Archive for the ‘Traffic’ Category

Charles Komanoff: Father of the Balanced Transportation Analyzer

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Wired magazine profiles New York City traffic guru Charles Komanoff:

Charles Komanoff has spent three years building a model of the traffic patterns in New York City. The result is an exhaustive accounting of every mile traveled, every slowdown encountered, and every hour wasted. (Above), a rundown of traffic .Read more...

Evaluating the History and Future of Stop Signs

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic, writes at Slate about the evolution and possible future of stop signs as a traffic device. It’s good to remember that all of these traffic elements we take for granted  (stop signs and drivers licenses to name two) evolved and changed over time.

Like many forms .Read more...

Zipcar founder Robin Chase on Traffic

Monday, July 5th, 2010

From TED.com:

Robin Chase founded Zipcar, the world’s biggest car-sharing business. That was one of her smaller ideas. Here she travels much farther, contemplating road-pricing schemes that will shake up our driving habits and a mesh network vast as the Interstate.

Flipping Traffic in Hong Kong

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Fast Company magazine profiles the new ‘Flipper’ bridge that joins Hong Kong to mainland China:

One of the most vexing aspects of traveling between mainland China and Hong Kong is the car travel: People in the former drive on the right side of the road; people in the latter drive .Read more...

Gibraltar Airport Traffic Includes Planes and Cars

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

The airport in Gibraltar is the only major airport runway that doubles as a traffic intersection for vehicle traffic. Cars are brought to a stop so planes can land and then are allowed to drive across the runway. This interesting roadway is set to be replaced .Read more...

‘Country Driving’ in Red China

Monday, April 19th, 2010

A new book by a Peter Hessler looks at the state of roads and driving in China.

From Publishers Weekly:

In an epic road trip following the Great Wall across northern China, he surveys dilapidated frontier outposts from the imperial past while barely surviving the advent of the nation’s uniquely .Read more...

Chicago Parking Customs incite Passive-Aggressive Notes

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Hat tip: Tom Vanderbilt, How We Drive

Do-It-Yourself Highway Signage

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

A fun story out of Los Angeles about a local artist, Richard Ankrom, who took matters into his own hands and altered the freeway signage on the 110 freeway with a handmade replica of an Interstate 5 North sign that was so good that Caltrans left the sign untouched for .Read more...

Traffic Accidents Stuck in Time (or in Google Streetview, anyway)

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

The temporary embarrassment and frustration of a traffic accident now has the potential to be trapped in time via Google StreetView.

Fast Company highlighted this collection of traffic accidents and fires found around the world on Google StreetView.

Road Rage Meets Roadway Signage Design

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Courtesy: Tom Vanderbilt

America’s Top Ten Worst Commutes via The Daily Beast

Monday, February 8th, 2010

The Daily Beast ranked the 75 worst commutes in America:

Bumper-to-bumper traffic is America’s collective nightmare, and like the movie Groundhog Day it repeats on a daily basis. Congestion consumes billions of gallons of fuel, wastes hundreds of billions of dollars in productivity and causes billions of stress headaches. Yet over .Read more...

Protests Continue as Left Side of Road is Still ‘Wrong’ in Samoa

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

The Wall Street Journal article ‘Shifting the Right of Way to the Left Leaves Some Samoans Feeling Wronged’ was one of the most read articles on the wsj.com website in 2010. It was interesting to learn that 30% of the world drives on the left side of the road.

Samoa is .Read more...