The Auto Industry as a Subway Map

Ben Oliver at the UK's "CAR Magazine" has published an updated 2010 map of the relationships among world automakers (ownership, joint ventures, etc.).  What's interesting about this map is that it is organized in the form of the London subway map - you can find it here.  Back in 2005, Ben produced a similar map - and comparing the two, you get a sense of how much the industry has evolved in that time.  For example, DaimlerChrysler figured prominently on the 2005 map, but by 2010 both Daimler and Chrysler occupy much smaller parcels of real estate on the map.  Also in 2010 you see the emergence of Geely and other Chinese makers not on the 2005 map.  In addition, GM has been pruned of several divisions (Saturn, Hummer, Pontiac) on the 2005 map, and the updated map illustrates the emergence of electric car specialists BYD (from China) and Tesla.

Readers can see my much more rudimentary attempt at illustrating these relationships, showing more of the change in relationships over time, at this link.

2009 Bucky Fuller Challenge Winner

"Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?"

Legendary designer and futurist Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller (1895-1983) was concerned with this question throughout his life. His inventions and innovations focused on ways to minimize our impact on this earth while maximizing human potential.

Every year, the non-profit Buckminster Fuller Institute conducts a contest (the Buckminster Fuller Challenge) and awards a $100,000 prize "to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems." The winner of the 2009 Challenge is the Smart Cities Group at the MIT Media lab, for their entry entitled "Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems", which is a system of sharing 2- and 4-wheel vehicles in an urban setting. The innovative proposal includes a collapsable 2-wheel "RoboScooter" and stackable 4-wheeled "CityCar." Excerpted from the winning proposal:

"Mobility-on-Demand systems utilize fleets of shared-use lightweight electric vehicles placed at automatic charging racks throughout a city. The CityCar and RoboScooter, both folding vehicles, along with the Green-Wheel Bicycle, minimize parking space and can be picked-up and dropped-off at any rack. Mobility-on-Demand systems maximize mobility and dramatically reduce congestion and pollution through energy and land-use efficiency."

Details of the proposal, and those of other contest entries, can be found here.

Brand Shuffling in the U.S. auto market: You can't tell the players without a scorecard.

Although I have become a rather serious proponent of public transportation over the years, especially for urban environments, I have been and remain an enthusiastic car buff. There was a time when I looked forward each month to the arrival of "Car & Driver" and "Automobile" magazines, and I would sometimes read them cover to cover in one sitting. To learn more about the industry, I even worked for a brief time in my twenties as a salesman in a Chrysler-Dodge-Subaru dealership (can you say "fundamental type mismatch"?).

And while I no longer follow the industry as I did in those years, I retain a strong interest in the doings of the industry: new models, corporate mergers and partnerships, the latest technological advances, personalities and market forces that shape the industry, etc.

There has been much to digest over the last several months, to say the least.

The landscape that appears likely to emerge from the current economic tsunami will bear little resemblence to the status quo. The entire automotive order is being reshuffled, and the big players in the American automotive market will take on an ever more international flavor.

This is ultimately a good thing - America's "Big 3" long ago surrendered their prior leadership roles in automotive innovation to their German, Japanese and Korean counterparts. Can the Chinese and Indians, both with ambitious plans to crack the U.S. auto market, be far behind?

When I was a child the automotive powers of the American marketplace looked like this:

• General Motors



• Ford



• Chrysler

Next was a large gap, and then:

• Volkswagen



• Toyota



• Honda



• Nissan

plus several other niche brands (Mercedes, BMW, Saab, Volvo, etc.)

Beginning in the 1980s and continuing to the present day, the Japanese manufacturers developed reputations for building reliable, efficient cars, and moved their vehicles up the ladder of sophistication and luxury to become full-line brands, offering vehicles from small to large, from cars to trucks, minivans and SUVs, from thrifty to luxurious. The Germans continued to supply high-end cars, moving up to the luxurious end of the spectrum once occupied by Cadillac, Lincoln, and Buick. Currently, the Koreans (Hyundai, Kia) are following the path of their Japanese predecessors, expanding their overall product portfolio while moving away from cheap econoboxes towards near-luxury sedans, minivans, and SUVs.

