Transport omnibus

Here’s a look at the “new” electronic parking meters at columbusING. Jon notes that the device appears to be “rescued from a 70’s interpretation of the future.” It does look a little Star Trek- The Motion Pictureish. I had a post on them a while back.

Brendan at spacetropic has a post up about a Cinci Enquirer article about a transportation study put out by a 501(c)3 a year ago. Cincinnatians spend on average 20% of their income on transportation, which puts them at #6. Cleveland is #2 at 20.5%. I looked at the study (pdf) which lists the top 28 cities by that measure and Columbus isn’t on it. Houston is #1, which should come as no surprise to people familiar with that city.

To possibly make it easier to find your way around on public transportation, Google is starting to index transit maps and schedules to allow mass transit directions at the Google Labs Transit project. No Columbus info yet and it looks like it’ll be a while. Here’s a sample map for Portland:

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COTA does have a trip planner, but it’s not as cool or as fast as Google’s. It needs more ajaxiness.

Walker and Eric have a new blog focusing on Columbus transportation at X-ing Columbus.