Oh man.. How could someone be so dumb.. You can go all American Idol anywhere you please but not on roads or places where there are moving vehicles..
Efforts such as strict vehicular emissions checks and car free days help in curbing the air pollution and cited for improvement in air quality.
The capital’s filthy atmosphere has improved at last
HEMMED in by mountains and volcanoes, Mexico City is the perfect smog-trap. At its altitude of 2,250m the air is already thin; on days when the toxic “cream”, as the familiar brown cloud of pollution is locally known, descends on the city, it is hard to breathe. Locals used to joke that the only life that could survive in the skies was jumbo jets.
Yet the smog is lifting. The average concentration of ozone, one of the most common pollutants, is about half its level in the early 1990s, when the air was at its dirtiest (see chart). In those days the national ozone limit of 0.11 parts per million was breached for at least an hour on nine days out of ten. Yet last year over half the days were below the cap. Joggers are back in parks and wildlife is airborne once more: a hummingbird regularly looks in on The Economist’s offices.
More recently, a car crackdown has helped: old bangers are checked twice a year for emissions, and all but the newest cars are forbidden from driving in the city on one day of each week. Every Sunday 22km of roads in the centre are roped off for bikes and pedestrians. From next year taxi drivers will be offered tax incentives to use electric technology. Mexico City’s pollution has been so severe that cleaning up the environment “is not a theoretical thing—it’s about life and death,” says Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor.
(via www.whitehouse.gov) The White House shared these charts from the National Economic Council with this note: “…thought they were worth passing along for a broader perspective on economic progress since President Obama came into office.” Glad that ARRA and other economic recovery efforts fueled this recovery while helping fix some of the infrastructure needs around the country (esp. roads, bridges, etc).
Plus, the economic incentives offered to the automobile industry also had have some positive influence in perking up the economy and that industry apart from saving thousands of manufacturing jobs and a few American icons (particularly GM). Hope this trend line continues to stay above the “zero line” in the days ahead, irrespective of who is at the helm.
Nice work Delhi Police.. Glad to see citizens actively participating in keeping their city safe. Its is amazing to see how social media has transformed our communities and the way we live (and even police ourselves).
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The traffic police of Delhi, India, are using citizen submissions on a Facebook page to catch and ticket misbehaving drivers.
The New York Times says officials have issued 665 tickets based on photographs of license plates posted to the Delhi Traffic Police Facebook page, which has almost 18,000 fans.The police didn’t initially solicit these photos, but citizens took the initiative to help the authorities because Delhi, a sprawling metropolis that’s home to more than 12 million people, has only 5,000 traffic cops.
This method will only become more useful. The 2010 Commonwealth Games will take place in Delhi in early October, bringing a huge influx of travelers to the roads. Now the info panel at the Facebook (
) page says: “Managing traffic in Delhi during the Commonwealth Games will be a big challange as well as a great opportunity. Delhi Traffic Police cannot possibly succeed without the active cooperation, participation and support of all the citizens.”
NYT reports in just the first three months of this year, there were 740 street demonstrations, an average of about eight and a half a day — an improvement over last year, when there were more than nine a day, the city government points out.
Source article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world/americas/02mexico.html?_r=2&hp
Since Mexico City doesn’t regulate protests, demonstrators can apparently block traffic whenever they please. In just the first three months of 2010, there were 740 street demonstrations, an average of about eight and a half a day.
Business Week’s David Welch throws a lot of interesting arguments about the Government’s decision when things looked ominous for the auto industry a year ago.
President Obama served up red meat for his hard-core supporters in Detroit yesterday, proclaiming that the government’s bailout of General Motors and Chrysler to be a success. Had he not intervened and invested in the two companies, Obama said, they would have fallen into liquidation and 1.1 million jobs would have evaporated. In the past year, the auto industry has regained 55,000 of the 334,000 jobs lost, he went on. “The fact that we’re standing in this magnificent factory today is a testament to the decisions we made,” Obama said while visiting Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee plant in Detroit. His comments were aimed clearly at the critics on the other side of the political aisle who opposed the bailout 18 months ago and who still criticize government ownership of GM and Chrysler to this day.
