Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: demographics, driving, miles traveled, miles traveled graph, Peak Driving, peak oil, transportation, travel, Vmt
Continuation of recent trend suggesting American driving may have peaked.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/14martvt/figure1.cfm
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: congress, Cory Gardner, energy, energy exports, gas, gas exports, LNG, Mark Udall, Natural gas, Race to the Stupid, Udall
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s decision today to approve Rep. Cory Gardner’s bill aimed at increasing liquified natural gas exports has Republicans crowing because his November opponent, Democrat Mark Udall, plans to introduce an identical bill in the Senate.
via Rep. Cory Gardner's energy bill passes, to Republicans' delight.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: doping, EPO, peloton, pro cycling, Ricco, steroids, Tom Danielson
The guy was already caught twice in competition and kicked out of pro cycling.
Ricco was banned for 12 years in 2011 after being rushed to hospital apparently following a botched blood transfusion. The controversial Italian climber had been planning to attack a series of records on well known cycling climbs such as Mont Ventoux but is now facing charges of receiving banned substances and dealing in banned substances. Doping is a crime in Italy.According to a report on the Il Tirreno website, Ricco was caught with another local professional on Tuesday afternoon after collecting a bag containing 30 doses of drugs in the car park of an out of town McDonalds, north of Livorno. The two dealers are from Livorno, with one working in a local hospital.
via Report: Riccò Caught Buying Doping Products | Cyclingnews.com.
Going after those climbing records high on EPO… kind of the Tom Danielson of Italy.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Billings, Fort Collins, livable communities, Loveland, the Fort
According to this Gallup poll: http://www.gallup.com/poll/168485/city-satisfaction-highest-fort-collins-loveland-colo.aspx
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: airlline fuel, energy, fuel costs, jet fuel, oil consumption, peak oil, transportation, Twitter
via the tweetbox
Airline fuel cost per gal: February dwn 0.7pct frm Jan, dwn 7.4pct frm Feb2013. At $3.02/gal #airlines #fuel #energy http://t.co/10KCH3ESM1
— TransportStats (@TransportStats) April 9, 2014
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Baltimore, Fail, KIPP, SWAT, terrorists have won, tripod
Baltimore police stormed a school in SWAT gear, locking it down for four hours before evacuating the students to another school after a journalism student was spotted with a tripod.
“…locking it down for four hours before evacuating students to another school…”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Boulder, Gerstle, Lefthand, stinky decisions
And James Canyon. Kind of a weird move that is sure to raise some ire and mess up some plans.
Boulder County has closed Lefthand Canyon and James Canyon to cyclists until May 1 while crews remove major debris hazards and continue road construction there.
County officials also encouraged motorists to avoid the canyons’ roads unless travel is necessary. The closings to cyclists began on Friday and are to be in effect seven days a week.
County Transportation director George Gerstle said in a news release that the closings of Lefthand and James canyons’ roads are “due to unsafe conditions on the roadways such as steep drop-offs along the roadways from washed-away ditches and washed-away roadside shoulders, plus the increased volumes of heavy construction and road maintenance equipment along compromised roadways.”
Said Gerstle: “While these conditions are experienced by both motorists and bicyclists, bicyclists are much more likely to have their safety compromised.”
Residents needing to ride a bike in the area for basic transportation purposes can contact the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office at 303-441-3650 for a special permit.
via Lefthand, James canyons' roads closed to cyclists – Longmont Times-Call.
Bicyclists ride on “compromised roadways” all day long, so I’m not sure what their point is.
And…“While these conditions are experienced by both motorists and bicyclists, bicyclists are much more likely to have their safety compromised.” …is true for any condition.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: drugs in sports, Jan Mathieu, MPCC, painkillers
I wonder how much real evidence Mathieu has for the following assertion.
Lotto-Belisol team doctor Jan Mathieu has said that the ongoing use of powerful painkiller Tramadol by some riders is a contributing factor in the recent spate of crashes in the opening classics races of 2014, and has renewed calls to have the drug banned.
Tramadol is an opioid, and like other substances in that group it causes drowsiness as a side-effect. Mathieu says that it’s this that has caused riders to lose concentration and cause crashes, according to an interview published by Belgian website sporza.be.
