Transportation In The Lower Mainland

I can’t think of the last time I used a blog post simply to point to another blog, but if you have any interest in transportation policy that affects Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, it is impossible to miss Stephen Ree’s blog.  I don’t always agree with everything written, of course, but everything that is written is composed carefully and with a keen understanding of the issues involved.  Don’t miss it!

Why Does Transit Set Mothers Against Seniors?

I am a big booster for transit in Vancouver. I haven’t had a car for twenty years and have relied upon transit almost every day. I happen to think that the public transportation system in Vancouver is pretty good; it certainly works for me and gets me efficiently where I want to go. But there are issues, and the biggest for me right now is a manufactured dispute between seniors and mothers.

Every bus in the system has a section near the front that is designated for wheelchairs, seniors, those with disabilities, and mothers with strollers and infants. It seems logical to me that priority should go to wheelchairs and there is rarely an issue with that. The next priority should surely go to those seniors with disabilities, who find it difficult to stand for any length of time. But no: I have on so many occasions seen drivers force elderly crippled people to stand up and make way for some fit young mother with a stroller and a baby. That cannot be right, and yet most mothers take it as an entitlement.

On the occasions when I have questioned drivers about it I have been told either that stroller priority is company policy, or that I should mind my own business. Ridiculous! I have finally written to the company to find out directly what their policy is. I will let you know. In the meanwhile, I’ll continue to steam about all this.

Update: Transit wrote back very quickly — I guess I wasn’t the first to ask.

Thank you for your recent feedback and inquiry. The priority seating goes in the following order.

1. People using wheelchairs or scooters
2. Persons with disabilities and seniors
3. Children in strollers

But will they tell the drivers?

Fast Train To China

Forget the slow boat: the Chinese are planning to build a rail network that will have passengers traveling from London to Beijing in just two days!  The following is from the Daily Telegraph:

China is in negotiations to build a high-speed rail network to India and Europe with trains that capable of running at over 200mph within the next ten years.   The network would eventually carry passengers from London to Beijing and then to Singapore.  It would also run to India and Pakistan … A second project would see trains heading north through Russia to Germany and into the European railway system, and a third line will extend south to connect Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.

Passengers could board a train in London and step off in Beijing, 5,070 miles away as the crow flies, in just two days. They could go on to Singapore, 6,750 miles away, within three days.  “We are aiming for the trains to run almost as fast as aeroplanes,” said Mr Wang. “The best case scenario is that the three networks will be completed in a decade,” he added.

Wow!  And they seem to be very serious:

China is in the middle of a £480 billion domestic railway expansion project that aims to build nearly 19,000 miles of new railways in the next five years, connecting up all of its major cities with high-speed lines. The world’s fastest train, the Harmony Express which has a top speed of nearly 250mph, was unveiled at the end of last year, between the cities of Wuhan and Guangzhou. Wholly Chinese-built, but using technology from Siemens and Kawasaki, the Harmony Express can cover 660 miles, the equivalent of a journey from London to Edinburgh and back, in just three hours.

Book me on the opening train!

What Recession?

This baby is the 2011 Bentley Mulsanne, with a list price of $285,000 (not including taxes and delivery).  I would be happy to pick one up when I’m next out shopping but there are so many choices to make — 114 paint colors to choose from, 21 carpet colors, nine wood veneers and 24 leather hides — that it hurts my head.  I’ll just stick to that red and white 96-seater bus I’m used to.

Recycling Buses

In Atlanta, they have recycled three old city buses to create a cool bus shelter:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the seat is from one of the de-commissioned buses.   Great idea!

This is from SpaceInvading via coolboom.

Ridding Ourselves Of Cars

Low-Tech magazine looks at bicycles this week, and concludes that cars have to go.  Boy, I couldn’t agree more.

The problem is not that there is a lack of good roads – enough of these exist to bike from here to Mars and beyond. The main problem is that these are occupied by automobiles that are not only dangerous but also very inefficient both in terms of energy use and floor space.We don’t need any new infrastructure, what we need is to clear the existing infrastructure of inefficient vehicles and replace them with efficient ones. In other words: give all streets, highways, cloverleaves and motorways exclusively to bicycles and all other human powered wheeled vehicles. Get rid of cars. Why make things so complicated if the solution is so simple?

