A9 Mapping

Amazon's new mapping service is pretty darn powerful! For a traffic engineer's perspective it is pretty darn useful to have a resource to see what field conditions are like without needing to actually go into the field! Thank you Amazon!

Amazon has a bunch of other cities in addition to Seattle!

Disappointment Travels Fast Across Seattle

It's sad when even the optimistic local politicians are discouraged. The Stranger asks: "When you look at the current political gridlock on transportation, how do you feel?"

And Ed Murray's response:
"I have to say I am extremely disappointed. I thought we had changed transportation as we knew it, to paraphrase Bill Clinton... I am one legislator. I am very much of an activist legislator, but I can only do so much and I am very disappointed."

google maps ad...

For an amusing 30 seconds, check out this spoof ad for google maps.

Abusing Traffic Signals

From Wired News, we get Traffic Hackers Hit Red Light

"The Safe Intersections Act, part of the transit bill signed Wednesday by President Bush, makes it a misdemeanor for unauthorized users to wield a "traffic signal pre-emption transmitter," a special remote control used by police, firefighters and ambulance drivers to change traffic lights to green as they approach an intersection."

Does this seem like overkill to anyone else?

If the cities are going to design a system that gives pre-emption to a device that costs less than $20 for someone to build, then they are the ones who should be getting fined! The easy solution? Design a simple security step into the process so that a generic signal pre-emption transmitters will not work. By the way, I happen to know that many cities have designed security systems into their pre-emption that stops this type of abuse, so my solution is not very far fetched.

Terrorist Scare at the City of Seattle

It is a little disheartening to be in a meeting at the City of Seattle skyscraper and hear over the load speaker:

"Due to heightened security, only the main entrance to the building is open. All other entrances and exits have been closed."

(That was not the exact wording, but that is definitely the gist of what was said). I doubt that I was the only one in the building who had a chill run through them after hearing this message.

Anyway, it turns out the scare was just because some nut left a box and a fire extinguisher at the security desk, but that is not what I imagined as I tried to concentrate through our meeting (up on the 39th floor).