The driving distance from Boston to Miami is 1505 miles, so the ACC is not more compact than the Big 10, though this move makes the Big 10 less compact, and increases the moment of inertia of the ACC. But the issue is more than miles, it is also time zones. Until the Notre Dame addition, all members of the ACC were in states that were entirely Eastern Time Zone. The Big 10 was split between Eastern and Central time zones. With the late addition of Nebraska, they now contain a state in the Mountain Time Zone. Of course from television product, and start times, having a multiple timezone spanning conference could be profitable, since it staggers the games.

It is wrong from an historical perspective. The Big 10 was the Western Conference (in contrast with the Ivy League's Eastern Conference). But now it is East (in terms of Rutgers) from several Ivies (Penn, Princeton, Cornell).

As has been widely noted, it is wrong mathematically (the Big 10 has 14 members, the Big 12 has 10 members).

It is wrong from a tradition-preservation perspective. Even if the Maryland-Virginia football game is not as bitter-fought as the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, the Terps against Duke in basketball was notable. While realignment is not new (Where is the University of Chicago now? Just a husk of its former self now that it no longer competes in the Big 10, an unimportant school of little import.), it ought not be encouraged if you want to preserve my youth and allow me to relive it for a few weekends every Fall.

Everyone says televised football is the driver here, and no one cares about televised college basketball, but I don't think that's true, not in the northeast, where college football sucks and college basketball does not.

Most importantly it is wrong, or at best short-sighted, from a long-term economic perspective.

Everyone seems to believe that the current model of Cable TV channels paying big bucks to conferences, which depends on the current model of Cable TV surviving, will sustain. What happens with Internet Television, a la carte programming, etc. Will ESPN (as a live programming "channel") even be around in 15 years? This feels a lot like when the Dodgers and Giants left New York to go to California for Pay Television, among other reasons, in the 1950s (Pay Television wasn't viable until the late 1970s). Having a "channel" in a "market" makes little sense in a world where anyone can watch anything live (for a fee or for commercials).

Who should be concerned about whether the Big 10 Network will be carried in a particular state or metro area? Anyone will access the programs from anywhere. There needs to be some gatekeeper for funding the coverage, but that can be done without TV networks, and that will change the economics enormously, which makes worrying about these networks at best transient.

There is no stability here. This is what "Gales of Creative Destruction" are all about.

The most stability you could achieve is if the teams in a conference are all roughly equal, so no one is free-riding off the others, and no one is feeling like they are supporting the others. But that assumes that a club of 9, 10, 12, 14, or 16 schools can somehow maintain that level of no cross-subsidies for an extended period. The number of colleges may be roughly fixed (and this of course assumes colleges and universities are stable in a decade or two, and that is doubtful too), the number of permutations and combinations of those colleges is enormous.

Carriage of the Big 10 Television Network (BTN) on the right tier of local cable systems, which is supposedly the source of the push behind the eastward thrust of the Big 10 will soon seem as irrelevant as Betamax vs VHS. Carriage is not going to be a scarce commodity in 10 years, much less the 20 or 40 years conferences should care about (since that is the timeframe when Alumni of my age might think about donating to their alma mater, and tradition breaking does not make one fonder).

Not only is television changing, it is highly likely sports will change. Football is not likely to be with us in its current format in a few decades.

Nothing is permanent, everything changes. The past is gone. Get over it.

I previously fixed the college football playoff system. I still believe this is close to the end state once college football moves from a 4 team to an 8 team playoff (though apparently the Sugar Bowl will get dibs instead of the Orange Bowl for the Semi-Finals). This is why there 6 bowls in the current arrangement, 4 for quarter-finals, 2 for semi-finals, and then 1 for the finals, which will be new.

Below are my schemas for what used to be called Division I conferences (and now FBS) assuming irreversibility (Humpty Dumpty will not be reassembled) and the crack-up of the Big East (the BB schools expel the remaining football schools and build a new elite BB conference) and the WAC. (With all thanks to Matt Peloquin and his website for background.) That is, this is the best that can be done assuming 5 major conferences. If we go to 4, see below, assuming we pass through the 5 conference scenario first. While these are not the conferences I want, I think this maximizes stability going forward, across the dimensions of historical stability, geographic sanity, and approximate similarity in quality of football play.

