Friday, March 6, 2009 — ISSN 1529-1057

ITS America Announces Student Essay Competition – Sponsored by Southwest Research Institute

One of the highlights of ITS America’s 2009 Annual Meeting is the Student Essay Competition.  We are pleased to announce a call for entries for the 2009 Student Essay Competition, sponsored by Southwest Research Institute. The Student Essay Competition is designed to encourage student interest and future participation in the development of Intelligent Transportation Systems and solutions.  Three winners will be honored in conjunction with the Best of ITS Awards during an awards ceremony on Monday, June 1, 2009, at the Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center in National Harbor, MD – inside the Washington DC metropolitan area.  The deadline to submit entries is April 3, 2009.  For full entry guidelines and essay topics for this competition, please click here.  If you have further questions, please contact Edgar Martinez at emartinez@itsa.org or (202) 721-4223.

CAMERAS

1) Panel Votes to End Arizona Photo-Radar System

Link to Capitol Media Services story:

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/283088

MARITIME

2) EU Launches Maritime Spatial Planning Workshops

Link to story in Maritime Journal:

http://www.maritimejournal.com/archive101/2009/march/online_news/eu_launches_maritime_spatial_planning_workshops

3) Aboard the US Navy’s High-Tech Pioneer, the USS Freedom

Link to story and video in Computerworld:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9128722&intsrc=hm_ts_head

TRANSIT

4) CityRail Puts Brakes on iPhone Timetable App

Link to story in the Brisbane Times:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/biztech/cityrail-puts-brakes-on-iphone-timetable-app/2009/03/05/1235842538382.html

Link to Transit Sydney app:  http://www.funkworks.com.au/transit-sydney/

VEHICLES

5) TRL Consortium Unveils Sentience Vehicle

Link to story in Traffic Technology International:

http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news.php?NewsID=11117

6) Smart Cars

Link to video on PBS’s Blueprint America:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/featured/blueprint-america-video-smart-cars/471/

Upcoming Events

PRT@LHR (Personal Rapid Transit at Heathrow Airport) – April 21-23 – London

http://www.prtatheathrow.com/

Friday Bonus

Try explaining this one to your boss (an incident which occurred Wednesday in Connecticut).

http://www.courant.com/media/photo/2009-03/45387479.jpg

Today in Transportation History

2004 **5^th anniversary** – The Lady D, a water taxi, overturned in Baltimore Harbor killing five people.

http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2006/MAR0601.pdf

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The Transportation Communications Newsletter is published electronically Monday through Friday. 

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Questions, comments about the TCN?  Please write the editor, Bernie Wagenblast at i95berniew@aol.com.   

© 2009 Bernie Wagenblast

(Source: Washington Post)

Metro: ‘Next Bus’ System to Return in July

Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. started off his online discussiontoday with an update on the late, lamented Next Bus system, intended to provide real time information about bus arrivals.

Catoe said the system that was taken down in October 2007 for lengthy repairs should be back in July. He ordered it taken down because the information wasn’t accurate enough often enough.

Recently, some bus riders discovered an online test site and began using it.

Dear Dr. Gridlock:
I have kind of a mystery for you about the NextBus system. I write a blog about Columbia Heights called New Columbia Heights and also for DCist.

One of the DCist writers found that NextBus seemed to be working for WMATA, so I wrote about it on my blog — a NextBus staffer then commented on the post and said it’s a test version, but WMATA gave them a green light, and please use it. When Sommer from DCist asked WMATA about it, they said it wasn’t ready and shut it down.

Suddenly, I’m the bad guy, because apparently I unearthed some secret and people claim WMATA had never wanted NextBus to work anyway, and used this as an excuse to shut it down (again). WMATA said it’ll be awhile before the site is up. It seems like NextBus and WMATA aren’t on the same page about the site, maybe you could look into that and why it’s not up and running at all – it’s been a few years.

Click here to read more.

(Source:  Guardian.co.uk)

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai survives car crash but wife Susan killed

Susan and Morgan Tsvangirai during the 2005 elections. Photograph: Desmond Kwande/Getty Images

Zimbabwe‘s prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has survived a car crash that killed his wife, Susan, near Harare today.

Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the prime minister was injured but not critically in the collision with a lorry. He was taken to a clinic in the capital. The driver of his official vehicle was seriously injured. There was no word on the condition of the lorry driver.

The party said there was no immediate reason to believe the accident was suspicious, but it was awaiting full details. An MDC official said that from information at the scene it appeared the lorry driver fell asleep at the wheel.

MDC officials said the couple had been heading to Mr Tsvangirai’s home town of Buhera for a political rally. Mrs Tsvangirai died at the crash scene.

The couple were married for 31 years and had six children.

Mrs Tsvangirai was widely respected in Zimbabwe as the antithesis of President Robert Mugabe’s extravagant and free-spending wife, Grace, who showed little concern for the plight of the many hungry and poor in her country.

Susan Tsvangirai largely avoided the limelight but did speak out on women’s rights and Aids. She was deeply religious.

Zimbabwe’s roads are notoriously dangerous, having deteriorated in recent years through lack of maintenance. Drivers are forced on to the wrong side to weave around potholes. Many vehicles drive without proper lights and brakes because of the difficulty and expense of obtaining spare parts.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

The new standard would gauge a fuel’s ‘carbon intensity,’ from its source to its burning.

The low-carbon fuel standard, if approved next month by the state’s Air Resources Board, would be the first in the nation to restrict greenhouse gases produced by a fuel, from its source to its burning.

