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Friend Matthew Laird caught the Bombardier streetcars being unboxed at Olympic Village Station after their journey from Brussels.
I can see it now: we’ll bike down to the station from our house (do these streetcars have hooks for bikes?), take them to Granville Island, then grab a water taxi to Bowen Island. Bike around a bit, then take the ferry, the bus and the Canada Line home. The only mode of transport we will have missed is the SeaBus (which we could still conceivably take) and the West Coast Express. Excellent.
Would be loads of fun to compare this trip to the film on the DVD City Reflections, which is a ride similar to this through downtown Vancouver in 1907.
San Fransisco, 1905
Shot from the front of a tram, a pleasant seven minute trip into downtown San Fransisco just before the earthquake and fire.
Putting cameras on the front of moving vehicles (particularly trains and streetcars) was big entertainment in the first days of cinema, see the similar The Haverstraw Tunnel (1897), or Tram Ride Into Halifax (1902) and Ride On A Tram Car Through Belfast (1901) from the superlative Mitchell and Kenyon collection held by the BFI. The idea of moving whilst sat in a cinema seat, drawn through the scenery as if by some sort of phantom force, particularly engaged turn-of-the-century cinema-goers: creating moving shots using the rudimentary camera equipment was otherwise near impossible.
A hundred years later, this type of film gives a great idea of contemporary attitudes towards movement and mobility in urban areas. Of particular interest in this example, for instance, is the prevalent attitude towards shared street space, a concept which is beginning to come back into vogue. Note as well the absence of any street furniture, signage or clutter.
(via ), originally posted at undercreative.tumblr.com
Bicycle Commuting and Facilities in Major U.S. Cities
Literature review time! “Higher levels of bicycle infrastructure are positively and significantly correlated with higher rates of bicycle commuting.”
Poetry in Transit won’t be going anywhere anytime soon
Many cities promote local artists and writers inside vehicles, and the Greater Vancouver area is no different. This city names the campaign Poetry in Transit, and while this correspondent won’t try to analyze any poetry, anywhere, he does enjoy the breaks from the commercial reality that pervades the rest of vehicles in the form of advertising. There are even vehicles, usually newly-minted buses, that have only Poetry in Transit. What an oasis!
Karen, another author on this blog, noticed the other day that she hadn’t seen Poetry in Transit posters on buses or SkyTrain lately. We looked at The Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia and found that their Poetry in Transit page contained no information on 2009. (On another page, they say they are “currently obtaining the rights to place poems that have been included in this project on [their] website”!) We got this very nice response from ABPBC:
The Poetry in Transit cards are up for 6 months on TransLink (lower mainland) buses and SkyTrains and then they go to BC Transit (rest of BC) buses for the other 6 months of the year. This year’s Poetry in Transit, which usually launches at Word On The Street at the end of September, will launch at the end of May during the Main Street Literary Tour. The reason for this year’s delay is because TransLink has a blackout on all buses/SkyTrains for the Olympics.Although the ABPBC has recently lost operating grants from the BC Arts Council, Poetry in Transit does get funding, in part, from the Canada Council and this is one of their most favourite projects (and ours!) so it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
MTA to introduce more countdown clocks in subway stations
Great example of the need for Talking to People.
The MTA recently announced that they would be installing countdown clocks in subway stations to inform passengers as to the ETA for the next train.
I thought this was a pretty good idea until I read someone’s submission to the NY Daily News’ “Voice of the People” section and it went a little something like this…
“The MTA’s plan to put countdown clocks in the subways just shows that the agency is still run by people who never ride the rails. At a cost of a million dollars, you will now be able to know your train is running later - or not at all - AFTER you have paid your fare and descended two, three, or four flights underground. What is needed is a STREET LEVL clock so riders can determine whether they want to take the train or use some other method of transportation, before paying their fare of $2.25.”
I totally agree with this person — if I got to the station and saw that my train was going to take 10 minutes to arrive but another line in another part of the station was going to arrive sooner, I would be more inclined to take that one. Or if I was informed that the train wasnt coming at all, I’d probably just take a cab.
How to improve Portland's public transit system
Mistitled “Why Portland’s Mass Transit Rocks” when Zach Rosenberg spends the bulk of the article suggesting tweaks. (via fuckyeahpublictransit)
It’s so cute!
minimodal by hybrid product design
“the minimodal is a taxi design concept designed specifically for the city of new york. the vehicle features a very unusual design that is small and light and uses a hybrid-power system. the two-person passenger cab is low to the ground and features side windows and a fully open skylight. the driver sits in front of an all glass front end and on top of the hybrid engine. the car would also have a signaling system that would let other drivers know when a passenger was coming out to avoid collisions. the designers at hybrid product design also envisioned two larger versions of the taxi to accommodate more passengers. the maximodal would seat 3 and a wheelchair and the mogulmodal would seat four plus a wheelchair.”
http://hybridny.com
From synecdoche on Flickr, an art project in Houston:
Using 13 billboards along the city´s downtown freeways, Olivier will replace the usual advertisements with images of the urban landscape that would be visible if the billboard did not exist - the sky, trees, and buildings obstructed by the ads will now be “revealed.”
Having been to the southern US, I can certainly recognise the pattern synecdoche describes in the description of another photo of a billboard from the project:
Houston is a city of billboards and big signs, sprouting everywhere above the highways in gleaming, glaring, blinking, clashing profusion. A billboardless vista is rare; in traffic-dense commuter areas there are so many that they cancel each other out, becoming visual background noise. Even on a relatively deserted stretch of highway there will be at least one or two every half-mile or so.That makes this project, time-limited though it is, even more wonderful.