The one constant has been a persistant loss of market share by Detroit's Big 3 to the "newcomers" (remember when they were almost derisively referred to as "imports"?). Over time, the Japanese, German and now Korean manufacturers even added manufacturing plants here in the U.S.A. employing tens of thousands of American workers.

I created the the graphic above to represent what the landscape may look like once the dust of the current crisis settles. Highlights include:

• Chrysler as a homeless vagabond, being passed from one foreign corporate master (Daimler-Benz, 1998-2007) to another (Fiat), after a brief period of independence (2007-2009). Hmm... Sounds like Latvia between the wars....




• GM and Ford shedding Asian and European subsidiaries in a rush to streamline. Ford got a head start when it flirted with bankruptcy a few years ago, cutting its close ties to Kia, Jaguar and Land Rover, and currently seeking to divest itself of Mazda and Volvo. GM, meanwhile, appears to be the largest victim of the economic slowdown, and will emerge a much smaller company as it struggles to survive. It has shuttered Oldsmobile and Pontiac for good and now seeks to sell off Saturn, Opel/Vauxhall (GM Europe), Hummer, and Saab.




• Fiat may return to the U.S. market and emerge as one of the world's largest automakers if it can pull off the acquisitions of Chrysler and Opel/Vauxhall.




• Volkswagen continues to absorb its purchase of U.K. super-lux brand Bentley while it works on a merger with Porsche.




• Similarly, BMW has expanded its U.S. presence by picking up the Rolls-Royce and Mini (Cooper) brands.




• Meanwhile, the availability of the Saturn brand and distribution channel is attracting lots of attention from investor groups and foreign automakers, including Chinese and Indian companies looking for access to the U.S. marketplace. Saturn's 384 dealerships offer that access on a turn-key basis. Investor groups hoping to facilitate that access are lining up plans to buy the chain as we speak.




• Meanwhile, look for aggressive marketing from titans Toyota, Honda, Nissan-Renault, Hyundai-Kia (as well as smaller players like Subaru and India's Tata, which owns Jaguar and Land Rover) to pick up market share as the industry adjusts to the seismic shifts noted above.

One thing is sure: more of the old, familiar auto brands will disappear, and be replaced by new brands with decidedly foreign pedigrees.

The Internet as a Subway Map

Via the friendly folks at Infrastructurist.com comes this fascinating representation of the Internet's most popular and influential websites, arranged in the form of the Tokyo metro system. Each web domain is represented here as one of the system's 333 stations. Apparently iA (Information Architects) publishes a version of this map each year. You can see it here in all its high-def glory (6740 x 4768), or in a more manageable size here. It's too cool for school. For the sake of comparison, here is the actual Tokyo subway map.

Somebody get StrangeMaps.com on the horn, stat! This is right up their alley.

Rochester, New York: "Young Lion of the West"

Approximately two lifetimes ago, I lived in Rochester, NY while completing my MBA. This period immediately preceded two amazing years I spent in the former Soviet Union, during which I fell in love with the Moscow subway and the rich public transportation networks of Europe. That experience was clearly an awakening for me, leading directly to a standing interest in transport that led to this blog.




But before all that, there was Rochester, a gritty Rust Belt town fallen on hard times. Funny how things come full circle: apparently the "Young Lion of the West", aka the "Flour City", aka the "Flower City" once had its very own subway (click here for a great writeup of the subway courtesy of the blog "StrangeMaps"). I don't recall ever hearing about it while living there, but it turns out that for a brief 29 years the city had a single subway line that ran through downtown in a former Erie Canal channel.

