INFRASTRUCTURIST

The Reason Foundation’s Unreasonable Highway Report

Today, the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, released its 19th Annual Highway Report. It takes an unusually sunny view on U.S. infrastructure as a whole, relying on data such as traffic fatalities in 2008 fell to their lowest levels since the 1960s (a decrease that is mostly explained by decreases in driving due to the recession), the percentage of congested urban Interstates fell below 50% for the first time since 2000 (also the recession), and 23.7% of U.S. bridges -- the lowest percentage since 1984 -- were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete (though this doesn't mean much either -- fewer obsolete bridges doesn't mean more safe bridges). Overall, the data appears to be sound -- it's the interpretation of it where things go awry. The report makes the sweeping statement that its results indicate that state highway conditions are the best they’ve been in 19 years. Which simply doesn't follow, when you look at where these conclusions are coming from:

"We’re seeing several factors combine to produce significant improvement in highway conditions," said David T. Hartgen, author of the report and emeritus professor of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "Over the last several years, states invested a lot more money to improve pavement and bridges. Spending increased 8 percent from 2007 to 2008, and per-mile spending on state roads has almost tripled since 1984, so you’d hope and expect to see improved performance."

Ok, except that the report then goes on to essentially null this statement by highlighting the skewed relationship between spending and actual results. In the rankings of most cost-effective state roads, the bottom 15 states basically make up around 90% of the U.S. driving public. New Jersey, which came in at a miserable 45th in the cost-effectiveness rankings, spends dramatically more than every other state on its roads -- $1.1 million per mile, to be exact. Florida, ranked 39th, was the second biggest spender, spending $671,000 per mile, while California, ranked 48th, came in at third with $545,000 per mile. In other words, higher spending in no way automatically equals better roads. There's also this bit of info, which comes as less than no surprise:

California also squanders a massive amount of transportation money that never makes it onto roads, spending $93,464 in administrative costs for every mile of state road. New York ($89,194 per mile), Massachusetts ($71,982), and New Jersey ($62,748) also compare poorly to states like Texas ($6,529) and Virginia ($6,370) that spend dramatically less on administrative costs.

Then there's the simply irony of the report as a whole: The largest libertarian group in the country is arguing that an increase in state government spending on infrastructure has led to safer, less crowded roads, despite the fact that many of these states have proved themselves totally incapable of spending their money wisely. So is the implication here that the federal government doesn't need to step in? [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: Should the Border Patrol Be Searching Amtrak Trains?

• The U.S. Border Patrol has quietly started boarding Amtrak trains near the Canada-U.S. border, and looking for undocumented immigrants. (NYT) • Because the French rail company SNCF may soon be involved in U.S. high-speed rail, some survivors of the Holocaust want the SNCF to apologize for transporting Jews to concentration camps. (AP) • One writer argues that it's time for the U.S. to create an "interstate highway system for trains." (McClatchy) • An article looks at which transit projects of this century are the most ambitious. Our favorite is the "Transatlantic Tunnel." (AOL Travel) • Thousands of Germans recently protested against a new Stuttgart railroad station. (Reuters) • Banks are beginning to be more wary of lending to companies that have environmentally-damaging projects. (NYT) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: How Dubai Is Faring in the Economic Downturn

• With Dubai having lost some of its glitter in the last year, an interesting book review looks at three new books about the desert city. (NYRB) • The number of mistakes for Washington, D.C. area air traffic controllers has risen recently, including more close calls for near-collisions. (WashPost) • The installation of solar energy on federal lands has been plagued by many delays. (AP) • One hotel in Japan is now attracting guests by setting up a room with a miniature train set. (Reuters) • One New York area thief has been arrested for the 27th time for stealing public transit cars. Usually it's trains, but this time it was a bus. (Daily News) • The magazine Travel and Leisure has ranked America's best and worst five airports. (Yahoo Travel) • The Denver airport has started work on a $1 billion rail line project connecting it to downtown. (USA Today) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Urban Parks Invade Texas: Main Street Garden Opens [Gallery]

Click here to view gallery

We've discussed the many benefits of urban parks quite a bit -- including, for one, their potential to combat obesity, as well as a list of the best new urban parks in the country. Dallas's Arts District was featured prominently, including the aspects that were still under construction. Now, the city has added a new urban park to its arsenal. Designed and built by landscape architects Thomas Balsley Associates (you may remember them as the designers of the less-than-lauded Chelsea Waterside Park in Manhattan), the new Main Street Garden -- which is being hailed as part of the "Main Street Miracle" of downtown rejuvenation -- is the first urban-core public park in Dallas. All in all, the proliferation of urban parks marks a significant push by the Texan city to create and rejuvenate communities and redefine the city's use of public space. Click on the gallery above to get a first look at the new two-acre space. All Images Courtesy Thomas Balsley Assoc. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: U.S. Cities Begin to Embrace the Streetcar