Comments on the 5 conference scenario. This is roughly where we are, with UCONN Louisville going to the ACC, the Big 12 going to 14 with Cincinnati, Air Force, Boise State, and BYU (perhaps football only), and the Pac 12 adding Hawaii and UNLV, the next best Western state schools. I know the Pac 12 would consider raiding the Big XII (for OK, TX, TT, OSU, or Kansas), but I think that is not worth doing in the end, for all the reasons it failed last time. I also assume CUSA and the Mountain West have a friendly realignment, perhaps going to a 2 game playoff sequence. The MAC gets overly large picking up the rest of the Big East football teams and the academies.

Comments on the 4 conference scenario. This is roughly 16x4+2 that would make nice symmetry. Here the ACC cracks up. (The alternative is the Big XII cracks, but given current money flows, it looks like the ACC will break first). I just think there are at least 66 schools in the system that will need to be in the majors for a playoff system. One could promote some of the other MINORS schools (maybe from the ACC or Big East), but none of them are strong enough to force their way in for football (the best are Syracuse, Pitt, or Connecticut, but they are weaker than the weakest team in the MAJORS except for Vanderbilt, Baylor, or Northwestern, which all already in). The Big 10 goes for east coast markets with TV carriage and for elite land grant schools (NC, UVA, GT). The Big 12 goes for second schools in SEC states, + Notre Dame. The Pac-16 bites the bullet and admits Boise State and BYU. The SEC picks up the rest of the ACC football schools (second tier state land grants, NC State and Virginia Tech) in states they don't already have schools.

The champions of the 4 conferences, plus 4 top-ranked wild cards will be in the playoffs. Big 10 will align with Fox, Big 12 with NBC, SEC with CBS, and PAC 12 with ABC/ESPN for a few years before football is abolished and the networks disemboweled.

5 Conference Scenario

4 Conference Scenario: Big XII Survives, ACC Destroyed

4 Conference Scenario ACC Survives, Big 12 demolished

Jessica Schoner @ Network Distance on the perception of Nice Ride as Gateway Bikes? :

"One thing that I found difficult to swallow is how many different people quoted in the article think of Nice Riders as non-serious bicyclists."

I am glad the drugs metaphor is being extended from automobiles (automobile dependence) to bicycles (gateway bikes).

Alex @ Getting Around Minneapolis responds to my request for a map of the "Regional Fixed Guideway Study" in The best laid plans . He went to the library and scanned maps. Really.

He ends saying:

With that, I’ll close the vault for now. If you liked these and want more, don’t worry – I spend a lot of time at the library, and unlike our transit system, the archive of old transit studies is almost limitless.

If you are interested in Twin Cities post-Streetcar Transit Planning history, read it.

Drunk Engineer @ Systemic Failure minces words with: Sharrows Suck . I wish he would tell us how he really feels.

In general I agree. See here and here.

A nice write-up of NiceRide in the MnDaily by Jessica Lee, quoting Nexus researcher and MURP/CE graduate student Jessica Schoner and streets.mn blogger and Geography graduate student Bill Lindeke:

Study finds Nice Ride boosts biz:

"Nice Ride planners also look at the area’s accessibility to recreational bike routes and the area’s population density.

‘The study definitely showed a positive relationship between the number of trips to the station and the number of food-related businesses nearby,’ said Jessica Schoner, the chief author of the report and a University graduate student. ‘The proximity of food-related businesses was a really good predictor of how well the station was doing.’

As of late August 2012, the IDS Center downtown and the station at St. Anthony Main were the two most popular kiosks with a combined 13,000 rentals, according to a Nice Ride report.

Nice Ride estimated 2012 was the best year yet with 275,000 rentals.

Two stations on the University campus were ranked in the top-10 most popular in 2011, according to the study. Dosset said he works ‘really closely with the University’s transportation department to select the locations that would be best.’

Schoner said the Nice Ride season of April through November is almost opposite of the academic school year and that affects the research.

