Transportation Library News

Take a Look at a Book

The Transportation Library has acquired Flying Across America: The Airline Passenger Experience by Daniel L. Rust. Here is an description of the book from the publisher's Web site:

Americans who now endure the inconveniences of crowded airports, packed airplanes, and missed connections might not realize that flying was once an elegant, exhilarating adventure. In this colorful history, Daniel L. Rust traces the evolution of commercial air travel from the first transcontinental expeditions of the 1920s, through the luxurious airline environments of the 1960s, to the more hectic, fatiguing experiences of flying in the post-9/11 era.

In the beginning, flying coast-to-coast was an exciting yet uncomfortable journey of nearly forty-eight hours that required numerous stops and overnight travel by train. With time and technical innovation, passengers became increasingly removed both physically and psychologically from the raw experience of flying. Faster planes, pressurized cabins, onboard amenities, and stronger safety precautions made flying more convenient and predictable-but also less evocative and sensational.

Prior to the 1980s, Americans dressed for air travel in their formal best and enjoyed such luxurious onboard amenities as delicious meals and ample cabin space. What made air travel glamorous, however, also made it more expensive. With deregulation in 1978, cost reductions reduced flying to a more tedious and, after 9/11, more regimented experience.

Rust's narrative brims with firsthand accounts from such celebrities as Will Rogers and from ordinary Americans. Enlivened by more than 100 illustrations, including vintage brochures, posters, and photographs, Flying Across America reminds today's airline passengers of what they have gained-and what they have lost-in the transcontinental flying experience.

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Troubled Skies

NPR completed the series last week: "Troubled Skies", a series on aviation on the U.S.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102982061

Topics included air traffic control, NextGen, the state of the FAA, and passenger rights.

Driving Season

Driving season is upon us and since we do plan to go to Michigan on holiday, this article from the Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20090414/COL12/904140340/ will be one of the resources we scrutinize before getting in the car.

It provides you with five different road construction update sites for the Detroit area, as well as, throughout the state; two up to the minute traffic sites and sites to find out who has the cheapest gas! Now, all we need to do is pack.

The high cost of free parking

Though most of us probably don't stop to ponder free parking very often, if we did, we would likely deem it a harmless and even quite pleasant phenomenon. However, Donald Shoup, a professor at UCLA, argues in "The high cost of free parking" that the multitude of open and un-metered spaces in American cities "represent the largest devaluation of real estate short of the subprime mortgage crisis." Shoup considers the support of free off-street parking a government subsidy which amounts to a loss of $300 billion per year. This is quite a shocking figure, and warrants exploration of Shoup's rather revolutionary ideas.

Of course larger cities, and those with limited parking often resort to metered parking and permit-only lots, but according to Shoup this still leaves an overabundance of free street parking which increases supply and artificially drives the price of metered parking down. Additionally, Shoup argues that free parking encourages driving over more sustainable methods of transportation such as walking, biking or utilizing public transit. Thus, it would seem that limiting free parking would not only help civic governments make back some of what they've been doling out for this under-utilized real estate, but it might also alleviate traffic congestion, and give a boost to public transportation systems. And, while we're at it, it might also save the planet AND improve our nation's health.

Read more about Dr. Shoup's thought provoking theories in the Winter
2009 edition of In transition
(http://nucat.library.northwestern.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=3263553)

Drivers, don't get stung at crosswalk - John Hilkevitch writes that city police will ticket drivers who fail to yield to officers posing as pedestrians

Chicago Tribune (IL) - Monday, April 20, 2009
Author: John Hilkevitch, TRIBUNE REPORTER

Two new efforts are afoot to make it safer for pedestrians to cross the street -- and more costly for drivers who endanger walkers.

Chicago police will intensify the city's crosswalk program this week, pulling over and ticketing drivers who fail to yield to plainclothes police officers posing as pedestrians at intersections that don't have stop signs or traffic signals.

"We started out by issuing warnings last year to get the word out that it's not just a courtesy, but the law for drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks," said Kiersten Grove, pedestrian program coordinator at the Chicago Department of Transportation.

"Now police will be issuing moving-violation tickets" with fines ranging up to $500, said Grove, who is the main architect of the crosswalk-enforcement campaign.

Meanwhile, legislation pending before the state Senate would go even further, strengthening the Illinois vehicle code by requiring drivers to not only yield -- but stop -- when pedestrians are in crosswalks.

Advocates of the measure, which was proposed by the Active Transportation Alliance, say the law requiring drivers to yield is too vague. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have "must stop" laws.

Violators would face a minimum $150 fine in Illinois. The measure has passed the House. Current law requires drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks by slowing down or stopping if necessary.

The proposed modification of state law as well as Chicago's aggressive safety-enforcement tactics come as the number of pedestrian-vehicle crashes have declined nationally, while holding steady in Illinois at more than 6,000 a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

About half of the crashes, more than 3,000 a year in the last three years, occur in the city of Chicago.

Ninety-eight pedestrians were killed in vehicle-related accidents in the six-county Chicago region in 2007, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation. Thirty-nine were in Chicago. Statewide, there were 171 pedestrian fatalities in 2007.

