ansoncfit

Welcome

After graduating from Swarthmore College in 2010 with a BA in Urban Studies and a BS in Engineering, I traveled through Latin America and Africa completing a Watson Fellowship project focused on urban transportation systems. I am now pursuing a Master of Science in Transportation degree at MIT.

Learn more about me and my work here.
Read my most recent blog posts below, or browse by categories on the left.

Full Post | June 20 2010 | Anson | No Comments » |

School Bus Migrations – MIT Transportation Showcase References

Muñoz, J. C. & Gschwender, A. (2008). Transantiago: A tale of two cities. Research in Transportation Economics 22, 45-53.
Schalekamp, H. & Behrens, R. (2010). Engaging paratransit on public transport reform initiatives in South Africa: A critique of policy and an investigation of appropriate engagement approaches. Research in Transportation Economics 29, 371-378.
wa Mungai, M. & Samper, D. A. (2006). “No Mercy, No Remorse”: Personal Experience Narratives about Public Passenger Transportation in Nairobi, Kenya. Africa Today 52, 51-81.
Santiago Cardoso, A.C. (2011). Da ideia à cidade, do plano ao projeto: gênese do processo de transformação urbana em Curitiba a partir do plano preliminar de urbanismo. Dissertation, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná.
Rizzo, M. (2011). ‘Life is War’: Informal transport workers and neoliberalism in Tanzania 1998 – 2009.
Müller-Schwarze, N. (2009). Diablos Rojos: Painted Buses and Panamanian Identities. Visual Anthropology 22, 435-456.

Full Post | November 17 2011 | Transport and Work | No Comments » |

Seashore Trolley Museum

Pictures from the October operating day at Seashore Trolley Museum:

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Full Post | November 12 2011 | Anson and Transport | No Comments » |

Boston Harbor Cruise

: Sunset over the Zakim Bridge

: On final approach at Logan

: Boston skyline at night

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Full Post | November 12 2011 | Anson | No Comments » |

Turkeys at Mt. Auburn Cemetery

This year, I waited to visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery until the fall foliage was at its brightest. As I was enjoying a morning stroll, two large birds emerged out of the leaves…

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Full Post | November 12 2011 | Anson | No Comments » |

New Metrolink Cars

Southern California’s commuter rail authority, Metrolink, has received 24 new Hyundai Rotem crash-absorbing cab cars out of a total order of 117.

: New Metrolink impact-absorbing cab car

: Metrolink controls

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Full Post | November 03 2011 | Transport | No Comments » |

Halloween Bike Ride

Monday night, I joined about 200 other bicyclists for a costumed Halloween bike ride through Boston. A friend and I dressed up as militant cyclists, complete with gas masks (which we tested for visibility before joining the pack of riders). We greatly enjoyed the 3 hour ride through Jamaica Plain, Longwood, Fenway, the Back Bay, the Financial District, Chinatown, Cambridge, Harvard, Brighton, and Brookline. Despite the traffic jams our group caused, drivers for the most part enjoyed the show; much of the honking seemed quite friendly and was accompanied by shouts of “Happy Halloween!”

: Costumed riders meeting at Green St.

: Taking over the streets

: Militant bicyclist on the Southwest Corridor

: Militant bicyclist at South Station

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A video of the ride is below. I make brief appearances at 0:09 (a silhouette with a gas mask in the foreground) and 3:35 (ringing my bike bell).

Full Post | November 02 2011 | Anson | No Comments » |

New Apartment

I’ve been in my new apartment in Cambridge, MA for two months. Some long overdue pictures:

: My building

: Sunset from my living room

: View from my room

: View from my room

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Full Post | October 30 2011 | Anson | No Comments » |

Portland Transit Photos

Pictures of some of Portland’s transit options:

: TriMet MAX Light Rail

: Portland Streetcar

: Bicycle rush hour on the Hawthorne Bridge

: Amtrak Cascades and TriMet Max on Portland’s Steel Bridge

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Full Post | October 30 2011 | Anson and Transport | No Comments » |

Ten Years Later

World Trade Center, 2011

Various thoughts that have resonated with me over the past few days:

Patrick Smith on security theater:

The tragic irony being that the success of the 2001 conspiracy had nothing to do with airport security in the first place. This was a failure of intelligence at the FBI and CIA levels, not at the concourse checkpoint. As I’ve pointed out many times in the past, the hijackers were not exploiting a weakness in airport security, but rather a weakness in our mind-set — our presumptions, based on years of precedent, as to what a hijacking was, and how it would unfold. What weapons the men used was irrelevant. Ballpoint pens would have sufficed, for the strategy relied not on hardware, but on the element of surprise. So long as the hijackers didn’t chicken out, their plan was all but guaranteed to succeed.

I will otherwise spare my regular readers any further rehashing as to what, since then, has made our airport security apparatus so farcical and ineffective. The topic has granted more than ample coverage in this column over the past eight years. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the points are neatly summarized here. [Read full post]

James Wall on the manipulation of the day’s meaning:

Murderous crime scenes in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, became spiritual staging grounds for an international war against what Time’s Tony Karon describes as “a tiny network of transnational extremists, founded on the remnants of the Arab volunteers who’d fought in the U.S.-backed Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union.”

It did not need to come to this. [Read full post]

A call to action for young people from Be2021 and Americans for Informed Democracy:

Ten years later, we remain stunned by losses that we incurred on that day and in the years to follow; we have lost service men and women and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, personal freedoms in the name of national security, and tolerance for those of the Islamic faith. We remember these losses on the 10th anniversary. However, September 11th should not be solely about remembrance, it needs to be about looking forward. Young people are inheriting a world that has been created as a result of September 11th. It is therefore the responsibility of youth to ensure that the world becomes the one we need it to be. In the next decade, young people will remember, but we will no longer remain stunned. [Read full post]

And finally, a reflection from Paige Eaves and Progressive Christians Uniting:

I wish we could call this 10th anniversary year a sort of Jubilee Year, like the tradition cited in Leviticus, which calls for everyone to say “I’m sorry” and be universally pardoned. The prisoners would be freed, and all debts forgiven, mostly because we need God’s mercy and a new start more than anything else. In Leviticus, Jubilee is supposed to be every

… Read the rest

Full Post | September 12 2011 | News and Happenings and The Christian Left | No Comments » |

Chicago Visit

Pictures from my summer visit to Chicago:

: New Bikeshare

: City model at the Chicago Architecture Foundation museum

: Fireworks over the Navy Pier

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Full Post | September 09 2011 | Anson | No Comments » |

Buses of Curitiba

Curitiba, Brazil, implemented the world’s first bus rapid transit system in the 1970s. Along with programs to convert floodplains to green space, pedestrianize downtown streets, and improve waste collection, the new “surface metro” transformed the city. Curitiba is the inspiration for many of the other BRT projects I learned about during my year of travel, so a visit there was perfect for my last stop.