headers
Richard Risemberg | 1 Aug 2000 01:19
Picon
Favicon

Re: Re: Hiyaz -- *Carfree*Cities* Review

At 7/31/00 14:45:00, you wrote:
>
>In the interest of advancing the cause, would everyone please consider 
>which publications in your corner of the planet might publish reviews like 
>Jason's? I'll bet that, if asked nicely...
>
> -Doug
Jason, and any others, interested in reviewing books on city living generally and urban ecology
specifically may contact me in my guise as webmaster/co-editor of the New Colonist
(http://www.newcolonist.com) at 
rickrise@... No pay, yet, but....

We are also looking tocross-link with urban life/urban ecology web pubs generally.

Richard

--
Richard Risemberg
rickrise@...
Editor, Living Room Urban Ecology Web Magazine (http://www.living-room.org)
Editor, The New Colonist (http://www.newcolonist.com)
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Richard Risemberg | 1 Aug 2000 01:37
Picon
Favicon

August issue of The New Colonist

The August 2000 issue of The New Colonist is online and available at 
http://www.newcolonist.com. This month's featured city is
Pittsburgh, 
with six articles covering everything from gentrification to haunted 
houses, and other features such as:

Renaissance Neighborhoods,
Subsidy-Switching (a brief examination of transport subsidy),
Rough Road (a humorist's view of autophilia), and
August's "Citysongs," featuring Galveston, Texas.

Plus cityguides, surveys, and archived articles. SEe it all at 
http://www.newcolonist.com

Thank you,

Richard Risemberg
Webmaster/Co-editor
The New Colonist
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Ronald Dawson | 1 Aug 2000 03:18
Picon

RE: progress in Portland

Craig Bollen wrote:
>Karen Sandness wrote "Ted Piccolo ran for city council on an
>anti-rail platform and lost."
>Thank God he lost. Can you image what kind of damage he would have done
>to Portland. It seems most of our city commissioners actually "get it"
>here in Portland. Charlie Hales has been aggressively pushing for
>expanding the streetcar lines and limiting car access to neighborhoods.
>I had the opportunity to do a question and answer with him for a
>transportation class I was taking. A few things he mentioned Could push
>any progress Portland makes backward and they all have to do with the
>direction people outside Portland are going. He pretty much stated that
>Portland will probably end up an island of sanity surrounded by a sea of
>suburban auto-insanity.

Your right that Portland has made progress, but there is still room for
improvement. I would like to see the return of "Interurban" type service.
For example part Portland's Westside MAX line is on a former "Interurban"
ROW.
Extra revenue could be generated by pulling the occasional freight car.
http://trams.bc.ca/1207.html
http://www.kcpl.lib.mo.us/sc/post/transportation/20000120.htm
http://www.trainweb.org/oerhs/history/oerwy.htm
To me an interurban lies some where between a tram and a train, and a LRV
lies some where between an tram and a interurban.	Dawson
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Ronald Dawson | 1 Aug 2000 08:45
Picon

FW: Montrain: One funky photo!

I'm sorry that I didn't send this in earlier. Dawson

>Shanake Seneviratne wrote:
>What a great idea! Now the Deux Montagnes line can have it's own Riverain!

>Shanake

>Ronald Dawson wrote:
>>Here is an idea of what the STCUM could do with those Fish Bowls. Dawson
>>http://www.ceraonline.org/firemuseum/images/RailBus.jpg
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Simon Baddeley | 1 Aug 2000 10:40
Picon
Picon

Re: Hiyaz -- *Carfree*Cities* Review

I shall be doing a long review of Joel Crawford's book for local Government
Studies, the journal of the Institute of Local Government Studies, School of
Public Policy, University of Birmingham, UK - but probably this won't appear
until the Autumn. Joel's book is my main summer vacation reading.

Simon Baddeley
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Simon Baddeley | 1 Aug 2000 12:54
Picon
Picon

Re: [boycott_the_pumps] August 1st

Sir

What a shameful expression of human selfishness the boycott the pumps policy
is. I'm a motorist - at times - but I wouldn't begin to suggest that the
Government is putting up petrol prices just to squeeze more money from me.
As a citizen I know that fuel tax rises are an essential part of policy to
tackle climate change, which regardless of its effects on me, represents the
gravest environmental threat facing the world and my children and
grandchildren (the BTP lobby wouldn't know and certainly don't care about
that to read the selfish abusive material they have been posting
on the Internet and writing to the papers.)

Road transport as is the second fastest growing British source of carbon
dioxide (CO2), the main climate change gas (DETR: Draft UK Climate Change
Strategy). Higher fuel taxes, together with tax incentives to buy more fuel
efficient cars, could if the government has the courage to maintain them,
deliver nearly a quarter of the Government's forecast reduction in CO2
emissions.

Nor is it just tax rises that push up petrol prices since the price of
petrol is affected by other factors, such as the price of crude oil, which
is determined by the OPEC countries. This has gone up substantially in
recent months. However the price of crude oil has just dropped, which could
lead to petrol price cuts if oil companies pass on the savings to customers.

