I just found out that professor Paul Wright, who taught me the Introduction to Transportation Engineering course at Georgia Tech, passed away.
The transportation professoriate has a lost a number of giants in the past two years:
(updated 6/23 w. Reg Golledge, 6/24 w/Charlie Lave)
From Strib: Ex-transit reporter mugged at light-rail stop
Chuck Laszewski and a friend where attacked at the Lake Street stop as they bought tickets to head downtown.
(at 12:45 pm (PM!, broad daylight) on Sunday afternoon, strangely enough, just about the time I was on the Hiawatha line going the other direction)
From Washington City Paper, Old Questions About Crashworthiness of Metro Cars
Following the terrible crash on the Washington Metrorail Red Line (which I have taken many times) some blame game begins:
UPDATE, 6/23, 8:15 A.M.: NTSB’s Debbie Hersman this morning confirms that the the striking train was a 1000-series car and that the struck train was a mix of 3000- and 5000-series. She notes that the NTSB has “long been on record” about the crashworthiness of the 1000 series. “We recommended to WMATA to either retrofit those cars or phase them out of service,” she says. “Those concerns were not addressed.”
Perhaps we need to apply the environmental movement’s Fix It First logic to public transport systems as well as roads and bridges.
We let our politicians get away with ribbon cuttings while core infrastructure fails.
David Levinson, Transportist 