I'd like to report that I've been exploring the universe via TARDIS and that's why I've been absent. Instead, I've been preparing to travel cross-country the old-fashioned way (auto) from LA to Chicago. I have a new job at the American Planning Association, but I'm looking forward to getting back onboard the blogging train (haha). Speaking of trains, Amtrak is kicking it up quite a few notches in terms of its food offerings. It's bringing together well-known chefs to develop new menus:
The chefs’ gathering has spawned dishes as diverse as a spice-rubbed Atlantic salmon fillet and vegetarian shell pasta with corn, leeks and Parmesan cheese.
One dish — a [Tom] Douglas creation — prompted a passenger to write to the
Los Angeles Times’ Culinary S.O.S. column in search of the recipe for
“the most delicious” lamb shanks with mushrooms she and her husband
sampled in the regular dining car of the Southwest Chief route that took
them from L.A. to Chicago.
Last time I rode Amtrak a few months ago, it was definitely an instant coffee/chips/preservative-filled pastries kind of selection. (Although, why does crappy coffee taste so delicious in particular situations? It's the same with airplane food. Everyone complains about it, but how often do you see someone refuse a meal or even just eat half? Never. People scarf it down and don't look the least bit disgusted.) In any case, I'd love to one day take the train between LA and Chicago in first class so I can sample those lamb shanks.
So I'm not a Doctor Who fan at all, but lately have become intrigued (I know a couple fanatics and it feels like it's about time to see what that's all about). I recently learned about the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space), Doctor Who's spacecraft/time machine thing.
It's perhaps a stretch to consider the TARDIS a mode of travel, but, hey, I've seen mobility folks talk about traveling via the mind and imagination as if that doesn't involve some suspension of disbelief and a sprinkling of magic. I'd actually consider the TARDIS more legit than that even, as it is getting Doctor Who from point A to point B. It's really just one small step below mobility topics like canoeing ethnographies, the movement of SARS germs, or the locomotive as a phallic representation. (Mobilities is a broad, broad concept if that isn't apparent.) In any case, I became much more interested in the world of Doctor Who after watching this great video by a German woman who built a TARDIS from scratch.
This really has nothing to do with travel, transportation, or mobility, but it was such a delight to watch. (Her videos on teaching are also wonderful.)
National Train Day is coming up on Saturday, May 11. There are events happening at different places across the country. In Los Angeles, Union Station is hosting what sounds like a fun day for kids and adults:
The National Train Day event at Los Angeles Union
Station will feature free kids’ activities sponsored by Chuggington,
interactive and educational exhibits, model train displays and giveaways. Visitors will have the chance to tour private luxury railcars, freight
and commuter trains, as well as current Amtrak equipment.
I really want to go since luxury railcars are like tiny houses on wheels (and I love tiny houses!). I also want to know if Chuggington is a sentient being, an anthropomorphic train, or an abstract marketing concept. I also suspect there will be lots of train enthusiasts at this event, and it would be fun to chat those folks up. Someone once told me I was obsessed with people who are obsessed and I think that's quite accurate. I don't have the attention span to be a true obsessor (at the moment, I'm simultaneously into knitting, fly fishing, and banjoes - I like to call myself a serial hobbyist) and so I live vicariously through those who can devote themselves without reservation. Train people are like that. In fact, hardcore train fans are called "foamers." On a related topic, John McPhee had a great two-part article about coal trains in a 2005 issue of the New Yorker. Update: I'm apparently very out of the kids' television programming loop - Chuggington is an animated talking train show.
There is a system of courtesy with Japanese escalators, especially in Tokyo and Osaka, that you leave one side clear for walking. However, with the recently increase in escalator accidents among the elderly, the Japan Elevator Association has in principle prohibited walking on escalators. On the other hand, in subway stations in London, China and so on there are posters advising people to leave one side of the escalator clear for people who are in a hurry.
She's also apparently fond of bridge supports for elevated highways and is part of a fan club that has some great photos. (via kottke.org)
While this isn't a transportation-specific thing, I came across some very cool photos today and one was transit-themed. Flora Borsi takes old photos from the days before digital cameras and smartphones and cleverly puts herself in the photos using these devices. One of the photos is on a bus.
The U.S. National Archives has some interesting Rosa Parks items - a diagram showing where she was seated on the bus when she refused to give up her seat to a white rider and the 1955 City of Montgomery police report. The diagram provides some interesting insight into the spatial segregation of bus spaces. In a 1966 study, researchers looked at the seating patterns of black and whites on buses in New Orleans, where public transit had been desegregated since 1958. They used a variety of approaches to measuring "precedence violators," those individuals who violated traditional black-white social expectations about where people should sit. While they acknowledge the challenges in doing a segregation-integration study and the many factors that can influence seating in the confines of a bus, their measures show that generally buses remained racially segregated spaces. (thx Nick K!) (via U.S. National Archives)
Transportation Nation and American Public Media collaborated on a radio documentary put out last year called Back of the Bus: Mass Transit, Race, and Inequality. It's a collection of different pieces about a variety of topics, including the devastation of the African American neighborhood of Rondo in St. Paul after the interstate highway system came through, the Oakland Airport Connector and the politics of transit financing, race and public transit disparities in Atlanta, and the relationship between transit and housing values in Washington, DC and Denver. It's well-produced and worth a listen. (via Transportation Nation, American Public Media)
