Posted on Tuesday July 14th by Jebediah Reed | 88
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- Government investigators are saying a failed circuit caused one of the trains involved in last month’s deadly DC Metro crash to become invisible to the computerized control system. All trains will operate in manual mode for the time being. (NYT, DCist)
- What might be the most abhorrent new road in America–Houston’s Grand Parkway, which will induce more sprawl and cut through open prairie–is getting a big boost from stimulus funds. It’s getting nearly four times as much loot as any other project in the area. (Houston Chronicle)
- Amtrak unveiled the first its first train car refurbished with stimulus funds. The rail company is spending $90 million in to repair and overhaul 81 passenger cars and 15 diesel locomotives. The first car cost $700k to fix and will run between Miami and Toronto. (AP)
- From the Dept of Unshocking Headlines: “Sarah Palin Does Not Understand Cap And Trade.” After her semi-coherent resignation speech she decided to write an Op-Ed for the Washington Post weighing about climate policy–semi-coherently. (Daily Dish)
- What is it with these concrete testers? Last year, New York’s largest firm was unmasked as fraudulent. Testing for Second Ave subway and the No. 7 line extension was handed to American Standard Labs. It’s now under investigation. And so is the brilliantly named Stallone Testing Labs, which is doing the Fulton transit hub. (NYT)
- Cameras at red lights can be like “cash machines”–but are all those tickets issued for rolling stops on right hand turns just a bogus and intrusive way to extract money from unsuspecting and otherwise safe drivers? (Chicago Tribune)
- A Staten Island teen discovers the dangers of walking and texting in the big city when she failed to notice an open manhole and fell in while composing her electronic missive. City workers were flushing out a high pressure sewage line at the time. Fortunately the sewer was not full at the time. (Daily News)
July 14th, 2009 at 11:43 am
You will notice that Ms. Palin’s op/ed does not even once include the word “carbon”, but there is plenty in there about how God wants us to drill baby drill.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:52 am
What an enormous pile of crazy she is.
-Jebediah
July 14th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Yeah, forget about actually having a debate over the merits of the policy, or even the science behind global warming or anything substantive. It’s clear that if the GOP is lining up behind her, it’s simply another step towards folksy ignorance with cute answers and pat talking points that basically avoid the issues at hand. Which would be frustrating for most smart GOPers that I know. That party is in trouble if they head any further down this road. I would say that just like the smart and informed vote, the ignoramus vote is not enough to get elected.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
$700k for a rail car refurbishment? Seriously?
Do you understand how ridiculous that is?
July 14th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
It’d be nice if Amtrak refurbished their coaches to the same standard as the British Rail Mk. 4 coaches. The rebuilt “mallards” are absolutely fantastic, while Amtrak’s stock leaves quite a bit to be desired.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
@Danny,
Read it again. The ‘FIRST’ car cost $700,000. That’s a lot of money, sure, but the next one will cost half as much since you won’t have to spend as many man hours designing, hiring, and training workers. By the 10th car they should have a well streamlined process.
The first one is always expensive.
July 14th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Just so I understand: the 1,400 page cap and trade bill will solve global warming? If not, it seems a heavy price to pay. 1,400 pages of laws, which will spawn tens of thousands of pages of regulations, leading to an army of lawyers and lobbyists and assorted fixers spending their professional lives living off the rents created by the system — enormous intrusions into all aspects of human life for the purpose of allocating carbon credit. All that will solve global warming, right?
July 14th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Just so I understand, Houston’s Grand Parkway is a travesty because it will claim “23 acres” of swamp (now called wetlands). How many acres of swamp will be filled in to build a high speed rail line from LA to Sacramento?
July 14th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Eric-
The Grand Parkway is a public subsidy for real estate developers, I’d say. We’re hardly anti-road at this site, but that’s a lousy road. We wrote about it a few months ago and laid out the case.
As for global warming, I question the word “intrusion.” Because, the idea is that ultimately regulations will be a good deal less “intrusive” than, say, a 25-foot sea level rise over the next century or two. I noticed that Inhofe was quoting James Hanson today at the Senate hearings. Good fun.
-Jebediah
July 14th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
So the bill will stop global warming? If your answer is anything other than an unequivocal “Yes” then I don’t see how its supportable even by people who believe in this stuff.
And seriously, 25-foot sea level rise? Fear monger much?
July 14th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Remember our FRA requirements? I am guessing that is why the vehicles cost so much to refurbish.
Why does Houston think more roadways will work? All it will do is make it into another Denver except worse.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Another Denver?!? Denver isn’t even close to what Houston is. Houston is a sprawl monster of impressive proportions. Denver is tiny in comparison and a much better place to live.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Houston gets a bad rap, and I think it’s unfair. Portland, Ore. or Burlington, VT. get props, but these are small cities with relatively homogenous populations. Houston has experienced absolutely screaming growth and will likley become our third largest city. It has enabled millions to lift themselves into a middle class lifestyle by offering a solid value for the money.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I drove through Houston not long ago. It has some nice areas, but those are surrounded by neverending stripmalls and parking lots and fast food joints and roads on steroids. It is soul crushing to look at. If you don’t have a car there, you are screwed.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Almost every law passed by Congress is hundreds of pages and involves many regulations. The cap and trade bill is no different. Governing and running modern society is INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED. Get over it.
July 14th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
No the cap and trade bill will not “solve” global warming because the U.S. is not the only emitter of carbon dioxide. Also, the bill was so watered down to placate conservative democrats that it lost a lot of its effectiveness.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:45 am
“How many acres of swamp will be filled in to build a high speed rail line from LA to Sacramento?”
None, For Your Information. Look at the route.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Eric F - Even if comparable amounts of “swamp” were lost to high speed rail, rail does not cause sprawl. This parkway will cause 1000s and 1000s of acres of beautiful land to be turned into garbage sprawl (burger kings, parking lots, crap subvisions, etc…) That’s the problem.
July 15th, 2009 at 11:03 am
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