As a regular commuter, I spend a lot of time thinking about traffic. I speculate about the causes of traffic jams, how traffic patterns emerge over time from specific human behaviors, and the technologies that could be implemented to better control or reduce this flow. I often arrive at two broad potential solutions to [...]
Posted in Technology, Transportation Infrastructure 
Tags: FAA, flying car, Terrafugia, traffic 
1 Comment »Tesla Motors had its IPO today on the NASDAQ stock exchange, raising more than $226 million in an offering of 13.3 million shares. It is the first U.S. automobile IPO since Ford began trading publically more than 50 years ago. Tesla, whose founder Elon Musk started and has enjoyed success in companies such as [...]
Posted in Technology, Transportation Infrastructure Tags: electric car, Elon Musk, IPO, Tesla, Tesla Motors No Comments »Ever since British Airways retired the Concorde in 2003, the commercial airline industry has only operated at sub-sonic speeds. Travelers have endured trans-oceanic flights lasting several hours longer than those in a plane capable of traveling faster than the speed of sound (768mph at sea level). And while the demand for faster commercial aircraft seems [...]
Posted in Technology, Transportation Infrastructure Tags: airplane, flight, Gulfstream G650, high speed rail 1 Comment »Remember when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted a few weeks ago, violently spewing ash and debris into European skies? It grounded most flights across the continent for several days. The video below is an aggregation of actual flights (or lack thereof) during that time period. What’s amazing is the volume of flights as atmospheric conditions improved. [...]
There’s been a lot of discussion recently relating to the deployment of regional American high speed rail systems. The president, via the Recovery Act, has committed an initial $8 billion to the program through which several potential high speed rail corridors have been identified. And while the thought of “bullet” trains blazing across [...]
Posted in Technology, Transportation Infrastructure Tags: airplanes, Amtrak, high speed rail, infrastructure, traffic 2 Comments »
