(Source: DNA Info. via Huffington Post)
What happens when two competing ice cream vendors are fighting over a prized parking spot in New York City? The video shows how things got ugly between two vendors who sell ice creams…
(Source: via Irish Times, NY Times, Guardian, UK)
On July 18th, Germany shut down its busiest Autobahn for celebrating life – appropriately titled “Still-Life A40”. The “Still Life” festival on Sunday in the Ruhr region in western Germany offered some surreal images and video footage of the autobahn without cars and overrun with pedestrians.
A 37-mile stretch of Germany’s famous highway system, between Dortmund and Duisburg, was closed to motor vehicles for the street festival and replaced by a line of 20,000 tables, reports The Guardian. Around three million people attended the event.
The ambitious aim of “Still Life” was to change negative attitudes in Germany towards the Ruhr, a region known for the last six decades as the capital of smokestacks, steel mills, and soot.
Some five million people live in this urban sprawl of cities, where Duisburg runs into Essen into Bochum and on to Dortmund. Yesterday more than two million locals – every second resident – flooded the A40 expressway for this highlight of the 2010 European Capital of Culture in Essen and its Ruhr sister cities.
For one day the Ruhr was connected up with 20,000 tables and as many mini-parties from bowling clubs alongside school groups, scout troops and theatre troupes. A friendly festival on the otherwise hostile, anonymous Autobahn.
For kilometre after kilometre, the party kept on rolling. Strangers salsa danced in the sun near Duisburg and 100 newly wed brides in their gleaming white wedding dresses handed out red roses near Essen.
Television pictures from the air showed crowds milling around on a road where cars usually race along at speeds of 160 kph (100 mph) or more.
One lane of the autobahn, which crosses North Rhine-Westphalia state, was kept free for skaters and cyclists – and more than one million revellers brought bicycles, including the state premier, Hannelore Kraft.
There are no general speed limits on Germany’s autobahns. Cars often speed up to 200km per hour (125mph) or more. In dense or dangerous areas, drivers are often required to slow down to 120 km per hour (75mph).
Transportgooru Musings: I wonder what is the total fuel savings from this shut down? Does anyone have any idea of potential savings resulting from this event (fuel savings, CO2 Emissions reduction, etc). Oh well, beyond the economic/monetary benefits, it is always wonderful to see the community getting a chance to explore their own infrastructure by foot and bicycle. I dream of a day our Washington,DC’s infamous beltway shuts down once a year for a festivity like this, bringing together communities for a get together that celebrates the diversity of the region. It would be nothing but a MASSIVE hit and I’m sure my fellow American citizens would definitely celebrate this. After all, the Americans know how to throw a party, better than anyone on earth.
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(Source: WSJ)
How do you deliver rail safety message to the General public in the age of twitter and YouTube. Here is one such effort and it’s called Gap Rap (Warning: Geeky & Corny Video and Lyrics).
The music video, which premiered online Thursday, features LIRR Medical Director John Clarke — an army of fifth graders from Long Beach accompanying him as backup dancers — giving safety tips to railroad riders from Times Square, trains and LIRR stations. Here it is:
Dr. Clarke has a history of public-service raps. He’s taken on psoriasis (“No one knows the cause or why is brings drama”) and H1N1 (“If you have it stay at home so you don’t spread none”). The effectiveness of this effort is definitely worth watching in the months to come.
(Transportgooru’s Review: A full 10/10 for the thought to promote safety; 0/10 for the execution. Summary: Doc, please spend a couple of $$ and find some pros can can really deliver and pls. stick to what you know best – medicine).
According to an article on Daily Telegraph , the quirky CEO – Michael O’Leary was quoted saying that charging customers £1 to make use of facilities on board the planes would encourage travelers on one hour flights to use lavatories at the airport instead of on the aircraft.
The Irishman said he intended to introduce coin-operated loos and added: “The other change we’ve been looking at is taking out the last 10 rows of seats so we will have 15 rows of seats and the equivalent of 10 rows of standing area.”
