Transportation
@article{pasion2024visionzero,
Author={Pasion, Nicholas},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/nyregion/street-wars-crowded-sidewalks-times-square.html},
Title={https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/nyregion/street-wars-crowded-sidewalks-times-square.html},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2024-07-29},
comment={Finland had got the number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths down to nearly zero in some of their larger cities (ala “vision zero”, they had no deaths in Helzinki in 2019, and only one or two per year since then.) This was achieved by mainly by reducing vehicle speed: roads narrowed to 11 feet, the speed limit lowered to 18mph. They also investigate each death with a whole team and then making changes based on the investigation’s findings. (It sounds similar to how airline crashes are investigated in the US.)},
category={Transportation, Criticality, vision zero, finland, helsinki}
}
% Helsinki has a population of 660,000. So an equivalent outcome in NYC would be about 14 deaths per year (far lower than the ~130 we currently have).
% The solution really IS as simple as you are always saying: reduce vehicle speeds by any means necessary. Taking crash investigations seriously also helps.
@article{collins2024bikedeaths,
Author={Collins, Keith},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/nyregion/nyc-cyclist-deaths-ebike.html},
Title={Why Bicycle Deaths in New York City Are at a 23-Year High},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2024-03-05},
comment={The answer is simple: e-bikes (but not delivery guys on e-bikes). Traditional bicycle deaths are lower than ever. The reason might be speed, but might also just be inexperience. (I guess if it were just speed, you would expect a lot of deaths of delivery guys.) It does not appear that the increase in deaths is just an increase in ridership.},
category={Transportation, bicycles, e-bikes, Criticality}
}
@article{dillon2022highwayexpansion,
Author={Dillon, Liam and Poston, Ben},
url={https://www.latimes.com/projects/us-freeway-highway-expansion-black-latino-communities/},
Title={Freeways force out residents in communities of color — again},
journal={Los Angeles Times},
date={2021-11-11},
comment={More than 200,000 people nationwide have lost their homes over the last three decades due to highway expansion. Mostly in communities of color. The expansion of highways continues to displace and divide communities of color. It’s not just an issue from history..},
category={Transportation, Criticality, highways}
}
% And huge new infrastructure funding from the Biden administration is on the way, likely to mostly be used for expanding highways.
@article{streetsblog2022freetransit,
Author={Wilson, Kea},
url={https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/08/23/why-arguments-against-free-transit-are-missing-the-point/},
Title={Why Arguments Against ‘Free Transit’ Are Missing the Point},
journal={Streetsblog},
date={2022-08-23},
comment={Interview with Destiny Thomas, who argues that it should be referred to as ‘environmental racism’ rather than climate change to focus on those most impacted. “ [They’re asking,] ‘what’s the solution that benefits us all at one time?’ As opposed to asking themselves who’s suffering the most, and who’s been suffering the longest.”},
category={Criticality, Urbanism, Transportation, environmental justice}
}
@article{lepore2022bicycle,
Author={Lepore, Jill},
url={https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/30/bicycles-have-evolved-have-we-jody-rosen-two-wheels-good},
Title={Bicycles Have Evolved. Have We?},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2022-05-23},
comment={A good recap of the history of bicycles, including the fact that a human on a bicycle is an even more efficient way of moving than a bird on wings, and that bicycles are by far the most common form of transportation on Earth. In 1899, 1.2 million bicycles were sold in the United States. Henry Ford’s Model T made its début in 1908. Also covers the bike-booms of the 1880s, the 1970s, and the 2020s.},
category={Transportation, bicycles}
}
% Nothing here that is news to bike nerds, but it’s a good, concise collection in one place of many of the more profound arguments for bikes that the general public is entirely unaware of.
% Not sure why this lady has been hit by cars so many times.
@techreport{NBERw15376,
title = “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities”,
author = “Duranton, Gilles and Turner, Matthew A”,
institution = “National Bureau of Economic Research”,
type = “Working Paper”,
series = “Working Paper Series”,
number = “15376”,
year = “2009”,
month = “September”,
doi = {10.3386/w15376},
URL = “http://www.nber.org/papers/w15376”,
abstract = {We investigate the relationship between interstate highways and highway vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) in US cities. We find that VKT increases proportionately to highways and identify three important sources for this extra VKT: an increase in driving by current residents; an increase in transportation intensive production activity; and an inflow of new residents. The provision of public transportation has no impact on VKT. We also estimate the aggregate city level demand for VKT and find it to be very elastic. We conclude that an increased provision of roads or public transit is unlikely to relieve congestion.},
comment = “Finds that people drive more if there are more roads available. Also finds that public transit is NOT a solution to this problem because more people riding trains just induces more people to drive on the emptier roads.”,
category = “Trasportation, Criticality, induced demand, highways, public transportation”
}
% Pdf: \url{https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w15376/w15376.pdf}
% See also this article: \url{https://www.governing.com/now/why-the-concept-of-induced-demand-is-a-hard-sell}
% Which also covers the fact that induced demand seems to be a concept that is nearly unteachable because it is so counterintuitive.
@article{harris2021etrucks,
Author={Harris, Danny},
url={https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-07/electric-trucks-won-t-save-us?srnd=citylab&mc_cid=31a7414f90&mc_eid=48da9d8c97},
Title={The Problem With Electric Trucks},
journal={Bloomberg City lab},
date={2021-10-07},
comment={Electric trucks produce fewer emissions, but are much heavier, more powerful, and deadly than their conventional engine counterparts. “the leading cause of death for children and young people around the world. In the U.S., Black and Indigenous people are especially likely to be killed in traffic crashes, as are older adults and bicyclists.” The most bloated recent version of the electric Hummer weighs nearly 10,000 pounds. It’s too heavy by 50 percent to cross the brooklyn bridge. The average weight of vehicles involved in fatal crashes increased by 11 percent in the last 20 years. The Ford F-150 Lightning weighs 35 percent more than the gas-powered version.},
category={Criticality, Transportation, electric vehicles, pickup trucks, suvs}
}
% The problem, of course, isn’t the availability of these things, it’s the popularity. If it were just a small niche of enthusiasts who wanted a big vehicle, would it really matter? But when the F150 continues to be the most popular vehicle in the country, when SUVs just get bigger and more popular (and less and less used off-road), and when there is no longer the check of gas prices on keeping the size of vehicles down, then these become extremely troubling trends.
@article{mele2021sirens,
Author={Mele, Christopher},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/sirens-noise-ambulances-fire-department-police.html},
Title={Sirens: Loud, Ineffective and Risky, Experts Say},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2021-10-19},
comment={Sirens on emergency vehicles cause more injuries than they prevent. The time difference between using a siren and not was found to be 26 seconds. In modern medicine, only a small percentage of trips require as-fast-as-possible delivery to the hospital. Emergency drivers are more likely to use risky behavior with sirens on. Basically the only reason to use sirens is in rural areas because seeing emergency vehicles “running hot” helps recruit volunteers to volunteer emergency services.},
category={Transportation, Criticality, emergency vehicles, sirens, fire department, police, ambulances}
}
@article{tabuchi2021jetfuel,
Author={Tabuchi, Hiroko},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/climate/sustainable-jet-fuel-biden.html},
Title={Biden Outlines a Plan for Cleaner Jet Fuel. But How Clean Would It Be?},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2021-09-13},
comment={Bio-fuels, when the full life-cycle of creating them, have been well-documented as creating just as much greenhouse gas as fossil fuels. Electrification is not a serious option for airplanes. There is no real solution except to fly much less.},
category={Transportation, Criticality, air travel, airplanes, jet fuel}
}
% There is no future for air travel if we ever take climate change seriously.
% There is simply no way to push a plane through the air without using massive amounts of power.
% There’s no magic way to beat that.
@article{dreilinger2005horsebike,
Author={Dreilinger, Danielle},
url={http://archive.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/04/10/the_headless_horsebike_of_inman_street/},
Title={The headless horsebike of Inman Street},
journal={Boston.com},
date={2005-04-10},
comment={The story published about the stolen head of the horse costume that Gideon made for Vertigo when it was locked in front of our house.},
category={Transportation, bicycles, choppers, vertigo, boston, costumes}
}
@article{karasz2019garfield,
Author={Karasz, Palko},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/world/europe/garfield-phones-france.htjl},
Title={Why Do Garfield Phones Keep Washing Up on This Beach?},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2019-03-29},
comment={Like the classic story of the rubber ducks washing up in Europe, for decades plastic orange Garfield phones have been washing up on the shores of Brittany in France. The source was discovered recently to be a shipping container lodged in a sea cave that is underwater most of the time.},
category={Transportation, plastic, containers, shipping, shipping containers, garfield, phones}
}
@article{nieves2018rocketparts,
Author={Nieves, Evelyn},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/lens/space-rocket-parts-russia-towns.html},
Title={Remote Russians Recycle Rocket Wreckage},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2018-09-26},
comment={In the remote sub-arctic part of the Russian tundra, Russians find and scavenge rocket parts that fall back to earth from launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.},
category={Transportation, space, rockets, arctic, russia}
}
% This is maybe the closest thing to a real life Zone from Stalker that I’ve ever heard of!
@article{primus2018parking,
Author={Primus, Jay},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/opinion/primus_nyc-traffic-congestion-parking.html},
Title={A Better Way to Get New York’s Traffic Moving},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2018-09-19},
comment={Argues that some of NYC’s traffic congestion can be moderated by implementing parking fees that are by-the-hour, increased taxes on parking, and discounts for parking during off-peak hours. The sum goal is to reduce traffic congestion by making parking more expensive.},
category={Transportation, economics, traffic, parking, congestion pricing}
}
@article{robinet2018delivereros,
Author={Robinet, Fabrice},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/nyregion/the-dangerous-lives-of-the-citys-delivereros.html},
Title={‘I’ve Seen Too Many Accidents’: The Perils of Deliverymen},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2018-08-17},
comment={On the risks of immigrant delivery guys in NYC. Points out that they are largely a “faceless” job. Interestingly, recent high-profile deportations of immigrants has raised awareness of how dangerous this job is, whereas they were largely ignored before. Also, they like heavy metal.},
category={Transportation, bicycles, delivery guys, nyc}
}
@techreport{NBERw24644,
title = “Do ‘All-Age’ Bicycle Helmet Laws Work? Evidence from Canada”,
author = “Christopher S. Carpenter and Casey Warman”,
institution = “National Bureau of Economic Research”,
type = “Working Paper”,
series = “Working Paper Series”,
number = “24644”,
year = “2018”,
month = “May”,
doi = {10.3386/w24644},
URL = “http://www.nber.org/papers/w24644”,
abstract = {Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia require youths to wear helmets when riding a bicycle, and there has been a push to extend such laws to adults. We provide new evidence on helmet laws by studying Canada using difference-in-differences models and restricted area-identified public health survey data with information on cycling and helmet use for nearly 800,000 individuals from 1994-2014. We first confirm prior patterns from the US that laws requiring youths to wear helmets significantly increased youth helmet use. We then provide the literature’s first comprehensive evidence that ‘all-age’ bicycle helmet laws significantly increased both adult and youth helmet use by 50 to 190 percent relative to pre-reform levels, with larger effects for younger adults, and less-educated adults. All-age helmet laws had modest effects at reducing cycling and increasing in-home exercise during winter months among adults but did not meaningfully affect weight. Finally, we find larger effects of helmet laws at increasing helmet use for adults with children in the household, consistent with role-modeling behavior. Overall our findings confirm that all-age helmet laws can be effective at increasing population helmet use without significant unintended adverse health consequences.},
comment = {Finds that all-ages helmet laws increases helmet use. Does NOT find that increased helmet use actually leads to fewer accidents (see Teschkee008052) - at least not in the abstract (since I don’t have access to the full article). Also finds a “modest” decrease in cycling because of mandatory helmet requirements - whatever that means },
category = {Transportation, bicycles, helmets}
}
% This just SMELLS like bad policy science. They went into this study expecting to find the result they got, is my guess.
% Compare to the really good policy science indicated by Teschkee008052, where the goal was not to merely show a way to increase helmet use (and assume helmets are a good thing) but to find in bigger terms how to make cyclists SAFER. (Turns out, helmets are not one of those things.)