‘I think if we were to look at the system at a finer level, maybe by month, we would see the [University] having a much bigger impact in terms of their overall usage,’ Schoner said.

Alexander Matson, economics senior and president of the University’s Cycling Team, said the Nice Ride bikes ‘have provided a topic of conversation here at the U.’

‘They are a much easier way to bike rather than having to worry about the logistics of riding or the stress of possible theft,’ Matson said. ‘I don’t know many hardcore cyclists that use the Nice Rides, but they definitely raise awareness and get people on bikes.’

Accounting senior Charles Kranz, another member of the cycling team, said that Nice Ride bikes ‘serve their purpose,’ but he thinks it’s better to own a bike.

‘I see them getting used around campus and throughout the Twin Cities a good amount,’ Kranz said. ‘In my opinion, people who are serious about biking will probably just buy their own bike for getting to class and stuff.’

Geography doctoral candidate Bill Lindeke agreed, saying that Nice Ride bikes are ‘starter bikes’ for people who are uneasy about tackling the city’s busy traffic and complicated routes.

‘One of the big barriers people have about riding a bicycle around the city is it’s scary; it’s intimidating,’ Lindeke said. ‘You see people wearing all this equipment, and you don’t really understand the bicycle
perspective.’

Lindeke specializes in non-motorized transportation. For his research, he interviewed people riding the Nice Ride bikes and talked to planners from the system as part of his study on bicycle advocacy that began last spring.

‘People I’ve been talking to see them as gateway bicycles,’ Lindeke said, ‘like that whole idea of a gateway drug. You start with these.’"

Updated November 26:

AE sends me to Wheels.ca, which has this article: Driving on this Quebec highway? Watch out for that hydro pole

"A hydro pole in Johnville, Que. was left in place after construction crews moved the highway to correct a dangerous curve."

Hydro poles are electric poles in American English, Hydro being the nickname of the company that provides power (mostly Hydro-power) in Quebec.

The article says it's been there two months, but they will fix it, just a coordination problem.

The Quebec pole can be contrasted with this Chinese holdout, around which they built a road.

This reminds me of Dr. Seuss's Zax.

The Zax
by Dr. Seuss From The Sneetches and Other Stories Copyright 1961 by Theodor S. Geisel and Audrey S. Geisel, renewed 1989.

One day, making tracks
In the prairie of Prax,
Came a North-Going Zax
And a South-Going Zax.
And it happened that both of them came to a place
Where they bumped. There they stood.
Foot to foot. Face to face.

"Look here, now!" the North-Going Zax said, "I say!
You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.
I'm a North-Going Zax and I always go north.
Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!"
"Who's in whose way?" snapped the South-Going Zax.
"I always go south, making south-going tracks.
So you're in MY way! And I ask you to move
And let me go south in my south-going groove."

Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.
"I never," he said, "take a step to one side.
And I'll prove to you that I won't change my ways
If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!"
"And I'll prove to YOU," yelled the South-Going Zax,
"That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax
For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule
That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.
Never budge! That's my rule. Never budge in the least!
Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!
I'll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!"

Well...
Of course the world didn't stand still. The world grew.
In a couple of years, the new highway came through
And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax
And left them there, standing un-budged in their tracks.

Now @ | streets.mn: Tree canopy and house size : "I will take a controversial position: trees are good."

Elizabeth Macdonald, Rebecca Sanders, and Alia Anderson write: Performance Measures for Complete, Green Streets: A Proposal for Urban Arterials in California:

"In the State of California, speed limits are set using requirements in the California Vehicle Code, which states that the speed on multilane State highways (which includes State urban arterials) will be 55 MPH unless a traffic and engineering study has shown that speed is not reasonable or safe in that location. On the other hand, on a non-State highway in a business or residential district, the Vehicle Code sets the speed limit at 25 MPH. Although these speeds can be adjusted by the DOT or by the local government through a series of studies and petitions, it does not seem reasonable that, in urban areas, State and local arterials should be treated so differently.