How could we live without cars, I hear those trapped in skepticism say.  The answer is clear:

Picture this for a second. If cars are gone, we are left with pedestrians (on the sidewalk), pedal powered vehicles (one part of the streets and the highways) and public transportation (another part of the streets and the highways, separated from pedal powered traffic, or underground) … For long distance passenger transport, we have trains. For long distance cargo transport, trains again. Short distance cargo transport could see the revival of cargo trams (streetcars). Electric vehicles could be a part of the solution, too, both for cargo transport and for the disabled, provided they keep the same speed as bicycle traffic.

The whole article is well worth the read, and the possibilities should be lightly discarded.

 

We need a new phrase ….

Why do they call it “rush hour” when all the cars are standing still?

Global Travellers

The crash of an Air France jet into the Atlantic this morning is, of course, a terrible tragedy for all involved.  However, the passenger list provides an interesting view of travel today.

Back when explorers were like astronauts, heading out into the complete unknown in tiny ships, they gathered their crews from wherever they could get them.  They were often a polyglot collection of old salts from around the known world.  But each voyage was special, an event.

Today’s flight was just an everyday occurrence, something that happens on a regular schedule.  Nothing special.  And yet the collection of passengers’ nationalities included nearly every continent.  There were two Americans, an Argentinean, an Austrian, a Belgian, 58 Brazilians, five British, a Canadian, nine Chinese, a Croatian, a Dane, a Dutch, an Estonian, a Filipino, 61 French, a Gambian, 26 Germans, four Hungarians, three Irish, one Icelandic, nine Italians, five Lebanese, two Moroccans, three Norwegians, two Polish, one Romanian, one Russian, three Slovakian, two Spanish, one Swedish, six Swiss and one Turk.

The global village meme is ever more true.

Sic Transit

I have on a number of occasions in this space praised Vancouver’s transit system.  However, one item that seems to be becoming established policy is just setting my teeth on edge.

The seats near the front of the bus are designated for various groups of people — wheelchair users, others with mobility problems, seniors, and those with baby strollers.   The notices as written put these groups in the order I have listed them, presumably establishing some sort of priority.    I certainly have no problems with wheelchair riders.  Good for them to be able to get around.  However, on more than one recent commute, I have seen seniors and others with mobility problems (carrying canes, crutches, etc) forced to move because a parent with a stroller wanted to get on and use that space.

Hold on folks, that just isn’t right.  What is even less right is the entitlement these parents seem to assume by their manner, as if they and their children were somehow more worthy or important than the seniors and others involved.  The attitude of most (though not all) drivers is to accept the strollers’ rights and to assist them shooing the seniors out of their seats.

I urge Coast Mountain Bus Lines to make a definitive statement that seniors and those who are mobility-challenged do NOT have to move when a stroller tries to gain access.  And I further urge them to train their drivers in dealing respectfully with the rights of these groups.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy!

In a clear victory for free speech and secularism, the Atheist Bus Campaign raised more than $150,000 in just four days.  Yesterday, they unveiled their message on the side of 800 buses across Britain.

Next week, the campaign will put up 1,000 posters on the London Underground system with similar messages.

An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one … But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said. “So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a gray area,” he said.

Good old England!

Bravo Vancouver Transit!

As regular visitors will be aware, I am a serious booster for our city’s transit system.  It is one of the finest systems that it has ever been my privilege to patronize.  Having given up my car in 1991, and thus been a daily transit user for almost twenty years, I believe I know whereof I speak. Now, my faith in the system and its workers has been more than vindicated.

A few days before Christmas I went shopping downtown and on the Drive.  By the end of the day, I had a raft of packages that I was manhandling.  I got them all home safe, only to discover that my shoulder pouch had gone missing.  The pouch was worth just a buck or two, but it held my expensive and well-loved camera, my new expensive sunglasses, and my asthma inhaler.

On the days we haven’t been completely snowed in, I have made efforts to visit every store I visited that day to ask if I left my bag there.  No luck.   However, this morning we phoned Transit Lost & Found and, lo and behold, the pouch was there – and with all its contents!  It had been turned in by the driver (operator #50164:  if you ever see him or her, give them a pat on the back).

Can’t beat that for good service and honest workers!  Thanks to them all!

How Will We Die?

I was drawn to the World Health Organization’s recently published “The Global Burden of Disease:  2004 Update” through David Kenner’s review article in Foreign Policy.    The WHO’s report is a snapshot of the world’s health as of 2004.  From that, “using projections of economic growth and advances in medical treatment”, they extrapolate the leading causes of death in 2030.

