The Transportationist

A nice article on The decline of the American lawn by Tom Vanderbilt in Slate Magazine.

Growing up in Columbia, we had neighborhood tot lots, with communal swings and slides and on-property playgrounds were discouraged if not banned by architectural covenants. Those tot lots were pikers by the community playground standards I see today in some parts of the Twin Cities, though down our street is again essentially a tot lot built on a parcel adjacent to the freeway (probably from land surplussed after freeway construction). Few houses in our neighborhood have the play equipment Vanderbilt decries. When lots are small, people need common space. When lots are large, this can be internalized to their own property. This is of course the fundamentally the same as the third space argument of Ray Oldenham's The Great Good Place, where cities with smaller housing units have more common "third spaces", while when people have larger houses, they have less need (and perhaps less opportunity) to get out.

Posted by David Levinson at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An article from the Baltimore Sun: Town aims to redraw its core

One suspects the newspaper article above is not terribly accurate or complete ("Retail and arts space, and possibly an international center for the study of small cities, would front the roadway, replacing the office towers that ring the mall complex area." ... will office really be replaced by art, maybe complemented, but not replaced), but it appears the General Growth Properties plan, which has gone through many iterations, finally begins to account for the Mall as the centerpiece of downtown, and tie it in rather than keeping it separate.

The Howard County govt plan is here (pdf).

My previous posts on Columbia are here.

The meeting is tonight, alas it is not being webcast. The official website is here: Columbia Town Center

Posted by David Levinson at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A very nice essay by Clay Shirky: Gin, Television, and Social Surplus .

It leads to the thought, just as we wasted time with Gin and TV, we also waste enormous resources while traveling that could be more productive (both personally and socially) in many other ways. Car radios, Ipods, cell phones, in-car computers help, but only go so far if we are still required to drive. (or are confined as a passenger in a system requiring frequent transfers or without adequate space). This is one reason why the DARPA urban challenge is potentially so important (in terms of leading to a fundamental change in how society operates), affecting how we spend 90 minutes a day.

Posted by David Levinson at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Techdirt, from Gizmodo: Honda Crime Alerting GPS: Honda GPS Warns Drivers of High Crime Zones

While now in Japan, the social implications of this are interesting. Can't people figure this out just by observing the environment themselves though?

Posted by David Levinson at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Minnesota ranks among worst in DWIs, study shows

"Minnesota has one of the nation's worst drunken driving rates, said a government report that says 15 percent of adult drivers nationally report driving under the influence of alcohol in the previous year. Here are the states with the worst records:

1. Wisconsin, 26.4 percent

2. North Dakota, 26.4 percent

3. Minnesota, 23.5 percent

4. Nebraska, 22.9 percent

5. South Dakota, 21.6 percent"

Note, these are also almost exactly the states with the highest social capital according to Robert Putnam's index (see the book Bowling Alone)

Table 4.1 Social capital scores by state
Rank State Score

1 North Dakota 1.712

2 South Dakota 1.693

3 Vermont 1.424

4 Minnesota 1.325

5 Montana 1.296

6 Nebraska 1.157

7 Iowa 0.988

8 New Hampshire 0.779

9 Wyoming 0.6710

10 Washington 0.6511

11 Wisconsin 0.5912

12 Oregon 0.57

(Source: Putnam 2000)
(Kevin Krizek and I discuss Putnam's social capital idea in the book Planning for Place and Plexus

This raises the interesting question: does alcohol lubricate Putnam's social capital?

From a social perspective, drinking alone at home may be better than drinking away from home. But what do I know, I am a teetotaler.

Posted by David Levinson at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From New York Times: Microsoft Introduces Tool for Avoiding Traffic Jams

The key components for any valid system is data. In most cities, there is no real traffic information on side streets. Developing "personalities" for streets is a nice idea, but without real-time data, it is all guess work.

Bill Gates got his start creating traffic counters, with his company Traf-O-Data, so this may be an idea dear to his heart.