Furthermore, localities can petition to have their speed changed if they demonstrate that 85% of drivers are driving a certain speed. In other words, the 85th percentile rule adjusts the law (speed limit) to fit the behavior (actual speed). According to the Vehicle Code, “a reasonable speed limit is one that conforms to the actual behavior of the majority of motorists, and by measuring motorists’ speeds, one will be able to select a speed limit that is both reasonable and effective.” While this system may be appropriate on freeways and major highways, it is not suited to urban environments where roads are shared by a variety of users. Research has shown that posted speed limit signs appear to have a limited effect on reducing driver speeds when not accompanied by enforcement and roadway design.108 While enforcement can be effective, it is a reactive approach that is limited by financial resources. The most proactive and long-term approach is to design arterials for the safest and most appropriate behavior (actual speed) for each location."

I have long doubted the reasonableness of the 85th Percentile Rule. Why 85th Percentile? Why any percentile? Presumably it has to do with safety. Copenhagenize discusses this today, and suggests it is due to the Solomon curve. I think it is older than that (1964), but have not been able to find the source. [Google Ngram viewer suggests 1959 as the first mention of the term 85th percentile speed, but that does not tell us about speed limit rules, which I don't see until 1981, and that is far too late, maybe someone has a better query.]

Solomon's curve is not gospel, Davis et al. (2006) Speed as a risk factor in serious run-off-road crashes: Bayesian Case-Control Analysis with Case Speed Uncertainty could not corroborate it, finding higher speeds associated with higher likelihood of certain crash types, but not lower speeds.

We can think of the rule as potentially acting as a positive feedback system, an upward moving ratchet for speed limits. In year one, speed is set at 30 mph but many drivers exceed it and the 85th percentile speed is found to be 45 mph. The new speed limit is set at 45 mph. Before 15% of drivers were exceeding 45 MPH, but now some drivers, seeing the higher speed limit, drive faster. (I.e. following +10 mph rule, that you won't get ticketed if you are within 10 mph of the speed limit, you get more speeders). So the new 85th percentile speed is higher still. Sure there is an upper limit to this (e.g. if the speed limit were 100 mph, we would not get 15% of drivers exceeding it), but as noted in Copenhagenize what is safe for drivers may not be safe for other road users (especially pedestrian, bicyclists, neighbors).

There are lots of alternative strategies for setting speed limits, and rules for urban areas should differ from rural areas. Perhaps we don't need explicit speed limits, which act as both a ceiling and a floor, everywhere if instead we moved toward self-explaining roads and shared space. Raising speed limits on freeways may improve overall safety (e.g. Lave and Elias) if you take impatient traffic off of non-freeways. The issues are complex.

A former student sends me to Peter Samuel @ TOLLROADSnews, who has a very nice rant (as with many things I post, I don't necessarily agree with it): Road funding reformed - dedicate fuel taxes to deficit reduction:

"It's high time highways supported themselves. Gasoline and diesel tax revenues are needed much more urgently for reducing dangerously bloated government deficits. The federal government should stop spending money on highways or transit. Those needs should be managed by the states. States too should use their fuel taxes for deficit reduction - devolving most responsibility for highways to metropolitan areas and counties, and encouraging user fee (toll) financing as an optimal and sustainable funding method.

As part of the end of federal-state grants and state grants, they'd of course lift restrictions on how roads are funded and managed. And they'd end the protracted federal permitting and planning and federal 'records of decision.'

Let counties and metro areas be fully responsible for their roads and transit. State devolution can proceed state by state at their own pace as dictated by their own legislatures.

Federal abandonment of highway and transit spending is most urgent. A deal has to be reached to control the federal deficit without increasing damaging new taxes. The new Congressional Budget Office report on choices for deficit reduction notes that continuing federal deficits:

- raise interest costs as a proportion of the budget and reduce the spending power of any given level of revenues

- reduce national saving and increase dependence on foreign lending

- limit national options

- increase the likelihood of a fiscal crisis in which investors lose faith in the US Government and require increasing risk premiums to lend to it

Present deficits they say are "ultimately unsustainable." "

And it goes on beyond that ...

Similarly with Interstate highways. As a descriptor of the actual function of these roads it's such an absurd term that only governments could embrace it. Interstate highways carry predominantly intra-metropolitan traffic. Or intra-state traffic in the sense of traffic moving within the state. Except in the tiniest states like Rhode Island and Delaware the vast majority of traffic using so-called Interstate highways is intra-state.

