SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: On Hiatus Until Jan. 1, 2012

Traversatility is on hiatus, and will re-launch on Jan. 1, 2012, bigger and better than ever. In the  meantime, check out the archives for traversatile news and views.

Transit TUESDAYS: NoCal Line Proposes Linking East/West SF Bay Sides

No ETA yet on a new Northern California commuter rail line in the south San Francisco Bay area that will link Silicon Valley and the Peninsula (i.e. Palo Alto/Menlo Park, etc.) and the East Bay at Union City, via the existing Dumbarton bridge path. More information at Dumbarton Rail Committee.

TRANSIT Tuesdays: Seattle, Detroit Move Transit Plans Forward

Something called the "East Link" is getting attention, as Sound Transit considers using eminent domain in Seattle suburb Bellevue to plan a new light-rail line.

In other news:

*And, transit projects such as light-rail, in Maryland, would benefit from a proposed 15% increase in the state's gas tax.

*Detroit is considering a network of high-speed bus lanes to set the stage for more regional transit (in the birthplace of the automobile.)

*New Jersey Transit is partnering with Google to accept payment via the Google Wallet application, which is available on some cell phones, including Sprint's Nexus 4G-enabled phone.

WHEELS Wednesday: Copenhagen, L.A. Add Bike Options

Get ready: you can soon take your bike on more buses in....Copenhagen, Denmark. A Danish transit agency is expanding that option. In the U.S., a number of agencies allow this, including L.A.'s MTA buses. In Los Angeles, bike lanes are being studied for York Blvd., a major artery in northeast L.A., connecting the Eagle Rock and Garvanza/Highland Park neighborhoods. L.A. is also asking for federal bucks to extend the L.A. River Bike Path.

Meanwhile, in Seattle, officials are asking folks to get out of their cars, while the mammoth Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed to allow for construction work; bicycles are an option, they say.

MULTI-MODAL Mondays: Baltimore, Boston, and L.A. Projects Get Fast-Tracked

Ultra-cool Streetsblog details federal fast-track status for new transit projects, including: some funds for a connection between LAX and the Crenshaw transit line, in L.A., bicycle and pedestrian lanes along the Whittier Bridge in Boston, and a new east-west light-rail line in Baltimore (a.k.a. the "red line"). The new status expedites the federal approval process to potentially provide federal monies for the projects.

WHEELS Wednesday: Everything's Up to Date in...Indianapolis

In the American Midwest, the Indianapolis Bike Hub YMCA, a.k.a 'The Indy Bike Hub' is now open for business--part of a multi-million dollar renovation of historic City Market in the Hoosier State's capital. The combination of YMCA and bicycle transit center--with showers and lockers--is supposed to spur bicycle commuting in the small, flat, but transit-poor and sprawling, Indiana city.

MULTI-MODAL Mondays: Illinois, Norfolk Hubs Rising; Portland Planning Tool Unveiled

American metropolitan area as different as those of Virginia's Hampton Roads/Norfolk area and Bloomington-Normal, home of Illinois State University, are constructing multi-modal transit centers--in the case of Norfolk, that includes the first downtown rail station built in the last half-century. It will serve a recently-opened light-rail light that now connects Norfolk to Virginia Beach, as well as Amtrak.

This month, Portland, Oregon's transit agency unveils its online multi-modal trip-planner, which it claims is the first open-source planner around--perfect for anyone to add information and travel advice to, presumably.

FLEET-FOOT Fridays: New Subway Lines See Light at Tunnel's End

New lines and more walkable areas are the theme of new mass transit lines going up around the world. Boston's transit agency is building the Assembly Square station on the Orange Line, serving a blighted part of East Somerville (which would have been less-blighted if small, but vocal opposition hadn't driven a proposed IKEA away and out to the car-dependent suburbs).

New York is continuing to build a subway under Manhattan's Second Avenue, but train trips are five years away.

In Toronto, new stations are being built on the Toronto-York Spadina line, extending the line from Downsview to Vaughn Corporate Park. Still no direct service to Toronto's International Airport--not a real priority unless you're worried about the carbon footprint of the airport and its impact on global-warming.

