August 2009
38 posts
Who Killed Reading Rainbow? →
Ooooh. The recession and a shortage of public money doesn’t help, but this one can be choked up to yet another legacy of the Bush administration:
Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush...
WatchA Route Revised:
Great Falls, Va.
Niagara Falls, N.Y. and Ont.
Toronto
Ottawa
Quebec
Montreal
Burlington, Vt.
Washington, D.C.
Cash for...moving into the city! →
“To me, I just wish people were logical and didn’t need financial inducement to make intelligent decisions,” Layman said.
I don’t so much think that people are illogical and need financial inducement to be led to better decisions. The problem is that illogical decisions largely come without financial consequences.
And it doesn’t help that all those walkable...
Death and Taxes Poster →
The full-screen web interface is really cool. Scroll around the federal budget.
Totally Gross →
Algae blooms in the Potomac. Another reason why upstream agriculture, lawncare, and laundry detergent need to be fixed.
Really? →
According to some job website, the D.C. area is the best market to find a job. I guess I don’t have any more excuses.
Stop neighborhood silos →
VDOT may have done away with cul-de-sacs, but Fairfax Suburbanista alerts us to another walkability menace: neighborhood silos.
2 tags
Better Bike Parking →
I like how Tom Vanderbilt of Slate compares car parking (and how free parking spots promotes car use) with bike parking, the latter of which certainly has room for improvement especially in the States. I’m surprised the author didn’t mention the art rack initiatives to combine the utility of bike parking with something aesthetic and representative of the neighborhood.
Developers and...
Metro to Open Underground to Other Network... →
It’s always been really annoying that only Verizon works underground in Metro. Especially since you’re usually on your way to meet someone when you’re on the subway and they always try to call or text you to confirm or change plans. (I don’t know how people lived pre-cellphone when plans had to be made hours if not days in advance.)
The Metro press release explains how...
Cash for (Natural) Gas →
What about a cash for clunkers-esque program to refit American coal-fired power plants, freight trucking, and government vehicle fleets for natural gas, which is cleaner burning and domestically plentiful. I’m not sure American drivers can be steered toward better fuel economy or less fuel usage, but industries, where bottom lines are at stake, are a different matter.
What I wonder though...
Weirdness →
So 90 percent of U.S. and Canadian paper money is tainted with cocaine. D.C. clocks in above average at 95 percent. That’s what the scientists say. China and Japan have the lowest rates of cocaine currency. Weird, weird, weird.
40 mpg?! →
Given that a proposal for a 40 miles per gallon standard fell three votes short of becoming law 20 years ago, the current 35.5-mpg plan appears ripe for an upgrade.
The issue comes down to political courage: Offering rebates and tax credits doesn’t require much of it, but raising the gas tax and CAFE standards takes quite a lot.
I can’t believe people were calling for 40 mpg fuel...
Bicycles v. Cars: Disgruntled Driver Says "Guests"... →
This is another reason why drivers and cyclists are like Israelis and Palestinians and why there should be less automobile-centric design on roads.
His first point that roads are meant for motor traffic because of gas taxes and registration fees has been dubunked so much it’s not funny — maybe he doesn’t have the internet. If gas taxes paid for all roads, that would be amazing,...
And the word of the day is "feebate" →
Which is excise tax on one thing to fund rebates on another, in this case a tax on gas guzzlers paying for rebates on sippers.
As opposed to the cash for clunkers program, which is pretty much another industry bailout, feebates are kind of like internalizing the environmental costs fuel economy.
Cash for Cooler Coolers →
I take back the mean things I said about Cash for Clunkers. Government, I need a new fridge! Seriously! Mine’s from the late eighties and is probably destroying the ozone layer!
Do you like green? →
Yesterday I got to metro station around 8pm to catch a bus for the ‘burbs. As soon as I arrived at the bus bay, a guy sitting in the shelter said to me, “Do you like green?” I figured out that he was talking about the color I was wearing and said yes, and he excitedly told me they were giving away free green t-shirts inside. He went with me to snag some more, saying that he could...
