Category Archives: Green

MARTA Rider

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The secret to enjoying MARTA, or most any transit system is to learn how it works and to accept that you are not in control. Once you accept that Marta runs on time tables, it’s actually a GREAT public transit system.

Midtown Station, A Marta Stop

My Station

Now that I am familiar with the system and have Google Maps (which is 75% accurate) and ride the same routes every day, Marta is super convenient for me (as long as I am on time) and I’ve even found that driving doesn’t make my trip to work much short, and almost always makes it longer.

At work (Lenox Station) the train comes every 15 minutes on the hour during commuting hours. After 7pm, it switches to 20 after. The train on the Buckhead line is set to reach Lindbergh 3 minutes before the the Gold line after commuting hours, etc.

Every year, the legislature and Marta advisory board hold meetings trying to use their limited budget, which basically always results in a price increase around the first of September. The prices aren’t bad – especially coming from me w/ employer paid and discounted passes – but until this upcoming fee hike, I can travel to and from work in ~8 minutes (station to station) for the cost of a parking pass.

What I have found very interesting though, is that Marta has their KPIs available on their web site. So we can see exactly what the target and actual costs per rider trip on a train and bus are. Trains are very cheap and busses are a bit more expensive. Here are some charts / stats from the recent month and more can be seen at http://itsmarta.com/kpi-home.aspx

Train Cost Per Passenger Trip

This is frustrating then, that they are increasing the “per trip” cost for trains from $57 / month  (or $2 a trip ) to $92 / month (or $2.50 a trip) as I take 40 total trips every month. This means that my per trip payment will literally be completely covering my short trip and subsidizing some of the bus ridership. All of this combined means that Marta should not have non capital expenses that aren’t covered by budget IF an equal number of people ride the train as the bus.

My experience also suggests that more people ride the trains than the bus. Everybody that I work with that rides Marta rides the train for their trips. One guy that has experimented with Marta road a short bus trip. When I started, I would ride the bus for 13 miles and then  ride another 13 by train. [ That bus was very much on time and often connected well with the train]

Marta Bus Cost per Trip KPI

Marta Bus Cost per Trip KPI

In the past 6 months, I have both hosted and stayed in the San Francisco Metropolitan area, this provides for some interesting comparisons.

  • Marta is cheaper – Going down a tunnel costs almost the same as driving in San Francisco!
  • Marta trips are standardized at $2 a trip ($2.50) San Francisco Bus trips are standard, train trips are not. [Ironic because the variable costs of bus trips vary more]
  • Marta data is better available online – despite Bart bragging about their API access and being in the valley – their usefulness on the train was limited.
  • Marta is Smaller, but easier to figure out. Two (and a half) lines seem to make it easier to navigate in Atlanta.
  • BART has express trains! I hope Atlanta will consider something for this.
  • BART has signal repeaters in their stations so that I had full 3g access all of the time on the train.

Nissan leaf driving event

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Nissan Leaf Battery Platform

This morning, I got to be one of the first in Atlanta to test drive the all electric Nissan Leaf and it seems like a great car for the average Atlanta driver (even to forsyth county.)

480 Volt Charging

One new thing that I hadn’t heard about is 480v charging systems at major transportation / rest areas (applicable to me because I can’t drive to visit my brother in birmingham without 150 miles.)

Free Charge?

One concept is that vendors might give me kwh in turn for shopping at their store… but I shop at their store now and they charge me to park there…

Interior

My number one complaint about the leaf ( and Toyota Prius) is how much they try to reinvent the controls. The shifter looks like a can of coke and is not as obvious. I’m also not a big fan of one touch start.

The Q&A session included a great talk about sound dampening and reducing as much noise as possible. Without engine noise you notice a lot of things, aka wiper motors, wind from the mirrors.

That being said it was pretty comfortable. Not sport car bolstered seat, super leg support comfortable, but pretty comfortable.

The radio and navigation unit looked and felt pretty cheap. I’d much prefer rubberized plastic than hard shiny plastic.  It basically seemed hard to read and hard to use.

Why It Would Work For Me

As a waterski coach, it is awesome that half of a charge is to Cartersville, because that means I can get back and forth to the lake.

It would also be great for weekends, getting to the Highlands, visiting friends in Dundwoody or visiting some of my family up in Roswell.

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The Inside

Why does it not work for me?

So, while it would work for me 95% of the time really easily to have a 100 mile range; my < 100 miles trips are pretty low in volume too (aka, I drive my car about once a week, sometimes 2 weeks) and I want something extra in my car if I own it – like it being a good track car.

The ultimate in Green Hipster is still a big lifestyle commitment (living within walk / bike range of public transit and having work, city points in that range.)

Effectively, Zip Car should still be the green decision for last mile transportation.

And the advantage that my car has (that I can go to the beach one weekend or to visit my brother)[trips where I consider renting]  would be lost on the leaf.

Performance

They wanted to tout the torque, so yes, I floored it and squealed the tires some,  I also went heavy on the brakes and tried going lock to lock. The steering is about what your typical commuter car is, and the throttle is effectively the same. I really don’t like front wheel drive so it didn’t really turn right for me.

Also, like other cars, you almost have to activate the regenerative braking more than just letting it happen.

The other thing that annoys me about automatic tranmission cars that the leaf definitely did, is move without any gas.

The test drive

I felt kind of rushed to get in the car and get it going. While the co-driver did note to put a seatbelt on, by the time they explained the shifter to me it was time to go… and we ended up going on the road, so I needed to have adjusted the mirrors. Perhaps the worst part was the close spacing making it hard for me to actually test the brakes or accelerate really hard.