Eleven states are considering similar rules, and President Obama has called for a national low-carbon fuel standard as part of his initiative to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by mid-century.

Air board chairwoman Mary Nichols said the proposed rule was a “comprehensive, cradle-to-grave approach” that would spur innovation and competition in the alternative fuels market.

But some members of California’s beleaguered renewable-fuels industry greeted the initiative with outrage. Tom Koehler, spokesman for Pacific Ethanol, said the proposal was “a perversion of science and a prescription for disaster.”

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: American.com)

How did India’s Huey Long become its Jack Welch?

(Source: Bizjournal.com)

The federal stimulus funds, furnished through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will help the state proceed with 29 construction projects throughout the state. The Texas Department of Transportation will leverage the $1.2 billion in stimulus spending to build more than $2.6 billion in new transportation projects throughout the state.

In San Antonio, the state will proceed with the construction of new interchange lanes along U.S. Highway 281 and Loop 1604. The total project will cost $140 million to build. TxDOT will combine $60 million worth of stimulus dollars with $80 million worth of existing funds to proceed with construction. TxDOT also is combining $8.1 million in stimulus funds with $4 million in existing funds to construct new roadway lanes along Loop 1604 from FM 78 to Graytown, which is located near Randolph Air Force Base.

(Source:  Jalopnik)

Another gem from our brilliant folks at Jalopnik/Gizmodo.  Read the article below and don’t forget to drop your comments at the parent site. 

From New York to San Bernardino, drivers in America’s cities live in their cars. Below we use Google Earth to take an in-depth look at the intersections of the nation’s 20 most traffic-congested cities.

The good news is 2008 saw a major decrease in traffic, with drivers in the 100 largest metropolitan areas dealing with a 29% decrease in congestion on average. The bad news is we’re seeing it because of an increase in gas prices, which led to less driving and more carpooling, and a decrease in jobs, which led to more people sitting on the couch hoping their unemployment doesn’t run out so they can afford to keep their benefits. It’s a vicious circle. Much like the pain we’re seeing in these community-by-community breakdowns of the most congested intersections in these 20 most congested metro areas.

Click the images below to view traffic information on each city up close

1. Los Angeles	2. New York	3. Chicago	4. Dallas Fort Worth
5. Washington, D.C.	6. Houston	7. San Francisco	8. Boston
9. Seattle	10. Minneapolis-St. Paul	11. Philadelphia	12. Atlanta
13. Phoenix	14. Miami	15. San Diego	16. Denver
17. Baltimore	18. San Jose	19. Detroit	20. Riverside-San Bernardino

Though traffic does correlate to population rank, with the top four metropolitan areas also in the four worst cities for traffic, there are some anomalies. The Washington, D.C.-Arlington-Alexandria area is only the eighth most populous region in the country but is the fifth worst when it comes to traffic due to its high capacity of employment in the area and the lack of good housing stock for middle class families within “The Beltway” area.

Click here to read the entire article.  

Related Forbes article.

(Source: Financial Times)

“History reminds us,” President Barack Obama told both houses of the US Congress on Tuesday night, “that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.” By “the nation”, Mr Obama means “the government”. We can tell by the episodes he uses to make his point: the establishment of universal public education, the GI Bill of Rights and – alluded to but not named – the Highway Act of 1956, at the time of its passage the largest public works project in US history.

Mr Obama’s praise for the Highway Act is disturbing. In arguments over his stimulus package and his preliminary budget released on Thursday, Republicans have made the lazy assumption that government intervention in the economy can never succeed. Mr Obama shows signs of the opposite error – believing it can never fail.

The Highway Act probably has more defenders than detractors. But Mr Obama should be among the latter. The act, which budgeted $25bn in federal money to build 41,000 miles of motorway, exacerbated the very problems Mr Obama has been most eager to solve – spoliation of the environment, dependence on foreign oil, overburdening of state and local budgets, abandonment of the inner-city poor and reckless speculation in real-estate development, to name a few.

A lot of people complain today about the rump of Republican disbelievers in Keynes, feckless though they may be, who fiddle while Rome burns. There was no hint of such heresy in 1956. The Senate passed the bill 89-1. Otherwise, the political climate bore some resemblance to our own: conformism bred of confusion. A 40,000 mile highway network had been on the wish list of the armed forces since 1944. Eisenhower was a big backer, and had hopes of justifying it as a stimulus during the recession of 1954. That downturn was long past when the bill came to a vote, but the vested interests remained, and so did the fear that one’s constituents might think it a bit communist to vote against a highway bill.

Click here to read the entire article.  (Free registration required at FT.com)

(Source:  National Journal’s Transportation Blog)

On Feb 26, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commissionissued its report on how to fund the next highway and transit bill. It called for Congress to enact a 10-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax (and 15-cent-per-gallon increase in the diesel tax) in the next surface transportation bill while preparing to convert to a system that, by 2020, would charge people according to how many miles they drive.

This blog is fortunate to have commission Chairman Robert Atkinson and members Kathy Ruffalo and Geoffrey Yarema among its expert contributors. This week, instead of responding to a question, expert bloggers are invited to post their questions about the report on the blog, and Rob, Kathy and Geoff have agreed to spend the week answering them. So fire away, everyone.

Click here to read the responses/questions on this bloggers “interactive” Q & A.

TransportGooru recommends all readers to listen to this interesting coverage on NPR.

(Source:  NPR)

 President Obama’s economic stimulus package includes $8 billion for speeding up train travel. America is far behind other industrial countries in high speed rail. A few years ago, Spain was also behind the curve. But the Spanish network is expanding fast, and the trains are beating planes.