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Two DC Metro Trains Collide, Killing Passengers

Death on the Red Line

Two Metro trains have collided in Washington DC, “striking with such force that part of one train was left resting on top of the other.”  Several people are dead, dozens more are injured.

There is no excuse for this.  The DC Metro operates on a Red-Green light system, which should be 100% error proof.  If there is a train ahead of you on the track, you get a red light.  When the trains moves on, you get a green light.

Beyond that, the area where the trains collided - the Red Line between Fort Totten and Takoma stations - is above ground on a slightly curving track, with plenty of visibility.  There is no reason that the driver should not have been able to stop his train on time.

So much for the inherent superiority of the subway.

Update:

From the Washington Post:

During morning and afternoon rush hours, all trains except longer eight-car trains operate in automatic mode, meaning their movements are controlled by computerized systems and the central Operations Control Center.  Both trains in yesterday’s crash were six-car trains.

Investigators will probably focus on a failure of Metro’s computerized signal system, which is designed to prevent trains from coming close enough to collide, as well as operator error, according to former Metro officials.

The system relies on electronic relays — about the size of a hardcover book — aboard trains and buried beside the tracks along each line. When a train gets too close to another train, the system is designed to automatically stop the approaching train. It should work regardless of whether trains are being operated manually or by computer.

Bug Splatter: Great Public Service Ad from LADOT

The Los Angeles DOT has released a great public service ad aimed at reckless cyclists who ride against traffic.  Basic message:  If you ride against traffic and smash into an oncoming car, you will be splattered like a bug.

Streetsblog, of course, is outraged.  The ad is “flippant,” “counterproductive,” “plays up the supremacy of the motorist by likening cyclists to insects,” and might “unintentionally scare would-be cyclists off the roads.”

If this ad scares stupid cyclists off the roads, that’s a good thing.  We need less morons riding against traffic, not more.

Protest

He he! We're a bunch of overgrown children!

You know how I can tell if someone has something important to say?

They just say it.

They don’t need a bunch of gimmicks or slogans or stunts to get the message across. That’s how I know the 4th annual World Naked Bike Ride is lame.

When Martin Luther King wanted equal rights for African Americans, he didn’t need to organize naked sit-ins. The message was powerful and eloquent enough to stand on its own.

When women wanted suffrage, they didn’t have topless parades down main street. They used the power of their intellects to prove that they deserved the right to vote like anyone else.

But when cyclists want to make a statement about oil-dependency awareness, we get to see shriveled old-man dong and crunchy unkempt biker chicks with weird piercings. I’m sorry, what was your message again? It got lost in the stupidity of your antics.

Nothing makes me yawn more than a bunch of sad old hippies and un-bathed, listless activists who just want an excuse to take off their clothes and show us things I’d rather not see.

Stunts like this are why no one takes these people seriously. What the hell does riding a bicycle naked have to do with oil dependency? Oil was in the machines that made your bikes, it’s in the components and composites that make up a lot of the pieces of your bikes, it powered the trucks that drove your bikes from the factory to the store, it powered the lights in the store when you went to buy it, and it’s in the asphalt on the roads you ride your stupid freaking bike on. It’s in the petroleum jelly you’re going to rub between your legs to keep from chafing, and it’s in the aspirin you’re going to take when you chafe anyway because a bike seat slips between your cheeks.

The idea that somehow you’re not oil dependant because you’re on a bike is laughable. As is the size of your shriveled penis. Hope it doesn’t get caught in the chain. 

Bicycle Helmet Philosophy Part IV: Helmet Laws Discourage (Stupid) Riders

I think I love helmets.

Cycling proponents love to point to what happened in Australia as an example of the terrible costs of mandatory helmet laws. In the 1990’s, Australia became the first country in the world to implement mandatory helmet laws for cyclists.

Dorothy Robinson wrote a study examining the link between mandatory helmet laws and a decrease in ridership in Australia. Disclaimer – Ms. Robinson cycles every day (I wonder which way this study comes out). Cyclists have embraced her work and its findings despite the fact that four of her colleagues published a rebuttal to her study, and she’s making the assumption that correlation implies causation. But who cares about details when you have an agenda to advance?

Well, let’s look at the data and see what falls out.

Ms. Robinson’s study shows lots of charts depicting a steady decline in head injuries after mandatory helmet laws were implemented, which is the goal of the laws. Her figures also show an increase in the percentage of riders wearing helmets, another goal of the laws. Then Ms. Robinson publishes a chart on page 723 that shows a decrease in ridership in Melbourne and New South Wales after the laws were passed in 1990 and asserts that the laws are to blame. We’re encouraged to conclude that the helmet laws made less people cycle, and because less people cycled, that accounts for the decreasing numbers of injuries.

