And? It doesn't have as many transit riders are the rest of the US and Canada combined. Adding Canada adds a lot of additional transit users.

Maybe not, but a quick back of the envelope math from various wiki pages on ridership of commuter, heavy, and light rail systems plus bus ridership tells me NYC metropolitan area transit systems comprise roughly 1/3 of all transit ridership across both the United States and Canada. That’s still insane.

Yeah that would be about right. Hopefully the rest of the US will start carrying its ridership weight at some point. :P

If only the United States had been settled in the 16th century, independent in the 17th century, rapidly developed in the 18th century and cohesively built out by the 19th century...

The Cincinnati Reds are perhaps the only pro sports team in the world with a dedicated river barge:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7Xq4..._web_copy_link

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...720&fit=bounds

A very rare sighting - an 18-barge tow on the Ohio River:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C76jo6iOjLl/

This is rare because the locks only have space for 3x5 (15 barges). That means it picked up an extra string of 3 just downstream of Mendahl and will drop them off somewhere before Markland.

It is possible for an 18-barge tow to travel through a lock, but it's a time-consuming maneuver. They'd have to tie up the original 15 on the shore, break off the 3, travel through the lock with the 3 and tie them off downriver, go back up through the lock, pick up the 15, then tie the 3 back on downstream. That's like a 3-4 hour process.

insurance companies track your driving habits and charge you accordingly —



Is Your Driving Being Secretly Scored?

June 9, 2024


You know you have a credit score. Did you know that you might also have a driver score?

The score reflects the safety of your driving habits — how often you slam on the brakes, speed, look at your phone or drive late at night.


more:
https://dnyuz.com/2024/06/09/is-your...cretly-scored/

well ok —


https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7Mq7...NrazY3ZWN4dw==

at some point indeed. it had the best rail transit in the world for a long time. you mean go back to that again. ;)

tokyo parking is next level — :cheers:


https://www.instagram.com/reel/C66vz...lwcnl3NzY2ZQ==

This is very interesting.
 
Solar-Powered Planes Take Flight
The light, uncrewed aircraft could provide surveillance and telecommunications that balloons and satellites can’t—and stay aloft for months

By Phred Dvorak
June 10, 2024
Wall Street Journal

https://images.wsj.net/im-968843?wid...ixel_ratio=1.5
Skydweller, which has a contract with the U.S. Navy, is robust enough to carry relatively heavy surveillance equipment. PHOTO: SKYDWELLER AERO


"Imagine airplanes powered only by energy from the sun, some so light they can be launched from the ground by hand, others gathered in giant “parking lots” in the stratosphere.

Those are the types of aircraft being developed now that are bringing the dream of solar- powered flight closer to reality, with planes that act very differently from the jetliners of today.

Solar-powered planes won’t be flying people to their next vacation spot anytime soon. But these prototypes, most of which operate without humans, could lead to new alternatives for aerial surveillance on high-risk missions and emergency telecommunications in disaster zones, industry executives say. Aviation giants, telecommunication companies, venture investors and military agencies are already spending millions of dollars developing the planes and their technologies..."

https://www.wsj.com/science/environm...hare_permalink

SEPTA's refurbished PCC trolleys from 1947 are hitting the streets once again starting this Sunday! This dive into the outside and inside of the trolleys is pretty cool:

https://www.inquirer.com/transportat...-20230906.html

Can't wait to see them in action!

Do you think that if Boston, NYC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia's Regional Transit Agencies (among others) combined their efforts they could fund the creation of a trainset manufacturing company to be the sole provider of trains and cars to their networks?

Totally cut out the private sector from the process.

Probably. The question is whether it would result in lower costs and/or better products. Establishing a whole new supply chain, manufacturing facilities, design, engineering and quality assurance teams, administration, etc. from scratch when those things already exist could easily cancel out the savings of not paying an outside entity.

Nationalization Food for Thought
 

White paper urges public ownership of U.S. railroads

By Bill Stephens | July 1, 2024

Rail labor groups today released a report calling for public ownership of Class I freight railroads in the U.S., arguing that the current system is broken because it’s beholden to Wall Street.

The 98-page report contends that the Class I railroads’ relentless focus on cost-cutting has hurt safety, service, employees, infrastructure investment, and passenger service.

“Why has this happened? Simply put: instead of investing in their workers, in safe infrastructure, and in quality services, the Class Is prefer to cut costs to the bone in pursuit of short-term profits to lavish on their shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividend payments,” wrote the report’s author, Brown University undergraduate and Stone Fellow Maddock Thomas. “Railroad executives hold the operating ratio — derived from expenses as a percent of revenue — to be supreme. As a result, railroads will refuse even profitable traffic if it means their ratio of expenses to revenue might rise by 0.5%. This short-term profit-focused management system is no way to steward our nation’s critical rail infrastructure.”

A publicly owned system, Thomas argues, would fund infrastructure improvements and electrification, improve and expand service, involve workers in decision-making, create jobs and maintain adequate staffing levels, and shift freight to rail.

As precedent, the report leans on the nationalization of railroads during World War I, when the U.S. Railroad Administration oversaw the industry from 1917 through 1920 and helped relieve bottlenecks that constrained the movement of freight to East Coast ports. After the war ended, rail labor lobbied unsuccessfully to keep railroads in the USRA’s hands.

The paper also notes how Conrail was able to rescue freight railroading in the Northeast after the bankruptcy of seven railroads, including Penn Central.

Rest




In my humble opinion, and this is admittedly bigger picture than what this paper is advocating, this is what should have been done 80 years ago, when many other societies did the same. There's no telling how different our country could have been had we made a decision as a nation to strategically coordinate, invest in and build the future around a modern rail system instead of a haphazard, chaotic and absurdly wasteful environment driven by the personal automobile.

Why nationalize railroads when airports, seaports, and highways have not been nationalized? All those highways, roads, and streets you drive on are either private, state, county, and city owned. The only federal owned roads are on federal property, like parks, monuments, and military bases. The only federal owned airports are on military bases. The only federal owned seaports are on military bases. And yes, I include the Coast Guard with the military.

So why should railroads be treated differently?

Because perhaps the railroads experience problems that the others things don't? Being different modes and all? Or perhaps some of the other facilites should be publicly owned as well but they weren't discussed because they weren't the topic of the paper?

The real question is why should we assume everything should be treated the same and ignore the possibility that there are differences between them that merrit different solution?

Most road and airport infrastructure is publicly owned in the US.

In Canada and the EU, ports are publicly owned as well.

While I disagree that nationalising the existing freightcos is the answer (they do a great job moving freight), this is running away from actually making a point about the issue being discussed.

We should be laying down new passenger track, and encouraging the Class Is to retain infrastructure by changing the tax regulations that give them the perverse incentive to remove track.

Those property taxes railroad must pay each and every year are not levied by the Federal government. They are levied by States, Counties, Cities, Schools, and special taxing districts.
To make up the shortfall of revenues, these local taxing entities will have to raise property taxes on others; like on your own farm, business, and homes.
This would not be a one time hit on your property tax, it will be an extra property tax on you forever.

I know how property tax works, you are being presumptuous here.

And I would like to see an "extra property tax on me forever." A more reliable TTC, shorter TCHC wait times, better maintained parks, proper public realm, recreation facilities, and social services? The QoL improvement would be worth the cost.

And you haven't mentioned any of my other points.