• The success of Portland's streetcar system is leading other U.S. cities to try to get federal grants to start streetcars of their own. (USA Today) • Because of an "egalitarian-minded" rental system which doesn't allow some rents to be increased in Stockholm, Sweden, a "black market" has been established to facilitate the renting of apartments. (AFP) • India is facing a shortage of civil engineers and needs many more of them to improve its infrastructure. (NYT) • The British government is trying to reduce the number of unneeded road signs. (Reuters) • Flood refugees in Pakistan are using highway medians as their new "home". (LAT) • There has been a proliferation of gourmet street food vendors in New York City. (AFP) • An article takes a look at the status of Montana's "drinking and driving culture". (AP) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Conservative Mag Tells Conservatives Why They Should Care About Public Transit

We here at Infrastructurist are firm believers in standing behind smart ideas, no matter what group or party they happen to come from. In this case, they're coming from the American Conservative. The bastion of modern conservatism has launched an online symposium, featuring prominent urban studies experts like the Brookings Institute's Christopher Leinberger and the president of the Congress for the New Urbanism, John Norquist, to explore the many reasons why conservatives should support public transit. Next month, the nonprofit parent of AC magazine, the American Ideas Institute, will launch a new center on transportation made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The collection contains a multitude of interesting pieces, including by familiar names like William Lind (who as you may recall has been featured in two Q&A's with us on this very topic). They present many ideas that we've explored in the past, like the economic and environmental need for our attitudes about daily transportation to change as a nation, the poor management decisions and other factors that add huge price tags to rail projects, and the power of transportation to revive a region's economy, livability, and connectivity. These are not necessarily new arguments, but the ideas they contain are compulsory reading for anyone who wants to have a serious discussion about the future of transportation policy, and priorities, in this country. And so we say, bravo American Conservative for facilitating a rational and fact-driven discussion among the demographic that, well, needs it most. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: How Pakistan’s Flooding Affects Its Infrastructure

• The epic floods inflicting Pakistan are tearing up huge swathes of its infrastructure. (NYT) • The Nigerian capital city of Lagos is cracking down on dangerous motorcycle taxis. (AFP) • Long shunned by the West, Libya is attracting increasing investment as it tries to boost its economy and improve its infrastructure. (AP) • A new report shows that the U.S. wasted billions of dollars in trying to rebuild Iraq. (AP) (LAT) • With the use of five examples, an article takes a look at the ways old infrastructure wears down and how civil engineers are trying to halt the decline. (NYT) • 600 University of Oregon students are collaborating in making the city of Salem, Oregon, more sustainable. (GreenWire) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Week in High Speed Rail: HSR in Fresno?

• A new report from the Center for Urban infrastructure, details the benefits of building a mass inter-city high-speed rail system for Southern California -- and offers some surprising insights. (Fast Company) • Is the the Federal Railroad Administration really up for the challenge of national high-speed rail? (NYT) • In South Africa, transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele signed an agreement with the Chinese railways minister, fueling speculation that Ndebele may go for his longstanding dream of a HSR line between Johannesburg and Durban. (AllAfrica) • In Texas, the East Texas Corridor Council will make an announcement today regarding their progress in a new HSR line. (NBC) • There are two sides to every coin: HSR lines may increase the value of your house (not just decrease it). (Telegraph) [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Attention iPad Users: Get Your Infrastructurist Fix on FlipBoard

Got an iPad? Well then you may have heard about FlipBoard, the latest app that organizes the content from your Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and other feeds into a gorgeous, easily navigable online magazine. If you're already a user, Infrastructurist looks great on FlipBoard! And if you haven't checked it out yet, you can do so for free, to read and share your favorite Infra posts with Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.[SButtonZ button="digg"] Once you've got FlipBoard, just select "Add Section" and search for "Infrastructurist" or "Infrastructurst" (our Twitter name). Happy flipping!

The Morning Dig: How the Stimulus Is Helping America

• Michael Grunwald has a great piece looking at President Obama's Recovery Act and how it's transforming America. (Time) • The boundaries of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan are being debated because of the mosque debate. (AP) • The competitor skyscraper to the Empire State Building was approved by the City Council. (NYT) • Some Catholics have been protesting the Empire State Building for not lighting up the skyscraper to honor Mother Teresa. Others take the view that if the building owners did violate their policy of not honoring religious leaders, it would lead to every other religious group trying to get their prominent figures honored by the tower. (NYT) • A $52 million settlement has been reached between the victims of the Minnesota bridge collapse and an engineering firm called URS which helped build the bridge. (AP)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • Although Nigeria is oil-rich, its electrical power system is abysmal and the government is trying to upgrade the grid. (AP)

The Latest in Sudanese Urban Planning: Cities Shaped Like Animals

This week, the government of Southern Sudan, a region that has been involved in decades of civil war that ended in 2005, gave everyone quite a shock when it revealed a $10.1 billion plan to build new urban centers in all ten of its state capitals. The "$10.1 billion" part dropped open quite a few jaws, but even more surprise was evoked when officials revealed the plans for the cities -- all of which will be shaped like animals or fruits. [SButtonZ button="digg"] According to VOANews, the animal shapes have a lofty purpose:

The $10.1 billion plan proposes remaking cities in Sudan’s south into shapes found on regional flags. Blueprints and maps illustrate Juba in the shape of a rhinoceros, Yambio fashioned after a pineapple and Wau as a giraffe. The Undersecretary for Housing and Physical Planning, Daniel Wani, says he hopes the plans will demonstrate the housing ministry’s desire to think creatively about how to remake southern Sudan for the future.

