title: Rapid transit

text: Since the 1960s, many new systems were introduced in Europe, Asia and Latin America. In the 21st century, most new expansions and systems are located in Asia, with China becoming the world's leader in metro expansion, operating some of the largest and busiest systems while possessing almost 60 cities that are operating, constructing or planning a rapid transit system.


title: Rapid transit

text: Rapid transit is used in cities, agglomerations, and metropolitan areas to transport large numbers of people often short distances at high frequency. The extent of the rapid transit system varies greatly between cities, with several transport strategies.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some systems may extend only to the limits of the inner city, or to its inner ring of suburbs with trains making frequent station stops. The outer suburbs may then be reached by a separate commuter rail network where more widely spaced stations allow higher speeds. In some cases the differences between urban rapid transit and suburban systems are not clear.


title: Rapid transit

text: Rapid transit systems may be supplemented by other systems such as trolleybuses, regular buses, trams, or commuter rail. This combination of transit modes serves to offset certain limitations of rapid transit such as limited stops and long walking distances between outside access points. Bus or tram feeder systems transport people to rapid transit stops.


title: Rapid transit

text: Each rapid transit system consists of one or more "lines", or circuits. Each line is serviced by at least one specific route with trains stopping at all or some of the line's stations. Most systems operate several routes, and distinguish them by colors, names, numbering, or a combination thereof. Some lines may share track with each other for a portion of their route or operate solely on their own right-of-way. Often a line running through the city center forks into two or more branches in the suburbs, allowing a higher service frequency in the center. This arrangement is used by many systems, such as the Copenhagen Metro, the Milan Metro, the Oslo Metro and the New York City Subway.


title: Rapid transit

text: Alternatively, there may be a single central terminal (often shared with the central railway station), or multiple interchange stations between lines in the city center, for instance in the Prague Metro. The London Underground and Paris Métro are densely built systems with a matrix of crisscrossing lines throughout the cities. The Chicago 'L' has most of its lines converging on The Loop, the main business, financial, and cultural area. Some systems have a circular line around the city center connecting to radially arranged outward lines, such as the Moscow Metro's Koltsevaya Line and Beijing Subway's Line 10.


title: Rapid transit

text: The capacity of a line is obtained by multiplying the car capacity, the train length, and the service frequency. Heavy rapid transit trains might have six to twelve cars, while lighter systems may use four or fewer. Cars have a capacity of 100 to 150 passengers, varying with the seated to standing ratio—more standing gives higher capacity. The minimum time interval between trains is shorter for rapid transit than for mainline railways owing to the use of Communications based train control: the minimum headway can reach 90 seconds, but many systems typically use 120 seconds to allow for recovery from delays. Typical capacity lines allow 1,200 people per train, giving 36,000 passengers per hour per direction. However, much higher capacities are attained in East Asia with ranges of 75,000 to 85,000 people per hour achieved by MTR Corporation's urban lines in Hong Kong.


title: Rapid transit

text: Rapid transit topologies are determined by a large number of factors, including geographical barriers, existing or expected travel patterns, construction costs, politics, and historical constraints. A transit system is expected to serve an "area" of land with a set of "lines", which consist of shapes summarized as "I", "L", "U", "S", and "O" shapes or loops. Geographical barriers may cause chokepoints where transit lines must converge (for example, to cross a body of water), which are potential congestion sites but also offer an opportunity for transfers between lines. Ring lines provide good coverage, connect between the radial lines and serve tangential trips that would otherwise need to cross the typically congested core of the network. A rough grid pattern can offer a wide variety of routes while still maintaining reasonable speed and frequency of service. A study of the 15 world largest subway systems suggested a universal shape composed of a dense core with branches radiating from it.


title: Rapid transit

text: Rapid transit operators have often built up strong brands, often focused on easy recognition—to allow quick identification even in the vast array of signage found in large cities—combined with the desire to communicate speed, safety, and authority. In many cities, there is a single corporate image for the entire transit authority, but the rapid transit uses its own logo that fits into the profile.


title: Rapid transit

text: A transit map is a topological map or schematic diagram used to show the routes and stations in a public transport system. The main components are color-coded lines to indicate each line or service, with named icons to indicate stations. Maps may show only rapid transit or also include other modes of public transport. Transit maps can be found in transit vehicles, on platforms, elsewhere in stations, and in printed timetables. Maps help users understand the interconnections between different parts of the system; for example, they show the interchange stations where passengers can transfer between lines. Unlike conventional maps, transit maps are usually not geographically accurate, but emphasize the topological connections among the different stations. The graphic presentation may use straight lines and fixed angles, and often a fixed minimum distance between stations, to simplify the display of the transit network. Often this has the effect of compressing the distance between stations in the outer area of the system, and expanding distances between those close to the center.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some systems assign unique alphanumeric codes to each of their stations to help commuters identify them, which briefly encodes information about the line it is on, and its position on the line. For example, on the Singapore MRT, Changi Airport MRT station has the alphanumeric code CG2, indicating its position as the 2nd station on the Changi Airport branch of the East West Line. Interchange stations would have at least two codes, for example, Raffles Place MRT station has two codes, NS26 and EW14, the 26th station on the North South Line and the 14th station on the East West Line. Seoul Metro is another example that utilizes a code for its stations. But unlike that of Singapore's MRT, it is mostly numbers. Based on the line number, for example Sinyongsan station, coded as station 429. As it is on Line 4, the first number of the station code is 4. The last 2 numbers will be the station number on that line. Interchange stations can have multiple codes. Like City Hall station in Seoul which is served by Line 1 and Line 2. It has a code of 132 and 201 respectively. The Line 2 is a circle line and the first stop is City Hall, therefore, City Hall has the station code of 201. For lines without a number like Bundang line it will have an alphanumeric code. Lines without a number that are operated by KORAIL will start with the letter 'K'.


title: Rapid transit

text: With widespread use of the Internet and cell phones globally, transit operators now use these technologies to present information to their users. In addition to online maps and timetables, some transit operators now offer real-time information which allows passengers to know when the next vehicle will arrive, and expected travel times. The standardized GTFS data format for transit information allows many third-party software developers to produce web and smartphone app programs which give passengers customized updates regarding specific transit lines and stations of interest.


title: Rapid transit

text: Compared to other modes of transport, rapid transit has a good safety record, with few accidents. Rail transport is subject to strict safety regulations, with requirements for procedure and maintenance to minimize risk. Head-on collisions are rare due to use of double track, and low operating speeds reduce the occurrence and severity of rear-end collisions and derailments. Fire is more of a danger underground, such as the King's Cross fire in London in November 1987, which killed 31 people. Systems are generally built to allow evacuation of trains at many places throughout the system.


title: Rapid transit

text: High platforms (usually over 1 meter / 3 feet) are a safety risk, as people falling onto the tracks have trouble climbing back. Platform screen doors are used on some systems to eliminate this danger.


title: Rapid transit

text: Rapid transit facilities are public spaces and may suffer from security problems: petty crimes, such as pickpocketing and baggage theft, and more serious violent crimes, as well as sexual assaults on tightly packed trains and platforms. Security measures include video surveillance, security guards, and conductors. In some countries a specialized transit police may be established. These security measures are normally integrated with measures to protect revenue by checking that passengers are not travelling without paying. Some subway systems, such as the Beijing Subway, which is ranked by Worldwide Rapid Transit Data as the "World's Safest Rapid Transit Network" in 2015, incorporate airport-style security checkpoints at every station. Rapid transit systems have been subject to terrorism with many casualties, such as the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack and the 2005 "7/7" terrorist bombings on the London Underground.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some rapid transport trains have extra features such as wall sockets, cellular reception (typically using leaky feeder in tunnels and DAS antennas in stations), as well as Wi-Fi connectivity. The first metro system in the world to enable full mobile phone reception in underground stations and tunnels was Singapore's Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system which launched its first underground mobile phone network (using AMPS) in 1989. Nowadays, many metro systems, such as the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and the Berlin U-Bahn, provide mobile data connections in their tunnels for various network operators.


title: Rapid transit

text: The technology used for public, mass rapid transit has undergone significant changes in the years since the Metropolitan Railway opened publicly in London in 1863.


title: Rapid transit

text: High capacity Monorails with larger and longer trains can be classified as rapid transit systems. Such monorail systems recently started operating in Chongqing and São Paulo. Light metro is a subclass of rapid transit that has the speed and grade separation of a "full metro" but is designed for smaller passenger numbers. It often has smaller loading gauges, lighter train cars and smaller consists of typically two to four cars. Light metros are typically used as feeder lines into the main rapid transit system. For instance, the Wenhu Line of the Taipei Metro serves many relatively sparse neighbourhoods and feeds into and complements the high capacity metro lines.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some systems have been built from scratch, others are reclaimed from former commuter rail or suburban tramway systems that have been upgraded, and often supplemented with an underground or elevated downtown section. At grade alignments with a dedicated right-of-way are typically used only outside dense areas, since they create a physical barrier in the urban fabric that hinders the flow of people and vehicles across their path and have a larger physical footprint. This method of construction is the cheapest as long as land values are low. It is often used for new systems in areas that are planned to fill up with buildings after the line is built.


title: Rapid transit

text: Most rapid transit trains are electric multiple units with lengths from three to over ten cars. Crew sizes have decreased throughout history, with some modern systems now running completely unstaffed trains. Other trains continue to have drivers, even if their only role in normal operation is to open and close the doors of the trains at stations. Power is commonly delivered by a third rail or by overhead wires. The whole London Underground network uses fourth rail and others use the linear motor for propulsion.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some urban rail lines are built to a loading gauge as large as that of main-line railways; others are built to a smaller one and have tunnels that restrict the size and sometimes the shape of the train compartments. One example is most of the London Underground, which has acquired the informal term "tube train" due to the cylindrical shape of the trains used on the deep tube lines.