@article {Teschkee008052,
author = {Teschke, Kay and Koehoorn, Mieke and Shen, Hui and Dennis, Jessica},
title = {Bicycling injury hospitalisation rates in Canadian jurisdictions: analyses examining associations with helmet legislation and mode share},
volume = {5},
number = {11},
year = {2015},
doi = {10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008052},
publisher = {British Medical Journal Publishing Group},
abstract = {Objectives The purpose of this study was to calculate exposure-based bicycling hospitalisation rates in Canadian jurisdictions with different helmet legislation and bicycling mode shares, and to examine whether the rates were related to these differences.Methods Administrative data on hospital stays for bicycling injuries to 10 body region groups and national survey data on bicycling trips were used to calculate hospitalisation rates. Rates were calculated for 44 sex, age and jurisdiction strata for all injury causes and 22 age and jurisdiction strata for traffic-related injury causes. Inferential analyses examined associations between hospitalisation rates and sex, age group, helmet legislation and bicycling mode share.Results In Canada, over the study period 2006{\textendash}2011, there was an average of 3690 hospitalisations per year and an estimated 593 million annual trips by bicycle among people 12 years of age and older, for a cycling hospitalisation rate of 622 per 100 million trips (95% CI 611 to 633). Hospitalisation rates varied substantially across the jurisdiction, age and sex strata, but only two characteristics explained this variability. For all injury causes, sex was associated with hospitalisation rates; females had rates consistently lower than males. For traffic-related injury causes, higher cycling mode share was consistently associated with lower hospitalisation rates. Helmet legislation was not associated with hospitalisation rates for brain, head, scalp, skull, face or neck injuries.Conclusions These results suggest that transportation and health policymakers who aim to reduce bicycling injury rates in the population should focus on factors related to increased cycling mode share and female cycling choices. Bicycling routes designed to be physically separated from traffic or along quiet streets fit both these criteria and are associated with lower relative risks of injury.},
issn = {2044-6055},
URL = {http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/11/e008052},
eprint = {http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/11/e008052.full.pdf},
journal = {BMJ Open},
comment = {Careful study in Canada comparing hospitalization in helmet-required provinces against those without requirements. Finds no difference in requiring helmets. Reinforces the now widely-held notion that increasing cycling is the best way to make cyclists safer, not helmets.},
category = {Transportation, bicycles, helmets}
}
@article{polgreen2004kryptonitelocks,
Author={Polgreen, Lydia},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/nyregion/the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-lock.html},
Title={The Pen Is Mightier Than the Lock},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2004-09-17},
comment={The Times’ reporting on the great Kryptonite Bic Pen lock scare of ’04. Featuring quotes from Noah Budnick of Transportation Alternatives.},
category={Transportation, bicycles, bic pens, bike locks, kryptonite locks, transportation alternatives}
}
% Still waiting for the New Yorker type article that talks about the odd confluence of mass produced products — all that STUFF in our lives — that ends with one of the most common household items undermining a fundamental security tool.
@article{doi:10.1080/23249935.2018.1427814,
author = {Dangaia Sims and Stephen A. Matthews and Melissa J. Bopp and Liza S. Rovniak and Erika Poole},
title = {Predicting discordance between perceived and estimated walk and bike times among university faculty, staff, and students},
journal = {Transportmetrica A: Transport Science},
volume = {0},
number = {0},
pages = {1-15},
year = {2018},
publisher = {Taylor & Francis},
doi = {10.1080/23249935.2018.1427814},
URL = {https://doi.org/10.1080/23249935.2018.1427814},
eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/23249935.2018.1427814}
comment = {Study suggesting that people far overestimate how long it would take them to walk or ride a bicycle to work instead of driving.},
category = {Transportation, active commute, walking, bicycling, commuting}
}
@article{MCCORMICK1986205,
title = {Comparative perceptions of driver ability— A confirmation and expansion},
journal = {Accident Analysis & Prevention},
volume = {18},
number = {3},
pages = {205 - 208},
year = {1986},
issn = {0001-4575},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(86)90004-7},
url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001457586900047},
author = {Iain A. McCormick and Frank H. Walkey and Dianne E. Green},
comment = {The classic study that found that 80 percent of drivers think they are above average. People tend to overestimate their skills at something.},
category = {Transportation, driving, Criticality}
}
% They overestimate their skills - until they become experts. And then they assume everyone is as good as they are and start to underestimate their skills - imposter syndrome.
@article{yee2014verrazano,
Author={Yee, Vivian},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/nyregion/as-verrazano-bridge-turns-50-a-myth-about-its-tolls-persists.html},
Title={As Verrazano Bridge Turns 50, a Myth About Its Tolls Persists},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2014-11-21},
comment={The myth that the Verrazano Bridge would be free once the bridge was paid off was in fact a myth. Not record of such an agreement exists. The Triborough Bridge WAS originally supposed to go free once it was paid off, but Robert Moses was generating too much money, and changed that plan.},
category={Transportation, Urbanism, verrazano bridge, triborough bridge, robert moses, tolls}
}
% This article \url{https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/nyregion/verrazano-bridge-toll.html}
% says there are 196,000 crossings of the Verrazano each day. And that the toll of $17 is one
% of the highest in the country (though on par with other NY bridges when considered that it’s one-way.)
@techreport{NBERw24469,
title = “Does Hypercongestion Exist? New Evidence Suggests Not”,
author = “Michael L. Anderson and Lucas W. Davis”,
institution = “National Bureau of Economic Research”,
type = “Working Paper”,
series = “Working Paper Series”,
number = “24469”,
year = “2018”,
month = “March”,
doi = {10.3386/w24469},
URL = “http://www.nber.org/papers/w24469”,
abstract = {Transportation engineers are taught that as demand for travel goes up, this decreases not only speed but also the capacity of the road system, a phenomenon known as hypercongestion. We revisit this idea. There is no question that road systems experience periods in which capacity falls. However, we point out that capacity is determined by both demand and supply. Road construction, lane closures, stalled vehicles, weather, and other supply shocks provide an alternative explanation for the empirical evidence on hypercongestion. Using data from the Caldecott Tunnel in Oakland, California, we show that a naive regression recovers the standard hypercongestion result in the literature. However, once we use instrumental variables to isolate the effect of travel demand this effect disappears and across specifications we find no evidence that capacity decreases during periods of high demand. This lack of evidence of hypercongestion calls into question long-standing conventional wisdom held by transportation engineers and implies that efficient “Pigouvian” congestion taxes should be substantially lower than implied by hypercongestion models.},
category = {Transportation, hypercongestion, traffic},
}
@article{hodes2013pallets,
Author={Hodes, Jacobs},
url={http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/52/hodes.php},
Title={Whitewood under Siege},
journal={Cabinet Magazine},
date={2013},
comment={Tells the history of pallets - how they got made and began being used and distributed by the military after the war, how they evolved into their current form, and how a whole complex market of distribution and recovery developed. And then covers how that market became threatened by an influx of “blue” pallets by a company called CHEP that exploited the market and litigation to try to create a monopoly on pallets. CHEP’s pallets are slightly better made, and allow for four-way entry with a forklift, but, they claimed all their pallets as being privately owned, while the old whitewood ones were simply out there up for grabs.},
category={Transportation, pallets, Economics}
}
@article{nir2018buses,
Author={Nir, Sarah Maslin},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/nyregion/new-york-city-bus-troubles.html},
Title={As Subway Crisis Takes Up ‘So Much Oxygen,’ the Buses Drag Along},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2018-03-08},
comment={NYC has the slowest buses of any major American city with an average speed of 7 mph. Every bus is already equipped with a system that could be used to turn the lights green in favor of the buses called Traffic Signal Priority, but there is a lot of complexity to bus upgrades when the MTA runs the buses and the city runs the streets. And of course there are also the ongoing problems with people parked in bus lanes, and the NYPD not ticketing them.},
category={Transportation, buses, nyc}
}
% The crosstown buses in Manhattan are even slower. I once read an average of 3 mph.
% Bike snob covers people parked in bus lanes well.
@article{tierny2014lying,
Author={Tierny, John},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/25/science/in-airport-screening-body-language-is-faulted-as-behavior-sleuth.html},
Title={At Airports, a Misplaced Faith in Body Language},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2014-03-23},
comment={There is a wide-spread notion that people can read body language, and have a sense if someone is lying. Some law-enforcement training even teaches that there are ways to do this. But studies show this is largely not true. Law-enforcement officers and presumed experts are not consistently better at detecting liars than ordinary people (though they are more confident in their ability to do so). In studies, people correctly identified liars only 47 percent of the time - less than random chance. It was even lower when testers couldn’t hear what was being said and had to judge on body language. ``“The common-sense notion that liars betray themselves through body language appears to be little more than a cultural fiction,” says Maria Hartwig’’},
category={Transportation, Criticality, liars, lying}
}
% I took the Times test that accompanies this and got better than 80% accuracy detecting liars. It makes me sort of wonder if the experiments are just not designed well eough. It’s one of those things where so many people feel like they can do this, science has to overcome that. Kind of like the hot-hands fallacy.
@article{mossman2017bridges,
Author={Mossman, Matt},
url={https://harpers.org/archive/2017/12/crossing-guards/},
Title={Crossing Guards},
journal={Harper’s},
year={2017},
month={12},
comment={The story of the insane situation of having a (90-year old, billionaire) private owner of a major bridge - the Ambassador Bridge between the US in Michigan and Canada.},
category={Transportation, bridges, canada, public-private partnerships, ambassador bridge, michigan}
}
@article{frazier2017bayonnebridge,
Author={Frazier, Ian},
url={https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/13/new-yorks-majestic-passage-in-the-sky},
Title={New York’s Majestic Passage in the Sky},
journal={The New Yorker},
date={2017-12-13},
comment={In order to accodate bigger, taller ships, the deck of the Bayonne Bridge from Staten Island to New Jersey was raised to pass through a higher point of the original arch. Also covers the challenge of being a harbor pilot in NYC (the Kill Van Kull is one of the hardest channels to navigate a ship through in the world).},
category={Transportation, engineering, bayonne bridge, new jersey, ships, staten island, harbor pilots, shipping, containers}
}
@article{learn2017roadsalt,
Author={Learn, Joshua Rapp},
url={https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/road-salt-can-disrupt-ecosystems-and-endanger-humans-180963393/},
Title={The Hidden Dangers of Road Salt},
journal={Smithsonian Magazine},
date={2017-05-26},
comment={Road salt has negative impacts on the environment both through runoff into streams and increasing salinity of roadside plants. Also, large animals like moose and deer are attracted to the salt on the roads and so increase their chances of causing accidents with cars. Alternatives like beet juice and distillation byproducts might actually be even worse. The best solution is a combination of curved snow plow blades that are more effective at clearing roads, and simply using less salt. We’ve drastically increased the amount of salt used since th 1970s.},
category={Transportation, road salt, environment, moose, snow plows}
}
@article{griffioen2018transitmapcolor,
Author={Griffioen, Simone and Kiselev, Arthemy V.},
url={https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/painting-new-lines-maximizing-color-difference-in-metro-maps/},
Title={Painting New Lines: Maximizing Color Difference in Metro Maps},
journal={Scientific American},
date={2018-01-31},
comment={A mathematical method for finding a color for a new transit line that most distinguishes it from the colors of existing lines. This is a pretty poorly written article, (possibly because English is their second language, possibly because they are mathematicians) but it contains a nice explanation of LAB color space.},
category={Urbanism, Science, mathematics, color space, lab color, Transportation, transit, metro line colors}
}
@article{feldman2018garbage,
Author={Feldman, Kiera},
url={https://www.propublica.org/article/trashed-inside-the-deadly-world-of-private-garbage-collection},
Title={Trashed: Inside the Deadly World of Private Garbage Collection},
journal={ProPublica},
date={2018-01-04},
comment={More than half of NYC’s trash (the commercial trash) is picked up by private carters. It is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. While NYC Department of Sanitation municipal workers (picking up residential trash) earn 70k dollars in salary plus benefits, the private haulers earn far less. The municipal guys work during the day and private haulers at night. The municipal guys almost never kill anyone. The private haulers kill a number of people each year. In the sanitation industry nationwide, someone dies nearly every week. There’s a lovely description of the teamwork between the driver and the helper to move as fast as possible loading garbage in this article. And some of the history of organized crime running trash in NYC.},
category={Transportation, Urbanism, garbage, trash, organized crime, mafia, commercial waste, unions}
}
@article{castle2018englandrail,