Certainly urban renewal and development are vital for a region trying to overcome a long history of war and rampant corruption. And innovation is also a crucial aspect of modern urban planning -- and one that Sudanese officials are clearly trying to demonstrate, particularly since Southern Sudan’s total annual budget for 2010 is less than $2 billion, meaning the ministry needs to rely on private financing for the rest. But at the end of the day, trying too hard to demonstrate innovation can backfire, and wind up drawing attention away from even more important factors -- like eliminating massive slums and basic infrastructure problems in the region. And what about the government apathy and incompetence that led to billions of dollars lost to corruption and poor management since the end of the war? Sparkling new cities, assuming they get completed, will certainly put forth an image of renewal -- but whether they substantially improve the lives of the average Sudanese citizen remains to be seen.

The Morning Dig: Urban Farming Takes Root in New York City

• The Reuters video above profiles the Brooklyn Grange, which grows organic vegetables on rooftops. • Egypt is facing power cuts, while anger grows among Egyptians against their government. (AP) • The "model city" of Singapore is exhibiting some signs of "urban stress," such as gridlock on the subway and packed car traffic. (AFP) • Environmental campaigners are protesting against the proposed construction of a highway in the Serengeti in Tanzania. (AP) • A new mall in destitute Gaza is drawing attention as a rare sign of development in that Palestinian city. (AP) (NYT) • That infamous traffic jam in China has apparently quickly "vanished", according to reports. (AFP) (MSNBC.com) [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Libertarians Are Wrong About Infrastructure, News at 11

Libertarianism, in its purest form, could arguably be called an enemy of infrastructure. If the government is disabled and left a shallow, broke, impotent shell, then exactly who will build the roads, bridges, and public works that allow our society, and economy, to function? (If your stock answer is "The private sector! To hell with government!" then we've got about a library of stuff for you to read. Start here. Or here.) The Reason Foundation, ultimate libertarian think tank, recently released a manifesto about U.S. infrastructure entitled "Restoring Trust in the Highway Trust Fund." The full text was read and dissected by Willy Staley in a column for Next American City. No surprise, the report is a dogmatic argument for reorganizing the surface transit bill according to the staunch principles of libertarianism. In other words, there would be not a cent given for public transit, bike paths, "livability" initiatives, or anything else having to do with sustainability. According to their reasoning, the Highway Trust Fund is in such dire straits because it has been diverted from its original purpose when it was established in 1956 -- to pay for the new Interstate system. Beginning in 1970, HTF funds were authorized to pay for transit, and since then it's been all downhill from there. Nowadays, urban transit, bikeways, scenic trails, and other public programs eat up around one-quarter of all federal highway user tax revenues. Sound like a somewhat reasonable argument? Well, there's more. As Staley notes:

The Reason Foundation believes that by going back to the pre-1970 model will free up enough money to keep the Interstate system afloat, and that with minor increases in state fuel taxes, states will be able to maintain their own roads better without costly federal requirements like—no kidding—"mandates for safety belt usage, minimum drinking age and maximum blood-alcohol levels, Davis-Bacon labor requirements, Buy America requirements, various affirmative action mandates and transportation planning requirements."

So yeah. Seat belt laws? Who needs 'em? (Answer: We do. Desperately.) And as for the alcohol and BAC arguments, it's a case of res ipsa loquitur -- the wrongness of those points speaks for itself. [SButtonZ button="digg"] Finally, Staley uncovered this doozie:

They cite [a] Transportation Research Board report that argues for taxing—or “charging”—drivers by Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), instead of charging the federal gas tax. Given that cars’ fuel economy is on the rise, it might become necessary to switch to a VMT model to capture enough revenue to keep the Trust Fund afloat. Unlike gasoline, which has distinct points of dispensation, VMT are a bit harder to calculate. And any workable way of collecting this tax would either be too invasive (some sort of government-installed odometer) or too expensive (a Turnpike-like system of toll booths every few miles) for anyone so interested in a users-pay model to bother with.

So we should stop paying a federal gas tax, and instead allow the government to install monitors in our cars to see where/how much we drive? That's not very libertarian of them now is it? Image: Courtesy DOE

The Morning Dig: New Orleans Prepares for the Next Katrina

• In the five years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has spent $15 billion on infrastructure to help protect the city, including pumps, levees, flood walls and gates. (NYT) • A plane crash in northeast China has killed 42 people and injured 54. (AFP) (AP) (NYT) • In Nepal, a plane heading to the Mount Everest region crashed, killing 14 people including six foreigners. (AP) • The proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan raises the issue of distance and the Ground Zero site. (NYT) • As discussed yesterday on the blog, the Northeast train Corridor was hit by many delays yesterday. (AP) • China Railway may help build a $30 billion bullet-train between Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa. (Bloomberg News) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