In short interstate traffic on misnamed Interstate highways is trivial.

There is no justification or rationale for the federal government to take financial responsibility for these highways.

Maybe there was at some point in the past - there was a certain charm to the idea of a national government stitching diverse states together. Or emulating the Nazis national 'autobahn' network was held to support national defense. That provided a justification for federal funding of interstates.

However all this is history now. Nostalgia and inertia is all that keeps the federal government financing highways.

In a rational scheme of governance local and metropolitan government would work out a framework for charging for roads. It's unlikely the locals would do much tax financing because obviously taxes fall only on local people and businesses and don't charge visitors and passers-through.

So there would be lots of tolling.

Now that gantries over a road can collect tolls at highway speed it's feasible to toll surface arterials as well as expressways. Major road improvements could be financed in part by assessments made of increased property values where those property owners agree to opt in to an improvement scheme. Strictly local streets could be funded by property taxes.

Separate segments of highways should be self-contained business operations, charging what the traffic will bear in competition with others, and making improvements where the risk takers make the judgment that users will subsequently pay for those improvements in tolls.

No VMT charges please

What we do NOT need is some centrally collected vehicle miles traveled charge.

Milleage based fees would perpetuate the dysfunctionality of centralized fuel taxes in which funds are allocated by politicians according a mix of ideology and favor trading. Central government management of roads and political management of funds is a disaster - improper pricing and lack of incentives to provide service produces chronic congestion, totally unnecessary congestion, high cost, neglect of high return projects and wasteful investment in unnecessary ones.

Proper pricing would manage traffic for freer flow and provide strong incentives to invest where there is a need for extra capacity and where that extra capacity can be provided profitably. But that requires highways to be privatized into many separate businesses. Or at least run as county or city owned businesses. The important thing is that their revenues derive from customers they serve.

They could get economies of scale by banding together to contract for joint services. But we need highways to be a diversity of different business units each managing its investments and operating expenditures based on what users will pay and where profits (the excess of consumer value over cost) lead them.

From the archives, we see that proposals for LRT in Hennepin County are not new, This 1988 document (PDF) has maps of the : Comprehensive LRT System Plan for Hennepin County

I am still looking for a digital version of 1970s "Regional Fixed Guideway Study" proposing a 37 mile transit system for Twin Cities. Anyone have scan/map?

(Other cool documents here). Also AJ Froggie's site.

On my usual commute home, I have recently faced this (left image) Do Not Enter sign on the west entrance of the newly remodeled and rebranded The Commons Hotel (Harvard just north of Washington Ave). The sign, aimed at convincing drivers not to enter the drive way the wrong way, was placed in front of the sidewalk curb cut, sandbagged so it did not blow down. I asked staff of the hotel about it (made him come out and look), and while quite gracious, he said it was the University of Minnesota's doing. He promised to call them. Two days later, nothing had happened. I don't know if he didn't call, or if he was routed to the University's Department of Sidewalk Operations, Obstruction Division, Do Not Enter Unit, and they did not do anything. A sign in the middle of a street would have been moved.

You might say, just walk on the other side of the street. But cars disgorge from the Washington Avenue Ramp, and it is even more unpleasant. Or walk around it (which I did), but that is inefficient for all concerned, and impossible for wheelchairs, who are forced into the street or driveway.

I moved it myself. Why does that feel illegal? I hope the rain or something else takes care of the loose sand.

Surely there is a better design to convince drivers not to go the wrong way on a one-way driveway than an ugly sign, though it might require some concrete. We need better self-explaining roads and driveways.

UM News reports on my colleague Henry Liu's new SMART Signal Technologies startup: University of Minnesota startup to improve traffic flow on congested roads:

"Based on research from the University of Minnesota, SMART Signal Technologies, Inc., will commercialize a system to better predict and manage the flow of traffic on roads controlled by traffic lights. The system could potentially cut down on traffic congestion and help drivers save both time and fuel.

Using data from existing traffic signal equipment, the system accurately calculates queue length at signalized intersections. These data, collected in real time and archived in a database, will allow cities across the state to better mediate the flow of traffic at peak times using real time performance measures provided by the system."