The proposed "must stop" law is needed to clarify the responsibilities of both drivers and pedestrians, said Dan Persky, legal counsel at the Active Transportation Alliance, which focuses on issues affecting bicyclists, pedestrians and transit riders.

"Our reason for doing this is that drivers and pedestrians have shared duties to keep the roads safe," Persky said. "It is the pedestrian's responsibility under current law not to enter a roadway when it is unsafe. The change we want enacted at uncontrolled crosswalks makes it clear for drivers and pedestrians."

In Chicago, 40 percent of pedestrian-vehicle accidents occurred within 800 feet of schools and 30 percent within 800 feet of parks in 2005 through 2007, according to the alliance.

"Hopefully the 'must stop' bill will make crosswalk stings unnecessary in the future," Persky said, adding that education, compliance and better enforcement are key components.

The City of Chicago supports the legislation, along with groups including the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, AARP Illinois and Access Living, which promotes the interests of disabled individuals.

Meanwhile, Chicago plans to conduct several high-profile crosswalk-enforcement operations this week: 8 a.m. Thursday at Nagle and Peterson Avenues, 8 a.m. Saturday at 119th Street and Stewart Avenue, 10:30 a.m. Saturday at 103rd Street and South Prairie Avenue, and 1 p.m. Saturday at 86th Street and Commercial Avenue, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Several crosswalk-enforcement stings will be conducted each week through September at locations with a history of vehicle-pedestrian accidents or at crosswalks near schools, senior citizen centers and shopping areas with heavy foot traffic, according to CDOT.

The program hires off-duty police officers and is funded through a $117,000 traffic safety grant from IDOT.

Unlike last year's pilot project in which about 200 warnings were issued, this time motorists will be charged with moving violations and face fines of $50 to $500.

Here is how the operations will work: An undercover police officer posing as a pedestrian will enter the crosswalk at an uncontrolled intersection, where there are no traffic signals or stop signs, when an approaching vehicle is at least 140 feet from the crosswalk -- enough time for the driver to yield, officials said. If the driver fails to give way to the pedestrian, the driver will be stopped and ticketed by uniformed officers.

Officials said a distance of 140 feet provides adequate stopping distance for a vehicle traveling up to 30 m.p.h.

The undercover officer will have taken several steps into the crosswalk, showing a clear intention to cross the street, when a vehicle approaches the 140-foot point, marked by a cone, Grove said.

She insisted the mission is not aimed at a "gotcha" that racks up ticket revenue for the city, but to improve compliance.

During last year's crosswalk pilot project, adherence to the yield law shot up to 40 percent at locations where the rate had been less than 5 percent before the stings, Grove said.

"We'd love to see behavior change. We are getting the word out that not even one crash is acceptable," she said.

Archives of Interest

If you're interested in archival material related to transportation, there's a wealth of information at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even a brief glance through the list of available material (http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/Collections.shtml?All) yields some tantalizing links.

The UW La Crosse Historic Steamboat Photographs (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/LaCrosseSteamboat/) contains over 40,000 black and white photographic images of steamboats on the inland waterways of the United States. Including both exterior and interior photos, this collection gives a wonderful glimpse of times gone by.

Tucked inside the State of Wisconsin Collection is the Great Lakes Maritime History Project (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/subcollections/GreatLakesAbout.html), a collection housed at the Milwaukee Public Library. It is founded on the collection of Herman G. Runge, acquired by the library in 1959, and contains over 7,000 files on ships that sailed since 1679 and some that sail on the Great Lakes today. Runge dedicated his life to collecting information on all aspects of marine activity on the Great Lakes. Vessels included are diesel-powered, sailing ships, barges, cargo vessels, passenger boats, military vessels, and pleasure craft.

Finally, if you're interested in environmental impact & assesment, browse through the Aldo Leopold Archives (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AldoLeopold/), where you'll journals, correspondence, and other writings of this most influential conservation thinker of the 20th Century.

The grain train

Ever wonder how your food gets from the farm to your plate? This month's issue of Trains
(http://nucat.library.northwestern.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=2616866)
will tell you just that! A special "100% Whole Grain" edition of the monthly transportation publication deals with the production of all things edible in the U.S., from the farm to the train to your table, with particular attention to cereal grains such as wheat, oats and corn.

An enlightening map can be found on page 32, detailing the different farming regions of America and southern Canada, including feed grains, dairy and fruit and vegetable farming. This map is part of an article entitled "Your next meal starts here." Beginning on page 30, this article gets to the heart of food production and transportation in the United States, outlining the top three American food crops (corn, soybeans and wheat), their uses and the regions which produce them.

This special grain issue also covers rail transportation of American food crops. The Map of the month, found on page 54, is a special pull-out map of the U.S. (with a detailed close-up of the Midwest) showing the various rail lines which carry crops around the country. Just a page away is the story of the Eastern Washington Gateway Railroad, a short line whose main service revolves around the transportation of the Washington State wheat crop from west to east.

April's Trains is a worthwhile read for anyone who's ever stopped to ponder where their breakfast came from. Check it out!