Day: 2010-11-18

Chance of Dying From Airport Backscatter Radiation About the Same as Chance of Getting Killed by Terrorists

| David Levinson

H/T Daring Fireball, from MSNBC Chance of Dying From Airport Backscatter Radiation About the Same as Chance of Getting Killed by Terrorists

“Peter Rez, a physics professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, did his own calculations and found the exposure to be about one-fiftieth to one-hundredth the amount of a standard chest X-ray. He calculated the risk of getting cancer from a single scan at about 1 in 30 million, “which puts it somewhat less than being killed by being struck by lightning in any one year,” he told me.

While the risk of getting a fatal cancer from the screening is minuscule, it’s about equal to the probability that an airplane will get blown up by a terrorist, he added. “So my view is there is not a case to be made for deploying them to prevent such a low probability event.””

Still Waiting: Will America’s Next-Gen Bullet Trains Ever Leave the Station? | Popular Science

| David Levinson

I’m quoted in Popular Science: Still Waiting: Will America’s Next-Gen Bullet Trains Ever Leave the Station?

Forecasts of Central Corridor LRT Boardings

| David Levinson

I assigned a group project in CE3201, Introduction to Transportation Engineering to predict boardings at the proposed Central Corridor LRT stations. Each group had one station, and was free to develop a methodology (after having learned about travel demand models). The predictions (in the final column) can be compared with official forecasts. I promised dinner to whichever group was closest to the actual boardings after the line opens (but they must claim it). The forecasts were widely varying in methodology and quality (the same can be said for some official forecasts in general, though the consistency of official forecasts here is much greater of course).

Station Peak hours Off-Peak hours Total Daily Student
Downtown Minneapolis Ballpark
Station		 250 150 400
Warehouse District/Hennepin Avenue 2,430 1,270 3,700
Nicollet Mall 4,820 2,170 6,990
Government Plaza 740 310 1,050
Downtown East / Metrodome 2,710 1,410 4,120
West Bank Station 910 290 1,200 439
East Bank Station 4,180 2,500 6,680 2,204
Stadium Village Station 710 260 970 1800
29th Avenue Station 670 280 950 477
Westgate Station 750 390 1,140 4038
Raymond Avenue Station 840 410 1,250 845
Fairview Avenue Station 1,300 600 1,900 38
Snelling Avenue Station 1,500 1,430 2,930 664
Hamline Ave 827
Lexington Parkway Station 540 390 930 945
Dale Street Station 420 290 710
Rice Street Station 780 420 1,200
Capitol East Station 250 140 390
10th Street Station 1,080 780 1,860
4th and Cedar Streets Station 820 380 1,200
Union Depot Station 1,210 910 2,120
Total Daily Boardings 26,910 14,780 41,690
Official Weekday Boardings
From FEIS. Chapter 6 (Transportation), page 6-9:
http://www.metrocouncil.org/transportation/ccorridor/FEIS/FEISChapter6.pdf