Alas, the bus would not be bound by electrical lines or tracks, but it would continue to experiment

A Miscellany of Buses Next American City Connecting cities and informing the people working to improve them. Follow @NextAmCity Join us on Facebook Search Search Forefront This Week s Issue Previous Issues Upcoming Issues How It Works Advertise Subscribe Daily Philadelphia Subscribe How It Works About About Us Contributors Press Room Contact Community Events Storefront Next American ghost tours savannah ga Vanguard Book Club Support Us Login Login with Facebook or Email Password Remember me Forgot your password? Login Sections Login Search Forefront This Week s Issue Previous Issues Upcoming Issues How It Works Advertise Subscribe Daily Philadelphia Subscribe ghost tours savannah ga How It Works About About Us Contributors Press Room Contact Community Events Storefront Next American Vanguard Book Club Support Us Follow @NextAmCity Join us on Facebook Search Search Philadelphia Daily A Miscellany of Buses Curitiba | 10/26/2012 6:59am | Comments Alex Vuocolo | Next American ghost tours savannah ga City
The camel and the llama, distant cousins on the same taxonomic scale, emerged from history in vastly different niches: One in the thin atmosphere of the Andes Mountains and the other on the flat desert ranges of Africa and the Middle East. The bus, similarly, has split and molded into various forms as it has spread throughout the world. Like any evolutionary creature, the bus has changed based on both its own innate qualities and limitations and the conditions of its environment.
With this week s Forefront story featuring Mexico City s evolving bus rapid transit system, here we take a minute to look at a partial history of bus transit in general. These four examples, in particular, show its veering evolutionary paths, and the factors autonomy, reliability, comfort that have shaped ghost tours savannah ga it.
If you look far enough back at any given technology, you begin to see that its features blend with other technologies close by on the family ghost tours savannah ga tree. This is the case with the Electromote, which is a mix of an electric trolley and the early horse-drawn bus. First presented to the German public in 1882 by inventor Ernst Werner Siemens (founder of the now-multinational electrical and telecommunications giant) on a 540-meter cobblestone test road, the Electromote was the first so-called trolleybus. Its carriage was bound to an overhead electrical line, but its wheels remained trackless.
It would be another 20 years before an electric trolleybus system was implemented on a commercial scale, and another half-century before becoming a prominent form of transportation. Still, the invention of the Electromote marked the beginning of a divergence which has defined the development of bus travel: Car-like autonomy versus a consistent ghost tours savannah ga source of energy and a set path.
Alas, the bus would not be bound by electrical lines or tracks, ghost tours savannah ga but it would continue to experiment with scale and with its relationship to the street. The articulated bus, which consists of two bus segments connected by a single pivoting joint, is an example of how buses have tried to remain ghost tours savannah ga autonomous while also expanding their capacities.
Earlier this year, Chinese manufacturer Zhejiang Youngman unveiled the Youngman JNP62505. Touted as having the greatest capacity of any " bi-articulated bus" ever made, it holds up to 300 passengers in three segments connected by two accordion-like joints. Even in a country where light rail and bullet trains have enjoyed ghost tours savannah ga heavy invested, the bus continues ghost tours savannah ga to evolve as China s population grows and its network of highways expands.
As of 1943, Curitiba, Brazil had in store a similar future to most mid-century industrial cities: Dense automobile traffic along wide boulevards radiating from the center of the city. This changed ghost tours savannah ga in 1965 with the adoption of a new master plan that provided for the piecemeal implementation of a mass transit system. Bus rapid transit ( BRT ), which is a system of dedicated bus lanes and terminals designed for greater speeds and capacities, became a major feature of this plan. Now, risen BRT terminals line five of the city s busiest arteries, while minibus routes circulate the residential and commercial streets.
Curitiba s model has served as an example for other places, including Mexico City, seeking their own BRT systems. As opposed to the articulated bus, BRT represents an innovation in organization ghost tours savannah ga and infrastructure ghost tours savannah ga rather than in the bus itself. The bus, in this case, needed a new environment rather than the environment a new bus.
BRT systems improve bus transit by separating buses from regular automobile traffic. This is done through dedicated lanes and terminals, but it can also be done by building a new kind of bus. This, at least, is the claim of Chinese ghost tours savannah ga company Huashi Future Parking Equipment, whose designs show a bus that literally "straddles" regular traffic ghost tours savannah ga by running ghost tours savannah ga along tracks on either side of the road and hovering above the cars.
Whether the world will choose definitively between a new bus or a new bus system remains to be seen, but each path chosen spins out a new set of possibilities — some miscellaneous, and others that will redefine what it means to be a bus. Tags: transit , forefront , bus rapid transit , mexico city , siemens , bus travel , electromote , ernst werner siemens , articulated bus , straddle bus Read Later Email Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. You might also like Honduras Supreme Court: No Charter ghost tours savannah ga for You Matt Bevilacqua | Next American City Forefront Excerpt: A Fast Lane Matt Bevilacqua | Next American City Next American ghost tours savannah ga City Seeks Audience Engagement Editor Diana Lind | Next American City Next American City Seeks (Amazingly Talented) Creative Director Diana Lind | Next American City Trying to Help Downtown Vegas, Zappos? Keep Your Employees on the Streets Matt Bevilacqua | Next American City CityLedes: An F for AAA CityLedes | Next American City Popular Entries The Question All Creative Placemakers Should ghost tours savannah ga Ask 10/16/2012 The Last American Superhighway 10/15/2012 A Fast Lane 10/22/2012 Street Design 101: New Guidebook for Cities Released 10/24/2012 URBAN NATION: The GOP Really Does Have an Urban Agenda 10/15/2012 Recent Comments About NAC About Us Contributors Press Room Contact Privacy Terms Advertise Media Kit Contact Do More Subscribe Support Us Newsletter Get Involved Pitch A Story Contribute Artwork Join on Facebook Follow on Twitter Subscribe to our newsletter Go Follow @NextAmCity