Posted by David Levinson at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. WiFi trial comes to San Francisco's BART trains

Wireless internet connectivity could give transit a major boost over driving (surfing and driving don't mix). Especially on transit systems geared to the upper middle classes like commuter rail. Wifi on bus might not have the same appeal.

2. Contactless payment trial goes live on San Francisco's BART

Of course other cities have had this for years in Japan, and this improves upon contact-based systems like Octopus in Hong Kong, Oyster in London, by using cell phones. Unfortunately there are no standards for using cell phones for contactless payment in the US, so while it is technologically feasible, it might not be adopted due to a lack of standardization.

Posted by David Levinson at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Londonist: 3D London Tube Map (using Google maps and a geographically accurate map).

Posted by David Levinson at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Via diamond geezer: Legible London is an attempt to create a standardized pedestrian navigation system for central London, replacing and improving upon the 33! existing systems. It is an interesting read (pdf) and I think would be valuable in places not quite as complicated as London (i.e. almost everywhere except Tokyo, and may be there too).

By making walking easier, the planners hope to reduce reliance on public transport, which is excessively congested, in part due to the schematic tube map which distorts distances.

If they are successful, they may create a system as iconic as the Underground maps and logo.

Of course the trick with any of these things is not just first installation, but keeping the system live, rather than just a decaying artifact from 2007. But it would seem quite valuable, it just has no source of income for support. (advertising or sponsorship would be a natural, but would be potentially be an ugly blight).

Posted by David Levinson at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Engadget Is the VW Space Up! interface developed by Apple?. While houses have been getting larger, the future seems to be in smaller vehicles.

For years now computers have becoming more integrated with the car. At the extreme we won't actually need to do any driving, and can let the car do that while we do something more entertaining or productive. The Space Up! concept, incorporating Apple's Cover Flow is one more look at the car of the future. The interface, hopefully with a lot of options disabled while driving, seems to be another attempt at integration.

Posted by David Levinson at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Daylight Savings Time bids a fond farewell (good riddance to such a ridiculous concept) for another year, some articles on time appear. From the Minnesota Daily:
University employs 300 GPS clocks. This is cool, it may actually synchronize the university if enough clocks are actually reading the same value. I have long had the idea that a time stamp should be sent down the electrical signal (small enough to not effect current, large enough to be read), but this is not to be. GPS seems a next best (if somewhat pricey) solution.

Second, there is an effort to restart the stopped clocks on Britain (via Boing-Boing):Stopped Clocks - Re-started. This includes promotional concerts.

It is nice to have public clocks, we might even think of consistent standardized time as a public good (my consumption does not affect yours, it is not really excludable), which has positive externalities, the minimization of wasted time, improved coordination.

Posted by David Levinson at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the NYT: Surface Navigation Help for Subway Riders . This is a brilliant aid to the urban interface, put a decal (or a more permanent marker) on the sidewalk so subway riders emerging from the subterranean depths of Gotham can quickly ascertain where they are. Frankly, we should use the sidewalks for this kind of information more often, especially mid-block. It particularly helps those looking down to avoid making eye-contact.

How can you tell an extroverted engineer? He is the one looking at the other person's shoes

Posted by David Levinson at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The London Green Belt has been in place since just before World War II when Patrick Abercrombie's study recommended establishing a ring around the city which would remain unsuburbanized (one hesitates to say undeveloped, as farms are there). Now with the housing shortage, people are again suggesting the Green Belt is "a success we should build on":

Build on the green belt, and build now-Comment-Columnists-Minette Marrin-TimesOnline
.

Back in the day, the solution was to build new towns outside the Green Belt. Gordon Brown is proposing more of these. Towns like Welwyn and Letchworth were built as Garden Cities by Ebenezer Howard, and, but, by design are relatively small (on the order of 33,000 residents for Letchworth, 55,000 for Welwyn Garden City). From my visits, they seem excellent places to live, though the scale may be slightly off outside the town center (the residential density is a bit low, creating excessive walking distances).