So far, it is tough to argue that the bailout hasn’t worked. GM is in the black, having reported an $865 million profit in the first quarter with black ink looking likely for the rest of the year. GM’s results are strong enough that the company is preparing for an initial public offering that should start selling stock in November. Chrysler is at least making an operating profit, which puts the company in much better shape than most analysts thought it would be a year ago. With much lower costs, both companies should be able to make money going forward. Let’s not forget that GM, Chrysler and cross-town rival Ford cut out 2.9 million cars worth of production capacity during the crisis, according to the Center for Automotive Research. That was a quarter of capacity in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Cutting out the fat has allowed them to post profits even though sales are slow.
One challenge, four rowers, 43 days, 21 hours and 26 minutes, a whole lot of “guts” and little food gets us a New Transatlantic Rowing Record.
Four rowers have smashed a 114-year-old record by crossing the Atlantic in 43 days, 21 hours and 26 minutes.
The Artemis North Atlantic Rowing Challenge crew left New York on 17 June and touched the quayside at St Mary’s, in the Isles of Scilly, just before 1500 BST on Saturday.
In 1896 Norwegians George Harbo and Frank Samuelson had set the record at 55 days and 13 hours.
Two years ago, an attempt by a crew called The Scilly Boys nearly ended in disaster when their vessel capsized, 13 days after leaving New York.
It is the Artemis crew’s second attempt after a broken rudder at the beginning of June forced them to retire.
For the past two weeks the crew had been surviving on powdered supplements after running out of food, so all four said they were looking forward to “solid food”.
Good job, Boris.. You will now have yet another feather on your cap (after congestion charging, electric vehicle charging stations, etc.).
LONDON — The city is launching a bicycle rental program in hopes of easing congestion in a European capital once known for its gridlock.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, an avid cycling enthusiast, put 4,700 out of a planned 6,000 bikes on the road Friday. Under the program, cyclists will be able to borrow bikes from 400 docking stations throughout the city.
At the start, only those who sign up for membership in advance will be eligible to take part. Membership costs 45 pounds a year, or about $70. Tourists or other casual users will not be eligible for at least a month.
All controversies aside, Elon knows how to make loads of money and mastered the art of having a ton of fun while raking cash.. Colbert, one of the best modern day comedic talk show host, gets to grill Musk..The result is captured in the video below..
Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and electric car company Tesla Motors, sat down with Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert to talk about his latest venture, SpaceX.
Colbert listed Musk’s many accomplishments, then asked him: “Where do you find time for your secret identity as Batman? Because you’re either a superhero or a supervillain.”
“I’m mostly an engineer,” Musk said. “Oh yeah, engineer,” Colbert scoffed. “Bruce Wayne’s a banker.”
Colbert told Musk later, “You’re the future, man.”
Musk told Colbert that he hopes SpaceX, which successfully launched the Falcon 9 rocket into orbit this past June, will be ready in the next few years to take NASA astronauts into space.
Seismic shift in the attitudes reflect changing times…
LOS ANGELES — The region famous for jilting the street car to take up a love affair with the automobile is trying to rekindle its long ago romance with commuter rail.
Los Angeles County voters agreed two years ago to pay a half-cent sales tax over the next 30 years to extend train and rapid bus lines, projects that would routinely require federal assistance.
If successful, the novel plan to borrow billions from the federal government, led by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would result in the largest transit expansion project in the nation.
But the mayor, who sits on a county transportation board, wants a loan instead of Washington handouts to get the projects built in a decade rather than 30 years. He contends it would save money in the long run, result in more construction jobs and less traffic and pollution.
Under the so-called 30/10 initiative, the sales tax would generate about $5.8 billion over the next 10 years to pay for a dozen projects.
Local transportation officials said another $8.8 billion is needed to pay for the estimated $14.6 billion total cost. By using the future sales tax revenue as collateral for long-term bonds and a low-interest federal loan, the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority could put these projects on the fast track. The county would repay the federal loan over 20 years with proceeds from the sales tax.
The projects include a long-awaited subway extension to the economically vibrant west side of Los Angeles (a plan often called the Subway to the Sea), a regional connector linking three rail lines in the downtown core, plus light rail extensions reaching Los Angeles International Airport and communities to the south and east. In all, completion of these projects would add 78 miles of rail and bus-only lanes to the current, 102-mile system and 77 million annual transit boardings to the MTA’s current 445 million.
