Archive for the ‘Transportation’ Category


A Reason To Fly JetBlue?

Sunday, June 4th, 2006

In addition to having some of the lowest fares for flying, JetBlue[wiki] hopes that WiFi on their planes will make their airline even more appealing.

JetBlue Airways Corp. won a wireless license to offer high-speed Internet and other communications services on commercial aircraft in a U.S. Federal Communications Commission auction that ended on Friday. [reuters.com]

It seems like there are two types of people when it comes to JetBlue; those that think it’s the worst airline and those that think it’s one of the best. Their record doesn’t help them too much either, but this is a boost for those business travelers out there.

Among 19 carriers reporting to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, JetBlue had the lowest on-time arrival rates in January, according to the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report for that month. The popular upstart airline landed on schedule just 70.6 percent of the time. Hawaiian Airlines was best, with a rate of 95.9 percent, and other airlines arrived promptly 78.8 percent of the time.

The report is more bad news for JetBlue, which lost $42.4 million during the fourth quarter due to fuel costs, and it plans to raise fares to improve profits. But it did have one of the lowest rates of canceled flights, at 0.2 percent, which could be tied to its many delays. Other airlines would rather cancel a flight than hurt their arrival rates. [abcnews.com]

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Filed under: Geeky, Internet, Transportation, U.S.

Cut And Cover?

Sunday, April 16th, 2006

There is an interesting post about the Canada Line on Beyond Robson that feeds my hunger in terms of more information about the project. As with anything that is constructed in this magnitude, politics is always the story.

There is no doubt that additional SkyTrain service is going to be beneficial to the Vancouver area. I think we all agree that mass transit is a great benefit to any, major metropolitan city and its surrounding communities. What’s hard for everyone to agree upon is how it’s done, who will be responsible for it, and where the money will come from.

It is incredibly interesting that for a long time, the building of the underground portions of the Canada Line was going to be done by bored tunnel. Unless you were paying attention, the project has switched to a cut-and-cover operation, shutting down portions of Granville for approximately two years, starting at the end of April.

And you think that area was struggling for business before?

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Filed under: Lower Mainland, Transportation, Vancouver

The Risk of a Bridge

Thursday, March 9th, 2006

Already this year, five people have died in vehicle accidents on the Pattullo Bridge. This is a fact that is simply staggering to me as one of the first things I recall Rebecca teaching me about this structure was its history of being notorious for car collisions. And just yesterday, another person died in a head-on crash with an oncoming vehicle.

This takes the number of people who have lost their lives from similar accidents on the Pattullo to 15 since 2001. Further up the river, the Port Mann is about to be twinned in order to solve congestion issues with traffic. It’s obvious that people want to get to destinations faster than they can now, but at some point, I would think that you have to weigh the value of life over the value of time.

I mentioned this in a podcast with Rebecca some time ago, and today I released a video podcast that has a brief segment going over the Pattullo. The timing is erie, but perhaps you can see a little of this for yourself.

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Filed under: Lower Mainland, Podcasting, Transportation
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