Stevenge, (population 80,000) a post-war new town, (built on a much older town) is very much like Columbia, with large elements of Radburn, many pedestrian tunnels to access the town center and train station. There are also traffic roundabouts everywhere, so cars need not stop at signals. I felt like I grew up here.

Milton Keynes (population 185,000) on the other hand is much larger, but terribly overscaled, with large gaps between the residential and downtown areas. This creates opportunites for infill, but in the meantime there is an excessive amount of surface parking in the town center. Unlike the other towns I named above, the shopping mall (the largest single level mall in the world?) is disconnected from the train station.

Despite its imperfections, this model of new towns has a number of advantages over just adding another suburb in the Green Belt. They provide (or at least can provide) a coherent center and place. By increasing "surface area" they reduce the distance between people and the countryside. Every development in the Green Belt makes existing Londers that much farther from the country.

Now, one might suggest if the Green Belt is to be preserved, it should be done the right way, by buying the land (or development rights), rather than by fiat or regulations. This certainly seems a better way of controlling the use of land if property rights are to be respected. But the point here isn't about the mechanics of how land should be preserved, but about what constitutes a better urban form

A) A giant unbroken conurbation where rings of development are fully contiguous

OR

B) A large conurbation with satellite cities.

The latter, while it might increase average distance to the center, decreases distance to the edge. It also provides more variety and differentiation of the bundle of attributes that we call property.

Perhaps the market should decide, but the market fails in providing numerous public goods (access to the countryside being an example), as some things are very difficult to establish easily enforceable rights for.

Posted by David Levinson at 02:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

New York Gets Decent Street Furniture (TreeHugger)

I don't especially like the aesthetic, but new is better than old for this sort of thing.

Posted by David Levinson at 01:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From today's wapo: Segways on patrol.

I am not sure when the over-hyped ginger became the folly of the Segway, I think they are sort of neat, if over-priced (but that comes from low demand). But somehow Segways have yet to take off. The article is an example of a niche where Segways might have an advantage, police officers on patrol. It is certainly better than having police in giant Chevy Caprices. They are also used by Maryland state police at BWI airport.

Transportation technologies need a base niche where they outperform others in order to gain traction in the market. Specialized markets like police may be what the Segway needs, though it might remain confined to its niches like airport people movers or warehouse forklifts.

Posted by David Levinson at 01:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From the BBC: German drives down subway stairs

"A German woman in Dusseldorf blocked the entrance to an underground station when she mistook it for a subterranean car park, police said on Wednesday."

A) It looks to be a pretty large entrance
B) Perhaps it was signed as a car park. According to the article, this is the second time it happened at this location.
C) Perhaps we should let small cars onto underground trains, I mean, we already let bikes on. (Off-peak of course)
D) What would be the fare for a VW Beetle on the Underground?
E) Car free streets ... Car-friendly stations?

Posted by David Levinson at 05:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A nice discussion at 37 signals about the use of abstraction vs. realism on subway maps, looking in particular at maps of London's (which is highly abstract) and New York's (which is more realistic) standard subway maps.Helpful distortion at NYC & London subway maps

It is not obvious that one is inherently better than the other for all purposes. As noted earlier on the post about Could you walk it quicker, the London map imposes huge distortions. On the other hand, the more complicated the map, the more that is required to be filtered, arguing for more rather than less abstraction.

The specialist publisher Capital Transport has put out a number of books about the history of the Underground, and its maps, which are quite interesting.

Posted by David Levinson at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Can it possibly be that London, England, a city of about 7.5 million people, has only one 24-hour pharmacy. London News : 24-hour London. For a city that is a contender for "capital of the world", this is surprising. The reason this question comes up is the birth of our daughter Olivia, and the need for some medical equipment for my wife on a Sunday evening. Coming from the United States where the "I want it and I want it now" culture has produced a significant *spontaneous* 24-hour expectation, I was surprised to find that all of the typical suspects in pharmacy: namely Boots and Superdrug were closed, not merely in Putney, but almost everywhere.

