Transport à la Mode

Subways of North America

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:47:30 -0700

Note the “covertly-repurposed Amtrak line” near Philly, and the “graveyard for passengers killed by closing doors” near Miami.

historical-nonfiction: “Fearless Freddie” has done it again! He...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:28:16 -0800

historical-nonfiction:

“Fearless Freddie” has done it again! He jumped from the airplane to the car traveling 78 mph, on November 20, 1920.

Average distance cycled by people in Great Britain, 1949-2010,...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:49:41 -0700

Average distance cycled by people in Great Britain, 1949-2010, “the period of the great extinction of cycling.” Image via Flickr user Jack999.

Wheels of Change: How The Bicycle Empowered Women

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:22:01 -0700

Wheels of Change: How The Bicycle Empowered Women:

Can’t wait to read this new book by Sue Macy about the fascinating, intertwined history of women, feminism, and bicycles in the early days of velocipedes in America.

Maria Popova has put together an enticing preview over at Brain Pickings, complete with historical photos and illustrations of the outfits worn by women cyclists (absurdly burdensome, to the eye of a jeans-wearing present-day cyclist) and the impressions they made.

You can check for Wheels of Change in the children’s section of your local library, or find it online.

Animals on the Underground

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:18:18 -0800

Animals on the Underground:

In 1988, commuter Paul Middlewick was staring at a map of the London Underground when he spotted a beady-eyed elephant outlined by the tube lines and a couple stations. The Animals on the Underground project now includes more than 35 critters, including an adorable wombat and a smiling bottlenose whale.

thisbigcity: No seating at your bus stop? Make your...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:50:05 -0800

thisbigcity:

No seating at your bus stop? Make your own.

公車站沒有座位嗎？不如自己準備。

latimes: The last FEMA trailer in New Orleans has left the...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:39:58 -0800

latimes:

The last FEMA trailer in New Orleans has left the city, closing a brutal chapter in New Orleans’ history more than six years after Hurricane Katrina stormed through the region and the levee system failed.

Photo: A FEMA trailer sits in front of a home in New Orleans’ Lakeview section in this photo from 2009. The last trailer left the city Sunday. Credit: Bill Haber / Associated Press

thecolourfulpast: London - 1957

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:09:58 -0800

thecolourfulpast:

London - 1957

redeyednblue: Streetview Stereographic is a new app that allows...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:20:05 -0800

redeyednblue:

Streetview Stereographic is a new app that allows you to create “a little planet” using Google Streetview. Check out the Williamsburg Bridge!

dadatavis: (via Vehicles involved in fatal crashes)

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:10:05 -0800

dadatavis:

(via Vehicles involved in fatal crashes)

"When rumor first came across the water, a few years ago, of that wonderful and fascinating little..."

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:52:05 -0800

““When rumor first came across the water, a few years ago, of that wonderful and fascinating little two-wheeled machine, upon which one could so gracefully annihilate time and space, the author of this little book was seized with his first attack of Velocipede Fever.””

- Opening lines of “The Velocipede: Its History, Varieties, and Practice,” by J. T. Goddard. The book was published in 1869.

Fun fact from the same book: “Among those who distinguished themselves on the velocipede in England was Michael Faraday the chemist, who frequently drove his machine through the suburbs of London.”

Gotta look out for those bike-riding women! There’s a...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:58:40 -0800

Gotta look out for those bike-riding women! There’s a great collection here of cartoons from the 1800s satirizing “‘the new woman’ and her bicycle.” (“The Awful Effects of Velocipeding” is one of my favorites.) Cartoonist Kate Beaton has remixed some of the images with a modern sensibility.

bikeliving:

The clothes! The bikes! The attitude!

Yep, bicycle parachuting. The Donaldson Lithographic Co. of...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:30:27 -0800

Yep, bicycle parachuting. The Donaldson Lithographic Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio created this poster for the bike-chute aeronaut’s Vaudeville act in 1886.

"The streets beneath our feet are getting smart. Pavements are melting into the roads and traffic..."

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:10:05 -0800

“The streets beneath our feet are getting smart. Pavements are melting into the roads and traffic lights are disappearing. Inspired by the work of scientists and engineers in Holland and Japan, this is a revolution in urban design. Part of it is a movement known as ‘Shared Space’, which promises to dramatically change the way cities look and how we experience them. In Thinking Streets, Angela Saini asks if all these ideas really fulfil the promise of making us all safer, happier and more efficient?”

- Thinking Streets (BBC Radio 4)

Parking spots on city streets will be converted into...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:50:06 -0800

Parking spots on city streets will be converted into “parklets” in front of three Long Beach restaurants. Public space? No. Unlike curbside parklets in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and other cities, these parklets will be open only to restaurant patrons.

latimes:

Long Beach joins the national ‘parklets’ trend: Three restaurants have won city approval to convert a few highly valued parking spaces into green space. In some cities, the parklets are open to the public, but these will be for patrons’ use only.

Photo: Berlin bistro owner Kerstin Kansteiner and architect Michael Bohn hold his design of a parklet to be built in front of the restaurant. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Laser-cut paper becomes a fluid, animated scene when filmed on a...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:02:00 -0800

Laser-cut paper becomes a fluid, animated scene when filmed on a spinning bicycle wheel. Created by Katy Beveridge, the cutouts are intended as art—an experiment in real-time animation modeled after early phenakistoscopes.

“I must stress, as I have many times with this project, this is about animation,” Beveridge explains on her Etsy shop, where she plans to sell only 100 cutouts. “It is not possible to see this with the naked eye. If you stick this on your bike you will not be able to see it unless you are filming it, I will include instructions on how to film it but I really see these more as pieces of art.

“These jaunty little relics of bygone days form a...

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:21:00 -0800

“These jaunty little relics of bygone days form a romantic link in San Francisco’s transportation system.”

So says Tullio Pellgrini, of the Powell/Mason Street cable cars around the 17 minute mark of this 1955 film. For anyone who (like me) loves the city by the bay, cars from the 1950s, and vintage streetcars, or grew up hearing tales of Playland at the Beach, it’s well worth the 20 minutes to watch this video.

Bicycles are noticeably absent. Trees seem mighty sparse. Central Market is delightfully bright and active. As Aaron Black has commented over at Streetsblog, this recently surfaced film serves as a refreshing “reminder of the flexible nature of our streets….San Francisco streets have changed before and they can change again.”

"[B]efore it could rise into the sky, Manhattan had to create the streets, avenues and blocks that..."

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:23:06 -0800

“[B]efore it could rise into the sky, Manhattan had to create the streets, avenues and blocks that support the skyscrapers. The grid was big government in action, a commercially minded boon to private development and, almost despite itself, a creative template.”

- From a New York Times writeup of the Museum of the City of New York exhibit, “The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011.”

The exhibit, running through April 15, has been designed as a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the planning document that established Manhattan’s street grid and continues to influence public life.

usclibraries: Railway bridge across the Arroyo Seco between...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:20:05 -0800

usclibraries:

Railway bridge across the Arroyo Seco between Garvanza and South Pasadena, circa 1895. In the background, a train crosses along the tracks of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad.

unconsumption: Baseball stadium seats reused at bus...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:53:23 -0800

unconsumption:

Baseball stadium seats reused at bus stops

Seats from the old Bush Stadium, where the Indianapolis Indians played for decades until moving downtown to Victory Field, are being refurbished and used as bus stop seating.

A representative of the Indianapolis public transit group IndyGo says: ”Not only will these seats provide a comfortable resting place for transit riders, they will also become a form of repurposed public art.”

(via The Indianapolis Star | indystar.com)