A Ryanair spokesman said that Boeing had been consulted over refitting the fleet with “vertical seats” which would allow passengers to be strapped in while standing up, which would cost between £4 and £8 per person.
USA Today points to Megan Lane of the BBC, who describes Ryanair’s O’Leary as being “fond of speculating publicly about outlandish money-saving schemes.” And she’s quick to point out this is “not the first time the airline has floated the standing seats idea, or indeed come up with headline grabbing schemes which fail to materialise.” She cites Ryanair’s proposed “fat tax” for obese passengers and the carrier’s still-to-materialize pay-toilet plan as examples.
The USA Today article also got this – A spokesman with the Cologne-based European Aviation Safety Agency tells the London Daily Mailthat “what they [Ryanair] are proposing would be unprecedented and highly unlikely to be certified in the near future. Stand-up seating would require changes to European rules for the certification of aircraft.
Transportgooru Musings: As you can see below, this announcement has generated quite bit of a publicity buzz around the world and worked like a charm for O’Leary, as always! But please – do not charge for toilets. It is one last thing we flyers don’t need to worry about paying for when planning our trip budgets. How would I be even include this as part of my expense report when I return from a Business trip to UK?
Date: Saturday, June 12, 2010
Time: 3:30PM – 8:30PM
Location: Hillwood Museum, Estates and Garden
Image Courtesy: http://seersuckersocial.eventbrite.com/
The Seersucker Social, scheduled for Saturday June 12, is set to offer another delightful, unique and alternative entertainment experience by encouraging folks once again to mount their bicycles in high style. While the fall event called for tweed, seersucker has been selected as the ideal vintage fabric of choice to keep cool for the spring ride. Our event partner Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens will provide a fabulous dreamlike setting for the post-ride social.
A $20.00 event ticket will allow participants access to post-ride activities that include admission to the museum, picnicking, lawn games such as croquet and badminton as well as live music to complement the setting and atmosphere. The mansion and all of the estate gardens will be open for tours and other special activities until 8:30pm.
Small plates of delicious food and springtime treats will be made available to all guests by sponsoring restaurants. Beer, wine and a few specialty retro cocktails will help guests relax and enjoy the spectacular setting.
While the ride is free, attendance and registration for the post-ride lawn party is limited. Online registration is encouraged. A limited number of early registrations will be discounted to $15.00 and will be available through select blogs and ticketing venues.
The ride is free for everyone, but you’ll need to register so you can receive the ride course by email. Also registered riders are eligible for prizes and giveaways! You do need to purchase a ticket for the post-ride social. Ticket holders will receive THREE drink tickets (beer/wine/cocktail/juices), wrist band for event access to all games, treats and entertainment. No tickets will be sold at the door and no additional drink tickets will be sold at the event. (Children aged 10 and under with a paid adult receive free wristbands!)
As with every event, Dandies and Quaintrelles seeks to build a healthy sense of community through retro-forward entertainment concepts infused with style and charitable good will. A percentage of proceeds from the Dandies and Quaintrelles’ post-ride social will benefit a local arts-related and service-oriented nonprofit.
Register for the event!!! http://seersuckersocial.eventbrite.com/
Don’t forget to check out the event’s Facebook page here, which already shows 280 confirmed guests. Sounds like a lot of people and a ton of fun!! Hurry up and register!
(Source: Washington Post)
Necessity is the mother of all inventions. Many of the world’s top innovative tools and applications, right from electricity to our modern computers, were all bron out of our existential necessities. The following story by Stephanie McCrummen brings to you another such invention that is not the best form of transportation around, but in a country that is shattered by years of a civil war and grinding poverty, it is very effective in getting the job done – moving people and goods, while enabling income generation for some of the poorest people in this world.
