transportation

The Invention of Jaywalking Was a Massive Shaming Campaign

Before the invention of the car, jaywalking wasn’t a recognized concept. Want to get across the street? Then just walk across the street—nobody’s going to stop you. But the rise of the automobile posed a new problem for people of the early 20th century. While the median state-designated speed limit for American cities was just…

Why the Biggest Obstacle for Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Might Be Tunnels

It all sounds so Jetsonian. A new 600 mph “Hyperloop” method of transportation connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco? That’s the buzz around the internet water cooler as people guess what Elon Musk has in store for the transportation of tomorrow. I say, sign me up! But if we take any lessons from past visions…

The Best Guess at How Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Transit Fantasy Might Work

Earlier this week, Elon Muskannounced that he would publish an alpha design for his crazy-sounding “Hyperloop” by August 12. According to Musk, the diagram above is as close as anyone has gotten to figuring out how the super-fast transit technology might work. And it seems bonkers. For those of you who have been out of…

Before Jetpacks, We Were Promised Butterfly Wings

The jetpack would emerge in popular American science fiction of the 1920s, and later become cemented into the popular imagination after World War II. But the idea of single-flyer personal transportation tech didn’t start with the jetpack. In the late 19th century, people were obsessed with flight. And they imagined a future where strapping a…

Today in 1935: The First Parking Meter Is Installed

The next time you’re frantically rushing to plug your parking meter, you can curse Carl C. Magee. Because it was on this day in 1935 that Magee’s parking meters made their world debut, much to the chagrin of future drivers everywhere. The first three decades of the 20th century saw the rise of the automobile,…

1959’s Electric Car of Tomorrow Looks Awfully Familiar Today

It may not be a Tesla, but this electric car was the height of cool when it graced newspaper comics pages around the world in 1959. Detroit-based commercial illustrator Arthur Radebaugh had plenty of practice dreaming up cars of the future. Many of Radebaugh’s clients were Detroit automakers who loved his futuristic flair, which was…

UberX in LA: It’s Illegal. It’s Great. It Needs to Stop.

Despite the fact that it’s currently banned in Los Angeles, UberX is defiantly still up and running. I used it for the first time this weekend. This so-called ride-sharing service from San Francisco-based Uber Technologies is supposedly the future of cabs. Much like similar services Lyft and Sidecar, UberX seeks to “disrupt” the taxi industry…

Sorry Uber, Los Angeles Has Been Banning Ride-Shares For a Century

This week the city of Los Angeles sent a cease-and-desist letter to ride-sharing app companies Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. The city and Los Angeles Yellow Cab claim that these services are “rogue taxis” that are “bypassing all safety regulations created to protect riders and drivers.” But this isn’t the first time that this town has…

Take a Hypnotic Trip on Tokyo’s Automatic Rails

You are not watching CGI. Despite the kaleidoscope of colors and shapes rising from the infinite horizon, this is all real footage of the 12-mile Yurikamome line in Tokyo. Hold onto your butts. The visuals were captured by photographer Gundam Videographer from the front of the train using a mirror then cleaned up and vertically…

The Post-WWII Planes of the Future Had Legroom to Spare

It looks like American Airlines will soon be cramming even more seats into their already over-crowded planes. If this is the future, then where’s my legroom? Last week we looked at promises for futuristic homes during World War II and the attempt to dial back expectations for these “miracle houses” by the end of the…

What Biofuel Is (And Where It Comes From)

Cars didn’t always run on gasoline. Henry Ford envisioned his Model T’s puttering along with tanks fully of ethanol. Early diesel engines ran on peanut oil. Of course, the discovery of massive petroleum reserves at the turn of the 20th century quickly put the brakes on that notion—why bother creating biofuel when gasoline and diesel…

What Will Happen When Your Driverless Car Crashes?

Driverless cars are nearly here, at least if Google has its way. But what happens when we’re all zipping around, hands-and-feet free, nary a care in the world, and BAM! we’re in a terrible accident? Who’s responsible? And perhaps more importantly, will we make any attempts to stop it? When something goes awry and it…

This Insane Highway Demolition Is the Longest Ever in China

Given the fevered pace of China’s infrastructure development, 16 years is ancient. That’s why the two-lane concrete Zhuan-yang viaduct running through the town of Wuhan, Hubei in central China had to go—a bigger and better six-lane freeway was in the works. But to demolish the original roadway without harming the surrounding homes, engineers smothered the…

Eye-Poppingly Gorgeous Underground Stations from Around The World

The history of rapid-transit began 150 years ago, with the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in London in 1863. In the next century and a half, dozens of architects and engineers have worked on underground tunnels and stations. Some are abandoned now, but others are as good as new. Here are some of the most…

This 1897 bicycle highway was supposed to be the future of transit

At the close of the 19th century — just before cars made their appearance — a wealthy American businessman began construction on a private, for-profit bicycle superhighway that would stretch from Pasadena to Los Angeles. It almost got built. This story comes to us from Brian Merchant at the always interesting Motherboard. The entrepreneur in…

Save Your Legs With This Self-Balancing Briefcase Unicycle

Honda has been demoing its sitting Segways for years now, but the Hammacher Schlemmer version has one crucial advantage over them: it’s actually for sale. So instead of just being tantalized by a future where legs are an unnecessary human feature, we’re now officially living it. https://gizmodo.com/in-hondas-future-we-are-all-rolling-meat-puppets-5511794 You’ll pay dearly for the privilege of surrendering…

Commuting Is No Sweat on These Swanky E-Bikes

With gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon and what seems an entire generation shunning automobiles, it’s no wonder that bike commuting has seen such a resurgence in recent years. But for all the physical and environmental benefits riding imparts, it nevertheless leaves you a hot, sweaty mess. That is, of course, unless you get…

Nobody Walks in L.A.: The Rise of Cars and the Monorails That Never Were

“Who needs a car in L.A.? We got the best public transportation system in the world!” says private detective Eddie Valiant in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Set in 1947, Eddie is a car-less Angeleno and the movie tells the tale of a an evil corporation buying up the city’s streetcars in its…

Asia’s notorious “Tuk-Tuk” taxis could become electric vehicles

If you’ve spent a lot of time in Asia, you’re probably familiar with the Tuk-Tuk, a three-wheeled buggy that’s commonly used for taxi services. They’re noisy, smelly and environmentally unsound. But one Japanese company has plans to replace them with space-age-looking electric vehicles. According to Autoblog: The company plans to build the car in the…

The Ten Most Wasteful Transportation Projects in Modern History