It seems tempting to believe it even though it’s only correlation, but something seems fishy. Though the laws passed in 1990, they didn’t start to enforce them until 1992 - in other words, even though there was a law, you were at about as much risk of being ticketed for not having one as a New York cyclist who likes to run stop signs. So why did ridership decrease before there was really any disincentive to riding without a helmet?

Answer - in 1989, a huge economic slump began in Australia. Melbourne was hit particularly hard by this economic turmoil. In 1990, Australia officially slid into a recession.

Read the rest of this entry »

Memo to Transportation Alternatives: Why Stop At 185,000? Why Not Make It 1,000,000! You Know They’ll Print It!

So, over the past month, I’ve been trying to decipher Transportation Alternatives’ recent claim - via its public relations guru Wiley Norvell - that there are 185,000 unique cyclists pedaling around NYC every day. Yes, folks, that is correct. 185,000 unique cyclists per day.

Of course, Transportation Alternatives provides ZERO explanation for its sources or methodology, so my deciphering was largely restricted to guesswork and speculation and conjecture and supposition.

Ho ho ho, let’s say that 75% of NYC cyclists are located in Manhattan. A very reasonable estimate, considering that Manhattan is the borough to which most New Yorkers commute, and it has the most bike lanes. 75% of 185,000 is 138,750 cyclists. Manhattan contains 6,718 blocks. 138,750 cyclists divided by 6,718 blocks equals 20.6 cyclists per block. That means that if you were to spread out Manhattan’s daily dose of cyclists among the 6,718 blocks, each block gets 20-21 cyclists. An incredible number, considering that this includes Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, etc. Just an estimate, of course, since Transportation Alternatives doesn’t publish its methodology or sources and we have no idea what they’re talking about.

But important nonetheless, since the mainstream media likes to cite Transportation Alternatives’ 185,000 claim as fact. A small sampling includes the New York Times, the New York Post, Reuters, MSNBC, the Financial Express, the Queens Chronicle, and the Examiner. Hell, it’s even cited by NYC’s Department of Transportation!

So where did Transportation Alternatives get this number?

Read the rest of this entry »

NY Post: Times Square Looks Like A City Dump (We Agree)

It gets much worse than this. Image: NY Post

I’ve had the displeasure of walking through the much heralded car-free Times Square three times over the past week. Let me say that I completely agree with Shari Logan and Tom Namako of the New York Post, who write that The Crossroads of the World looks like a “city dump” these days.

The first thing you notice are the overflowing trash cans. There is so much trash that it is literally spilling out of the trash cans and onto the streets. And that’s just the trash cans. Half-eaten food, wrappers, empty bottles, empty cans, and much more are strewn all over the ground. There is the distinct, sugary smell of spilled soda. Lord knows what kinds of rabbit-sized rodents are flocking towards this area.

The NY Post quotes Tim Tompkins, the president of Times Square Alliance, which is funded by private business owners and is responsible for keeping the plazas clean: “It looks like a bomb hit.”

It is important to point out that the Department of Sanitation is working overtime to keep these environmentally friendly concrete beaches as clean as possible. The city has scheduled extra garbage-truck runs to clean out overflowing trash cans. The Times Square Alliance is working overtime trying to add new sweepers and garbage collectors. And despite these efforts, the place still looks like the National Mall after Obama’s inauguration.

Read the rest of this entry »

NY Daily News To Sadik-Khan: Prove Your Case for Pedestrian Plazas, Let Us See The Data

Where is the data?

Here on Commuter Outrage, we love hard data. It allows us to expose buffoonery in ways that mockery on its own cannot.

So while we are able to mock the current idiocy that is the “Pedestrian Plazas” at New York City’s Times and Herald Squares, our mockery is based on our observations, common sense, logic, and analysis, not on hard data. In other words, we are unable to administer the complete and total beat-down that is necessary in this situation.

Why? Because the data is not publicly available, even though it supposedly exists. NYC’s transportation gurus, who sold us these “Pedestrian Plazas” as a six-month experiment, have promised to “monitor and evaluate the pilot,” track “daily and hourly traffic volumes” and “travel time runs,” and conduct “origin & destination,” “vehicle classification,” “access,” and “pedestrian” studies.

That is very nice, but can we see the data ourselves please? We want to look with our own eyes, to make sure no funny business occurs during the “analysis” stage of this giant opera bouffe, considering that Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is buddy buddy with the radical anti-car cycling crowd that wants to turn NYC into one giant bike path.