Naturally, there are people who look back fondly on those days, including Michael Governale and Otto M. Vondrak, who devote the above-mentioned blog to the subway. Included in their blog is this fantasy map showing what the system might look like today if Rochester's future had turned out as rosy as city planners had hoped in those heady days gone by. The Blue Line was the only one (of 4 displayed) on this map which was actually constructed. The others were all proposed at one time or another.

You can buy the Rochester Subway poster here.

***

Reading about Rochester's forgotten subway got me thinking about transportation in other cities where I have lived. Below are a few notes on a couple of those cities, but look for more extensive future posts on transportation in Durham, Charlottesville, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Riga, and Boston in the weeks ahead. And thanks for reading.

Charlottesville, Virginia:

As it turns out, Charlottesville was recently considering a short streetcar line of 3 miles, running from downtown to the University of Virginia, with possible future extension north to the large Barracks Road shopping center. But the city's small population of 45,000 ultimately made the project too risky, given its $70 million price tag. Did the city ever have streetcars in the distant past? I intend to research this and write more in a future post - stay tuned!

Riga, Latvia:

Riga shares the same rich transport networks of larger former-Soviet cities such as Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, with the notable exception of a subway. Soviet authorities planned to build a subway in Riga in the 1980's, as they did for every city in the "Worker's Paradise"with more than 1 million residents. But vehement local opposition, driven in part by preservation concerns for the city's ancient core, forced the Soviets to abandon the plan. This event is now viewed as a "shot across the bow", a harbinger of the Latvian national revival that led ultimately to the small nation declaring its independence in 1990.

A Streetcar Named 'Frustration'

DC's long-delayed Anacostia streetcar line has been delayed again, this time to 2012. Click here for previous coverage of this embarrassing episode in DC transportation "planning".... The pic at right, from the Post's article, shows the revised route which, rightly, no longer runs down to Bolling Air Force Base along 295.

So it appears our pretty red, bought and paid-for streetcars will be doing a few more laps around Prague over the next three years (or more?)....

More on Proposed Metro Expansion and Re-Alignments

If you haven't guessed by now, the purpose of this blog is as much to amuse myself and organize my thoughts as it is to entertain and enlighten my readers (both of them). Thank you for indulging my narcissism, and thanks to Blogger for providing this medium for my amusement.

Metro is considering a number of proposals for the future, a few of which include:

1) Building the new Silver and Purple Lines,

2) Running some Blue Line trains across the Potomac on the Yellow Line bridge to reduce congestion in Rosslyn, and

3) Digging a new tunnel for the Blue Line across the Potomac from Rosslyn and under downtown via M Street, Mass. Ave., and H Street NE.

As posted a couple days ago, Metro's current plans for items 1 and 3 would result in something that looks much like the image above. Click on it to see GGW's post detailing these plans.

On item 2 above, one proposal for the Blue trains re-routed across the Yellow Line bridge is to designate those trains as a whole new line with their own new color. As GGW points out, this is unnecessary. The re-routed trains could simply be referred as Yellow Line trains terminating at Franconia-Springfield instead of Huntington. Here is a great old Metro map showing that the Yellow Line was originally planned to terminate at Franconia, and the Blue in Huntington. The two were switched due to a shortage of train cars - presumably, fewer cars are needed in the current alignment than the original proposal. As GGW recommends, I would support simply splitting the Yellow Line trains so that all trains crossing the Yellow Line bridge would be Yellow trains, regardless whether they terminate at Franconia or Huntington.

Finally, here is a post and pic of the alternative floated by Metro to rename the re-routed Blue trains as a new "Brown Line" terminating at Franconia/Springfield and Greenbelt.

Breaking Up the Blue and Orange: Proposed Separate Blue Line Tunnel Downtown

Readers of this blog will come to the conclusion that I admire the blog "Greater Greater Washington" highly. And I mine their posts for material shamelessly (thanks guys!). Another blog (the chief inspiration for the blog you are currently reading) is "Track Twenty-Nine", which I credit with turning my attention to the proposed re-alignment of the Blue Line into a new tunnel separated from the Orange Line through downtown. Click here to see GGW's conception of Metro's vision of the system in 2030.

