Links and tidbits for Tue Sept 14
September 14, 2010
Links and tidbits for Tue Sept 14
September 14, 2010
I’m back and slowly returning to the swing of things—there’s some long-term, non-blog projects I’m working on lately, so you’ll have to pardon my pace for the next little while!
Nonetheless: here’s some collected tidbits and links for all of you once more! If you have any items to suggest, or a photo to showcase on these posts, e-mail me at thebuzzer@translink.ca! I really need good photos. I’m not going to lie.
- We had a couple of Pattullo Bridge public sessions scheduled for September: they’re now being rescheduled to November.
- John Calimente wrote a thoughtful year-in-review piece about the Canada Line.
- New York subway photos from the 1970s and 1980s.
- A bike lane in Portland gets Mario Kart symbols!
- London had a one-day, super-disruptive tube strike on September 7! Here’s a bunch of interesting BBC links: a news video, their live updates from throughout the day., and a story about service resuming.
- This fellow rides a penny farthing—one of those big wheel bicycles—and has done bike tours from New York to L.A. and more! Here’s a shop that specializes in penny farthings, if this interests you.
- This seems like a bit of a late observation on the part of the Wall Street Journal, but they’ve just covered the renaissance of cruiser bikes.
- Killing them with kindness: illegally parked bikes are being moved to nearby bike racks, and they’ll lube your chain and pump your tires up for free!
- A unified theory of New York City biking.
- Matthew Buchanan passed along this live map of the Swiss train system. Awesome.
- Jean Chong has two interesting bike posts: how to combine cycling with other transport options within Metro Vancouver, and on Vancouver Island and in the U.S.
- They’re building an Expo Line in L.A. too — the Source has the latest photo from its construction, and an Expo Line update from August.
- Voony has some interesting thoughts on Highway 99 and its transit amenities.
- The Transport Politic had a post on Vancouver’s transit trajectory. Lots of hot debate in the comments.
- And finally: Rob Cottingham drew a Signal to Noise social media cartoon
onwhile riding the #4 Powell bus :) Bravo — it looks great!
Welcome back, Jhenifer! Hope you enjoyed your time off.
The Broadway vs Surrey debate (from your link to The Transport Politic) will certainly be interesting as it unfolds over the next few months.
And is there anything to improve the prevention of spam comments? It’s no fun to see up to 50 of these showing up on my RSS reader each morning.
Eric: YES. I’m going to put someone on the web team on the spam case. It has been ridiculous lately (I guess unless you’re a fan of Ugg boots and Vibram Five Fingers shoes).
Jhenifer:
Already 2 people have commented, with the latest on video demo how to load bike on TransLink bus bike rack. Please feel free to respond to the poster, on this link:
http://insidevancouver.ca/2010/08/29/go-multi-modal-combine-cycling-with-other-transportation-options-part-ii-from-metro-vancouver-to-vancouver-island-gulf-islands-whistler-and-the-u-s/
Coincidentally my dental hygienist today asked me “how long” it takes to load bike on the rack… She is a hesitant cyclist right now but does have cycling friends.
Jean: The comments on the link you’ve provided seem to be about VIA rail’s bike box fee. Did you mean a different post? Let me know!
Jean: With a bit of experience, (doing it once), a bike can be loaded in less than 30 seconds. Usually the bike rider is ready to board by the time any other passengers have boarded. They seldom delay anything.
Have I mentioned how much I love the ‘T’ signs at the skytrain stations? It’s so nice that our transit stations are easily identifiable now! Yay!
@Jhenifer I believe Jean meant to post the link you provided to her blog about using bikes on transit? The one with the link “within Metro Vancouver”
One thing I’m curious about is how do people get their bikes off when it is on the inner slot and there is another bike on the outer slot. I’m fairly tall so I could quite easily lift my bike straight off. But I’ve always wonder what others do that might not have the physical strength or height to lift their bike over the front bike.
For now I’ve just stuck with riding longer distances and only using Skytrain when allowed.
Paul: Most people just roll the bike out toward the curb if it is on the inner slot.
Thanks, Jhenifer – it helped that it was a surprisingly smooth ride! :)
The ‘T’ sign looks nice. :) Vancouver’s underground stations did sort of blend in before.
