How expensive is your parking karma – San Francisco Rolls Out Supply-and-Demand Pricing for Parking Meters

August 11, 2010 at 2:01 pm

Gone are the ancient days of stodgy parking meters that ate coins and often malfunctioned. These days parking meters are getting some hi-tech love from Transportation Managers around many U.S.cities.

Apart from San Francisco, many U.S. cities are currently testing and trying out new methods to allow people to find and pay for parking. One among them is Washington, DC, which is now testing out a pilot program that allows for paying for parking via cellphones.

If that is not enough, hi-tech companies like Google are helping people land some good parking karma. Google’s Open Spot application for its Android-powered phones (running OS version 2.0 or higher) lets you know where people are leaving their parking spots.

At the end of the day, the general public should be feeling happy to know there have some help on the way to locate and pay for the much-vaunted parking spots in the busy downtown neighborhoods.

Amplify’d from www.good.is

To reduce congestion, San Francisco is aiming to have one spot open at all times on every block. Here’s how the plan works: A network of wireless sensors lets the city keep track of which parking spots are empty. If a particular block never has available spots, the city raises the meter rates until it does. In places where parking is plentiful, rates fall. As an added bonus, this information-age system lets residents check the rates and availability of parking online before deciding to drive.

The system is expected to increase revenue from parking meters, but decrease revenue from traffic tickets. How this will balance out for the city budget is unclear. Also unclear: Just how high the prices will go. Will there be $10 per hour parking?

Read more at www.good.is

 

Government subsidies for fossil fuels around the world just plain blow out renewable energy subsidies 10:1

August 10, 2010 at 11:01 pm

Removing these subsidies should make automobile travel fairly expensive (plus adding the carbon taxes would make it even worse) and will enable a proper “apples-to-apples” comparison of all modes of transportation. It will be interesting to see how the arguments of high-speed rail will start to look more appealing.

Amplify’d from green.autoblog.com
The Guardian recently reported that Bloomberg New Energy Finance has issued a report that found government subsidies for fossil fuels around the world just plain blow out renewable energy subsidies ten-to-one. Yes, for every dollar the auto execs don’t want spent on plug-in vehicles, there are more than ten bucks given to keep the gas and oil companies in the crude black. The report found that governments spent somewere between $43 and $46 billion on renewable energy and biofuel industries in 2009. By comparison, governments gave $557 billion to the fossil fuel industry in 2008.Read more at green.autoblog.com
 

In Detroit, it’ll cost you $40/month to power your new plug-in car

August 10, 2010 at 10:42 pm

For Detroit residents who get power from DTE, the Michigan Public Service Commission announced this week that it has approved the state’s first experimental rate for residential customers to recharge their electric vehicles.

Amplify’d from green.autoblog.com
DTE will offer two rates, a low, off-peak rate to charge plug-in vehicles overnight or a monthly flat rate of $40 per vehicle (how will they identify a single vehicle, though?). Also, DTE will pay up to $2,500 for customers to get a “separately metered circuit with a charging station” installed or just pay for a station’s installation. MPSC approved the rate to let DTE see how plug-in vehicles will impact its grid. The experimental rate goes through the end of 2012 and will be available to the first 2,500 customers who sign up.
Read more at green.autoblog.com
 

Maryland Teen Carjackers Back Ford Escape Over Cop Car In Failed Escape

August 10, 2010 at 5:30 pm

Stupid. Plain stupid ..Well, you may ask how did this end: No serious injuries in either vehicle, and two 17-year-olds were charged with several crimes, including marijuana possession. STUPID! PLAIN STUPID!

SOLID PROOF – Driving Makes You FAT!

August 10, 2010 at 3:08 pm

Yet another awesome info.graphic from our friends at GOOD.. This site keeps getting better and better with their info. graphics.. This info.graphic below looks at how people get to work in various states, alongside those states’ obesity rates. It is strikingly obvious, at least from this graphic, that driving plays a big part in the obesity factor. It will be great if someone can do a similar thing with commuting habits and healthcare spending (a larger subset of the Obesity epidemic)

Amplify’d from www.good.is
 

GOOD stuff: High Gas Prices Mean More Bike Sales

August 10, 2010 at 2:57 pm

Nice work, again, by our awesome folks at GOOD magazine.. This is probably the most direct correlation between gas prices & bike sales I’ve seen in a long time.. In a 2008 survey, 95 percent of bike store owners said customers cited high gas prices as a reason for their bike-related purchases

Amplify’d from www.good.is
 

Trying to answer an age old question – Why do Washingtonians hate on Metro?