Author={Castle, Stephen},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/world/europe/uk-teesside-train-station.html},
Title={At England’s Loneliest Rail Station, a Train Comes Just Once a Week},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2018-01-23},
comment={An article about how England’s reliance on complex bureaucracy coupled with private ownership of transportation has orphaned some train lines and stations that are nearly useless, but almost impossible to get rid of. Mostly this article is interesting for it’s reference to the first train service in the world, ``On that journey, from Stockton to Darlington in September 1825, the train was initially preceded by a man on horseback who carried a flag reading Periculum privatum utilitas publica (“The private danger is the public good”).’’},
category={Transportation, trains, england, latin}
}
@article {Huk94,
author = {Hu, Guoqing and Yin, Daoxin},
title = {China: a return to the {\textquotedblleft}kingdom of bicycles{\textquotedblright}?},
volume = {360},
year = {2018},
doi = {10.1136/bmj.k94},
publisher = {BMJ Publishing Group Ltd},
issn = {0959-8138},
URL = {http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k94},
eprint = {http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k94.full.pdf},
journal = {BMJ},
comment = {Haven’t read this actual paper, but in the responses to the paper an Australian doctor(ate) makes a strong argument against bike helmets with a whole set of references.}
category = {Transportation, bicycles, helmets, safety}
}
@article{hutchinson2012yukon,
Author={Hutchinson, Alex},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/travel/far-maybe-too-far-into-the-yukon.html},
Title={Far, Maybe Too Far, Into the Yukon},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-11-23},
comment={About a canoe trip on a river through a remote part of the Yukon in Canada to the arctic sea. Most notable for the beginning where they break their water filters and decide it is safe to simply drink the water straight from the river.},
category={Transportation, canoe, yukon, canada, arctic}
}
@article{pearson2017birds,
Author={Pearson, Jake},
url={https://www.yahoo.com/news/miracle-hudson-legacy-70-000-slain-birds-122453379.html},
Title={‘Miracle on the Hudson’ legacy: 70,000 slain birds},
journal={AP},
date={2017-01-14},
comment={Since Sully Sulleburger landed on the Hudson River eight years before, NYC airports have killed 70,000 birds in an attempt to reduce the risk of bird strike.},
category={Transportation, airplanes, nyc, bird strike}
}
@article{haas2017chinesebikepile,
Author={Haas, Benjamin},
url={https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/25/chinas-bike-share-graveyard-a-monument-to-industrys-arrogance},
Title={Chinese bike share graveyard a monument to industry’s ‘arrogance’},
journal={The Guardian},
date={2017-11-24},
comment={China’s enormous bike share companies over-supplied. This article has photos of the giant bikeshare graveyard pile where the excess bikes from bankrupt companies have been put to rest.},
category={Transportation, china, bike share, bicycles}
}
@article{anzilotti2017bikinggender,
Author={Anzilotti, Eillie},
url={https://www.fastcompany.com/40488970/what-will-it-take-to-close-the-gender-gap-in-urban-cycling},
Title={What Will It Take To Close The Gender Gap In Urban Cycling?},
journal={Fast Company},
date={2017-11-27},
comment={Covers a lot of biking history that’s been covered elsewhere. But there is a serious gender gap in cycling — in bike share systems only 24 percent of trips are made by women. She connects this to larger feminist issues where women are encouraged to show fear and not take risks. She mentions that women often challenge her while riding, asking if she feels safe, something she’s never heard of being asked of men.},
category={Transportation, biking, feminism, gender gap}
}
@article{leonhardt2017usdrivingdeaths,
Author={Leonhardt, David},
url={https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/opinion/america-is-now-an-outlier-on-driving-deaths.html},
Title={America Is Now an Outlier on Driving Deaths},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-11-19},
comment={While driving has gotten safer in the US since the 1990s, as it has in the rest of the world, mostly because of safer cars, the rest of the world has gotten much more safer because they have also focussed on crash causes. The US’s fatality rate is 40% higher than Canada or Australia’s (two other big countries with open roads). The US’s fatality rate used to be 10% lower than Canada and Australia in the 1990s. This is largely due to three factors: many in the US still don’t wear seatbelts, people speed, and ``buzzed driving’’ is tolerated.},
category={Transportation, car deaths, fatalities, cars, car culture}
}
@article{mcgeehan2017buses,
Author={McGeehan, Patrick and Hu, Winnie},
url={https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/nyregion/chinatown-buses-violations-queens-crash.html},
Title={Budget Bus Lines Flout the Rules With Little Consequence},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-09-24},
comment={“Chinatown buses”, budget bus lines, and casino buses have very poor safety records. But the city has very limited power to regulate them (since they fall under interstate commerce) and states have only slightly more power. Primary regulation is at the federal level, which has extremely outdated safety standards.},
category={Transportation, chinatown buses, traffic safety}
}
@article{hu2017taximedallions,
Author={Hu, Winnie},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/nyregion/new-york-taxi-medallions-uber.html},
Title={Taxi Medallions, Once a Safe Investment, Now Drag Owners Into Debt},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-09-10},
comment={Back in 2014 a taxi medallion sold for more than a million dollars. Long considered a solid investment, they are now dropping in value quickly as taxis compete with private car companies. Medallion owners, most of them drivers themselves since there’s a requirement for owners to drive a certain number of shifts, are claiming the system is unfair.},
category={Transportation, Economics, nyc, taxis, taxi medallions}
}
@article{badger2017commutes,
Author={Badger, Emily},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/upshot/why-even-the-hyperloop-probably-wouldnt-change-your-commute-time.html},
Title={Why Even the Hyperloop Probably Wouldn’t Change Your Commute Time},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-08-10},
comment={Talks about the phenomenon of the Marchetti’s constant — where people seem to allocate automatically about 1 hour per day for travel. So commutes historically (even back to Roman times) have tended to remain constant at about an hour. Having faster transport means generally people get access to more space not more time.},
category={Urbanism, commuting, marchetti’s constant, hyperloop, Transportation}
}
@article{correal2017bananas,
Author={Correal, Annie},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/nyregion/the-secret-life-of-the-banana.html},
Title={The Secret Life of the City Banana},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-08-04},
comment={Covers how bananas are distributed by mom and pop operators in NYC, unlike the giant grocery store chains that handle them in most of the rest of the country. Covers this history of bananas, including where the gag of slipping on a banana peel comes from, the fall of the Gros Michel to Panama Disease and its replacement with the Cavendish. And how the Cavendish is now also susceptible to Panama Diseas.},
category={Transportation, Health, bananas, history}
}
% See also \url{https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/science/banana-ancestors-genes.html}
% On the genetic background of the banana. Seems to suggest that the Cavendish is not doomed at the moment.
@article{anderson2014bikesidewalks,
Author={Anderson, Michael},
url={http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/10/21/nyc-bike-on-sidewalk-tickets-most-common-in-black-and-latino-communities/},
Title={NYC Bike-on-Sidewalk Tickets Most Common in Black and Latino Communities},
journal={Streetsblog},
date={2014-10-21},
comment={Looks at some research that suggests communities of color are being targeted more for minor offenses like riding on the sidewalk.},
category={Transportation, racism, profiling, cycling, sidewalks}
}
@article{mele2017slimeeelscrash,
Author={Mele, Christopher},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/us/slime-eels-oregon.html},
Title={Chain-Reaction Crash With Minor Injuries, Except for the Slime Eels},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-07-14},
comment={In Oregon a truck full of slime eels (hagfish) crashed spilling the fish all over the road - which then exploded in slime, as hagfish do.},
category={Transportation, hagfish, slime eels, oregon}
}
@article{fitzsimmons2017subway,
Author={Fitzsimmons, Emma G. and Fessenden, Ford and Lai, K.K. Rebecca},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html},
Title={Every New York City Subway Line Is Getting Worse. Here’s Why.},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-06-28},
comment={There are delays on every subway line in NYC primarily because of heavily increased ridership over the last 10 years. Extra people means the subway has to spend longer loading and unloading at platforms (called dwell time), and a single stop to load a major crowd causes delays up and down the line that take a while to dissipate. There is no solution except to run more trains.},
category={Transportation, nyc subway, delays, dwell time}
}
% See also this article about how the subway isn’t running as many trains as scheduled:
% \url{https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/nyregion/new-yorks-subways-are-not-just-delayed-some-trains-dont-run-at-all.html}
% Interestingly points out that the Lexington Ave line carries more people in a day than the entirety of the Chicago and DC subways systems. (Though some quick googling makes that look not totally accurate. More like it’s equal to the entirety of Chicago’s system.)
@article{manville2005parking,
title={Parking, people, and cities},
author={Manville, Michael and Shoup, Donald},
journal={Journal of Urban Planning and Development},
volume={131},
number={4},
pages={233–245},
year={2005},
publisher={American Society of Civil Engineers},
abstract={In this study of how off-street parking requirements affect urban form, we begin by analyzing the relationship between population density and streets in cities. We find that denser cities devote a greater share of their land to streets, but also have less street space per person. This relationship results in part from the difficulty of constructing new streets in built-out areas. The amount of street space does not increase as fast as population density, and this in turn helps explain why dense areas have less vehicle travel per person but higher levels of congestion. In contrast to streets, new off-street parking is supplied continually, owing largely to minimum parking requirements that make new development contingent on the provision of parking spaces. But the ample supply of off-street parking makes traffic congestion worse and inhibits street life. We recommend either removing off-street parking requirements, or converting them from minimums to maximums.},
comment={Looks like another interesting paper by Shoup. I needed it because it lists the amount of land covered by roads in some major cities. NYC is 30% roads.},
category={Transportation, roads, parking, land use}
}
Get pdf here: \url{http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/People,Parking,CitiesJUPD.pdf}
@article{mele2017escalators,
Author={Mele, Christopher},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/us/escalators-standing-or-walking.html},
Title={Why You Shouldn’t Walk on Escalators},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-04-04},
comment={Like many other areas of transportation and behavorial economics, here is yet another counter-intuitive finding that suffers from the tragedy of the commons. Researches find that standing two abreast on escalators would move everyone faster through the escalator “system” than people standing right and walking left. This is because while an individual walking will get up the escalator faster, they take up more space on the escalator than standers, and so everyone has to wait longer to get on the escalator because it is handling less capacity.},
category={Transportation, escalators}
}
% Of course if everyone walked the results might be different. And this only applies to a crowded escalator. An empty one is still much faster to walk up.
% And what about moving walkways!?
@article{hones2017britishtrains,
Author={Jones, Owen},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/opinion/why-britains-trains-dont-run-on-time-capitalism.html},
Title={Why Britain’s Trains Don’t Run on Time: Capitalism},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-04-04},
comment={Covers the developments in British rail, particularly communter rail into London, which has tried to privatize rail ownership. This has resulted in delays, strikes, and expensive service. British taxpayers spend far more on the privatized system than they did on the old nationalized model. ``Considering all the humiliating failures, why have successive governments — both Conservative and New Labour — continued to pursue privatization with such unbending zeal? In short, to undermine organized labor.’’},
category={Transportation, trains, rail service, unions, great britain, london, labor}
}
% The details actually sugest that privitization isn’t as much the problem as the public-private partnership:
% “The privatizers claimed that competition would lift standards of service, put the needs of the consumer first, reduce the burden on the taxpayer, rid the system of inefficiencies and drive down prices. On all scores, the privatization of Britain’s railways is an embarrassment. Look no further than the current dispute on Southern to see how dysfunctional the privatized system is. Govia is contracted to run the Southern franchise — and is paid about £1 billion (or $1.24 billion), a year by the government to do so. In return, revenue from ticket sales goes directly back to the government. Yet if train services are delayed or canceled, it is the government — or rather, the taxpayer — that refunds the bitter commuters. The company itself therefore has no incentive to settle with the unions; arguably, it is being paid by the Tory government to keep up the fight. Yet the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, pretends to have no hand in the matter, saying he cannot “wave a wand” to resolve the dispute.”
% This whole fiasco serves as a general warning against privitization, sure.
% But it also shows that public-private partnership setups can be very complicated to make them work correctly. Basic economic motives can undermine the goals of such partnerships if they aren’t built right.
% Could those be corrected? Maybe. But it sure seems easier to avoid complicated, possibly corrupt, partnership setups by just going with completely publicly funded service from the getgo.