title: Rapid transit

text: In many cities, metro networks consist of lines operating different sizes and types of vehicles. Although these sub networks are not often connected by track, in cases when it is necessary, rolling stock with a smaller loading gauge from one sub network may be transported along other lines that use larger trains. On some networks such operations are part of normal services.


title: Rapid transit

text: Most rapid transit systems use conventional standard gauge railway track. Since tracks in subway tunnels are not exposed to rain, snow, or other forms of precipitation, they are often fixed directly to the floor rather than resting on ballast, such as normal railway tracks.


title: Rapid transit

text: An alternate technology, using rubber tires on narrow concrete or steel roll ways, was pioneered on certain lines of the Paris Métro and Mexico City Metro, and the first completely new system to use it was in Montreal, Canada. On most of these networks, additional horizontal wheels are required for guidance, and a conventional track is often provided in case of flat tires and for switching. There are also some rubber-tired systems that use a central guide rail, such as the Sapporo Municipal Subway and the NeoVal system in Rennes, France. Advocates of this system note that it is much quieter than conventional steel-wheeled trains, and allows for greater inclines given the increased traction of the rubber tires. However, they have higher maintenance costs and are less energy efficient. They also lose traction when weather conditions are wet or icy, preventing above-ground use of the Montréal Metro and limiting it on the Sapporo Municipal Subway, but not rubber-tired systems in other cities.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some cities with steep hills incorporate mountain railway technologies in their metros. One of the lines of the Lyon Metro includes a section of rack (cog) railway, while the Carmelit, in Haifa, is an underground funicular.


title: Rapid transit

text: For elevated lines, another alternative is the monorail, which can be built either as straddle-beam monorails or as a suspended monorail. While monorails have never gained wide acceptance outside Japan, there are some such as Chongqing Rail Transit's monorail lines which are widely used in a rapid transit setting.


title: Rapid transit

text: Although trains on very early rapid transit systems like the Metropolitan Railway were powered using steam engines, either via cable haulage or steam locomotives, nowadays virtually all metro trains use electric power and are built to run as multiple units. Power for the trains, referred to as traction power, is usually supplied via one of two forms: an overhead line, suspended from poles or towers along the track or from structure or tunnel ceilings, or a third rail mounted at track level and contacted by a sliding "pickup shoe". The practice of sending power through rails on the ground is mainly due to the limited overhead clearance of tunnels, which physically prevents the use of overhead wires. The use of overhead wires allows higher power supply voltages to be used. Although overhead wires are more likely to be used on metro systems without many tunnels, an example of which is the Shanghai Metro, overhead wires are employed on some systems that are predominantly underground, as in Barcelona, Fukuoka, Hong Kong, Madrid, and Shijiazhuang. Both overhead wire and third-rail systems usually use the running rails as the return conductor, but some systems use a separate fourth rail for this purpose. There are transit lines that make use of both rail and overhead power, with vehicles able to switch between the two such as Blue Line in Boston.


title: Rapid transit

text: Underground tunnels move traffic away from street level, avoiding delays caused by traffic congestion and leaving more land available for buildings and other uses. In areas of high land prices and dense land use, tunnels may be the only economic route for mass transportation. Cut-and-cover tunnels are constructed by digging up city streets, which are then rebuilt over the tunnel; alternatively, tunnel-boring machines can be used to dig deep-bore tunnels that lie further down in bedrock.


title: Rapid transit

text: The construction of an underground metro is an expensive project and is often carried out over a number of years. There are several different methods of building underground lines.


title: Rapid transit

text: In one common method, known as cut-and-cover the city streets are excavated and a tunnel structure strong enough to support the road above is built in the trench, which is then filled in and the roadway rebuilt. This method often involves extensive relocation of utilities commonly buried not far below street level – particularly power and telephone wiring, water and gas mains, and sewers. This relocation must be done carefully, as according to documentaries from the National Geographic Society, one of the causes of the April 22, 1992, explosions in Guadalajara was a mislocated water pipeline. The structures are typically made of concrete, perhaps with structural columns of steel; in the oldest systems, brick, and cast iron were used. Cut-and-cover construction can take so long that it is often necessary to build a temporary roadbed while construction is going on underneath, in order to avoid closing main streets for long periods of time.


title: Rapid transit

text: Another usual type of tunneling method is called bored tunneling. Here, construction starts with a vertical shaft from which tunnels are horizontally dug, often with a tunneling shield, thus avoiding almost any disturbance to existing streets, buildings, and utilities. But problems with ground water are more likely, and tunneling through native bedrock may require blasting. The first city to extensively use deep tunneling was London, where a thick sedimentary layer of clay largely avoids both problems. The confined space in the tunnel also limits the machinery that can be used, but specialized tunnel-boring machines are now available to overcome this challenge.


title: Rapid transit

text: One disadvantage with this, however, is that the cost of tunneling is much higher than building cut-and-cover systems, at-grade or elevated. Early tunneling machines could not make tunnels large enough for conventional railway equipment, necessitating special low, round trains, such as are still used by most of the London Underground, which cannot install air conditioning on most of its lines because the amount of empty space between the trains and tunnel walls is so small. Other lines were built with cut-and-cover and have since been equipped with air-conditioned trains.


title: Rapid transit

text: The deepest metro system in the world was built in St. Petersburg, Russia where in the marshland, stable soil starts more than deep. Above that level, the soil mostly consists of water-bearing finely dispersed sand. Because of this, only three stations out of nearly 60 are built near ground level and three more above the ground. Some stations and tunnels lie as deep as below the surface. However, the location of the world's deepest station is not clear. Usually, the vertical distance between the ground level and the rail is used to represent the depth. Among the possible candidates are:


title: Rapid transit

text: One advantage of deep tunnels is that they can dip in a basin-like profile between stations, without incurring the significant extra costs associated with digging near ground level. This technique, also referred to as putting stations "on humps", allows gravity to assist the trains as they accelerate from one station and brake at the next. It was used as early as 1890 on parts of the City and South London Railway and has been used many times since, particularly in Montreal.


title: Rapid transit

text: The West Island line, an extension of the MTR Island line serving western Hong Kong Island, opened in 2015, has two stations (Sai Ying Pun and HKU) situated over below ground level, to serve passengers on the Mid-levels. They have several entrances/exits equipped with high-speed lifts, instead of escalators. These kinds of exits have existed in many London Underground stations and stations in former Soviet Union nations.


title: Rapid transit

text: Elevated railways are a cheaper and easier way to build an exclusive right-of-way without digging expensive tunnels or creating barriers. In addition to street level railways they may also be the only other feasible alternative due to considerations such as a high water table close to the city surface that raises the cost of, or even precludes underground railways (e.g. Miami). Elevated guideways were popular around the beginning of the 20th century, but fell out of favor; they came back into fashion in the last quarter of the century—often in combination with driverless systems, for instance Vancouver's SkyTrain, London's Docklands Light Railway, the Miami Metrorail, and the Bangkok Skytrain.


title: Rapid transit

text: Stations function as hubs to allow passengers to board and disembark from trains. They are also payment checkpoints and allow passengers to transfer between modes of transport, for instance to buses or other trains. Access is provided via either island- or side platforms. Underground stations, especially deep-level ones, increase the overall transport time: long escalator rides to the platforms mean that the stations can become bottlenecks if not adequately built. Some underground and elevated stations are integrated into vast underground or skyway networks respectively, that connect to nearby commercial buildings. In suburbs, there may be a "park and ride" connected to the station.


title: Rapid transit

text: To allow easy access to the trains, the platform height allows step-free access between platform and train. If the station complies with accessibility standards, it allows both disabled people and those with wheeled baggage easy access to the trains, though if the track is curved there can be a gap between the train and platform. Some stations use platform screen doors to increase safety by preventing people falling onto the tracks, as well as reducing ventilation costs.


title: Rapid transit

text: Particularly in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, but to an increasing extent elsewhere, the stations were built with splendid decorations such as marble walls, polished granite floors and mosaics—thus exposing the public to art in their everyday life, outside galleries and museums. The systems in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tashkent and Kyiv are widely regarded as some of the most beautiful in the world. Several other cities such as London, Stockholm, Montreal, Lisbon, Naples and Los Angeles have also focused on art, which may range from decorative wall claddings, to large, flamboyant artistic schemes integrated with station architecture, to displays of ancient artifacts recovered during station construction. It may be possible to profit by attracting more passengers by spending relatively small amounts on grand architecture, art, cleanliness, accessibility, lighting and a feeling of safety.


title: Rapid transit

text: In the early days of underground railways, at least two staff members were needed to operated each train: one or more attendants (also called "conductor" or "guard") to operate the doors or gates, as well as a driver (also called the "engineer" or "motorman"). The introduction of powered doors around 1920 permitted crew sizes to be reduced, and trains in many cities are now operated by a single person. Where the operator would not be able to see the whole side of the train to tell whether the doors can be safely closed, mirrors or closed-circuit TV monitors are often provided for that purpose.