An Infrastructure Perfect Storm: New York Trains Shut Down En Masse

It's the kind of perfect storm that anyone who lives in (or has lived in) a city can relate to: The Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, and Amtrak all broke down (or, at least, were severely delayed) this morning. In other words, anyone from Long Island, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania who wanted to take the train to work in New York City this morning was seriously out of luck. It all started yesterday, when a small fire broke out in a control tower at Jamaica Station, the hub for 10 of the railroad’s 11 branches traveling in and out of New York City. The fire proceeded to wreak havoc on the LIRR's switches, an antediluvian (well, almost -- it was built in 1913) system of levers and pulleys. As a result, there was no way to direct trains onto their proper routes, so the entire railroad ground to a halt as workers rushed around the tracks, manually locking the switches into place. Ironically, a new computerized signal system is scheduled to be installed this year -- but it hasn't been yet. [SButtonZ button="digg"] While around 75% of LIRR service had been restored this morning, thousands of passengers were still left stranded. And on the other side of Manhattan, just about every train commuter in New Jersey woke up to a virtual nightmare: A power shortage along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor had caused the halting of every train on the line, from Maryland's MARC to New Jersey Transit's North Jersey Coast Line and Midtown Direct trains. Trains along the Northeast Corridor were completely motionless between 7:45 and 8:45 a.m. -- prime rush hour. The cause of the outage, which occurred somewhere between Washington and Perryville, Maryland, was hazy -- officials said it looked like a tripped circuit breaker -- but the results were dire. Because of the low voltage, all NJT trains were stopped. Some trains totally lost power, including lights and air conditioning. Service was, for the most part, back up and running by 10 AM, but the ripple effects are still being felt along the line. Yes, it's a cliche, but we can't help but bring up the classic infrastructure idiom: No one pays attention to it until it breaks down. Well, here, in a morning of intense karma, we have a trifecta of breakdowns that have stranded millions of people. Needless to say, if we had updated our trains and the technology we use to run them, these problems wouldn't be so endemic (and they are -- the last Amtrak power outage was all of 2 weeks ago, the result of a tree falling on power lines). Yes, Obama has pledged $112 million of the high-speed rail stimulus money to updating the Northeast Corridor -- but that's really just dipping a toe in the water. We cannot expect our urban areas to function, or to sustain economic and social growth, without a functioning and modern system of public transportation. And here is the universe nailing that point home, hard.

The Morning Dig: The Battle Over New York’s Skyline

• The owners of the Empire State Building are protesting the height of a proposed skyscraper competitor which would significantly alter the Manhattan skyline. (AP) (NYT) • Service on the Long Island Rail Road was severely disrupted yesterday after a fire at a key switching station. (NYT) (AP) • As noted yesterday on the blog, China is currently experiencing an epic 60-mile, 10-day traffic jam. (AFP) (AP) • The future of transportation is the subject of a new exhibit at the Center for Architecture. (NY1) • Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is proposing taxing oil company profits to pay for transportation and infrastructure improvements. (Reuters) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Would You Spend Nine Days in a Traffic Jam? These Drivers Did

This is not a joke (in fact, we wish it was): A recent traffic jam on the main road to Beijing kept Chinese drivers in gridlocked traffic -- for nine days straight. According to China's Global Times:

Traffic authorities were still struggling to cope with days-long congestion on a major national expressway, nine days after traffic slowed to a snail's pace, and nearby residents are profiting on the latest traffic snarl by overcharging drivers for food. Since August 14, thousands of Beijing-bound trucks have jammed the expressway again, and traffic has stretched for more than 100 kilometers between Beijing and Huai'an in Hebei Province, and Jining in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China National Radio (CNR) reported Sunday.

The official cause of the ungodly congestion was "insufficient traffic capacity on the National Expressway 110 caused by maintenance construction since August 19" -- in other words, a far greater-than-expected number of heavy trucks clogging the roadway. The congestion is expected to be nightmarish for at least a month -- picture the rush hour of an L.A. or a New York, but for 24 hours a day.[SButtonZ button="digg"] Drivers caught in this Dante-esque disaster reportedly passed the time by playing cards, and food vendors were taking full advantage of their trapped clientele, charging four times their regular price for noodles and other food. As the graph below shows, there is an alternate route to the jam-packed expressway. But many drivers, particularly truckers, chose not to take it because, they said, it involved traveling a longer distance and their costs for fuel and tolls would increase -- though the fuel costs of idling for 4 days in traffic likely ate up any savings they would enjoy by taking the shorter route. The long waits -- including days and nights spent in crawling cars -- unsurprisingly led to minor fender benders and other accidents, which in turn led to even more delays. So basically you're looking at the modern version of transportation hell. While China has made huge advancements in public transit, including a high speed rail system that puts our trains to absolute shame, the growing population and the emergence of the new middle class (most of whom become first-time car-owners) and the huge increase in trucked goods has led to disasters like these. Perhaps what's most surprising is that Chinese drivers are willing to tolerate it, rather than turning around and going home. Images: Courtesy Global Times