Drivers do not pay over the odds. In fact the reason I am writing to my MP
asking him to ensure that fuel taxes are not reduced is because motorists
pay nothing like the real cost of their motoring. Research has estimated the
total cost of road transport to the environment at £42 billion per year
(Maddison et al Blueprint for a Green Economy (1996). This compares with tax
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Jym Dyer | 1 Aug 2000 17:53
Gravatar

"Dump the Pump:" Brits Who Are As Stupid As Americans

=v= Last year, motorists in the United States staged the
stupidest protest ever: The Great American GAS-OUT. The idea
was not to buy gasoline on a certain day. Just buy extra the
day before, or the day after. Newsflash: it had no effect.

=v= Today there's a UK version: "Dump the Pump." It's just as
stupid and pointless as the US version.
<_Jym_≥

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7656

| Organisers do not expect motorists to buy less petrol --
| drivers can fill up on any other day -- but they want empty
| filling stations to send a powerful signal.
| ...
| Organisers have mounted a slick campaign complete with a
| website at boycott-the-pumps.com. That links to another site
| -- petrolbusters.com -- which allows consumers to compare
| prices at service stations in their local area.
| ...
| But the environmental group Friends of the Earth called the
| campaign a "cynical stunt by the most backward bits of the
| road lobby, prodded by populist papers and opportunist Tory
| politicians". Fuel tax was an essential tool to fight
| environmental damage, it said, noting government figures
| showing the cost of driving a car had not changed in real
| terms in 25 years while train fares had risen by 53 percent
| and bus fares by 87 percent.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Craig Bollen | 1 Aug 2000 18:19

Progress in Portland

Martha wrote "Limiting car access to neighborhoods sounds daring. What
did Hales mean
-- no through traffic, harshly enforced speed limits?"

I think he was talking traffic calming. The city of Portland is very
high on Design as a deterrent to speed and car access. There are some
good (and bad) examples of this all over Portland. The idea is to make
it difficult to drive fast in residential area's. The thing about
"limiting car access" that scares a lot of people is that its one step
away from a gated "community" which the city does NOT want, they have to
walk a fine line.

As for the Streetcars. The first line is suppose to be up and running
next summer. Its 2 miles long and runs through 3 different
neighborhoods. Its not up and running yet and the city is already
talking about the next extension. If this line is a success the long
range plans are to put lines along some of the old routes around the
city. Hales has his sights on Mayor in 2004, If he gets in I'm sure we
will have lines going again throughout the city connecting basic
institutions. I think once we have a system that actually gets people
promptly to where they want to go when they want to go then we can start
a dialog about eliminating cars completely from neighborhoods that agree
to.

Craig
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Michael Schramm | 1 Aug 2000 20:51

Highway development in Ft. Worth

Thought I'd pass on an observation I've made since moving to this area
of the "metroplex" from Dallas County. In Ft. Worth we are witness to
a monumental expansion of major highways only a short distance from
the downtown area--an eyesore beyond compare. When complete, I
believe the construction will only serve to evoke a textbook example
of how "ribbons of asphalt" in close proximity to a pedestrian based
zone will ultimately disembowel the core of a city. Streets that are
currently low speed areas of congregation will, just like Dallas,
become pedestrian-free thoroughfares. 

The citizens of Ft. Worth view their city as set apart from its
arch-rival Dallas. The stark reality, though, is that city council's
philosophy is to compete with Dallas (at least in transit
infrastructure) in kind, rather learning from past mistakes and
adopting rational solutions. Perhaps Ft. Worth will one day hastily
incorporate light rail as Dallas did in that age old manner of
stemming a tidal wave with a couple of sandbags. 

It would be interesting to take photographs of the area at regular
intervals to capture the horrid evolution in mobility/liveability in
store for Ft. Worth--would make for solid dramatization in a book
along the lines of "Car-Free Cities". 

Michael Schramm
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Todd J. Binkley | 1 Aug 2000 20:50

older drivers dying

The danger to old folks who drive or merely RIDE in cars, is beginning
to get more attention:

Auto Makers Retool to Fit an Aging U.S.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20000731/t000071754.html
(This link is only good for seven days. If you would like the whole
article after August 6th, just ask...I've saved it.)

Some exerpts:

Deaths of Older Drivers May Double
The number of licensed drivers age 70 or older is expected to increase
more than 60%, to about 31 million, by 2020. In the same period, some
analysts project that deaths among drivers 65 and older will double,
from an estimated 5,232 this year to an estimated 10,363 in 2020. Auto
crashes already are the most common reason, exceeding even falls, for
elderly people to be transported to trauma centers...

...(Dr.) Wang became interested in elderly crash victims because they
were turning up in growing numbers in his intensive care unit at the
University of Michigan hospital. "As a trauma surgeon, I was just seeing
so many of these patients coming in--and they were very challenging to
take care of."...

...Analyzing the cases, they found that drivers and passengers age 60
and older were more than twice as likely to be killed in accidents as
other adults. Even in moderate crashes, the elderly were in greater
danger of being seriously injured or killed...

..."A rib fracture in a younger adult hurts like heck, and you can't
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 9 comments |

Gmane