@article{roberts2013gct,
Author={Roberts, Sam},
url={https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/grand-centrals-flesh-and-blood-landlord/},
Title={Grand Central’s Flesh-and-Blood Landlord},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2013-01-29},
comment={Grand Central Terminal is not owned by the MTA, they just rent it from Andrew S. Penson, a mega real estate developer. He also owns a couple of railway companies and a bunch of rail connected to GCT.},
category={Transportation, Urbanism, mta, gct, grand central}
}
@article{yaccino2013cheese,
Author={Yaccino, Steven},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/us/wisconsin-finds-another-role-for-cheese-de-icing-roads.html},
Title={Pouring Cheese on Icy Roads in (Where Else?) Wisconsin},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2013-12-23},
comment={About a pilot program in Wisconsin to use left over cheese brine as a solvent for snow and ice on roads.},
category={Transportation, wisconsin, cheese, roads, ice, snow}
}
@article{lee2017cbp,
Author={Lee, Patrick G.},
url={https://www.propublica.org/article/can-customs-border-protection-search-phone-legal-rights?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter},
Title={Can Customs and Border Officials Search Your Phone? These Are Your Rights},
journal={ProPublica},
date={2017-03-13},
comment={Outlines the nearly limitless power Customs and Border Patrol has for searching people. This includes the right to search anyone withing 100 air miles of an external border of the US — in other words most of the populated part of the United States.)},
category={Transportation, customs and border patrol, travel}
}
@misc{krammes2009traffic,
title={Traffic Calming on Main Roads Through Rural Communities},
author={Krammes, R and Sheldahl, E},
year={2009},
publisher={FHWA, Washington, DC},
url={https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/08067/}
comment={A nice summary of various ways to slow traffic on roads. Includes conclusions that community buy-in is important, and that lane-narrowing doesn’t work unless there’s physical barriers to make drivers feel like the lane is narrower. Also concludes that small communities often try to address perceived speeding problems by simply lowering the speed limit, but since the design of the road might suggest a conventional speed, it can lead to conflict with police.},
category={Transportation, speeding, design speed, rural roads}
}
@article{freytas2017londonsmog,
Author={Freytas-Tamura, Kimiko de},
url={https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/world/europe/london-smog-air-pollution.html},
Title={A Push for Diesel Leaves London Gasping Amid Record Pollution},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-02-17},
comment={England’s push for diesel cars as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions has resulted in increasingly high levels of smog in London. The cars had much higher emmissions in real-world driving than in test driving. There is growing debate in England about whether bike lanes cause more congestion, and therefore more pollution, citing Cambridge where half of the people ride at least once a week, and is one of the most congested places in the country. Also cites a study saying that cyclists inhale much more black carbon than pedestrians.},
category={Transportation, smog, diesel, cycling, cambridge, london}
}
@article{savage2017breezewood,
Author={Savage, Charlie},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/us/politics/a-pennsylvania-highway-town-at-the-junction-of-politics-and-policy.html},
Title={As Trump Vows Building Splurge, Famed Traffic Choke Point Offers Warning},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-02-06},
comment={A look at the traffic interchange in Breezewood, PA, which instead of directly connecting two major highways, forces people through local streets full of fast food restaurants and gas stations. It’s like this because of odd quirks of legistlative history that resulted in essentially a tourist trap. Now it would require Breezewood to give up their tourist trap and propose a connecting ramp to fix it. Which isn’t going to happen since the town is economically dependent on the setup.},
category={Transportation, highways, tourist traps, truck stops}
}
@article{dosik2016immigrantbiking,
Author={Dosik},
url={http://www.intersectionalriding.com/2016/12/14/biking-while-working-immigrant/},
Title={Biking While Working Immigrant},
journal={Intersectional Riding},
date={2016-12-14},
comment={Maps NYPD data to show that working cyclists are policed much more heavily than non-commercial cyclists in NYC, particularly in Manhattan. And in outer-borough neighborhoods with high portions of people of color non-commercial cyclists are policed more heavily. Therefore people of color are much more likely to get a ticket while riding a bicycle.},
category={Transportation, bicycles, nyc, commercial cyclists, delivery}
}
% See article in Next City about this subject: \url{https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/deliver-food-bicycle-shape-our-cities}
% And this article linked in the Next City article from the Kinder Institute For Urban Research: \url{http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/memo-to-cities-most-cyclists-arent-urban-hipsters.html}
@article{rueb2016harborpilots,
Author={Rueb, Emily S.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/nyregion/at-sea-with-new-york-harbors-channel-masters.html},
Title={At Sea With New York Harbor’s Channel Masters},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-11-17},
comment={A light article about New York’s Sandy Hook Pilots Assotiation and harbor pilots who steer ships into New York Harbor. It claims that to become a habor pilot they have to pass a test where they draw parts of the harbor from memory down to the placement of rocks and underwater pipes.},
category={Transportation, shipping, harbor pilots, logistics}
}
@article{luo2004crosswalk,
Author={Luo, Michael},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/27/nyregion/for-exercise-in-new-york-futility-push-button.html},
Title={For Exercise in New York Futility, Push Button},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2004-02-27},
comment={The vast majority of pedestrian crosswalk buttons in NYC don’t actually function anymore. They are relics from before computer controlled intersections. The DOT found it was cheaper and made people feel better to just leave them in place.},
category={Transportation, nyc, crosswalk buttons}
}
% Also see this update about dummy buttons in general: \url{http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/placebo-buttons-elevators-crosswalks.html}
@article{taub2016gas,
Author={Taub, Eric A.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/automobiles/dont-waste-money-on-premium-gas-if-your-car-is-made-for-regular.html},
Title={Don’t Waste Money on Premium Gas if Your Car Is Made for Regular},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-09-22},
comment={Consumer research shows that virtually all modern cars (with the exception of some very high end sports cars, and if you are pulling heavy loads) do not benefit from higher octane gasoline. Instead, the quality of gasoline matters. Buying from a name-brand gas station is likely to have detergents and addititives that make the gas work better in most cars. The only thing higher octane does is help address knock, which used to be a serious problem in the 1960s. If you don’t hear knocking, you don’t need higher octanes.},
category={Transportation, gasoline, octane}
}
% Of course, my 1974 BMW motorcycle probably benefits from higher octane fuels. Would be nice to get leaded and without the modern detergents added too.
@article{gonzalez2016subways,
title={Subways and urban growth: evidence from earth},
author={Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco and Turner, Matthew A},
year={2016},
publisher={Spatial Economics Research Centre},
url={http://individual.utoronto.ca/marcog/attachment/Subways.pdf},
abstract={We investigate the relationship between the extent of a city’s subway network, its
population and its spatial configuration. To accomplish this investigation, for the 632 largest cities in the world we construct panel data describing population, measures of centralization calculated from lights at night data, and the extent of each of the 138 subway systems in these cities. These data indicate that large cities are more likely to have subways but that subways have an economically insignificant effect on urban population growth. Our data also indicate that subways cause cities to decentralize, although the effect is smaller than previously documented effects of highways on decentralization. For a subset of subway cities we observe panel data describing subway and bus ridership. For those cities we find that a 10 % increase in subway extent causes about a 6 % increase in subway ridership and has no effect on bus ridership.},
comment={Interesting research showing that subways actually DECREASE centralization of cities (though not nearly as much as highways do) and bigger subways are not correlated with bigger cities. European cities are smaller but their systems and service levels are larger than other places in the world.},
category={Transportation, subways, population, city size}
}
% See also this Richard Florida summary of the research: \url{http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/06/the-relationship-between-subways-and-urban-growth/485006/}
@article{newman2010deadmansswitch,
Author={Newman, Andy},
url={http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/not-the-first-time-the-dead-man-switch-did-its-job/},
Title={Not the First Time the ‘Dead-Man’ Switch Did Its Job},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2010-05-07},
comment={In 2010 a subway conductor died of a heart attack, and the ``dead man’s switch’’ — the lever which has to be continually pushed to keep the train in motion — actually did the job for which it was given the name.},
category={Transportation, nyc subway, dead man’s switch}
}
@article{,
Author={Dague, Jamison},
url={http://www.cbcny.org/sites/default/files/REPORT_ACCESS-A-RIDE_09202016.pdf},
Title={ACCESS-A-RIDE Ways to Do the Right Thing More Efficiently},
journal={Citizens Budget Commission},
year={2016},
month={09},
comment={Access-A-Ride (AAR) is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) paratransit program. Paratransit is the service offered to those who are unable to use the mass transit agency’s subways and buses because of physical limitations.'' Although a desirable and important program, AAR is expensive. In 2015 it cost 461 million and is budgeted at 476 million in 2016. New York’s program is so expensive because it has a high volume of use and a high unit cost. Among 29 cities with paratransit programs providing at least one-half million rides annually, New York had the highest cost per trip—71 dollars in 2014. It also had the highest number of people registered to use the service even when adjusted for population size—17 per 1,000 residents.’’},
category={Transportation, paratransit, access-a-ride, budget, nyc}
@article{nirtransitobsessed2016,
Author={Nir, Sarah Maslin},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/nyregion/young-digitally-savvy-and-just-fine-with-a-little-grime-in-their-subway-cars.html},
Title={Young, Digitally Savvy and Just Fine With a Little Grime in Their Subway Cars},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-09-09},
comment={About a young group of dudes of color called The Super Subway Bros. who are obsessed with subway cars. They point out that in NYC subway cars SHOULD have some grime to them, in contrast to Straphangers. ``“Transit advocates are from Mars, and those who are obsessed with transit are from Venus,” Gene Russianoff, the staff attorney for the Straphangers, said. “We come from very different places psychologically.” Rail fans, he added, are more “interested in what lug nuts were attached to the outside of the train than they were with how much it costs to take a ride.”’’},
category={Transportation, transit, subway}
}
% It’s interesting that the transit obsessed in this article are people of color, while transit advocates are white people.
@article{ruebstreetconstruction2016,
Author={Rueb, Emily S.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/18/nyregion/new-york-101-streets-repair-and-maintenance.html},
Title={Why are the streets always under construction?},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-08-18},
comment={From Sam Holleran: ``NY Times story about the weird, tangled world below the streets of NY (also loved the cut out illustrations) The whole project seemed very CUP-like (NYT is always one step behind!) from explaining the markings on the patches to the policy decisions at work in repaving.’’},
category={roads, construction, Transportation, potholes, infrastructure}
}
@article{doi:10.1080/01441647.2016.1174748,
author = {Christopher D. Higgins and Pavlos S. Kanaroglou},
title = {Forty years of modelling rapid transit’s land value uplift in North America: moving beyond the tip of the iceberg},
journal = {Transport Reviews},
volume = {36},
number = {5},
pages = {610-634},
year = {2016},
doi = {10.1080/01441647.2016.1174748},
URL = { http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2016.1174748 },
eprint = { http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2016.1174748 },
abstract = { ABSTRACTIdentifying and measuring the land value uplift (LVU) impacts of rapid transit are important for a number of reasons. However, despite the general notion that rapid transit does confer positive LVU benefits, our comprehensive and critical review of more than 130 analyses across 60 studies completed in North America over the past 40 years finds significant heterogeneity in research outcomes, leaving many significant questions unanswered. Beyond high-level differences in study inputs, we argue that a fundamental source of variability is a lack of empirical specificity from the use of proximity as the dominant way in which LVU benefits are captured. This use of a proxy leads to the potential for omitted variables and unobserved relationships, and exposes previous work to the potential for misvalued results. To overcome this issue, we outline recommendations for future research, namely a recognition of relative accessibility and the possibility of LVU impacts from transit-oriented development. Incorporating measures related to these factors into LVU models can reveal their implicit prices, resulting in research that is more theoretically inclusive, empirically comprehensive, comparable, and able to provide important information to inform policy analysis and prescription. },
comment = {Transit is often funded by borrowing against the future increased value of property taxes near new transit. This paper suggests that is a flawed approach because land values actually only go up in certain neighborhoods. (Like far-flung traffic-congested neighborhoods.) Also, it appears that much of increased land value is actually from neighborhood ``improvements’’ in general (read: gentrification) of which transit access may only play a tiny part.},
category = {Transportation, transit, land value uplift, property taxes, gentrification}
}
% As usual, I can’t actually access this paper. Read about it here: \url{http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/04/transit-station-property-value-study/479730/}
% It sounds like the paper discusses the physical/plannery improvements of a neighborhood (like “Transit Oriented Development”) and how those physical improvements might drive up land value despite transit improvements, not because of them.
% But it reveals the fundamental flaw in the economin analysis part of the planning field: planning always assumes a neighborhood is the same people, or that the people who live in a neighborhood don’t matter as much as the economic measures. So a city is more interested in increasing property values than anything else, in order to have a higher tax base. But that ignores the fact that a higher tax base is almost certainly a reflection of different people living in a neighborhood.