Fortunately Zafash Pharmacy (near Earl's Court at 233 Old Brompton Road SW 5) was open, and I got from home there, did the transaction, and got back in 67 minutes via transit (The 22 bus and walking there, the 74 and 22 buses back). Google Maps puts it at 3.4 miles via road, and says 8 minutes (not a chance, even if I were in my car, even at 7 pm on a Sunday night).

One could talk about Zafesh, run by immigrants or maybe 2nd generation Londoners who have a unique entrepreneurial spirit, and how great that is. Though of course it would be par for the course in the US. In my mind the question isn't why they are open, but why the others are closed.

Perhaps regulation has something to do with it, I don't know the extent to which neighborhoods have imposed zoning regulations limiting hourly openings. Perhaps it is the costs of paying overtime. Perhaps is is the draining of the entrepreneurial spirit in this home to capitalism. In the US pharmacies are in fierce competition with supermarkets (which have been 24 hours in many locales for a couple of decades now, starting since they were doing overnight stocking anyway).

While I could understand why the local card shop isn't 24 hours, cards are not an emergency item, medicine is.

In addition to being bad for customers, it seems that business here is leaving money on the table.

Posted by David Levinson at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was going to write about this, but someone beat me to it: London Underground Tube Diary - Going Underground's Blog. There is a new ad campaign from Flora "Could you walk it quicker?" which suggests people should walk between locations that are close together for their heart. Of course, it would also relieve transit congestion, if taken up, as many stations are really quite close, especially after you consider the underground access costs, the closeness is shown on the maps at Shortwalk.blog. It points out the great distortions caused by the standard tube map based on the design by Harry Beck, which makes some close things seem far and some far things seem close.

Posted by David Levinson at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Great Britain doesn't have an Americans with Disabilities Act. Now, you may say, why would Britain care about Americans with Disabilities. What I mean by this are that conditions for those with disabilities in Britain seem much harsher than in the US. In particular, I will note the public transport system, especially the rail system.

To be clear, Britain does have a
Disability Discrimination Act of 1995. It is just that the requirements that are made of extant systems are much more modest than the US.

The reason I note this is not, fortunately, because anyone in my household is physically disabled, rather because as I and my wife take our 2 year old son out in a stroller, we notice problems that just don't appear in the US. In part this is because we don't use public transport much in the US, but if we were to use rail transport, there would be an elevator to get to the platform at every station. Even where it would not be difficult to provide a ramp, a short staircase is often the only alternative. Sometimes, a long staircase is required, leading to the stroller carry (which is easier than unbuckling and rebuckling, especially if our son is sleeping).

A quick review of the TfL Underground map shows the extent of the problem, only stations with the wheelchair have lifts or are level with the ground.

One could argue this is about economic efficiency, retrofitting hundreds of stations would be expensive. But the relevant value here is not efficiency but equity and inclusion, if economic efficiency were the criteria, one would make almost no accomodations for the disabled.

This is one more case where the buses beat the trains. Buses are a short enough step that manipulating a stroller is not too difficult. They also have better accomodation for wheelchairs than trains, though in four months here, I have only seen one wheelchair on a bus.

"Barely hospitable" is the phrase my wife uses to describe London. Many Underground patrons are quite helpful in lifting one end of the stroller while one of us has the other, it is the infrastructure that is not designed for anyone who who is not fully mobile.

Most of the sidewalks do have curb cuts, though the rough surfaces make wheeling along them less than optimal, but not impossible.

Finally, one must ask about the omnipresent urban slogan: "Mind the Gap". Why can't trains and platforms be level? London has had over a century to get this right on even the deep-tube lines. I understand that the trains in the deep-tubes (e.g. Bakerloo, Piccadilly, Northern) differ from those on the older (e.g. Metropolitan, District, Hamersmith & City) lines, but how hard could it be to make the stations level with the trains they do serve, to minimize if not eliminate the gap. For all of the human energy devoted to installing Mind the Gap signs and making the everpresent announcements, rectifying the original problem would have been warranted, and probably less expensive.