I have talked about this before. I hope it gets widely deployed, what we don't know about travel times arterials in real-time is embarrassing.

Tim Taylor (Conversable Economist) on: Driverless Cars:

"The fully self-driving car isn't right around the corner. Clearly, costs need to come down substantially and a number of complementary technologies need to be created. However, we do already have cars in the commercial market with cruise control and anti-lock brakes, as well as cars that sense potential crash hazards and can parallel park themselves. Changes like these happen slowly, and then in a rush. As the report [Self-driving cars: The next revolution From KPMG and CAR] notes, "The adoption of most new technologies proceeds along an S-curve, and we believe the path to self-driving vehicles will follow a similar trajectory." Maybe 10-15 years? Faster? "

A pessimistic colleague of mine writes:

the arguments in favor of energy efficiency will be swamped by the added demand. Right now, people don't drive more because it's a pain. If I can drive while sleeping, I'll be more likely to work in one city, commute to another; or, go to the cabin every weekend; or, allow little Johnny to sign up for a soccer league since the car (not me) will drive him; and so on.

automatic-drive cars would make travel much more convenient, which would increase travel demand -- likely, a lot. That's not a benefit for energy consumption.

maybe we'll have electric-only cars, which would help with local emissions but not energy consumption; and, we'll only get those if we require them, which it's not clear we will..

signed,
pessimist.

I agree distances will increase, but the cars will be more efficient as human driving patterns (excessive braking and stop and start, e.g.) will be replaced. There are parallel trends in making cars more energy efficient as well. How this nets out is unclear, but I am more optimistic.

Drew Kerr @ Finance & Commerce has this article up on Minnesota's new attempt at raising transportation money: Road, transit supporters hope for new revenue

Sadly the article is behind a paywall. The Transportation Finance Advisory Committee has been looking at these issues for a year. The report is due out Thursday, but obviously has been leaked. With a DFL legislature and Governor, this looks like the shape of things to come.

I am quoted:

While expansion is on the table, David Levinson, a transportation engineer with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies, said money should be directed first to preserving existing infrastructure.

Levinson also said officials will have to offer a lot of details on bridge repairs, road improvements and congestion relief projects if they want public support for tax increases.

According to the article the Big items:

• 10 cent increase in fuel tax (or a bigger increase phased in)
• 0.5 cent on Metro-area sales tax for transit
• 10% increase in vehicle tabs
• 30 million in sales tax revenue on leased vehicles to be dedicated to outstate transit
• giving local governments powers to implement higher wheelage taxes, transportation improvement districts, or local option sales taxes
• tolling new system expansion
• expanding MnPass

This is mostly good. Too bad the Stillwater Bridge isn't being tolled. Or the Vikings Stadium.

An incomplete list of what I wish were on it:

• Local option value capture
• Local option congestion charging
• Increasing the state gas tax further to help local governments pay for transportation, moving some road costs off of the property tax funding base they currently use (since a local option gas tax begets a race to the bottom). (Beyond what is currently proposed).
• A well-capitalized state infrastructure bank to lend money to locals or private firms to provide transportation services, with loans paid back by user fees or value capture.

I would also like to see some more structural reforms:

• A major reconsideration of who manages the network (we have three layers of road management in Minnesota (State, County, Municipal), I bet we could get by with two or one.


• Moving MnDOT to be more like a Public Utility, with rates gaining approval from a PUC-like organization, rather than the legislature.


• Charging the full cost of all transportation services as directly as possible, recognizing administrative costs of very precise pricing, (and providing direct subsidies to those who need it, rather than everyone)


• Competitive tendering in transit provision

[I am not on the Committee, and have not been asked to present.]

NYT reports on this reversal of trends: Report Sees U.S. as Top Oil Producer, Overtaking Saudi Arabia, in 5 Years - :

"The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer by about 2017 and will become a net oil exporter by 2030, according to a new report released on Monday by the International Energy Agency."

So combine Peak Travel with not quite-Peak Oil, and we become an oil exporter. (Or in other words, we have reached "Peak Import". I have low confidence in forecasts like this in general, based on past experience evaluating forecasts, but the trends are interesting.