Bicycles v. Cars: Are Smart Growth Kids... →
David Alpert responds to sentiment brewing that he and his cohorts are “anti-car” by putting a point on the language of “not more cars” and “low traffic growth.” He also explains how changing demographics will affect attitudes toward transportation and development — the baby boomer generation is retiring and with them their penchant for classical...
Bicycles v. Cars: Roanoke Riders Play Road Dressup →
Stunts like this are fun. But as I get old, I’m having less and less faith in humanity on two wheels co-existing with humanity on four — bicyclists often can’t get off their high horse and drivers only see from the perspective of a windshield. I think instead we need more highly visible bicycle-specific facilities on the local transportation system, more so than share-the-road...
More than just quadrants, numbers, letters and... →
Matt Johnson explains the naming conventions for streets in D.C. This is the most thorough explanation I’ve ever seen. I had no idea the District street naming conventions outside the original L’Enfant city was as logical as those in Arlington.
“We recently took a look at the greenhouse gas implications of building a new...”
– Clark Williams-Derry, looking at claims that congestion relief measures that involve road building actually increases greenhouse gas emissions. Short-term congestion relief is eclipsed by long-term induced demand, which brings with it [ *drum roll* ] more congestion and pollution than before!
Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle -- or Skip to Recycle →
David Friedman argues in defense of the Cash for Clunkers program on environmental grounds, saying 90 to 95 percent of the total energy used by a vehicle over its lifetime comes from fuel.
I guess that also shortens the gas-guzzling lifespan of clunkers on the road that aren’t being cashed in because cheap junkyard replacement parts will be in short supply.
But Friedman also says not to...
How to Put a Clunker to Rest for Good →
The government’s secret method to kill a car is revealed:
In a nation packed with experts on how to keep cars running, the engine-killing powers of sodium silicate are a well-kept secret. ‘I, like, have so not even ever heard of this before,’ said Robert Lutz, new marketing chief and renowned ‘car guy’ at General Motors Co., in an email.
Weirdest quote ever.
“The Poles and the Polish bloc will scream for Turkish blood, as will the Chinese...”
– George Friedman, in The Next 100 Years, describing American strategy concluding a hypothetical global war. Is the New World Order of would-be supreme tyrants and fascist superpowers that much worse than America’s Status Quo World Chaos? Is it weird to think of Americans as proponents,...
USA Today: "States Give Cyclists Room to Ride" →
A Colorado law recently signed by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter not only requires motorists to give riders at least a 3-foot-wide berth, it also makes it illegal to throw things at riders, says Dan Grunig, executive director of Bicycle Colorado.
Emphasis mine, and seriously? I guess I should be lucky to be in a jurisdiction that already has robust anti-missile laws.
Pollan can't get enough Fresh Air. →
Food journalist Michael Pollan guests on Fresh Air yet again, this time to speak about the irony that America is obsessed with cooking shows but never cooks at home.
Interesting is how Pollan points out that processed foods originated as re-marketed soldier rations from World War II. And the only way to get housewives to stomach what they perceived to be artificial was to leave something (rather...
WatchA road trip loop? Is that too much to cover in a week? 1,901 mi – about 1 day 9 hours. Yay or Nay?
Cash for Clunkers is apparently a clunker itself. →
Yet another bailout for the auto industry? Under the current program, clunkers can’t be recycled for parts and there’s no incentive to, y’know, trade in a clunker and take transit, ride a bike, or somehow reduce pollution or energy usage by actually taking a car off the road.
Rightwingers, rightly so, are having a field day with this. According to William Kristol, clunker cash...
“Now, for the most part, trains beat cars heading into D.C., but not always. If...”
– VRE spokesman Mark Roeber, speaking about stimulus funds to the rail corridor between D.C. and Richmond. DUH! If you make transit not suck, people will take it! Let’s do the same thing on I-66.