City Design Lab

Category: Transportation

  • We Need a Second Transbay Tube

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    In the past year a renewed push to build a second Transbay Tube across the San Francisco Bay floor has heated up.   BART has been plagued with it’s own maintenance problems and to some reports, is steadily worsening with a half-funded backlog through the next decade.  But plenty of transit systems have backlogs, so…

  • Will the U.S. Adopt Scooters

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    While Americans are still entrenched in this idea of make the car great again with autonomous systems, there’s another urban transport mode people have overlooked, the scooter.   The scooter or motor bike is ubiquitous in Asia because of historically narrow and uneven roads.  Match that with limited parking and hilly terrain and you have a good…

  • On Ride-Sharing Becoming Permanent Transportation

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    It’s clear that ride-sharing’s reputation has been rather tarnished by public policy backlashes this year, but this hasn’t diminished its popularity. In my view, I see Uber and Lyft as technology companies in the same vein as freeways, railroads, steamships, and jumbo jets that heralded new eras of transportation. But hold on you say, it’s…

  • Trading Four Wheels For Two, A Follow-Up

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    In 2008, Minnesota Public Radio interviewed me about bicycling when the idea of being a full-time bicyclist was just starting to gain traction. At the time, bike lanes were only in the planning stage, and bicyclists comprised a hardcore group of locals who lurked in the angsty MPLSBikeLove forum. I was always curious about how…

  • Transit Tech Startups

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    Shaun Abrahamson of Urban.us detailed a list of “Pop-up Mass Transit” startups operating now.  From a VC perspective, he’s concerned about how game theory will make or break their mobility promises.  Can shuttle startup A beat out carshare startup B on price and retain users when the true cost of providing these services becomes reality. I couldn’t help…

  • Carless Cities and City Isolation

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    A friend of mine suggested to look into Cinque Terre, a car inaccessible city on Italy’s western coast.  The hillside village consists of terraced homes created over the centuries on rugged terrain overlooking the Ligurian Sea.  There are no roads leading there, only a train brings you close enough.  For Americans, it’s strange today to think of modern humans…

  • On Being a Transit User

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    During my Masters program, I pondered the life of a transit user, specifically someone who uses transit as an exclusive mode of transportation. If cities are on this push to reimagine themselves as transit-oriented communities, then why is it so much of its eventual design and implementation never concerns people. We know the demographics of…

  • The Fifth Era of Transportation

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    I had the distinct pleasure of taking one of John S. Adams final course on American Cities in 2002.  He is one of the pioneer urban planners in academia who in 1970 proposed four distinct eras of transportation which shaped and defined American housing, infrastructure, and life. His energetic and sometimes enigmatic lessons left me…

  • San Francisco’s Terrible Bicycle Lanes

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    Coming from Minneapolis, once crowned by Bicycle magazine as America’s forward-thinking bicycle city, I am a little bit biased when it comes to bicycling infrastructure.   In fact my Master’s capstone team thesis (co-wrote with some lovely planners including @AmbroseManor) was critical on Minneapolis’ testing of bicycle turning boxes–at the time some of the nations’ first…