To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net
For the second time in two days, a flaming big rig brought the
afternoon commute through the San Gabriel Valley to a crawl Friday, this
time in Irwindale, authorities said.
No injuries were reported in
connection with the fire, which ignited about 5:15 p.m. in the
westbound lanes of the 210 Freeway at the 605 Freeway, California
Highway Patrol Officer Tony Polizzi said.
Callers first reported
seeing a big rig disabled and on fire in the No. 3 lane of traffic, the
officer said. Subsequent callers reported the fire grew until the truck
was fully engulfed.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze in about 20 minutes, according to CHP logs. The cause was unclear.
Officials
initially shut down all but the carpool lane as they extinguished the
fire and removed the scorched truck from the roadway. A little over an
hour later, the carpool and two left-hand lanes had been reopened.
By Tim O'Reiley, November 13, 2013 An artist's rendering shows an entertainment car on what would have been part of Las Vegas Railway Express' planned X Train.
The party has ended before it began on train travel between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
For
four years, penny stock company Las Vegas Railway Express has promoted
its idea to restart rail service between the two areas using
conventional equipment outfitted for a good-time ride, what it calls the
X Train.
But in its second-quarter report filed Tuesday, the
company disclosed that it had scrapped its previously announced strategy
of raising $100 million to launch the service, including paying the
Union Pacific Railroad $67 million to improve and expand its tracks
between Las Vegas and Daggett, Calif.
As a result, the company forfeited a $600,000 deposit paid to Union Pacific last year.
When
the Union Pacific deal was announced one year ago, Las Vegas Railway
Express CEO Michael Barron said in a statement, “This moment will be
long remembered as an important milestone in providing a great
experience for X Train customers.”
This managed to attract widespread attention.
“No
longer was the X Train followed by a few news organizations in Southern
Nevada,” publicist Mick Bailey wrote on the company’s website. “(An)
Associated Press article was picked up by news agencies around the
country.”
Barron promised an inaugural run on the upcoming New
Year’s Eve, one of several start dates that have gone by the boards. The
initial concept called for a $99 fare each way, including food and
drink, for about a five-hour ride.
The quarterly report said the
company will pursue an “off balance sheet” deal being put together by
unidentified investors to restart Amtrak service for the first time
since 1997, with X Train party cars attached.
Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham said in a statement, “They have approached us but we have no agreement.”
Barron
planned to have Amtrak crews run the original version of the party
trains, but no contract was ever signed. Likewise, the Las Vegas Railway
Express never reached a deal with BNSF, which owns about half the track
between Las Vegas and the proposed terminus at Fullerton, Calif., near
Disneyland.
Replacing the Union Pacific transaction with an off
balance sheet would prevent shareholder dilution, Barron said in a
statement.
However, the number of shares the past year alone has
quadrupled to 164.7 million, according to company financial statements,
as the company has sold stock and secured loans that could be repaid
with stock to raise the money to stay in business.
The number of shares it could potentially owe would take it above the currently authorized limit of 200 million.
Barron’s
latest pitch calls for attaching the casino-style passenger cars to
regular Amtrak routes, with the first one on Dec. 2 to connect to an
unspecified city pair anywhere in the country. In June, a company
statement said it would start accepting bookings the next month for what
it called Casino Fun Trains on 10 different routes, such as Houston to
New Orleans.
The announced xtrainvacations.com website does not work, however.
Graham
said Amtrak has no agreements to allow Las Vegas Railway Express to
attach any cars to regular trains. Moreover, she said, the company has
not said where or if any cars are ready for service.
Nevertheless,
the company seeks to lease 20 acres owned by North Las Vegas for a
station. Previously, Barron talked about locating next to the Plaza
downtown, but that plan was dropped.
Last month, scientists from around the world issued a report about
air pollution, classifying it as a carcinogen. After looking at scores
of studies relating air particles to disease outcomes, WHO researchers
found that the evidence for a cancer link was overwhelming. Their
conclusions were underscored by a case report of an 8-year-old in China —
the most heavily polluted country in the world — who developed lung
cancer.
A second report from Lancet — a leading British medical journal —
linked air pollution to increased rates of low birth weight infants.
Their data indicated that more than 20 percent of cases of fetal growth
retardation could be prevented by improving air quality in European
cities.
Over the last decades, most Americans have come to
realize that we control our health, to a great degree, by the choices we
make regarding diet, exercise and habits. We don’t have a lot of
control over our genetic predispositions for diseases, though knowledge
about how our genes interact with the environment is expanding rapidly.
As
individuals, we also have little control over what we breathe. Clean
air is a public policy issue — with health concerns balanced against
cost. Strengthening the federal Clean Air Act is our best protection
against dangerous air pollution; states can’t do it alone. Citizens need
to know that the health risks of air pollution are real, and support
measures that reduce its impact. “You are what you eat” is an old adage —
new data add that you also “are what you breathe.”
Sydney R. Sewall, MDMaine Physicians for Social Responsibility Hallowell
Posted by Pasadena Councilman Steve Madison on Facebook, November 15, 2013
As
a reminder, tomorrow is the third Community Meeting that will present
the Devil's Gate Reservoir Sediment Removal and Management Project and
its DEIR. Community participation is an integral part of the CEQA
process. The meeting will take place from 2:00PM-4:00PM at the
Community Center of La Canada Flintridge located at 4469 Chevy Chase
Drive.
