Serving Shakes / Supporting Students

I struggled with the initial close-up shot since there isn’t really any access from the platform for a decent shot, but I’m fairly happy with the overall result.  It would have been possible to get one from the other platform, but then the sequence and direction would have been out-of-order, so I decided this was the best way to go.

Wanamaker’s (now Macy’s) Christmas Light Show

Wanamaker's Christmas Light Show

The Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia has had an animated Christmas show set to music with audio narration since 1956.  It is hard to believe that such an animated, computer-controlled show existed in 1956 – but it is the kind of thing that would have made me giddy as a child.

The show has gone through several iterations with and without an animated “magic” Christmas trees and a synchronized “Dancing Waters” fountain, the updated display features a new, larger tree and energy-efficient LED lights.  The store itself has gone through numerous owners and names, and now exists as a Macy’s – but even in the era of 3D IMAX films, the show continues to attract and enchant Philadelphia shoppers.

The Grand Haven Musical Fountain

Grand Haven Musical Fountain by Flickr user Adam 【Rez】

While fountains choreographed to music have been around for quite awhile, this one is particularly interesting because the community that owns and maintains it opens the selection of the audio track and the choreography to anyone.  The pubic can visit the fountain’s website to request songs, download the software needed to generate new choreography, or to upload newly choreographed sequences which rotate through the fountain’s season of evening shows.

Wouldn’t it be great if the Seattle Center’s International Fountain used crowd-sourcing to achieve a similar level of community participation and content, as opposed to rotating through five different programs?

Enjoy!

Boarding Swift at Aurora Village TC - Oran Viriyincy

Swift is Washington’s first implementation of “Bus Rapid Transit” or BRT.  Unfortunately, BRT  isn’t a very descriptive term.  The idea behind BRT is to offer most of the benefits of rail service without the high cost of purchasing trains and installing tracks.  It is a sort of enhanced bus service, but no well-defined criteria exist to determine if a given system qualifies as BRT.

BRT can include anything from dedicated roadways, reserved HOV/bus lanes, bus signal priority at intersections, expedited fare-payment and boarding systems, greater stop-spacing than standard bus service, unique branding and improved passenger information.

In Swift’s case BRT includes almost all of the above except for dedicated roadways.  While Aurora has bus lanes in many places, Swift merges with traffic in some locations and buses have to wait behind cars in turn lanes at some intersections.   Swift has only 14 stations spaced at one to two mile intervals at major transfer points along its 17 mile route.  As opposed to simple bus stops, each Swift station is distinguished from regular local bus service with bright blue, green, and white signage and the distinctive Swift logo.  Stations have a passenger shelter, seating, a ticket vending machine, and an ORCA reader.

One difference between Swift and traditional bus service is that all passenger fares are collected prior to boarding the bus.  Cash customers purchase tickets for $1.50 using ticket vending machines and ORCA passengers tap their cards on readers located at every station.  This allows passengers to board and exit quickly since there is no need to wait for fares to be collected.

So what is riding Swift like?  After boarding, Swift is remarkably like riding any other bus.  After waiting for two or three minutes at a southbound Swift station in Lynnwood, I boarded the bus and realized that while Swift buses are clean and bright, the ride itself is nothing special.

Swift’s key difference isn’t because of new buses or unique branding; the difference is that Swift actually moves more quickly.  Limited stops and off-board fare-payment mean buses stop less often and for shorter intervals.  Access to priority lanes mean buses can pass traffic during congested periods – and the bus I rode did pass traffic along congested areas of Aurora Avenue.

These are the types of changes I would love to see on Metro – and Metro plans to launch their own version of BRT in 2010 under the “RapidRide” brand.  Unfortunately, RapidRide will lack a key difference of Swift.

Instead of all fares being accepted before boarding, RapidRide will have four possible boarding and fare-payment scenarios depending on if the stop being boarded is equipped with an ORCA reader and if the customer is paying with cash, a transfer, or ORCA.  Since RapidRide will not use ticket vending machines, cash customers will purchase fares from the driver.

As anyone who has ever ridden the 358 “express” bus between downtown  Seattle and Aurora Village can attest, a limited-stop route along the southern part of the Aurora corridor would be most welcome – but since RapidRide won’t have off-board payment at every station, the time savings will be significantly reduced and the lack of a standard system will be confusing.

