blogging

Transportist: 17 Top Posts of 2021

| David Levinson
The most popular Transportist posts from 2021 were not written in 2021. On Misery Loves Company from 2017 has taken a life of its own, for some reason. (punchline: miserable people don’t want company, misery itself does, which is why it spreads).

But the aim of this post is to promote stuff published this year, so these were the most popular (excluding of course, this post itself, for which we don’t yet have statistics). Traditional posts, as opposed to links to other publications (papers, student theses, videos, etc.) are declining as my time is finite and more effort goes to the newsletter. But in case you missed any of the below: happy reading, and may 2022 be better.


Post
What if it’s only once a week?
Notes from a Prison Colony
Urban access across the globe: an international comparison of different transport modes
Towards the 30-minute city — how Australians’ commutes compare with cities overseas
Access as a performance indicator in a work-from-home world
WSTLUR Awards
Observations of Arncliffe
Applications of Access
Optimum Stop Spacing for Accessibility
Road traffic almost back to pre-COVID levels as commuters shun public transport | Sydney Morning Herald
Longing to Travel: Commute Appreciation during COVID-19
Accessibility-oriented planning: Why and how to make the switch
The Ensemble Approach to Forecasting: A Review and Synthesis
Auto buybacks: Cash for ICE — Accelerating the Transition to EVs (and AVs while we are at it)
Job and Worker Density and Transit Network Dynamics
The Economics of Findings
Elements of Access — Now with Video

21 Most Popular Transportist Posts of 2017 Spectacular.

| David Levinson

 

Every year for four years now, I have done a top posts article:

These are the most popular posts for 2017. Those published in earlier years marked with an *.

  1. 21 Strategies to Solve Congestion *
  2. On Why Bike Lanes Might Appear Underutilized *
  3. What Do We Know About the “First Mile/Last Mile” Problem for Transit? * (by David King)
  4. On Elon Musk
  5. Congratulations America, Achievement Unlocked (more or less by Ahmed El-Geneidy’s Group at McGill)
  6. On the Differences between Autonomous, Automated, Self-Driving and Driverless Cars
  7. On the I-85 Bridge Collapse in Atlanta
  8. On the Predictability of the Decline of Transit Ridership in the US
  9. Why is the Walking Man White?*
  10. Rules for Researchers
  11. Post-Doc Wanted
  12. Streets Wide Shut – A Principle for Urban Streets
  13. On `Smart Cities’ and `Smart Growth’ *
  14. Elements of Access: Induced Demand* (by Wes Marshall)
  15. On Resistance
  16. Minnesota planners begin to envision driverless future | Star Tribune
  17. On a new Infrastructure Bill
  18. Recruiting Students
  19. Forgetting Faster Than We Learn* (by David King)
  20. More on Declining Transit Ridership
  21. Transit Riders’ Perception of Waiting Time and Stops’ Surrounding Environments.

Comments:

#1 was a numbered list with paragraphs. The number of hits on #1 was 60 times more widely read than #21 (even more winner-takes-all virality than usual). This was the largest year by far, in most part because of the viral popularity of #1 and #2 (Otherwise it would be the largest by a small amount). Only 1 scientific piece (#21) made the list this year.

Twitter, Facebook, Reddit (Bike Lanes), Tinyletter (my newsletter), LinkedIn, Streetsblog, and Curbed (the I-85 piece) are the largest sources of traffic.

Goals For next year.

  1. Write more numbered lists.

 

 

 

Transportist – Top 21 Posts of 2016

| David Levinson

These were the most popular posts written in 2016 on this blog. You should read them all before the year is out, or before next year is out.