The Elmhurst and Touhy intersection in Elk Grove Village will get an $11 million treatment to add a bypass lane.
In its upcoming update of the GO TO 2040 comprehensive regional plan,
the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning needs to take a closer
look at the transportation projects it funds with federal Congestion
Mitigation and Air Quality grants. In the latest round of these grants, announced Tuesday, CMAP committees have approved funding for nine projects that only add more space for cars.
The Regional Transportation Operations Coalition,
a consortium of transportation agencies and consultants that makes
recommendations to CMAP, selected several projects that add turn lanes
at intersections.
These funds are supposed to be used to reduce vehicle pollution,
because Chicagoland air quality does not meet the standards set out in
the Clean Air Act. The best way to do that using transportation
infrastructure is to make walking, biking, and transit more appealing to
people relative to driving.
While each road expansion project is presumed to reduce traffic
congestion at that specific location, the broader effect is to induce
more driving and discourage transit use. And increasing transit
ridership is supposedly a major goal of CMAP’s GO TO 2040 regional plan.
This year, road projects comprise 35.2 percent of Congestion
Mitigation and Air Quality funding, an increase from the 25.7 percent
share in 2012. According to CMAP’s own analysis, all of these road
projects will have “no benefit” when it comes to reducing solo driving
trips or traffic in general [one, two]. Meanwhile, all bike/ped/transit projects are projected to have a positive impact on reducing traffic and SOV trips.
The
good news: CMAQ funds will pay for construction of the Union Station
transportation center at Jackson/Canal, with underground walkway to the
Great Hall.
Granted, these road projects may yield some improvement to the speed
and flow of bus operations. But the overall effect could still work
against transit: By creating more space for driving, people will drive
more in these places, which can slow down buses. And just as important,
all the money spent on these road projects cannot be invested in ways
that will definitely improve transit, biking, and walking.
A bus stop without a sidewalk or waiting area along suburban Randall Road. Photo: Google Maps.
On to the more worthy projects that will receive this funding. Active
transportation projects that Chicagoland residents can expect in the
near future include:
Sidewalks and concrete waiting areas for suburban bus stops. Yes,
Randall Road in Kane County is notorious for being hostile to
pedestrians and Pace bus riders, as bus stops consist of a pole in the
grass next to a ditch. This project will address the fact that “bus stop
locations along [Randall Road] lack adequate connectivity due to
prevalent large-setback strip-malls.”
“Arterial Rapid Transit” bus service on Milwaukee Avenue from
Jefferson Park CTA Blue Line in Chicago to Golf Mill mall in Niles. The
project will have transit signal priority (like Ashland BRT), branded
buses (like the J14 Jeffery Jump), stations, and real-time info at
stops.
Reconstruction of two Chicago Transit Authority stations, Monroe Red Line and State/Lake elevated.
A faster 66-Chicago bus. Signalized intersections on Chicago Avenue
from Austin Avenue to Orleans Street will be upgraded to give CTA buses
priority.
Union Station transportation center
at Jackson/Canal, with underground walkway to the Great Hall for
smoother, weather-protected connections to several bus routes, including
the upcoming Central Loop BRT.
Today a diverse coalition of community-based, public health, science
and conservation groups across the state launched a campaign to help
clean up California’s transportation system and improve air quality in
communities across the state – particularly those historically exposed
to a disproportionate share of pollution – by putting one million
electric cars, trucks and buses on the road within ten years. Shifting
to electric vehicles will also keep more transportation dollars
in-state, boosting the economy and creating new jobs.
The campaign will focus on directing current polluter fees on oil
companies to fund existing, highly successful purchase incentive
programs and to increase access to zero-emission transportation in
disadvantaged communities.
“Low income Californians want and need the cleaner air and fuel
savings that electric vehicles can bring our communities,” said Vien
Truong, director of environmental equity at The Greenlining Institute.
“Driving on electricity significantly reduces emissions and is
equivalent to paying only one dollar-per-gallon in a gasoline vehicle.
Bolstering our electric vehicle industry also means good-paying jobs in
manufacturing and related fields that communities of color so urgently
need.”
Cars, trucks, and buses are the single largest source of air
pollution in California and are responsible for 34 percent of the
state’s soot and smog-forming pollution. A recent MIT study
found that traffic pollution causes almost 6,000 premature mortalities
annually in California, almost twice the number killed in traffic
accidents. Four in ten Californians, more than in any other state, live
close enough to a freeway or busy road that they may be at increased
risk of asthma, cancer and other health hazards. Lower income households
in communities of color tend to live closest to heavily trafficked
areas and suffer disproportionately.
“Over-reliance on fossil fuel is threatening the health of our
families and communities,” said Bill Gallegos, executive director of
Communities for a Better Environment. “By expanding the market for zero
emission technologies and green infrastructure for transportation,
charging and manufacturing, we can make significant improvements to our
air quality as well as provide sustainable job opportunities for
Californians – particularly those in underserved communities.”
“More Californians live near a freeway or busy road than anywhere
else in the country and it is no surprise that communities living near
these pollution hot spots experience higher rates of asthma,” said
Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior director of policy and advocacy for the
American Lung Association in California. “One of the most effective ways
to reduce health emergencies from asthma and other respiratory
illnesses is to cut vehicle pollution and support the transition to
clean, emission-free cars and trucks. That’s what this campaign is all
about.”