title: Rapid transit

text: A replacement system for human drivers became available in the 1960s, with the advancement of computerized technologies for automatic train control and, later, automatic train operation (ATO). ATO could start a train, accelerate to the correct speed, and stop automatically in the correct position at the railway platform at the next station, while taking into account the information that a human driver would obtain from lineside or cab signals. The first metro line to use this technology in its entirety was London's Victoria line, opened in 1968. In normal operation, a crew member sits in the driver's position at the front, but is only responsible for closing the doors at each station. By pressing two "start" buttons the train would then move automatically to the next station. This style of "semi-automatic train operation" (STO), known technically as "Grade of Automation (GoA) 2", has become widespread, especially on newly built lines like the San Francisco Bay Area's BART network.


title: Rapid transit

text: A variant of ATO, "driverless train operation" (DTO) or technically "GoA 3", is seen on some systems, as in London's Docklands Light Railway, which opened in 1987. Here, a "passenger service agent" (formerly called "train captain") would ride with the passengers rather than sit at the front as a driver would, but would have the same responsibilities as a driver in a GoA 2 system. This technology could allow trains to operate completely automatically with no crew, just as most elevators do. When the initially increasing costs for automation began to decrease, this became a financially attractive option for employers. At the same time, countervailing arguments stated that in an emergency situation, a crew member on board the train would have possibly been able to prevent the emergency in the first place, drive a partially failed train to the next station, assist with an evacuation if needed, or call for the correct emergency services and help direct them to the location where the emergency occurred. In some cities, the same reasons are used to justify a crew of two rather than one; one person drives from the front of the train, while the other operates the doors from a position farther back, and is more conveniently able to assist passengers in the rear cars. An example of the presence of a driver purely due to union opposition is the Scarborough RT line in Toronto.


title: Rapid transit

text: Completely unstaffed trains, or "unattended train operation" (UTO) or technically "GoA 4", are more accepted on newer systems where there are no existing crews to be displaced, and especially on light metro lines. One of the first such systems was the VAL ("véhicule automatique léger" or "automated light vehicle"), first used in 1983 on the Lille Metro in France. Additional VAL lines have been built in other cities such as Toulouse, France, and Turin, Italy. Another system that uses unstaffed trains is Bombardier's Innovia Metro, originally developed by the Urban Transportation Development Corporation as the Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS). It was later used on the SkyTrain in Vancouver and the Kelana Jaya Line in Kuala Lumpur, both which carries no crew members.


title: Rapid transit

text: Systems that use automatic trains also commonly employ full-height platform screen doors or half-height automatic platform gates in order to improve safety and ensure passenger confidence, but this is not universal, as networks like Nuremberg do not, using infrared sensors instead to detect obstacles on the track. Conversely, some lines which retain drivers or manual train operation nevertheless use PSDs, notably London's Jubilee Line Extension. The first network to install PSDs on an already operational system was Hong Kong's MTR, followed by the Singapore MRT.


title: Rapid transit

text: As for larger trains, the Paris Métro has human drivers on most lines but runs automated trains on its newest line, Line 14, which opened in 1998. The older Line 1 was subsequently converted to unattended operation by 2012, and it is expected that Line 4 will follow by 2023. The North East MRT line in Singapore, which opened in 2003, is the world's first fully automated underground urban heavy-rail line. The MTR Disneyland Resort line is also automated, along with trains on the South Island line.


title: Rapid transit

text: Since the 1980s, trams have incorporated several features of rapid transit: light rail systems (trams) run on their own rights-of-way, thus avoiding congestion; they remain on the same level as buses and cars. Some light rail systems have elevated or underground sections. Both new and upgraded tram systems allow faster speed and higher capacity, and are a cheap alternative to construction of rapid transit, especially in smaller cities.


title: Rapid transit

text: A premetro design means that an underground rapid transit system is built in the city center, but only a light rail or tram system in the suburbs. Conversely, other cities have opted to build a full metro in the suburbs, but run trams in city streets to save the cost of expensive tunnels. In North America, interurbans were constructed as street-running suburban trams, without the grade-separation of rapid transit. Premetros also allow a gradual upgrade of existing tramways to rapid transit, thus spreading the investment costs over time. They are most common in Germany with the name Stadtbahn.


title: Rapid transit

text: Suburban commuter rail is a heavy rail system that operates at a lower frequency than urban rapid transit, with higher average speeds, often only serving one station in each village and town. Commuter rail systems of some cities (such as German S-Bahns, Jakarta's KRL Commuterline, Chennai Suburban, Australian suburban networks, Danish S-tog etc.) can be seen as the substitute for the city's rapid transit system providing frequent mass transit within city. In contrast, the mainly urban rapid transit systems in some cities (such as the Dubai Metro, Shanghai Metro, MetroSur of the Madrid Metro, Taipei Metro, Kuala Lumpur Rapid Transit etc.) have lines that fan out to reach the outer suburbs. With some other urban or "near urban" rapid transit systems (Guangfo Metro, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Los Teques Metro and Seoul Subway Line 7, etc.) serving bi- and multi-nucleus agglomerations.


title: Rapid transit

text: Some cities have opted for two tiers of urban railways: an urban rapid transit system (such as the Paris Métro, Berlin U-Bahn, London Underground, Sydney Metro, Tokyo subway, Jakarta MRT and Philadelphia Subway) and a suburban system (such as their counterparts RER, S-Bahn, future Crossrail & London Overground, Sydney Trains, JR Urban Lines, KRL Commuterline and Regional Rail respectively). Such systems are known variously as S-trains, suburban service, or (sometimes) regional rail. The suburban systems may have their own purpose built trackage, run at similar "rapid transit-like" frequencies, and (in many countries) are operated by the national railway company. In some cities these suburban services run through tunnels in the city center and have direct transfers to the rapid transit system, on the same or adjoining platforms. In some cases, such as the London Underground and the London Overground, suburban and rapid transit systems even run on the exact same track along some sections. California's BART, Federal District's Metrô-DF and Washington's Metrorail system is an example of a hybrid of the two: in the suburbs the lines function like a commuter rail line, with longer intervals and longer distance between stations; in the downtown areas, the stations become closer together and many lines interline with intervals dropping to typical rapid transit headways.


title: Rapid transit

text: , 212 cities have built rapid transit systems. The capital cost is high, as is the risk of cost overrun and benefit shortfall; public financing is normally required. Rapid transit is sometimes seen as an alternative to an extensive road transport system with many motorways; the rapid transit system allows higher capacity with less land use, less environmental impact, and a lower cost.


title: Rapid transit

text: Elevated or underground systems in city centers allow the transport of people without occupying expensive land, and permit the city to develop compactly without physical barriers. Motorways often depress nearby residential land values, but proximity to a rapid transit station often triggers commercial and residential growth, with large transit oriented development office and housing blocks being constructed. Also, an efficient transit system can decrease the economic welfare loss caused by the increase of population density in a metropolis.


title: Rapid transit

text: Rapid transit systems have high fixed costs. Most systems are publicly owned, by either local governments, transit authorities or national governments. Capital investments are often partially or completely financed by taxation, rather than by passenger fares, but must often compete with funding for roads. The transit systems may be operated by the owner or by a private company through a public service obligation. The owners of the systems often also own the connecting bus or rail systems, or are members of the local transport association, allowing for free transfers between modes. Almost all transit systems operate at a deficit, requiring fare revenue, advertising and subsidies to cover costs.


title: Rapid transit

text: The farebox recovery ratio, a ratio of ticket income to operating costs, is often used to assess operational profitability, with some systems including Hong Kong's MTR Corporation, and Taipei achieving recovery ratios of well over 100%. This ignores both heavy capital costs incurred in building the system, which are often subsidized with soft loans and whose servicing is excluded from calculations of profitability, as well as ancillary revenue such as income from real estate portfolios. Some systems, particularly Hong Kong's, extensions are partly financed by the sale of land whose value has appreciated by the new access the extension has brought to the area, a process known as value capture.


