Links and tidbits for Fri June 4
June 4, 2010
Links and tidbits for Fri June 4
June 4, 2010
Tidbits and links, tidbits and links! If you have any to suggest, or a photo to showcase on these posts, e-mail me at thebuzzer@translink.ca!
- Our transit ridership is up after the Olympics. RegardingPlace weighs in with some thoughts.
- The Vancouver Sun reports the Canada Line is getting close to 100,000 riders a day. (Our media team has posted a backgrounder discussing what is meant by “capacity” btw: the Line has not reached capacity yet.)
- A tower is proposed to go up near Marine Drive Station.
- Sneakers in transit colours! Also: transit decorations for the home!
- Pics of the Dunsmuir bike lane from Skyscraper Page.
- Ron Tran’s art installation using found umbrellas from TransLink. (via TransLinked)
- Interesting 2005 article on sprawl from Slate. Is it really an ongoing feature of modern life?
- Wired writes about Charles Komanoff, who purports to have solved New York City’s transportation issues with his enormous Excel spreadsheet of traffic data.
- New York City will have a new transit map next month: check out this neat NYT interactive diagram. Also: the NYC transit Kick Map!
- San Francisco looks to to improve downtown parking by using GPS sensors near parking meters.
- The Danish people celebrate bus driver Mukhtar’s birthday! It’s part of a campaign to improve bus driver/passenger relations, which is all kinds of awesome.
- A BART riders’ list of least favourite commuters.
- Grist.org explores bus rapid transit.
- Sightline.org talks about Vancouver’s transit advantage
- Increased bike capacity isn’t coming to Victoria buses soon.
- Historical: the archives of Baltimore Trolley News, a streetcar newsletter much like our own Buzzer :)
It’s safe to assume that the inner workings of a trolleybus have not fundamentally changed in the last 54 years, although the appearance and fittings have!
And lo and behold, the old Brills may have been manually steered with no lift, bike rack, or air conditioning, but they had regenerative braking, long before the dawn of hybrid cars!
$28,850 for a trolley then! If only that were the case today.
The diagram has the polarity of the trolley wires reversed; usually the wire closest to the curb is the ground wire.
Our current fleet operates off the same direct current overhead network of wires in use since 1948, but the propulsion system is actually alternating current.
I would love to see a similar diagram for the newer buses and each generation of the Skytrain, as well as, Canada Line cars. I often wonder what’s on the roof of buses when I’m looking down from a tall building.
Looks like the new vehicles might even have some warp capabilities.
The propulsion system manufacturer’s page for Vancouver’s trolleys can be found here:
http://www.vossloh-kiepe.com/electric-buses/trolleybuses/references/vancouver-canada
The spec sheet describing the rooftop components is here:
http://www.vossloh-kiepe.com/electric-buses/trolleybuses/references/vancouver-canada/vkprodukt_download
I found this for an exploded MKI SkyTrain car diagram:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OfpZQm4cpao/SH3tf1RkteI/AAAAAAAAAlg/pL28NVTjmUc/s400/skytrain_car_diagram.gif
Derek:
I caught that, too, vis-a-vis the power and ground wires, but I wasn’t 100% sure…
And really, the propulsion system is AC!?
That means that if you put a southbound bus under the northbound wires, it wouldn’t go backwards?
It would go backwards if the operator had the direction selector in “reverse”!
:)
Out of curiosity…
What prevents me from buying a trolley bus, hooking it up to the wires and driving it around as the museum does?
I assume that because the vehicles that use the trolley wires are VERY few and generally restricted to transit buses that there is no reason for any type of metering.
I’m sure there are hobbyists (at least in other cities) that own trolleybuses. Do they more or less get a free pass for their hobby?
I think it would be kind of neat if they did.
Love that exploded view trolley bus; always wanted to see tech drawings just like that! Post them anytime!!
Ooh, neat, transit shoes. But I’m more into Converse than Nike, so I’ll pop over to that website to make some TransLink shoe designs.
Present day dark grey/yellow/blue: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/Aistanocha/translinkshoe_2010.png
Millennium Line/early 2000s yellow and blue on white: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/Aistanocha/translinkshoe_2002.png
Retro flavour: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/Aistanocha/translinkshoe_1986.png
And the Canada Line, which doesn’t quite fit anywhere: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v610/Aistanocha/translinkshoe_canadaline.png
Jason V:
I think Bob Banks drew that exploded diagram actually. He loved drawing trucks and technical details!
Hilary: those are too awesome. Wow!
Cliff: Sorry for the late reply! Here is the answer from fleet management.
im a boy, im from USA. i like wear Nike dunks when play basketball. so i always buy Nike dunk High.