  1. Not in our Name
  2. The A Line – A Review
  3. The Era of Big Infrastructure is Over
  4. On Why Bike Lanes Might Appear Underutilized
  5. Car2Gone: On the decline of carsharing in the late 2010s
  6. What Do We Know About the “First Mile/Last Mile” Problem (by David King)
  7. The Hierarchy of Roads: 7 Axioms on street design
  8. Urban Scaffording: 6 transport technologies which will be largely removed in the coming decades
  9. Police Shootings are a transport matter
  10. 21 Strategies to Solve Congestion
  11. On Academic Rankings
  12. The Timeless Way of Building Roads
  13. The best show about urban planning, economic development, and transportation that you are not watching
  14. The Shapes of Streets to Come
  15. Follow the Red Brick Road
  16. On ‘Smart Cities’ and ‘Smart Growth’
  17. #NoNewParking
  18. The Economics of Academic Self-Promotion
  19. AVs After Alphabet
  20. Cars, People, Buses, Bikes
  21. 5 Ways to Reduce Racial Bias in Traffic Stops

The top post was 8 times more widely read than the 20th. Total readership in 2016 was 33% higher than 2015, and the number of visitors set a record (indicating more people reading posts one-off rather than returning).

I have been doing this for 10 years. I still cannot figure out what makes a popular post. Obviously the academic announcements of papers published are less popular, but still worth doing.

Last year’s post: Transportationist – Most Popular Posts of 2015 was not a huge performer, but it may have driven additional traffic to last year’s winners. I named this year’s “Top 21” on the theory that people like numbered lists, and posts with numbers do well (4 of the top 21 had numbers in them, not including Car2Gone).

The Transportationist’s most popular posts of 2014

| David Levinson

The Transportationist 13 Most Popular Posts written in 2014 (note some 2013 posts were still popular):

  1. WE DON’T PAY ENOUGH FOR TRANSPORTATION August
  2. HIGHWAYS’ HIDDEN SUBSIDIES November
  3. ACCESS ACROSS AMERICA: TRANSIT 2014 October
  4. DEATH BY CAR: ARE YOU MORE LIKELY TO DIE FROM A CRASH OR BREATHING ITS TOXIC EMISSIONS? November
  5. DOGFOODING: WHY TRANSIT EMPLOYEES AND MANAGERS SHOULD USE TRANSIT August
  6. IT’S “ONLY” 5 MINUTES, OR GREEN LINE DELAY MONETIZED July
  7. EXTRAPOLATIONS IN TRAFFIC VS. REALITY December
  8. WHEN WILL WE REACH PEAK ROAD? January
  9. IT’S A SMALL MARKET, AFTER ALL. ES GIBT EINEN KLEINEN MARKT, UBER ALLES. December
  10. ALWAYS GREEN TRAFFIC CONTROL April
  11. THE hITE OF ABSURDITY: MINIMUM PARKING IN AN ERA OF DECLINING TRAFFIC January
  12. MOUNT TRANSIT, MOUNT AUTO, MOUNT NEXT February
  13. PEAK SHOPPING AND THE DECLINE OF TRADITIONAL RETAIL February

There is really two types of posts that seemed to be especially popular. One I will call “car subsidized” (1, 2, 4), the other “car over/future of transportation” (6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13). The car is of course neither all bad nor all good, it is a technology and is used and misused all the time, like anything. The car is not quite over yet either, but its trajectory in the US has mostly flatlined. Also some “transit should be better” (3, 5, 6, 10)

This is out of about 300 posts . Of course you should not just be a dedicated follower of fashion and read the top 13, you should read them all.

David King also started posting in the Fall, so I expect to see his posts in this list next year.

The Transportationist’s most popular posts of 2013 may also be of interest. (I did 39 on last year list, so I am 67% more discerning this year). Note, my biggest posts last year were much bigger than my biggest posts in 2013.

Streets.mn also has a list of popular posts; all my posts for streets.mn are cross-listed here, but tend to get views over there.

A Great Migration: The Transportationist.org is Moving to WordPress

| David Levinson

Joad

The Transportationist.org blog is moving (for some of the reasons described in No Comment).

Does this matter to you?

If you use Twitter to read it: No

If you use Facebook to read it: No

If you use LinkedIn to read it: No

If you use Transportationist.org to read it: No

If you use http://blog.umn.edu/levin031 : YES … Go to http://transportationist.org

If you use an RSS feed of http://blog.umn.edu/levin031 from Google Reader or any other RSS Reader: YES … Subscribe to http://transportationist.org/feed/. Also note that Google Reader will be disappearing.

(I use FeedBin and Reeder now).

The old site will be there for a long time to preserve existing links in, but it will not be updated.

Thanks for your patience. Let me know if you spot problems.