There are over 8 million people living in New York City. And if you were to look at the modal split for these people — that is, how they get to work and how they get around — you’ll see that other than Staten Island,… Read More
All posts tagged “mobility”
Toronto breaks ground on new Ontario Line
This past weekend it was announced that ground has been broken (i.e. construction has started) on the new Ontario subway line that will connect Exhibition / Ontario Place to the Science Centre by way of the light purple line labeled “C” on the above map.… Read More
The enduring allure of private vehicles
Uber’s recent investor day presentation (link here) is interesting if you’re an investor or thinking about becoming an investor, but it’s also interesting from an urbanism standpoint. Part of the promise of Uber was that it was going to help lure people away from owning… Read More
Slime mold may be better than us at transportation planning
So slime mold, which is a fungus-like single-celled organism, has a tendency to build highly optimized networks across its food sources. In other words, if you scattered a bunch of food on a surface and then dropped in some slime mold, it would naturally create… Read More
The 10 commandments of micromobility
This is a great 30 minute talk by Horace Dediu that is structured around his 10 commandments of micromobility. If you can’t see the embedded video above, click here. What I think that many of you will appreciate about the talk is that he focuses… Read More
Pigovian transport pricing in Switzerland
A Pigovian tax is a tax on market activities that produce some kind of negative externality for society. The basic idea behind the tax is to try and use it to correct something that is happening, but that isn’t all that desirable. Examples of negative… Read More
The road to full recovery
Food was, not surprisingly, very resilient during this pandemic. In the case of Uber, food delivery became its biggest business (higher gross bookings than mobility). But mobility is coming back (first chart above) as our cities continue to reopen. In fact, Uber’s mobility business is… Read More
Luminar announces vision for autonomous vehicle future
Luminar Technologies, which is an autonomous vehicle technology company that I have written about before, just hosted its first ever “Studio Day” in New York City this week. And at the event they announced two new technologies. The first is called Iris, which is a… Read More
More drivers, more supply
This week, Lyft announced that it is going to be selling its autonomous vehicle division to Toyota for some $550 million. (Apparently $200 million of this will be paid upfront, with the remaining $350 million paid out over a five year period.) This is notable… Read More
The climate idol of the unimaginative
Here’s some food for thought around electrical vehicles. In this recent article in The American Conservative, Jordan McGillis argues that, “the electric vehicle is the climate idol of the unimaginative.” Rather than simply changing what’s under the hood of our cars, we should be reexamining… Read More