The Morning Dig: What’s Happening With the Rebuilding at Ground Zero

• In the midst of controversy over the Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, an article looks at the status of rebuilding at the World Trade Center site. (AFP) • The infrastructure upgrade for India's hosting of the Commonwealth Games has lagged behind schedule. (AP) • Like many Muslim countries, Indonesia now has train cars exclusively for women so they don't have to be worry about being harassed by men. (AP) • A radio piece examines how the port in Savannah, Georgia is a key transportation mode for goods destined for the East Coast. (NPR) • An article (registration required) shows how information technology can be used to improve traffic and transport congestion. (FT) • The oil spill is only exacerbating the housing problems faced by victims of Hurricane Katrina. (AP) • Foreign Policy magazine has an interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt on how to improve cities. (FP) [SButtonZ button="digg"] Image: Flickr

The Week in High Speed Rail: Angry Homeowners Unite

• In the U.K., homes built along a new HSR line are already being called "impossible to sell" -- which thrills homeowners to no end. (SkyNews) • CNN takes an optimistic view on the question "Will high-speed rail ever be completed in the U.S.?" (CNN) • And in San Fran, we're still pounding away at whether or not an SF-LA high-speed train will actually be used. (SFIst) • Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has announced appointments to the Southern High-Speed Rail Commission. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: The Most Extravagant Yacht Ever Made?

• In the video above, the Wall Street Journal was granted exclusive access to the $300 million dollar yacht of Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichencko. • Female drivers are safer at the wheel than men, according to a new study. (NYT) • An article takes another look at the "straddling bus" idea in China that has gotten plenty of recent attention (including from us). (NYT) • In the future, wave power could be a green renewable source for Australia's power grid. (Inhabitat) • Parts of the media are "scaremongering" about the danger of bikers in cities. (Gothamist) • While Chicago's parking "fiasco" has gotten some attention, privatization of infrastructure is still being touted by some as a solution for fiscal problems. (Transport Politic) • Richard Florida examines where U.S. blue-collar jobs will be located in the future. (Atlantic) [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: How Extreme Heat Affects Cities

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• Jon Stewart has a good interview (above) with Edward Kohn, author of a book about the great heat wave of 1896 that hit New York City. • Researchers are intensely looking for substitutes for gasoline to try to wean the U.S. off its oil addiction. (NYT) • In the wake of the real-estate crash, an article examines what the future of housing policy should look like. (FT) • JetBlue is bringing back its popular "All You Can Jet" passes. (AP) • Unguarded footbridges between Mexico and the U.S. could be used for undocumented immigrants to cross the border into the U.S. (AP) • From adding trees to narrowing streets, Canadian cities are slowly going green. (Canadian Press) • With a slew of recent news stories about towns tearing up their paved roads into gravel, Jack Shafer critiques the press coverage and says that actually governments have been on a "paving binge for years." (Slate) [SButtonZ button="digg"]

How You Think You Save Energy Is Not How You Save Energy, Study Shows

Bring on the behavioral economists! It turns out that the ways we think we're saving energy are totally different from the ways we can actually save energy. Or so say the results of a new study out of Columbia University, Ohio State University, and Carnegie Mellon. According to the researchers, basically every trope that we follow about how to save energy is in fact wrong: "Participants estimated that line-drying clothes saves more energy than changing the washer’s settings (the reverse is true) and estimated that a central air-conditioner uses only 1.3 times the energy of a room air-conditioner (in fact, it uses 3.5 times as much)." In addition, the study pierced one of the biggest energy efficiency myths of all: that simply not using an appliance or device as often will save more energy than replacing the appliance for a more efficient model. Oh, and that turning off the lights has any real impact whatsoever. The study, which was published in the most recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, goes to the heart of an issue that many of us have been hinting at for a long time: Changing perceptions about energy efficiency (basically eliminating incorrect assumptions and providing people with accurate information) is one of the most powerful tools we have in the efficiency racket. Giving consumers the full picture, so they can make educated decisions about how to use appliances, which appliances to replace, and what behaviors to stress to achieve efficiency, will have a drastic impact on overall usage, not to mention our energy bills. According to the study:

Relative to experts’ recommendations, participants were overly focused on curtailment rather than efficiency, possibly because efficiency improvements almost always involved research, effort and out-of-pocket costs (e.g. buying a new energy-efficient appliance), whereas curtailment may be easier to imagine and incorporate into one’s daily behaviors without any upfront costs.

In other words, the key to achieving greater energy efficiency, and efficiency in general, is the same for consumers as it is for contractors, governments, and everyone else: You need to put in a bit more money at the outset in order to save money in the long run. It's a principle that we may all need to acclimate ourselves to, fast. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: Why Dirty Energy Continues to Thrive

• U.S. utilities are building dozens of new dirty coal-fired power plants without much regard for the environment consequences of all that added carbon dioxide. (AP) • One of my favorite economists, Tyler Cowen, who co-writes the Marginal Revolution blog, has penned a great column saying the U.S. has "way too much free parking." (NYT) • With ever-expanding Internet use, more transatlantic fiber optic cables connecting the U.S. and Europe may have to be installed to keep up with demand. (LiveScience) • South Sudan may be trying to transform some of their cities by making them shaped like animals. (AP) • Parag Khanna has a good article on why a "new urban age" has started and why nation-states will be less important because of the power of cities. (FP) • But Joel Kotkin says that suburbs are the answer to the world's problems, not cities. (FP) • India is planning on spending as much as a trillion dollars on infrastructure to help develop the country. (Bloomberg News) Image: Flickr[SButtonZ button="digg"]

Will Walkability Scores Affect How Much You Pay For a Home?

