How We Roll, May 4: every train needs a fireplace, right?

by Steve Hymon , May 4, 2017

ICYMI: There are several upcoming outdoor movie screenings in Metro Rail-friendly parks in our region. I happened to be walking my dog near Los Angeles State Historic Park on Saturday night when they were showing ‘La La Land.” Huge crowd — and a bit of a parking mess with many people driving there despite the fact the Gold Line is right next door.

Happy Star Wars Day!

On #StarWarsDay EVERYONE can shoot first! #MayTheFourthBeWithYou https://t.co/O5NLLu3IV0

— Twitter Moments UK & Ireland (@UKMoments) May 4, 2017

Darth Vader's theme song, 'The Imperial March', is 103 beats/min. Great for keeping time in CPR. #Maythe4thbewithyou pic.twitter.com/QYLN0Qp3jr

— American Heart Association (@American_Heart) May 4, 2017

Just making sure you remembered to load fare on your TAP card. 😏 #MayThe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/aCOR3zybGM

— LA Metro (@metrolosangeles) May 4, 2017

24 hours of transit in New York City (Will Geary)

Pretty cool. The number of cabs and buses are impressive. The subway tends to get a little muted by them — of course the individual dots don’t show how crowded those trains are.

Columbus just launched a completely redesigned bus network (Streetsblog)

Ohio’s capital is the latest to tear up old routes and replace them with more frequent ones as part of an effort to reverse declining ridership.

Don’t look now but even buses are going autonomous (Wired)

Misleading headline and lack of skepticism aside, the article is about a University of Nevada Reno effort to develop just getting off the ground to develop a self-driving bus. (UNR has apparently already developed a good PR pipeline to compliant journalists, however).

And why would agencies want to ditch human operators? Wired accurately notes that buses are already extremely safe but agencies do get stuck with liability claims and that can be pricey. So that’s one motivator — if you believe self-driving buses won’t also get into scrapes.

Not addressed is the issue of how self-driving buses would be staffed by transit agencies. Would there still be a human operator just watching? And why couldn’t buses retrain the human operator and be outfitted with some of the anti-collision technology that is on many cars?

Japan’s ultra-luxurious train hits the tracks for its maiden journey (BBC)