T isn’t that clear. Does it mean TransLink? Why not use “M” for Metro (although we don’t have a heavy rail system)?
Gary: The T stands for Transit — that way it can be used on bus stops etc.
The T made an appearance around the A Team movie was shot here.
;-): Really? Where??
Sorry to be tardy on checking back. Yes, Paul is right. Sorry for the wrong reference. I meant the first article on riders need to see how to load a bike on the rack:
http://insidevancouver.ca/2010/08/12/go-multi-modal-%e2%80%93combine-cycling-with-other-transportation-options-part-i-within-metro-vancouver/
A video would be helpful for cyclists-transit bus users. There are enough newbie cyclists who are put off by dealing with many hills and would appreciate convenience of bus for certain trip segments. North Shore would be an excellent example where one sees less visible commuter cyclists.
To answer Paul’s musings on a short person lifting a bike on and off rack: I’m one of them. What is important for a weaker person is that they at least, need to know how to bring the rack down, etc. After all, the whole busload of passengers is watching. :) It is more awkward, Paul but not impossible. I’m sure Jhenifer, if you did a fun poll with a survey question: Would you use a bus bike rack if you knew you would be less embarrassed because…etc.?
I have only used the bus racksm as a shortcut to the B.C. ferry terminals –that is, if the lineup of cyclists isn’t long.
By the way, as slightly off topic, Whidbey Island, one of the U.S. islands, has their Island Transit which is completely free to everyone and most buses have a bike rack. Locals encourage visitors to use their system.
I could see how pulling the rack down might be a bit difficult. The rams are there to assist you but they are set up so that it should take the same amount of strength to lift the rack back up as to pulling it down. If you didn’t have the rams then it would be very easy to pull the rack down. But then people would serious problems lifting it back up as they would have nothing to assist them.
Short answer the rams balance the weight of the rack.
Bike butlers! WOW. Glad that isn’t here! Would only encourage bad behaviour plus I don’t think any tax dollars should be going towards a problem that happens only because people are lazy and/or don’t read signs.
There was a typo in my last message…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z93AADd2Dpo
The A team was released in the summer of 2010, but filmed in Vancouver just before the Olympics…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_A-Team_(film) (see Production)
This was around the same time Translink put in the T….. was it to pay homage to the film?
Just kidding around….
Something completely unrelated to any of the links here, but would be be a “tidbit” – the older buses are slowly getting their “MW CHK” messages replaced by “NIS”, finally! Older New Flyers with green letters have NIS on the number area both at the front and back, whereas the slightly less old New Flyers with orange letters have NIS only on the back display.
Tim: excellent! I knew that was something the bus folks were working on, but glad to hear it is moving forward.
[…] the comments on Tuesday’s tidbits post, Jean suggested a poll about using the bike rack on buses. A great […]
I also noticed that some older New Flyers are using electrical roll-signage.
Hey just reading Tim’s post and I think it’s safe to assume NIS is not in service but I’ve always wondered what does MW CHK mean?
Jordan: MW CHK means “Message Writer Check” — it’s just a default message for the display when it’s not showing an actual message.
about the picture, i tihnk they should have an simple icon of a bus…i didnt know T meant transit lol
@Mike
Think of it this way. I’m not sure if you have ever been the London. But I’m sure you have seen the world famous London Underground symbol. The blue bar with the red circle. That symbol is synomise with the London Underground. Anybody who knows it knows what it means.
So think of the “T” as the same thing. The difference is that the “T” hasn’t been around long enough for it to be in the publics psyche.
It takes a while for branding as it is known to be become well known. But once it is known people just understand what it means. If you see a McDonalds arch you know what it means. You walk into a store and see the Microsoft symbol on a product. You automatically know what product was producted by Microsoft. The Apple symbol is another example.
So think of the “T” as another example of branding that is used to sell a product. In this case the product is transit service.
We haven’t heard anything new about signage at stations being converted or standardized with the new T sign, which I like very much. When are the new T signs going to appear at all stations?
John: Expansion of the T signage is dependent on funding for the program. As of right now I don’t believe the funding is there for expanding the signage, but it may certainly come in future years.