title: Rapid transit

text: Urban land-use planning policies are essential for the success of rapid transit systems, particularly as mass transit is not feasible in low-density communities. Transportation planners estimate that to support rapid rail services, there must be a residential housing density of twelve dwelling units per acre.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Blue Valentine is a 2010 American romantic drama film written and directed by Derek Cianfrance. Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne, and Joey Curtis wrote the film, and the band Grizzly Bear scored it. "Blue Valentine" depicts a married couple, played by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling, shifting back and forth in time between their courtship and the dissolution of their marriage several years later.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: The film received critical acclaim and Williams was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, while Gosling received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Dean is a hopeless-romantic high-school dropout, working for a moving company in Brooklyn. Cindy is an aspiring doctor studying pre-med while living with her bickering parents and caring for her grandmother in Pennsylvania. She is dating a fellow student named Bobby and one day, the two have intercourse where he ejaculates inside her without her consent. This causes an angered Cindy to break up with him. Some time later, while Dean is delivering furniture to a nursing home in Pennsylvania, he runs into Cindy, who is visiting her grandmother. He gives her his number but she never calls; however, they coincidentally meet again on a bus and begin dating shortly afterwards.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: After discovering their relationship, a jealous Bobby violently assaults Dean. Cindy finds out she is pregnant and tells Dean he is unlikely to be the father. She opts for an abortion but changes her mind during the procedure. Dean then comforts and reassures her that they can raise the child together. Cindy and Dean soon get married.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Five years later, the couple lives in rural Pennsylvania with their daughter, Frankie, and family dog, Megan. Cindy is now a nurse at a clinic where her boss, Dr. Feinberg, had just offered her to join him at his new clinic in the near future. Meanwhile, Dean, unambitious and struggling with alcohol, paints houses for a living. After having gone missing due to Cindy leaving a gate unlocked, Megan is found dead by the roadside which further strains the couple's marriage. Despite Cindy's reluctance, Dean insists on a romantic getaway at a motel to relax and rekindle their relationship. Stopping by a liquor store, Cindy has an awkward encounter with Bobby, which causes an ensuing argument in the car between her and Dean.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: At the motel, Dean repeatedly tries to seduce Cindy but she rebuffs him. Frustrated with Dean's lack of ambition, she questions him during dinner which leads to another argument. The two make up and get drunk but Cindy is displeased when Dean asks if she wants to have another child with him. They start fighting again and she locks him outside the bedroom. Early in the morning, Cindy is unexpectedly called in for work. She takes the car and leaves a note for Dean. At the clinic, Dr. Feinberg recommends that Cindy get an apartment near the new clinic instead of moving her family, suggesting that they could keep each other company if she is lonely which visibly upsets Cindy.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Back at the motel, an annoyed Dean finds the note and shows up drunk at the clinic where he has another heated argument with Cindy. Dean punches Dr. Feinberg when he tries to intervene who then fires Cindy and kicks them both out. While leaving, Cindy demands a divorce making Dean throw away his wedding ring but they both attempt to look for it later. Back at her parents' house, Dean tries to persuade Cindy to give the marriage another chance for Frankie. Cindy says she doesn't want Frankie to grow up with parents who despise each other like she did. After Dean reminds Cindy of their vows, they both apologize and hug but she pulls away. Dean leaves the house while Frankie runs after him and begs him to stay. He tricks her to return to Cindy and then, continues walking away. The film ends with photos of Dean and Cindy in the early stages of their romance.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Williams was 21 when she received the script in 2002 and Gosling committed to the production four years later, but filming did not begin until 2009, when Williams was 28 (as was Gosling), owing to Cianfrance's inability to find financing. The director was also unable to film the "young" and "older" scenes several years apart as he had hoped, again due to lack of money. The film was to be shot in California but production was moved to Brooklyn, New York and Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Since her partner Heath Ledger had died the year prior, Williams wanted to stay close to her Brooklyn home to take care of their daughter, Matilda. Accordingly, the director chose Honesdale due to its proximity to Brooklyn. Filming began on 12 May 2009.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Gosling and Williams improvised dialogue; the scene in which their characters wander through New York together was unscripted, for example; the actors—who had both appeared in "The United States of Leland" (2003) but had not shared scenes—got to know each other during its filming. Before filming the marriage dissolution between the main characters, Gosling and Williams prepared by renting a home, bringing their own clothing and belongings, buying groceries with a budget based on their characters' incomes, filming home movies and taking a family portrait at a local Sears with the actress who played their daughter, and staging out arguments. Cianfrance visited the actors and assisted them in building tension while remaining in character: "One night he told Gosling to go into Williams' bedroom and try to make love to her. Gosling, soundly rejected, ended up sleeping on the couch."


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: The film was shot in Super 16mm and Red One. The former was used for the pre-marriage scenes and the latter was used for the post-marriage scenes.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Andrij Parekh used only one professional light in the filming of the outside scenes, otherwise using only practical lights for the inside scenes.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: While on "The Hollywood Reporter" Director's Roundtable, Cianfrance said that he had given up his entire director's fee to help fund the film: "I mean, it came down to we were exactly my fee short. They paid me and I just paid it back. So I still have to pay taxes on it, you know. So I actually had to pay to make the movie."


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Gosling wrote and performed some songs by himself. The band Grizzly Bear composed the score of the film. A soundtrack for the film was released by Lakeshore Records.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: One of the film's feature songs, "You and Me", which is presented as the couple's personal song, was originally recorded as a demo by a group called Penny & The Quarters for the obscure Prix Label of Columbus, Ohio in the early 1970s. It was re-released on a compilation album by the Numero Group in 2007 without the members of the group being identified.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: The film premiered in competition at the 26th Sundance Film Festival. The film was screened in the "Un Certain Regard" section at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 15, 2010. In Australia, the film was released on December 26, 2010 through Palace Films. In the United States, it was distributed by The Weinstein Company as a limited release on December 29, 2010.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: On October 8, 2010, "Blue Valentine" was given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA for American cinemas. This was due to a scene depicting cunnilingus. Gosling accused the MPAA of sexism and misogyny. "There's plenty of oral sex scenes in a lot of movies, where it's a man receiving it from a woman – and they're R-rated. Ours is reversed and somehow it's perceived as pornographic", he stated. The Weinstein Company appealed the decision and aimed for an R without any trims to the film, believing the prior decision would significantly harm the film's potential box office take in the United States. The appeal was successful on December 8, 2010, and the film received an R rating.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 10, 2011. Special features include an audio commentary with director Derek Cianfrance, a making-of documentary, deleted scenes, and home movies. The film has grossed $5,336,207 through US video sales.


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: "Blue Valentine" received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 86% of 212 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus states: "This emotionally gripping examination of a marriage on the rocks isn't always easy to watch, but Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling give performances of unusual depth and power." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 81 out of 100 based on 42 reviews, meaning "universal acclaim".


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3.5 out of 4, and wrote: "Dean seems stuck. He seems to stay fixed at the initial stage. Can you see the difference between (1) 'He loves me as much as he always did', and (2) 'He loves me exactly like he always did'? ... I've read reviews saying Cianfrance isn't clear about what went wrong as they got from there to here. Is anybody?"


title: Blue Valentine (film)

text: In 2006, the script won the Chrysler Film Project, a competition that awards cash to an outstanding new feature film director overseen by Independent Feature Project.


title: History of the automobile

text: Development of the automobile started in 1672 with the invention of the first steam-powered vehicle, which led to the creation of the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation, built by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769. Inventors began to branch out at the start of the 19th century, creating the de Rivas engine, one of the first internal combustion engines, and an early electric motor. Samuel Brown later tested the first industrially applied internal combustion engine in 1826.


title: History of the automobile

text: Development was hindered in the mid-19th century by a backlash against large vehicles, yet progress continued on some internal combustion engines. The engine evolved as engineers created two- and four-cycle combustion engines and began using gasoline as fuel. The first practical modern automobile and the first car put into series production appeared in 1886, when Carl Benz developed a gasoline-powered automobile and made several identical copies. Later automobile production was marked by the Ford Model T, created by the Ford Motor Company in 1908, which became the first automobile to be mass-produced on a moving assembly line.


title: History of the automobile

text: The early history of the automobile was concentrated on the search for a reliable portable power unit to propel the vehicle.


title: History of the automobile

text: Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built a steam-powered vehicle around 1672 as a toy for the Kangxi Emperor. It was small-scale and could not carry a driver but it was, quite possibly, the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile').


title: History of the automobile

text: Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles large enough to transport people and cargo were first devised in the late 18th century. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrated his "fardier à vapeur" ("steam dray"), an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor, in 1770 and 1771. As Cugnot's design proved to be impractical, his invention was not developed in his native France. The center of innovation shifted to Great Britain. By 1784, William Murdoch had built a working model of a steam carriage in Redruth and in 1801 Richard Trevithick was running a full-sized vehicle on the roads in Camborne.


title: History of the automobile

text: During the 19th century, attempts were made to introduce practical steam-powered vehicles. Innovations such as hand brakes, multispeed transmissions and better steering developed. Some commercially successful vehicles provided mass transit until a backlash against these large vehicles resulted in the passage of legislation such as the UK Locomotive Act (1865), which required many self-propelled vehicles on public roads to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This effectively halted road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century; inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railway locomotives. The law was not repealed until 1896, although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.


title: History of the automobile

text: In 1816, a professor at Prague Polytechnic, Josef Bozek, built an oil-fired steam car. Walter Hancock, builder and operator of London steam busses, in 1838 built a two-seated car phaeton.


title: History of the automobile

text: In 1867, Canadian jeweler Henry Seth Taylor demonstrated his four-wheeled "steam buggy" at the Stanstead Fair in Stanstead, Quebec and again the following year. The basis of the buggy, which he began building in 1865, was a high-wheeled carriage with bracing to support a two-cylinder steam engine mounted on the floor.


title: History of the automobile

text: One of the first "real" automobiles was produced in 1873 by Frenchman Amédée Bollée in Le Mans, who built self-propelled steam road vehicles to transport groups of passengers.


title: History of the automobile

text: The first automobile suitable for use on existing wagon roads in the US was a steam-powered vehicle invented in 1871 by Dr. J.W. Carhart, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Racine, Wisconsin. It induced the state of Wisconsin in 1875 to offer a award to the first to produce a practical substitute for the use of horses and other animals. They stipulated that the vehicle would have to maintain an average speed of more than over a course. The offer led to the first city to city automobile race in the US, starting on 16 July 1878 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and ending in Madison, Wisconsin, via Appleton, Oshkosh, Waupun, Watertown, Fort Atkinson, and Janesville. While seven vehicles were registered, only two started to compete: the entries from Green Bay and Oshkosh. The vehicle from Green Bay was faster but broke down before completing the race. The Oshkosh finished the course in 33 hours and 27 minutes and posted an average speed of . In 1879, the legislature awarded half the prize.


title: History of the automobile

text: Steam-powered road vehicles, both cars and wagons, reached the peak of their development in the early 1930s with fast-steaming lightweight boilers and efficient engine designs. Internal combustion engines also developed greatly during World War I, becoming simpler to operate and more reliable. The development of the high-speed diesel engine from 1930 began to replace them for wagons, accelerated in the UK by tax changes making steam wagons uneconomic overnight. Although a few designers continued to advocate steam power, no significant developments in the production of steam cars took place after Doble in 1931.


