DENVER — With the price of gas approaching $4 a gallon, more commuters are abandoning their cars and taking the train or bus instead.Mass transit systems around the country are seeing standing-room-only crowds on bus lines where seats were once easy to come by. Parking lots at many bus and light rail stations are suddenly overflowing, with commuters in some towns risking a ticket or tow by parking on nearby grassy areas and in vacant lots.
“In almost every transit system I talk to, we’re seeing very high rates of growth the last few months,” said William W. Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association.
“It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas.”
Have you ever heard of the SouthCoast Bikeway? I just stumbled upon an article posted on SouthCoastToday.com discussing efforts to create a bikeway with
The long-held dream is that, starting at the Rhode Island border, a cyclist might breeze along a designated route through 10 communities - Swansea, Somerset, Fall River, Westport, Dartmouth, New Bedford, Fairhaven, Mattapoisett, Marion and Wareham - to where, soon after the Wareham-Bourne line, our intrepid biker would connect to a Cape Cod Bikeway and pump metal all the way to Truro, if so desired.
How great would it be to hop on your bike and head out for a vacation on the Cape? I’d certainly consider doing something like this once my kids were a little bit older and could handle more hours in the saddle.
A report released by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission calls for a significant federal gasoline tax increase of up to 40 cents implemented over 5 years. On top of this, a number of states are considering their own gas tax hikes. Would this finally be enough to reach the breaking point for most Americans?
The issue is highly contraversal and has already mobilized people on both sides of the issue. In my opinion, even those that are supporting the tax hike are missing a fundamental point. Often, the first words out of their mouth are that the hike is needed to fund increasing capacity in an effort to reduce congestion. The phrase, “if you build, they will come” instantly comes to mind. When is the nation going to wake up and realize it’s time to focus on building good mass transit systems?
The opponents largely claim that we don’t need an increase in gas tax, rather a reduction in spending. What, are we going to reduce the amount of money spent on schools or health care? Others claim that instead of gas tax, we should focus on toll based systems. Great, apply tolls on the major highways and force the people who are too cheap to pay the tolls onto back roads that are now used by cyclists trying to avoid cars.
One notable proposal in the report is for an Intercity Passenger Rail program which would provide a stable, dedicated source of funding to improve and expand Amtrak service. Just yesterday, I was out on a ride over lunch with a friend and we noticed works pulling up rail that passed under the Henderson Bridge at one point. How ironic would it be if they were to turn around and lay that all back down in the next 10 years.
I suspect it will be a while before we see how this one shakes out. No candidate in their right mind would openly support a gas tax hike heading into an election.
Amid growing reports nationwide of fatal car accidents tied to cell phone use, Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a pair of bills that would ban hand-held mobile telephones and prohibit text messaging while driving.
As we reported earlier, there was a teen killed in Taunton not long ago, where the driver admitted to sending a text message while driving. If nothing else, perhaps an act like this would result in at least a fine.
A 2007 survey by AAA and Seventeen magazine found that 46 percent of 16- and 17-year-old drivers said they text message while driving and 51 percent talk on cell phones while driving.
It’s not just teenagers. In a recent Zogby poll, 66 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds said that they’ve driven while texting. And now that Blackberries and other PDA devices have become more popular, many adults are also guilty of driving while typing, legislators say.
Yikes! No wonder I see so many people on the phone while I’m riding along in traffic. While the legislature is banning things, perhaps we could add reading, watching movies, dressing, etc. to the list of activities one should not do while driving.
A friend of mine recently sent a link to the following video of a time lapse video of a student rush hour in Cambridge, UK.
It sparked a rather interesting discussion between the two of us. Does this video show complete chaos (bikes all over everywhere, cars being cut off, and cyclist taking unnecessary risks) or does it show the advantages of a critical mass of bikes (cars drastically outnumbered, stopping for pedestrians and bicycles, and generally being made to wait)? Read the rest of this entry »
