Welcome to the December 2017 issue of The Transportist. As always you can follow along at the blog or on Twitter.

 Transportist Posts

• QUBE and Autonomous Vehicles
• The end of traffic … a podcast with Jim Pethokoukis

Sydney

• Australian License Plates
• George Street, Sydney
• Observations of Flying Domestic in Australia
• On the Sydney Housing Bubble: Evidence from Eastwood

Transport News

Transit

• ‘Gridlocked and unworkable’: Dire warning for Sydney’s trains from former top execs – SMH
• Revealed: Sydney Trains warns rail overhaul to make peak-hour delays ‘irrecoverable’ – SMH
• After delays, cost overruns, and tragedy, a subway to Vaughan is complete – Toronto Star [featuring work done by Stephen Farber et al. published in JTLU ]

Roads/Cars

• Virginia took a bold step in tolling I-66. And it’s likely to pay off. – R. Puentes in WaPo
• Melbourne an international pariah on West Gate Tunnel, experts warn – The Age [Melbourne transport academics take a policy stand]

AVs

• How safe is ‘safe enough’ to put driverless cars on the nation’s roadways? – WaPo
• Taco truck halts GM autonomous car’s cruise through city streets – Reuters

EVs / Energy / Environment

• This is China’s answer to the Tesla Model X – at about half the price – SCMP
• Toyota, Panasonic consider joint development of EV batteries – Reuters
• ‘People are freaking out.’ Will electric vehicles doom your neighborhood auto mechanic? – WaPo [NB: the transition will take a couple of decades]
• The Latest Bull Case for Electric Cars: the Cheapest Batteries Ever – Bloomberg
• Electric cars already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel – study – The Guardian

HPVs / Bikes

• How can we change attitudes towards cyclists? How can we change attitudes towards cyclists? – ABC [Nearly every photo shows bicyclists in special gear rather than street clothes]
• The Great Bicycle Helmet Controversy – streets.mn
• Bicycles are eating the lunch of China’s dominant car-sharing app – SCMP

SVs / Taxis

• New Ride-Share App Aims To Tackle Uber With Half Price Fares Launching today – MMM [Taxify, works great, great discount while it lasts, burn that VC money, burn it now]
• Ex-Uber staffer says in bombshell letter that the company had a unit dedicated to stealing trade secrets  – Business Insider

Land Use

• The Subways Made Them Rich. Is It Time for Them to Pay Up? – NY Times [Land Value Capture]

Fantasy (i.e. Commentary on Elon Musk’s schemes)

[Context: Elon Musk criticized transit for serial callers and subsequently called Jarrett Walker an idiot in a tweet (corrected to sanctimonious idiot). The internet reacted]

• Elon Musk’s Ideas About Transportation are Boring – Alon Levy at Pedestrian Observations.
• Elon Musk’s freeway-era-on-steroids anti-urbanism​ – Lisa Schweitzer
• Elon Musk vs. the Monorail: The Tesla founder’s disdain for public transportation is all a part of his master plan. – Henry Grabar
• The Dangers of Elite Projection – Human Transit (Jarrett Walker)

Retail​ / Delivery

• Retail, Ownership and Deflation in the Last Mile – Hacker Noon
•  San Francisco sours on rampant delivery robots: ‘Not every innovation is great’ – The Guardian

Water, Canals

• Unsexy Infrastructure: Lock and Dam – Marginal Revolution

Science

• Australia’s GPS position to be updated and YOU’RE paying for it – Daily Mail [Stupid headline, but interesting observations about the interaction of plate tectonics and autonomous vehicles]

Visualisation

• Colorized Math Equations – BetterExplained

Research

By Others

• Collaborative Accessibility-Based Stakeholder Engagement for Public Transport Planning by @ansoncfit(w/demos) http://coaxs.scripts.mit.edu/home/
• The Benefits of Forced Experimentation: Striking Evidence from the London Underground Network – Larcom et al.