@article{tempeysubwaydeserts2016,
Author={Tempey, Nathan},
url={http://gothamist.com/2016/07/12/subway_desert_map.php},
Title={Interactive Map Exposes NYC’s Sprawling Subway Deserts},
journal={Gothamist},
date={2016-07-12},
comment = {Dude creates map of NYC showing walkshed of subway stops, and thus revealing “subway deserts” - places in NYC without good subway access.},
category = {Transportation, subway deserts, walksheds}
}
% See actual map here: \url{https://cwhong.carto.com/viz/6dfca01c-47e5-11e6-9fd3-0ee66e2c9693/public_map}
@article{gormancougars2016,
Author={Gorman, James},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/science/too-many-deer-on-the-road-let-cougars-return-study-says.html},
Title={Too Many Deer on the Road? Let Cougars Return, Study Says},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-07-18},
comment = {A new study says that returning cougars to the Easter US will save lives by reducing the number of deer to the point that fewer lives will be lost in car collisions with deer. (More than offsetting the increased number of people killed by cougars.)},
category = {Transportation, car crashes, deer, cougars, mountain lions, big cats}
}
% I love the cold public health calculation here. Also, this is obviously just another step in the conspiracy to cover up the fact that the cougars are ALREADY in the Eastern US. The media is trying to slowly ween us to the idea.
% Here’s a nice grisly account of a cougar attack, to prove the point: \url{https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/us/cougar-attack-washington-state.html}
% And the report of the cougar in Connecticut as part of the great East Coast cougar coverup: \url{https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/nyregion/wild-cougar-traveled-east-1500-miles-tests-find.html}
% Should probably find that Harper’s article from years ago about that conspiracy.
@article{altersuvsuber2016,
Author={Alter, Lloyd},
url={http://www.treehugger.com/cars/new-york-has-more-suv-black-cabs-efficient-yellow-cabs-problem.html},
Title={New York has more SUV black cabs than efficient yellow cabs. This is a problem},
journal={treehugger},
date={2016-06-16},
comment = {In the NY Post it was reported that Uber now has more cars than there are yellow cabs in NYC. This guy points out that while yellow cabs are required to have low emissions and be handicap accessible, Uber cars are not, and are often SUVs which are more dangerous for pedestrians.},
category = {Transportation, Health, Urbanism, yellow taxi cabs, taxis, nyc, uber, suvs}
}
@article{tefft2013impact,
title={Impact speed and a pedestrian’s risk of severe injury or death},
author={Tefft, Brian C},
journal={Accident Analysis & Prevention},
volume={50},
pages={871–878},
year={2013},
publisher={Elsevier}
comment={From the abstract: ``Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph. Risks vary sig nificantly by age. For example, the average risk of severe injury or death for a 70‐year‐old pedestrian struck by a car travelling at 25 mph is similar to the risk for a 30‐year‐old pedestrian struck at 35 mph.’’ },
category={Transporation, speed, risk of death, age}
}
% Also see this graphic in ProPublica: \url{https://www.propublica.org/article/unsafe-at-many-speeds}
@article{barryjesterdesignspeed2015,
Author={Barry-Jester, Anna Maria},
url={https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-rules-of-the-road-arent-enough-to-prevent-people-from-dying/},
Title={Why The Rules Of The Road Aren’t Enough To Prevent People From Dying},
journal={FiveThirtyEight},
date={2015-01-15},
comment = {Describes how road speed limits are set by estimating how fast people feel is safe to drive on a road. Explains the concept of design speed.},
category = {Transportation, design speed, road safety}
}
@article{richtelcrashes2016,
Author={Richtel, Matt},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/23/science/its-no-accident-advocates-want-to-speak-of-car-crashes-instead.html},
Title={It’s No Accident: Advocates Want to Speak of Car ‘Crashes’ Instead},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-05-22},
comment = {About the campaign to change the term from car accidents to car crashes. Contains an interesting history of corporations using the term ``accident’’ to refer to workplace injuries as a way to move blame for injuries to the workers themselves, to avoid paying for injuries to workers.},
category = {Transportation, Health, accidents, crashes, cars, otto nobetter}
}
@article{dalton2018crashjournalism,
Author={Dalton, Meg},
url={https://www.cjr.org/analysis/when-covering-car-crashes-be-careful-not-to-blame-the-victim.php},
Title={When covering car crashes, be careful not to blame the victim},
journal={Columbia Journalism Review},
date={2018-04-04},
comment={Covers in detail the research and ways that journalism routinely puts the blame for car crashes on the victim. Includes the history of “Motordom” trying to change the narrative from cars being the cause behind injuries to blaming wild human behavior (including how they coined the term “jaywalking”).},
category={Transportation, crashes, cars}
}
% There’s an interesting meta-critique of journalism implied but not stated in this piece:
% The reason journalists treat motorists so well is because most of us are drivers, we think like drivers.
% (That part IS in the piece.) When journalists report on these stories, they think about what their audience WANTS to hear, not about what it SHOULD hear.
% But the role of journalism should be to change public discourse, not reinforce it.
% The inherent assumptions, biases, and values (around EVERYTHING, not just car crashes) are actually behind MOST journalism, everyday.
% It is the core of what’s wrong with journalism. It might be the core of what’s wrong with this country.
@article{parkeraustinuber2016,
Author={Parker, Richard},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/opinion/how-austin-beat-uber.html},
Title={How Austin Beat Uber},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-05-12},
comment = {Uber pulled out of Austin after the city voted in a referendum to require Uber and Lyft drivers to be fingerprinted (as they do for their cab drivers). Uber assumed the city needed them, and wouldn’t vote against them. This writer thinks that the reason has to do with Austin’s commitment to it’s counterculture values. Also: They arrogantly confused a convenience for a few as a necessity for the many. Sure, over-served music fans and run-of-the-mill drunks got home safe and sound. Hipster techies from New York and San Francisco jetted in, summoned “their” drivers and jetted back out.'' What it does show, though, is that Uber and Lyft will have a harder time bullying cities with strong local identities, places where convenience is not the same as necessity, especially when the price is selling out a large chunk of public control.’’},
category = {Transportation, uber, lyft, ride sharing, austin, texas}
}
@article{stolpertransitaffordability2016
Author={Stolper, Harold and Rankin, Nancy},
url={https://b.3cdn.net/nycss/7169ea001b71493ce9_lvm6b2ptw.pdf},
Title={THE TRANSIT AFFORDABILITY CRISIS Can Help Low-Income New Yorkers Move Ahead April 2016 How Reduced MTA Fares },
journal={Community Service Society},
year={2016},
month={04},
comment = {Report on the high cost of transit for low-income New Yorkers. Recommends that the MTA adopt a discounted fare for low-income people. The annual cost of purchasing 30-day unlimited MetroCards comes to almost 1,400 dollars, or almost 12 percent of the annual income for a single earner at the federal poverty level. '' Low-income, low-savings families are the least likely to purchase 30-day passes and the most likely to purchase undiscounted single fares and borrow swipes on somebody else’s MetroCard. Because 30-day MetroCards generally offer the lowest fare per trip compared to the full single ride fare, the highest average fares are typically borne by riders in low-income, low-savings families; it is these families that have the hardest time coming up with the upfront cash to pay for 30 days of MTA travel in advance, or choose not to because they are less willing to risk the costs of replacing a lost or damaged card, or changes in their job situation.’’},
category = {transit, Transportation, mta, low-income folks}
}
% This report is actually pretty thin on data other than self-reporting from survey respondents.
@article{jakartagridlockcochrane2016,
Author={Cochrane, Joe},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/world/asia/gridlocked-jakarta-becomes-even-worse-at-least-for-a-week.html},
Title={Gridlocked Jakarta Becomes Even Worse, at Least for a Week},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-04-10},
comment = {Jakarta has some of the worst traffic in the world because it is one of the few enormous cities in the world with no transit system. It originally had a Dutch colonial-era trolley system, but that was paved over in the 1960s. Jarkarta implemented a ban on cars carrying fewer than 3 people on major roads during rush hour, but that was recently lifted because of exploitation of children to beat the minimum person ban. Now the traffic is worse than ever.},
category = {Transportation, jakarta, indonesia, traffic, cars}
}
@article{torrey2006limiting,
title={Limiting Motorcycle Exhaust Noise Through Amendment of the Motor Vehicle Code and its Regulations},
author={Torrey, David B and McCulley, Jeffrey R},
journal={Temp. J. Sci. Tech. & Envtl. L.},
volume={25},
pages={49},
year={2006},
publisher={HeinOnline},
url={http://www.temple.edu/law/tjstel/2006/spring/v25no1-Torrey-and-McCulley.pdf},
comment={Article arguing for legislation to limit devices that allow for louder exhaust on motorcycles. Because loud pipes do not in fact save any lives.},
category={motorcycles, Transportation, exhaust, loud pipes save lives}
}
@article{stolbergwashingtonmetro2016,
Author={Stolberg, Sheryl Gay and Fandos, Nicholas},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/us/washington-metro-40-and-creaking-stares-at-a-midlife-crisis.html},
Title={Washington Metro, 40 and Creaking, Stares at a Midlife Crisis},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-04-03},
comment = {The Washington D.C. Metro is falling apart.},
category = {Transportation, transit, subway, washington dc, metro}
}
@article{daguethruway2016,
Author={Dague, Jamison},
url={http://www.cbcny.org/cbc-blogs/blogs/heading-wrong-way-thruway},
Title={Heading the Wrong Way on the Thruway},
journal={Citizens Budget Commission},
date={2016-03-24},
comment = {The NYS government is considering giving the Thruway system windfall money from lawsuit settlements. CBC things this is a bad idea since it underwrites negative impacts of Thruway transportation. ``When the Thruway was completed in 1960 a trip from Buffalo to New York City in a passenger vehicle cost 5.60, or 48.32 in 2015 dollars; the same trip today costs 20.60.’’},
category = {nys thruway, Transportation, tolls, Econimics, taxes, highways}
}
@article{tingleywavepilots2016,
Author={Tingley, Kim},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/magazine/the-secrets-of-the-wave-pilots.html},
Title={The Secrets of the Wave Pilots},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-03-17},
comment = {A skill of navigating between islands in the Pacific using only the shape, size, direction, and feel of waves is an art that may be lost as we get down to the last 2 surviving people who claim they can do it. Some scientists are studying this.},
category = {wave piloting, Humanity, Transportation, cognitive maps, mental maps, storytelling}
}
% This actually isn’t a very interesting article, but it has some interesting background included about how people and animals for cognitive maps and what that means to understanding and storytelling.
@article{feilerteenagedrivers2016,
Author={Feiler, Bruce},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/fashion/teenagers-driving-parents.html},
Title={Teenage Drivers? Be Very Afraid},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-03-19},
comment = {While most parenting advice is to back off and let teenagers do their own thing. When it comes to driving the opposite is true. Among 16 and 17 year olds car crashes kill more than suicide, cancer, or any other type of accident. ``In 2013, just under a million teenage drivers were involved in police-reported crashes, according to AAA. These accidents resulted in 373,645 injuries and 2,927 deaths, AAA said. An average of six teenagers a day die from motor vehicle injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.’’},
category = {teenage drivers, car crashes, teenagers, Transportation}
}
% More evidence that supports my argument that the drinking age should be lowered to 16 and the driving age raised to 21.
@article{sadikkhanbikewars2016,
Author={Sadik-Khan, Janette},
url={http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/bike-wars-are-over-and-the-bikes-won.html},
Title={The Bike Wars Are Over, and the Bikes Won},
journal={New York Magazine},
date={2016-03-dd},
comment = {JSK writes a memoir article about the battle for the Prospect Park West bike lane. Turns out, ``the underlying bike-lane battle wasn’t a factual, data-based argument but a cultural and political fight that was rapidly devolving into a backlash.’’},
category = {bicycles, bike lanes, jsk, Transportation, prospect park west}
}
% This is written sort of naively, either from her thinking that that is what New York Magazine readers would want, or (more likely) because she’s so buried in planning thinking that she doesn’t realize that cities are planned by culture not data.
% Also, she makes that same assumption that so much of NYC government does that the CB represents the community.
@article{petroskiclearview2016,
Author={Petroski, Henry},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/opinion/easy-reading-road-signs-head-to-the-offramp.html},
Title={Easy-Reading Road Signs Head to the Offramp},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-02-25},
comment = {Op-ed expressing dismay about the Federal Highway Administration deciding to drop the use of the typeface Clearview. The FHA argues that it doesn’t work well with reversed colors. Petroski says they didn’t want to have to pay for it.},
category = {typefaces, federal highway administration, clearview, public domain}
}
% To me the FHA made the right call. Small gains in legibility of from a typeface you have to PAY for probably isn’t worth it when the Highway Gothic we’ve been using for nearly 100 years is in the public domain. WHY didn’t the FHA insist on a public domain typeface in the first place when they were considering Clearview?