Posted by David Levinson at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

A nice blog post (via The Transport Blog): The Oyster Gotcha - Software Reality on some of the other problems with London's Oyster card system. As wonderful as it is, it is a user interface problem par excellance.

Posted by David Levinson at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One day, while swiping my Oyster card on the reader at a tube station I got the "See attendant" message. The gate remained open.

Am I
A) supposed to go through and ignore the message
B) go through and then find the attendant
C) not go through and back out of the line and find the attendant?

How will this affect "don't touch in and you will pay the maximum fare"?

In the course of events I backed out and the attendent told me to go through and ignore the message. I have no clue as to whether I was charged £1.50 or £4.00 for the journey.

Posted by David Levinson at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Weather Forecast is not looking good.

Heathrow is near closure, and it is colder than Minnesota right now, and English people who wish to leave the Blessed Isles for the holiday are potentially trapped.

Posted by David Levinson at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Security is the enemy of efficiency". I don't know if anyone has said it before, but it has become clear to me that the primary outcome of most security systems is to make my (and others') life less productive. Whether I am safer as a result I have no evidence to produce.

Continue reading "Security is the enemy of efficiency, or attention is a scarce resource" »

Posted by David Levinson at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"If you don't touch in and touch out with your Oyster card, you will be charged the maximum fare". This is the new rule implemented by TfL in November 2006 to ensure that people are paying the correct fare on the UndergrounD.

I have inadvertantly validated that they do in fact charge the maximum fare, returning home one day last month, all of the turnstiles at the South Kensington station were marked with a big red X and were open. Not sure how to touch in (I actually DID touch the Oyster card to the reader, but it wasn't read, due to the thing causing the big red X), I, along with hundreds or thousands of others walked through. Touching out at Putney Bridge, I saw a £4.00 deduction rather than the normal £2.00. So I paid £2.00 for science. It is not worth my time to complain to TfL (though worth it to blog about)

The problem with this system is that it assumes the system is perfect. Now this is TfL's UndergrounD, we know quite well the system is far from perfect, my estimate is that a given line has problems between 10% and 20% of the time.

The turnstiles have many of the same maintenance issue writ small. The reader can be down, even when it is up, there is no visual feedback that your card was read on many readers (the light/LED behind the green "Enter" sign is out), and the auditory feedback is impossible to detect in a crowded, noisy station. When I exit, Putney Bridge's turnstile tells me how much is left, not all turnstiles do. When I enter or exit at South Kensington, the gates are open from the previous person who touched in or paid by ticked.

Another problem is the maximum fare rule. If I have already spent a lot on public transport today, or if I have an unlimited use pass, touching in and out really don't matter (I assume, I have not tested this).

Is there a better solution? Clearly charging the minimum fare would encourage abuse.

Comparison with the same users daily travel patterns could be used to detect anomolies, but creates its own difficulties, and does not guarantee fairness as people may change patterns from day to day.

A single flat fare (as on buses) would avoid this problem, but would of course favor long over short trips. It also defeats the whole point of having smart cards, since a much simpler technology could be used to collect money.

A more reliabile ticketing/turnstile system would help, but may also slow down travelers (closing the gate quickly after a passenger goes through, delaying the next passenger as the gate must reopen). This is of course the better solution.

Posted by David Levinson at 02:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Variable Message Signs (VMS) are intended to provided information to travelers on roads (how long to nearby destinations, warning of an accident, there is an Amber Alert, please run a car with license plate XXX YYY off the road). In London they are used on underground and National Rail trains and at selected bus stops with the Countdown system installed.

I wish they were accurate.