California is one of eight states that have agreed to work together to put 3.3 million electric vehicles on the road by 2025. The leaders of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia just signed the historic Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy,
which also calls for scaling up the use of electric vehicles. Because
it is the nation’s largest single market for electric cars, California
holds the key to meeting the eight state and Pacific Coast Action Plan
goals.
“Deployment of zero-emission delivery trucks eliminates air pollution
and supports good jobs in the heart of California,” said Ricky Hanna,
CEO of Electric Vehicles International (EVI), a Stockton-based electric
vehicle manufacturer. “Clean vehicles help address localized health
impacts for communities throughout California, particularly those near
commercial hubs and transit corridors.”
Companies such as EVI, Boulder EV (Chatsworth), Complete Coach Works
(Riverside), El Dorado National (Riverside), Altec (Dixon), Vision
Industries (Long Beach), Transpower (Poway), Quantum (Lake Forest) and
Tesla (Fremont) are already expanding and creating new manufacturing
jobs in response to increasing electric vehicle demand.
Californians spend $70 billion on gasoline and diesel annually, $40
billion of which leaves the state in payments to oil companies and
foreign oil producing countries. The use of electricity as a
transportation fuel can help keep those dollars in the state,
stimulating the economy, and insulating family budgets from gas price
spikes. Filling California’s cars, trucks and buses with electricity
instead of oil would help grow the state’s economy, creating up to
100,000 additional jobs by 2030.
Automakers are beginning to bring a diversity of advanced electric drive vehicles to the market,
which don’t rely on gasoline and appeal to families across the income
spectrum. Most automakers today are either selling or making
zero-polluting cars for sale within the next few years.
The campaign’s supporters include American Lung Association in
California, CALPIRG, Coalition for Clean Air, Communities for a Better
Environment, Environment California Research & Policy Center, The
Greenlining Institute, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra
Club California and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Statements from other organizations supporting the campaign:
“The technology exists today to make all vehicles – from delivery
trucks to minivans and sedans– more fuel efficient, less polluting and
affordable,” said Michelle Kinman clean energy advocate with Environment
California Research & Policy Center. “This is our opportunity to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and head off the worst impacts of global
warming while cutting the air pollution that is slowly poisoning our
communities, improving the quality of life for all Californians.”
“California has the opportunity to continue its long history of
pioneering clean technologies, such as catalytic converters, hybrids and
solar energy,” said Roland Hwang transportation program director with
NRDC. “With the electric vehicle market at a critical tipping point,
California’s leadership can ensure that drivers and communities across
the nation can realize the clean air and fuel savings benefits of
electrification.”
“Investing in clean cars, trucks and buses – particularly in our most
polluted and impoverished communities – means cleaner air, healthier
neighborhoods and less money spent on respiratory illness,” said Bill
Magavern, policy director of the Coalition for Clean Air.
“California’s leadership has paved the way for a promising market for
electric vehicles to help us meet our climate, air quality and oil
saving goals,” said Don Anair, deputy director of the Clean Vehicles
Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “However, sustained
investment is necessary to enable this technology to reach its potential
of providing clean, efficient transportation for the state and the
nation.”
###
Contact: Michelle Kinman, Environmental California, 310-621-8935, michelle(at)environmentcalifornia(dot)org
Jessica Lass, Natural Resources Defense Council, 415-875-6143, jlass(at)nrdc(dot)org
Bruce Mirken, The Greenlining Institute, 510-926-4022, brucem(at)greenlining(dot)org
Every time 8-year-old Mia leaves the house to play outside with
friends, her mother, Rachael, worries that her daughter might suffer a
serious asthma attack. Although she knows it would be unfair and
unhealthy to keep Mia trapped inside every day after school or prevent
her from participating in sleepovers and school field trips, it is
sometimes hard for Rachael to let go of the memory of Mia’s early years.
Mia, like an ever-increasing number of Massachusetts children, has had
to endure more than her fair share of severe asthma attacks. During one
attack, she coughed so hard that she burst blood vessels in her eyes.
Although these attacks are somewhat less frequent now, countless visits
to the emergency room hardened her family to the harsh realities of
raising a child with asthma, which can be deadly at worst and terrifying
at best.
Because air pollution can be a recipe for disaster for Mia, Rachael
continues to be vigilant about checking air quality forecasts and has
often changed her family’s plans if an unhealthy air quality day is on
the horizon. On days when the air quality is going to enter the code
orange or red zones, Rachael knows it’s safer to keep Mia indoors than
to risk her having an acute asthma attack.
One in 10 people in the Bay State suffers with asthma, which is higher
than the national average. We are seeing and treating an increasing
number of children, like Mia, whose lives could be so much safer,
happier and more successful if only we could only write a prescription
for healthy air.
While those of us in the medical community do not have the power to
write such a prescription, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) does. Much to its credit, the EPA has finally taken necessary
steps to clean up the most prolific stationary source of air pollution
in this country – coal-fired power plants. No other industry produces
more carbon pollution and, as temperature trends continue to rise, the
dangers of carbon pollution increase exponentially because of this
simple equation: Heat plus carbon pollution equals smog.