@article{cohennycsubwaycolorcode2016,
Author={Cohen, Michelle},
url={http://www.6sqft.com/this-map-shows-the-subtle-tile-color-system-used-in-nyc-subway-stations/},
Title={This Map Explains the Historic Tile Color System Used in NYC Subway Stations},
journal={6sqft},
date={2016-02-17},
comment = {The NYC subway system was originally color-coded to let you know which set of local stops you were on (between express stops). This page has a map (somewhat confusingly described) showing what the original color-coded tiles were.},
category = {nyc subway, color coding, Transportation}
}
@article{edjets2016,
Author={The Editorial Board},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/jets-will-no-longer-get-a-free-ride-on-carbon-emissions.html},
Title={Jets Will No Longer Get a Free Ride on Carbon Emissions},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-02-13},
comment = {The US is responsible for half of global emissions from air travel. Some small restrictions on admissions have been put in place.},
category = {Transportation, jets, air travel, emissions}
}
@techreport{NBERw21968,
title = “Who Did the Ethanol Tax Credit Benefit? An Event Analysis of Subsidy Incidence”,
author = “David A. Bielen and Richard G. Newell and William A. Pizer”,
institution = “National Bureau of Economic Research”,
type = “Working Paper”,
series = “Working Paper Series”,
number = “21968”,
year = “2016”,
month = “February”,
doi = {10.3386/w21968},
URL = “http://www.nber.org/papers/w21968”,
abstract = {Using commodity futures contract and spot prices, we estimate the incidence of the US ethanol subsidy accruing to corn farmers, ethanol producers, gasoline blenders, and gasoline consumers at expiration in 2011. We find compelling evidence that ethanol producers captured two-thirds of the subsidy, and suggestive evidence that a small portion of this benefit accrued to corn farmers. The remaining one-third appears to have been captured by blenders, as we find no evidence that oil refiners or gasoline consumers captured any part of the subsidy. This paper contributes to understanding of biofuels markets and policy and empirical estimation of economic incidence.},
category = {Transportation, ethanol, fuel costs}
}
% I don’t have access to this paper.
@article{grynbaumstreetcar2016,
Author={Grynbaum, Michael M.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/nyregion/mayor-de-blasio-to-propose-streetcar-line-linking-brooklyn-and-queens.html},
Title={Mayor de Blasio to Propose Streetcar Line Linking Brooklyn and Queens},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-02-03},
comment = {de Blasio announced that they intend to build a streetcar along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront. Interestingly, because it runs on city streets, it avoids having to be approved by the state government. See this followup article as well: \url{http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/nyregion/a-waterfront-route-to-serve-the-poor-not-just-the-wealthy.html} Which talks about how streetcars used to run across the Queensboro, and the Brooklyn Dodgers were named after Brooklynites ``dodging’’ streetcars.},
category = {transit, Transportation, streetcar, nyc, brooklyn, queens}
}
% See also this follow up op-ed: \url{http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opinion/how-to-build-a-streetcar-that-works.html} which talks about how you have to be careful to do streetcars right, with few stops and dedicated lanes, and connecting to other transit.
% And this follow up article with a quote from TransitCenter: \url{http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/nyregion/streetcar-service-proposed-by-mayor-de-blasio-may-require-2-new-bridges.html} And talks about how this proposal is for a much longer streetcar system than built anywhere else in the US
@article{schneidertaxiusesuperbowl,
Author={Schneider, Todd W.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/upshot/taxi-use-patterns-can-tell-us-how-good-the-super-bowl-was.html},
Title={Taxi Use Patterns Can Tell Us How Good the Super Bowl Was},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-02-03},
comment = {Taxi use during the Superbowl corresponds negatively to the exciting parts of the game. By this standard, Beyonce had the most exciting halftime show ever.},
category = {beyonce, superbowl, halftime, football, taxis}
}
@article{tempeybikelanes2015,
Author={Tempey, Nathan},
url={http://gothamist.com/2015/10/08/williamsburg_bike_lane_war.php},
Title={Williamsburg Bike Lane Battle Intensifies: “The City Created A Mess”},
journal={Gothamist},
date={2015-10-08},
comment = {Williamsburg CB recommends against bike lanes. Councilman Reynoso says they city should not be asking the CB’s opinion about things that impact safety. ``“In cases where the evidence shows that [DOT planners are] gonna absolutely improve safety, we shouldn’t be asking for anyone’s opinion,” he said. “It’s like, the police officers asking community boards whether they can go to the street to provide safety. Who asks for that?”’’},
category = {bike lanes, reynoso, williamsburg, community boards}
}
@article{tempeyclearcrosswalks,
Author={Tempey, Nathan},
url={http://gothamist.com/2016/01/25/clearing_snow_for_cars.php},
Title={Most Roads Are Clear, Why Not The Crosswalks?},
journal={Gothamist},
date={2016-01-25},
comment = {While most of the roads are cleared very soon after the snowstorm, many crosswalks are blocked by snow, a real issue for disabled people.},
category = {snow, crosswalks, plowing, disable people}
}
@article{shaerwreckofol188,
Author={Shaer, Matthew},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/magazine/the-wreck-of-amtrak-188.html},
Title={The Wreck of Amtrak 188},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-01-26},
comment = {Compelling long-form telling of the story of the wreck of Amtrak train 188. Has some nice detail about how trains are run in the Northeast Corridor.},
category = {amtrak, trains, wrecks, disasters}
}
@article{jaffechinatownbus2016,
Author={Jaffe, Eric},
url={http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/01/chinatown-bus-comeback-chaddick-institute/426804/},
Title={The Triumphant Return of the Chinatown Bus},
journal={Citylab},
date={2016-01-25},
comment = {After the ``crackdown’’ Chinatown buses (and other small inter-regional bus companies) are back, and doing better than ever. Maybe more safely too.},
category = {chinatown bus, fung wah}
}
@article{daguesubwaystations,
Author={Dague, Jamison},
url={http://www.cbcny.org/sites/default/files/REPORT_STATIONS_09022015_1.pdf},
Title={Sisyphus and Subway Stations},
journal={Citizens Budget Commission},
year={2015},
month={09},
comment = {Looks at what would have to be done budget wise for all subway station structural components to reach a ``state of good repair’’. You wouldn’t know it from this report, but most of the stations that are not in good repair are in low-income neighborhoods.},
category = {subway stations, repair, budgets}
}
% They also made an interactive map showing the state of all the subway stations: \url{http://interactive.cbcny.org/nyct-station-conditions}
@article{jaffebikesharepoor,
Author={Jaffe, Eric},
url={http://www.citylab.com/politics/2016/01/bike-share-poor-equity-transit/424656/},
Title={Yet More Evidence Bike-Share Isn’t Reaching the Poor},
journal={Citylab},
date={2016-01-19},
comment = {Despite the fact that bike-share has been declared transit, and so it eligible for public funds from the federal government, the evidence shows that it isn’t be put into low-income areas.},
category = {bike-sharing, inequality, bicycles, low-income}
}
@article{abramsselfdrivingcarpolicy2016,
Author={Abrams, Rachel},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/business/dealbook/davos-self-driving-cars-may-get-here-before-were-ready.html},
Title={Self-Driving Cars May Get Here Before We’re Ready},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-01-21},
comment = {City governments know driverless car technology is coming, but very few have any policy in place yet to deal with them},
category = {self-driving cars, policy}
}
@article{thompsonrobotcarparking,
Author={Thompson, Clive},
url={http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/01/future-parking-self-driving-cars},
Title={No Parking Here},
journal={Mother Jones},
year={2016},
month={01,02},
comment = {An in-depth look at the current state of robocar technology, and how it might mean the end of the necessity of providing parking.},
category = {parking, self-driving cars, marchetti wall, shoup}
}
@article{goldmanevanston,
Author={Goldman, T.R.},
url={http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/evanston-illinois-what-works-213282},
Title={The Suburb That Tried To Kill the Car},
journal={Politico Magazine},
date={2015-10-22},
comment = {Evanston Illinois has become a model for Transit Oriented Development, a suburban center with very few cars. References the history of car culture, including the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ Parking Generation manual and Lerner’s master plan for Curitiba Brazil. Mentions the idea that the design of a particular project is more important than the particular use — the notion that uses should be controlled by zoning might be old-fashioned, exceptions maybe should be the norm, hence mixed use districts. Also addresses overparking, ``“Parking is the literal intersection between transportation and land use,” explains Daniel Rowe, who oversaw the three-year project for King County Transit. “And the whole concept of TOD is providing land use that is supportive of transit. So to get TOD right, you have to get the parking right.”’’ That guy developed a web tool, called the residential parking calculator that uses their sophisticated formula to calculate the necessary parking per unit.},
category = {tod, evanston, illinois, curitiba, suburbs, parking}
}
@article{tsay2015people,
title={A People’s History of Recent Urban Transportation Innovation},
author={Tsay, Shin-pei and Bragdon, David and Higashide, Steven and Hovenkotter, Kirk},
year={2015},
url={http://transitcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/A-Peoples-History-of-Recent-Urban-Transportation-Innovation-Report-Pages.pdf},
comment={Transit Center’s report that outlines what they see as how to get change implemented. Based on 4 key things: robust work by community groups, leadership in government willing to take up the causes of community groups, city agency employees who are willing to work on those projects and keep them going, those people working together to keep the priorities of tranportation reform high/durable. The paper talks about how mayors need to create a sense of urgency in order to get projects done, and agency staff have to be willing to take an incremental approach — small projects first that establish things will work, and let the agency workers feel like they are accomplishing something (responding to the urgency of the mayor) before moving on to bigger/more concrete and permanent projects.},
category={tranportation, transit, city government, policy change}
}
@misc{simval84economiccongestion,
Author={simval84},
Howpublished={\url{http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2015/09/tackling-congestion-as-economic-not.html}},
Title={Tackling congestion as an economic, not engineering, problem},
journal={Urban kchoze},
comment = {A blog post that looks at traffic congestion with an economic eye, rather than trying to engineer a solution (essentially: build more roads). Lists 4 solutions, the most interesting being building low-cost, high-capacity, low-speed road networks - essentially lots of city streets with low design speeds. He says, `` Some urbanists think that road capacity induces demand, I disagree strongly, it is road SPEED that induces demand, because it lowers travel costs and makes it more affordable to travel longer distances.’’},
category = {traffic, congestion, transit, economics, road capacity, streets}
}
@article{rogersmetastructure,
Author={Rogers, Adam},
url={http://www.wired.com/2016/01/the-metastructure-transportation/},
Title={Welcome to the Metastructure: The New Internet of Transportation},
journal={Wired},
date={2016-01-04},
comment = {A little futuristic thinking applied to transportation. Suggests that private transportation network companies are paving the way for self-driving cars. Individually, the new tools and technologies for moving around are interesting; put them together and you get something profound. Connect these new systems and individual networks to each other and they self-assemble into a transportation super-network. It’s decentralized, offers multiple routes from node to node, carries any kind of person or thing to any kind of place, and adjusts itself in real time.'' The size and shape of a city, the literature says, is limited to the range someone can travel in 45 minutes to an hour. If you’re on foot, that’s compact, downtown-sized. In the early 20th century, streetcars allowed people to range farther within the time limit, leading to suburbs.’’ With accessible GPS cars are finding more efficient routes, opening up streets of the city that weren’t as actively used before. ``“You could imagine all this technology pulverizing our cities, and then it would all look like Florida,” says Luis Bettencourt, a researcher at the Santa Fe Institute who studies cities.’’ },
category = {metastructure, self-driving cars, private transportation networks, internet, city size}
}
% Little talked about is the fact that (at least currently) self-driving cars require intesely detailed maps to work. See: \url{https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/automobiles/wheels/self-driving-cars-gps-maps.html}
@article{robbinsqueensbikeshop,
Author={Robbins, Liz},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/nyregion/queens-bike-shop-offers-repairs-and-camaraderie.html},
Title={http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/nyregion/queens-bike-shop-offers-repairs-and-camaraderie.html},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2015-12-28},
comment = {Neighborhood character piece about a bike shop in Queens that mostly serves delivery guys. They put their stands out on the sidewalk in warm weather, straighten any crapped out frame, and clean chains in diesel.},
category = {bike shops, bicycles, queens, delivery guys, mexico}
}
@inproceedings{naik2014streetscore,
title={Streetscore–Predicting the Perceived Safety of One Million Streetscapes},
author={Naik, Naren and Philipoom, Jade and Raskar, Ramesh and Hidalgo, Cesar},
booktitle={Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), 2014 IEEE Conference on},
pages={793–799},
year={2014},
organization={IEEE},
