Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow along at the  transportist.org or on Twitter. 

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So in personal news, we bought real estate, moving to Arncliffe, so I am now again a transit commuter (for the first time since 2006-07 in London). The trains are now Standing Room Only in rush hour (near 8 am), with the seat restrictions (but are fine 60 minutes earlier). Mask compliance is pretty high (>90%), despite zero community transmission in Australia, because they are mandated no doubt. I am sure if they were not mandated, the use level would be much lower.

Transportist Posts

• Observations of Arncliffe.
• Access as a Performance Indicator in a Work-from-Home world.

WalkSydney

• When will your Council set a 30 km/h limit in your neighbourhood?
• Walking infrastructure steps up … Community wants a pedestrian crossing …When Council’s Local Traffic Committee (an advisory committee process involving both local council and state government) considered the matter, the pedestrian crossing was rejected because it didn’t comply with the warrant. The issue was then referred to the Regional Traffic Committee and was again rejected because it didn’t comply with the warrant – a document drafted decades ago. Subsequently, Parramatta Council wrote to the NSW Minister for Transport and the Minister responded to say “no”. Council staff then requested a meeting with the Minister and met with TfNSW staff where they were informed that the NSW warrant for pedestrian crossings was written for State roads (known as Classified roads) – these are major arterial roads such as the James Ruse Drive, Parramatta Rd, Cumberland Hwy, Pacific Hwy and Victoria Rd. Parramatta Council was informed that the NSW warrant does not apply to local streets (about 85 percent of the street network) and councils have the discretion to install pedestrian crossings by referring to the other national guides.

Talks 

• I will be presenting “at” Kyoto University on March 2, 2021 on The End of Traffic and the Future of Access.

Findings

Urban Findings is launching soon. We are plotting Energy Findings now. If you are interested, let me know.

• Brown, Anne, Nicholas J. Klein, and Calvin Thigpen. 2021. “Can You Park Your Scooter There? Why Scooter Riders Mispark and What to Do about It.” Findings, February. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.19537.
• Kapatsila, Bogdan, and Emily Grise. 2021. “Public Transit Riders’ Perceptions and Experience of Safety: COVID-19 Lessons from Edmonton.” Findings, February. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.19046.
• Goodman, Anna, and Rachel Aldred. 2021. “The Impact of Introducing a Low Traffic Neighbourhood on Street Crime, in Waltham Forest, London.” Findings, February. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.19414.
• Lin, Bo, Timothy C. Y. Chan, and Shoshanna Saxe. 2021. “The Impact of COVID-19 Cycling Infrastructure on Low-Stress Cycling Accessibility: A Case Study in the City of Toronto.” Findings, February. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.19069.
• Kaufman, Benjamin. 2021. “COVID-19 Impacts On-Demand Ridership in New South Wales: Regional Services More Stable than Urban Counterparts.” Findings, February. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.18979.
• Harris, M. Anne, and Michael Branion-Calles. 2021. “Changes in Commute Mode Attributed to COVID-19 Risk in Canadian National Survey Data.” Findings, February. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.19088.

Research by Others

• “Road safety. Technical solutions to a behavioural and technological problem with a scientific approach” (authors: Pasquale Colonna, Nicola Berloco, Paolo Intini, Vittorio Ranieri, from the Politecnico di Bari, Italy).
• Jawad Mahmud Hoque, Gregory D. Erhardt, David Schmitt, Mei Chen, Ankita Chaudhary, Martin Wachs & Reginald R. Souleyrette (2021) The changing accuracy of traffic forecasts.
• Ride-hailing
  • Meng Liu,Erik Brynjolfsson, Jason Dowlatabadi (2021) Do Digital Platforms Reduce Moral Hazard? The Case of Uber and Taxis.

News & Opinion

• COVID and The Free Flow of People
  • Billionaires Lindsay Fox and John Wagner offer to run quarantine camps[A solution available a year ago, but meanwhile many Australians, as well as international students have been kept out].
• COVID and Remote Work
  • Superstar Cities Are in Trouble: The past year has offered a glimpse of the nowhere-everywhere future of work, and it isn’t optimistic for big cities. (Derek Thompson).
  • The Old New York Won’t Come Back: ‘The pandemic changed everything,’ we say. But we have yet to absorb fully everything that means.(Peggy Noonan).
  • Post-Covid, Transit Agencies Must Look Beyond Ridership (David Zipper)
  • If Rush Hour Dies, Does Mass Transit Die With It? (Henry Grabar).
  • Salesforce declares the 9-to-5 workday dead, will let some employees work remotely from now on.
  • JC Decaux national [Australia] audience highest reported since pre-COVID.
• Transport Agency Management.
  • NSW transport boss to receive more than $800,000 payout. [It’s good to get fired from some jobs].
  • BECAUSE: Minister pushed to clear all trees along NSW highways after Black Summer bushfires But NSW transport boss refused, because that would be illegal (and bad). So reports the Sydney Morning Herald. [I have heard other rumours for the cause, but had no confirmation.]
• Robots
  • Ford Sold Velodyne Stake After Sensor Maker’s Post-SPAC Gain.
• Batteries and Electrification
  • The Battery Is Ready to Power the World: After a decade of rapidly falling costs, the rechargeable lithium-ion battery is poised to disrupt industries
  • The road to electric is filled with tiny cars: Forget Tesla: Millions of people in China are embracing tiny, off-brand competitors.
• Mobility as a Service
  • Google Maps will now let you pay for public transportation and parking through its app.
  • Uber and Lyft Are Trying to Compete with Google Maps For Some Reason.
• Vehicles
  • The Changing Mix of Light Vehicle Sales. 80% of new light vehicle sales in the US are trucks/SUVs. 5 years ago it was 50%.
• Walking
  • Beg Buttons are terrible. Australia’s have the nicest sound though. Why Australia’s Crosswalk Buttons are the Best (ft. Billie Eilish)
• The Internet of “Things”
  • Someone tried to poison a Florida city by hacking into the water treatment system, sheriff says.
• Privacy
  • (2019) Cities Can See Where You’re Taking That Scooter: Thanks to technology developed by Los Angeles (and opposed by Uber), they know more about the movement of dockless vehicles than ever before. [This was just upheld in court in 2021].
• Justice
  • Berkeley City Council Passes Sweeping Reforms to Limit Police Traffic Stops. 
  • ‘Abolish ICE’ was a top submission in Minnesota’s snowplow naming contest.
• International Trade
  • Age of Invention: The Industry of All Nations [World’s Fairs].
• Nature
  • The mysterious existence of a leafless kauri stump, kept alive by its forest neighbours [It’s part of a network, trees are social].

Podcasts:

• Mitch Turck interviews Carlos Pardo (NUMO Alliance) covering transportation avoidance as a fundamental strategy in TDM, and why 99% of transpo planners neglect to acknowledge it as being within their purview: https://www.telekineticshow.com/episodes/transportation-avoidance.