“those who put speed above all other values are often cheated even of speed by their single dedication to a single mode of mass locomotion.”
—
Lewis Mumford, bemoaning bridges replacing ferries and highways replacing street cars and other modes of mass transit.
It is both amazing and so frustrating that Mumford writing 60 years ago could predict the type of stunted society we would be living in. Robert Moses built highways in New York to relieve congestion, but instead the roads were filled to capacity years ahead of schedule, all the while he steadfastly refused to invest in transit. And again NYC missed the opportunity of using a congestion tax to fund transit. Now the cost of gas is reaching higher and higher every month, and people have no choice but to drive because most of America made “a singe dedication to a single mode of mass locomotion.” All the economists are telling us gas will not go down in price; cities must start to invest in alternative modes of transit now.
The Surly Bikes has a great story up on its blog about how the writer was riding his bike on the road fully within his legal rights, but a driver nonetheless decided to lay on her horn and try to scare him off the road. He calmly memorized her license plate and then proceeded to use it to very effectively deal with the situation (I’ll leave you dear reader to read the story).
Yesterday I was nearly sent to the emergency room by a woman who tried to suddenly pull into a parking spot while I was riding along side her. In comparison I handled the situation very poorly. After barely squeezing by her front fender, I returned to the car yelling that she nearly killed me and the Massachusetts General Laws state that a bike lane is a lane of traffic, etc. etc. etc. Which as you can guess just made her yell at me that I should have been more defensive and have anticipated her swerving into my lane without warning (I think she phrased that a little differently).
Eh, it’s incidents like this that make me illogically giddy that gas might hit $7/gallon.
I’ve got 10 Beta invitations to give out for this great new web/note/photo information scrapbook-type application. It has both a web client and a desktop application and it is pretty fantastic. I’ve been finding it incredibly useful to use the “web clipper” book marklet to save news articles to the web client which then automatically syncs with my desktop application.
Oh, and the killer part about this, is that the OCR technology makes the text in photos searchable.
Check out the site, and if you’re interested send me an email.
“It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away.”
—
Thomas Friedman talking about the Gas Tax Holiday in yesterday’s column.
I’m not usually a huge fan of Friedman, but he tell’s it straight in this one. And eh, sorry for all the gas articles. I am actually interested in other issues.
Wired has an excellent article that very succintly explains why gas prices are where they are and why they are probably only going up from here.
In short:
1. Oil Companies are making windfall profits.
2. Entering the Middle Class = Car ownership. Millions of people in China and India are entering the Middle Class.
3. Credit crisis forcing the Fed to cut interest rates, which places inflationary pressure on the economy, lessens the value of the dollar, etc. (basic Econ. 101)
4. Speculators forcing oil up.
5. And the reason Oil is likely to stay up? OPEC generally tries to keep prices at an optimum level, when demand raises prices they like to keep production even and take advantage. OPEC only controls half the worlds oil production, and generally when prices are high the non-OPEC countries increase production to take advantage of the high price and by increasing supply it brings the prices back down. Problem is, those countries seem to be running out of oil and can’t increase production.
This is a great political ad. It is succinct, and it cuts at the other two contenders without mentioning them or being mean. Obama has taken the high road and acted much more presidential than either of the other candidates. I wish I could take my primary vote back and give it to Obama.
“The end product [of Suburbia] is an encapsulated life, spent more and more either in a motor car or within the cabin of darkness before a television set…”
For those interested, Mumford has written both academic tomes on urban issues as well as many essays relating his love of the city. Well worth hunting down and reading.
My music collection is in desperate need of an update, having stagnated since about 2002 with very little new discovery since then. This is the beginning of my effort to revitalize it.
With the help of Tuneage and other music discovery methods, I’m trying a new experiment:
Get at least one new album every week.
Each must be from a new band.
All music will be legally acquired — either purchased or legally free.
Digital downloads will be used as often as possible, but with absolutely no DRM. CDs beat DRM if there’s no alternative.
I would recommend a subscription to eMusic. It’s all DRM free, and for $90/year I get 30 downloads a month, so that’s $.08/track. A hell of a lot less than a CD or iTunes. Last week I got the new Raveonettes album and Thao (two awesome bands if you don’t know ‘em). Their selection is mostly indpendent and smaller bands. And to sign up you get 35 free tracks.
For those in the Boston Metropolitan Area, May 12th - 18th is Bay State Bike Week. The city is aiming to get get people to pledge to bike a cumulative 50,000 miles during the week.
There will be special bike centric events every day, and breakfast and snack stations set up in different areas throughout the city. This is a great week to give biking a try if you’re normally a bit intimidated by traffic. The city is organizing Bike Convoys and encouraging bicyclists to encourage their friends to bike as well.
The idea is a ten hour day, four days a week, and thereby reducing commuting one day a week. At first this idea kind of made me angry, because “if people didn’t live in the suburbs or exurbs and lived in a sustainable way this wouldn’t be an issue!” But after considering the idea for a little bit, it would be nice to always have three day weekends…
Honestly though, the commuting problem is that we live so far from where we have to work, shop, and play. Regardless of a four day work week, on that extra day off when someone needs to go to the supermarket they’re going to get in the car. And when there’s soccer practice the next town over they’re going to get in the car. Etc. Etc. Etc.
This isn’t going to solve the problem of people having to drive hundreds of miles a week. People have to change where and how they live, or they can pay increasingly high gas prices and spend more and more of their waking hours behind the wheel. That is not what I want out of life.