Oh, and if you happen to be heading to Xi'an, China, perhaps to see the Terracotta Warriors, the city just opened its first subway line.

WHEELS Wednesday: Online Cyclist Resources....

Great resources for bicyclists--commuter, leisure, anything--online: BikeRadar is a great resource for all things cycling, as is Cycling News. Meanwhile, Road Cycling is more race and leisure oriented. Road Bike Review offers more product-oriented information.

MULTI-MODAL Mondays: Bicycle Commuting Round-Up

Top bike commuting town? The home of Oregon State University, in the Willamette Valley town of Corvallis. Not even Eugene, with its legendary environmental activism could top Corvallis in a recent poll. Meanwhile, bicycle commuting increased 22 percent in Seattle, while doing little in Portland, Ore. to change car-dependency.

FLEET-FOOT Fridays: Air-Rail Links Keep Growing...Ever so Slowly

*Bangkok: Airport-to-city rail service will improve at Bangkok's five year-old international airport, Suvarnabhumi, including more rail cars and better service, various government agencies are claiming.

*Albuquerque: Hey, did you know you could get from Albuquerque's airport to the city, and to places like Santa Fe and Sandia with a quick bus/rail connection? Well, at least you can do this on weekdays. The Rail Runner train operates between New Mexico's capital, and Belen, south of the Albuquerque, Monday through Friday. How about weekends?

*Washington, D.C.: Patch reports that the Washington, D.C.-Dulles International Airport rail link is slated to open in summer, 2017.

*Madrid: The Spanish capital's speedy commuter rail link between its airport and the major downtown train terminals has been operating for over six months; it's 25 minutes from the airport to Atocha and 11 minutes to Chamartin, the big Madrid rail stations. This supplements a subway link with many more stops.

*South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame fans (and students) will be pleased to know they can make an in-terminal connection between planes at South Bend Regional Airport, and the South Shore train service to Chicago--service has been cut in half to adjust for a single-track situation west to Michigan City, before double-tracks take over the rest of the way. Maybe double-track that stretch to bring us into the 21st century?

Rail service from London's Heathrow to Reading, and from Scotland's Inverness Airport to Aberdeen, as well as onward rail connections from Brussels airport to Paris, are all under discussion. Los Angeles? Not so much--it's on the drawing boards, but is way down the list.

WHEELS Wednesday: Bike-Sharing Shifts Into High Gear

Bicycle-sharing programs are taking off. There's one starting up in Chicago, the Sun-Times says. Bike-sharing already exists in Denver, Colo.. Here's a blog about bike-sharing.

And, Boulder, Colo., home of the University of Colorado, is experimenting with the "Bus Then Bike" program, that provides bike lockers near bus-stops, so bicyclists can bike to the bus, but not have to take their bike on the bus that has limited rack space, or chance locking it up against a tree or post near the bus-stop, unsure whether it will be safe during their time away.

FLEET-FOOT Fridays: Get Walking...Don't Trail Behind!

Trails, urban and rural, along with extensions, improvements and expansions, are sprouting all over. 


The Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail is under National Park Service development around the eponymous bay, although parts of it already exist under other federal, state and local designations--untangle the information knot here and here. New trails and improvements continue in Paso Robles, Calif., And the Permanente Creek Trail extends over the 101 freeway in suburban Mountain View, Calif.

Meanwhile, Colorado Springs, Colo. pundits contest its low walk-ability ranking, bested by places like Oakland, Calif. Click through city scores at walkscore.com.

Get more trails info from The Urban Trail Conference (NYC), American Trails (national U.S.), the American Hiking Society, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and the National trail systems, in the U.S., the UK and Canada.

WHEELS Wednesday: Tune Up Your Ride

Keeping your bike working properly is important--whether you commute with it, ride for pleasure, or take part in races. Here's an overall tune-up run-down in text and pics from a Connecticut bike shop. About.com offers a text primer on the subject. And, here's a video tutorial on tune-ups from BicycleTutor.com (membership fee).

