To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
The Biggest Transportation Breakthroughs of 2014
From driverless cars to safety initiatives, it was quite a year for advancements in mobility.
When considering how to summarize the Year in
Transportation that was 2014, it's tempting just to compile a list of
Uber-related incidents or scandals or lawsuits or absurdities and call it a day. But as much as the human and hive minds are drawn toward negative news,
there were some truly uplifting mobility breakthroughs this year far
more deserving of a digital curtain call. Though you probably haven't
heard the last of them: much of what happened in transportation in 2014
will change the way we'll travel around cities for many years to come.
The Self-Driving Car Conquers Cities. As CityLab first reported, back in April, Google's self-driving car has graduated
from the relative simplicity of freeways (speed up, slow down, shift
lanes) to the dynamic hazards of urban roadways. The company upped the
ante a month later by releasing
early (and adorable) design prototypes for an autonomous car that it
hopes to produce and test on California streets. It's only a matter of
time before these transformative cars—or ones inspired by them—will reach streets near you.
High-Speed Rail Comes to America. History may well
look back at 2014 as the year that American high-speed rail passed a
tipping point. California's Los Angeles–San Francisco line finally found
some stable funding, announced a winning bid, and set a groundbreaking date.
But with that project tough for others to copy, what with the many
billions in public money, perhaps more intriguing were the non-trivial
advances made by private high-speed rail projects: the Dallas–Houston service shopped around for terminals, and the Miami–Orlando line began actual construction.
SuperpedestrianAs Does the Electric Bicycle.
The Cambridge-based mobility company Superpedestrian began to mass
produce and accept pre-orders for its innovative Copenhagen Wheel this
year. The wheel transforms an existing bicycle into an electric-powered
bicycle—and could transform American cycling practices in the process.
In his CityLab piece about the wheel, Nate Berg reported that experts believe the United States will be one of the world's top e-bike markets within the next 20 years.
And Driverless Transit, Too. The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation took some key steps toward completing the first fully automated, wide-scale urban transit system in the United States this year—soliciting bids for nine stations, and unveiling designs
for one at the airport. A number of cities around the world use
driverless transit systems, with London announcing this year that it
planned to join this group. In addition to safety advantages the service benefits are just as great, with more trains capable of running closer together.
Europe Strikes Back Against Traffic. Several major European cities issued dramatic restrictions to drivers this year. Madrid will ban cars in the city center for non-residents; Paris will do the same and reserve some roads exclusively for cleaner hybrid and electric cars; London will enhance its low-emission zone into an ultra-low-emission zone.
These policies help address two of the huge invisible social costs of
driving—congestion and pollution—and will hopefully inspire other major
global cities to follow suit.
With California Joining the Fight. In July, CityLab broke news
that California planned to replace a car-friendly engineering metric
known as "level of service" with a transit-friendly alternative that
focuses on vehicle miles traveled. That's a lot of jargon, but the
upshot is simple: road projects should get tougher to complete in
California cities, moving forward, and bus and bike and train projects
should get noticeably easier. A case in point is San Francisco's Van
Ness BRT project, which likely would have saved years of work and
millions of dollars under the new system.
California High-Speed Rail AuthorityNew York Declares Its "Vision Zero." Borrowing a page from Sweden's phenomenal road safety record, New York City under Mayor Bill de Blasio announced its own Vision Zero—a
bold plan to eliminate traffic-related deaths and injuries. Several
Vision Zero elements have been implemented to date, the most notable
being a speed limit reduction to 25 miles an hour. Street safety in New York still has a long way to go, but the conversation is moving in the right direction, and other metros have taken notice; San Francisco has a similar initiative in the works.
The Rise of On-Demand Transit. This summer, reports emerged that the City of Helsinki, Finland, is entertaining the idea of establishing a point-to-point, on-demand transport system
that would render car-ownership unnecessary. Just how serious the city
is remains to be seen, but general interest in on-demand transit is
clearly on the rise, with related bus services such as Bridj
entering beta tests in the United States. On-demand transit may never
replace high-capacity fixed-route buses and trains, but it can expand
mobility options, encourage multi-modal behavior, and reduce
single-occupancy driving in cities.
