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| 5/23 |
| 2007/1/31-2/6 [Transportation/Car, Transportation/Car/RoadHogs] UID:45632 Activity:high |
1/31 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16876281/from/RS.2 I really don't understand this. Instead of increasing mileage why don't Americans just plan ahead for once and build a sustainable city with mass transit and mixed use buildings, instead of big McMansions sprawling wherever land is available? \_ Because we don't point to a spot on a map and say, "Let's build a city there". Life is not SimCity. \_ In Dubai and Singapore it is. \- soon maybe american will have a "second class citizen/ \_ Ok, you're right. If we had a dictatorship and command economy we could do that but it would be a horrible place to live. I'll take sprawl, thanks. \_ Haven't been to Singapore or Geneva or Paris, have you? \_ I've been to Paris. What about it? Are you going to claim Paris was artificially designed in the modern era for public transit and reduced driving a la Sim City? \- in re: Paris, may be of interest: http://www.economist.com/cities/briefing.cfm?city_id=PAR \- if some people see 120min a day in a car as the price for a backyard and lawn, what exactly is your issue with that? \_ I don't have an issue with that at all. I also don't believe it is possible to create a city from scratch a la Sim City in the real world. As for me, I have the yard/lawn and 12 minute commute. 2 hours is for the suckers. \_ You live in the Bay Area? Where do you live and where do you work? \_ I live in the Bay Area, yes. Ok, it isn't always 12 minutes. That's going about 78 mph for all 3 exits. About every 2 months I get stuck in bad traffic and it can take as long as 45 minutes to get home. I've never had heavy traffic going in. \_ 12 minutes door to door? You live right next to a freeway onramp? Do you park right in front of your office? \_ 12 minutes. I live a few residential blocks from the freeway and I park directly in front of my building. On a bad day, I have to park on the side and take the side entrance which adds about 15 feet to my car->desk walk. Seriously, I'm telling you, the 2 hour people are total victims who should just leave the Bay Area if they can't afford a place closer to work. They are obviously not earning enough to make living here worth it. \_ No, but Paris is a compact city and hardly a horrible place to live. It is possible to build transit friendly cities without a dictatorship. I'm a libertarian and I don't give a damn about -/ what other people do. They can fart as loud and as stinky as they want. However, as the population density increases the effect of their actions start to affect others more dramatically. They can fart on the country side-- who cares. But if they fart in a movie theatre, that may create problems for people with a rare but acute condition of asthfartma. Likewise, when they use the public highway for 120min, that person is decreasing the capacity of the highway for everyone else on the road and increasing traffic jam. In another word if every person on the road travels twice as far as they do now, the average time to travel from A->B would more than double for everyone. Libertarianism is great when you're alone. Not so great when you're with other people. In a world that is getting smaller and smaller, every action will have a reaction that is proportion to the population. So do I have an issue with people who want to drive 120min one way? If that person's fucking up my commute, fuck ya. \_ You're no libertarian. Libertarians take responsibility for their lives and don't blame others for their problems. If your commute sucks, move closer to work. If you can't move closer to work, get a job where you can. If you're opposed to increases in population density that infringe on your lifestyle then you're in favor of closed borders, mass deportation, and eventually China style birth control enforcement. You have to make some choices in life. They have chosen to drive 2 hours to work (which I think is insane but it isn't my problem). You chose to live in a place where other people clog up the roads. Move. \_ I already did and my commute is only 20 min one way. However I'm a bit concerned with the amount of gasoline people use and the amount of CO2 they emit which will accelerate the rate of global warming. I'm also very concerned with air pollution and related diseases like asthma which I'm inflicted with. \- you may enjoy reading the article from which the "five boroughs" statistic above comes from: \_ The amount of CO2 procuded by cars is trivial compared to what industry is pumping out. It's like asking home owners to stop watering their lawns to save water when the farmers are using 98% of the state's water. If you want clean air you'll have to move away from other people and not down wind from industry as well. \- YMWTR the article from which the "five boroughs" \- YMER the article from which the "five boroughs" statistic below comes from: http://www.nysun.com/article/47626 n.b. Edward Glaeser is sort of like Steven Levitt, the Freakonomist, except EG is supposed to be an asshole. He has some interesting writing about house prices coming from regulation ... basically lefty, anti-development people living in million dollar SF/berkeley hills houses keeping up prices for those of us with faces pressed up to the bay window.