What if all trips in a city were carried out by a fleet of self-driving cars shared by users? The latest report from OECD’s International Transportation Forum explores the potential outcomes of such a radical upgrade in an urban mobility system. The report concludes that up to 9 out of 10 conventional cars could become redundant under certain circumstances. Vast amounts of public space would be freed for other uses in such a scenario. Take a look:
If you get a chance, visit their website and even better plan a visit to attend the upcoming ITF conference in Leipzig, Germany. I had the privilege to be a part of this event last year and came away with a lot of very important issues, esp. related to transportation policy, at a global level. It was one of the well-organized and best run events that I got to attend in all of my years as a transportation professional.
The recent chaos in New York City involving the Mayor and the Cops Union has taken some ugly turns and dramatically played out in the media. One of the subtle impacts of this mess was keenly felt on the streets of New York as explained by this local news outlet, New York Post. Statistics obtained by The Post show a dramatic drop in NYPD’s traffic and parking enforcement activities between Dec. 22 — the first weekday after the double cop assassination — and Sunday Dec. 28, compared with the same period last year. There are many ways to interpret the numbers but it clearly shows something is off. According to The Post, police sources cited safety concerns as the main reason for the dropoff in police activity, but added that some cops were mounting an undeclared slowdown in protest of de Blasio’s response to the non-indictment. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association has warned its members to put their safety first and not make arrests “unless absolutely necessary.” This brings to question what is the correlation between traffic safety and the drop in violations during this period. Click here to read the full story.
This vintage photo dates back to 1939 and was posted on the new Tumblr blog, FOUND, created by National Geographic in honor of its 125th anniversary.
A cowgirl puts a nickel in an El Paso parking meter to hitch her pony, October 1939. PHOTOGRAPH BY LUIS MARDEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
As Mashable.com reports, the non-profit has joined Tumblr to showcase “FOUND,” a collection of rare photos from the National Geographic archives. According to the site, most of the photos have never been published, and were rarely seen by the public until now. National Geographic hopes digitizing the archive will also help identify the original date or location of the photos, since many are missing that information.
Do you have any vintage Transportation pictures that you would like to share? Drop me a note in the “Comments” section below and I’ll reach out to you.
Say hello to Honk, a neat little app (now available on iOS platform for $0.99) that solves two of the biggest headaches (especially in urban environments that you are unfamiliar) – remembering where you parked and also remembering if your meter time is up. Here are some of the features as mentioned in the app store:
Simplest interface to set the parking meter alarm. A single swipe for most situations!
Updates your remaining time on its App Icon. A quick glance at your home screen, your mind at peace.
Smooth handwritten memo/photo/voice memo to mark the parking spot.
Honk uses the highest level accuracy available for the phone and marks your location when you set the meter alarm automatically. Manually move the parking pin on the map when the GPS accuracy falls short. Shows how far the car is from your current location.
Innovative bread-crumb trails to help quick orienting yourself as well as built-in compass.
Different types of meter with long (up to 24 hours) and short time limits.
Soft, regular as well as the Library- and the Shopping Mall- alarm level options.
Uses the background processing and local notifications for reliable, accurate alarms. Supports Retina display.
Pretty cool, right? Check out the little video from Mashable that explains all this:
Fellow redditor yakshamash posted this note earlier explaining the situation: “I was going through a town in NY and decided I needed food, I parked and went into a diner, 15 minutes later I look out the window and notice that there was a meter near my car, I run out and feed it, but I was too late. The dreaded slip of paper was under my winsheild. I grabed it to see what the damage was, and was surprised to find this”
What I appreciate the most here is that the City of Auburn lives by its motto – Focused on being The Best Small City in State of New York State. Now, why don’t the big cities like Washington, DC follow this business-friendly model of parking enforcement instead of their current money-hungry anti-business parking policies which does nothing but increase the anxiety of the customer..
Seriously, I did not know people went to this extent – printing cards and carrying them around to stick them on windshields of those bad parking jobs. Funny, yet on point!
One has to wonder what will happen to these people when they are forced to move? In the picture below: Diane Butler and her husband, Abraham, are among many who may be forced to leave the Venice section of Los Angeles by regulations limiting street parking and banning R.V.’s from beach lots.
Their nomadic existence might be ending, though. The Venice section of Los Angeles has become the latest California community to enact strict new regulations limiting street parking and banning R.V.’s from beach lots — regulations that could soon force Ms. Butler, 58, to leave the community where she has lived for four decades.
“They’re making it hard for people in vehicles to remain in Venice,” she said.
Southern California, with its forgiving weather, has long been a popular destination for those living in vehicles and other homeless people. And for decades, people living in R.V.’s, vans and cars have settled in Venice, the beachfront Los Angeles community once known as the “Slum by the Sea” and famous for its offbeat, artistic culture.
Yet even as the economic downturn has forced more people out of their homes and into their cars, vehicle-dwellers are facing fewer options, with more communities trying to push them out.
As nearby neighborhoods and municipalities passed laws restricting overnight parking in recent years, Venice became the center of vehicle dwelling in the region. More than 250 vehicles now serve as shelter on Venice streets, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
Gone are the ancient days of stodgy parking meters that ate coins and often malfunctioned. These days parking meters are getting some hi-tech love from Transportation Managers around many U.S.cities.
Apart from San Francisco, many U.S. cities are currently testing and trying out new methods to allow people to find and pay for parking. One among them is Washington, DC, which is now testing out a pilot program that allows for paying for parking via cellphones.
If that is not enough, hi-tech companies like Google are helping people land some good parking karma. Google’s Open Spot application for its Android-powered phones (running OS version 2.0 or higher) lets you know where people are leaving their parking spots.
At the end of the day, the general public should be feeling happy to know there have some help on the way to locate and pay for the much-vaunted parking spots in the busy downtown neighborhoods.
To reduce congestion, San Francisco is aiming to have one spot open at all times on every block. Here’s how the plan works: A network of wireless sensors lets the city keep track of which parking spots are empty. If a particular block never has available spots, the city raises the meter rates until it does. In places where parking is plentiful, rates fall. As an added bonus, this information-age system lets residents check the rates and availability of parking online before deciding to drive.
The system is expected to increase revenue from parking meters, but decrease revenue from traffic tickets. How this will balance out for the city budget is unclear. Also unclear: Just how high the prices will go. Will there be $10 per hour parking?
