Archinect - News

Should New York's subway rails be paved over for driverless cars?

2018-07-24T19:03:00-04:00

Visions of the future [autonomous vehicles] will bring have already crept into City Council meetings, political campaigns, state legislation and decisions about what cities should build today. That unnerves some transportation planners and transit advocates, who fear unrealistic hopes for driverless cars — and how soon they’ll get here — could lead cities to mortgage the present for something better they haven’t seen.

With new technologies emerging, cities are debating the most effective transportation systems to fund. Caught in the midst of this struggle is the proposition of paving over the New York subway in order to create an underground highway for autonomous vehicles. Those championing the idea believe this system would move the most people using the least amount of space, when theoretically services like Lyft and Uber no longer have to pay drivers.

Many, however, believe this is an unrealistic faith in new technology to solve all of our cities transportation problems. If everyone uses their own private, self-driving car this could create enormous amounts of traffic. Not to mention the belief that there is something inherently better about everyone traveling together on public transit rather than in their own isolated vehicles. Should cities invest in these new transit models replacing public infrastructure with private systems? Or hold out for unknown future technologies?

New report presents staggering amount of parking in US cities

2018-07-16T15:13:00-04:00

Groundbreaking research presents credible estimates of the total parking supply in several American cities, and it's not pretty. Parking spaces are everywhere, but for some reason the perception persists that there’s “not enough parking.” And so cities require parking in new buildings and lavishly subsidize parking garages, without ever measuring how much parking exists or how much it’s used.

A new report from Eric Scharnhorst at the Research Institute for Housing America, an arm of the Mortgage Bankers Association, estimates the total parking supply in five US cities. Looking at satellite imagery and tax record data, Scharnhorst tallied on-street parking, surface parking, and garage parking in New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Des Moines, and Jackson, Wyoming. The results show staggeringly high amounts of land use dedicated to parking with low use percentages.

A manual on traffic engineering excuses opens the gates for pointed criticism

2018-07-02T15:16:00-04:00

Im developing a new guide called the ‘Manual on Uniform Traffic Engineer Excuses’ or #MUTEE,” tweeted Boise-based planner Don Kostelec in a moment of genius. “You get to name the chapters. Go!” The responses were swift, and hilarious, and like so much humor carried painful truths.

Don Kostelec recently opened the door to traffic engineering jabs with a call for chapter titles on his Manual on Uniform Traffic Engineer Excuses. Some of these cutting responses are all too real...

Responses included chapter titles such as:

Appendix 99 – A Listing of All Mandatory Design Features for All Forms of Alternative Transportation [This page intentionally left blank]
Chapter 16: Sharrows: How to Apply the Single Ply Toilet Paper for Bike Infrastructure
Chapter 13: Two-way Cycle Tracks Mean Highly Complex Intersections; Why You Should Just Use Sharrows Instead
Chapter 44: Someday Dark Clothing Will Go Out of Style
Introduction: Why the World Is Designed for Peak Hour Car Use and Not 24-Hour Use by Everybody Else
Chapter 12: Induced Demand and Widening Projects: Tall Tales, Lies, and Other Falsehoods
Chapter 5: How to Remove a Crosswalk – It’s too dangerous for pedestrians to cross here, wouldn’t want to give them a false sense of security.

Check out Don Kostelec’s Twitter feed @...

A call for cities to own the curb as transit startups invade the streets

2018-06-15T17:14:00-04:00

With more options that ever for getting around cities, and finite space, the question of how we use this infrastructure, and who controls it, is more important than ever. By regulating how these new transportation options evolve, cities can potentially bring about a more sustainable, multimodal, and less car-centric transit future.

Our city curbs are transportation battles for space in the flow of traffic. While private tech startups are producing popular transportation solutions, such as Bird's electric scooters, the city is the one paying to build and maintain these public spaces. An upswing in dockless vehicles has far reaching potentials for cities to achieve sustainable goals, if they can reassert their ownership.

Bjarke Ingels Group + AECOM join forces with Hyperloop

2016-05-11T19:32:00-04:00

Not content to merely redefine skyscrapers, football stadiums, and the agency of the architect, Bjarke Ingels Group is now leaping into the realm of transportation, joining up with Hyperloop to "transform the future of public infrastructure."

Bjarke explained it thusly: "Traditionally, the work of an architect is to design buildings for the same known program - a residence or a workplace - and try to squeeze in a marginal improvement here or an elegant design solution there. With Hyperloop we are not only designing a futuristic station or a very fast train - we are dealing with an entirely novel technology with the potential to completely transform how our existing cities will grow and evolve - and how new cities will be conceived and constructed."