You may remember Walk Score -- the service that calculates the walkability of a neighborhood or location (shown above). Specifically, it measures and rates the number of destinations, including libraries, parks and coffee shops, within walking distance of a home, using a a 100-point scale. And now, the developers of Walk Score are launching a correspondent tool, called Transit Score, that uses transit agency scheduling data to create a new index. This time, it rates how good the public transit service is for any property in the U.S., taking into account factors like how far you'd have to walk to get to the nearest bus/train stop, and how often buses and trains arrive once you do get there. The creators of Walk Score, a company called Front Seat, have also partnered with Chicago's Center for Neighborhood Technology to release an app that calculates exactly how much you spend on transportation, no matter what form you use. So are apps like this getting big enough to guide decisions on home-buying? Front Seat has certainly been working on it. Specifically, they've been targeting their index toward real estate listings, in a push to get homebuyers to begin factoring walkability -- and now, public transit usability -- into actual home purchases. Walk scores are now visible on around 3 million listings a day on sites like Zillow. Granted, whether they're driving or discouraging purchases remains to be seen: As Matt Lerner, the Chief Technology Officer of Front Seat, told us, "It's very hard for us to measure the impact of [Walk Scores] on actual purchases. We haven't isolated the impact yet." [SButtonZ button="digg"] Some data has shown that homes with high Walk Scores command higher prices, but a clear link between the two has yet to be drawn. In other words, the data isn't there yet. But give it a few years, and some may be available -- Walk Scores are most common in urban areas, which tend to have a large volume of real estate turnover. And as home buyers start to realize that the old tropes -- like "suburbs are cheaper" -- simply aren't true, and that transportation can seriously suck up your budget, perhaps they'll start choosing homes accordingly.

The Morning Dig: Ranking the World’s Top Cities for 2010

• Foreign Policy magazine put together a list of the top global cities along with a methodology and a slideshow of great pictures. (FP) (FP) (FP) • The use of tunnels in Gaza for transporting goods from Egypt is declining because Israel recently relaxed export restrictions. (Reuters) • Scavengers are looting the remnants of Gaza's destroyed and decrepit International Airport. (AP) • An article looks at how the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, has become a major bicycling advocate. (AP) • IBM and the Next American City are sponsoring a contest looking for ideas for making cities "smarter." (BigThink) • A new Gallup-Healthways survey shows how commuting is bad for your physical health. (CreativeClass.com) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Want to Not Get Hit By a Car in New York? Avoid Male Drivers

Want to walk though New York City without getting smashed, maimed, or killed by an automobile? Then follow these rules: 1. Avoid crossing at any and all intersections. 2. Run away from any cars making left turns. 3. Do not walk anywhere between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m., but if you do, stick to the side streets and skip Manhattan entirely. and 4. If it's a man driving, be sure to wear your body armor.[SButtonZ button="digg"] In one of the largest and most ambitious studies of its kind, the city’s Transportation Department examined more than 7,000 crashes in New York City between 2002 and 2006 that resulted in the death or serious injury of at least one pedestrian. The report's findings were often surprising, and contradicted some commonly-held views about pedestrian safety. The New York Times reports:

Taxis, it turns out, were no careering menace: cabs accounted for far fewer pedestrian accidents in Manhattan than privately owned vehicles. Jaywalkers, surely the city’s most numerous scofflaws, were involved in fewer collisions than their law-abiding counterparts who waited for the “walk” sign. And one discovery could permanently upend one of the uglier stereotypes of the motoring world: in 80 percent of city accidents that resulted in a pedestrian’s death or serious injury, a male driver was behind the wheel.... November and December were the most dangerous months for pedestrians, the report found, citing a combination of holiday crowds and earlier sunsets. New Year’s Day brings calm, with the crash rate falling sharply in January and February. About 40 percent of pedestrian crashes occurred between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m., the study found; nationally, most crashes occur overnight.

So are city officials going to use the report's results to implement any pedestrian-protecting changes? Thankfully, yes:

Dozens of parking spaces will be removed next year from a major Manhattan avenue — the city won’t say which one — in an experiment designed to make it easier for pedestrians to spot drivers taking left turns. The city will also install countdown clocks at 1,500 intersections that inform pedestrians of the number of seconds remaining until the light changes. Transportation officials say they are planning a media campaign to educate New Yorkers about safe driving practices — including a reminder that the city’s posted speed limit is 30 miles an hour, a fact that [Janette] Sadik-Khan, in an informal poll of her friends, discovered almost nobody knew.

And for those of us who navigate Manhattan's craziness on a daily basis, here's a potentially life-saving tip: Stick to side streets, walk on the right side (to avoid left-turners) and stay alert at intersections (meaning no texting-while-crossing). Oh and be sure to pay attention to all those new countdown clocks!