--psb \_ Why should us homeowners ruin our quality of life so that housing is cheaper for you? You can always either buck it up and save and live in a smaller place for while (like we all did) or move. Or rent. \- that was sort of a tongue in cheek comment about liberal hypocrisy and nimby: i.e. cost of "being green" [or otherwise PC ... fair trade coffee, anti chain store] can be imposed on others. [i spend like <10% on income on rent, which is pretty unusual around here, i think, so i wasnt really speakng about me ... i'm doing ok.] the point was a bit deeper: house prices are not fully explained by demand side... "people are paying crazy amounts" but also constrained supply side. read the paper. cant be summarized in the motd. see also actual econ discussion of prop 13 vs the hype. nobody is analysis of prop 13 vs the spin. nobody is saying you should ruin your quality of life, but the issue is one of public policy, e.g. tax deduction for mortgage interest. \_ The fundamental problem with the article you pointed out is the line: "The great problem with being reflexively anti-growth is that development in America is close to being a zero-sum game. New homes are going to be built to meet the needs of a growing population. If you stop development in some areas, you are ensuring more development elsewhere. A failure to develop New York means more homes on the exurban edges of America." This is simply not true. Driving up housing costs in San Francisco does not simply mean that people move to Tracy: some (most) of them leave the area. And it is disingenious to blame bad planning in Pheonix on the residents of another city. They can build a dense, transit oriented city if they like: there are plenty of smaller, dense cities in Europe. \_ Actually Tracy and the surrounding towns have been booming for years so I don't agree with you there. Why should the people in Phoenix be forced to build the kind of city you want? They have what they have, if people want to live there, then they will. If not, they'll move, as you say. \_ The tax deduction allows more people to own homes and encourages home ownership which is a form of financial security. It also let retired people who had no substantial income from being taxed out of their homes. IYO, was prop 13 a good call or bad? It isn't clear from your postings what your personal feelings are on these issues. --curious \- if you email me, i am willing to discuss this with you. --psb \- if you email me, i will discuss this with you. --psb \- soon maybe america will have a "second class citizen/ foriegn worker class" too like S'pore and Dubai! http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Singapore/ForeignWorker34.jpg \- this is kind of a neat statistic: More than one-third of all the public transportation commuters in America live in the five boroughs. \_ Haven't spent much time in New York or San Francisco, have you? \_ I have. New York is unique. Transit in SF sucks. If you want everyone to live in a place designed like SF with SF quality public transit then no thanks, I'll take the smog and sprawl. \_ I take SF transit back and forth to work everyday and I think it is great. It takes me 25 minutes each way and I get to read the newspaper on the way. I live in the outer reaches of SF and work downtown, btw. outer reaches of SF, am gay, and work downtown, btw. \_ What does being gay have to do with commuting? *shakes head* Anyway, glad that works for you, but if you lived in SF it would take you an hour or two to cross the city to the same job. I used to take BART to work and it was great that work was literally right outside a BART station, but all of SF is not next to a BART station. Travel to or from a non-BART area in SF sucks. \_ I didn't put in the "am gay" part, some "funny" guy must have. I actually have children. I *do* live in SF, perhaps you misread me. I have lived in a couple of places in The City, the worst commute I ever had was 45 minutes each way. Part of the reason I decided to buy where I did is because it is well served by transit. The J Church is half a block away. \_ Are you on the down low? \_ Are you looking for a date or something? |
| 5/23 |
