cars Archives - Page 6 of 10 - Amateur Earthling

Green Manhattan

A good piece from The New Yorker on what makes dense urban areas intrinsically better for the environment than suburbia or back-to-the-land fantasies. More people closer together need less transportation to go about their daily lives. High density buildings need less energy to stay comfortable inside because they have less surface area for the enclosed useful space. More resources can be effectively shared when lots of people are close together. The author, David Owen, has a whole book on the topic, entitled Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability. Cities have their problems, but often they aren’t the result of density directly. Poor air quality in cities, for instance, is almost entirely the fault of motor vehicles.

Reckless Driving in the Netherlands

In the US we wouldn’t think twice about a young testosterone laden driver endangering the lives of four cyclists with his “monster truck”. If anything, we’d probably blame the cyclists — especially if they weren’t wearing helmets. But how is it different from someone carelessly brandishing a gun in your face? That’s how seriously they seem to take it in the Netherlands:

From David Hembrow via Streetfilms.

Project Thirty Days mostly Car-Free

Someone from Bike Radar decided to give up their car for a month, right here in Boulder and midwinter no less. They’ve got a sweet longtail from Trek that looks like it’s served them well. Even with temperatures plunging below -20°C, it ended up being easier than he thought, and easier with time. Boulder’s infrastructure made it pleasant, not just doable. Here’s hoping more people will give it a try!

We aren’t so tough

We’ve had some honest-to-god winter weather in Boulder this past week, with overnight temperatures as low as -25°C (-13°F), and light snowfall on and off for several days. Here, if you keep riding your bike around town when the weather is like this, people think you’re tough, hard core, committed… or crazy:

@BoulderParking: Boulder bikers are tough & committed. Despite the sub zero temps this week… bike commuters were out every day!

Continue reading We aren’t so tough

Do Roads Pay for Themselves?

A study from the US Public Research Interest Group (PDF) on transportation funding the US. The short answer is that only about half of highway funds come from “user fees” like the gas tax and vehicle registration fees. The rest is payed out of bonds, property taxes and other government revenues.

Hackable Cars

A study of the security (or lack thereof) inherent in today’s highly computerized vehicles. Not much better than voting machines overall. We’re connecting dangerous things to our networks much faster than we’re learning how to keep them from blowing up. Just ask Iran! Thankfully my bicycle is still unhackable.

Whose Roads?

A summary of research looking at how road infrastructure is funded (PDF) from VTPI. Only about half of road funding comes from “use” fees like the gas tax and vehicle registration fees. The other half comes from general tax revenues. Ultimately this means that non-motorized road users, whose impacts on road infrastructure are very low, overpay significantly and end up subsidizing motorists.

Tag: cars