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• A Salt Lake City to Vegas high speed link strikes us as a bit far-fetched, but transportation planners in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona have cobbled together a Western HSR Alliance lobby to link those cities with Denver and Phoenix. (Las Vegas Sun)
• In Britain a new plan has been unveiled for a 900-mile HSR network running up both the east and west coasts. One of it’s authors says, “This report calls for us to do something uncharacteristic in Britain, which is to be bold and brave and to think long-term.” Sounds familiar! (Guardian)
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• Sweden already has train service at 125 mph between it’s three largest cities. Now’s considering a $17 billion investment to upgrade the system to high speeds, which would halve travel times. That’s weird because in America, 125 mph would be mind-blowingly fast… (The Local)
• One investment report is betting that Japan’s next big export industry will be HSR equipment: “It looks like an international campaign to export locomotives, switches, and other components of the national Shinkansen ‘bullet train’ system may be the thing that gets the country’s economy back on the rails.” (Green Chip Stocks)
• It’s amazing that anybody would look to the US to learn about HSR. But some Canadian lawmakers are doing just that, making the trek down from America’s Hat to observe the theoretically high-speed Acela train making a low-speed trip from NY to DC. (AHN)
• White House advisor Jared Bernstein calls the $8 billion in stimulus funds for HSR a “downpayment” — a way to “incentivize private-sector capital sitting on the sidelines.” That’s the government’s role, he says, “not to build this stuff by ourselves.” (Reuters)
• The idea sounds fanciful, but the money is real: Tennessee and Georgia have snagged $14 million to study a maglev link between Chatanooga and Atlanta. The idea would be to eventually connect the line to Nashville and Chicago. (Atlanta Jornal Const.)

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• The Senate overwhelming passed a vote requiring Amtrak to allow passengers to travel with locked, stowed firearms. “Americans should not have their 2nd Amendment rights restricted for any reason, particularly if they choose to travel on America’s federally subsidized rail line,” said Sen. Wicker (R, MS) the bill’s sponsor. (The Caucus)
• Next week, California will finalize its request for some portion of the $8 billion in high speed rail funds provided by the stimulus. That portion, it turns out, is going to be $4-5 billion. (Reuters via Yonah’s Twitter)
• Some very smart and creative people have teamed up on a project to tag thousands of pieces of trash and track their trajectories, looking to map the complexities of our waste disposal network. They’ve charted, for instance, the 8-day journey a paper coffee cup that was pitched in Seattle.  (NYT)
• Everyone in blogland is oohing and aahing over this interactive chart of US jobs from 1850 - 2000. And now we are too. In 1850, 2% of the population were blacksmiths. By 1980 it was zero. And the percentage of locomotive engineers is the same today as it was in 1860–about one tenth the 1910 peak levels. (Prefuse)
• In Portland, naked bicycling is only a shade less popular as a local passtime than hanging out at the farmers market. We don’t really see the appeal, but rock n’ roll band Flaming Lips does — they’re shooting a video in PDX and are looking for lots of “freaked out naked people” on bikes. (Bike Portland)
• Another rocker, David Byrne, wants you to know that his ideal city would be big (ensuring anonymity), dense (ensuring interesting social opportunity), have a strong social compact (e.g. people return items if you misplace them), not much parking (”dead real estate”), and a culture of making flirty eye contact on the streets. (WSJ)
• The Tea Party protesters seem to dislike pretty much everything in America except Ron Paul, guns and Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate. Accordingly, it might be expected that they hate transit spending. And they do! Except when they’re in DC and need transit service. In those cases, they hate substandard transit service. (WSJ)

That incredibly amateurish photo illo? We made it on MS Paint!

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• Obama’s new fuel efficiency standards, set to go into effect in 2016, will require that cars get an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. The rules are being advertised as the equivalent of taking 40 million of today’s cars off the road. They are also projected to save drivers $3000 or so over the lifespan of a vehicle. (AP)
• The much anticipated new Green line is open in Dallas, part of the DART light rail network. Unfortunately, there have been some hairy network-wide delays related to a downtown bottleneck that won’t be fully resolved until a new segment opens in 7 years. (Dallas Morning News)
• Meanwhile, Charlotte is considering a six-year delay for an 11-mile extension of its Lynx Blue light rail line. The project is funded by a half-cent sales tax, and revenue from the tax has been coming in slower than expected. (Charlotte Observer)
• From Politico, a cheeky profile of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He eats desert before his entree and doesn’t have Obama’s email address–he also hasn’t given on the Vehicle Miles Traveled tax, which he got in trouble for pitching earlier this year. (Politico)
• There are 2,100 transportation lobbyists working the system in DC. Why so many? Well, there’s a lot of money in the pot. But a lot of that money is also spent capriciously, without being accountable to specific performance objectives. Which is nice for those people getting the money, but bad for the rest of us. (Streetsblog DC)
• Some MIT students have the privilege of living in dorm rooms designed by global starchitect Steven Holl. What’s that like? “Curvy walls are cool, but it makes arranging furniture a real headache–most students don’t want them,” says one. (Dwell)

• French president Nicolas Sarkozy wants to do away with GDP as the measure of national well-being and create an index that includes “happiness.” Prime example: ‘Traffic jams may increase GDP as a result of the increased use of gasoline, but obviously not the quality of life.” (The Age)
• A gathering of top transportation thinkers last week concluded that somewhere, somehow, politicians have to find the courage to tell Americans that roads are not just totally free. The highway fund is broke and gas taxes haven’t changed since 1993. Strange stuff, this “reality.” (NYT)
• Residents of big cities tend use about a third as much energy as rural peers. Soon, 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. If humanity is going to stick around for awhile, energy-efficient city living will be a big part of what saves us. (Guardian)
• Richard Florida talks with Spacing radio about rewarding  creativity, and rebuilding our cities on that principle. Also, he wonders: why are there no public parks in Silicon Valley? (Spacing - starts at 8 min)
• Joel Kotkin: “For most exurbanites, moving back to the city–the preferred option of planners and urban boosters–is not an attractive option. A more humane approach would be to find ways to help these communities thrive. The first step: local job creation.” (Forbes)
• A stretch of roadway in Minnesota built with porous concrete is drawing national attention. It lessens the need for storm sewers and filters runoff water. See the YouTube video for a demonstration of the effects. (Daily Reporter)
• Over at Planetizen, an online hub for architects and planners, they’ve put together a list of the top 100 urban thinkers of all time. Numero uno is Jane Jacobs, author of Death And Life Of American Cities.

