Wednesday May 07, 2008 at 14:46
I’ve been thinking my tumblr has been a bit too text heavy lately and my SO, Jessie Gladin-Kramer, is an amazing photographer, so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone (not that I’d ever actually kill a bird) by posting some of her urban photographs here.
Monday May 05, 2008 at 17:53
“The irony is with the gas prices what they are, we should be expanding rail service.”
—
Barack Obama
During an informal lunch. Read more of the conversation at Gristmill
Monday May 05, 2008 at 16:54
“Companies are big on breaking the car addiction because doing so raises productivity, amps morale, and delivers much lusted-after green cred.”
—
Suddenly it’s cool to take the bus, Business Week
Looks like Business Week did an entire issue on how the price of oil may change and has changed the way we live. Check out the articles on how the price of gas might effect our car culture, and where we live.
The above quote is from an article on the increase use of employer sponsored transit systems with every increase in the cost of gas. For the short time that I dealt with an hour commute each way by car, I always felt completely drained by the time I got home. I quickly decided that the extra cost of rent in the city was well worth my time and sanity, but it’s interesting to see that some businesses went to the trouble of quantifying that happiness.
Sunday May 04, 2008 at 16:42
“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.
Friday May 02, 2008 at 15:17
"Score one for the cyclist"
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.
Thursday May 01, 2008 at 22:38
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.
matt.dudek (at) gmail.com
Thursday May 01, 2008 at 15:07
“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.
Thursday May 01, 2008 at 12:52
Gas to hit $7/gallon by 2012 . . .
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.
Read the article, it’s well worth it.
Thursday May 01, 2008 at 11:49
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.
Obama’s new campaign commercial: The Truth about Gas Prices
This post was reblogged from Marco.org Tumblelog.
Tuesday April 29, 2008 at 22:39
“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…”
—
Lewis Mumford, The City in History (1961)
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.
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