August 10, 2010 at 2:34 pm

Whatever be the reason, the fact is that most folks who ride the system are so bitter about its performance and the Agency has not done much to address the issues that are behind this bitterness.

What’s the root of DC’s hatred for Metro?

So many people use (transit) here that there are a whole lot more opportunities to hear from people that don’t like it. In Cleveland, the same types of professionals who get frustrated with ‘hot cars’ and delayed trains and rude station managers (in Washington) simply aren’t using public transit.

He makes a good point, that transit is an integrated part Washington’s culture in a way that it is not in other cities, but that’s only half the answer. The other half is that Metro just isn’t as good as it used to be, simply because it’s aging, and many of us remember when it was new and perfect.

Metro is only about a generation old. It was planned and built since most of its riders have been alive, and for its first couple of decades, nothing went wrong. The maintenance and safety problems that have plagued Metro this decade are for the most part new events, consequences of an aging system that we simply didn’t have to deal with until recently.

Read more at greatergreaterwashington.org

 

Safety vs. Freedom – Scrutiny of older drivers may cut deaths but loss of independence can be painful

August 10, 2010 at 1:46 pm

This issue remains at the center of many debates over the decades and simply not going away anytime soon unless we develop technologies that can automate the transportation systems where human input will be minimal to none.

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

Ginzler and other geriatrics experts predict that the issue will explode in the next decade as the leading edge of the 78 million-member baby boom generation hits its 70s. In 2008, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 78 percent of the 28 million Americans older than 70 had licenses, up from 73 percent in 1997, an upward trend that is expected to continue.

Because more Americans are living longer with progressive, disabling diseases that make driving iffy or downright dangerous — heart problems, stroke, Parkinson’s, dementia and diabetes, to name a few — families are increasingly wrestling with questions that defy easy answers. Although many seniors stop driving voluntarily or sharply limit their driving, others refuse. Some fear being marooned in their suburban homes, while others, like my father, cling tenaciously to the independence a car represents, unaware of how hazardous their driving has become. A survey by the MIT AgeLab and the Hartford insurance company found that age enhances confidence in driving ability. Drivers 75 and older were twice as likely to say they planned to drive into their 90s as did those 65 to 74.

Such confidence can belie reality. A 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office found that drivers 75 and older were more likely than drivers in all other age groups, including adolescents, to be involved in a fatal crash.

Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

 

McNugget Mayhem! Girl goes ballistic at McDonalds Drive Thru Demanding McNuggets… at 6:30AM!!!

August 10, 2010 at 11:54 am

Wow! Never knew some people can get really serious about their McNuggets craving in the morning. All these years, I’ve come across people behaving badly when they are not caffeinated adequately in the morning but this is the first for me to see someone going berserk for McNuggets. I bet too much partying on New Year’s eve is to be blamed for this behavior.

Amplify’d from jalopnik.com
Melodi Dushane, 25, pulled up to a Toledo-area McDonald’s at 6:30 a.m. on New Year’s Day demanding McNuggets.Read more at jalopnik.com
 

Mid-life crisis? How about getting a bike? Hey, that’s what British men are doing

August 10, 2010 at 11:27 am

Research suggests a boom in cycling among affluent ‘mid-life crisis’ men and car owners.

“Thirty or 40 years ago, people would ride a bike for economic reasons, but our research suggests that nowadays a bicycle is more a lifestyle addition, a way of demonstrating how affluent you are,” said Michael Oliver, who wrote the report for market researchers Mintel.

I wonder if this is a universal trend or more a regional one. These days I see more and more middle aged men taking to riding the bikes here in the US too. What do you guys think..?

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk
bike traffic london

Much has been written about a war between cyclists and drivers, as if the two groups were such polar opposites that they could never cross in a Venn diagram. But according to new research, people who cycle the most are likely to own at least two cars.

Regular cyclists – those who cycle at least once a week – are also disproportionately likely to read broadsheet newspapers, be well educated, have a household income of at least £50,000 per year and shop at Waitrose, claims the latest Mintel report, Bicycles in the UK 2010. In addition, they are twice as likely to be men as women.

Men of a certain age now pride themselves on their bicycle collection. In a documentary last year, Alan Sugar showed off the full-carbon Pinarello machines he has bought for his many residences at a cost of many thousands of pounds each.

His research reveals that bike sales are being driven by 35- to 45-year-old family men. Where this age group might once have treated themselves to a sports car – in an attempt to hang on to their youth – they now invest in a luxury bike instead.

Read more at www.guardian.co.uk