Talking Traffic

It’s been a while since my last tidbits post. Let’s try to make this a good one!

Laser walls!: Laser walls for visual cueing of the car/pedestrian interface and trying to make it safer for pedestrians in urban areas. It’s interesting.

Canadian Airspace for American Airliners: When flights heading to NY Laguardia or Newark or Kennedy amble into harsh weather, there’s not a lot of room to stack them up, or to avoid the strong winds and thunderstorms. A plan may be in place to allow these airliners to cross Canadian airspace to find favorable conditions. This is also apparently running into Homeland Security roadblocks from a quid pro quo perspective.

Passenger & Freight Rail UP while Air Transport DOWN?: Some discussion about the future of transportation and how it’s affecting the rail and air industries.

Sao Paulo has Bad Traffic: Check out this TIME article about Sau Paulo and its commuters

Wired Photo Contest: Wired magazine is having a transportation themed photo contest.

Rail Riders in Connecticut: A blog posting concerining the recent release of a commuter rail evaluation in CT. It discusses what is going well, and what can be improved on.

“US Transportation in 2015″: A gaze into the crystal ball of transportation development in the United States.

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission: SAFETEA-LU, (a lovely acronym standing for Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users, othewise known as the transportation funding act passed in 2005) required the implementation of The National Surface Transportation Policy and Reveune Study Commission. They have released their report. The administration has declined to endorse it. Multiple people are evaluating its recommendations and the administration’s response. Apparently there were also some sections regarding Transit that were excised.

The highlights of the report: Transportation is underfunded by 60%. Raise federal gas taxes by $0.40 over five years. Personally, I think the administration is on the right track here. Continued dependence on fuel taxes is a no-win scenario because we want to reduce the amount of fuel (whatever it is) that is needed to get from A to B. This leaves transportation funding high and dry. Usage fees such as tolling, managed lanes, and pay-per-mile are the wave of the future. Correctly, I think.