A view from the Empire State Building…imagine if we could print skyscrapers like this… By asterix611.

3D printing, the process by which objects are produced entirely from a digital model and then “printed” in successive layers, has come a long way. You may remember we did a post on this back in May 2011 on 3D printing a bicycle. Back then, two British engineers had printed the first bike, an incredible feat for the burgeoning industry. In 2013, the stakes have been raised: enter the first 3D printed house.

In the past few months, three architecture and design firms announced that they will be using  3D printers to build a house/building. Two Dutch firms —  Janjaap Ruijssenaars and DUS Architects — and one British firm, Softkill Design, are competing to be the first one to build an architectural structure with a printer.

While we can expect that the first buildings to be printed will be quite expensive and may not live up to current building standards, this is the first step in what may become the way we build the cities of the future. Imagine when new buildings, monuments, parks, and fountains aren’t built the way they are today, but are designed and “printed” in place. The precision and efficiency of 3D printers has the potential to prevent materials, and time, from going to waste — allowing for safer, greener, more creative, and one day, more affordable — building options.

The design possibilities are endless!

The Camden Town tube station, one of the busiest in the London underground system. Photo by zer0_pt.

TheCityFix discovered what quite possibly could be the world’s coolest transport-related master’s thesis project-recap video.

The recent debut of the BRT in Action Newsletter, published by Santiago, Chile’s Centre of Excellence for Bus Rapid Transit, included a link to Jay Gordon’s ambitious visualization of data gathered on commuter transit patterns by bus and rail in the course of one day in greater London. The map is color coded so that blue represents passengers at home or at their starting point; green indicates they are traveling in the system; and red means they are transferring or in between trips. Check it out:

Gordon explains:

This visualization merges all 16 million daily transactions made on London’s Oyster card [metro pass] with vehicle-location data from the city’s 8,500 buses to infer the travel histories of that day’s 3.1 million Oyster users. After inferring the times and locations of each bus boarding and alighting, bus and rail transactions are combined to reconstruct each cardholder’s daily travel history…By matching Oyster transaction records to data from the iBus vehicle-location system, buses are shown to traverse the street network at their observed speeds, and their brightness reflects the number of passengers on board.

Though it is not unheard of for commuters to invent fun, innovative and quirky commuting strategies via boat or plane, designers in London attempted to reinvent the wheel for commuters with speedos. The Lido Line, a proposed reinvention of the underused Regent’s Canal, would have commuters breast stroke, dog paddle and butterfly the 8.6-kilometer (about 5.3-miles) length of the waterway through the heart of central London.

The Capital of the Britons, not known for its warm weather, would convert the waterway into an ice-speedway for skating commuters during the winter months. How charming an ice-skate to work would be: no tube queues, nor transport fees for what is the most expensive public transport network on earth.

The design firm who proposed the Lido Line, Y/N Studio, came up second in Architizer Magazine’s “High Line for London” contest. The proposal was bested by a design for a “low line”, a repurposing of unused tunnels for pedestrians and gardens. The subterranean version of New York’s High Line is perhaps more Middle Earth than down to earth.

While dreaming of the frigid, hour’s long swim to work, perhaps a real world alternative for us dreamers might just be the bike ride to work across one of London’s gorgeous – if not dreamy – robin’s egg blue cycle superhighways.

We are not immune to the royal wedding festivities here at EMBARQ, the producer of this blog. Our interests were especially piqued when we learned about the Mayor of London’s intent on commissioning a special tandem bike for William and Kate as a royal wedding gift.

Unlike the cost of security at the royal wedding, the commissioned bike was privately funded. According to London 24, a London news station, the bike was commissioned by the Mayor’s transport office, and the cost was covered by Serco, a government services company based out of England, at no cost to tax payers.

Serco is also behind London’s Barclays Cycle Hire system, a bike share program similar to Washington D.C.’s Capital Bikeshare and Montreal’s BIXI.

A series of pedestrian-friendly maps placed in strategic decision-making spots around London encourage commuters to choose walking over other modes of transit. Photo by Charlotte Gilhooly.

Transport for London (TfL), the government body in charge of Greater London’s transit system, installed pedestrian-friendly maps in strategic decision-making spots, like subway entries and bus stops, to encourage walking. In addition to being a healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transport, walking can also help commuters save time. “109 journeys between neighbouring central London Underground stations are actually quicker than the Tube,” TfL’s website says.

The “Legible London” campaign operates on two key facts derived from a 2006 study: 1) walking can lead to major benefits for the transport system, economy and public health, and 2) predictable, consistent and authoritative public information is the key to building pedestrians’ confidence.

