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31 votes
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The three railroads operating out of Penn Station prioritize performance in plans to redesign the transit hub
14 votes -
High-speed rail at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois
11 votes -
Miami: the better bus network is here!
8 votes -
US court rules automakers can record and intercept owner text messages (potentially misleading, see comments)
64 votes -
GM's Cruise recalling 950 driverless cars after pedestrian dragged in US crash
28 votes -
The world’s largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley
36 votes -
America's most controversial bike lane – a center-lane takeover
12 votes -
Captain found guilty of ‘seaman’s manslaughter’ in boat fire that killed thirty-four off California coast
21 votes -
Public health experts say narrow lanes should be the default on city streets
18 votes -
Joe Biden administration issues $16.4 billion in Northeast Corridor rail grants
22 votes -
Which is easier to pull? (railcars vs. road cars)
5 votes -
How Montreal built a blueprint for bargain rapid transit
14 votes -
Modernizing New York commuter rail: through-running service between New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, and Connecticut
14 votes -
Why Norway, the poster child for electric cars, is having second thoughts – we can't let them crowd out car-free transit options
43 votes -
Coming up short: The crash of MarkAir flight 3087
8 votes -
American transit agencies are constantly at risk of financial ruin. How can we fix this problem?
13 votes -
Uber and Lyft to pay New York drivers $328 million following state attorney general wage theft investigation
20 votes -
The EV revolution isn’t only arriving on four wheels
3 votes -
Swedish ports threaten to block Teslas from entering the country – strike that started with mechanics is beginning to spread
28 votes -
Seoul’s solution to ‘hell train’ commutes? Standing room only subway carriages.
15 votes -
Boarding planes could have been very different
15 votes -
Modernizing railways for high speeds: the engineering challenges in setting speed zones
10 votes -
The Rideshare Protocol (TRIP)
15 votes -
Honda says making cheap electric vehicles is too hard, ends deal with GM
31 votes -
Pets and public transportation – what’s your experience?
I’m curious what your experience with taking pets like dogs on public transport is. Tildes has a diverse community from many different countries and I wonder how the process can differ! I don’t...
I’m curious what your experience with taking pets like dogs on public transport is. Tildes has a diverse community from many different countries and I wonder how the process can differ!
I don’t own any pets right now, but I think that if I owned a dog my life would become a lot harder. I have no interest in owning a car at this point, but in my city and country, it would be hard or impossible to travel with my pet on public transit. The limit seems to be about 20 pounds for dogs on Amtrak—but I think small dogs are ridiculous creatures, so I’d already be blocked—and apparently no non-service animals on SEPTA.
Should we make public transit more accessible to animals? How do we do that? What are the challenges for transit agencies/other passengers and what are the benefits?
11 votes -
Cogs in the machine: The crash of Colgan Air flight 3407 and its legacy
9 votes -
Joe Biden administration gives $86 million in roadway safety planning grants to 200 US communities
13 votes -
Portland's Division St. bus rapid transit project yields success
13 votes -
Los Angeles is on a transit-building tear. Will riders follow?
29 votes -
Sergey Brin's airship gets US FAA clearance
27 votes -
Amtrak completes $11.6 million Wilmington, Delaware station renovations
14 votes -
Study: Yes, SUVs are deadlier than sedans — but on fast arterials, pedestrians die no matter what
38 votes -
Who gets peace and quiet?: The dangers of urban noise
23 votes -
State of EVs in Fall 2023?
My RSS reader has turned up a lot of pessimistic articles about the state of EVs in the last few days, for example:...
My RSS reader has turned up a lot of pessimistic articles about the state of EVs in the last few days, for example:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/gm-is-stalling-ev-production-because-demand-is-falling-off
https://www.thedrive.com/news/gm-delays-expanded-silverado-ev-production-orion-assembly-by-year
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/17/gm-delays-4b-ev-truck-factory-plan-by-another-year/
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-vietnam-vinfast-struggles-electric-cars.html
Caught this YouTube video also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZlsZwcIgpc
Because of the car industry's obsession with XXL vehicles, Australia is thinking about increasing the size of the standard parking space
meanwhile, given a choice, consumers are snapping up the reasonably sized and highly efficient (40mpg!) Ford Maverick
maybe those American consumers might desire a bigger truck but they can afford that one.
When I read between the lines I'm inclined to think that there isn't any shortage of interest in EVs, but there is a shortage of interest in $80,000 EVs because very few people can afford them. What are you seeing in your neck of the woods? What intervention can you imagine that would help get the industry come to its senses?