MULTI-MODAL Mondays: Hub Dreams and Doubts Abound

One of the Minnesota Twin Cities--state capital St. Paul--is building a giant multi-modal transit center downtown by renovating its historic Union Depot railroad station, but there are doubts about its efficacy as a hub of productivity, growth and activity. The transit center will be connected to the light-rail line, now under construction and scheduled to open in 2014, which will link the state's capital burg with its larger twin, Minneapolis. Of course, it will only have a fighting chance if it's a true hub...for local buses, light-rail, Amtrak, bicyclists, and intercity buses (those are part of the plans).

Will it connect to bicycle paths? Will there be bike lockers? Will there be adequate signage designed to international standards that clearly display where all the various transit modes are located, and show clearly departure and arrival times? 

Stay tuned.

(Perhaps the good news in all this is that the opening of the light-rail line will connect St. Paul, by rail, and via the existing light-rail line from downtown Minneapolis, with MSP, reducing the carbon footprint of one of the largest airports in the Midwest)

Meanwhile, in the lower Midwest, Indianapolis is doing some soul-searching about how to how to improve public transit, after the bus system cut routes and trips. A Hoosier Transit Hub is still some years away.

FLEET-FOOT Fridays: Transit Wheels Grind Slowly in South's Hub

Some rights reserved by kla4067

The wheels grind slowly on the multi-modal hub-building front, with many municipalities hearing the message of greater efficiency and productivity, lowering carbon-footprints, while building a bulwark against inevitably rising energy costs...but unable to prioritize this sort of infrastructure for fiscal, political and bureaucratic reasons.

Case in point: Atlanta, Georgia. It's got MARTA, a regional rail system that--unlike so many other major cities in North America--serves not just the international airport, but the actual main airport terminal (much like Chicago's O'Hare set-up). Still, Amtrak is exiled to a postage-stamp some miles from downtown, and Atlanta lacks a central square, bay, river-crossing to mark its exact center of gravity, although several are candidates. Comes the plan...an idea to link MARTA with city buses and 'other transit' in a years-away hub. Will that 'other transit' include Amtrak, or Greyhound? How about bicycles?  It would make sense...but sense--and urgency--is what this process lacks.

One can hope...

WHEELS Wednesday: Big Easy Named a 'Bike-Friendly' Town

Top Bike-Friendly Communities in the U.S. include New Orleans, LA, which received a bronze designation (third place, much like the Olympics). The BFC label denotes "a commitment to improving conditions for bicycling through investment in bicycling promotion, education programs, infrastructure and pro‐bicycling policies," according the organization that hands out the awards, the League of American Bicyclists.

See if your town's made the list; click here for the full roster of BFCs.

MULTI-MODAL Mondays: The Reno(novation) of Transit in Reno Continues

From the Amtrak Station in Reno, NV you can hop almost any city bus at the hub across the street, or hop on your bike and use bike lanes to the University of Nevada-Reno, the casinos, the whitewater kayaking park along the Truckee River, or dozens of other places in the "Biggest Little City in the World."

Public transit and bike lanes are in evidence in Reno, NV: Fourth St. Station is a massive, modern bus hub in downtown Reno, catty-corner from the Amtrak Station--a restored Union Pacific-built depot. Bike lanes pass by the station. Now, if only Greyhound would relocate--presumably in coordination with the city--to join local bus, rail and bike transit, Reno could unify more completely its laudable transit efforts.

FLEET-FOOT Fridays: CalTrain's Bike Car Beats AmTrain's, For Sure

Heading back from a meeting in Silicon Valley on CalTrain, I found the spaciousness of the bike storage space--plus the racks, impressive. Room for bikes like this would have saved yours truly from the famous 5 hour wait last summer at Oceanside, Calif. for a train back to L.A. that could take me...and my bike. Amtrak's measly four bike spaces on the Surfliner can't compare....

WHEELS Wednesday: Funky Vegan Bicyclists Tour Western U.S.

 Coyright ramblingroadshow.com

It sounds very granola (and who doesn't love home-made granola?), but, candidly, I can't think of a better way to bring bike culture to the country: The Dinner & Bikes Tour is, "traveling the western states this September to tell stories and show movies and bicycle culture while serving up tasty gourmet vegan food," according to their site. Even if you're a carnivore, it sounds like a whole lot of fun. You can read more about it here (with a map and tour sked), and here (with an interesting window in SF bike infrastructure.