Jalopnik
Self-Steering Bus
Posts Tagged “
Public transit
”
Self-Steering Bus
new cars
Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Minibuses Are Awesome
Why are we randomly showing you pictures of European Sprinter vans? Because Mercedes Sprinter Vans are awesome. Bigger and mightier than the standard Sprinter is the Sprinter Minibus line, which offers seating configurations for uses as varied as hospice transport to urban people moving. Our personal favorite is the City 65, seen here in blue and silver. With seating for 13 passengers, it's much classier than your common OMNIBus or E-Series-based van.More »
technology
London Time Contour Maps Help You Decide Between Tube And Triumph
If you haven't figured it out yet, some of us are big fans of clever cartography. We were therefore quite pleased when we came upon a cache of maps designed by the folks at mySociety that show the relationship between time and distance from certain points in London. The time contour maps let you know how quickly you can get to the Department of Transport, the BBC Television Centre and other locations via transit. They've also put together maps to help commuters determine where it's faster to take personal transportation and where it's faster to take public transportation. But now they've added an even better feature. More »
magic bus, no magic 'lectro warp train
BART, As Usual, Gets Chumpy, SF Bay Universal Fare in Danger
While the distinction of the lamest public transit agency in the Bay Area may well have to be handed to Contra Costa County's County Connection and San Francisco's Muni is certainly the most notorious, BART totally wins the expensive crybaby prize. From worker strikes to fare hikes, the agency just can't seem to keep costs down, or figure out how to run a few all-night drunk trains that'd keep a lot of inebriated people off the roads. We recently took the Metro Gold Line from Union Station in Downtown LA out to its terminus at Sierra Madre Villa. It cost us a buck twenty-five. The same ride in BART distance would be around five or six bucks. With all of that extra fare cash floating around in their coffers, one would think that they'd be the first agency to figure out how to make the new TransLink universal fare system work. One would be wrong. C'mon people! If freaking Muni can figure it out, this should be a cakewalk for you thirty-five-point bucks. [SFGate]
wear nitro fumes in your hair
Arguing about the problems with Sucka Free transit can be likened to fourteen year-olds debating which of Iron Maiden's 1980s lighting rigs were the coolest. (We're voting for Somewhere on Tour if there's an official record.) Board of Supervisors honcho Aaron Peskin has posited that "Voters will have to ask themselves: Do you want San Francisco to be more like Paris or Los Angeles?" We love Paris and Los Angeles, but the parking situation in SF is untenable, and the fact that property owners are restricted on single-family-home garage building rankles us to no end. On the other hand, the public transit initiative proposed sounds tantalizing, as SF is a very transit-workable environment. The downside? The pro-transit faction has embedded a poison pill into their initiative that if passed, would negate the improved-parking bill. Which means to us, as interesting and important as the transit initiative is, we'd be forced to cast a strong nein toward the fascists. Both parking and transit in The City need improvement. It's not an either/or solution. Also, please castrate the DPT and stop bending over for Auto Return. Thank you. We love you, San Francisco. [SFGate]
San Francisco Transit Wonks Shoot Selves in Foot
Arguing about the problems with Sucka Free transit can be likened to fourteen year-olds debating which of Iron Maiden's 1980s lighting rigs were the coolest. (We're voting for Somewhere on Tour if there's an official record.) Board of Supervisors honcho Aaron Peskin has posited that "Voters will have to ask themselves: Do you want San Francisco to be more like Paris or Los Angeles?" We love Paris and Los Angeles, but the parking situation in SF is untenable, and the fact that property owners are restricted on single-family-home garage building rankles us to no end. On the other hand, the public transit initiative proposed sounds tantalizing, as SF is a very transit-workable environment. The downside? The pro-transit faction has embedded a poison pill into their initiative that if passed, would negate the improved-parking bill. Which means to us, as interesting and important as the transit initiative is, we'd be forced to cast a strong nein toward the fascists. Both parking and transit in The City need improvement. It's not an either/or solution. Also, please castrate the DPT and stop bending over for Auto Return. Thank you. We love you, San Francisco. [SFGate]
shock of shocks
Bloomberg's Subways and Suburbans
NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking flak for making part of his much-ballyhooed subway ride to work in a chauffeured Suburban. His people pick him at home and drive him twenty blocks down to 59th Street, where he picks up an express train to City hall. Still, compared to Antonio Villaraigosa's trouble of late or our own often late, MTA buses here in Los Angeles, we might encourage our mayor to spend a bit more time on public transit and less dallying with reporters. [Independent, UK]
boston tunnel party
Does Boston Have an Embarcadero on its Hands?
Should Beantown go the way of the City by the Bay? That's the question Close Personal Friend of tha Jalop ThnderBlt Doherty poses regarding Boston's Storrow Drive Tunnel and its abolition. In SF, the Embarcadero Freeway was universally reviled and generally best remembered via the intro sequence of The Streets of San Francisco. Since the envisioned freeway network in Sucka Free was never finished, the Embarcadero Freeway largely came to be seen as an eyesore, and its replacement with a wide boulevard featuring rail service is largely regarded of a triumph of urbanism over sprawl. Captain T'nderBoat argues that Storrow and the Embarcadero are not peas in a pod. Any other SF/Boston residents around? Bumbeck? Anybody? [The Highly Official Weblog of Phillip A.V. McCarthy]
wir fahren mit dem boobs
German Bus Driver Can't Handle Cleavage
Score one for precise, youthful German cleavage in the game to drive men to distraction. Apparently, a twenty-year-old German sales clerk had cleavage so amazingly wonderful that it the driver to stop a Lindau bus and demand that she move, shouting "Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus." Ah, the joys of surly public transit officials. [Reuters]
news
Chicago Metra Debacle Update
We reported last week on the Chicagoland commuter train that whacked a dozen cars at a crossing. Initial reports said that the gates hadn't closed, but this apparently doesn't seem to be the case. Apparently, the cars struck by the train were caught in traffic from the time the signals go off, drivers have 54 seconds to clear the tracks before the train crosses, but due to a rush-hour snarl, the vehicles had nowhere to go. When the engineer noticed the cars stopped on the tracks, he applied the e-brake, but the inertia of the train was simply too much the train only slowed 5mph before it plowed into the stranded cars, injuring sixteen. More »
news
Wow. Now and then we hear about a train taking out a car crossing the tracks, usually as a result of the driver's stupidity, but this one is a doozy. A Metra commuter train, en route from Chicago to Antioch, IL, took out a dozen vehicles this afternoon when the crossing gates failed to close. Many of the cars were pulverized into bits, and one SUV had its body ripped from the frame. So far, we've found no statement from Metra officials on the cause of the malfunction.
More »
Commuter Train Smacks Down 12 Cars in Chicago, Doesn't Derail
Wow. Now and then we hear about a train taking out a car crossing the tracks, usually as a result of the driver's stupidity, but this one is a doozy. A Metra commuter train, en route from Chicago to Antioch, IL, took out a dozen vehicles this afternoon when the crossing gates failed to close. Many of the cars were pulverized into bits, and one SUV had its body ripped from the frame. So far, we've found no statement from Metra officials on the cause of the malfunction.
More »
