A roundup of interesting tidbits and links about transportation from the last week or so!

• Vincent Kartheiser and Rich Sommer from the tv show Mad Men recorded an in-period plea for high speed rail in America! Just thought you’d enjoy it, as Hollywood endorsements of transit options are few and far between :)
• On Twitter, @dizzysays sent along a 1985 home video of SkyTrain!
• Anna Dean, who retired from TransLink last year, shares her story of being a woman in the transit industry with the Vancouver Sun (the article mistakenly says BC Transit!) Incidentally, Edra McLeod, who is mentioned in the story, is part of the podcast in my 2009 post about the conductorettes.
• Unfinished London: a (really excellent) homemade documentary about a Tube line in London that was never built.
• Hamburg contemplates putting in a cable car, kind of like our prospective gondola project for SFU/Burnaby Mountain.
• A couple of fun links shared by VIA Architecture: trippy transit benches in Philadelphia, and how much could you save by riding transit instead of driving?
• Bike sharing will be starting in Toronto come May 3, 2011! Also, in other Toronto news, the TTC has hired a chief of customer service!
• Vancouver has a new fleet of delivery tricycles. And in other Vancouver bike news, here’s a Georgia Straight review of metro Vancouver’s bike infrastructure.
• Great traffic infographic from the How We Drive blog.
• Ric sent in photos of his Super Express trainset.
• Complaints section: Average Joe Cyclist had a bad experience with BCAA Bike Assist (and their vice-president sent in a response!). And over in Victoria, a letter-writer complains about BC Transit’s transit ticket transfer policy.
• Nathan over at South Fraser OnTrax posts a couple of illustrations of the planned Waterloo Rapid Transit, as it may be similar to Surrey rapid transit solutions.
• SkyTrain… to murder! (It’s a mystery novel set in Bangkok: ha ha :)
• Portland’s TriMet has installed audible signals to warn pedestrians that a bus is turning, after a recent fatal collision at a crosswalk. Then a lady named Jeri Ellsworth posted a critique of the signals that made the president of the signals’ contractor insult her on YouTube! Super weird.
• Look: I’m quoted in a recent Mass Transit magazine article on the negative side of social media.
• Dominik Raab does bike stunts: it’s kind of like parkour for bikes!
• David Cooper shared a video on LRT planning in Detroit, done to the tune of Eminem.
• I never posted this before: the lovely drawings of Christoph Niemann, telling the story of his sons’ obsession with the NYC subway.
• And last but not least, Jason Vanderhill sent through this story about pregnant ladies on transit getting seats! A topic dear to my heart :)

If you have any items to suggest, or a photo to showcase on these posts, e-mail me at thebuzzer@translink.ca! (Seriously: photos. Send them to me!)