Some Sandy links:

(1) Subway Recovery:

In general I am really impressed with the speed of the subway recovery. If periodic flooding does not destroy the network, maybe New York does not need to relocate or build really expensive defenses, just take a 1 or 2 week vacation every hurricane.

From WNYC: Subway Network Recovery animation

From NYT: New York Subways Find Magic in Speedy Hurricane Recovery

(2) Gas Rationing:

From NYT: In New York Gas Shortage, Missed Opportunities and Miscalculations

From NYT: Odd-Even License Plate Rules Have a History

We really need to invent/deploy gasoline-powered gas stations and refineries. It seems many stations had gas they could not pump for lack of electricity. Obviously lots of other problems as well, and I am sure there are risks of sparking near lots of gasoline, but this should be a solvable problem.

Jason Hong talks about PhDs from the Faculty's Perspective The short version:

• Break Out of the Undergraduate Mentality
• Own Your Research
• Be willing to push back
• Be active in the social dimension of research.
• Build Up Your Skills, but Get Out as Soon as You Can

I get quoted in this Minnesota Daily article about the Central Corridor. Some of the students are quoted talking about the "wrong people". I respond "“I don’t think the [personal] safety issues are any worse than with bus,”" Light-rail project 74% complete.

I assume the "wrong people" being referred to in the article are criminals, as opposed to ordinary townies.

The data on does transit bring crime is not well organized or complete. A 2011 study "THE EFFECTS OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND OPENING OF LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT STATIONS ON NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME", STEPHEN B. BILLINGS, SUZANNE LELAND, DAVID SWINDELL says:

The debate over crime and rail transit focuses on whether such investments “breed” criminal activities with new targets of opportunity or transport crime from the inner city to the suburbs. Yet, little empirical evidence exists on whether new rail transit actually does lead to increased crime rates around stations. In order to study this question, we test the relationship between crime and rail transit with the 2007 opening of the Charlotte light rail line. We use Geographical Information Systems software and micro-level data on reported crimes to generate measures of criminal activity in and around light rail transit (LRT) stations. We then implement a quasi-experimental before-and-after methodology using two alternate transit corridors to control for differences between neighborhoods that contain LRT stations and other neighborhoods. We find light rail does not actually increase crime around stations. Instead, we see a decrease in property crimes once the station locations are announced, which remains relatively stable after the light rail begins operating.

Now at streets.mn It Can’t Happen Here :

"Not only will we never see a hurricane, we have no risk of ever seeing a tornado, earthquake, flood, nuclear meltdown, nuclear war, frogs, locusts, plague, or fire. As a result, we do not need to prepare for any calamity, and should continue to act without thinking about how to prevent such outcomes, how to defend against them, how to mitigate them, or the costs of accepting them.

But humor me. As a thought experiment, what if we considered what some critical pieces of infrastructure, our dependence on them, and their redundancy."

Green Car Congress: New Mobile Life Guard app monitors driving behavior and issues verbal alerts:

"Ram Dantu, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of North Texas, is developing ‘Mobile Life Guard’—a mobile app that will enable smart phones to detect weather, road conditions and bad driving using existing sensors in the devices.

...

The app then issues a verbal alert, such as ‘Sudden accelerate’; ‘Hard braking’; ‘vehicle wandering detected’; ‘tailgating detected’; ‘lane hopping detected’; ‘bad right (or left) lane change’; or ‘left (or right) swerve detected’, among other things. It also will warn you not to talk or text."

JW writes:

I've suggested to a number of people that smart phones could detect when a car is driven in congested conditions. This article seems to confirm that.

The reason this is important is that for road pricing you want to internalize the negative externality of congestion. Time of day pricing is not as effective as detecting when a vehicle is actually in congestion. Time of day pricing actually charges drivers for externalities they are not imposing on others. The smart phone app could also address privacy issues because it would be unnecessary to determine where the vehicle is to charge congestion pricing rates. The congestion charge could be allocated statistically based on congestion observed through traffic management centers or regional transportation models.

