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Transit
Created Monday 20 January 2020
See also: Transportation
Articles
L.A.'s Lost Transit
January 17, 2020 by Jake Berman
They don’t build neighborhoods like they used to. That’s at the root of the housing crisis that plagues rich coastal cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
I’m going to use LA as an illustration. In the popular mind, Los Angeles is defined by the freeway, the automobile, and endless suburban sprawl. Four million people live in the city proper, and nineteen million live in the megalopolis. Four in five Angelenos drive to work, while only one in twenty takes mass transit.
The horrible irony of all of this is that LA was never designed to be a car city. Quite the opposite. The bulk of Los Angeles was laid out before World War II around the old Red Car system of the Pacific Electric Railway. They just overlaid the postwar freeway system on top of it. At its peak, the Red Car system had over 1000 miles of track, but the system went into a terminal decline as the automobile and the bus gained popularity.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/17/las-lost-transit
Toronto will trial automated shuttles from Local Motors in new pilot program
Darrell Etherington / 8:56 am PDT•October 14, 2020
The city of Toronto is going to start operating autonomous shuttles on a trial basis, through an agreement with Local Motors that will see that company’s Olli 2.0 all-electric self-driving shuttle ferry passengers beginning in Spring 2021. The trial is being conducted with Pacific Western Transportation, a transportation operations company, and each ride over the course of the trial will include two full-time staffers, an operator on board from that partner, as well as a customer service rep from either TTC or Metrolinx, the company Toronto engages for much of its commuter transportation services.
The Olli 2.0 vehicle has a passenger capacity of up to eight people at a time, and includes accessibility features like a wheelchair ramp and securing points. It also includes an AV system for providing information and updates to passengers. The safety operator onboard the vehicle has the ability to take over manual control at any time, should the need arise due to safety concerns or for any other reason.