apple juice

I found an excellent article via a post at Kottke.org this afternoon entitled Why Don’t We Do It In The Road

Traffic, transportation, and rail travel has been a peripheral interest of mine ever since I wrote a paper about the decline of Amtrak in 10th grade. This article is fascinating for a few reasons, but mostly because it makes so much sense, and it challenges the basic beliefs of traffic engineering in America.

A new school of traffic design says we should get rid of stop signs and red lights and let cars, bikes and people mingle together. It sounds insane, but it works.

Something I observed in Sweden and Germany, but have only seen in a few places in my travels through America is the Traffic Circle. The roundabout made an appearance in Golden, CO during my 3rd year of college, and it was met with much consternation from the locals. I was a bit upset with them as well, but for a different reason.

A roundabout forces you to slow down and merge into the traffic that is travelling around the circle. You then drive until your exit, and merge out. It is very simple in concept, however the planners in Golden completely missed the point.

Two of the three traffic circles were designed in such a way that you didn’t really have to slow down to head through them. So people were seeing the oncoming cars not slowing down and then they were stopping IN the circle (never do that). It was chaos for a couple months. But after the initial breaking in, I think people were probably pleased with the lack of 3 pointless stoplights that could have gone in there.

Of course, the author also points out that:

When it comes to reconfiguring streets as community spaces, ground zero is once again Holland and Denmark, where planners are removing traffic lights in some towns and cities, as well as white divider lines, sidewalks and speed limits. Research has shown that fatality rates at busy intersections, where two or three people were being killed every year, dropped to zero when controls and boundaries were taken away. (This is food for thought among alternative-transportation advocates in the United States, who extol northern Europe as a model precisely because so much space in these countries is dedicated to segregated pedestrian spaces and bike lanes.)

Those segregated pedestrian and bike lanes were something that I loved about bicycling around town in Sweden. You could get to anywhere on the bike paths. Compared the US, where you are risking life and limb heading out into the streets on your bike…. which is pretty much the whole point of the article.

Pretty soon there will be a little train running back and forth in Minneapolis. The first few days will be a free-for-all. Much like when a new Chipotle opens. People line up out the door and around the block.

I’m assuming that the Grand Opening of the Light Rail will be something along these lines. Lots of people, looking for a better way to get around town.

You’ll find me at the Minnehaha Parkway stop, June 26th. It’ll be a historic day.

Pantagraph.com – Business/Finance – All Aboard Amtrak 11/04/03

Ridership on Amtrak totaled more than 24 million passengers in fiscal 2003, which ended Sept. 30. It was the highest annual ridership experienced by the nation’s intercity passenger rail service in its 32-year history.

America still needs a better inter-city rail system. There is obviously a market for it.

A Eurostar train breaks the UK rail speed record by travelling at 208mph. [BBC News]

Why can’t we have a decent rail system in America?

For my inaugural post in the Trains category:

Pioneer Press | 04/21/2003 | COMMUTER RAIL: Crucial test for Northstar

Supporters have been making the same arguments as Cassady for years, but recently employed a respected economist who determined commuter rail was the best option for dealing with congestion along U.S. 10 and Interstate 94. Commuter rail would carry 5,000 people daily, equivalent to about 1? lanes of traffic. Building and running commuter rail would cost $502 million over 15 years, while the cost to build and maintain another lane to St. Cloud exceeds $1 billion.

I am hopeful about this commuter rail line, but we will need to convince short-sighted people (like our current Govenor) that rail is an essential component for solving traffic problems.

I’m not sure how people so completely lacking vision get into office:

“Invest in roadways everyone can use 24 hours a day rather than commuter rail that would operate limited hours a day,” said Mayor Gary Kirkeide.

Hey Gary, the traffic at 3am isn’t really the problem, is it? More like the gridlock at 6pm. The line, at it’s initial service estimate, would carry 5,000 people daily, which is equivalent to adding one and a half lanes of traffic. So what is more cost effective? Adding more lanes that are only needed for a few hours a day. Or adding commuter rail that is only utilized when it is needed?