31 votes -
Ford, UAW negotiators reach labor deal, pending union leadership approval
7 votes -
California DMV immediately suspends Cruise’s robotaxi permit
26 votes -
Toyota inks deal to mass produce solid state EV batteries with 932-mile range
46 votes -
US pedestrian deaths are soaring. Is it time to ban right turns on red lights?
76 votes -
Kansas City receives $15 billion in federal funding for mobility and infrastructure projects
13 votes -
Personal aviation is about to get interesting
20 votes -
Mumbai bids farewell to beloved double-decker buses made famous by Bollywood films
10 votes -
First woman to lead Germany’s biggest union takes aim at Tesla
15 votes -
Speed cameras are coming to the car capital of America
19 votes -
Stop blocking the aisle: how to board an aircraft
11 votes -
Biking the goods: How North American cities can prepare for and promote large-scale adoption of cargo e-bikes
8 votes -
What to expect when expecting electric airplanes
12 votes -
Germany’s terrible trains are no joke for a nation built on efficiency
23 votes -
Air travel is profoundly bad for the environment but one of the hardest industries to decarbonize. Can green technologies make a difference before it’s too late?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-seductive-vision-of-green-aviation/ Picture yourself in an airship pushing into the northern latitudes. From the vantage of a barstool in the center of a luxurious...
https://www.noemamag.com/the-seductive-vision-of-green-aviation/
Picture yourself in an airship pushing into the northern latitudes. From the vantage of a barstool in the center of a luxurious lounge, you look through panoramic windows to see an Arctic vista scroll past. The ride is as smooth as a cruise liner cutting through a mirror sea. Above you is a white canopy, the base of the great bladder of gas keeping you airborne. Down below, a huge oval shadow glides across the pack ice.
I disembarked from this flight of fancy and came back to reality in an industrial estate on the outskirts of the town of Bedford, a couple hours north of London. For now, the airship of my imagination sat disassembled in front of me — an engine, the top section of a tail fin, a salubrious sample cabin.
Hybrid Air Vehicles calls it the Airlander: a colossal, state-of-the-art dirigible that was originally conceived as a military surveillance platform for the U.S. Air Force. That idea was scrapped as America de-escalated its operations in Afghanistan, but by then a new application for airships was emerging. Aviation is the most energy-intensive form of transport, and in recent years the industry has come under intense scrutiny for its environmental footprint. Unlike a passenger airplane, a passenger airship — buoyant and slow — doesn’t have to burn much fuel to stay in the air.
“We’ve completely normalized flying in an aluminum tube at 500 miles an hour, but I think we’ve got some big changes coming,” said Tom Grundy, an aerospace engineer and HAV’s CEO, who was showing me around the research facility.
Many of the scientific principles behind Grundy’s airship are a throwback to a bygone age, when Goodyears and Zeppelins carried affluent clientele around America and Europe and occasionally between the two. Other aspects are cutting-edge. The cambered twin hulls will be inflated with 1.2 million cubic feet of inert helium, not flammable hydrogen like most of the Airlander’s interwar forebears. The skin, a composite of tenacious, space-age materials, is barely a tenth of an inch thick but so strong that there is no need for any internal skeleton. Grundy handed me a handkerchief-sized off-cut. “You could probably hang an SUV off that,” he said. When it goes into production later this year, it will be the world’s largest commercial airliner: around 300 feet long, nearly the length of a soccer field.
But arguably its key selling point — the reason HAV resuscitated a mode of aerial transport once thought to have gone down in flames with the Hindenburg — is that it’s green. Even powered by today’s kerosene-based jet fuel, the total emissions per kilometer from its four vectored engines will be 75% less than a conventional narrow-bodied jet covering the same distance. The Airlander of course is much slower. A maximum velocity of under 100mph means that it’s never going to compete directly with jet airliners. “We tend to think of it as sitting between the air and ground markets — a railway carriage for the skies,” Grundy told me.
“When it enters service, perhaps as soon as 2026, the Airlander will offer premium, multi-day cruises to hard-to-reach places like the Arctic Circle.”
A 100-seat cabin designed for regional travel has already attracted orders from carriers in Spain and Scotland. The prototype we were sitting in, with a futuristic carbon-fiber profile and wine glasses dangling above a wraparound bar, is the central section of another configuration called the “expedition payload module.” When it enters service, perhaps as soon as 2026, it will offer premium, multi-day cruises to hard-to-reach places like the Arctic Circle. Behind the communal lounge, a central corridor will lead to eight double ensuite bedrooms. “You’ll even be able to open the windows,” Grundy said.
35 votes -
How China’s EV boom caught Western car companies asleep at the wheel
43 votes