Is Yemen's Capital City Doomed?
Amanda Erickson: “Yemeni capital Sana’a is on track for a highly dubious honor: experts say it may become the first waterless capital city.” Also: “For the first time, some activists released a Green Guide to Hajj, which outlines ways a pilgrimage to Mecca can be more sustainable. This comes on the heels the first-ever light-rail system to Mecca.”
Transportation as a Civil Rights Issue
“[T]he average cost of owning a car is just shy of $9,500. That may not sound like much until you realize the federal poverty level is $22,350 for a family of four. One-third of low-income African-American households do not have access to an automobile. That figure is 25 percent among low-income Latino families and 12.1 percent for whites. Racial minorities are four times more likely than whites to use public transit to get to work.
“Yet the federal government allocates 80 percent of its transportation funding to highways.”
(via ziatroyano)
See also Michael Mintz, in the Twin Cities Daily Planet, on “the high cost of getting to work, and the suburbanization of poverty.”
Looks like Cyclopath got a refreshed UI and is now mobile friendly. I’m pretty sure this has been around for a while and there was a data cleanup initiative ongoing over the last year or so.
personalized bikeability
Cyclopath lets you enter personal bikeability ratings for roads and trails. This unique rating system helps find the best routes for you, while also supporting the community with your individual knowledge.geowiki what?
Cyclopath is a geowiki: an editable map where anyone can share notes about roads and trails, enter tags about special locations, and fix map problems - like missing trails. Hundreds of Twin Cities cyclists are already doing this, making Cyclopath the most comprehensive and up-to-date bicycle information resource in the world.
My other favorite newish thing about Cyclopath is multimodal routing - it’s the only service I know that will help you figure out how to get somewhere by loading your bike on a bus. (That said, I rarely want to go anywhere far enough for the transit options to kick in.)
Runaway With Asperger’s Syndrome Spent 11 Days on Subway
I missed this story when it happened (late 2009). “After getting in trouble in class in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and fearing another scolding at home, he had sought refuge in the subway system. He removed the battery from his cellphone. ‘I didn’t want anyone to scream at me,’ he said.”
The Financial Benefits of Living in Transit-Friendly, Walkable Areas
Car costs were a key factor in pushing homeowners into foreclosure according to a 2010 NRDC study. The study, which tracked 40,000 mortgages in Chicago, Jacksonville and San Francisco, found that the probability of foreclosure rose alongside the number vehicles owned per household in a neighborhood, even after controlling for income and mortgage characteristics such as debt-to-income ratio, credit score, loan-to-value ratio, fixed or variable rate loan and others.
Much as I dislike cars, I find myself weirdly suspicious of this claim - not that cars are a factor, but that they’re “key.”
This is all dressed up as a way to help solve the budget problem, but what they’re really trying to do is to destroy the capacity of this region to move forward on transit. It’s like a new bad idea every day.
Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, from “In seeking to cut transit, Legislature is out of step with new trends.”
(Source: minnpost)
That anti-transit bill passed the House. Every representative from Minneapolis and St. Paul voted against it. So did a lot of inner-ring suburbs, but not all of them. I guess Edina doesn’t want that light rail line.
Anyway, now it’s on to the Senate.
Take Action: Twin Cities transit will be devastated by House bill (HF1140)
“What’s more appealing to you: a $4 transit fare increase or a 45 percent reduction in bus service coupled with a 25 cent fare increase? That’s the choice being left to the Metropolitan Council under the House Transportation Finance bill (HF 1140), which will be heard by the full Minnesota House of Representatives on Monday.”
Award-Winning Transit-Oriented Development May Never Get Transit
“Before any transit was built at King Farm in Rockville, Maryland, it was already held up as an example of how to implement transit oriented development in an outer-ring suburb. High-density and mixed-use, it was supposed to be centered around a light-rail line about 20 miles outside of D.C. The project design was so promising it was given an award by the Congress for the New Urbanism and praised by the EPA’s Smart Growth office.
“But as construction on the transit line is set to begin, NIMBYism is rearing its myopic head. A campaign has emerged from residents to route the transit around the community of about 3,200 homes. Residents have stated that the transit line would have “no benefits” and would be “incredibly disruptive.” Last month, the Rockville City Council validated this point of view, voting 4-1 to sever the transit connection to the community.”
