Mapping your path

In celebration of the 106th birthday of New York Cities subway system, The New York Times posted a great interactive website that asks people to create their own maps of how they get around using the Subway system. Above, Milton Glaser's own "mental map" of NYC.

Smart Mobility

Transportation for America has recently posted some interesting case studies on transportation. What is of interest is their look at excess capacity and the rubric they use in exploring it: increased efficiency, travel options, better information, pricing and payments and trip reduction. How can we learn from their industry and apply these tools for other industries/infrastructures in need of rethinking, redesign...?

Wheeels

Interview with Wheeels creaters, David Mahfouda and Alex Pasternack.

"Transit, and the hard infrastructure that undergirds it, is a system that could obviously benefit from greater efficiency and less waste. But it was the less tangible infrastructure of the Internet that led to her eureka moment, ten years ago: “This is what the Internet was made for, sharing a scare resource among many people.”...

"Higher" Transportation

Some interesting developments in the land of hyper urbanization...China. This new elevated bus system promises to decrease the increasing traffic congestion while decreasing the pollution load on the ever increasing cities of China. To be tested out in Beijing, the opportunities to see our street scapes as layers in the cities for multiple programming could yet be seen.

Getting Around the Mega-Cities

related article: Envisioning a Small Electric BMW for the World’s Very Big Cities

In thinking about how we will move about the new more congested cities, several auto companies are preparing to introduce new smaller "people movers"...

" The Mega City Vehicle is imagined not simply as an in-city errand hauler, but as a commuter car. “In the beginning of the program we asked, what does ‘megacity’ mean?’” he said. “What kind of people will drive this car? What will they do everyday?”"

Taxi Mapping

Another great New York Times info-mapping of Taxi's in the city

The Cab Ride

There is something so simple and effective about this study that I just keep coming back to. Rachel Abrams gives us a play by play of how she "see's" the taxi ride and gives us a great tool for exploring the world of transportation. Here at Urban Omnibus

Taming Times Square

Bloomberg announces plans to make portions of broadway at Times Square more pedestrian friendly by closing off the traffic and installing new public spaces.

related website

What is it that makes a public space "friendlier"? And what sort of models are out there comparable to the likes of Times Square? What is the experience of Times Square...what are the infrastructures, systems...schedules? And what is the user experience without the cars?

related articles.
Times

Anamorphosis Mapping: Maps in Time

Map of Europe based on rail travel distance in time.
Spiekermann, K. and M. Wegener. 1996.

















Tube Map based on time

other maps:
World Mapper

Electric Cars = Electric Resiliency

Seeking greater electric and transportation resiliency.

"And in a true smart grid, electric cars will not only be able to draw on electricity to run their motors, they will also be able to do the reverse: send electricity stored in their batteries back into the grid when it is needed. In effect, cars would be acting like tiny power stations.

“Most days, most cars are going to have lots of extra battery capacity,” said Mr. Kempton, noting that on average, American automobiles get driven for just one hour each day. Electrifying the entire vehicle fleet would provide more than three times the U.S.’s power generation, he said."

NYTimes Article
Electric Cars and a Smarter Grid

McDonalds CycleCenter

Privately owned public resource: McDonalds Cycle Center located in Chicago's Millennium Park. its a heated and air conditioned indoor bicycle parking facility built by the city of Chicago and now sponsored by McDonalds. In addition, the station provides space for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group.

McDonald's Cycle Center offers the following services:

• Secure Bicycle Parking: The Cycle Center offers 300 secure bicycle parking spaces.
• Lockers, Showers and Towel Service: To make your bicycle commute comfortable we provide lockers and showers (for Members only) so you may refresh before you go to work.
• Bicycle Rental: Bikes are available for rent by the hour, day, or week.
• Bicycle Repair Shop: Professional bicycle mechanics are available full time at the bicycle station during the summer from 10am to 6pm and part time during the winter.
• Guided Bicycle Tours: Memorial Day to Labor Day, guided bicycle tours are offered daily at 10am and 1pm.
• IGO Car Sharing : IGO cars are available for rent from Millennium Park. IGO is a not-for-profit car sharing program developed by the Center.
  

from website

from a treehugger blog post:

"I have a membership at the bike station and find it very convenient - it's clean and only 4 blocks from my office, which is closer than any gym. It's not fancy, but it doesn't need to be - and it's used almost exclusively by commuters, not tourists. I don't mind the McDonald's name if it saves taxpayer money - besides, anyone who's traveled much knows that the bathrooms at McDonald's are always the cleanest."

Also see:
Millennium Park
Wikipedia

Grounds for Free Speech

image credits: Thailand's Suvarnabhumi International Airport + the Acropolis of Greece

Recent news headlines have been displaying images of public spaces in connection with locally occurring protests. In Thailand, its the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship protesting Mr Somchai's People Power Party, locating themselves finally in both airports Bangkok, disrupting travel amoung other things. In Athens Greece, protesters asking for mass protests across Europe in responce to a local teenager shot by police, unvail banners on the walls of the Acropolis.

These are peaceful acts of communicating distaste for local governments, inaction by governing bodies. People are coming together to show and express their opionions. These acts culimate in public places, national/city gathering grounds. Space to express, to rally...and to disrupt.

These two examples highlight the changing arena of our new grounds for free speech. They are not sites of governmental policy making, not capital steps, houses of parliments... They are very visual public spaces...and most interestingly they are sites of international attention, places of high tourism and visability.

They are globalized sites. Local displeasing actions are now fed directing into global conversation. Using sites of recongnition (airports, monuments) that identify nationality (who and where it is) or homogenity (could be anywhere).

Smart Bus Stops

This bus stop shelter in San Francisco offers the rider detailed information on where they are and how long they will be standing there for the next bus to arrive.

visualized information...efficiency, safety....all aspects promoting the use of public transportation.

what other means of informing users of public infrastructures be communicated?
mobile devices, light displays, audio, spatial?

Traces of Transportation

A web of electric bus lines in downtown San Francisco.
Traces of mobility woven above the streetscape. Visual reminders of paths, networks and vital infrastructures. Like the determined paths of subways and skytrains, the bus lines become determined, not limitless like the urban grid it floats upon. Visual cues alert travelers of crossing the path of a moving object...follow the line to find the next stop.

How can these visual cues disclose path type (color, shape, coded). How can they inform schedule, time table or final destinations? What other functions can this web bring to the city?