title: History of the automobile

text: Whether steam cars will ever be reborn in later technological eras remains to be seen. Magazines such as "Light Steam Power" continued to describe them into the 1980s. The 1950s saw interest in steam-turbine cars powered by small nuclear reactors (this was also true of aircraft), but the fears about the dangers inherent in nuclear fission technology soon killed these ideas.


title: History of the automobile

text: In 1828, Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian who invented an early type of electric motor, created a tiny model car powered by his new motor. In 1834, Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport, the inventor of the first American DC electric motor, installed his motor in a small model car, which he operated on a short circular electrified track. In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher Becker created a small-scale electrical car, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. In 1838, Scotsman Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of . In England, a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of tracks as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847.


title: History of the automobile

text: Sources point to different creations as the first electric car. Between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain) Robert Anderson of Scotland invented a crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris. English inventor Thomas Parker, who was responsible for innovations such as electrifying the London Underground, overhead tramways in Liverpool and Birmingham, and the smokeless fuel coalite, built the first production electric car in London in 1884, using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries. However, others regard the "Flocken Elektrowagen" of 1888 by German inventor Andreas Flocken as the first true electric car.


title: History of the automobile

text: Electric cars enjoyed popularity between the late 19th century and early 20th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for automobile propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time. Advances in internal combustion technology, especially the electric starter, soon rendered this advantage moot; the greater range of gasoline cars, quicker refueling times, and growing petroleum infrastructure, along with the mass production of gasoline vehicles by companies such as the Ford Motor Company, which reduced prices of gasoline cars to less than half that of equivalent electric cars, led to a decline in the use of electric propulsion, effectively removing it from important markets such as the US by the 1930s. 1997 saw the Toyota RAV4 EV and the Nissan Altra, the first production battery electric cars to use NiMH and Li-ion batteries (instead of heavier lead acid) respectively.


title: History of the automobile

text: In recent years, increased concerns over the environmental impact of gasoline cars, higher gasoline prices, improvements in battery technology, and the prospect of peak oil have brought about renewed interest in electric cars, which are perceived to be more environmentally friendly and cheaper to maintain and run, despite high initial costs.


title: History of the automobile

text: The lack of suitable fuels, particularly liquids, hampered early attempts at making and using internal combustion engines—therefore some of the earliest engines used gas mixtures. Christiaan Huyghens (1629–1695) built a powder-powered internal combustion engine to supply water for irrigation of Versailles palace gardens, used as latrines by visitors.


title: History of the automobile

text: Several early experimenters used gases. In 1806, the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built an engine powered by internal combustion of a hydrogen and oxygen mixture. In 1826, Englishman Samuel Brown tested his hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine by using it to propel a vehicle up Shooter's Hill in southeast London. Belgian-born Etienne Lenoir's Hippomobile with a hydrogen-gas-fueled one-cylinder internal combustion engine made a test drive from Paris to Joinville-le-Pont in 1860, covering some in about three hours. A later version was propelled by coal gas. A Delamare-Deboutteville vehicle was patented and trialed in 1884.


title: History of the automobile

text: The use of autogas (LPG) or natural gas in vehicles can become sporadically popular—often depending on the supply and cost of gasoline.


title: History of the automobile

text: Nicolaus Otto and Eugen Langen had built a working engine in 1867. About 1870, in Vienna, Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), inventor Siegfried Marcus put a liquid-fueled internal combustion engine on a simple handcart which made him the first man to propel a vehicle by means of gasoline. Today, this is known as "the first Marcus car" but would be better described as a cart. His second car, built and run in 1875, was the first petrol driven car and is housed at the Vienna Technial Museum. In 1883, Marcus secured a German patent for a low-voltage ignition system of the magneto type; this was his only automotive patent. This design was used for all further engines. This ignition, in conjunction with the "rotating-brush carburetor", made the engine design innovative. During his lifetime, he was honored as the originator of the motorcar but his place in history was all but erased by the Nazis during World War II. Because Marcus was of Jewish descent, the Nazi propaganda office ordered his work to be destroyed, his name expunged from future textbooks, and his public memorials removed, giving credit instead to Karl Benz.


title: History of the automobile

text: Several inventors developed their own version of practical automobiles with petrol/gasoline-powered internal combustion engines in the last two decades of the 19th century: Karl Benz built his first automobile in 1885 in Mannheim. Benz was granted a patent for his automobile on 29 January 1886, and began the first production of automobiles in 1888, after Bertha Benz, his wife, had proved—with the first long-distance trip in August 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back—that the horseless coach was capable of extended travel. Since 2008 a Bertha Benz Memorial Route commemorates this event.


title: History of the automobile

text: Soon after, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart in 1889 designed a vehicle from scratch to be an automobile, rather than a horse-drawn carriage fitted with an engine. They also are usually credited with invention of the first motorcycle in 1886, but Italy's Enrico Bernardi of the University of Padua, in 1882, patented a one-cylinder petrol motor, fitting it into his son's tricycle, making it at least a candidate for the first automobile and first motorcycle. Bernardi enlarged the tricycle in 1892 to carry two adults.


title: History of the automobile

text: The first four-wheeled petrol-driven automobile in Britain was built in Walthamstow by Frederick Bremer in 1892. Another was made in Birmingham in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester, who also patented the disc brake. The first electric starter was installed on an Arnold, an adaptation of the Benz Velo, built in Kent between 1895 and 1898.


title: History of the automobile

text: George Foote Foss of Sherbrooke, Quebec built a single-cylinder gasoline car in 1896 which he drove for four years, ignoring city officials' warnings of arrest for his "mad antics".


title: History of the automobile

text: In all the turmoil, many early pioneers are nearly forgotten. In 1891, John William Lambert built a three-wheeler in Ohio City, Ohio, which was destroyed in a fire the same year, while Henry Nadig constructed a four-wheeler in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is likely they were not the only ones.


title: History of the automobile

text: The American George B. Selden filed for a patent on 8 May 1879. His application included not only the engine but its use in a four-wheeled car. Selden filed a series of amendments to his application which stretched out the legal process, resulting in a delay of 16 years before the patent was granted on 5 November 1895. Selden licensed his patent to most major American automakers, collecting a fee on each car they produced and creating the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. The Ford Motor Company fought this patent in court, and eventually won on appeal. Henry Ford testified that the patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autos in the US.


title: History of the automobile

text: The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888 in Germany and, under license from Benz, in France by Emile Roger. There were numerous others, including tricycle builders Rudolf Egg, Edward Butler, and Léon Bollée. Bollée, using a engine of his own design, enabled his driver, Jamin, to average in the 1897 Paris-Tourville rally. By 1900, mass production of automobiles had begun in France and the US.


title: History of the automobile

text: The first company formed exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France, which also introduced the first four-cylinder engine. Formed in 1889, Panhard was quickly followed by Peugeot two years later. By the start of the 20th century, the automobile industry was beginning to take off in Western Europe, especially in France, where 30,204 were produced in 1903, representing 48.8 percent of world automobile production that year.


title: History of the automobile

text: Across the northern US, local mechanics experimented with a wide variety of prototypes. In the state of Iowa, for example, by 1890 Jesse O. Wells drove a steam-powered Locomobile. There were numerous experiments in electric vehicles driven by storage batteries. First users ordered the early gasoline-powered cars, including Haynes, Mason, and Duesenberg automobiles. Blacksmiths and mechanics started operating repair and gasoline stations. In Springfield, Massachusetts, brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming the first American automobile manufacturing company. The Autocar Company, founded in 1897, established a number of innovations still in use and remains the oldest operating motor vehicle manufacturer in the US. However, it was Ransom E. Olds and his Olds Motor Vehicle Company (later known as Oldsmobile) who would dominate this era with the introduction of the Oldsmobile Curved Dash. Its production line was running in 1901. The Thomas B. Jeffery Company developed the world's second mass-produced automobile, and 1,500 Ramblers were built and sold in its first year, representing one-sixth of all existing motorcars in the US at the time. Within a year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company), Winton, and Ford were also producing cars in the thousands. In South Bend, Indiana, the Studebaker brothers, having become the world's leading manufacturers of horse-drawn vehicles, made a transition to electric automobiles in 1902, and gasoline engines in 1904. They continued to build horse-drawn vehicles until 1919.


title: History of the automobile

text: The first motor car in Central Europe was produced by the Austro-Hungarian company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra in today's Czech Republic) in 1897, the Präsident automobile. In 1898, Louis Renault had a De Dion-Bouton modified, with fixed drive shaft and differential, making "perhaps the first hot rod in history" and bringing Renault and his brothers into the car industry. Innovation was rapid and rampant, with no clear standards for basic vehicle architectures, body styles, construction materials, or controls; for example, many veteran cars use a tiller, rather than a wheel for steering. During 1903, Rambler standardized on the steering wheel and moved the driver's position to the left-hand side of the vehicle. Chain drive was dominant over the drive shaft, and closed bodies were extremely rare. Drum brakes were introduced by Renault in 1902. The next year, Dutch designer Jacobus Spijker built the first four-wheel drive racing car; it never competed and it would be 1965 and the Jensen FF before four-wheel drive was used on a production car.


title: History of the automobile

text: Within a few years, a dizzying assortment of technologies were being used by hundreds of producers all over the western world. Steam, electricity, and petrol/gasoline-powered automobiles competed for decades, with petrol/gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance by the 1910s. Dual- and even quad-engine cars were designed, and engine displacement ranged to more than . Many modern advances, including gas/electric hybrids, multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts, and four-wheel drive, were attempted and discarded at this time.