100 Years Ago :: Without the Car

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Consider the following things about our use of oil:

  • It\’s a huge import for the U.S.
  • [Middle Eastern Wars and Conflicts], Africa, etc
  • Exxon Valdez
  • Gulf Oil Leaks
  • We\’re dependent on it enough for some relation to its prices causing mortgages to stop being paid
  • Explosions
  • Gas stations on every corner

Now consider this. 100 Years Ago (1910) very few people had or drove cars. Even 60 years ago, around World War II, the bus and the train were the much more common way for distance travel. Heck, real interstates with high speed travel didn\’t even begin until Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956

100 Years Later:

  • The Tesla Roadster and Nissan Leaf are deemed by many to not be an option because they travel as few as 70 miles on a charge.
  • The historical small town farmer only exists in a limited degree
  • People are telecommuting and have cool technologies like free, private long distance, mobile to mobile, web meetings, computers, web pages, etc.

So why can\’t we adapt to a Zip Car / Nissan Leaf lifestyle?

  • Suburbia : ie Atlanta and LA have people commuting 60 miles a day to work. (which not only uses gas, but costs ~4 hours in productivity – don\’t forget stress and parking real estate.) Cities have transformed to the way cars have us live.
  • Perceived Independence and Introversion : Why ride with other people [carpool, train, bus]

Finally, for those suggesting that we couldn\’t tax gas up immediately and hate ethanol [corn] or public transportation subsidies, BP and Exxon were two very profitable companies last year: neither paid any taxes, and the both received subsidies.

Fuel Efficiency – Constant Throttle / Load versus Cruise Control

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So, in case any of you were wondering what was happening with my Twitter posts regarding driving with Cruise Control (constant speed) versus Constant Throttle (variable speed), I thought that I would add some detail.
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I\’m occasionally a hyper-miler, it entertains me on the road, and when I\’m road tripping with family or friends has an added sense of accomplishment and bragging rights. One time I remember most was in driving to Oshkosh, Wisconsin when my dad and I competed to get the best mileage. I beat my dad by a solid mile per gallon, and he beat the cruise control by a mile per gallon (in all cases over extended highway driving, Atlanta to Wisconsin.) To add to my credentials, I drive with a air flow computer in my car that tells me my current throttle %, airflow percentage, and more.
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One of the people I was responding to on my twitter post was irritated because the other had just driven a 6 hour + drive, and apparently not been maintaining a constant speed. I thought it might be worth the funny point to point out that driving variable speed can potentially be more efficient.
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To effectively drive more efficiently with variable speed you should do the following.

  • Only drive within a power range that you can stay in your top gear. If your car is struggling without downshifting, then you are going to slow to get all of the advantage from variable speed.
  • Have a maximum position that you are willing to put the throttle. In my car, I like to have this max set at 60%.
  • Make sure that you maintain a highway speed
  • Predict the open lane so that you aren\’t braking (ie throwing gas away.) Particularly, try to be nice, and move to the right before up hills and figure out how to move back left for the downhill.
  • Accelerate a lot on downhills, just maintain as much speed as you can on the uphill.

I imagine that the people in question were not driving with a \”constant throttle\” system and were instead just forgetting how fast they were going and slowing back down, or doing the opposite of what this system is supposed to do and accelerating to pass in an uphill.

This method will accelerate you on downhills (to probably faster than you want to go) and put you in a crawl going on an uphill, which is a decent way to remember that going with gravity is easier than going against it.

My father taught me to drive like there was an egg between my foot and the pedal, meaning that I\’m never changing throttle too much or too quickly.

Best of luck driving.

Amtrak Review

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During my Recent visit to the Central West Coast, I had the pleasure to ride Amtrak on one of the most beautiful trips that I could have possibly taken from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. It was great experience and I recommend that you look into finding a cheap trip near you. First off, my ticket was only $38, which at an expected car cost of $0.50 per mile including maintenance is much cheaper for a 200+ mile journey like the one I took. I met some fun people on train, had a delicious lunch, and got to sit in an all window car for 3 hours.

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The Problems

My train ride was not perfect or fitting for many scenarios. First of all, scheduling was a pain, http://amtrak.com needs to get with google to add the train to google maps. I had to manually figure out which station to station would be the cheapest and quickest on their website and also found out on my ride that there was a quicker alternative without needing to go through San Francisco and Oakland and instead going south on Cal Train from my lodging at Stanford.  The time involved, a three hour trip by car effectively took 5 hours on the Amtrak; trains should be able to go faster than cars (is 80mph really that hard to engineer for?) and not slow down like we did many times – get the schedule right.  There was also some drama on my Train as apparently two guys were cursing a lot and when a man that looked like me asked the conductor to get them to treat the environment with respect I was warned to watch my back by an older woman… I wish I would have told the guys to quiet down, but the whole situation should not occur on the chill train.

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I would highly suggest that everybody get more into the train and transportation systems, because it can be a fun and enjoyable journey. I experienced networking opportunities over a soothing ride in a lunch car with two Entrepreneurs and a student studying abroad. One thing that could help this happen is American Maglev trains that solve some problems – check out this new venture http://academicvc.com/2009/03/american-maglev/

I ride Marta around Atlanta a lot because it goes North and South along most of my travels pretty well, but Cal Train and Amtrak were fun new experiences.

I would like to see more trains going more places, with more people on them (hopefully some of this American Stimulus will help) because if people really start trying to enjoy their time they will love watching the scenario go by across from them instead of 10 miles up. Train technologies and conducting companies need to streamline their services though, offer faster service to more people at lower prices to more places. The Mag lev and other new lighter technologies are a positive.

On the other hand, current train systems get around 450mpg at cruising speed based on their momentum conserving ideals. What if the trains used batteries (instead of the dead lead weight that many cars have) to make their hybrid systems actually work a lot more efficiently.

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