According to PC Magazine, Acer is jumping aboard one of the hottest new tech trends: e-bikes.

“Imagine that we had the same gaps in car networks that pedestrians have in their networks … You would drive to an intersection and then the road just ends. Or you can’t take a right turn since there is no road. That’s what #pedestrians are constantly up against” Most cities don’t map their own pedestrian network. Now, researchers at MIT have built the first open source tool to let planners do just that.

Yes, in an ideal world, we would all live in walkable cities with great cycling and public transport. But, particularly in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, we have been left with around 60 year's worth of car dependent suburban sprawl. In quite a few metro areas, the inner city has a great public transport network. Yet once you get out to the suburbs, you're lucky to see a bus every half hour. Services often also start late and end early. As a starting point, should there be more emphasis placed on upgrading suburban bus networks to a 10-minute frequency or better? Better bus networks are less expensive upfront than large extensions to metro and heavy rail systems. And they can prove that demand exists, when it becomes available. What are your thoughts?

Article on the Strong Towns website makes the case for why the top-down urbanism of new stadia and entertainment precincts often fail to deliver on their promises.

An interesting look at where the two major parties stand on transport, ahead of the New South Wales state election on Saturday. "The Perrottet government will push ahead with business cases for four lines to link up with the future western Sydney airport. Labor will only proceed with two, with the Coalition accusing it of deserting western Sydney, an area earmarked for extraordinary residential development in coming years."

He describes it as a "funky, whacky" public transport system.

[xkcd 2684]( https://xkcd.com/2684/)

Keen to find out what's the most pressing transit issues in your city? If there were one thing that you could change about the cycling or transit infrastructure in the city you live in, what would it be? In Sydney of late, the reliability of the train network has definitely been an issue. Also, some outer suburban Western Sydney bus services run half hourly or worse during the morning and evening peak, with no nearby rail alternative nearby.

"Well-built, connected bike lanes can be life-changing, keeping people on bikes safe, comfortable and mobile. But in so many cities, what emerges instead is something that feels half-hearted -- disconnected and unprotected lanes that don't keep cyclists safe and don't enable people to truly get around on bikes."

Architect Stewart Hicks recently posted a video about a groundbreaking (for it's time) mixed-use residential development in Chicago.

His topic is living car-free in Vegas, and other questionable life choices.

Surprising, but true. From the article: "A detailed report has been filed to the transportation committee of the City of London Corporation, the municipal governing body of London’s square mile, which suggests at peak times, people cycling represent 40% of road traffic in the city and 27% throughout the rest of the day." So even in a city as busy as London, it can be done.

“Elon Musk admitted to his biographer that the reason the Hyperloop was announced—even tho he had no intention of pursuing it—was to try to disrupt the California high-speed rail project to get in the way of that actually succeeding.” — @parismarx in Gizmodo

Greener buildings, barrier-protected cycle lanes and pedestrianised streets are on the agenda in the new masterplan for Maroubra Junction.

Railway upgrades aren't just great for rural and regional communities because they provide more options for freight and commuter travel. They can also be a major catalyst for communications network upgrades, as the Inland Rail project is showing.

"The expert behind the New South Wales government’s fast rail strategy has warned that a landmark policy to spread population growth outside Sydney in coming decades is destined to fail amid revelations the Coalition has shelved plans to build a dedicated fast rail system."

The business lobby representing Wollongong and the NSW South Coast (for overseas readers: the coastline immediately south of Sydney) are calling for railway upgrades ahead of the next state election.

More urban density is being planned for South Brisbane, which is just across the river from the city's CBD. The city's amenities are within comfortable walking distance. A new metro station is planned in the precinct. And of course the local NIMBYs aren't happy. From the article: "They are used to living in a quiet neighbourhood where they can grow tomatoes and mangoes and vegetables in their backyard, yet still being within walking distance of the CBD and having very little traffic."

From the article: "Major causes of air pollution affecting health were industrial sites including mines (133 deaths and $1bn in health costs), cars and trucks (110 deaths and $832m) and coal power stations (46 deaths and $346m).

Adam Something has a new YouTube video that breaks down how suburban sprawl killed the American dream, in his usual acerbic style. #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #cities #transport #PublicTransport

Professor Andrew McNaughton, the chair of the authority that manages Britain's high-speed rail line, recently examined the route as part of a yet-to-be-released fast rail strategy delivered to the New South Wales government. He said basic improvements to the track, such as straightening out bends, could reduce the journey to roughly three hours, which would be comparable to travelling by road.

I find the disparity between the popularity and public opinion of urban passenger trains and urban freight trains really interesting. The world's densest urban centres almost all have comprehensive passenger rail systems, and you can almost always get around downtown without a car, or in some places completely without rubber tired motor vehicles. But freight delivery to urban cores is almost always done by truck, from pickups, vans, to full on tractor trailers, and it seems that it's the less dense areas that are better served by train for freight shipping. While there have been some attempts at urban freight rail, like the cargo trams in Germany and Switzerland, it seems that they're either dead or pretty limited in their capacity or extent of network, usually serving a few facilities at best. Most urban shipping is still done by truck. Meanwhile, heavy freight rail is usually viewed extremely negatively in urban cores, and extensive effort has been made to remove urban freight corridors or divert them around the downtown. It seems that freight trains are really good at delivering freight to the edge of an urban centre, but then it needs to be shuffled in an intermodal yard onto trucks. And even if it wasn't, it seems that freight rail, especially in North America, only serves the largest industrial facilities, even when passing through the downtown, so you if you run a grocery store or other small or medium sized business, you can never take advantage of rail and are forced to rely on trucks for your wares. Especially if your business is in a mixed use building with commercial and residential spaces in one, and not a standalone single story department store. This also means you can never have your personal deliveries or mail come by rail. It's a problem because the places most favourable to people (read: least favourable to car traffic) can't take advantage of the efficiency and economies of scale of rail for freight deliveries like they can with passenger rail, and the same bottlenecks on passenger cars these areas have also apply to fright trucks. One would assume that urban freight rail would have the same benefits over trucks as urban passenger rail has over cars. What are your thoughts on this? Why don't we see more urban freight rail, and should we be looking into building more urban freight rail?

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