How will Sadik-Khan make her decision? Will she use hard data, statistics, and facts? Or will she rely on her feelings, emotions, hopes, dreams, and her desire to please her anti-car friends? In an editorial titled “Broadway Tap Dance,” the New York Daily News similarly asks for the hard data:

We again pose the question to Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, whose brainchild the closure is: Will you please explain the scientific method by which you will determine success and failure?

If she has such a method. We’ve grown skeptical on that point because the yardsticks, while seemingly very basic, have not been forthcoming.

Not that we’re traffic engineers, but we would compare vehicular loads and speeds on all the avenues from Fifth Ave. to the Hudson before the closures and after the closures. And we would do the same for all the crosstown streets that could possibly be affected.

Again, that would be loads and speeds before compared with loads and speeds after. How hard could it be to publish those numbers? Not hard at all.

So the request has been made. Please publish the data, Janette. Please let us run the numbers ourselves. Please allow us to have an open and honest debate. If your ideas are truly worthwhile, they will stand up to rigorous analysis.

Related Posts

• Midtown “Pedestrian Plaza” Making Traffic Worse

Bicycle Helmet Philosophy Part III – Does Safety in Numbers Exist?

Hmmm...still can't seem to find fault with bike helmets.

Ask yourself a question – how many people have died in Segway accidents since they were first introduced 8 years ago?

Think hard.

Scratching your head yet? Go Google it. Look for anything under any possible combination you can come up with for Segway fatalities.

I performed this little exercise to think about cyclist claims that there is some sort of safety in numbers that protects them when they ride, thus alleviating the need for helmets.

I’ll get to the results of my Segway question in a minute, but first, let’s think about safety in numbers in the abstract.

Cyclists have embraced safety in numbers because it allows them to pretend that the other rules of the road which exist for their safety and protection should not have to apply. “Don’t force us to be licensed or wear helmets! It’s not our unsafe behaviors that lead to high fatality rates, it’s the fact that there aren’t enough unsafe cyclists on the roads!” Read the rest of this entry »

Midtown “Pedestrian Plaza” Making Traffic Worse

I have an idea. Let's take one of the most congested areas in New York City and make the congestion even worse, so that rich people, tourists, and the homeless can sit on lawn chairs. Image: NYTimes

Common sense tells us the following: When you shut down a major artery in a major city (which to a large extent is built around that major artery), the traffic will move onto surrounding arteries, making these other arteries more congested.

This is what is happening right now in midtown Manhattan, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg’s brilliantly obtuse “Green Light for Midtown,” which closes Broadway to vehicular traffic from 47th to 42nd St and from 35th to 33rd St, essentially turning Times Square and Herald Square into giant beaches.

The obvious problem is that these new “pedestrian plazas” disrupt the flow of traffic throughout basically all of midtown Manhattan. The approximately 50,000 cars, buses, taxis, delivery trucks, etc. that had previously driven down Broadway every day will now have to re-route themselves down 7th and 6th Avenues and the adjoining streets, causing new and improved gridlock from morning to night.

Most problematic is “bus bunching,” as various bus routes are now literally stacked on top of each other to make room for the No Car Zone. So much for people who don’t have time to sunbathe on Times Square and actually have to get somewhere (like work). And if you’re a taxi rider, you’ll just have to pay a higher fare.

According to the New York Post: “The first workday of the car ban has been a total bust for truckers, cabbies, and other motorists caught in countless traffic snarls they say are worse than ever before.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Bicycle Helmet Philosophy Part II – A Note on Safety Studies

Hmmmm...Yup. Helmets still seem like a pretty good idea.

Did you ever wonder how researchers on bicycle safety can reach two totally different conclusions (1, 2) about the exact same thing?

The answer lies in the type of study we’re performing and the inherent limitations that come along with it.

Before I plunge headfirst into the fray and explain why studies that purport to show that mandatory helmet laws decrease safety are wrong, I’m going to write a post that I’ve wanted to write for a while, but never had a reason to. I’m going to explain why researchers reach different conclusions, and what all of this means to you when you try to decide whether you should wear a helmet or not. I’m firmly in the camp that says you should wear a helmet, but I’ll let you be the judge.

First, you should understand that in the realm of science, there are “hard sciences” and “soft sciences”. The distinction is difficult to elaborate, and sometimes controversial, but think of it as a continuum with hard sciences like physics and chemistry on one side, and soft sciences like sociology and psychology on the other.

There are many ways to distinguish the two, and I won’t get into all of them, but for our purposes it’s important to understand that hard sciences are much better at predicting specific results than soft sciences are.

