Watch the growth of Walmart stores from 1962 to 2010
Posted: April 8, 2010 Filed under: Activity centres, Miscellaneous | Tags: 1962, animation, growth, movie, Sam's Club, stores, US, Walmart Leave a commentJust released is an updated version of the now-famous ‘growth of Walmart’ animation which maps out the geography of store openings in the US since the first Walmart opened in 1962. The new version extends the timeline to 2010 and includes data on Walmart’s hardware store, Sam’s Club. Read the rest of this entry »
Ring Road (M80) – an opportunity for road pricing?
Posted: April 8, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Infrastructure | Tags: congestion charging, equity, HOT lane, M80, Melbourne, ring road, road pricing, toll lane 8 CommentsThe current upgrade of Melbourne’s Ring Road (the M80) provides an unprecedented opportunity to implement a form of peak period congestion charging in Melbourne.
Designation of one lane as a toll lane during congested periods would offer a higher speed for vehicles paying a fee. They would not necessarily enjoy the maximum permitted speed – a time saving of around 15% seems sufficient.
A toll lane would offer clear economic benefits. In particular, it would enable high value trips, which currently suffer the same delays as comparatively low value trips, to be made faster. In the US these sorts of lanes are called High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes but I prefer something like High Value Trip (HVT) lanes to emphasise the underlying efficiency rationale. The ‘price’ or toll varies with how many vehicles use the toll lane to ensure it provides an advantage while optimising the level of use. Read the rest of this entry »
What the Population Strategy should do
Posted: April 7, 2010 Filed under: Population | Tags: Australia, growth, Melbourne, Minister for population, Prime Minister, strategy, Tony Burke 5 CommentsI’m not surprised the Prime Minister has appointed a Minister for Population now that Australia is projected to accommodate 35 million people in 40 years time.
This is turning into a hot political issue. For example, it seems like every third comment on The Age website related to the Project Melbourne series is about population. A surprisingly large number of people think Melbourne is already too big and that issues like traffic congestion will be exacerbated by further growth. Read the rest of this entry »
Should bicycles be registered or cyclists licensed?
Posted: April 6, 2010 Filed under: Cycling | Tags: awareness campaign, Cycling, Education, justice, health, insurance, licencing, registration, VECCI 7 CommentsThere was a major debate over the Easter weekend on the VECCI blog about whether or not bicycles should be registered and/or cyclists licensed. It was initiated by an online poll started by VECCI. As of Monday night a narrow majority had voted in favour of licensing (51:47) and mandatory education of cyclists (50:45). Not clear to me why you’d license a cyclist other than to educate/train her, but it’s not my survey.
My view is that registration is not a good idea. However there’s a stronger argument for licensing notwithstanding there are some real difficulties in implementation. Read the rest of this entry »
Get a ‘ticket’ for not speeding
Posted: April 3, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic | Tags: Fun Theory Award Winner, Kevin Richardson, lottery, speeding, Volkswagen 2 CommentsThis is a humorous but subtly brilliant idea – drivers get rewarded for driving responsibly. Not sure how this specific example would work in practice, but the principle is great and could also be used to reward drivers who buy more fuel-efficient cars, who car pool, etc. There have to be other ideas around for ‘inducements’ in the same vein e.g. incentive to buy Metro tickets. Why hasn’t Australian’s love of gambling been exploited before for ‘a good cause’? Read the rest of this entry »
Energy efficiency in transport – some surprises!
Posted: April 1, 2010 Filed under: Cars & traffic, Energy & GHG, Public transport | Tags: autos, commuter rail, Department of Energy, energy intensity, light rail, load factor, Los Angeles, sprawl, transit, Transportation Energy Data Book 3 CommentsThe latest edition of the Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 28 was released last year by the US Department of Energy (Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy).
I’ve derived the accompanying graph from Chapter 2 of the report. There are a couple of points of interest here.
In particular, the data shows that load factors are very important. Although public transport is more energy efficient than cars when it is fully loaded, it has to operate at off-peak times and on secondary routes, when patronage is low. Read the rest of this entry »
The Melbourne Urbanist 