title: History of the automobile

text: Innovation was not limited to the vehicles themselves. Increasing numbers of cars propelled the growth of the petroleum industry, as well as the development of technology to produce gasoline (replacing kerosene and coal oil) and of improvements in heat-tolerant mineral oil lubricants (replacing vegetable and animal oils).


title: History of the automobile

text: There were social effects, also. Music would be made about cars, such as "In My Merry Oldsmobile" (a tradition that continues) while, in 1896, William Jennings Bryan would be the first presidential candidate to campaign in a car (a donated Mueller), in Decatur, Illinois. Three years later, Jacob German would start a tradition for New York City cabdrivers when he sped down Lexington Avenue, at the "reckless" speed of . Also in 1899, Akron, Ohio, adopted the first self-propelled paddy wagon.


title: History of the automobile

text: By 1900, the early centers of national automotive industry developed in many countries, including Belgium (home to Vincke, that copied Benz; Germain, a pseudo-Panhard; and Linon and Nagant, both based on the Gobron-Brillié), Switzerland (led by Fritz Henriod, Rudolf Egg, Saurer, Johann Weber, and Lorenz Popp), Vagnfabrik AB in Sweden, Hammel (by A. F. Hammel and H. U. Johansen at Copenhagen, in Denmark, which only built one car, ca. 1886), Irgens (starting in Bergen, Norway, in 1883, but without success), Italy (where FIAT started in 1899), and as far afield as Australia (where Pioneer set up shop in 1898, with an already archaic paraffin-fueled center-pivot-steered wagon). Meanwhile, the export trade had begun, with Koch exporting cars and trucks from Paris to Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, and the Dutch East Indies. Motor cars were also exported to British colonies, for example, the first was shipped to India in 1897.


title: History of the automobile

text: Throughout the veteran car era, the automobile was seen more as a novelty than as a genuinely useful device. Breakdowns were frequent, fuel was difficult to obtain, roads suitable for traveling were scarce, and rapid innovation meant that a year-old car was nearly worthless. Major breakthroughs in proving the usefulness of the automobile came with the historic long-distance drive of Bertha Benz in 1888, when she traveled more than from Mannheim to Pforzheim, to make people aware of the potential of the vehicles her husband, Karl Benz, manufactured, and after Horatio Nelson Jackson's successful transcontinental drive across the US in 1903 on a Winton car. Many older cars made were made with an assembly line that would help mass-produce cars, a system that continues to be used because of its efficiency.


title: History of the automobile

text: The Brass or Edwardian period lasted from roughly 1905 through 1914 and the beginning of World War I. It is generally referred to as the Edwardian era, but in the US is often known as the Brass era from the widespread use of brass in vehicles during this time.


title: History of the automobile

text: Within the 15 years that make up this era, the various experimental designs and alternate power systems would be marginalized. Although the modern touring car had been invented earlier, it was not until Panhard et Levassor's "Système Panhard" was widely licensed and adopted that recognizable and standardized automobiles were created. This system specified front-engine, rear-wheel drive internal combustion-engine cars with a sliding gear transmission. Traditional coach-style vehicles were rapidly abandoned, and buckboard runabouts lost favor with the introduction of tonneaus and other less-expensive touring bodies.


title: History of the automobile

text: By 1906, steam car development had advanced, and they were among the fastest road vehicles in that period.


title: History of the automobile

text: Throughout this era, development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included the electric ignition system (by dynamotor on the Arnold car in 1898, though Robert Bosch, 1903, tends to get the credit), independent suspension (actually conceived by Bollée in 1873), and four-wheel brakes (by the Arrol-Johnston Company of Scotland in 1909). Leaf springs were widely used for suspension, though many other systems were still in use, with angle steel taking over from armored wood as the frame material of choice. Transmissions and throttle controls were widely adopted, allowing a variety of cruising speeds, though vehicles generally still had discrete speed settings, rather than the infinitely variable system familiar in cars of later eras. Safety glass also made its debut, patented by John Crewe Wood in England in 1905. (It would not become standard equipment until 1926, on a Rickenbacker.)


title: History of the automobile

text: Between 1907 and 1912 in the US, the high-wheel motor buggy (resembling the horse buggy of before 1900) was in its heyday, with over 75 makers including Holsman (Chicago), IHC (Chicago), and Sears (which sold "via" catalog); the high-wheeler would be killed by the Model T. In 1912, Hupp (in the US, supplied by Hale & Irwin) and BSA (in the UK) pioneered the use of all-steel bodies, joined in 1914 by Dodge (who produced Model T bodies). While it would be another two decades before all-steel bodies would be standard, the change would mean improved supplies of superior-quality wood for furniture makers.


title: History of the automobile

text: The 1908 New York to Paris Race was the first circumnavigation of the world by automobile. German, French, Italian, and American teams began in New York City 12 February 1908 with three of the competitors ultimately reaching Paris. The US-built Thomas Flyer with George Schuster (driver) won the race covering in 169 days. Also in 1908, the first South American automobile was built in Peru, the "Grieve". In 1909, Rambler became the first car company to equip its cars with a spare tire that was mounted on a fifth wheel.


title: History of the automobile

text: The vintage era lasted from the end of World War I (1918), through to the Wall Street Crash at the end of 1929. During this period the front-engine car came to dominate with closed bodies and standardized controls becoming the norm. In 1919, 90 percent of cars sold were open; by 1929, 90 percent were closed. Development of the internal combustion engine continued at a rapid pace, with multivalve and overhead camshaft engines produced at the high end, and V8, V12, and even V16 engines conceived for the ultrarich. Also in 1919, hydraulic brakes were invented by Malcolm Loughead (cofounder of Lockheed); they were adopted by Duesenberg for their 1921 Model A. Three years later, Hermann Rieseler of Vulcan Motor invented the first automatic transmission, which had two-speed planetary gearbox, torque converter, and lockup clutch; it never entered production. (It would only become an available option in 1940.) Just at the end of the vintage era, tempered glass (now standard equipment in side windows) was invented in France. In this era the revolutionary pontoon design of cars without fully articulated fenders, running boards and other noncompact ledge elements was introduced in small series but mass production of such cars was started much later (after WWII).


title: History of the automobile

text: American auto companies in the 1920s expected they would soon sell six million cars a year but did not do so until 1955. Numerous companies disappeared. Between 1922 and 1925, the number of US passenger car builders decreased from 175 to 70. H. A. Tarantous, managing editor of "MoToR Member Society of Automotive Engineers", in a "New York Times" article from 1925, suggested many were unable to raise production and cope with falling prices (due to assembly line production), especially for lowpriced cars. The new pyroxylin-based paints, eight-cylinder engine, four-wheel brakes, and balloon tires as the biggest trends for 1925.


title: History of the automobile

text: The pre-war part of the classic era began with the Great Depression in 1930, and ended with the recovery after World War II, commonly placed during 1946. It was in this period that integrated fenders and fully-closed bodies began to dominate sales, with the new saloon/sedan body style even incorporating a trunk or boot at the rear for storage. The old open-top runabouts, phaetons, and touring cars were largely phased out by the end of the classic era as wings, running boards, and headlights were gradually integrated with the body of the car.


title: History of the automobile

text: By the 1930s, most of the mechanical technology used in today's automobiles had been invented, although some things were later "re-invented", and credited to someone else. For example, front-wheel drive was re-introduced by André Citroën with the launch of the "Traction Avant" in 1934, though it had appeared several years earlier in road cars made by Alvis and Cord, and in racing cars by Miller (and may have appeared as early as 1897). In the same vein, the independent suspension was originally conceived by Amédée Bollée in 1873, but not put in production until appearing on the low-volume Mercedes-Benz 380 in 1933, which prodded American makers to use it more widely. In 1930, the number of auto manufacturers declined sharply as the industry consolidated and matured, thanks in part to the effects of the Great Depression.


title: History of the automobile

text: A major change in automobile design since World War II was the popularity of pontoon style, in which running boards were eliminated and fenders were incorporated into the body. Among the first representatives of the style were the Soviet GAZ-M20 Pobeda (1946), British Standard Vanguard (1947), US Studebaker Champion, and Kaiser (1946), as well as the Czech Tatra T600 Tatraplan (1946) and the Italian Cisitalia 220 sports car (1947).


title: History of the automobile

text: Automobile design and production finally emerged from the military orientation and other shadow of war in 1949, the year that in the US saw the introduction of high-compression V8 engines and modern bodies from General Motors's Oldsmobile and Cadillac brands. Hudson introduced the "step-down" design with the 1948 Commodore, which placed the passenger compartment down inside the perimeter of the frame, that was one of the first new-design postwar cars made and featured trend-setting slab-side styling. The unibody/strut-suspended 1951 Ford Consul joined the 1948 Morris Minor and 1949 Rover P4 in the automobile market in the UK. In Italy, Enzo Ferrari was beginning his 250 series, just as Lancia introduced the revolutionary V6-powered Aurelia.


title: History of the automobile

text: Throughout the 1950s, engine power and vehicle speeds rose, designs became more integrated and artful, and automobiles were marketed internationally. Alec Issigonis's Mini and Fiat's 500 diminutive cars were introduced in Europe, while the similar kei car class became popular in Japan. The Volkswagen Beetle continued production after World War II and began exports to other nations, including the US. At the same time, Nash introduced the Nash Rambler, the first successful modern compact car made in the US, while the standard models produced by the "Big Three" domestic automakers grew ever larger in size, featuring increasing amounts of chrome trim, and luxury was exemplified by the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. The markets in Europe expanded with new small-sized automobiles, as well as expensive grand tourers (GT), like the Ferrari America.