Think about it – in a physics equation, I can easily compute how much more force a car crash between two cars travelling at 50mph will generate than two cars travelling at 25mph. It’s simply a case of applying the correct laws of physics and doing the math.

Predicting the behavior of a particular person, or a group of people is not so easy. We may know that people generally speed on the highway when there are no cars, the road is straight, and the weather is perfect, but that doesn’t mean that everyone will speed. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that speeding by itself will cause accidents – it may be possible that everyone is very safety conscious when they speed, and as a result the stretch of road where everyone speeds is much safer than a stretch of road where everyone goes 10mph below the speed limit.

The reason it is difficult to predict behavior in the same way that we can predict the results of a car crash has to do with some of the inherent limitations of soft science research, and it’s also important to understand that most studies about why people are less safe when they wear helmets, or why mandatory helmet laws decrease ridership, fall toward the soft science side of the spectrum. When we say one of these studies is “scientific” we mean that to the extent possible or practical, the researchers have attempted to apply the same rigor and methodology to the helmet study as you would to a physics study. For the reasons discussed below, this still produces weaker results. Read the rest of this entry »

Lucas Brunelle: Folk Hero to Radical Urban Cyclists

There is nothing cool about Lucas Brunelle or the scores of alleycat cyclists he has inspired.

They ride at high speeds through densely packed city streets, sometimes drunk, blowing through red lights, often riding against traffic, narrowly missing cars, pedestrians, and other cyclists.  Not only are the cyclists risking their own lives, but they are risking the lives of others as well.  Just look at these morons.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bicycle Helmet Philosophy

Hmmm....helmets probably are a good idea.

In a perfect world, I could care less if people wear bike helmets. I believe that you should have the right to choose whether or not you wear a helmet. If you want to careen down the street and risk splitting your skull open so you don’t mess up your hair, I could care less. As long as you understand and accept that risk, I’m perfectly willing to let you.

Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world where bicyclists scream about how cars overwhelmingly endanger them. As a result, I have to pay extra tolls and taxes whenever I drive to support bicycle infrastructure so that cyclists can cruise down the street and feel safer without actually being safer.

It also appears that soon we’ll have socialized medicine in this country, which will also force me to contribute my taxes to the billions of dollars required to treat cyclists who suffer head injuries every year.

I feel that the people who force these social ills on us – cyclists who refuse to wear helmets – should bear the burden for protecting themselves before they ask everyone else to contribute money to remedy injuries that are largely preventable. For this reason, I support mandatory helmet laws.

A bicycle helmet costs almost as little as $10. At that price, we could outfit every single person in New York City with a bike helmet for about $82 Million. To put that in perspective, New York earmarked $24.5 Million for bike projects in their FY 09 Capital Commitment Plan. Before we ask taxpayers to fork over millions of dollars, we ought to ask cyclists to take a simple, cost-effective protective measure.

Over the past few days, I’ve noticed a spate of excuses from Streetsblog about why helmets shouldn’t be required when riding bicycles. The argument goes something like this: For bicyclists, there is greater safety in numbers. Helmets discourage people from riding bikes. Because helmets discourage people from riding, they decrease the safety in numbers and therefore, helmets should not be mandatory.

I disagree with almost every single part of that argument, and over my next few posts I’ll explain why in detail. However, I will conclude this post with the following simple observation – if mandatory helmet laws discourage cycling, who cares?

The point of laws is to discourage socially undesirable behavior. It is socially undesirable for cyclists to die from head injuries. If mandatory helmet laws keep reckless people from cycling, so be it. That’s what we want. The only real question is whether this decrease in cycling would offset the advantage provided by safety in numbers.

As I’ll explain through the next few posts, it doesn’t. But don’t expect to hear that from Streetsblog or many other bicycle advocacy groups – they’re more than happy to let you get killed so they can lobby for more handouts. 

Related Posts: Bicycle Helmet Philosophy Part II - A Note on Safety Studies

Academic Study: NYC Cyclists Routinely Disobey Traffic Laws

Hunter College of the City University of New York

Two professors at Hunter College in New York, have released a rigorous and scientific academic study (text, pdf) arguing that “a large number of cyclists routinely disobey many traffic laws.”

Peter S. Tuckel, professor of sociology, and William Milczarski, professor of urban planning, arranged for “5,275 observations by Hunter college students of riders at 45 randomly generated intersections across Midtown from First to 10th Avenues and 14th to 59th Streets.” By using such a massive and unbiased sample - 5,275 random observations - this study is rock solid in its logic and methodology.