Metro should consider the benefits of ticket vending machines and the confusion resulting from four possible boarding scenarios.  Short of installing ticket vending machines, Metro planners should consider partnering with Community Transit to extend Swift service to Seattle (replacing RapidRide’s future E line) and througuout the region, instead of creating a watered-down version of BRT that causes RapidRide boarding to be less swift than its neighbor system to the north.

You may have heard about the retirement of United’s last 737 and wondered where United plans on making up all that capacity.  After all, the 737 was a staple of United’s fleet used to connect major cities of up to a few hours away.  The truth is, the bulk of that capacity will be either lost altogether as they reduce capacity in response to the economy, or reallocated – some to United’s remaining fleet, but with a significant portion being shifted to United Express.  United’s mainline capacity, (flights on anything on an Airbus A319 or larger) was reduced by 10.4 percent from a year ago while United Express flying was increased by 9.8 percent over the same period.

With United Express playing an increasing role in United’s network, it might be helpful to know what United Express is and how it works.

First, United Express isn’t a regional airline.  That is to say, it isn’t actually an airline at all.  United Express is a collection of flights operated by several independent carriers, operated under the United Express brand and sold with United flight numbers.  Take a look at the following itinerary from united.com:

Example itineary with United Express flights.

The first flight, flight 7060 from Cleveland to O’Hare is operated by Mesa Airlines, an Arizona-based airline that also flies on behalf of several other major carriers.   Flight 5750 between O’Hare and Salt Lake and flight 6096 from Salt Lake to O’Hare are both operated by SkyWest, a St. George, Utah based airline.  The Mesa flight is flown with Mesa crews on Mesa planes controlled by Mesa dispatchers – just as the SkyWest flights are operated by SkyWest employees.  United purchases the entire inventory of most United Express flights and reimburses the operating carrier on a fee-per-departure basis – meaning that the contract carrier is compensated the full value of the flight – regardless of how many seats are sold.

Current United Express Carriers, flight ranges, and equipment types:

More after the fold.

One aspect that sometimes confuses United Express passengers is that the “operated by” designation only indicates which carrier’s plane is actually operating the flight.  The operating carrier has no bearing on who performs the ground handling – United has their own employees in mainline stations and contracts to ground handlers who may or may not be airlines in other stations.  For example, in the above itinerary – all three stations (Cleveland, O’Hare and Salt Lake) are staffed by United employees.  If an itinerary includes a United Express flight to Washington Dulles, those flights would be handled by Air Wisconsin gate agents.  United Express flights are handled by SkyWest in Denver, San Fransisco, and Los Angeles.  This is important to keep in mind in the event that you wish to send kudos about an employee or have a complaint.  United is required to disclose the operating carrier in any flight-status information and on itineraries, but you will probably have to ask who the ground handler is if you’re trying to get a message to their employer.

Another important aspect to keep in mind about United Express flights is that they are smaller than mainline jets.  Planes range from 30 to 37-seat turboprops up to 66 and 70-seat jets.  While the turboprops and smaller jets are certainly not anyone’s idea of comfortable planes, the larger “explus” equipped planes are more like United’s mainline jets.  They have first-class cabins, Economy Plus sections, and the EMB-170s have overhead bins that accommodate full-size carry-on bags.

I hope you find this information useful.  Check your itinerary next time you find yourself flying United; you may very well also be on a United Express flight.

Jaunted's 2009 IFE Chart

What’s interesting about the comparison is that Jaunted excluded carriers like Alaska, Frontier, and AirTran.  While these aren’t large carriers by national standards, they dwarf Virgin’s network of nine (soon to be 10) cities served by their fleet of 24 planes.

For the sake of comparison:

AirTran: Serves 67 destinations with a fleet of 136 aircraft.

Alaska: Serves 60 destinations with a fleet of 116 aircraft.

Frontier: Serves 50 destinations with a fleet of 51 aircraft.

All three of these carriers offer some form of IFE such as XM Radio, DirectTV and personal media players.  So why were they excluded?

I don’t have anything against Virgin.  I’d like to try them as it seems as though they’re going a long way toward improving the passenger experience during a period of decline, but the comparison seems suspicious given that:

• Larger carriers with IFE were excluded
• Virgin is shown at the top of the list, without any clear grouping or ranking of carriers
• Virgin ads occupy two positions of Jaunted’s comparison page

I don’t know who was advertising on Jaunted back in June but the overall situation causes me to question the objectivity of the comparison.

Things may change around here in the coming weeks and days as I get familiar with WordPress, themes, etc. but I hope you’ll find something of interest in the not-too-distant future.