Teams that have voluntarily signed up to the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC)’s stringent charter do not use the drug, but teams that have not signed up – including Sky, Omega Pharma-QuickStep and BMC Racing – are free to use it as it is currently not on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list of banned substances.
via Tramadol to blame for classics crashes says Lotto-Belisol doctor – Cycling Weekly.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Amtrak, denver, DIA, eye hole, infill, JG Johnson, light rail, pie hole, Skidmore, Sky Hole, Tryba, Union Depot, Union Station, urban development
Can’t wait to check out the Sky Hole. And finally, in 2016, about 25 years after the airport was built on the Eastern plains, there will be a rail line connecting it to Denver.
Used to always be known as “Union Depot” according to one historian. The 1914 building replaced an equally grand predecessor.
Today, Union Station, in the city’s Lower Downtown neighborhood, is on the cusp of a major transformation. The Beaux Arts–style depot, built in 1914, is being restored and converted—by Denver firms Tryba Architects and JG Johnson Architects—into a 112-room boutique hotel with shops, offices, and restaurants, opening in July. Meanwhile, in the rail yard behind the station, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has created a multimodal transit hub for buses, light rail, commuter rail, and Amtrak service. The $500 million public-private project is a milestone for sprawling Denver, which has embraced transit in a big way. The metropolitan area’s first light-rail line opened in 1994, and 10 years later, voters approved a $6.5 billion transit program for an additional 122 miles of commuter and light rail. Starting in 2016, Union Station will be the hub for four new commuter lines, including one to Denver International Airport. That “Travel by Train” sign suddenly seems relevant again.
via Denver Union Station is a "Game Changer" – News – Architectural Record.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alta Bikeshare, Alta Planning, bikeshare, Marie Casista, Portland, toronto, transportation
Why does my “Spidey Sense” activate every time I hear something about Alta? Something going on there…
The program will simply be called “Bike Share Toronto” and will be operated daily by Alta Bicycle Share , a Portland, Oregon-based company operating bike share systems in New York, Chicago, Boston and Melbourne, Australia.
The new logo will look almost identical to Toronto Parking logos except with a bike instead of a green P, said Marie Casista, vice-president of real estate, development and marketing for TPA.
“(The name) really represents what it is,” Casista said, “and what we’re doing.”
The beleaguered urban cycling program, which started in 2011, has struggled financially, telling the city last year it could no longer make payments on a $3.9-million city loan.
In December, Bixi’s creator Quebec-based Public Bike System Company and the city came to a deal to transfer all Toronto assets , with TPA set to run the program as of April 1. In January, the Public Bike System Company filed for bankruptcy protection.
via New name, look and prices for Toronto’s Bixi | Toronto Star.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cheaters, cheating, cycling, doping, genetic manipulation, hypoxia
Aha.
Numerous physical, pharmacological and/or genetic strategies exist that simulate the effects of hypoxia at the molecular and cellular level and increase expression of hypoxia-induced genes such as hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), its downstream targets such as erythropoietin (EPO) and consequently increase red blood cell production. While hypoxia was classically achieved by exposure to high altitude (hypobaric hypoxic exposure), there are currently numerous methodologies for achieving hypoxia-induced gene doping including chambers (normobaric hypoxia), chemicals and genetic manipulation. Our basic hypothesis is that exposure to different types of hypoxia lead to both a unique ‘molecular signature’ specific to the type of hypoxia as well as core ‘molecular signature’ irrespective of the type of hypoxia. Testing the ‘molecular signatures of hypoxia’ using blood samples from athletes will detect all the different forms (of physical, small molecule and gene-based) hypoxia-induced gene doping that are currently in use (or likely to be developed in the near future) with great sensitivity and specificity.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: accident rates, casualties, casualty rates, cycling, drivers, London, pedestrians, road users, transportation, Twitter, UK, urban cycling
Casualty rate and total number of casualties in London by road user type and age from http://t.co/U57gv7Hm8G pic.twitter.com/yf4vz2fXzG
— Jim (@geographyjim) March 20, 2014
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: begrimed, begrimers, bike share, bikewhare, Citibike, New York, NYU, transportation, urban cycling
Citibike, that is.