Goodbye Land Transit? Say Hello to the New Flying Suntram [Gallery]

Officials in Denver have been trying for years to come up with a solution to their bad (and getting worse) traffic problems. Then Colorado architect Richard Morris thought of another alternative: a flying tram that carries cars and passengers high above the roads and bridges, at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. Enter the Suntram, a high-speed regional transportation system supported primarily by a catenary cable. Described by one onlooker as an "airplane connected to a ski lift," the Suntram is run high above the ground on a stationary cable, and uses Morris's newly-designed suspension system, which limits vertical acceleration. And to keep the carbon footprint low, the Suntram system collects wind and solar energy at each station, and feeds the unused power back into the grid.[SButtonZ button="digg"] Click on the picture below to see a gallery of the Suntram in action, and for a detailed video description click here.

Click here to view gallery

Images: Courtesy Suntram.net

The Morning Dig: Does Driving Make You Fat?

• A fascinating graphic shows the correlation between how much driving a state's residents do and the state's rate of obesity. (Good) • And a new study says that people who live near public transport live "healthier, longer lives." (APTA) • Governments are increasingly using satellite maps to enforce their local regulations. (AP) • Despite pushback from residents, Brazil is going ahead with plans to build a huge hydro-electric dam. (NYT) • In the New York City area, the Metro-North commuter railroad is considering buying double-decker train cars. (NYT) • A runaway train caused panic in London Friday as it sped toward the center of the city for four miles without a driver. (NYT) (Bloomberg News) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Week in High Speed Rail: Here Comes the U.S.’s First HSR Station

• Let the building begin! The official groundbreaking ceremony took place this week for the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco (shown above), which will be the northern terminus for the California High Speed Rail system. (Independent) • Meanwhile, no decision on the location of the Lakeland-area station for Florida's HSR will be made until late 2011. (Ledger) • California's state Senate passed a bill requiring companies vying for a piece of the state's HSR project to disclose whether they transported Holocaust victims or POWs to Nazi camps during World War II. (AP) • Bring in the students! A group of grad students at the University of Pennsylvania have created a plan to rebuild the Northeast Corridor as a true HSR line that would make the trip from Philadelphia to New York City in 37 minutes. (Enquirer) • A rising number of major HSR projects have been put on hold in Europe, due to the entire continent's debt crisis. (AP) [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: Are Driverless Cars the Future?

• The Reuters video above describes the famous driverless car journey to Shanghai. • There is actually a law in Manhattan stipulating that most buildings in Times Square have bright advertising signs. (WSJ) • What's the worst typo on a road marking? Probably "SHCOOL" instead of "SCHOOL". (Yahoo! News) • Joel Kotkin argues that more money should be allocated for buses rather than trains. (Forbes.com) • Thousands of acres of farmland in California could be transformed for solar panel use. (NYT) • Two articles look at why Islamic community center being built close to Ground Zero ran into trouble, and why Mayor Michael Bloomberg is so passionate about the issue. (NYT) (NYT) [SButtonZ button="digg"]

Here Come the NYC Bus Lanes!

We've written about the radical "Bus Only" lanes being designated in New York City -- and now here they are! This photo was taken yesterday at First Avenue near 88th Street in Manhattan. According to our tipster, " I think they are moving south from there; I spotted signs at 89th, 91st and 92nd Street as well." Vive la bus! [SButtonZ button="digg"] Image courtesy of Justin Hunter

Aging Drivers: How Old Is Too Old to Drive?

There are plenty of transportation and infrastructure challenges that accompany a rapidly aging population (like ours). One of them is the gradual shift of a large group of people from a state of drive-readiness to, well, not. Advancing age correlates to a decline in just about every skill needed for driving -- motor skills, vision, hearing, alertness, the list goes on. And as a result, older drivers are involved in a larger number of auto accidents. In fact, drivers 75 and older are more likely than drivers in all other age groups, including teenagers, to be involved in a fatal crash. In 1997 through 2006, the number of fatal accidents involving drivers over 70 21 percent decline in fatal accidents involving drivers over the age of 70 (though there's some evidence that this statistic may be changing).[SButtonZ button="digg"] At the Washington Post, Sandra Boodman offers some analysis of the issue:

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...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.

Occasionally you'll hear ideas tossed around to combat this problem -- such as instituting yearly DMV tests for drivers over 65 (a move that would be swiftly smacked down by the uber-powerful AARP). But while the over-65 crowd holds considerable political clout, the fact remains that driving-while-elderly will become a serious safety concern in the coming decade, and that if we ignore the problem because it's politically convenient to do so, we will be putting lives at risk. Granted, there's plenty of nuance in dealing with this issue -- for starters, not all people are the same (for example, our driving skills are likely worse than those of many 70-year-olds -- seriously, they are). The loss of independence, not to mention the potential loss of livelihood as more and more senior citizens work past the standard retirement age, are both serious obstacles to legislation restricting seniors' driving. But the alternative -- doing nothing, and leaving it to the family to deal with the problem on their own -- is even less appealing.

