Transportation

Economy Thrives While CBDs Dive

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The argument that central business districts (CBDs) are the engine rooms of the Australian economy is being tested right now.  read more »

Florida Downtown Commutes Fall the Least from COVID, Recover the Most

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Mass transit may have taken the biggest hit from Covid-19, declining by 55% in the New York urban area, 43% in Los Angeles and 57% in Chicago, but car commutes also suffered. The latest INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard finds that US vehicle traffic to downtowns (central business districts) also declined by a substantial 44% in the pandemic year of 2020. According to Bob Pishue, an INRIX traffic analyst: “COVID-19 has completely transformed when, where and how people move.  read more »

The National Academy of Wishful Thinking

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Democrats want to build more transit infrastructure in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The only problem is that transit emits as much or more greenhouse gases, per passenger mile, as the average car. In fact, transit is less climate friendly than driving in all but a handful of cities.  read more »

Plugged Suez Canal Will Result in Californians Being Plucked at the Pumps

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The current Suez Canal blockage has exposed some of Governor Newsom’s fiscal challenges that may be the driving force for the current recall efforts. Under his guidance (I did not use the word leadership), he continues to perpetuate the state’s dysfunctional energy polices and continues to do everything possible to further INCREASE the costs of energy for its 40 million residents.  read more »

China Freight Volumes Hold Steady in Pandemic Year

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China’s National Bureau of Statistics has just published freight transportation statistics for 2020. It tells much about China’s seemingly inexorable rise and its ties to the tangible economy. While different from most in the West, its stolidity and trajectory are fairly well-established.  read more »

Weakest Link to EV Growth is the Material Supply Chain

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The worldwide plans for EV domination of the vehicle population are like having the plans to build a large house without sufficient materials available to ever finish the house.  read more »

The Dark Side of Japan's Bullet Trains

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In 1964, the Japanese National Railways (JNR) was on a roll. The state-owned but largely unsubsidized company had just finished seven years of uninterrupted profits. Moreover, in 1964 it opened the Shinkansen (meaning new main line) between Tokyo and Osaka in time for the Summer Olympics.  read more »

Fisker-Foxconn Could Get Region Deeper Into EV Era

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If Fisker ends up building electric vehicles with Foxconn Technology Group in Wisconsin, as seems likely, the stunning new development could make a huge winner out of what was an economic-development disaster — and put the state back into the business of making cars for the first time in 13 years.  read more »

Will COVID Kill Robotaxis?

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One of the victims of COVID-19 may be robotaxis and with them one path towards a future of autonomous vehicles. Before the pandemic, there were two views of how driverless cars would take over the road.  read more »