Nearly a third of our state’s residents live in failing or near-failing
air quality zones, according to the American Lung Association’s 2013
State of the Air report. Massachusetts is not only threatened by
pollution from its own coal-fired power plants but from other downwind
sources that grant us the loathsome distinction of being know as America’s “tailpipe.”
It’s no wonder Rachael has struggled at times to keep Mia’s asthma
attacks at bay. No matter how aggressive Massachusetts healthy air laws
are, our children and adults will continue to suffer until a national
solution is established.
The EPA’s current proposal applies to all new coal-fired power plants,
but should also stimulate technological advances that could one day
dramatically reduce pollution from our nation’s expansive fleet of power
plants. As a country that prides itself on ambitious innovation, we
certainly have the ability to make clean energy and healthy air a
reality for our children’s and for all future generations, if and when
we have the will.
The truth is, we can’t afford not to.
Pollution from coal-fired power plants alone costs hard-working people,
including Mia’s family, tens of millions of dollars every year in
health care expenses from hospital bills to costly co-pays. Taxpayers
also shoulder the burden of these increased health care costs.
The bottom line is that air pollution kills and makes healthy living
difficult for many. Dirty air not only triggers childhood asthma
attacks, but is also known to cause the cancers, strokes and heart
attacks that take from us those closest to us and most vulnerable –
older adults and people with chronic lung and heart disease.
Shouldn’t we be asking the EPA when our country will finally begin to clear the air?
Dr. Sean Palfrey is a clinical professor of pediatrics and public
health at the Boston University School of Medicine and a volunteer for
the American Lung Association in the Massachusetts Healthy Air Campaign.
One of the biggest local transport innovations in recent years has
been Uber, the technology company that created a platform for
independent private sedans to connect with riders who want to travel.
You can “hail” a car, track it in real time and pay for your ride using
an app on your smart phone. Their rapid expansion from their inception
in 2009, both domestically and internationally, has garnered loyal fans,
competition from other transport companies and controversy over their
operating practices.
So why should transit operators care?
Although Uber doesn’t
consider itself a transportation provider, they inadvertently
implemented a 21st century solution to transit’s biggest problem today:
adapting to new travel patterns and behaviors. The idea here is not to
replicate Uber’s business model, but to apply its operating principles
in meeting the public’s travel needs. In other words, transit
organizations can utilize app-based logistics systems to create
on-demand bus services.
The goal is to create more
opportunities to achieve profitable revenue service hours for transit
vehicles. In major cities, transit organizations have to operate an
unbalanced service plan to meet peak demand. They have high supply
during the morning and evening, but have to scale back during off-peak
hours.
To meet demand, organizations have to include non-revenue operating
hours, off-duty employee hours and idle equipment hours. In less densely
populated areas, transit organizations are only able to operate limited
schedules because of their resources, thus reducing the likelihood of
public patronage. These underutilized resources contribute to a higher
cost per operating hour, thus driving up the level of subsidy needed to
fund the service. By creating and implementing a better way to scale and
meet demand at all hours, organizations will be able to induce more
riders to travel, increase bottom line revenue and decrease reliance on
subsidies.
Technology alone is not the answer, as the equipment
used is equally important. Not all services or areas require a fixed
route or high capacity buses. In many cases, an on-demand service using
smaller buses or vans can drive more people to transit because they can
access a wider array of city, suburban, and rural streets. With this
model, service managers can reallocate drivers and vehicles to where
people are in real time, thereby creating more passenger trips.
Furthermore, they can reduce potential dead-mile costs in positioning by
optimally routing vehicles to transport passengers in moving in the
direction of the “hot spot.”
The on-demand service model is not
new or far-fetched. Many paratransit operations manage reservation-based
door-to-door services, including Access-A-Ride in New York City, CCT
Connect in Philadelphia and SF Paratransit in San Francisco. These
services generally use a mix of mini buses, vans and cars to transport
these riders, a model which could also fit an on-demand general public
operation.
Other organizations, such as the Denver Regional Transportation District (RTD), already operate flex-route
services. Denver’s Call-n-Ride service uses mini buses or vans
operating on a fixed route that will divert to areas within a certain
radius away from the route by advanced reservation.
Should
transit organizations give up on high-capacity buses and fixed-route
service? Of course not, as each has its own use and need. The best
solution is a mix of both fixed-route and on-demand service, similar to
what RTD Denver currently has. On-demand transit services managed
through a mix of app, text, phone and/or Web-based interfaces makes
transit more accessible. Even more important, this service model allows
transit operators to better react to real-time changes in passenger
demand.
By synergizing available resources to where and when they are needed,
transit organizations have an opportunity to increase revenue and
decrease costs. Meeting ridership demand today means being creative in
how service is offered and delivered. This is a good first step toward
that.
Volvo Bus’ plug-in hybrid. The pantograph for rapid charging can be seen on the roof. Click to enlarge.
Field tests being conducted in Gothenburg show
that Volvo Buses’ plug-in hybrid reduces fuel consumption by 81% and
total energy consumption (diesel plus electricity) by 61% compared to a
comparable Euro 5 diesel bus. (Earlier post.)
The field test in Gothenburg began in June 2013 and includes three
plug-in hybrid buses, the batteries of which are rapidly recharged at
the terminals. This makes it possible for the buses to run on electric
power for most of the route.