Today’s Washington Post Foreign Service featured this story of Chukudu, a pre-industrial looking local transporter, prevalent in Congo. Here is an excerpt of this story:
African cities often have forms of transport that reflect some facet of their character. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, tiny, blue, Soviet-made Ladas buzz along the wide avenues, mementos of the country’s Cold War alliance. In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, a corrupt syndicate runs a fleet of banged-up minibuses with names such as Dreams, Bombastic, Mayhem and I Feel Nothing, which weave a spirited, at times nihilistic, narrative through the traffic.
In the towns and villages of war-ravaged eastern Congo, the lumpy, lava-covered roads belong to the humble chukudu: hand-hewn wooden scooters that men ride and push across the hills, hauling towering loads of charcoal, cabbage, potatoes and other stuff of daily life.
Though the chukudus look pre-industrial, local residents say they date from the 1970s, when Congo’s economy and government began to collapse under the rule of then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and people had to improvise services from schools to heavy transport.
Available in three models — small, medium and large — the chukudu is a marvel of practical engineering and endurance. It has become the donkey of eastern Congo — a beast of burden that hauls vegetables in the good times and fleeing people in the bad. Purely utilitarian, chukudus are rarely painted or personalized. The most common flourishes are mudflaps for their wooden wheels. And unlike the minibuses of Nairobi, chukudus rarely inspire nicknames.
Here is the best part – Economics: Ndayambaje, 27, said he could expect a decent 5,000 Congolese francs, or about $5, for this trip, which is $5 more than he would have if it weren’t for his chukudu.
“If you have a chukudu,” he said, “you can’t starve.”
And you don’t need a license to drive one of these. It will be interesting if someone can conduct a study on the economic impact of this transporter and possibly include some safety statistics to go along with in that evaluation. You can bet your life that it has to be one of the best cost effective forms of transportation modes around, with a cost-benefit ratio that you cannot beat, ever. Above all, the Chukudus are super eco-friendly, can be rated zero-emission vehicle right off the bat and people stay fit riding/pushing them around. Anyways, click here to read the rest of this interesting article.
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How do you drop ~$2m worth in a pond of water in a jiffy? This is how they do it (at least one man did it successfully) in Texas. Read along this twisted version of a Pelican Brief style thriller ( though no murder of human beings involved, it involves a very expensive & rare automobile)..
A man blamed a low-flying pelican and a dropped cell phone for his veering his million-dollar sports car off a road and into a salt marsh near Galveston. The accident happened about 3 p.m. Wednesday on the frontage road of Interstate 45 northbound in La Marque, about 35 miles southeast of Houston.
The Lufkin, Texas, man told of driving his luxury, French-built Bugatti Veyron when the bird distracted him, said La Marque police Lt. Greg Gilchrist. The motorist dropped his cell phone, reached to pick it up and veered off the road and into the salt marsh. The car was half-submerged in the brine about 20 feet from the road when police arrived.
The story reported by Chris Paschenko @ The Galveston County Daily News has some interesting details. The man was uninjured after escaping the partially submerged Bugatti Veyron as it came to rest in about 2 feet of saltwater. The man, who refused to give his name, was looking at real estate in Galveston.
About 3 p.m. a low-flying pelican distracted him as he traveled north on Interstate 45 just south of the hurricane levee near Omega Bay. The man jerked the wheel, dropped his cell phone, and the car’s front tire left the frontage road and entered a muddy patch, which foiled his attempt to maneuver away from the lagoon. Chris’ report says Veyron’s powerful engine gurgled like an outboard motor for about 15 minutes before it died.
(Soureces: AP Via Google; The Galveston County Daily News; The Inquisitr)
(Source: Mashable)
This astonishing video of a Russian forklift driver who smashes until shelves of Cognac and Vodka, and subsequently destroys a huge portion of the Moscow warehouse.
The driver of the forklift lost control, slammed into stock shelves, and seconds later was covered in bottles of alcohol. The driver is said to be okay with a minor leg injury, but the warehouse is looking at over $100,000 in damages.