The 2006 study found that the existing signage systems in London were incoherent. Further complicating urban mobility was commuters’ reliance on the Tube’s map, which is geographically distorted and misleading, according to ThisBigCity, an architecture and urban planning blog. “Legible London” emphasizes this issue, saying, “Although the Tube map design is ideal for helping people complete their journey on the Underground, it isn’t designed for walking and doesn’t represent the exact locations of stations, or distance between destinations.”

In response, the study proposed two recommendations from which the “Legible London” project was born. The first recommendation was to establish a wayfinding system that supports “mental mapping,” the process by which we interact with our environment. The second recommendation was to create a central, dynamic map that could provide the basis for other printed maps and signage, ones that can be altered based on geographical factors. The second recommendation also includes making the maps and transit information available to public through various technologies. You can download the study here.

"Legible London" maps include 5-minute and 15-minute walking circles, to help pedestrians decide if walking is a better travel option. Photo by rbrwr.

GETTING AROUND

The maps separate the city into three categories and provide landmark prompts to aid in the development of natural mental maps. According to the website, these are the categories: area, for broad areas of the capital; villages, which make up an area and refer to places like Covent Garden; and neighborhoods, which make up villages. Covent Garden, for example, is made up of several neighborhoods like, Seven Dials, Neal’s Yard and Long Acre.

The project was also careful in establishing accessibility for all, including information like pavement widths, steps and pedestrian crossing to ease mobility for wheelchair users. In addition, signage for wheelchair users was placed 35 inches to 70 inches off the ground for easy reading.

The maps have some interesting elements, one of which is their orientation to the environment. Instead of using traditional north, south, east and west indicators, the maps use a “heads-on” orientation. This means that the maps are oriented to face the same direction as the user is facing, which makes it easier to associate yourself with your surroundings.

The maps are also divided into categories of Planner and Finder. The Planner map outlines the locations you can get to within a 15-minute walk. The Finder serves the same purpose for areas within a 5-minute walk. In comparison, the Finder is also more detailed than the Planner, with landmarks and 3D-illustrated buildings. Both maps make a point to integrate all modes of transport to help with travel planning and provide an alphabetical list of street names, to help people locate individual streets.

The project came to fruition after a pilot evaluation with rave reviews and positive feedback. According to the project website, 87 percent of 1,000 participants  supported the integration of the maps across London. Pedestrian satisfaction with wayfinding improved by 22 percent and more than two-thirds of the participants felt satisfied with finding the shortest route for their journeys. Most importantly, participants strongly agreed that this new system would encourage them to walk more often, walk farther and choose walking in place of other means of traveling. As for the time it takes to travel, pedestrian journeys were 16 percent quicker on average due in large part to the maps.

Complementing the maps are easily recognizable signs across the city to direct pedestrians towards their destination. Photo by moleitau.

Water shortages are a critical problem for cities, especially in Peru, South America's least water-secure country. Photo by Mario Lapid.

Welcome to “Research Recap,” our series highlighting recent reports, studies and other findings in sustainable transportation policy and practice, in case you missed it.

Water Shortages

One billion city dwellers will suffer from water shortages in 2050, predicts a scientist group from The Nature Conservancy, City University of New York and Stony Brook University. The research team modeled water availability for cities in developing countries with populations greater than 100,000. Their study concluded that global climate change and an anticipated influx of 3 billion urban residents will be the primary precipitators of future water shortages. Despite these haltingly severe predictions, the scientists report that the crisis can be averted through resource management and increased efficiencies.

Pedestrian Reaction Times

A new report by researchers at the University of London, England found that children are not able to accurately judge the speed of vehicles traveling towards them at miles per hour or faster. As a part of a larger project investigating pedestrian accidents, the research study examined the perceptual acuity of roughly 100 elementary school students. “This is not a matter of children not paying attention, but a problem related to low-level visual detection mechanisms,” said John Wann, a professor in the university’s Department of Psychology.

Mileage-Based Driving Fee

Reeling in the reality of higher gas prices, the state of Minnesota is embarking on a new research study to explore the feasibility of implementing a mileage-based user fee (MBUF) to supplement highway funding. The proposed mileage-based user fee would come as either a supplement or replacement to gas taxes. The new research study, conducted by Minnesota’s Department of Transportation, will test technology used to collect a mileage-based fee.

Biofuel GHG Emissions

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) examined the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of bio and synthetic fuels and found a consistent variation in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions each fuel produced. According to the researchers, the study impresses the importance—for both decision makers and the general public—of reporting a range of greenhouse gas emissions for any given biofuel.

Electric Vehicles and Air Quality

Plug-in electric vehicles will positively affect air quality, indicates a new study from researchers at the University of Texas. The study examined the effect of replacing 20 percent of gas-powered light duty vehicles with electric plug-in vehicle’s on ozone concentration. The study found that such an increase in electric plug-in vehicles would cause an increase in ozone during nighttime hours, a decrease in ozone during day hours, and overall, a positive impact on air quality.