The Morning Dig: How Budget Cuts Ravage Transit and Infrastructure

• Governments are drastically cutting back services to their citizens because of large budget deficits. A news article and Paul Krugman column examine the implications of this issue. (NYT) (NYT) • Chicago drivers will end up paying $11 billion to a Morgan Stanley-led partnership because the city leased out its parking meters. (Bloomberg News) • Fresh Air has a fascinating interview with the author of a book on how the heat wave of 1896 affected the city of New York. (NPR) • Almost five years after Hurricane Katrina, an article examines the rebuilding of New Orleans. (NPR) • The Washington, D.C. metro was the scene of a major brawl involving more than 70 youths. (WashPost) • As the French navy moves to a different location, a massive historic building in Paris is attracting attention because its next tenant is mysterious. (NYT) Image: Flickr [SButtonZ button="digg"]

If the Grid Didn’t Exist, Would There Still Be a Need to Invent It?

This is a guest post by Nick Rosen, the author of Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America. Rosen is a documentary maker, journalist, and broadcaster who for the past two decades has been a Teaching Assistant at the Georgetown University Philosophy Department. Nick is an off-grid expert, editing the website www.off-grid.net, and since 1994 has been off the grid part-time. Salem NH June 2010: Kay Phaneu, at home in her oxygen tent, dies when National Grid cuts off her power over a delinquent bill. National Grid, a British owned Utility providing electricity to homes in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York and Nantucket, says it followed all the correct procedures. But industry lobbying helped set those procedures. I hope my book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America helps open a debate about the American electricity industry, which has sales of $400 Billion per year. Most of us rely on the electricity grid (along with water and gas) in every aspect of our lives. But if the grid did not exist, would there still be a need to invent it? I spent last year researching a book about Americans who live off the grid, free of the intersecting pipes and cables that delineate modern life. As a group and as individuals, the “off-gridders” are among America’s most independent, secure, self-reliant...and comfortable. Nobody is likely to cut off their power.[SButtonZ button="digg"] Going off-grid is the wave of the future, not a return to the Stone Age; a marriage of new technology and ancient wisdom. For a lifestyle on the fringe of society, some of its adherents are surprisingly conventional. I met captains of industry seeking privacy, survivalists anticipating the next great disaster, environmentalists pioneering a new way of life, foreclosed urbanites making a fresh start in the boondocks, retirees exchanging suburbia for simplicity, anarchists and various other kinds of “-ists” living out social experiments, and plenty of ordinary middle income families who have lost trust in the system and prefer to rely on their own resources. There are up to 1.75 million Americans already living off the grid, and they are show-casing a potential future for many millions more. The power grid may seem almost a force of nature today, but its history spans just eighty years. Now the electricity industry is asking for trillions to build the so called Smart Grid, which would allow it to continue the way it always has -- with vast inefficient power stations and wholesale leakage of electricity during the long journey to the end user. As the book shows, the way our communities are arranged today owes much to the practices of the power companies through the 1930s and 1940s. Just as the rise of the automobile drove Exxon’s oil sales, companies like General Electric that made generating equipment, promoted “the electric home,” marketing a range of energy-guzzling devices. The utility companies had no incentive to promote energy efficiency –- quite the opposite. The same is still true – the more power we consume, the more profits they make. That is one reason for a carbon tax – as long as it is a tax on inefficiency in production and distribution. Meanwhile, technology has moved on. An energy efficient home, or community, generating its own electricity, can survive on a fraction of the power of its conventional equivalent – perhaps as little as 10%. But there are better reasons to live off the grid than raising a middle finger at the utilities, however satisfying that might be. Perhaps the most important is that living off the grid can be cheaper -- not for a conventional home that is already connected to the grid, nor in an area with strict building codes and expensive land. But a new home built somewhere the grid does not reach, where land is cheap and sun is plentiful, can run as little as $100,000 for three bedrooms – solar panels and battery systems included. Most who decide they want to move off the grid do not want to save money on their home in order to spend it on other things – rather they intend to radically reduce their consumption. The people I met see this as a path to freedom – freedom from debt, of course, and greedy bankers and lying politicians, but also freedom from fear of foreclosure, economic collapse, energy insecurity, and Kafka-esque government bureaucracy. Which brings us back to the late Kay Phaneu. It seems that residents of New Hampshire, however sick they are, must renew their status with the utility companies every 60 days, or else they cannot benefit from a rule preventing people with medical conditions from having their power supply withdrawn. That kind of cosy relationship between regulators and industry can lead ordinary citizens to despair, or encourage them to go off the grid. Naturally the off-grid lifestyle has its own obstacles, one of which is opposition from Federal, State and local authorities who see this return to nature as somehow unnatural. Off-gridders are rarely in a strong position to fight back. The off-grid.net Web site exists to connect them up and find strength through numbers.

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• Former JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater (the guy who quit his job by inflating the emergency slide of a just-landed plane and jumping) is now an icon for people who are fed up with their jobs. (NYT) • One writer looks at why the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority is chronically underfunded. (CityLimits.org) • By investing in its infrastructure and transportation hubs, Los Angeles is creating good-paying jobs and helping its economy. (PlanningReport.com) • Because their wages have been slashed, traffic cops in Spain are being more lenient and writing fewer tickets. (AP) • Russia has honored the great writer Dostoevsky by naming a subway station after him and filling it with murals of art. (NPR) • On New York City's more than 900 private streets, residents set their own parking and traffic rules. (Daily News) • A plane crash has killed former Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens. (NYT) [SButtonZ button="digg"]