Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog.
Is high-speed rail a valuable addition to infrastructure, or a boondoggle? (Sacramento Bee)
The debate over California High Speed Rail (HSR) continues with this dust up between Pia Lopez and Ben Boychuk for the Sacramento Bee. Lopez argues on the side of HSR and notes that the distances in California are ideal for the mode and cites countries across the globe that have successfully invested in HSR. On the other side of the issue. Boychuk cites the high costs and required subsidies that HSR entails and dubs the project a boondoggle.
Greentechmedia offers some further commentary on the dust up.
ExpressPark Aims to Give Smarts to Downtown’s Parking Spots (blogdowntown)
A new parking management system is coming to Downtown L.A. that will use smart technology to alter parking rates based on demand. New parking meters will be arriving in the summer of next year. The project is funded as part of Metro’s Express Lanes project.
Here’s an example of a similar program in San Francisco.
L.A.’s light rail fiasco (L.A. Weekly)
The Weekly opines that the first phase of the Expo Line is an “embarrassing public failure,” alleging in particular that a flawed contracting process has resulted in significantly higher costs and delays in opening the line. The Weekly also says that elected officials and Metro provided poor oversight, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was slow to relocate power lines and that there were personality conflicts involving key personnel working for the construction firm hired to build the project.
Wheels When You Don’t Need Them (Next American City)
Car-sharing programs get a lot of hype for allowing people to live without owning a car – but is the concept backfiring? Zipcar, the nation’s largest car-sharing company has over 400,000 members, and some say its for-profit business model actually encourages people to drive more than they have to.
Categories: Transportation Headlines, Transportation News
if people kept building railroads without improving the local connections (and I do see the cutting back the bus service as a result of building rails), we are going to growing business of zip cars. Can’t we blame the people want to drive at the stations? Yes or No
We blame for the people who only drive and take train.
We cannot blame the people who have hard time time taking bus from train station local destination
Of course, for the people who cannot drive or cannot afford cars, they just have to struggle.
Before saying zip car encourages driving, think about the reason. subway without good local connection