It is interesting to me that the three causes expected to kill more people (heart disease, lung disease and traffic accidents) are each deaths by consumer choice in the use of fatty foods, tobacco, and automobiles.

I was surprised to see that tobacco consumption is expected to rise.  But then again, it is reasonable that developing nations should buckle under the full weight of tobacco advertising just as we did.  It is a pity that they can’t seem to skip that bit of our experience.  But Big Tobacco can make the stuff for as little as it needs to keep the wholesale price low, and governments quickly become addicted to the tobacco sales taxes they collect.  The guy on the street hardly stands a chance.

A final thought:  when you add up the cost of the world’s military, the tobacco and road transportation industries, and the unhealthy parts of agribusiness, it quickly becomes apparent that modern capitalism is in large part an economy of death.  I’m certain that is something we could change if we really wanted to.

What Detroit Needs

Stop the presses!  Hold the front page!   I have found the solution to Big Auto’s problems.

I present to you — the renewable, recyclable, no-gasoline motor:

With a $25billion loan from the American taxpayer, Ford, GM and Chrysler could probably corner the global market in suitable cows.

[Thanks to Peter Greenberg for the image]

The Wonders of Advertising Technology

This story is from WCBSTV in New York:

New York’s transit agency is testing digital advertising screens on the sides of buses.  The screens can target ads for specific neighborhoods. The ads, which resemble TV commercials, could even advertise coffee in the morning, and beer after work.  Titan Worldwide has a 10-year, $800 million contract to sell ads throughout the city’s bus and commuter-train systems. The company says GPS technology allows it to change the ads based on the buses’ locations.   The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is testing the system on a Manhattan route, with an eye toward 200 buses in the first quarter of next year.

A Petty Annoyance With Transit

I’m disappointed with the transit’s in-bus ad management.   I was on a 135 express this morning,  the ads facing me were for an AIDS walk on 9/21 and for the 7th annual wedding show on 9/13-14.  As we are now more than a month beyond the latter event, it is disturbing to see these old ads.

It cannot be too difficult to establish a list of date-sensitive ads currently in the system, to maintain the currency of that list, and to remove old ads in a timely fashion based on alerts generated by the list.

If no new paid ads are available to fill the slots, then PSAs, recruitment posters, maps of the route and/or system could be used — anything useful or interesting for the rider to spend some time with.

Finally, I want to congratulate the designer who came up with the concept of the 11 x 35 cardboard card for in-bus advertising.   Cheap and easy to produce and install/replace.  And yet with an area large enough to stretch the skills of the finest designers.

Transit As Piggy Bank

How about this for a lede:

A person can achieve an average savings of $9,499 per year by taking public transportation instead of driving based on yesterday’s gas prices and the average unreserved parking rate according to the American Public Transportation Association’s “Transit Savings Report”.

Almost $10,000 a year!   There’s more:

“As Americans look for ways to tighten the family budget, public transit riders know the cheapest gallon of gasoline is the one you never have to buy,” said William W. Millar, president of APTA.  “This report reminds commuters that taking public transportation is the quickest way to save money from the high cost of commuting by auto or light truck.” The analysis also includes the cost of parking.  On average, according to the 2008 Colliers International Parking Rate Study, the national average for the monthly unreserved parking rate in a city’s downtown business district is $143.  Over the course of a year, parking costs alone can amount to an average of $1,720. In addition to the annual savings, the report calculates the monthly savings for public transit users at $792 per month based on yesterday’s gas price of $3.524 as reported by AAA.

I haven’t owned a car since 1991 and take transit most everyday.  I’m not sure we see these levels of “savings”; but even with our increased use of cabs and a monthly weekend car rental, I know we are well ahead of the car game.  Not to mention the health benefits of walking in the fresh air.

Many will disagree with me, I’m sure, but I think we are lucky of transit in Vancouver.  I travel to the Richmond suburbs every day from Commercial Drive.  A good walk, two express buses, and I’m there, rested and ready to go in about an hour.  During that hour, I can nap or read or listen to music or surf the net.  Hard to beat.

Solar-Powered Bikes

Now this looks like a great idea.

A combined solar-electric and pedal-powered bicycle with zero emissions.  I could go for something like this.  With a range of about 50Km per charge, it would be perfect for commuting across town.

