(Source :  Thanks to Robert Puentes @ The Brookings Institution for sharing this article)

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(Source: AP via Yahoo News)

A good Samaritan who helped push three people out of the path of a pickup truck before being struck and injured has gotten a strange reward for his good deed: A jaywalking ticket.

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(Source:  MSNBC)

 An overwhelming majority of Americans believe restoring existing roads and bridges and expanding transportation options should take precedence over building new roads, according to a survey sponsored by the National Association of Realtors® and Transportation for America.

The 2009 Growth and Transportation Surveydescribes what Americans think about how their communities are handling development and how the transportation needs of communities can best be met.

“Realtors® build communities and know how important an organized transportation structure is in supporting neighborhood growth,” said NAR President Charles McMillan, a broker with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Dallas-Fort Worth. “A well planned investment in transportation will help create more livable and vibrant communities.”

To accommodate future U.S. population growth, which is expected to increase by 100 million by 2050, Americans favor improving intercity rail and transit, walking and biking over building new highways. When asked what the federal government’s top priority should be for 2009 transportation funding, half of all respondents recommended maintaining and repairing roads and bridges, while nearly one third said “expanding and improving bus, rail, and other public transportation.” Only 16 percent said “expanding and improving roads, highways, freeways and bridges.”

(Source: BusinessWeek)

Economic difficulty can inspire extraordinary innovation. We asked futurists what they’d like to see arise from these difficult times

“History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas.” As President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Feb. 24, he took a moment to look back, pointing to the innovations that have arisen from times of difficulty: the railroad tracks, laid across the country in the midst of the civil war; the public high school system that emerged from the Industrial Revolution; the GI Bill that sent a generation to college. Obama’s theme was clear: Times ofeconomic difficulty can inspire extraordinary innovation. And now, even as the markets continue their roller-coaster ride, he described a time “to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation and punishes shortcuts and abuse.”

Of course, longed-for innovations don’t always make it to the market. Radically new ideas fortransportation were on most of the futurists’ wish lists, but the chances of a high-speed cross-country train within the U.S. still seem slim (we’re also still waiting on that flying car). But, as vehicle sharing and trackable, more reliable, and eco-powered buses gain popularity, chances are that better urban transit will become a reality.

(Source: Planetizen)

(Source: TreeHugger)

(Source: TreeHugger)

Photo: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president of Argentina, holds a bike while presenting a plan to boost sales of these vehicles. Credit: Argentine presidency press service.

The Argentine government launched yesterday a plan to boost bicycles sales that expects to sell 200 thousand bikes.

Aimed at people with low resources, it will allow them to get a bike for a monthly payment of just 16 pesos, which is about 5 US dollars. In exchange, they will have to turn their old bikes in as part of payment.

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(Source:  CondeNast Portfolio.com)

Turbo-prop planes and regional jets are a crucial part of the airlines’ route strategies and are often the only way a business traveler can easily get to a destination, but road warriors hate flying them.

“I HATE THOSE TINY OLD RJS,” one otherwise rational business traveler I know shouted in his email. “NOBODY SHOULD FLY THEM. THEY’RE NOT SAFE.”

No matter that the aircraft involved in Flight 3407’s fiery end six miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport was not an “RJ,” industry shorthand for regional jet. (It was a Q400, a twin-engine turboprop plane manufactured by Bombardier of Canada.) No matter that the 74-seat Q400 isn’t particularly tiny. (At 107 feet long with a 93-foot wingspan, it is about the size of several early versions of Boeing’s workhorse B737 jet and 20 feet longer than Bombardier’s 50-seat regional jet.) And no matter that the Q400 isn’t old. (The Q400 series didn’t enter service until 2000 and the plane that crashed in Buffalo was less than a year old.)

Safe? That is most definitely in the eye of the beholder—and most business travelers eye commuter airlines with extreme trepidation. They don’t like flying them. They don’t like that the commuter lines wrap themselves in the colors and livery of the major airlines. And they are convinced, rightly or wrongly, that commuter carriers simply aren’t as safe as the major airlines they mimic.

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(Source: Austrian Times)

New research has shown that Austrian drivers cover 194 million kilometres in their cars every day.

The Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ) reported the figures today (Weds). It added that Austria’s 4.28 million registered cars carried an average of 1.3 occupants each day and emitted 28,000 tonnes of CO2, consuming 11.2 million litres of fuel daily.

VCÖ official Martin Blum reminded the public about the consequences of taking excessively-short car trips.

One in every 10 car trips, he said, covered a distance of less than one kilometre. “Fuel consumption is extremely high over the first kilometre. Consumption over the first kilometre averages the same as consumption of 20-to-25 litres of fuel over 100 kilometres. A breakfast roll obtained by a car trip to a bakery is very expensive,” he added.

Austrian churches are trying to lower the cost of travel by car by encouraging Austrians to engage in less of it during Lent, which begins today.

Austria’s Roman Catholic and Evangelical Churches are calling on Austrians to drive less during Lent, which lasts from 25 February to 11 April this year.

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