The Daily Dig: ‘Printing The Whole Internet’ Edition

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• Phoenix’s new light rail network is proving a great success, giving “part of the city a new, dense connectivity that was more or less unheard of in the city two years ago.” One reason? Lots of weekend users. Also, there were many critics who now feel kind of dumb. (NYT)
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• Suburbs are places the generally require “driving everywhere, and for everything.” But local leaders are now seeing huge opportunity in retrofitting ‘burbs to be denser, more walkable and better suited for aging boomers. The recession is also forcing discouraging the willy nilly building six-lane roads. (WSJ)
• A transportation spending bill–not to be confused with the transportation bill (ah, Washington you’re confusing)–was passed by the Senate late last week. One notable difference from the House version: $3 billion less for high speed rail. (AP)
• Let’s say you’re a city, and let’s say you want to get serious reducing congestion. What’s your best course of action? New research from Norway concludes that limiting urban parking is more effective than cranking up road tolls. (ITS)
• Vancouver, BC, that place so blessed in natural gifts it sometimes feels like the city equivalent of a supermodel-slash-theoretical physicist, is how showing how it’s done on density, allowing residents to subdivide apartment and condos. (Sightline)
• And then there’s Portland, OR, which is becoming a shining example of smart and sustainable infrastructure. Transportation planners have long been making pilgrimages there to glean ideas, but now an international group of wastewater experts has gathered to look at the storm-water filtration system. One crusty engineer calls it “artistic.” Aw. (Oregonian)
• What will Paris look like in the far future? Or Tokyo, or New York? Here’s a gallery of screenshots of how science fiction directors have imagined our urban tomorrows. (io9)
• What if you printed the whole internet? (Let’s just say you did.) The resulting document would weigh 1.2 billion pounds and would require twice as many trees as there are in Central Park. (Some printer company)