transportation
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Adorable video defends public transportation
Here's a sweet 30-second plea for the improvement of the public transportation used by 35 million Americans every day. Because there should be many tens or hundreds of millions more of them, but at the rate we’re going now, that’s not looking likely. Eighty-four percent of transit systems have raised rates or cut service. Is […]
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High-speed rail that never was: 1910 proposal for S.F. to L.A. in four hours
If you think high-speed rail is some kind of newfangled obsession of liberal elites who would rather not sit in traffic behind SUVs covered in bumper stickers announcing loyalty to their ideological foes, you're only partly right. As early as 1910, inventor Fletcher E. Felts proposed an elevated, high speed railway system to connect Oakland […]
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Why cities should destroy their highways
America has a huge transportation infrastructure deficit, which means lots of our highways are due to be rebuilt. But according to Next American City editor at large Diana Lind, we'd be better off simply knocking them down, especially the ones that blight our cities. It's been done before, reports Andrew Nusca at SmartPlanet: After the […]
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Critical List: Climate change officially caused an extreme weather event; climate denier smackdown
Climate change caused the Russian heat wave, according to statistics and science (if you believe that sort of thing). Nebraska could reroute the Keystone XL pipeline. Eugene Robinson smacks down climate deniers. Money quote: "It is the know-nothing politicians — not scientists — who are committing an unforgivable fraud." This German transportation system is a […]
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A day in the life of John Q. Public and his electric car
Kevin Day is just some dude who bought a Nissan Leaf and is kinda in love with it. Even with a daily 30-mile commute, he only has to charge it once every three days; he appreciates its fast pickup and ultra-quiet ride; and it saves him about $100 a month in gas. (As one commenter […]
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Stopping bad things and starting good ones
On Moving Planet Day, Sept. 24, people around the world will get on bikes, skateboards, and their own two feet to put fossil fuels in the rearview mirror.
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Gigantic flywheels recover, recycle subway trains' energy
If subway stations could harvest the energy of incoming trains as they hit their brakes, they could re-use that same energy to launch the same train as it leaves the station. That's the idea behind Vycon flywheels, which are gigantic spinning wheels that act as temporary energy storage mechanisms.
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Republicans risk $1 billion in revenue to squash a trickle of funding for biking and walking
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is threatening to hold up the passage of the transportation bill over a tiny portion of its funding, which (of course!) happens to be the portion dedicated to forms of transportation other than cars and highways. Streetsblog explains what's at stake here:
Sen. Coburn, and possibly other members of Congress, are declaring their willingness to throw the entire transportation industry, as well as commuters, under the bus while they quibble about the pennies spent on bike paths. According to the White House, if the bill is delayed just 10 days, the country would lose over $1 billion in transportation funding — “money we can never get back.”
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Could ammonia be the zero-carbon fuel we've been waiting for?
Ammonia would make a pretty handy, potentially carbon-free liquid transportation fuel, say engineers, and it could be produced right at gas stations using electricity from the grid, water, and air.