transportation

Americans Have Taken 23 Million Bike Share Rides and No One Has Died

With 36 cities across the country now hosting their own systems, bike share is almost becoming an American institution. According to a new report, it’s estimated that Americans have taken 23 million rides since 2007 (wow!), but here’s the most amazing part: Not a single death has been attributed to a bike share system in…

NYC District Attorney Seriously Subpoenas Parody Bike Twitter Account

For reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, in July someone swapped in bleached-out U.S. flags on the Brooklyn Bridge. Almost immediately, Twitter parody @BicycleLobby claimed responsibility. Yesterday, according to the New York Times, the Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed the anonymous account. When @BicycleLobby claimed responsibility for the flags last month, a bunch of news…

Every City Should Give Seniors a Card That Extends the Crosswalk Time

We’ve all seen what happens when someone can’t cross the street in the allotted signal time—the pedestrian gets frustrated and drivers get mad. A program in Singapore lets seniors swipe a card at an intersection so the signal will give them extra time to cross. It’s a smart solution to a problem that’s increasingly going…

How Ford’s Top Interior Designer Puts the Future in the Front Seat

Amko Leenarts is the Director of Interior Design for Ford Motor Company, creating the interior look for Ford’s products worldwide. He spoke with Gizmodo about the design influences, technology, and safety considerations that go into future designs, and later today he’ll be in Gizmodo’s comments section answering your questions. Amko has been with Ford since…

The Self-Perpetuating, Globe-Circling, High-Speed Train from Snowpiercer

The entirety of the film Snowpiercer takes place on a train—a very special train that I can’t stop thinking about. The movie itself is great—we’ve followed the film here due to its unique distribution plan to be made available on-demand platforms just weeks after being released in theaters—but to be honest, I was most captivated…

Someone Finally Built the Ultimate Urban Bike

The road to building a dream bike is fraught with potholes—it’s easy to throw together a bunch of wacky ideas into a build and end up with something very far from perfect. This is not one of those bikes. This is Horse Bicycles‘s “Merge,” a collaboration with Pensa Design Studios, who set out to build…

Poor Doors, Hot Trains, Old Ads: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

It’s hot pretty much everywhere and everyone’s in a horrible mood. Which means there is plenty of ruining of cities to be had—so much so, that I’ve had to double up on this week’s selections. From a plan to plunge Russia into darkness, to a steamy, sweaty Tube in London, it’s What’s Ruining Our Cities:…

Northrop Once Built Planes That Were Just Giant Wings

After World War II, the future of commercial air travel was supposed to be fantastic. There were promises that planes like Northrop Grumman’s flying wing would become the norm for civilian flying. These promises were often made to Baby Boomers — young, impressionable kids of the 1950s and 60s — like in this cutaway drawing…

Why Google Is So Interested In Kenya’s Transit System

The thousands of graphics-covered minibuses called matatus that zip through Nairobi make up one of the largest (and liveliest) informal transportation systems in the world. This unregulated—some might say renegade—transit keeps the city moving rather efficiently, and, until recently, was an all-cash business. Until Google stepped in. According to the New York Times, a team…

An artist’s impression in 1958 of the future of commuting: a futuristic monorail to transport people to and from suburbia and their waiting families. Oh, how those monorails never quite arrived as promised. [Getty Images]

L.A. had a mobile traffic court that brought the judge to you

Back in 1926, the town of Inglewood, California had a mobile traffic court that operated out of a truck — complete with a judge, a bailiff, and police officers. In the photo above we see one unlucky motorist in July of 1926 who’s been pulled over for speeding. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most…

See How Much of NYC a Taxi Driver Sees in a Single Day

Everybody’s wondered what it’s like to be a taxi driver. Whether riding in the back of a cab contemplating your existence or watching a Robert De Niro movie, we’ve all contemplated how many passengers it takes to make a day’s wages. Now, thanks to some clever code, you can watch it play out before your…

1970 Predicts: 25% of Commuters Will Use Flying Machines by 2000

Dreams of our helicopter future really took off in the 1940s. But they were still alive and well in the 1970s. The old guard couldn’t give up on the commuter aircraft of tomorrow. Like in this December 13, 1970 edition of the Sunday comic strip, “Our New Age.” Written by Athelstan Spilhaus, and illustrated by…

Murders, Tsunamis, Bus Singing: What’s Ruining Our Cities This Week

Why were so many people shot in Chicago last weekend? Does today’s earthquake in Japan mean another Fukushima meltdown? And why does Winnipeg want to fine people $100 for singing in public? These are the questions we address in this week’s edition of What’s Ruining Our Cities. Murders are ruining Chicago Chicago’s murder rate has…

In 1893, 2.5 million pounds of horse manure filled NYC streets per day

Think New York summers are pungent now? Imagine what it must’ve smelled like at the turn of the 20th century. Before the introduction of the automobile, horses were leaving about 2.5 million pounds of shit in the streets per day. From the book The Big Roads by Earl Swift: Crossing a street could be an…

Here’s How to Get Rid of Traffic Jams

Traffic congestion steals our time, reduces our quality of life, and hurts us economically. But what can we possibly do about it? Here’s how technology and some common sense could put an end to traffic congestion. A 2010 RAND study noted that traffic congestion comes from an imbalance in the supply of and demand for…

We Should All Be Using Vacant Trolley Tracks For Personal Pallet Trains

Trolleys and light rail trains are great for getting around a city and all, but let’s face it, they’re just sitting there empty a lot of the time, just begging you to trip over them. So why not turn that underused resource into a new form of mobility: A DIY pallet-train for one? This video…

Urban Innovations That Could Turn Your City Into A Bicycling Paradise

Bicycles may be part of the future of transit, and designers and city planners are constantly looking for ways to make cycling safer and more appealing to commuters. Here are a few innovations—beyond bike paths—that could make cities better for bikes. Top image: The Netherlands’ Hovenring. There are a number of basic things that cities…

This Is What the Sunken Cruise Ship Costa Concordia Looks Like Now

Remember how the 984-foot-long cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground in Italy in 2012? Now, police divers have re-entered the vessel, days before an attempt to re-float it, and this video shows exactly what it looks like two years on. Frozen in time, the ship’s shops, staircases, cabins and corridors lie deserted beneath the waves,…

This Concept Sub Means That You Could Visit the Deep Ocean

Check out Manatee — a concept personal submersible vehicle designed by Eduardo Galvani. Designed for safe and comfortable subaquatic explorations, the sub can be controlled by anyone who knows how to operate a joystick and a touch screen control panel. Jacques Cousteau — eat your heart out. The joystick commands the thrusters and helms for…