Separating the Orange and Blue downtown would accomplish several things:

a) open up space and headways for the new Silver Line from Tysons and Dulles,
b) with the addition of a new Potomac River crossing, greatly increase capacity into DC from northern Virginia, and
c) catalyze transit-oriented development and revitalization in areas targeted by the city, such as H Street NE.

GGW posted a "2003 WMATA expansion" map in September and discussed this proposed Blue Line re-alignment, which would run down M Street from Georgetown to Massachusetts Ave., pass the Convention Center to Union Station, then down H Street to Benning Road, terminating at River Terrace.

This alignment along M and Mass. has always struck me as being too close to the existing east-west Metro lines (Orange/Blue west of the Convention Center, and Red to the east). In fact, this alignment sits only a few blocks north of the other lines along a good portion of the route. It would appear to me that if we separated the lines a bit more, a larger part of the core of the city could be served by Metro.

I would therefore propose an alternative alignment a couple blocks further north, along P Street instead of M. Like the alignment proposed in the 2003 WMATA expansion map, my plan would begin with a new station in Rosslyn connected by a tunnel to the existing Rosslyn station. Blue Line trains would proceed north through a new tunnel under the Potomac, through Georgetown University with a new station on campus. The line then would turn east onto P Street and proceed to a new station at Wisconsin Ave. Continuing on P St., trains would then pass through and connect with the Dupont Circle station. After Dupont, trains would take one of several alignment options:

1) turn south-east on Massachusetts Ave., then turn east to N Street to a stop on the northern side of the Convention Center (with a connection to the existing Green/Yellow Line stop), then turning south-east on New Jersey Ave.; or
2) continue on P St. through a new stop at Logan Circle, then turning south-east on New Jersey Ave. (completely by-passing the Convention Center); or
3) continue on P St. through Logan Circle all the way to North Capitol Street, onto which the line turns south towards Union Station.

Under all three options, Blue Line trains would then turn due east onto H Street with a station at 1st St. NE & H Street (connecting to Union Station Metro via pedestrian tunnel), then continuing along H Street and terminating at a new station at Oklahoma Ave./Benning Rd., at River Terrace, or at Stadium/Armory.

A map of my proposed Blue Line route can be seen here. The new line is represented here in deep red, with large black dots indicating stops and/or attractions along the route, including Georgetown University, Wisconsin Ave/P Street, Dupont Circle, Scott Circle, Convention Center, New Jersey Ave./Gonzaga, Union Station, H Street NE, and Benning Road/Oklahoma Ave.

Would apreciate your comments. From my perspective, the chief advantage of this proposed alignment is to put more of the city closer to a Metro station, making more of the city attractive for re-development into the vibrant, walkable communities made possible elsewhere by thoughtful transit-oriented planning.


*****

On a separate note, I have to call attention to the excellent DC map containing city streets and an overlay of the existing Metro lines and stations, which is found here. Why is this extremely useful information (combined street/metro overlays) such a rare find? And why doesn't Metro have such a thing on their website?

Fantastic Moscow Metro Map

About 3 lifetimes ago, I had the pleasure of living in the former Soviet Union for a few years, which is truly where my love affair with public transportation began. My arrival in Moscow on July 17, 1996 was my first experience abroad (excluding a trip to Niagara Falls). Small-town country boy that I was, I remember being blown away by all the transportation options available. Because I lived in the city center, I almost never missed having a car - it was simply not necessary. Most of the time I walked to work 4 blocks away - but if I was running late, I could hop on 1) a trolley-bus (powered by overhead electric lines), 2) a regular diesel-powered bus ("avtobus"), 3) a "fixed-route taxi" ("marshrutka", smaller cash-only buses operating on fixed routes, like other buses), or even a regular taxi-cab. Plenty of choices. I thought at the time that this rich transit environment was a uniquely Russian/Soviet phenomenon.

