Streetcar Press

It is wonderful when superb infrastructure gets built. Even better when it then is able to serve multiple purposes and is celebrated as such. But what happens then as the decades pass and needs change? Of all the things that we need more of, one is certainly more people doing more savvy work to document, protect, and bring back into suitable use more of the wonderful resources that now sit, under or entirely unproductive.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/09/19/last-train-to-the-eiffel-tower-the-station-that-paris-forgot/

Last Train to the Eiffel Tower: The Station that Paris Forgot On the outskirts of Paris proper, at the back of a parking lot down a side street in a quiet residential neighbourhood of Clichy, there sits the old Gare Lis

Anybody who has worked in academia should find this entirely unsurprising. With a community beset by constant and massive power imbalances, a pervasive pressure to subsume one's emotions and the emotional impact of one's surroundings and the actions of others, and environments that leave people all too often both isolated and jockeying for power and position, and abuse becomes a predictable outcome. Add sexism and this is as sure a consequence as gravity.

http://phys.org/news/2014-09-sexual-abuse-scientists.html

We need to talk about the sexual abuse of scientists The life sciences have come under fire recently with a study published in PLOS ONE that investigated the level of sexual harassment and sexual assault of trainees in academic fieldwork environments.

This is an issue of real concern to every transit agency whose officials we've ever discussed it with. And becomes, among other things, a violation of good faith on the part of riders which then damages relations both between them and the transit provider while sabotaging the needs of those who truly are disabled and genuinely depend on such accomodation.

In short, don't do this. And if you know other people who do, remember that their dishonesty absolutely harms others, most likely including people you care about.

http://dogtime.com/advocacy-column-fake-service-dogs-are-a-shame-and-a-crime.html =138983,1df7f6bb-6235-2de0-9d42-f0ccfd2429c7

Fake service dogs: A shame...and a crime What's the harm in saying your pet dog is a service dog when he really isn't? For starters, it puts those who legitimately rely on the trained animals at risk.

Trainfest is coming in not too many weeks! We won't be exhibiting there this year. But, soon, by jiminy, SOON!

http://www.trainfest.com/trainfest-experience/

The Trainfest Experience What makes Trainfest so popular? It’s the amount of amazingly-detailed railroads, and their uniqueness and variety — all under one roof. With 200,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space featuring more than 70 creative scenic railroads.

Absolutely these pieces give a wonderfully evocative sense of how transit is experienced by tens of millions of people every day, if not more. But does the experience for so many of them *need* to be like that? It wasn't long ago at all that riding the New York City subways carried with it an assumption of blistering hot or freezing cold cars, waiting in darkness at high risk of robbery and assault of every sort, and a dozen other demoralizing, frustrating, seemingly unaddressable factors that have now been brought to heel very effectively, thank you very much.

http://hyperallergic.com/148441/in-transit-willem-van-genks-cardboard-trolleys/

In Transit: Willem van Genk's Cardboard Trolleys The first United States exhibition of Dutch artist Willem van Genk’s work at the American Folk Art Museum offers a comic counterpoint to the recent Futurist show at the Guggenheim.

How we see infrastructure has changed a great deal since the boom years of the nineteen-fifties. This film makes a fascinating time capsule of some of what has changed and what has not.

http://vimeo.com/14422648

Relocation Film This movie shows a 55 mile segment of U.S.highway 30 (Lincoln Highway) centered around Ames, Iowa in 1959. They were making the case to upgrade the highway by showing all of the shortfalls.

With minor changes, just about all of these apply to professionals doing design work with most kinds of specialized tools.

http://imgur.com/gallery/M5wl14r

What Programmers Say vs. What They Mean The most viral images on the internet, curated in real time by a dedicated community through commenting, voting and sharing.

As Portland's streetcar system goes from two fleets and one standalone running without catenary to one fleet under one operator, it's worth remembering what we had before our options were so disappointingly and shortsightedly reduced.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/streetcar-press/sets/72157622773030909/page2/

Portland Streetcars Every other vehicle Tri-Met runs is painted in the same livery to the extent they can make it look good. If the model is the same, the paint is the same. Not the Portland Streetcar. Each one is a little different. So here you will find views that let you distinguish each from the others.

Well, um, yeah.

That's a great first step. But without some accompanying commentary this is reduced to not much more than "look at the pretty shapes; maybe I should look those places up somewhere else and see what all of this has to teach."

And where do the many ambitious new projects like Masdar City fit in?

http://io9.com/to-truly-appreciate-modern-planned-cities-view-them-fr-1632869668

To Truly Appreciate Modern Planned Cities, View Them From Above While some of our modern cities are built over haphazard cowpaths, others are marvels of urban planning, with carefully plotted grids and streets radiating from the center. And we can see just how remarkable these cities are when we look down at them from above.

This. Don't put the useful and quiet into a box and just leave your attention to them at zero until you want something out of them again.

http://pvponline.com/comic/2014/09/05/for-the-record

PVP - for the record

The project is mildly interesting. The article is worth a read if you're into that kind of thing. What's really interesting is the discussion below the Slashdot teaser post. This is tech insiders in 2014 and what they think of venture capital, innovators, and startup culture.

Take a look. Just be sure to set your sliders so that you see all of what has been written in the thread since some of the best posts haven't gotten high ratings at all.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/09/05/2228250/willow-garage-founder-scott-hassan-aims-to-build-a-startup-village

Willow Garage Founder Scott Hassan Aims To Build a Startup Village - Slashdot Tekla Perry (3034735) writes "Scott Hassan, founder of robotic research lab Willow Garage, is behind a large real estate development in Menlo Park, Calif. He reportedly plans to create an incubator village with 18,500 square meters of workspace and another 18,500 square meters of living space on a 3…

How to get it done. Or maybe not.

http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/dirt/333276/do-elevated-cycletracks-solve-problems-or-just-create-more

Elevated Cycletracks | Sustainable Cities Collective This year, two designs – one proposed and one built – for elevated cycletracks, which create bicycle highways above street level, have gained considerable media attention. They highlight questions at the heart of urban design: Should cities blend or separate transportation options?