Continue reading "VMS: Variably-reliable Misinformation Signs" »

Posted by David Levinson at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the previous entry "On 'A Streetcar Named Development'", I noted 'The more important concern is revealed by the closing quote from Teresa Wernecke, director of the Downtown Minneapolis Transportation Management Organization. '“With rail, you know where you’re going,” Wernecke said.'

I am here to tell you, that in London, on rail, you don't know where you are going. Yesterday, returning home from Imperial College on the District Line, I boarded the Wimbledon-bound train at the South Kensington Station. The District Line roughly forms an 3--C Shaped network (all distorted though), The Edgware Road branch and the City branch come together at Earl's Court (the two branches of the "C"), and then lines split again for Wimbledon, Richmond, and Ealing (the three prongs of the the "3").

Well, before the train reaches Gloucester Road station, the conductor announces the train has been redirected to Ealing Broadway, and all passengers bound for Wimbledon (or points in-between) needed to change trains at Earl's Court.

While this is not a big deal, walking from one train on the platform to another across the platform, it created a lot of confusion. Native Londoners were asking me (a newbie) what was going on.

Those dynamically rerouting the trains had a good reason for this (another Wimbledon-bound train was already at the Earl's Court platform, one for Ealing must have been held up somewhere upstream), trying to balance service or flow of trains.

If this had only happened once, one might say, "that's strange". But in two months of semi-regular commuting this is the third time this has happened. I missed the announcement once and had to backtrack. This does not happen with buses.

The point is that (A) when you have a complicated system, this creates opportunities to dynamically reroute (on a single line system, the exercise would be meaningless), and (B) there is not something inherently more secure or informative about rail over bus, and may be found more on rail than on buses (I have yet to be on a bus which suddenly changed which route it was traveling on).

Posted by David Levinson at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this week's Downtown Journal Online, an article "A Streetcar Named Development" discusses the potential for streetcars for Minneapolis.

Streetcars would be the third distinct rail technology that the Twin Cities would have introduced in the course of a decade, following LRT and commuter rail, and of course bus remains. This technology proliferation is one of several issues that has been inadequately addressed. The greater the number of distinct technologies used, the lower the economies of scale that can be achieved with any one of them. While they serve somewhat different markets, they also serve overlapping markets, yet no consideration was given to using technology A in market B.

The more important concern is revealed by the closing quote from Teresa Wernecke, director of the Downtown Minneapolis Transportation Management Organization. '“With rail, you know where you’re going,” Wernecke said.' The implication is that with bus you don't. Why should that be?

The answer is the under-investment in buses over the past 50 years, in particular the lack of signage. Staff I have spoken with at the Metropolitan Council seem to think it would be too expensive to have simple signs which actually told you what bus stopped where and when (since the schedules apparently change). But it is not too expensive to deploy 3 new rail systems to make up for the institutional inadequecies of Metro Transit's bus operations.

To illustrate, compare this typical bus stop sign from Minneapolis

With this one from London

While this sign certainly does not solely explain London's higher transit ridership, it helps considerably. The F helps orient you from which stop (among many), which are all shown on a map. The sign tells you where you are and where the buses go, and which buses go there. The schedule shows you the frequency (or schedule) of buses. Further there are maps at every stop, along with schedules.

It might surprise people to know, but bus mode share in London (18%) is as high as Underground and Surface Rail combined (17%) according to Transport for London.

Other factors include traveler information, designated bus lanes, frequent shelters, etc. But underlying this is the attitude that buses should be given full support as a transit mode.

It is too bad Minneapolis is choosing to throw money at streetcars at $30 million per mile and provide no additional service rather than using those scarce resources to create a world-class bus system.

-- dml

Posted by David Levinson at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In an article from Spiegel Online:Controlled Chaos: European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs Hans Monderman was able to get some press again for his idea of eliminating traffic signs.

The idea is this, eliminating signs forces drivers to be more careful, and therefore safer (they are less likely to hit someone). It also makes them slower, and therefore safer (they do less damage once they hit someone).