For its part, AECOM will focus on improving the freight end of the transportation system, focusing its highly trained teams on the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. "AECOMs partnership with Hyperloop One has the potential to transform ...

Waiting for the Washington Metro: A not-so-fictional tale

2016-04-27T20:27:00-04:00

The train will not come because the track does not exist, says the voice on the loudspeaker. You must believe as hard as you can. Everyone on the platform ignores him. Your belief is not enough. It has never been enough. Construction has just begun on the new Fuchsia Line, which Metro management says will solve all the system’s problems, and which is the only thing that anyone has allocated any funding for. It is entirely under water and plated in gold. It will be completed in 18 years.

Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post pens a maybe not-so-fictional tale about the “horrors” of the current state of the Washington Metro, which shut down last month.

Seven U.S. cities competing to be the "smartest" in urban transit systems

2016-03-22T13:50:00-04:00

The seven American cities that made the shortlist in the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Smart City Challenge are now deciding their strategies for winning the $40m prize fund...Transportation is the focus, so judges will be interested in self-driving and 'connected' cars, as well as 'smart streets' fitted with sensors. The aim will be to cut accidents, reduce pollution and increase commuter convenience.

The DOT shortlisted seven finalists instead of the originally planned five. They are:

Austin, Texas
Columbus, Ohio
Denver, Colorado
Kansas City, Missouri
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Portland, Oregon
San Francisco, California

The winning city is expected to be announced in June.

More related to transportation technology on Archinect:

U.S. says computers qualify as drivers in Google's autonomous vehicles; won't even have to go to the DMV

Google's self-driving car hits bus and causes its first crash

A first look at the Hyperloop's real tubes and imagined winged terminals

"In LiDAR We Trust" – Poking the subconscious of autonomous vehicles with special guest Geoff Manaugh, on Archinect Sessions #43

AIA Twenty-five Year Award given to Washington D.C., Metro

2014-01-14T13:31:00-05:00

Still standing strong after its opening in 1976, the Washington D.C. Metro rail system designed by architect Harry Weese was deemed the recipient of the AIA's Twenty-five Year Award. The award recognizes a structure that demonstrates architectural resilience for 25-35 years. The structure must also show excellence in function, execution of its original program, and creative aspects in accordance with today's standards.

These are a few of the D.C. Metro's stations.

Find out more about the D.C. Metro on Bustler.

L.A. to S.F. in 30 Minutes: Tesla's Hyperloop Would Make CA's High-Speed Rail Blush

2013-08-13T12:43:00-04:00

Hyperloop is a new mode of transport that seeks to change this [transit] paradigm by being both fast and inexpensive for people and goods. Hyperloop is also unique in that it is an open design concept, similar to Linux. Feedback is desired from the community that can help advance the Hyperloop design and bring it from concept to reality.

CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, posted on the Tesla blog his proposal for an alternative to the California High-Speed Rail plan, the Hyperloop. The solar-powered transportation system is proposed to function somewhat like a pneumatic tube, where capsules of up to 28 passengers on air-bearings are transported between Los Angeles and San Francisco in about 30 minutes.

Read Musk's entire proposal here.

Feedback and contributions to the Hyperloop design should be directed to: hyperloop@spacex.com or hyperloop@teslamotors.com.

In Denmark, Pedaling to Work on a Superhighway

2012-07-19T15:00:00-04:00

The cycle superhighway, which opened in April, is the first of 26 routes scheduled to be built to encourage more people to commute to and from Copenhagen by bicycle. More bike path than the Interstate its name suggests, it is the brainchild of city planners who were looking for ways to increase bicycle use in a place where half of the residents already bike to work or to school every day.

Audi and BIG Show introduce Urban Future illuminated road of the future pavilion at Art Basel

2011-12-05T17:34:05-05:00

Audi and BIG showed up at Art Basel Miami last week with what could be mistaken as the latest dance floor design, a huge LED surface which illuminates and tracks humans. The floor act as a large scale demonstration of “Urban Future,” . The concept is based on integrating driveless electric cars into advanced roadways that guide the vehicles, eliminating curbs, traffic lights and other types of space-gobbling infrastructure to hand the city back to pedestrians.

An interesting video of how BIG + Kollision + Schmidhuber & Partner's smart LED road will work in the real world.