The plug-in hybrids are based on the Volvo 7900 Hybrid, Volvo Buses’
second series-produced hybrid bus model. The plug-in hybrids have been
further developed, and enable rapid recharging from electricity grids
via the Opbrid Bůsbaar pantograph on the roof.
The 4-cylinder, 5-liter Volvo D5F diesel engine produces 215 bhp and is
installed vertically. The conventional hybrid offers up to 37% fuel
savings compared to a diesel version and 40-50% lower exhaust emissions.
The plug-in versions have a larger battery pack, making it possible to
drive up to 7 km using electricity only—about 70% of the route distance.
The batteries are charged at the bus terminus via the Bůsbaar for
between six and ten minutes.
Our performance results are even slightly better than
we had anticipated. The plug-in hybrid consumes less than 11 litres of
fuel for every 100 kilometres [21 mpgUS]. That’s 81% less fuel than the equivalent diesel bus consumes.
—Johan Hellsing, Project Manager for the field test at Volvo Buses
In addition to the significant energy savings and reduced impact on the
environment, this technology gives passengers a more comfortable and
pleasant journey and improves the working environment of the drivers.
Although there are many long, steep gradients on the
routes, the plug-in hybrid buses can run on electric power for about 85%
percent of the time. The diesel engine only kicks in when the bus needs
some extra power. The test drivers from GS Buss really appreciate the
quiet, vibration-free ride that you get with an electric powered bus.
—Johan Hellsing
The field test of the plug-in hybrid buses in Gothenburg involves 10,000
operating hours and will continue for most of next year. A demo project
that will bring eight more plug-in hybrid buses into service will
commence next year in Stockholm.
A number of European cities are showing an interest in the plug-in
hybrids. Hamburg and Luxembourg have already signed contracts for
supplies of the buses in 2014 and 2015. Volvo Buses is working together
with the city councils, public transport authorities and providers to
develop long-term sustainable solutions for public transport. Volvo
Buses plans to commence commercial manufacture of plug-in hybrids
towards the end of 2015.
Those engaged in the plug-in hybrid project in Gothenburg are Volvo
Buses, Göteborg Energi, Business Region Göteborg, Trafikkontoret and
Västtrafik. The project is co-financed by Life+, the EU’s financing
program for environmental projects.
Bit by bit over the past few decades, scientists have been building a
new understanding of the ways that air pollution threatens human
health. Much of their attention has been focused on lung diseases,
including cancers. With good reason, it turns out: just last month, the
World Health Organization declared air pollution to be one of the
planet’s most dangerous environmental carcinogens.
But cardiovascular disease is much more common than cancer. Sadly,
there is now a pile of evidence, sometimes startling, that air pollution
also plays a role in heart attacks and strokes. The new studies suggest
that air pollution not only worsens cardiovascular disease — but can also cause it.
“We’ve known for about 20 years that we see increased risk of heart
attack and stroke in association with increased levels of air
pollution,” said Sara Adar, a professor of epidemiology at the
University of Michigan. The most recent data show that “air pollution
does more than just make you worse.”
Scientists like Dr. Adar have been studying fine particulates
adrift in the cloud of unfriendly gases shrouding many of our
communities. Measuring 2.5 micrometers (or microns) or less, these bits
of material are so tiny that it would take about 30 of them to equal the
diameter of a human hair. A series of studies has found that they
penetrate deep into the lungs, embedding in tissue and setting off a
cascade of inflammatory effects. Researchers believe the inflammation
also spreads into the circulatory system, altering the way blood vessels
function.
Although air pollution is a long-recognized and regulated health
hazard, only gradually have researchers come to appreciate the threat of
particulates. In 1989, C. Arden Pope III, a professor of economics at
Brigham Young University, published a paper based on the temporary
shutdown of a nearby steel mill, showing a linear relationship between emissions and hospitalizations. He traced the illnesses to particulates in the air.
Dr. Pope originally had focused on air pollution’s effects on the
lungs, but over the years he kept turning up increases in cardiovascular
disease. “By 2002, I’d given up on the idea that this was just some
anomaly in the study design,” he recalled in an interview. Eventually he
identified the culprit: fine particles, far smaller than those tracked
in his original steel mill study. “The deeper you dive into the data,
the more clearly you see the effect on cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Pope
said.
Dr. Adar and her colleagues have been tracking the damage at the microscopic level in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution
(MESA Air), which has followed more than 5,000 people in six states for
more than a decade. It is funded primarily by the National Institutes
of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Researchers working with the project have contributed to an
increasingly precise understanding of risks associated with fine
particles that float in polluted air. Dr. Adar and her colleagues have
shown, for instance, that increased exposure to pollutants, after other
factors are factored out, can be directly linked to narrowing of blood vessels and to a steady thickening of artery walls.
Their most recent study, published this year in PLoS Medicine,
described a near-linear relationship: as air pollution levels dropped, the thickening slowed. When exposure to air pollutants increased, signs of damage increased.
The MESA Air study also has reinforced a sense that vehicle exhaust
may be unusually harmful. Researchers in the United States and many
other countries have linked traffic pollution to heart rate variability
in a range of people – from vehicle drivers to bicyclists traveling
congested roadways. A study published this year in Environmental Health
found evidence of “acute changes” in heartbeats in people, aged 22 to
56, driving in Mexico City traffic. Another recent study, of bicyclists in Ottawa, found that their heart rhythms appeared to be altered for hours after they had returned home in ways unrelated to exertion.