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| www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16876281/from/RS.2 The Driver's Seat Analysts question Bush fuel economy plan Ambitious target would require speedy cooperation with Congress Image: President Bush Larry Downing / AFP - Getty Images In his State of the Union address, President Bush asked for authority to reform the fuel economy program for passenger cars. Profile E-mail For a leader often vilified for his position on the environment, President Bush's new plan to reform fuel economy standards for cars smacks of a president gone "green." In his State of the Union address to Congress last week, Bush asked for authority to reform the fuel economy program for passenger cars. The proposal is part of a broader plan to curb gasoline consumption by 20 percent over the next decade, using a combination of improved mileage and greater dependence on alternative fuels like ethanol. The plan certainly sounds green, but not everyone is convinced. Many environmentalists are skeptical that Congress will enact the legislation needed to raise corporate average fuel economy standards. The Bush administration recently revamped the rules for light trucks, creating a sliding mileage scale that is based on a vehicle's size. Now Bush wants to assign a similar measure to passenger cars. Instead of requiring companies to meet an average standard, fuel economy targets would be assigned model by model depending on aspects like size and weight. The secretary of transportation would ultimately decide on fuel economy standards, Bush said, but to meet the new goal fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks would have to be raised by an estimated 4 percent annually, beginning for passenger cars with the 2010 model year and for light trucks with the 2012 model year. Bush's ambitious targets for improving mileage is welcome, said John DeCicco, senior fellow for automotive strategies at Environmental Defense, a not-for-profit group that focuses on environmental problems. "We certainly praise him elevating the discussion about this issue," DeCicco said. "Our view is that, on the face of it, this target is a very good first step, but further action will be necessary from the White House and Congress, and they'll have to work together to make this work. It's not clear how vigorously both sides will pursue that goal." DeCicco says that without legislation to limit the use of fuels like gasoline with high carbon content, he is skeptical the Bush plan will be implemented. Twenty years ago, similar legislation under President George HW Bush called for a 10 percent reduction in US oil dependency by 2000 and a 30 percent reduction by 2010. "There have been lots of alternative fuel promises and promotions over the years, and in its totality all this activity has not made a measurable dent in US oil consumption," he said. "So while the proposal put forward in the president's speech was good, having piecemeal targets without an overall policy is failing the country and has been for 20 years. If these policies don't result in a binding law, then they'll remain rhetoric." Curbing gas consumption by 20 percent over the next decade would mean a fuel economy standard of 34 miles per gallon by 2017 and could be the "the breakthrough we have been waiting for on fuel economy" said David Friedman, research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a not-for-profit advocacy organization. |
| www.economist.com/cities/briefing.cfm?city_id=PAR News this month AFP AFP Libert, Egalit, Louis Vuitton Interdit Paris authorities are working to prevent the Champs-Elyses, the city's best-known avenue, from becoming an unsavoury shopping strip. But little of this grandeur persists, now that clothing retailers make up 39% of commercial space on the Champs. In December the municipal business committee promised to keep it at that level, to protect cultural outlets such as cinemas and cafs. H&M, a cheap-chic Swedish retailer, had planned to open a EUR50m, 2,800-square-metre store on the avenue, but the committee refused, arguing that yet another clothing outlet would make the Champs Elysees "banal". H&M may try to challenge the decision by appealing to the mayor or a local court. Despite its changes over the years, the Champs remains an important Parisian reference point, punctuated by the Arc de Triomphe. It hosts the annual Bastille Day military parade and the final stretch of the Tour de France. It was once a residential area for some of France's wealthiest, though now only 24 families are believed to call the boulevard home. Some tenants of the Champs, such as the Louis Vuitton flagship and the Fouquet's Barrire hotel, uphold the avenue's reputation for luxury. But ordinary high-street retailers such as Gap, Adidas and Virgin have opened massive stores too, eager for the prestigious address and the crowds--half a million people stroll down the Champs on an average day. Rents have reportedly increased more than four-fold in the past decade, to EUR10,000 per square metre. A new road map Paris is weighing a master plan for to regulate transport in future. City officials are proposing a "plan for urban movements" (plan de dplacements de Paris, or