From Buses to BRT: Case Studies of Incremental BRT Projects in North America, MTI Report 09-13

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) uses different combinations of techniques to improve service, such as bus-only lanes and roads, pre-boarding fare collection, transit priority at traffic signals, stylish vehicles with extra doors, bus stops that are more like light rail stations, and high frequency service. This study examines five approaches to BRT systems as implemented by public transit agencies in California, Oregon, and Ontario. The case studies as a group show that BRT can be thought of as a discretionary combination of elements that can be assembled in many different combinations over time. Every element incrementally adds to the quality or attractiveness of the service. This latitude provides transit agencies with many benefits, including the ability to match infrastructure with operating requirements. For example, a BRT service can combine operations serving free flowing arterial roads in the fringes of the downtown with dedicated lanes in areas closer to city center where congestion is greatest. Buses can operate both on and off the guide way, extending the corridors in which passengers are offered a one-seat ride with no transfer required. Transit agencies also can select specific BRT components and strategies, such as traffic signal priority and increased stop spacing, and apply them to existing local bus operations as a way to increase bus speeds and reduce operating costs. The specific elements selected for a BRT route can be implemented all at once, or in incremental stages either or both geographical extensions or additions of features. All of the case studies showed ridership improvements, but the Los Angeles Metro Rapid bus system illustrates the wide geographic coverage, improved ridership, and moderate cost per new rider that is possible with an approach that includes fewer BRT features spread over more miles of route. Quantitative results from the case studies suggest that incremental improvements, applied widely to regional bus networks, may be able to achieve significant benefits at a lower cost than substantial infrastructure investments focused upon just one or a few corridors

Art or intimacy: assessing a disjunction

Common to both the Expressionist and the Cognitivist standpoints is the notion according to which art provides one of the closest possible contacts between human beings. This peculiar sense of communion may be described at a purely communicational level and perceived as a way by which we attain a profound awareness of our common humanity – the basis for the “universal communicability of judgments of taste”, following Kant’s formula. But it may also inspire us to adopt a quasi-erotic explanation of aesthetic experience. In fact, to be involved, often for quite some time, with someone who seems to share our perspective on reality and was capable of recreating and making available that perspective to others - through psychological interaction of fictional characters, musical forms in expressive motion, or enlightening visual compositions - happens to be one of the most exciting and valuable parts of our lives, of our social life, and indeed a way of setting aside an eventual feeling of loneliness

The Rational Locator: Why Travel Times Have Remained Stable

This paper evaluates household travel surveys for the Washington metropolitan region conducted in 1968 and 1988, and shows that commuting times remain stable or decline over the twenty year period despite an increase in average travel distance, after controlling for trip purpose and mode of travel. The average automobile work-to-home time of 32.5 minutes in both 1968 and 1988 is, moreover, very consistent with a 1957 survey showing an average time of 33.5 minutes in metropolitan Washington. Average trip speeds increased by more than 20 percent, countering the effect of increased travel distance. This change was observed during a period of rapid suburban growth in the region. With the changing distributional composition of trip origins and destinations, overall travel times have remained relatively constant. The hypothesis that jobs and housing mutually co-locate to optimize travel times is lent further support by these data. .

Визнання провини та вибачення у репліках персонажів англомовних кінофільмів: прагмалінгвістичний аспект

Статтю присвячено дослідженню порушення рольових очікувань між мовцями з асиметричними статусами. Розглянуто використання тактики визнання провини і тактики вибачення, застосування яких принижує статус адресанта і підвищує статус адресата, а саме підлеглого. Виявлено актомовленнєві особливості реалізації вказаних тактик

The hermeneutics and genesis of the red cow ritual

The difficulties with the red cow ritual have long exercised readers of the book of Numbers. The ritual in Num 19:1–22 describes how cleansing from corpse impurity is to be effected. A red cow is burned in a manner carefully prescribed in order to produce ash. Mixed with water, the ash is then sprinkled upon the corpse-impure individual on the third and seventh day of his or her impurity. To some of the rabbis and many subsequent interpreters, the automatic efficacy of the rite appears to be tantamount to pagan magic. In addition, it has long been observed that the red cow ritual has a number of anomalies when compared to other rituals in the Old Testament. The red cow is designated a “purification offering”1but is unlike the purification offerings described in Leviticus 4–5 or, indeed, any other sacrifice: the entire animal, including the blood, is burned outside the camp, and the goal of the ritual is the production of ash for the treatment of future and not past impurity.2Finally, there is what Jacob Milgrom describes as the “paradox of the red cow”: the red cow ritual makes the pure impure and the impure pure.3Alexander von Humboldt StiftungThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via https://doi.org/10.1017/S001781601200013