“There’s increasing evidence that there’s something about
traffic-related pollution in particular,” said Dr. Joel D. Kaufman, an
epidemiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Vehicle emissions are thought to include an unusually high proportion
of very small, or ultrafine, particles, allowing them to penetrate
deeper into the body. Researchers say there is also some evidence that
the shape of these particles gives them an unusually high surface area,
which permits other contaminants to stick onto them. As a result, they
may actually concentrate toxic compounds in polluted air.
“The evidence is pretty overwhelming that fine particles do harm,”
said Dr. Russell V. Luepker, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at the
University of Minnesota School of Public Health, a co-author of two
scientific reports on air pollution for the American Heart Association.
But, he added, health choices — such as poor diet, smoking and lack
of exercise — and conditions such as hypertension still pose greater
risks. “If we got rid of air pollution, heart disease would not
disappear,” Dr. Luepker said.
Researchers studying the healt
h effects of air pollution are starting
to look at ways that their findings can be used for greater protection.
Dr. Adar and her colleagues are looking for ways to better identify and
control the most dangerous vehicle emissions, while other scientists
are pondering everything from improved air purifiers to
particle-absorbing barriers. But one of the most effective responses is
environmental regulation.
Several decades of clean air regulations in the United States have
had lifesaving effects. A study published this year in the Journal of
the American Medical Association estimated that there has been a 35 percent drop in deaths and disabilities related to air pollution, including cardiovascular diseases, in the United States since 1990.
“Our public policy efforts to reduce air pollution are one of the
most effective medical interventions in the last 20 to 30 years,” Dr.
Pope said.
Starbucks locations already seem to be everywhere you look. But
starting November 21, the company will take on a new frontier: trains.
Starbucks, with the help of Swiss train company SBB,
has converted a double-decker car running from Geneva Airport to St.
Gallen in Switzerland into a fully functional Starbucks store, complete
with wood tables, leather chairs, and, in another first for the company,
waitstaff.
Starbucks is no stranger to new concept stores. Strategically, its train is probably most like its mass-fabricated popup store.
It's an idea the coffee giant is putting into the wild to see if it
might scale because, while big storefronts represent the core of its
business, smaller, niche Starbucks offer an opportunity to expand
through unused, underserved cracks.
“It was not an easy project,” says Liz Muller, director of concept
design for Starbucks. “Our stores are made not just to have a wonderful
drink, but to connect and have a wonderful experience. We wanted to make
sure it feels like a club and that you could see a person across the
room, so the train feels more spacious.”
So the challenge was not just to fit a coffee counter into the
corner, but to pull in all of the elements we associate with Starbucks
into a stock mass-commuting platform. That meant accounting for weight,
electrical, and fire-safety requirements, of course, but it also meant
attaching all those windowed bar seats, shared tables, and the cozy
armchairs to the same skeleton of fasteners that seating inside a
typical train car would use. In other words, Starbucks architects had to
design a whole new social floor plan using the exact same anchors of an
old commuter-centric one.
“Just because it’s functional doesn’t mean it can’t be engaging,”
Muller says, “so we asked, ‘Why can’t we?’ Just because we’re on a
train, why can’t it be more comfortable?”
The team’s standpoint was one of naivety, since they'd never designed
for a train before, which led them both to learn things (like the
reason you don’t see wood tables on trains is because they’re considered
too flammable) and to create solutions (like bucking convention by
deploying them anyway). In this case, the solution was opting to treat
the wood to be flame retardant, plus use of thinner pieces wherever
possible (because less wood essentially equates to less kindling). That
approach still sounds simpler than it was, of course: Every table and
chair was designed and built from scratch and tested by regulators.
“You design a new chair, maybe one version is light cream and one in
dark cream,” Muller explains. “You build eight of each, they set them
afire, and if you have a high score, you pass.”
In the end, designers were able to seat 50 commuters at once--just
six fewer than a stock train car--while also having the same three core
seating arrangements you find in a Starbucks store for different
customers: Commuters just one stop from their destination may snag a
stool at the bar, while those on a longer journey could head upstairs to
sit in a plush armchair or at a shared “community table.”
“We wanted to offer you the ability to choose,” Muller explains. “If
your journey is short, you might choose to sit at the bar window. But
having a small community table creates the opportunity to use a laptop
or have lunch.”
Furniture aside, it’s all of the small touches that make the project
so compelling. The bottom floor was carpeted to absorb noise in the
space. Surfaces have clocklike maple inlays to acknowledge Switzerland’s
love affair with timepieces. A waiter takes and delivers an order
upstairs so that people wouldn’t need to claim their seat, run
downstairs to the line, and run back up--which Starbucks designers
witnessed happening in their own field research. (A waiter can also
serve the ground floor for good measure.) And in a very cool touch,
tables are treated to have a textured surface, plus they wobble the
slightest bit as a train comes into the station, to prevent spilling
your coffee.
In a world of travel increasingly chasing new ways to charge for a
few inches of legroom, Starbucks’s latest concept has certain promise:
that travel can still be as much about the journey as the
destination--assuming other companies make the effort.