url={http://macro.media.mit.edu/papers/streetscore_paper.pdf},
abstract = {Social science literature has shown a strong connection between the visual appearance of a city’s neighborhoods and the behavior and health of its citizens. Yet, this re- search is limited by the lack of methods that can be used to quantify the appearance of streetscapes across cities or at high enough spatial resolutions. In this paper, we de- scribe ‘Streetscore’, a scene understanding algorithm that predicts the perceived safety of a streetscape, using training data from an online survey with contributions from more than 7000 participants. We first study the predictive power of commonly used image features using support vector regression, finding that Geometric Texton and Color Histograms along with GIST are the best performers when it comes to predict the perceived safety of a streetscape. Using Streetscore, we create high resolution maps of perceived safety for 21 cities in the Northeast and Midwest of the United States at a resolution of 200 images/square mile, scoring 1 million images from Google Streetview. These datasets should be useful for urban planners, economists and social scientists looking to explain the social and economic consequences of urban perception.},
comment = {MIT Media Lab created an algorithm to determine what streets seem ``safe’’ when people look at them. Then created a map showing that: \url{http://streetscore.media.mit.edu/}},
category = {maps, streets, safety, NYC}
}
%
% I should read this whole paper
@article{fountainshippingemissions,
Author={Fountain, Henry},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/science/carbon-emissions-shipping-container-ships.html},
Title={Taming Carbon Emissions From the ‘Invisible’ Shipping Industry},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2015-12-08},
comment = {Pound for pound and mile for mile, shipping is already the most environmentally efficient way to move cargo.'' The simplest way to improve a ship’s efficiency is by slowing down. Studies have shown that such “slow steaming” — reducing speed by at least several nautical miles per hour — can significantly reduce fuel consumption, and thus CO2 emissions. In some cases, emissions have been reduced by more than half.’’ Slow steaming is of course driven entirely by economic incentives right now, and if demand for faster products is higher than demand for lower shipping costs it will not be done, unless regulation intervenes.},
category = {shipping, cargo, emmissions, climage change}
}
@article{kabakopengangwayprototype,
Author={Kabak, Benjamin},
url={http://secondavenuesagas.com/2015/12/02/new-capital-plan-set-to-include-open-gangway-prototype-order/},
Title={New Capital Plan set to include open gangway prototype order},
journal={2nd Ave. Sagas},
date={2015-12-02},
comment = {Apparently the MTA plans to test ``open gangway’’ subway cars — that is cars that have big open spaces between cars instead of lockable doors. Apparently this is good for capacity and spreads out passengers along the train. But potentially bad for smells and the old scare of crime on trains. Also covered in this 2013 Times article: \url{http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/nyregion/no-doors-between-subway-cars-mta-may-consider-new-model.html}},
category = {open gangway, subway, transit, crime}
}
@techreport{NBERw21729,
title = “Bright Minds, Big Rent: Gentrification and the Rising Returns to Skill”,
author = “Lena Edlund and Cecilia Machado and Michaela Sviatchi”,
institution = “National Bureau of Economic Research”,
type = “Working Paper”,
series = “Working Paper Series”,
number = “21729”,
year = “2015”,
month = “November”,
doi = {10.3386/w21729},
URL = “http://www.nber.org/papers/w21729”,
abstract = {In 1980, housing prices in the main US cities rose with distance to the city center. By 2010, that relationship had reversed. We propose that this development can be traced to greater labor supply of high-income households through reduced tolerance for commuting. In a tract-level data set covering the 27 largest US cities, years 1980-2010, we employ a city-level Bartik demand shifter for skilled labor and find support for our hypothesis: full-time skilled workers favor proximity to the city center and their increased presence can account for the observed price changes, notably the rising price premium commanded by centrality.},
comment = {The roots of gentrification can be found in the shrinking leisure of high-income households. This time scarcity, we hypothesize, has propelled centrality to the top of the local amenities list.'' Covered in this Washington Post article: \url={https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/19/this-could-be-the-biggest-force-driving-gentrification/} From the Post article: The growth of the knowledge economy has centralized high-skilled jobs in city centers. Holders of advanced degrees tend to work more hours, and also command better salaries, which they can afford to spend on housing, fueling the growth of high-end development that in turn pushes out the lower-income people who’d long made their homes in the urban core.’’ Also see this summary article on Citylab: \url{http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/11/why-the-wealthy-have-been-returning-to-the-city-center/416397/}. Which also points out that commute times actually haven’t changed very much over the years.},
category = {transportation, transit, commute times}
}
% downloadable url: \url{http://ftp.iza.org/dp9502.pdf}
% Krugman tackles the issue in this column: \url{http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/opinion/inequality-and-the-city.html}
@article{DOTprotectedbikelanes2014,
Author={DOT},
url={http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/2014-09-03-bicycle-path-data-analysis.pdf},
Title={Protected Bicycle Lanes in NYC},
journal={DOT},
year = {2014},
comment = {Report by NYC DOT finds that protected bike lanes made everyone safer and actually increased the flow of car traffic. See coverage article in Fastco: \url{http://www.fastcoexist.com/3035580/new-york-citys-protected-bike-lanes-have-actually-sped-up-its-car-traffic}. ``in some cases, people perceived that traffic was slower, perhaps just because they expected it to be. “I think there are those people who had the perception that travel times increased just because visually they saw the roadway looked different,” says Benson. “It’s part of the reason we do a lot of empirical data collection, because we get a lot of anecdotal feedback.”’’},
category = {bicyle lanes, cars, traffic, NYC}
}
% Sometimes you need empirical data to FIGHT community input.
@article{fitzsimmonssickpassenger,
Author={Fitzsimmons, Emma G.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/nyregion/a-hated-phrase-that-subway-riders-are-hearing-more-sick-passenger.html},
Title={A Hated Phrase That Subway Riders Are Hearing More: ‘Sick Passenger’},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2015-11-23},
comment = {Gives a good description of the process the MTA carries out to handle a sick passenger. Also covers the fact that the number of sick passenger delays is going up. And that “a police investigation” refers to a suicide.},
category = {mta, transportation, subway, sickness, health}
}
@article{jainrentburden2015,
Author={Jain, Rahul},
url={http://www.cbcny.org/sites/default/files/REPORT_RENTBURDEN_11122015_1.pdf},
Title={WHOSE BURDEN IS IT ANYWAY?},
journal={Citizens Budget Commission},
year = {2015},
month = {11},
comment = {Using federal data sources, CBC found that while many New Yorkers face high rents, and the share of households who are “rent burdened” (paying more than 30 percent of income toward rent) grew between 2000 and 2012, the city ranks near the middle among 22 large cities in the share of rent-burdened households. A second analysis revealed New York has the lowest transportation costs among the 22 cities studied due to the large proportion of residents who commute via mass transit. When housing and transportation costs are combined, the city rises from 13th to 3rd place in affordability.'' Forty-two percent of New York City’s renter households are “rent burdened;” that is, adjusting for actual rent paid by each household (“out-of-pocket contract rent” plus utility costs) and food stamp benefits, they pay more than 30 percent of income in rent.’’ Half of rent burdened households are severely rent burdened, paying more than 50 percent of income in rent. Ninety-four percent of these severely rent-burdened households are low income.'' This analysis identified and analyzed renter households that pay more than 30 percent (burdened) and 50 percent (severely burdened) of income for housing costs. In 2014, there were 891,037 households that were burdened and 456,488 households that were severely burdened. The vast majority of these households were low-income, suggesting that the problem stems as much from income shortfalls as from the housing market.’’},
category = {housing, affordability, rent burden, transportation}
}
@article{daguemtabudget2015,
Author={Dague, Jamison},
url={http://www.cbcny.org/cbc-blogs/blogs/mta-fiscal-dashboard},
Title={MTA Fiscal Dashboard },
journal={Citizens Budget Commission},
date={2015-12-21},
comment = {CBC put together a tool of pie charts and bar graphs to look at MTA financing into the future.},
category = {mta, budgets, financing, transit}
}
@book{vanderbilt2009traffic,
title={Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)},
author={Vanderbilt, T.},
isbn={9780307373175},
url={https://books.google.com/books?id=2Wx01Gff\_D0C},
year={2009},
publisher={Knopf Canada},
comment = {Nice review of the latest research on car transportation, and how a lot of what we think about cars is counter-intuitive. Belongs in the cateogory of behaviorial economics and marketing to some extent.},
category = {transportation, cars, behaviorial economics, marketing}
}
@article{callaghanstreetcars,
Author={Callaghan, Peter},
url={https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2015/04/why-streetcars-are-losing-their-appeal-mass-transit-option},
Title={Why streetcars are losing their appeal as a mass transit option},
journal={Minnpost},
date={2015-04-20},
comment = {Recently the popularity of streetcars is being questioned. Talks about how the advantage of streetcars is that the lines are fixed, so developers know the routes won’t change. But sometimes streetcars are used as a development tool, and that can fail, they have to be firstly about transportation, and development is a side-benefit. Also talks about the phenomenon of white middle class people who will ride a streetcar, but not a bus. So sometimes streetcars are about tricking those people into riding buses.},
category = {transportation, streetcars}
}
@article{handyhighway2015,
Author={Handy, Susan},
url={http://www.dot.ca.gov/research/docs/10-12-2015-NCST_Brief_InducedTravel_CS6_v3.pdf},
Title={Increasing Highway Capacity Unlikely to Relieve Traffic Congestion},
journal={National Center for Sustainable Transportation},
year = {2015},
month = {October},
comment = {Numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of this approach and consistently show that adding capacity to roadways fails to alleviate congestion for long because it actually increases vehicle miles traveled (VMT).'' An increase in VMT attributable to increases in roadway capacity where congestion is present is called “induced travel”. The basic economic principles of supply and demand explain this phenomenon: adding capacity decreases travel time, in effect lowering the “price” of driving; and when prices go down, the quantity of driving goes up.’’ Referenced by this article in Citylab: \url{http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/11/californias-dot-admits-that-more-roads-mean-more-traffic/415245/} Which makes the point that, ``A 2014 assessment of Caltrans, conducted by the State Smart Transportation Initiative, specifically cited induced demand as a research finding that had yet to filter down “into the department’s thinking and decision making”’’ Despite good date, the \emph{culture} of an organization can impact it’s actions.},
category = {Transportation, Criticality, induced travel, highways, congestion, traffic, cars}
}
See also how induced demand is increased by the infrastructure spending bill: \url{https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/climate/highways-climate-change-traffic.html}
@article{milovanoff2020electrification,
title={Electrification of light-duty vehicle fleet alone will not meet mitigation targets},
author={Milovanoff, Alexandre and Posen, I Daniel and MacLean, Heather L},
url{https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00921-7}
journal={Nature Climate Change},
volume={10},
number={12},
pages={1102–1107},
year={2020},
publisher={Nature Publishing Group},
comment={To meet the 2 degree goal 90 percent of the US fleet would need to be electrified, and it would consume half the US’s electricity supply.},
category = {Transportation, Criticality, cars}
}
@article{van2005part,
title={Part 1: Bicycles: How Pavement Markings Influence Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Positioning: Case Study in Cambridge, Massachusetts},
author={Van Houten, Ron and Seiderman, Cara},
journal={Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board},
volume={1939},
number={1},
pages={1–14},
year={2005},
publisher={Trans Res Board},
comment = {This is the study Cambridge did that found out bicycle lanes slow traffic.},
category = {transportation, bicycles}
}
@article{JSK-NY-trans-comm,
Author={GRYNBAUM, MICHAEL M.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/nyregion/06sadik-khan.html},
Title={For City’s Transportation Chief, Kudos and Criticism},
journal={New York Times},
comment = {Article about the Bloomberg transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. Suggests some of the resistance to bike- infrastructure that comes from communities. Also suggests that she could represent a robert-moses type single-mindedness. Which of course is making people grumpy.},
category = {Transportation, jsk, bloomberg, robert moses, janette sadik-khan}
}
@article{smart2015longitudinal,
title={A Longitudinal Analysis of Cars, Transit, and Employment Outcomes},
author={Smart, Michael J and Klein, Nicholas J},
year={2015},
url = {http://transweb.sjsu.edu/PDFs/research/1244-cars-transit-employment-outcomes-longitudinal-analysis.pdf},