PDP) to promote public transport and reduce car use by 40% by 2020 compared with 2001 levels. Denis Baupin, the deputy mayor in charge of transport, believes the plan could curb greenhouse-gas emissions in Paris by one quarter by 2013. The PDP calls for commuter ferries, the closure of a rapid expressway along the Seine and new traffic lanes reserved for buses, bicycles and fuel-efficient cars. As part of a long approval process, the city council will debate the scheme on February 12th and 13th. Opponents complain that the plan will make it too difficult to store and drive cars in Paris. Reducing pollution and traffic has been a top priority of the mayor, Bertrand Delano. A key part of his plan is a tramway, which was successfully launched in December. The first new tramline serves only the southern rim of the city but it should at some stage join a longer line intended to ring the capital. Trams once criss-crossed Paris, but stopped running in 1935 as cars became more popular. Guilty as charged Among the many measures Paris is considering to manage traffic and pollution in the PDP, one is notably absent: a congestion charge. In November Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, ordered the national transport ministry to consider creating automatic tolls for drivers in Paris and other big French cities. Though congestion charges have been implemented in London, Stockholm, Oslo and Singapore, the idea faces staunch opposition in France. Mr Delano says the charge would anger residents of neighbouring areas, who would have to pay to drive into the city; Jean-Paul Huchon, the president of the Ile-de-France region, agrees. But the congestion charge, still being reviewed by the government, has found favour with the regional agency responsible for transport infrastructure in and around Paris, as well as with the head of transport planning in Lyon. The charge, they say, would encourage car-pooling and the use of buses and subways, and would generate income to pay for better public transport. Helping the homeless The plight of France's homeless has become a key issue in the run-up to April's presidential election. There are an estimated 100,000 homeless in France, according to charities, and some 12m people live in inadequate conditions. Since December protesters have called attention to the housing crisis by settling in tents in high-profile spots, including a stretch along Paris's trendy Canal St-Martin. The conservative government responded by proposing thousands of new emergency-housing spots, and Mr de Villepin announced in January a measure to create a "right to housing" for all French citizens. While helping the homeless has become a cause clbre, one group managed to turn it into a controversial act. For the past few years Solidarity of the French, a far-right group, has run a soup kitchen offering pork soup to Paris's homeless. Critics complain that the organisation chose pork as the main ingredient in order to exclude observant Jews and Muslims, whose dietary restrictions preclude eating pig. On its website, the group stated it would only serve full meals to those who first accepted the soup. The city's police chief to suspend the soup kitchen's operation on December 28th. An administrative tribunal reversed the decision, so Mr Delano urged France's highest court, the Conseil d'Etat, to weigh in. In January the court banned Solidarity of the French from serving meals. |
| www.nysun.com/article/47626 At Walden Pond he became so "suddenly sensible of the sweet and beneficent society in Nature" that "the fancied advantages of human neighborhood" became "insignificant." Lewis Mumford, praised the "parklike setting" of suburbs and denigrated the urban "deterioration of the environment." Millions of Americans proclaimed their love of nature by moving to leafy suburbs while denigrating New Yorkers for living in the most man-made of places. Manhattan's great glazed brick towers seemed worthy of both pity and disdain. Now we know that the suburban environmentalists had it backwards. Manhattan, not suburbia, is the real friend of the environment. Those alleged nature lovers who live on multiacre estates surrounded by trees and lawn consume vast amounts of space and energy. New York's biggest environmental contribution lies in the fact that less than one-third of New Yorkers drive to work. Nationwide, more than seven out of eight commuters drive. The absence of cars leads Matthew Kahn, in his fascinating book, "Green Cities," to estimate that New York has by a wide margin the least gas usage per capita of all American metropolitan areas. Is there any reason beyond civic pride to care that New Yorkers are true friends of the environment? Environmental benefits are one of the many good reasons that New York should grow. Email me if someone replies to my comment Title of Comments: Comments: Send Comment Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable. |