Human “Only Just” Edges Out Robot Car On The Racetrack : ""

Marco Gonzalez-Navarro Climent Quintana-Domeque: Paving Streets for the Poor: Experimental Analysis of Infrastructure Effects:

"This study is the first providing experimental evidence on the role of infrastructure in reducing poverty for the urban poor. We do so by means of a first-time street asphalting randomized experiment. Within two years of the intervention, households whose streets were finally paved, and were present both before and after its implementation, increased their consumption of durable goods and acquired more motor vehicles. These impacts were driven in part by street pavement boosting housing wealth, which fueled a rise in collateralized credit use, but also by an increase in the marginal utility of vehicles. A cost-benefit analysis indicates that the economic returns to street pavement in this developing urban context are at least as large as the construction costs."

This was just announced:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to announce that the 2014 World Symposium on Transport and Land Use Research (WSTLUR) will be held in Delft, the Netherlands, from Tuesday, June 24, 2014, through Friday, June 27, 2014. Please mark your calendars. Deadlines for full paper submissions will be announced in early 2013. This will be a call for full paper submission with a double-blind peer review process. Selected articles from the symposium will appear in the Journal of Transport and Land Use in 2015. More information regarding the symposium will be posted in the future on the WSTLUR website.

We would like to take this opportunity first to congratulate Professor Kees Maat from Delft University of Technology and Professor Karst Geurs from the University of Twente for their excellent proposal that won the bid. We would also like to thank all the institutions that indicated interest in organizing WSTLUR 2014.

Looking forward to seeing you in Delft.

Kelly Clifton and Ahmed El-Geneidy

If a standard is good, aren't two better?

Autoblog on the EV charging standards war: Why SAE Combo vs. CHAdeMO battle could be a big problem:

"... Japanese automakers like Nissan, Toyota and Mitsubishi are supporting the CHAdeMO standard, which was launched in 2010 and is used in 1,500 stations worldwide (all but 200 are in Japan). US and European automakers like BMW, General Motors, Ford and Volkswagen are instead standing behind the so-called SAE Combo standard, which was first demonstrated in May and is expected to debut by the end of the year. Combo supporters tout their standard as superior because, unlike CHAdeMO, it allows for one port to charge at both Level 2 and DC fast charge. CHAdeMO requires two different plugs. Earlier this month, SAE International finalized its so-called J1772 technical standards for Combo chargers.

The problem, as you might suspect, is that two competing systems, 'could be another roadblock to the introduction of electric vehicles, increasing consumer resistance. A scattering of incompatible charging stations compounds range anxiety with plug anxiety,' writes Automotive News. In other words, this is exactly not what plug-in vehicles need"

Meanwhile in Electronic Tolling Collection, Toll Road News reports: Kapsch declares E-ZPass IAG protocols open standard, and discusses sticker tags:

"2012-10-24: Kapsch which owns the intellectual property rights to the E-ZPass IAG electronic toll system through the 2010 purchase of Mark IV IVHS says it is renouncing any proprietary claims to the protocols. They should now be regarded as an open standard for others to use and compete with. They plan to publish the specifications and code so that anyone can build to it."

However that doesn't settle it, as there are other standards, like Sticker Tags about:

"We pressed several senior Kapsch officials - Georg Kapsch, Chris Murray, Erwin Toplak COO - on their view of 6C sticker tags as a route to US national interoperability.

They said that the key is multiprotocol readers. And they reiterated their view that active hard case, battery powered transponders represent a better business case for customers over the long run. "

MSNBC: 'Pure mayhem' as New York City tries to get back to work :

"That led some people to try to hitchhike their way into Manhattan, with drivers eager to pick them up to make the three-person-per-car quota.

'Some folks offered me a ride,' said Melanie Bower, 30, who lives in Fort Greene. 'I was touched by their kindness at first. But then I realized they just needed me so they could have three in their car.’ 
Bower walked into Manhattan instead, and then caught a bus uptown."

It seems casual carpooling is running into some moralizing. The gain from trade (I give you a ride, we both save time) appears wrong to at least some travelers. People in other parts of the country have gotten over this, I am surprised New Yorkers, living in the home of capitalism, are having trouble.