comment = {``The research also found that improving automobile access is associated with a decreased probability of future unemployment and is associated with greater income gains. However, the analysis suggests that the costs of owning and maintaining a car may be greater than the income gains associated with in-creased car ownership. The relationship between public transit and improved economic outcomes is less clear. The research found that living in areas with access to high-quality public transportation has no relationship with future earnings. However, transit serves an important purpose in providing mobility for those who cannot or choose not to own a car. ‘’},
category = {transportation, transit, car ownership}
}
@article{pollack2010maintaining,
title={Maintaining diversity in America’s transit-rich neighborhoods: Tools for equitable neighborhood change},
author={Pollack, Stephanie and Bluestone, Barry and Billingham, Chase},
year={2010},
publisher={Northeastern University},
url = {https://www.northeastern.edu/dukakiscenter/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/TRN_Equity_final.pdf},
comment = {``Whether by displacement or replacement, or a combination of the two, in some transit-rich neighborhoods the pattern of change is working against the goal of attracting transit-oriented neighbors: the most likely potential transit riders are being crowded out by car owners less likely to be regular users of transit. This cycle, illustrated above, raises concerns about both equity, because core transit riders are predomi- nantly people of color and/or low income, and about the success of new transit investments in attracting desired levels of ridership.’’ Also see this summary article: \url{http://usa.streetsblog.org/2010/10/25/avoiding-the-unintended-consequences-of-transit-oriented-development/}},
category = {transportation, transit, car ownership}
}
@article{greenbergremotecarhack,
Author={Greenberg, Andy},
url={http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-highway/},
Title={Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It},
journal={Wired},
date={2015-07-21},
comment = {Miller and Valasek’s full arsenal includes functions that at lower speeds fully kill the engine, abruptly engage the brakes, or disable them altogether. The most disturbing maneuver came when they cut the Jeep’s brakes, leaving me frantically pumping the pedal as the 2-ton SUV slid uncontrollably into a ditch.'' All of this is possible only because Chrysler, like practically all carmakers, is doing its best to turn the modern automobile into a smartphone. Uconnect, an Internet-connected computer feature in hundreds of thousands of Fiat Chrysler cars, SUVs, and trucks, controls the vehicle’s entertainment and navigation, enables phone calls, and even offers a Wi-Fi hot spot.’’ ``From that entry point, Miller and Valasek’s attack pivots to an adjacent chip in the car’s head unit—the hardware for its entertainment system—silently rewriting the chip’s firmware to plant their code. That rewritten firmware is capable of sending commands through the car’s internal computer network, known as a CAN bus, to its physical components like the engine and wheels. Miller and Valasek say the attack on the entertainment system seems to work on any Chrysler vehicle with Uconnect from late 2013, all of 2014, and early 2015.’’ This is all just research with little to no examples of any hacks in the wild. But the potential is there. Maybe we will get rid of networks long before the Cylons attack?},
category = {hacking, cars}
}
@article{turcktrolleyproblemselfdrivingcars,
Author={Turck, Mitch},
url={https://medium.com/backchannel/reinventing-the-trolley-problem-85f3d1730756},
Title={An Autonomous Car Might Decide You Should Die},
journal={Backchannel},
date={2015-03-10},
comment = {Makes the moral argument, via the Trolley Problem, that self-driving cars should be introduced long before they are perfect, because as moral creatures we cannot continue to make the decision to let people die for the sake of convenience. Also we should let them decide when to kill an individual to benefit the many.},
category = {self driving cars, Trolley Problem, Wrath of Khan, human expendability, autonomous vehicles}
}
@article{bonnefonselfdrivingcars,
Author={Bonnefon, Jean-Fran\c{c}ois, and Shariff, Azim and Rahwan, Iyad},
url={http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.03346v1},
Title={Autonomous Vehicles Need Experimental Ethics: Are We Ready for Utilitarian Cars?},
journal={arXiv.org},
date={2015-10-12},
abstract = {The wide adoption of self-driving, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) promises to dramatically reduce the number of traffic accidents. Some accidents, though, will be inevitable, because some situations will require AVs to choose the lesser of two evils. For example, running over a pedestrian on the road or a passer-by on the side; or choosing whether to run over a group of pedestrians or to sacrifice the passenger by driving into a wall. It is a formidable challenge to define the algorithms that will guide AVs confronted with such moral dilemmas. In particular, these moral algorithms will need to accomplish three potentially incompatible objectives: being consistent, not causing public outrage, and not discouraging buyers. We argue to achieve these objectives, manufacturers and regulators will need psychologists to apply the methods of experimental ethics to situations involving AVs and unavoidable harm. To illustrate our claim, we report three surveys showing that laypersons are relatively comfortable with utilitarian AVs, programmed to minimize the death toll in case of unavoidable harm. We give special attention to whether an AV should save lives by sacrificing its owner, and provide insights into (i) the perceived morality of this self-sacrifice, (ii) the willingness to see this self-sacrifice being legally enforced, (iii) the expectations that AVs will be programmed to self-sacrifice, and (iv) the willingness to buy self-sacrificing AVs. },
comment = {Should autonomous vehicles be programmed to sacrifice an individual for the greater good? See also this article: \url{http://www.iflscience.com/technology/should-self-driving-car-be-programmed-kill-its-passengers-greater-good-scenario} which talk abous how manufacturers could potentially offer the option for a car that is safer for the driver or safer for the common good. And this coverage at MIT: \url{http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/} which points out that because self-driving cars are so much safer in general, you create a moral dillemma if you choose not to purchase one that would sacrifice you, because your dangerous driving puts more people at risk.},
category = {self driving cars, auotonomous vehicles, human expendability}
}
% Also is it really fair for a car to choose to kill a smaller group of pedestrians? Say it chooses a lone pedestrian over a group of them, over 4 people in it’s own car? Seems like that lone pedestrian got the shaft since they didn’t make any choice at all, the robot did.
@article{somerssubwayclocks,
Author={Somers, James},
url={http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-dont-we-know-where-all-the-trains-are/415152/},
Title={Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks},
journal={The Atlantic},
date={2015-11-13},
comment = {The reason NYC subways mostly lack countdown clocks are complex and deep. There’s three major competing systems half-implemented on different parts of the subway system. One of which aims to replace most of the old mechanical control system with software - The bulk of the system’s complexity is moved into software: software that interfaces with the physical train controls; software that understands the entire system’s track layout, including all switches, grades, and stations; and software with a huge number of rules about what kind of movements are allowed when.'' This article includes a nice basic introduction to how train control works. See also this graphic from Time Out about the length and ridership on subways worldwide: \url{http://www.timeout.com/newyork/travel/infograph-the-nyc-subway-versus-subways-around-the-world} Having full-time software experts running the show turned out to be crucial. Previous incarnations of the project didn’t have a technical leader at the MTA—just old-school senior managers who would try to wrangle the contractors by force of will. The new in-house team, by contrast, was qualified to define exactly what they wanted from software providers in terms those providers could understand. They were qualified to evaluate progress. They could sniff out problems early.’’ ``I keep thinking of Healthcare.gov. Everyone knows that the initial project was a costly disaster, but less well known is that a small team came along and saved it. The story includes this remarkable fact: The old system cost 250 million to build and 70 million a year to maintain. The new system—which actually worked—cost about 4 million to build; its yearly maintenance was about 1 million.’’},
category = {subways, nyc, Transportation, transit, countdown clocks, ridership, trains, healthcare, aca, software, mta}
}
% Some parts of this article make no sense. But there’s some super-interesting points buried in there. Particularly the stuff about how trying to get stuff done by using force-of-will on contractors isn’t as effective as having in-house experts who can define the problems to the contractors.
@article{frishberg2019signals,
Author={Frishberg, Hannah},
url={https://ny.curbed.com/2019/2/27/18240200/mta-nyc-subway-signal-delays-infrastructure-guide},
Title={New York subway 101: A guide to the signal system},
journal={Curbed},
date={2019-02-27},
comment={A simple overview of the different types of signals and train controls systems in use by the MTA.},
category={Transportation, subways, trains, signals, nyc}
}
@article{fitzsimmonssubwayridership2016,
Author={Fitzsimmons, Emma G.},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/nyregion/surge-in-ridership-pushes-new-york-subway-to-limit.html},
Title={Surge in Ridership Pushes New York Subway to Limit},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2016-05-03},
comment = {Subway ridership is at the highest it has been since 1948. The MTA is considering open gangway trains, platform doors, and maybe even closing stations when the become to crowded, as the Tube does now in London.},
category = {subways, Transportation, transit, nyc, tube}
}
@article{angierbicycles,
Author={Angier, Natalie},
url={http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/science/the-bicycle-and-the-ride-to-modern-america.html},
Title={The Bicycle and the Ride to Modern America},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2015-07-13},
comment = {Brief overview of the impacts of the history of the bicycle, based on a new show at the Smithsonian. ``“I have a deep question about the bicycle,” said Andy Ruina, a professor of mechanical engineering at Cornell University who studies bicycle dynamics. “Was the bicycle invented or discovered? It’s such a pure concept, it seems like it existed in the universe even before people thought of it, like the wheel itself, or a prime number.”’’},
category = {bicycles, hisory}
}
@article{2014snowbikersbreathingcoldair,
Author={Snowbikers},
url={http://www.snowbikers.com/articles/cold_air.html},
Title={Cold Comfort: The SnowBikers guide to the dangers of breathing cold air},
journal={Snowbikers},
year={2014},
comment = {Short article about dangers of breathing cold air. Suggests creating a warm-air buffer to breathe when it’s cold. Also mentions that snowmobilers might be undermining warm air buffer you get at lower speeds by forcing cold air into their parkas at high speed.},
category = {bicycles, cold, air}
}
% Includes a long list of legitimate looking references that could be followed up on.
@article{yin2017noses,
Author={Yin, Steph},
url={https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/science/ancestral-climates-may-have-shaped-your-nose.html?hpw&rref=science&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well},
Title={Ancestral Climates May Have Shaped Your Nose},
journal={The New York Times},
date={2017-03-16},
comment={Human noses evolved so that people in northern colder climates have narrower nostrils, in order to pre-warm cold air coming in. Also, once again, includes a disclaimer about how genetics are not closely related to race: ``It’s also important to note that less than 15 percent of genetic variation in humans can be attributed to differences among people from different continents, Dr. Zaidi said. In actuality, the genes that differ because of geographic origin, such as those affecting skin color, hair texture and nose shape, are the rare exception, rather than the rule. “People are more similar than they are different. What this research does is offer people a view of why we’re different,” he said. “There’s an evolutionary history to it that, I think, kind of demystifies the concept of race.”’’},
category={Science, Humanity, noses, genetics, natural selction, race}
}
% relates to 2014snowbikersbreathingcoldair
@article{ailescyclespeedway,
Author={Ailes, Emma},
url={http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31013387},
Title={Cycle speedway: The ‘skid kids’ who raced bicycles on WW2 bomb sites},
journal={BBC},
date={2015-04-20},
comment = {On the origins of ‘cycle speedway’ style of bicycle racing in the bombed out remains of London after WWII},
category = {cycle speedway, WWII, London}
}
@article{lawson2006science,
title={The science of cycology: Failures to understand how everyday objects work},
author={Lawson, Rebecca},
journal={Memory & cognition},
volume={34},
number={8},
pages={1667–1675},
year={2006},
publisher={Springer},
comment = {A study of people’s misunderstanding of how the basic mechanics of things work. The fact that this study was done about bicycles is secondary. Referenced in this article, \url{http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/07/06/420513593/what-you-really-know-about-bicycles}},
category = {bicycles, illusion of explanatory depth}
}
@article{kooijman2011bicycle,
title={A bicycle can be self-stable without gyroscopic or caster effects},
author={Kooijman, JDG and Meijaard, JP and Papadopoulos, Jim M and Ruina, Andy and Schwab, AL},
journal={Science},
volume={332},
number={6027},
pages={339–342},
year={2011},
publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science},
comment = {The (now famous?) study that showed that scientists don’t actually understand how bicycles work.},
category = {bicycles, magic}
}
% I haven’t actually read this paper, but I read about it. Also referenced in the NPR article What You Really Know About Bicycles. Not sure that it was appropriate for them to reference it though. It isn’t clear to me that limitations of the scientific process are the same thing as illusion of explanatory depth. Would require more reading to form a coherent opinion of this though.