Connections (July 2010)

In this segment I try to connect you with recent items relevant to reinventing urban transport.

From a public domain image at Wikimedia commons

Robin Chase suggests a cap-and-trade approach to residential parking permits. An idea with potential I think.
Charting Transport provides fascinating graphical analysis of journey-to-work mode shares in Melbourne.
Cycling in Singapore blog highlights fruits of the slow shift towards more positive bicycle policy in Singapore (bike paths aimed at local, low-speed bicycle users but I worry about their quality and design).
Human Transit marvels at the new Paris commitment to giving buses priority and space in the streets, even narrow ones.
New York Times reports on the Guangzhou BRT. Great quotes from ITDP folks. The BRT was reported to have set a new BRT record of 800,000 trips a day. Hat tips Streetsblog and Transport News.
Tokyo by Bike discusses confusion over Japan's bicycle laws. Twice.
Copenhagenize warns of the dangers of listening to 'Cycling's Secret Sect' (the 'vehicular cycling' movement, which objects to segregated bicycle infrastructure).
This blog suggested that conventional planning treats parking like toilets (every building is required to have a certain number, so that we don't need to do 'it' in the street). But the analogy breaks down. Planning parking like toilets is a bad idea.
The CityFix sorts through a menagerie of animal names for pedestrian crossings and infrastructure (building on debate triggered by a question from India on the sustran-discuss list).
Six-minute video on the work of Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).
Slate's Nimble Cities series puts parking under scrutiny, via How We Drive.
A meta analysis asks: Do the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks? Answer: yes, at least in the Netherlands.
Robin Chase ponders personal mobility vehicles, hoping for motorcycle-like vehicles with car-like safety for their occupants (somewhat similar to the idea of personal mobility devices).
The June G20 meeting reached a 'mixed bag' of an agreement on phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. Something to watch and monitor. Progress is highly unlikely without ongoing political pressure.

Connections is a helpful public transport term highlighted at Human Transit blog. It is a more positive and illuminating term for what are sometimes called 'transfers'.

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