A new study out of NYU: http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/CitiBikeTakesNewYork_.pdf
Citi Bike has become a vital element of the city’s transportation network, providing a new flexible mode for many New Yorkers. Trips that were once 20-minute walks are now 5-minute bike rides, and places previously inacces- sible by public transit are now linked to the network.
In its first six months of operation, Citi Bike riders took more than 6 million trips, and by early January, nearly 100,000 riders spent $95 to become annual members.
Bikeshare proven now to be among the safest forms of transport.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: chrysler, Dodge Viper, Fiat, South Puget Sound Community College
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Chrysler ordered a community college in Olympia, Wash. to crush a rare pre-production Doge [hilarious sic] Viper in pristine condition owned by the school.
Norm Chapman, an automotive technology professor at South Puget Sound Community College, told Q13FOX he received a letter from Chrysler, advising him that the college’s $250,000 1992 pre-production Dodge Viper must be destroyed.
While Chapman wasn’t sure why the order to destroy the classic car was issued, he did speculate to Q13FOX that crashes involving two other educational Vipers while being driven outside of the classroom illegally may have something to do with it.
The car, described by Chapman as a “once-in-a-lifetime car,” was donated to the college by Chrysler.
Chapman added that the vehicle has only 304 miles and has never even had the chance to get out on the road.
[…]
“With advancements in automotive technology over the past decade, it is unlikely that these vehicles offer any educational value to students,” said Chrysler.
Uh.. Doge Viper. Very education. Much fast.
via Chrysler orders college to destroy rare Dodge Viper | KDVR.com.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycling, biking, car-bike collisions, looked-but-failed-to-see errors, motorist cognition, traffic safety, urban cycling
That’s us cyclists.
It’s called a ‘looked-but-failed-to-see-error’ and it’s the biggest danger to adult cyclists, by far. Anticipating ‘looked-but-failed-to-see errors’ is the best thing you can do for your own safety while riding a bike, by far.
Up to 93% of motorists say it is sometimes hard to see cyclists while driving, according to a survey of nearly 18,000 drivers.
More than half (55%) are often “surprised when a cyclist appears from nowhere”, the AA/Populus survey said.
Drivers in London were the most likely to look out for pedal cyclists, while drivers in Wales and Northern Ireland were least likely to do so.
The survey coincides with a national AA bike awareness campaign.
Initially, about one million free stickers will be distributed to drivers as a reminder to do a “double take” in their mirrors for cycles and motorcycles in their blind spots.
via BBC News – Motorists find cyclists hard to spot, AA survey shows.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: active commuting, bicycling, bicycling and the law, biking, child cycling, Colorado, cycling infrastructure, Safe Routes to School, urban biking
House Bill 14-1301 will direct $3 million to keep the statewide child health and safety program alive following the end of dedicated federal funding.
The program has proven to improve safety for children around schools and to increase their daily exercise through biking and walking to school.
A broad coalition of groups is endorsing this bill along with Bicycle Colorado: LiveWell Colorado, Colorado Health Foundation, American Heart Association, Children’s Hospital Colorado.
via Mitsch Bush introduces Colorado Safe Routes to School Act | Bicycle Colorado.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bicycle helmet laws, bicycle helmets, bicycling, Chris Boardman, cycling, helmet, London, mandatory helmet laws, UK, urban cycling
British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman says it’s time for the cycling community to put the debate about mandatory cycle helmets to bed and get across the message that helmet use is one of the least important cycling safety measures.
Even talking about making helmets mandatory “massively puts people off” cycling, Boardman said, and likened the culture of helmet use among keen cyclists to people wearing body armour because they have got used to being shot at.
Talking to road.cc at the London Bike Show, Boardman said, “I think the helmet issue is a massive red herring. It’s not even in the top 10 of things you need to do to keep cycling safe or more widely, save the most lives.”
via Chris Boardman: "Helmets not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe" | road.cc.
More Boardman goodness:
We could use some straight talk like this in the US.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chevron, crude oil, energy, Exxon, fracking, James Hamilton, oil, oil production, peak oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell, WSJ
via James Hamilton via WSJ: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2014/01/big-oil-companies-spending-more-and-producing-less
click to enlarge
Industrialized Cyclist Notepad 