Thank you to link contributors. If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, please email us at [email protected].
- • Tube platform green lanes trial (Diamond Geezer)
- • Mexico City is killing parking / Swindon’s Magic 7 layer Roundabout (Wired)
- • How a city’s layout can affect its economic success (CityMetric)
- • Silicon Valley tech campuses ignore the rest of the city (NY Times)
- • Roman roads of Britain tube map (Sashat)
- • Roman Empire tube map (Sashat)
- • LA buys $138m of electric buses for emission free 2030 fleet (LA Times)
- • Hydrogen: folly or fuel of the future? (TreeHugger)
- • Freight Transport History Workshop, 24 Nov at UReading (David Turner)
Something similar to the “tube platform lanes” thing was trialled back in 2008, based on similar approaches on some Asian metro systems. It didn’t seem to work much then either.
@Paul – From the picture in the 2008 Standard article, the earlier trial used yellow boxes for areas to keep clear. That may be more intuitive as it corresponds to the yellow hatched markings used in road junctions for areas that must be kept clear. Here’s my adaptation featuring the yellow hatch motif with arrow markings leading away from the doors. ‘KEEP CLEAR’ text markings are also incorporated.
http://www.townend.me/files/keepclear.pdf
I think they should be yellow hatching rather than green solid, so they act like yellow box junctions on roads – meaning no stopping. But all it’ll take is some confused tourists to muck it all up – as usual!!
I think the reason for using block colouring and not something quite as bright as yellow is a cost issue. Keeping yellow blocks properly clean is time consuming given the generally “dirty” atmosphere in tube station and extremely high footfall. Using hatched patterns is also fraught with maintenance issues as they wear quickly and get damaged and thus have to keep being replaced / repainted. A block pattern can sustain more wear and tear before a maintenance intervention is required. Believe me there are tremendous issues in keeping on top of white and yellow lining especially if there is any sort of safety connection. We used to get countless calls for repeat repairs on step edges, step risers and platform edge painting. Some were justified but many were not because there was no objective among station staff as to what was deemed to be worn and what was adequate and in compliance with standards. We had endless arguments over this especially as all of this work is on a planned cycle anyway but some staff insisted on work being done well ahead of the planned intervention.