Some of their findings:

• Less than a third of the riders (29.8%) were observed wearing helmets.
• Female general cyclists are far more likely to wear a helmet (50.8%) than either male general cyclists (32.2%) or male commercial cyclists (23.6%).
• More than one-third of cyclists (37%) did not stop at all at red lights. In addition, another 28.7% paused at a red light but then went through the light while it was still red.
• The tendency to “run a red light” without stopping is even more pronounced during the evening hours than during daylight hours (49.5% vs. 35.1%).
• 13.2% of cyclists were observed riding against traffic and an additional 4.1% were observed riding both with and against the flow of traffic.
• Roughly three-quarters of the cyclists (73.7%) used neither a headlight or taillight during the evening hours. Among male commercial cyclists, the figure is even higher – 80.9%.
• 6.7% were observed using a hands-free electronic device (e.g., cell phone, music player, Bluetooth, etc.)

Of course, our favorite elf, the inimitable Wiley Norvell, public relations guru at Transportation Alternatives, immediately made himself available to the NYT’s City Room for comment.

Read the rest of this entry »

George Will: No Patience for Greenie Weenies

Not impressed by the liveable, walkable movement

George Will, whose columns we thoroughly enjoy here at the Rage, recently issued a firm beatdown to Ray LaHood, Obama’s new transportation secretary.

Will notes, with considerable contempt, the recent transformation of LaHood, who was once a middle-of-the-road Republican but now thinks he can “change people’s behavior” by forcing them out of their cars and onto public transporation, bikes, etc.

In particular, Will scoffs at LaHood’s predictable reference to the Kaaba of the liveable, walkable community - Portland, Oregon - and warns of a future in which the federal government tells us exactly where and how to live our lives.

Does LaHood really think Americans were not avid drivers before a government highway program “promoted” driving? Does he think 0.01 percent of Americans will ever regularly bike to work? Intercity high-speed rail probably always will be the wave of the future, for cities more than 300 miles apart. And as for Portland …

Its government has been, intermittently, as progressive as all get-out, trying to use zoning, light-rail projects and high-density housing to cool the planet by curbing automobile use. This sort of “New Urbanism” is metastasizing. Last year California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, 71, the state’s once (1975–82) and, he hopes, future governor, was a prime mover behind a new law that would deny certain state aid to communities that do not adopt “smart growth” plans. They are supposed to herd Californians into higher-density living near mass-transit rail lines in order to reduce their carbon footprints (tire prints, actually).

For many generations—before automobiles were common, but trolleys ran to the edges of towns—Americans by the scores of millions have been happily trading distance for space, living farther from their jobs in order to enjoy ample backyards and other aspects of low-density living. And long before climate change became another excuse for disparaging America’s “automobile culture,” many liberal intellectuals were bothered by the automobile. It subverted their agenda of expanding government—meaning their—supervision of other people’s lives. Drivers moving around where and when they please? Without government supervision? Depriving themselves and others of communitarian moments on mass transit? No good could come of this.

Read the rest of this entry »

Milloy: Obama’s New 35-Per-Gallon Fuel Standards Will Kill Americans Faster Than Iraq War

More danger is not fun

Steven Milloy makes a compelling case (backed by research and data from the National Academy of Sciences and the NHTSA) that President Obama’s new fuel efficiency standards will increase traffic fatalities at a higher rate than the Iraq War.

Obama’s plan will require automakers to meet a 35 miles-per-gallon standard by 2016, that’s four years earlier than the same standard imposed by the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007.

The only way for car makers to meet these standards is to make smaller, lighter and deadlier cars.

The National Academy of Sciences has linked mileage standards with about 2,000 deaths per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that every 100-pound reduction in the weight of small cars increases annual traffic fatalities by as much as 715.

In contrast in the more than six years since the Iraq war began, there have been 4,296 deaths among American military personnel.

He computes costs vs. savings in utilitarian terms.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said that the 35 MPG standard would save about one million gallons of gas per day. So how does that savings balance against the 2,000 fatalities per year that the National Academy of Sciences says are caused by those same lighter cars?

For the sake of being utilitarian, let’s generously assume that the mileage standards reduced the price of gasoline by $1. That would translate to daily savings of $1 million. Is that savings worth killing more than five people per day, plus other non-fatal injuries and property damage?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — for the purposes of risk assessment — values a single human life at $6.9 million dollars. So the new mileage standards would cost about $35 million per day in human lives (not including non-fatal injuries) to save $1 million in gas.

Blah blah blah, what’s a few thousand Americans when we can save a few hundred polar bears.