Whistler

I have lived in Vancouver for 29 years and had never visited Whistler.   Most people here would simply gasp at that, but it is true.  We don’t ski or board or ride a mountain bike, and we already get to see a lot of beautiful mountains every day;  so why bother to go to Whistler?

But it was our anniversary this week, we like to give each other experiences rather than things, and they have a train service to the village:  so why not?

In North America, at least, train travel is an expensive proposition; and it is no different on the Whistler Mountaineer.  But it is definitely worth it.  It takes about three hours to get from North Vancouver to Whistler and the train folks treat you well every mile of the way.  The views are spectacular and the train slows or stops for all the major scenic attractions — Porteau Cove, Brandywine Falls, Chickamous Canyon, etc.  The seats are comfortable and the service is good, with the attendants acting both as servers and as knowledgable travel guides.

And then there is Whistler itself.   Built in the style of a classic alpine village, the main part of Whistler is a long and winding pedestrian-only street, generally called the Village Stroll.  Most of the hotels have entrances on the Stroll as do most of the restaurants and stores.   It is pretty enough, and they sure go to some lengths to keep it clean and litter-free.  But to be honest, I didn’t much care for it.

My feeling was that I was in one of those large Vegas hotels, like the Venetian, where the entertainment and facilities are built along faux streets with faux sky ceilings.  Or like Downtown Disney near Orlando, Florida.

The trip in the gondola to the top of the mountain was fun — my wife very bravely fighting back her fear of heights — but it was cold and rainy at the lodge and so the views were limited (being in shorts and a t-shirt didn’t help either!).

One of the great pleasures, though, was the food.  We had dinner at Ric’s Grill and it was superb.   A pleasant room, in chocolate tones, with a mix of booths and free-standing tables, the service was good and the food even better.  I had a Filet Gorgonzola served in a Merlot reduction.  It was served blue as requested and was one of the finest meals it has been my pleasure to enjoy.   My anniversary gal had a seafood mixed grill that she declared to be excellent.

Ric’s also has a separate bar, called the Mix, where breakfast is served.  The classic benedicts were almost as good as the dinner the night before.  Hard to recommend this too highly.

All in all it was well worth the trip (especially the train ride for me) and I know one would get much more out of it if one got into the activities that are available — biking, rafting, trekking, etc — or were young enough to fully appreciate the nightlife and apres-ski atmosphere.  For me, for a relaxing day, I might catch the train in the morning, spend a couple of hours in the Village, and then return on the train in the afternoon.  That would be a treat.

The Market Is Working

Long time readers will know from postings in my earlier incarnations that (a) I don’t much care for cars (having given up my last car back in 1991); and (b) I think Vancouver’s transit system is swell and keeps getting better (I use it every day). I am, therefore, interested in gas prices only in so much as I see higher prices as a fulcrum against which behavioural changes can be leveraged.

And so far, the mechanism of high gas prices seems to have achieved at least one laudable objective. Transit ridership in the US continues to increase at a fast rate — 85 million more trips in the first quarter of 2008 than in the same period last year. They are on track for an annual total in excess of last year’s record 10.2 billion trips.

“There’s no doubt that the high gas prices are motivating people to change their travel behavior,” said American Public Transportation Association president William Millar … In a survey released last month by IBM’s Institute for Electronic Government, a total of 31% of commuters who normally drive to work said they would change their transportation habits if gas were to cross $4 a gallon. IBM also found that a total of 66% of drivers would seek other means of transportation if gas hits $5 a gallon.

I haven’t seen local figures, but anecdotal evidence and personal experience indicates a greater ridership on the buses in Vancouver, too. This is good stuff!

Art Is OK, A Ferrari Is Bizarre

I have written a lot about the high price of art these days — $33 million here, $50 million there, another $86 million some place else. And I can just about understand it all. But $11 million for a car? That is very strange to me.

It is true that I have a negative relationship with cars, and haven’t owned one for more than 16 years. But even so. Doesn’t it seem truly bizarre to you that someone would put down $10,894,900 for a 1961 Ferrari California Spyder. Other than having been owned previously by actor James Coburn, the car isn’t even unique; fifty-five others were also built.

A $50 million painting can do exactly what it was designed to do — hang on a wall and give aesthetic enjoyment. But an $11 million car cannot be driven the way it was engineered to perform; it can just sit in a multi-car garage and look pretty (if you like that sort of thing).

OK, OK, I accept that some folks would consider the Spyder a form of art. Fair enough. I still think it is damned odd, though.