Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads:
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- • Alternative Holden/Green Tube stations (Londonist)
- • Urban rooms where people design their city’s future (TheConversation)
- • The role of rail in tackling loneliness (RailwayTech)
- • Largest drive-free vehicle at Canadian Auto Show (Metrolinx)
- • Landscape enhancements for strip malls (UrbanGeographer)
- • NY subway map, Tube map style (TransitMaps)
- • America without Greyhound (RailwayAge)
- • The sound of the (SFO) underground (Medium)
- • Transit portable cup holder (BlogTO)
In the mean time, do check out our most popular articles:
And some of our other sections:
If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, email us at [email protected].
See you next week.
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7 comments
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Methinks someone should write about the serious alternatives to Londonist… Or do we sadly live in just one universe and have to put up with that?
In terms of ‘reality’ (whatever that means) the role of railways in tackling loneliness seems a bit perverse when many people use the railways to end their lives. Especially as Rail technology cracks on about mortality rates going up….
Whilst I was saddened, if not surprised, to see the prospective demise of Greyhound without substantive replacement, I couldn’t help wondering the extent to which local airlines have in practice replaced the intercity market, and whether the air network is anything like as fine a mesh as the bus network – at least on geographically similar corridors.
@Graham H
Of course the big difference is that the buses operate on a flag stop principle (at least in some rural areas, off the interstates) and provide some form of service to smaller communities. Trains might do that (see the Alaska Railroad) but, of course, planes cannot. So you are likely to be right that planes have replaced buses and trains for inter-city routes, but rural communities have become increasingly isolated.
Rog
Agree … “londonist” was a useful site up until about two years ago. They now appear to have lost the plot completely.
Quinlet
but rural communities have become increasingly isolated.
Just like this country with bus deregulation, you mean?
I’m sure the portable cupholder breaks several unwritten rules of personal space on London transport.
@ Graham H, Quinlet
It is not just rural communities in the USA which have become isolated from public transport. Across much of the USA Greyhound buses operate on the Interstate highways and often do not serve any of the intermediate towns along the way. Their operations are similar to National Express in the UK whose services are now mainly long distance routes along the motorways. I occasionally go to Columbus, Indiana, a medium size town of 45,000 population, with a further 35,000 in the surrounding county. Columbus is about 40 miles south of Indianapolis just off Interstate 65, a main route heading south to Louisville, Kentucky. The town is the headquarters and main manufacturing plant of Cummins diesel engines. Greyhound run their buses four times a day each way along Interstate 65, plus Megabus at twice a day, but neither operator has scheduled stops between Indy and Louisville, a distance of 110 miles. Apart from a heavily subsidised local transit (bus) service on five routes within Columbus there is now no scheduled public transport between Columbus and Indianapolis or other towns. Columbus has an airport, but there are no scheduled flights from there. So the only option to get to and from Columbus is by car or taxi.
@AA Thanks – that’s exactly what I had suspected (it’s not possible to tell from the published schedules whether intermediate stops exist beyond the timing points). So with the demise of Greyhound, there will be virtually nothing by way of interurban transit at all.