“I wonder sometimes that our customers won’t understand truly what
this took,” Muller concludes. And, of course, they won’t, which is a
hallmark of any good design, isn’t it?
Here's a short survey that's right up our alley. Can you take a few moments to fill it out?
You can suggest that the SR710
stubs be removed in Pasadena and Alhambra/Los Angeles as a freeway
without a future. Then in the comments section, tell them they should
start up a list of freeways that should never be built, and then mention the SR710extension project as one of those projects.
This shows the sinkhole created Thursday morning by tunnel work west of the Alaskan Way Viaduct at South King Street in Seattle.
A 7-foot-deep sinkhole opened above the Highway 99 tunnel machine early Thursday and was quickly filled.
The job site is between the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Seattle waterfront, near South King Street.
There was no damage to buildings and roads, and no utility outages.
But a city electrical vault began to flood with concrete slurry, as workers were filling the hole nearby.
Tunnel machine Bertha had just resumed drilling at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday,
after a two-week pause for adjustments and to receive a new set of
cutting teeth. The drill was passing through a temporary concrete wall
that provided a “safe haven” for maintenance work.
As it pushed through the wall — into very weak fill soils — the
forward pressure exerted by the machine was too low for the sudden
change in conditions, and the ground slumped downward, said Dave Sowers,
Highway 99 engineering manager for the state Department of
Transportation (DOT).
Not quite one-half of 1 percent more soil than expected poured into Bertha through the cutter face, he said.
It’s difficult to achieve perfect balance, Sowers said. Too little
pressure and the ground sinks. Too much, and dirt or fluids will burst
upward.
“It certainly isn’t something we want to happen, but it’s not unexpected,” Sowers said.
Previously, a concrete slab protected and compressed the tunneling
route from above. Now, Bertha is beyond the slab, with only 35 feet of
soft soil above it.
If there has to be soil failure, this may well be the best place.
The viaduct is protected from tunnel vibrations and soil slides by a
row of deep concrete pillars along its west flank — inserted
specifically to protect against these sorts of problems during the first
phase of tunneling.
But once the machine passes under the viaduct, in early 2014, even a
slight soil settlement could jeopardize downtown buildings. Hundreds of monitoring devices have been installed to try to catch problems early.
The Thursday incident happened at 5:45 a.m. and crews filled the hole in about 45 minutes, Sowers said.
The affected area is 15 feet by 20 feet, DOT spokeswoman KaDeena Yerkan said.
Bertha continued to have one of its better days, advancing 33 feet as
of 5 p.m. Thursday, officials said. The drill has traveled more than
460 feet since July 30, on its voyage to South Lake Union.
Rotten timbers, dumped a century ago near the waterfront, may have contributed to the unstable soil.
Sowers blames underground pressure and says contractors will learn.
“This hasn’t changed our opinion of STP (Seattle Tunnel Partners). We think they’re doing a good job.”
“The hole exposed an abandoned electrical conduit, and apparently
fluid flowed through the conduit afterward. We have a vault being filled
with slurry,” said Scott Thomsen, City Light spokesman.
The LA River, stretching through the Valley, Downtown, and down the
length of the basin all the way to Long Beach, would be such an awesome
option for commuting, if only it had water and self-driving personal
submarines in it. BMW is on it. (Well, they're on thinking about it, and
drawing it.) For the Los Angeles Auto Show's Design Challenge this
year, their DesignworksUSA team presented an idea for Mini Cooper-branded pods that would travel along a flooded LA River
channel (flooding, they say, would also help replenish LA's groundwater
supplies and prevent stormwater runoff). The pods would be powered by
hydrogen fuel from "a chemical reaction created when salt and fresh
water mix in the presence of of certain bacteria," according to Gizmodo,
which talked to the designers behind the project; the water flowing in
and out as part of that process would also propel the little guys, and
little robots would take care of algae. And while we're dreaming, the
team imagines the fleet expanding into a restored Venice canal system
and unburied creeks. Definitely something for the Army Corps of
Engineers to look out once they're done with that massive LA River restoration plan.
The official 2012 death toll
is out for our nation’s poorly-designed, auto-centric transportation
system. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
traffic injuries on the nation’s roadways claimed the lives of 33,561
people. The headline of the agency’s press release, “NHTSA Data Confirms
Traffic Fatalities Increased In 2012,” is quickly walked back by the
subhed, which attempts a silver lining: “Highway deaths over the past 5
years remain at historic lows.”
Pedestrians and cyclists are making up a greater proportion of deaths on U.S. roadways. Image: NHTSA
The final 2012 number is lower than NHTSA’s previous estimate of 34,080
but still higher than the 2011 death toll of 32,479. That’s a 3.3
percent increase — a difference of more than a thousand lives. It’s the
first time since 2005 that the number of fatalities has gone up.
The number of people who died in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes
increased by 4.6 percent last year, NHTSA reports, accounting for 31
percent of all deaths.
Pedestrian and bicyclist deaths rose faster than the overall rate —
6.4 and 6.5 percent, respectively. Last year, 4,743 people were killed
while walking and 726 while biking. This is a long-term trend: Walking
and biking are becoming more dangerous relative to driving. Occupants of
passenger vehicles make up 65 percent of fatalities now, down from 75
percent in 2003, while “non-occupants” (i.e. pedestrians and cyclists)
make up 17 percent, up from 13 percent. Motorcyclists now account for 15
percent of casualties, up from 9 percent.
