Friday Reads – 16 August 2019

No-one knows why Kennington Tube smells of sick (Guardian)

The Tube’s noisiest lines and spots (Economist)

Rapid transit fuels suburban building surge (Globe&Mail)

Boston Big Rail Dig could connect entire East Coast (Thrillist)

In New York your subway line determines your social network (Slate)

Minneapolis just banned all new drive-throughs (StreetsBlog)

How microcracks undermined SFO’s new bus terminal (Wired)

Raise fuel prices to fight air pollution says rightwing thinktank (Guardian)

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18 comments

  1. waterloo has smelled of vomit for years, it’s so distinctive i once realised i’d got off a stop too early without looking at the signs.

  2. I know quite a bit has been written about TfL loosing the plot with these noise levels caused by the supposedly sound-absorbing rail mounts, but a key thing is how instead of being a low-frequency rumble, is is a higher-freequencey noise that is more excruciating on the ear. I hold TfL in complete contempt for what they are inflicting on passengers between Kentish Town and Euston. I am not the only one to cover my ears, and I see babies and toddlers getting distressed. It’s not acceptable, and it’s not necessary. It never used to be a problem, so I don’t understand why it should be now. Even if someone could adequately explain how it has come to this, the chosen solution is totally unacceptable and they need to find an effective one.

  3. I love one of the comments on the Minneapolis Drive In story:

    What’s ironic about drive-through windows at liquor stores?”

  4. Judging from the experience in Toronto, the third generation streetcars (the Swiss designed CLRVs – Canadian Light Rail Vehicles) caused a lot of vibration in buildings next to streetcar lines. The Swiss designed the cars for railway track, whose stone ballast has some give, however streetcar track does not. At all. So low frequencies were transmitted from streetcar & track to neighbouring buildings, causing cracks. As a result some building owners threatened to (or did) sue the Toronto Transit Commission. The streetcar bogies were quickly redesigned to greatly reduce low frequency vibration.

    I suspect that Underground trains transmit similar low frequencies to buildings above and beside track, hence the implementation of sound-absorbing rail mounts. Passenger complaints of high frequency squeals do not have the same financial impact as rumble induced structural problems.

  5. Never mind noisy tubes, the southern end of the St Pancras Thameslink platforms are absolutely deafening when a train is departing – the squealing is almost unbearably loud.

  6. $6bn for a 1.5 mile tunnel is a lot of. Reminds me of the NYT piece on how expensive rail track is in the US.

  7. Has the Big Dig really been that unsuccessful? Ie. Lots of disruption and expense with little to show for it?

  8. ‘But if you could get there by 40 minutes, on a clean, fast, modern, European-style train, then absolutely.’
    I find it interesting how Americans are constantly in awe of the mystical European-style trains that don’t exist in America yet.

  9. Keplerniko
    Reminds me of one of the very few good thing about the otherwise vile “London 2012”, was when the US entrants were given Travelcards & & map & told “there you go”
    Their reactions to a city public transport system that worked ( Don’t laugh too much ) were highly informative.

  10. @ Greg I was not aware of the American athletes reaction. Was it positive or did they demand chauffeured limos and Uber? Many years ago I was in Washington DC on a business trip and had to introduce a Caliafornian colleague to the Washington Metro. She had never used public transport before and was genuinely very nervous of going down the escalators to the platform. It was a revelatory experience for her (in a good way).

  11. RichardB
    It was like your Californian colleague – some, of course, came from big cities that (by US standards) had some public transport, but most were completely blown away ….

  12. @RichardB – I’m astonished that there are no escalators in California!

  13. Frederick/Graham H: the Boston link is actually proposed to be 2.8 miles of tunnelled route, much of it consisting of twin double-track tunnels, with three four-platform stations, three junctions and five portals (see http://www.northsouthraillink.org/alignment/) – a lot more than “a 1.5 mile tunnel”.

  14. @RICHARDB 14:20 yesterday

    Like your Washington DC experience, every February I go to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, which attracts 100,000+ people from the telecoms industry. We get free tickets for the metro, buses and suburban trains for the duration of the event.

    I, as a Londoner, and many other Europeans happily make maximum use of them — they’re less packed than Southeastern or, say, the Northern line. But North Americans almost all regard them with horror.

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