title: History of the automobile

text: The market changed in the 1960s, as the US "Big Three" automakers began facing competition from imported cars, the European makers adopted advanced technologies and Japan emerged as a car-producing nation. Japanese companies began to export some of their more popular selling cars in Japan internationally, such as the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Corona, Nissan Sunny, and Nissan Bluebird in the mid-1960s. The success of American Motors's compact-sized Rambler models spurred GM and Ford to introduce their own downsized cars in 1960. Performance engines became a focus of marketing by US automakers, exemplified by the era's muscle cars. In 1964, the Ford Mustang developed a new market segment, the pony car. New models to compete with the Mustang included the Chevrolet Camaro, AMC Javelin, and Plymouth Barracuda.


title: History of the automobile

text: Captive imports and badge engineering increased in the US and the UK as amalgamated groups such as the British Motor Corporation consolidated the market. BMC's space-saving and trend-setting transverse engine, front-wheel-drive, independent suspension and monocoque bodied Mini, which first appeared in 1959, was marketed under the Austin and Morris names, until Mini became a marque in its own right in 1969. Competition increased, with Studebaker, a pioneering automaker, shutting down, and the trend for consolidation reached Italy where niche makers like Maserati, Ferrari, and Lancia were acquired by larger companies. By the end of the decade, the number of automobile marques had been greatly reduced.


title: History of the automobile

text: Technology developments included the widespread use of independent suspensions, wider application of fuel injection, and an increasing focus on safety in automotive design. Innovations during the 1960s included NSU's Wankel engine, the gas turbine, and the turbocharger. Of these, only the last endured, pioneered by General Motors, and adopted by BMW and Saab, later seeing mass-market use during the 1980s by Chrysler. Mazda continued developing its Wankel engine, in spite of problems in longevity, emissions, and fuel economy. Other Wankel licensees, including Mercedes-Benz and GM, never put their designs into production because of engineering and manufacturing problems, as well as the lessons from the 1973 oil crisis.


title: History of the automobile

text: The 1970s were turbulent years for automakers and buyers with major events reshaping the industry such as the 1973 oil crisis, stricter automobile emissions control and safety requirements, increasing exports by the Japanese and European automakers, as well as growth in inflation and the stagnant economic conditions in many nations. Smaller-sized cars grew in popularity. During the Malaise era, the US saw the establishment of the subcompact segment with the introduction of the AMC Gremlin, followed by the Chevrolet Vega and Ford Pinto. The station wagon (estate, break, kombi, universal) body design was popular, as well as increasing sales of noncommercial all-wheel drive off-road vehicles.


title: History of the automobile

text: Toward the end of the 20th century, the US Big Three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) partially lost their leading position, Japan became for a while the world's leader of car production and cars began to be mass manufactured in new Asian, East European, and other countries.


title: History of the automobile

text: The modern era is normally defined as the 40 years preceding the current year. The modern era has been one of increasing standardization, platform sharing, and computer-aided design—to reduce costs and development time—and of increasing use of electronics for both engine management and entertainment systems.


title: History of the automobile

text: Some particular contemporary developments are the proliferation of front- and all-wheel drive, the adoption of the diesel engine, and the ubiquity of fuel injection. Most modern passenger cars are front-wheel-drive monocoque or unibody designs, with transversely mounted engines.


title: History of the automobile

text: Body styles have changed as well in the modern era. Three types, the hatchback, sedan, and sport utility vehicle, dominate today's market. All originally emphasized practicality, but have mutated into today's high-powered luxury crossover SUV, sports wagon, and two-volume Large MPV. The rise of pickup trucks in the US and SUVs worldwide has changed the face of motoring with these "trucks" coming to command more than half of the world automobile market. There was also the introduction of the MPV class (smaller noncommercial passenger minivans), among the first of which were the French Renault Espace and the Chrysler minivan versions in the US.


title: History of the automobile

text: The modern era has also seen rapidly improving fuel efficiency and engine output. The automobile emissions concerns have been eased with computerized engine management systems.


title: History of the automobile

text: The financial crisis of 2007–2008 cut almost a third of light vehicle sales from Chrysler, Toyota, Ford, and Nissan. It also subtracted about a fourth of Honda's sales and about a seventh of sales from General Motors.


title: History of the automobile

text: Since 2009, China has become the world's largest car manufacturer with production greater than Japan, the US, and all of Europe. Besides the increasing car production in Asian and other countries, there has been growth in transnational corporate groups, with the production of transnational automobiles sharing the same platforms as well as badge engineering or rebadging to suit different markets and consumer segments.


title: History of the automobile

text: Since the end of the 20th century, several award competitions for cars and trucks have become widely known, such as European Car of the Year, Car of the Year Japan, North American Car of the Year, World Car of the Year, Truck of the Year, and International Car of the Year.


title: Doom at Your Service

text: Doom at Your Service () is a 2021 South Korean television series starring Park Bo-young and Seo In-guk. It aired on tvN from May 10 to June 29, 2021.


title: Doom at Your Service

text: Tak Dong-kyung (Park Bo-young), an editor for a web novel company, lives a fairly ordinary life until she stumbles into an unexpected fate. All in a single day, she finds out she is dying from glioblastoma and has only three months to live, learns that her boyfriend is a father-to-be and has a wife, gets scolded by her superior at work, and is spied on by a pervert before the pervert falls into a sinkhole.


title: Doom at Your Service

text: Drinking her problems away, she happens to see a shooting star from her rooftop apartment and drunkenly wishes for the world to be doomed. Her wish is heard by Myul Mang (Seo In-guk), a messenger between gods and humans. He was born between dark and light: when he breathes, countries disappear; when he walks, the seasons collapse; when he smiles, a life is extinguished. All he has to do is exist for something to fall into ruin. This is not his intention but simply his fate. On his birthday, he gets to choose a human's wish to fulfill. Sick of his fate, he chooses to fulfill Dong-kyung's wish to end the world.


title: Doom at Your Service

text: Dong-kyung ends up signing a hundred-day contract with Myul Mang, risking everything she has ever known.


title: Doom at Your Service

text: The series was pre-sold to 150 countries. It is available for streaming on various platforms such as Viki, Viu, in Japan, iQIYI in Taiwan, and Now TV in Hong Kong. It also aired on Mnet Japan from October 23, 2021.


title: David S. Goyer

text: David Samuel Goyer (born December 22, 1965) is an American filmmaker, novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for writing the screenplays for several superhero films, including "" (1998), the "Blade" trilogy (1998–2004), Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy (2005–2012), "Man of Steel" (2013) and "" (2016). He has also directed four films: "Zig Zag" (2002), "" (2004), "The Invisible" (2007) and "The Unborn" (2009). He is the creator of the science fiction television series "Foundation".


title: David S. Goyer

text: Goyer was also co-writer of the video games "", "", and "". He won a Saturn Award for Best Writing for "Batman Begins" (2005) and received another nomination for "Dark City", and has been nominated for four Hugo Awards.


title: David S. Goyer

text: Goyer and his brother Jeff were born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and were raised by their mother. He is Jewish on his mother's side, and attended Hebrew school. Goyer is an alumnus of Huron High School and the University of Southern California, graduating from the School of Cinema-Television in 1988.


title: David S. Goyer

text: Goyer was a student of screenwriter Nelson Gidding at USC and frequently returned to Gidding's class as a guest speaker. He graduated in 1988 and sold his first screenplay for "Death Warrant" in 1989, which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme. With his first paycheck, he bought a new Isuzu Trooper, which was stolen the very first night he drove it home.


title: David S. Goyer

text: A professed comic book fanatic who often wrote to letter columns, Goyer has written or co-written several screenplays based on comic book characters and series, including "Batman", "Superman", "Ghost Rider" and "Blade". Had also written a script treatment for a film adaptation of "Venom", which was rejected. Goyer wrote a title based around the Justice Society of America for DC Comics titled "JSA", which debuted in August 1999. For the first five issues, he collaborated with James Robinson and, until his departure following issue 51, with Geoff Johns, who would take over as solo writer. Alongside Brannon Braga, Goyer co-created "FlashForward", a science-fiction TV series that premiered on ABC in Fall 2009. The series was based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer. He stepped in as show runner in October 2009 after the series struggled out of the gate. On February 5, 2010, Goyer announced he would be stepping down as "FlashForward" showrunner to focus on feature films and directing.


title: David S. Goyer

text: Goyer's comic-book films explore the consequences of becoming a symbolic figure, a topic he has long been interested in. In 2011, Goyer wrote a short story titled "The Incident" in which Superman renounces his United States citizenship. Goyer worked with Legendary Pictures on three of their projects. He co-wrote the scripts for "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012) and "Man of Steel" (2013). In addition, he did a one-step 4-week rewrite for Legendary Pictures' "Godzilla" reboot. During the same year, Goyer also published his first novel, "Heaven's Shadow", the first in a trilogy co-written by Michael Cassutt for Ace/Penguin. The novel received generally positive reviews. Goyer subsequently sold the film rights to Warner Bros. and is currently adapting the first novel for the big screen.


title: David S. Goyer

text: In late October 2011, cable channel Starz and BBC Worldwide greenlit his TV project, "Da Vinci's Demons", which followed the life of a 25-year-old Leonardo da Vinci. "This will be a show about secret histories, genius, madness and all things profane," according to Goyer. The show ran for three seasons and received generally favorable reviews, including an 81% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. In March 2013, "The Hollywood Reporter" announced that Goyer would be directing a film adaptation of the novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas.


