GGW: Talk transportation and technology on January 21: “TransportationCamp, the free “unconference” on the intersection of urban transportation and technology, is coming to DC on January 21. Whether you like to build software around open transit data or are interested in how technology can help transit agencies and riders, we hope you will join us.”

Lisa Margonelli @ NY Times: Thinking Outside the Bus : “Legal issues aside, private vans provide services no public system could support, says David King, an assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University. The concentration of vans along Flatbush means that sometimes there’s a van every minute, so riders don’t have to wait. Sometimes they’ll take a mother and child to daycare and then wait at the curb while the mother walks the child up to the door of the facility — something a city bus would never do. Always on the lookout for customers, the drivers make routes where customers don’t have other options. A van between Chinatowns in Flushing, Queens, and Sunset Park in Brooklyn, for instance, can take as little as 20 minutes when the subway would take over an hour. King says that he sees potential to enhance transit options for everyone by incorporating dollar van type services.
For one thing, dollar vans quickly learn passengers’ desired routes, like traveling between Chinatowns. This sort of knowledge could help public transit planners design systems that keep up with riders’ real needs. Dollar vans’ ability to scale up dramatically intrigues King.  “According to our estimates, the dollar vans are carrying 120,000 riders a day in New York, which makes them the country’s 20th largest bus system.””

Pioneer Press: Smaller St. Croix bridge supports say new report supports cost figures :

“A group called the Sensible Stillwater Bridge Partnership said a new engineering report shows that their bridge would cost about $394 million. The St. Croix River Crossing proposed by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and supported by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., is expected to cost $574 million to $690 million.”

Pioneer Press: U hopes tech will smarten traffic :

“SMART Signal Technologies Inc. signed an agreement last week to license the technology from the University of Minnesota, said John Merritt, a spokesman for the U, which announced the new company on Tuesday.
The company’s product takes data from existing traffic equipment and calculates optimal queue length at intersections controlled by traffic lights.
That information could allow municipalities to better mediate the flow of traffic at peak times, said Henry Liu, a co-inventor of the technology and a civil engineering professor at the U’s College of Science and Engineering.”

AP: Federal transportation network: An area ripe for Democratic and Republican political consensus :

“WASHINGTON — A Senate panel cleared legislation Wednesday overhauling federal highway programs, prompting lawmakers to talk of a looming bipartisan consensus that would end years of stalemate on repairing and expanding an aging transportation network.”