What I came to realize later was that many of the things I once considered unique to Russian city life were simply urban, European norms. European cities are denser than their American counterparts. Europe's largest urban areas grew slowly over centuries, whereas America's grew much more rapidly since the 1800's, and grew explosively (in area) once the automobile became common. For nearly a century, American cities have been built to accomodate the automobile. Not so much in Europe. In Russia, prior to its Soviet-led industrialization and urbanization in the 20th century, some 90% of the population were still living on farms in 1917. Few Russians had private cars prior to the fall if the USSR in 1991, so their cities are based on the denser, European model.

In addition to the above-mentioned transportation options, Russian cities are laced with other transport networks as well, including:

• Trams ("tramvai", running on fixed rails, sharing streets with cars)
• Subways (more on this later)
• Electric-powered commuter trains ("elektrichka")
• Inter-City Trains ("poyezd")
• and in some cities, networks of Water Taxis and Hydrofoils ("Rokyeta") serving fixed routes.

Having spent a fair amount of time in Moscow during those years, I naturally fell in love with the Moscow Metro, arguably the finest subway on Earth. It is among the world's largest in terms of lines, miles, stations, and passengers, and many of it's stations are architectural masterpieces - veritable art galleries covered in marble, mosaics, statuary and other art. During the Soviet era, during which the system was begun and largely completed, authorities lavished funding on the Metro to create a symbol of national pride.

Poking around the official Moscow Metro site the other day, I happened across a fantastic map that allows you to select beginning and ending points for your journey, and will display the time required for your trip. The map also displays details on each station when you click on the station name. Give it a try here.

It's intuitive, informative, and highly useful (though I might suggest they add street maps of the neighborhoods surrounding each station, which the DC Metro site DOES include). I would love to see DC's Metro use the Moscow site as a model for their own trip planner, which is useful but in my opinion not as intutive - a picture is worth a thousand words, after all. Enjoy!

"Careful! Doors Closing. Next Stop: Revolution Square."

Another Metro fantasy map

Greater Greater Washington has published another "fantasy" map of Metro showing additional lines using existing track of CSX, VRE, and MARC. I post it here in an effort to consolidate the most interesting ideas for future Metro extension, and continue to admire the proposals floated by GGW.

Scanning blog proposals for Metro expansion

There are several blogs that have recently published proposed maps of new Metro stations and/or lines, and some include streetcar lines under consideration for the area. Here are some of the proposals which I find most compelling:

From ЦARЬCHITECT (pronounced "tsarchitect") - a truly unique proposal including an inner ring line around the Metro core: Link: http://tsarchitect.nsflanagan.net/?p=42

From one of my favorite local transit blogs, Track Twenty-Nine, is this proposal for a regional rail system that includes a light-blue line running north-south from Silver Spring to the Pentagon and a pink line that nearly completes an "outer" circumferencial line around the city: http://tracktwentynine.blogspot.com/2008/05/making-your-mind-up.html

Also from Track Twenty-Nine is this VERY educational discussion of the proposed re-alignment of the Blue Line to accomdate the new Silver Line: http://tracktwentynine.blogspot.com/2008/11/understanding-blue-line-reroute.html

From Greater Greater Washington, another outstanding local transit and development blog, comes this revised "Metro 2030" proposal that seems very realistic and well thought-out: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=865

Also from GGW - this remarkably comprehensive proposal for a DC-Baltimore regional transit network: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=644

This excellent and comprehensive series of proposals for regional commuter rail, metro-rail, streetcar and BRT networks, is courtesy of BeyondDC: http://beyonddc.com/features/transitvision2008/?PHPSESSID=eda3105ac4e718d5d8c4f127006951be

And finally, a map of transit proposals for Fairfax County, VA, also from BeyondDC: http://www.beyonddc.com/features/transit/fairfax.html

Enjoy!