title: David S. Goyer

text: In June 2013, he was announced to work on both "Justice League" and a sequel to "Man of Steel". In September 2013, Goyer delivered a screenwriting lecture as part of the BAFTA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture Series. Goyer-produced the horror film "The Forest", directed by Jason Zada. Focus Features has the North American distribution rights to the film, which was Zada's feature film directorial debut.


title: David S. Goyer

text: By 2014, having already earned a reputation as a veteran of the superhero genre, Goyer shifted his focus to the independent production genre, hiring producer Kevin Turen to run his company. Explaining his thinking, Goyer said: "Everybody talks about how it seems like studios increasingly are relying on these big tentpoles and some micro-budget horror films, and that's the majority of the slate," Goyer said. "I've been a benefactor of that movement, but there are a ton of films out there I've really admired over the last few years that studios aren't making, and I wanted to see if I could help get more of them made." In 2015, soon after embracing independent producing, Goyer won a competitive situation to produce the feature version of "Miles". Furthermore, he executive-produced Nate Parker's feature "Birth of a Nation", which sold for a record $17.5 million at Sundance, before sweeping the festival's awards.


title: David S. Goyer

text: In addition to producing, Goyer continues to write. In 2014, he was tapped to write and produce the feature "Fantastic Voyage", based on the 1966 original, for James Cameron. Breaking the news, the "Hollywood Reporter" announced: "The project has been quiet since 2011, but Goyer's involvement kick-starts and will re-engineer what the studio and producers hope to be an event-sized tentpole. It is also now placing the project on the fast track" In January 2016, acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro signed on to direct the feature. Goyer co-wrote Warner Bros.' blockbuster "" (2016), with Zack Snyder and Chris Terrio. In July 2016, it was announced that Goyer will write and direct an upcoming interactive virtual reality film about Darth Vader. Goyer stated that he found creating VR content very different from other media, but said "it's surprising how much you feel and how emotional [the VR experience] is [...] there is stuff that makes you tear up and cry, and it's ["sic"] really phenomenal."


title: David S. Goyer

text: In January 2017, Goyer signed on to co-produce and co-write "Green Lantern Corps", an installment in the DC Extended Universe, with Justin Rhodes, based on a story treatment by Goyer and Geoff Johns. By April of the same year, it was announced that he had signed on to write the script for the reboot of "Masters of the Universe", intended to be released in 2019. Goyer was later announced as director along with Lindsey Beer writing a new draft of the screenplay in January 2018. Filming was set to begin April 2018. By February of that year, Goyer dropped out as the film's director and writer. According to Carlos Huante, a creature designer hired for the film and who worked on the original cartoon, Sony felt that Goyer's script would be too expensive to bring to life as Goyer intended for the movie to be on the epic scale of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.


title: David S. Goyer

text: In September 2017, "Deadline" reported that Goyer and his "Green Lantern Corps" partner Justin Rhodes, as well as Chris Eglee and Josh Friedman were hired to take part in a writers room in order to write the next "Terminator" trilogy, under the direction of collaborating team Tim Miller and James Cameron.


title: David S. Goyer

text: In the early 2020s, Goyer produced "The Night House", starring Rebecca Hall, as well as the Scott Cooper film "Antlers". "The Night House" premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival; Searchlight purchased the rights to the film, and released it to critical acclaim in August 2021. Goyer also produced the 2021 film "The Tomorrow War", starring Chris Pratt for Skydance and Amazon. He has officially been signed on as a producer for the sequel.


title: David S. Goyer

text: Goyer executive produces and serves as showrunner for "Foundation", which premiered on Apple TV+ on September 24, 2021, and is based on Isaac Asimov's novels of the same name. He also wrote the first and last episodes as well as directing the season finale. Goyer co-wrote the pilot and serves as executive producer for "The Sandman", which was released on Netflix on August 5, 2022. Goyer had been involved with an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's comic book "The Sandman" since he had pitched a story idea in December 2013. By February 2014, he was set to produce a feature film, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but the film's development stalled and transitioned into a television show.


title: David S. Goyer

text: For the 2022 film "Hellraiser," a reimagining of the franchise of the same name, Goyer wrote the story and produced the film under the Phantom Four banner for Spyglass and Hulu. More recently, his Phantom Four company had signed a deal with Village Roadshow Pictures.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: Blossom is an American sitcom that aired for five seasons on NBC. It debuted as a pilot preview on July 5, 1990, and premiered as a mid-season replacement on January 3, 1991, and aired until May 22, 1995. Don Reo created the series, which starred Mayim Bialik as Blossom Russo, a teenager living with her father and two elder brothers. It was produced by Reo's Impact Zone Productions and Witt/Thomas Productions in association with Touchstone Television.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: Blossom Russo, an Italian-American teenager, lives with her single father Nick in a male-dominated household that includes elder brothers Tony and Joey. In the beginning of the series, it is revealed Blossom's family is adjusting in the wake of their mother Maddy leaving to pursue her own life and career. Nick is a session musician who is frequently between gigs and tours, Tony is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who eventually goes on to become a paramedic, and middle sibling Joey is a stereotypical "dumb jock" known for the exaggerated delivery of his catchphrase "Whoa!”


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: Blossom's best friend Six LeMeure also plays a significant part in her life. Six, an especially fast talker, is known for her tendency to ramble. Blossom would frequently have fantasy sequences wherein she would receive advice from celebrities such as Mr. T, Phylicia Rashad, David Spade, Kermit the Frog, Will Smith, and God (played by Don Novello).


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: In 1988, series creator Don Reo had begun a producing partnership with Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas, in which the latter two were bringing his screenplays to television under the established Witt/Thomas Productions nameplate. Reo conceived of the idea that would become the genesis for "Blossom" when he attended a family party thrown by his longtime friend Dion DiMucci, lead singer of Dion and the Belmonts. At the party, DiMucci demonstrated a “hip, with-it musician father” family dynamic with his children, inspiring Reo to develop a pilot in which the "cool" father would be a highlight.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: Reo was also inspired by J.D. Salinger’s "The Catcher in the Rye" and wanted to create a series about a wise-beyond-his-years, introspective teenage boy modeled closely after protagonist Holden Caulfield. Reo decided to include both the hip father and Holden Caulfield-esque boy in the pilot, with the boy as the lead character. He first pitched the project to NBC in 1989 under the title "Richie". NBC liked the screenplay, but network executive Leslie Lurie suggested that producers change the lead character to a girl "because of the overabundance of coming-of-age stories with boys." In the series finale episode, Reo and producer Judith D. Allison included a reference to the inspiration for Blossom's character when Blossom describes herself as a “teenage Holden Caulfield."


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: At the time Mayim Bialik filmed the pilot episode, she had recently worked on another sitcom project for Fox, entitled "Molloy". The pilot episode of "Blossom" was taped in the spring of 1990 and was the first of the projects to air, with NBC broadcasting the pilot as a special on July 5, 1990. Four weeks later, Fox commenced a seven-episode tryout run for "Molloy", whose episodes had been filmed earlier in 1989. "Molloy" was canceled for its low ratings, freeing Bialik to commit to "Blossom" whose ratings for the pilot special pleased NBC executives.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: Bialik suggested Michael Stoyanov for the role of her brother after seeing him guest star on sister series "Empty Nest". Bialik thought she and Stoyanov shared a strong physical resemblance and would be believable as brother and sister.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: NBC executives thought the depiction of an emotionally intuitive child paired alongside a super-chic father was too radical for its time; thus, Blossom has a more nuclear, conservative family dynamic in the pilot episode. Her father was named Ted Russo and was played by Richard Masur, while her mother Barbara Russo was played by Barrie Youngfellow. Blossom's parents were still married, but were also experiencing marital troubles.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: The characters of Tony and Joey were also present in the pilot and played by the same actors from the regular series; however, Joey Lawrence’s character was then named Donny. Neither of Blossom's parents had musical careers and instead worked in finance. Tony was going through his first drug/alcohol rehab period (in which Terry remarked that "he had a serious problem--he missed all of 1989") and had his own separate scene with Blossom in the kitchen as he gave her sage anecdotes about their lives.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: When NBC picked up "Blossom" as a regular series, Reo successfully convinced programming chief Brandon Tartikoff to allow the lead character to have the chic, divorced musician father he had originally envisioned for the project. Masur and Youngfellow's roles were recast, and Ted Wass, who had previously starred in Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas' 1970s sitcom "Soap", was cast as Blossom's single dad Nick Russo. Witt and Thomas persuaded Wass, who was then considering leaving acting to become a director, to take the role on the condition he could also direct multiple episodes. Mayim Bialik had also enjoyed auditioning with Wass the most out of other actors who were trying out for the role.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: Bill Bixby became a frequent director on the series in its third season, a role he continued in for several episodes into the fourth, despite his ongoing battle with prostate cancer. On November 15, 1993, shortly after learning that his illness was terminal, Bixby collapsed on the "Blossom" set and was hospitalized. He died six days later.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: In the pilot episode, the song in the opening credits is Bobby Brown's 1988 hit single "My Prerogative", which plays as Blossom dances in her bedroom on home video. When the show went to series, the song “My Opinionation” performed by Dr. John was used as a replacement theme. The title sequence was re-shot so that Bialik's dancing was more in sync with the newer song.


title: Blossom (TV series)

text: The opening sequence for season two was changed to clips of dance moves by the title character on film and in front of a pastel blue/pink background. Blossom's outfit changed in each dancing scene and her dance moves ranged from belly dancing to voguing. Barnard Hughes was added to the main cast and opening credits under the "With" heading, preceding Ted Wass.