A state-by-state breakdown is available on the last page of the NHTSA report [PDF].
The biggest increases in traffic deaths were in Hawaii (26 percent),
Maine (21 percent), New Hampshire (20 percent), South Dakota (20
percent) and Vermont (40 percent). The biggest improvements were in DC
(44 percent reduction) and Alaska (18 percent reduction).
Overall traffic injuries rose 6.5 percent — but 10 percent for people walking. Cyclist injuries went up by 2.1 percent.
Preliminary data indicates that 2013 may not be quite so deadly. In
the first half of this year, 15,470 people were killed, compared with
16,150 in the first half of last year.
Here's a nifty crime-prevention device with a hidden benefit: The
instant somebody moves your bike it starts blowing up your phone, making
you lookintriguingly mysterious as you scramble out the door like Batman.
The Cricket
is a Bluetooth-enabled discus roughly an inch across that fixes to the
underside of your seat with a zip tie. An internal motion sensor detects
when the bike is being jostled – presumably by somebody with bad
intentions, although a rider locking their bike next to yours or a
strong gust of wind could also set it off. It then pings your Apple
device (no Android compatibility yet) with a chirp, so you can go kick
the thief's butt, or get your own butt kicked, depending on how it plays
out. You could also call the police, of course, and hope they get there
quick.
That's Stage 1 of the device's anti-theft
programming. Stage 2 engages once a criminal actually makes off with
your bike. The Cricket then turns into a remote beacon, sending alerts
to other people with the app when the thief cruises past them. If enough
people embrace this technology, you could conceivably track your ride
through town (although as pointed out earlier,
what to do next could be a problem). You could also hope that one of
the Cricket owners who sees the stolen bike has military training and a
vigilante streak, and smash the thief on his blind side with a flying
tackle.
The Cricket was designed by Israeli tinkerer Yariv Bash, who on another side project is trying to launch an unmanned mission to the moon. The device will retail for $39, assuming it meets its funding goals on Indiegogo.
Some benefits that stand out: The battery lasts for years, and if
you're worried about somebody ganking your anti-gank system there's the
option of having it embedded in a U-lock. (Urban Velo suggests
future models could be "disguised as a stem cap or a handlebar plug.)
One big negative: Its range is a mere 150 feet, so forget it if you're
doing something like locking up at school and walking across campus.
The alarm's makers have anticipated that shortcoming, though. "The
Cricket works best at close, over the shoulder distances," they say.
"People will touch your bike by mistake from time to time, so it is best
to use the Cricket when taking a look at your bikes is as easy as
looking over your shoulder." Fair enough. Have a look-see:
The always thorough Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy
Institute released a report last week analyzing 18 local options for
funding public transportation [PDF]. Fare increases are there, of course, along with the gas tax, the vehicle-miles traveled fee, high-occupancy toll lanes, land value capture, and basic advertising. Litman also includes non-intuitive ideas like priced parking programs, which a city might implement on its own merit, but which could also generate revenue diverted to the transit system.
There are also several ideas in the bunch that are relatively unknown.
An "employee levy," for instance, charges a small fee to large employers
in a heavy transit area, with the idea that the company's workers
contribute a good deal to commuter congestion. A "parking levy,"
meanwhile, puts a special tax on non-residential spaces in a corridor,
on the belief that these drivers benefit from strong transit with better
auto access.
Litman evaluates each of his 18 funding options on eight criteria: revenue potential, stability, equity (both horizontal equity, meaning across all users, and vertical equity,
meaning across all social classes), travel impact, development impact,
public opinion, and implementation. He scores each option on each
criteria on a scale from -3 to 3 points.
Cities went a step further and aggregated Litman's scores into a single chart (based on Table 7 from the report):
The highest-scoring transit funding option was discounted bulk passes.
These are passes sold in bulk to certain groups of people — often
students or local workers. The revenue potential is modest, because the
riders get a deal, but the passes create rider loyalty over the long
term, which increases funding stability. The programs are also
equitable, encourage transit use and transit-oriented development, and
have a high rate of public approval.
The lowest-scoring option was raising fares. The revenue potential of a
fare hike is fairly strong, with a 10 percent jump creating 5 to 8
percent more revenue in the short term. But fare hikes are regressive,
hurting low-income riders more than wealthy ones, and may discourage
use. And, as every city official knows, the public hates them.
Litman's scoring system is admittedly subjective. It can also be a bit
misleading at times. Advertising scores very high, for instance, and has
some natural advantages in terms of equity (we all hate ads), travel
impact (none) and implementation (easy). It also has disadvantages as a
funding mechanism that don't seem to get equal weight in this particular
scoring system. Chief among them is the fact that revenue potential is
incredibly low.
Litman concludes that no single method on his list has the ability to
resolve a transit agency's funding problems. What works for some places
won't work for others: selling station air rights, for example, will
work much better in a high-density environment like New York than in a
mid-size city without rail transit. Litman concludes that cities must
use a "variety of funding options" to meet the unique needs of their own
system.
This research discovered no new funding options that are particularly
cost effective and easy to implement. Each funding option has
disadvantages and constraints.
On to the more worthy projects that will receive this funding. Active
transportation projects that Chicagoland residents can expect in the
near future include:
