City Haul

Urbanism, transit, walking

[cityhaul]

Just noticed this in an ad on a bus stop shelter. Is this a car-free streets day, a contraflow bike lane or is this that one cyclist who all drivers seem to see doing something illegal and dangerous "all the time?"

[cityhaul]

John Supko on Twitter

“Just saw this ad on NYT mobile site. I clicked. I have questions.”

Talk about hot real estate.

[cityhaul]

Only as a pedestrian can you really appreciate the design of the custom, agency-specific etching in the steel plates that have been left in your street for months.

[cityhaul]

[cityhaul]

Watching people sprint up the platform escalators every morning

WMATA: Don't run for the train.

Riders: Don't run 10-minute headways at 9:30 am.

[cityhaul]

The United States Needs a Universal System to Pay for Public Transit

Why doesn’t the United States have a national system for transit payment? In some countries, a single travel card works to ride any train,

"Come to think of it, is there any product or service other than public transportation that requires you to manage a new way to pay when traveling to a different American city?

The failure of transit systems to align their payment systems is more than a nuisance for travelers; it’s an incentive for them to forego transit entirely and instead use an alternative mode like ride hail or taxis that puts additional vehicles on the road..."

Because the vast majority of Americans are not frequent or even regular users of transit, figuring out how/where to buy fare media in a city they've just landed in, in addition to figuring out how to get where they want to go, might be one barrier too many. It's much easier to just pull out your phone and get a ride from a ride-hailing company with an app you already have installed and let the driver and the GPS take care of all that. 

For some of us, working out how to use a new city's transit system can be fun. For most people, it's more likely to be another reason reason to fall back on what's most familiar - travel by car.

[cityhaul]

Not entirely ideal for a transit agency to wrap its own vehicles in messages that essentially say "Walking is such dangerous activity that it requires safety gear."

[cityhaul]

are you still posting anywhere else?

I haven't been for a long time, partially because I had two Tumblr accounts with different login credentials and ended up locked out of one after changing the email address and password for the other. But I finally just deleted the other one to eliminate the confusion permanently. The longer I went without posting, the more it became like getting way behind in a class - you're afraid to even look to see how bad it is so you just keep getting more and more behind. But I'll start posting again now, even if it's just once a week.

[cityhaul]

"DC's abandoned fire and police call boxes, explained"

I’ve been walking past these for two years going “???”

[cityhaul]

Is it illegal to dumpster dive?

To my knowledge, yes and no. Something thrown away is considered abandoned as the person who owned is no longer claiming ownership but that person/business does own the trash receptacle that's being dived and it's probably on their property so getting in there requires trespassing.

[cityhaul]

"The High Cost of Free Parking"

[tiago-rosa-blog]

Abstract City by Jazberry Blue

[dotankdc]

Maps as artwork.  We love that.

[ryanpanos]

The Bus | Paul Kirchner | Via

[cityhaul]

“Walking is the best way to see a city.”

[cityhaul]

“You could lose your purse or you might lose something worse on the subway.“

Hidden in plain sight for over 40 years, here’s the true, original impetus for anti-MARTA rail expansion sentiment, circa 1974. Do you want some guy wearing an ascot, sunglasses and Tina Turner’s hairstyle riding through your neighborhood? I think not.

[cityhaul]

Notice that it says *at least* 24 hours.

Be on the lookout Thursday for news stories about people accidentally taking $250 Uber and Lyft rides

[huffpost]

Hilarious Map Proves That Every City Is The Same Damn Place