This is an interesting notion perhaps appropriate in some contexts (the street in front of my house e.g.). I do not believe it is a universally-applicable notion however (and I am not claiming Monderman does either).

The hierarchy of roads serves two purposes. One is access to land. I need a street in front of my property to get to and from my property (otherwise I am landlocked and require aircraft, tunnels, or boats). This street in residential areas is designed to be relatively slow moving, allowing travelers to reach their final destination (or leave their origin).

The second purpose is movement, I want to be able to go long distances between places at a low cost (time, money, etc.), and roads (e.g. highways) are important for this as well. Roads designed exclusively for this purpose include interstate highways, which are grade-separated and limited access.

The problem lies especially in roads that serve dual purposes, where non-locals want to move quickly, while locals want people to move slowly (or better yet, not at all except for the locals). Managing these roads requires especially creative solutions that are in many cases.

However, one needs to think about what problems traffic controls solved in the first place, why were they invented and deployed. A congested intersection without control, or with stop sign control, moves many fewer people per hour than one with traffic lights. If your objective is moving people, this is an important consideration.

Interestingly his ideas are supported both by liberatarians

as well as greens

Posted by David Levinson at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, Apple Computer announced a slew of new products, among them iTunes 7. A key feature of this piece of software is its new user interface, dubbed "CoverFlow", discussed in this article: Wired News: New UI Showdown: Apple vs. TiVo. You do need to see it to fully understand it, and it is quite a slick way to navigate a music database.

Why am I talking about music databases and album art in a blog about transportation? I think cities are much like databases, and buildings like album covers. We navigate spatially and visually. Cities without redeeming art, architecture or natural landmarks are unpleasant. Not merely because they lack "charm" and the buildings are individually dull, but because of their collective undifferentiatedness, which creates difficulties for navigating (especially if they also lack some spatial regularity like a comprehensible grid network) and spatially locating oneself. Being lost (both not knowing where you are and not knowing either how you got there or how you will get to where you are going) brings a strong sense of unease that creates frustration if not hostility to the place you are lost at.

Cities need the equivalent of album art so that people can explore them. The nature of this art changes if you are walking, biking, taking transit, or driving, as you view it at different speeds and different resolutions.

Skylines have value, more than the simple value to the owner of the individual building. (In economic terms, they provide some positive externality, collectively exhibiting a network effect where the whole is larger than the sum of the individual parts. Measuring this is of course difficult.)

When I am driving around, and see the skyline in the distance from a particular angle, I instantly know what direction I am going. While some of these benefits may be obviated with in-vehicle navigation, the certainty of physical structure outweighs the digital outputs of a machine.

I recall as a freshman at Georgia Tech, taking a night course, leaving some classroom building for the first time out of a door different from where I entered and being completely turned around, until eventually I located the Coca-Cola headquarters building (just southwest of campus). While I still didn't know exactly where I was, I could figure out where I was going.

Posted by David Levinson at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From today's Pioneer Press St. Paul Pioneer Press | 06/14/2006 | Good fences, good neighbors?. The article says " ... America is looking more like Capetown every day. USA Today reported that 40 percent of new homes in California are in gated communities. About 6 percent of America's households are now behind walls and fences."

Continue reading "Good gates?" »

Posted by David Levinson at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting article on the history and present state of traffic control, focusing on LA: Cabinet Magazine Online - Blocking All Lanes

-- dml

Posted by David Levinson at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For your amusement: Boing Boing: Having fun with roadside alert signs

Posted by David Levinson at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whether entering a city for the first time, or entering it for the five-thousandth, a traveler interacts with the environment to obtain cues. A first time traveler is very concerned about issues of navigation … where should I go? … how should I get there?, while the experienced resident may rely on memory and history to make those same decisions. Yet in complex cities, there are many places even the most experienced residents may never have explored, there are paths untaken, and like Heraclitus’ River, you never really step into the same city twice.

Continue reading "The Urban Interface, some initial musings" »

Posted by David Levinson at 07:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)