Yay for the Trinidad City Council

They are rebuilding the bathrooms at Trinidad Station. Good for them knowing what is important.

Estimating transit travel time in Boston

Are you traveling to the Boston area and are wondering how long it takes to get from one neighborhood to another? Like pretty pictures? Well, there is a website that can give you both. Dan Tillberg has created a visual representation of travel times by bus and train on the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority). Even though the site falsely assumes that everything always runs on time, the site gives you a good idea of what a trip is going to be like. In fact, you can often figure out if you have to transfer from the location of the drops.

Also, the site is fun to play with even if you are not going to Boston.

I originally got this link from Transit Boston.

A Way to Support Local Transit

Senator Chris Dodd recently introduced the Public Transportation Preservation Act (S. 3412) . So far only Senators from states with good transit are co-sponsoring this bill. This act would give local transit agencies money to maintain basic bus and train service, something that we are losing now.

The companion legislation in the House is HR 5418.

So please call your Senators and Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor this legislation.

An Unique Guide to the NY Subway

Ever gotten off the train or subway and then realized that you were actually a couple of blocks from where you thought you already were. If you are in New York City there is an iPhone application that can help you with that. ExitStrategyNYC can tell you where to stand on every subway platform in the city so that you are right next to your exit when you get off.

The app has also incorporated Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s neighborhood map to make a continuous, transit-oriented map of Manhattan. This is good, because the maps are too big to print, and may not be that useful for someone who is not already familiar with NYC. The app also includes bus maps.

ExitStrategyNYC for the iPhone gives information for all of New York City. A smaller version of this app is also available for BlackBerry and Android phones and also works on Amazon's Kindle. The lite version does not have subway or bus maps and Manhattan is the only borough with full coverage. The iPhone version costs $4.99. The lite versions cost from $3.99 to $0.99 depending on the platform you buy it for.

I have sent the company a message asking if this app is useful for handicapped riders who need to be use elevators or ramps. (Update: the app includes the location of elevators.)

Now someone needs to make something like this for the Seoul subway. Also, something to tell riders which escalators and elevators are not working in the DC metro.

USDOT Strategic Plan

The US Department of Transportation has posted their Strategic Plan for 2010 to 2015 online. This link leads to a starter page which has a link to the plan and a link to the comment page.

Please note that the plan is in PDF format, so it may automatically download to your computer.

You can login to comment with a variety of ID's, but if you have any privacy concerns, you register for this site only. Also, the comments are set up as a sort of popularity contest. If you feel strongly about something, you may want to check and see if there someone else has said something similar and vote for that comment.

Preventing Future Oil Spills

The best way to prevent future oil spills is for Americans to use less oil. We have a hard time politically regulating oil companies because we need so much of what they produce.

You can use less oil by:

Walking, biking, or taking transit when you travel.

Drinking tap water. (Buy a filter if your tap water is not drinkable)

Avoid plastic containers.

Buy local foods.

Eat less meat.

Of course, we here like transit (buses and trains) for other reasons.