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• With the timeline for the transportation bill now uncertain, transit advocates are looking toward a provision in Senate climate bill that would require 10% of revenue from carbon credits to fund public transportation and rail. (Politico)
• For more than a decade, plans for Moynihan station in NYC as a fit replacement for old Penn have languished. Yesterday saw an important step forward as Amtrak has agreed to move into Farley Post Office Building (aka Moynihan). (NYT)
• Doing what journalists should do, the NY Times looks at an alarming trend of Clean Water Act violations that result in dangerous drinking water. 1 in 10 Americans are now affected. In Charleston, WV, residents get chemical burns from taking showers. (NYT)
• New York City could be especially vulnerable to rising sea levels, says a new study. Civil engineers are looking at ways to protect subways, ports, and underground cables and wires. Not to mention the low-lying Wall Street district which plays such a crucial role in destroying global wealth. (WSJ)
• For those people who scoff at the drive to tear down urban freeways: Matthew Yglesias points to a study showing that a highway pushed through a central city causes 18 percent of the population to flee. (Think Progress)
• Two approaches to massive reductions greenhouse gas emissions: Build 100 nuclear power plants OR enact the aggressive building code reforms now contained in the Waxman-Markey climate bill. Guess which one is much, much cheaper. (Grist)

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• The IPO market has gone dead. But two Silicon Valley venture capitalists say that a green infrastructure boom will be the next great investment opportunity and could save American’s economy. Why, for instance, do we still make cement and drywall the same way we did 150 years ago? (WSJ)
• Jim Oberstar concedes that passage of a new transportation bill this fall is unrealistic — or, at least, it would be “very very difficult.” (Dow Jones)
• It might sound crazy to New Yorkers or Washingtonians, but the LA subway has long operated on the honor system—that is, without turnstiles. That’s changing though. Tired of freeloaders, LA’s transit authority has begun installing them in hopes of capturing millions in lost revenue. (Next American City)
• The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is a competition that awards $100k to someone with a potentially world-changing idea. Last year the loot went to some kids from the MIT’s Smart Cities group who have a plan for lightweight electric vehicles (e.g. The RoboScooter). The deadline for entries this is Oct 30. (BFI)
• A lovely set of photos over at Good samples the diversity of environments—from the very stuffy to the very rough—of the learning institutions in this country (or at least in the northeastern part of it). Quite a contrast between a grand hallway at Phillips Academy Andover and a shabby girls bathroom at public school in Dorchester… Sample pic after the jump
• An architect is proposing turning a discarded span of the SF Bay Area’s old Bay Bridge into a park along the lines of NYC’s stunningly successful High Line transformation. A tad far-fetched, but we like his moxie… (Streetsblog SF) Image after jump
• An hero of American high finance, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, has just bought a new house. Congrats, Mr Mack! It’s on Manhattan’s upper east side. And get this: it has a 12-car garage. In the middle of Manhattan. A 12-car garage. But that’s only appropriate given how much wealth and financial innovation he’s created for us, The Little People.  (Business Insider)

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• Electric cars are very quiet. That’s good, right? Well, not if you’re about to be hit by one. A government panel in Japan might require that the vehicles have an electronic noisemaking function a bit like a cell phone ring. Crickets, anyone? (AP)
• A very cool interactive map of stimulus projects in California shows a county-by-county breakdown of spending in areas ranging from transportation to education. Didja know Kern county is spending $8 million on fareboxes and preventive transit maintenance? (Recovery.ca.gov)
• A new study finds that every $1 billion invested in water infrastructure creates $3 billion in economic activity and up to 27,000 jobs. Yet another reason why solid waste ought to be priority number two… (Global Water Intell)
• Eleven big cities in Britain are pushing for an expansion of the country’s high speed rail plans–they want a full-scale national network, rather than the limited connections now on the drawing board. Transport minister Lord Adonis says the national government supports the move. (Guardian)
• Why traffic tickets are your friend: When NYC began issuing fewer tickets to speeders and red light-runners, fatalities from those causes ticked up. In Paris, the opposite dynamic has been at work, with more tickets issued and deaths plunging. (Slate)
• There are lots of neglected smaller cities in the US–Bridgeport! Pawtucket!–that have amazing, if neglected, infrastructure. They’re walkable and ripe for renewal. States should be looking at that option instead of investing in new “sprawl” infrastructure. (NRDC)
• News of the wired: A teenager in Nepal makes a solar panel out of human hair! Hair costs a fraction as much as silicon panels and therefore will electrify the world! Did you know a pound of human hair only costs twenty five cents in Nepal?! (Daily Mail) [The Mail hasn't retracted, but looking like this is a hoax. -Ed.]
• And a plug: We’re a supporting organization at this year’s North American Strategic Infrastructure Leadership Forum later this month in DC. It looks like there will be some great speakers (Rendell is on the sched, among others) and discussions. If this kind of thing is of interest to you, give it a look. (You can also click through the banner at right.)