Sarah Goodyear

From the Australian Bicycling Council comes word of a new amenity for bicycling commuters In Brisbane, Australia. Called cycle2city, it provides secure weekday parking and showers for up to 420 members, who will pay between $5 and $7 a day for the privilege of using the facility (that and other figures quoted here are Australian dollars, which are close to even in value with the US dollar these days).

The much-hyped and much-criticized Tata Nano, a car that will hit the Indian market retailing for a mere 100,000 rupees -- the equivalent of $2,500 -- got a perplexing nod of approval from the Economist newsmagazine last week:

As part of its "Steal This Idea" series, Good magazine has a suggestion for a way to move toward a more sustainable New York: offering subway riders the chance to pay a little extra for a wind-powered ride.

From Robert Jones's blog This Is the Diaspora comes a disturbing tale (well worth reading in full) of how a beautiful bike ride on a sparkling fall day turned into a humiliating encounter with the police -- all because Jones detoured onto the sidewalk of Malcolm X Boulevard in Brooklyn for a few seconds to avoid traffic:

If nothing else, gridlocked traffic is a good marketing opportunity for Oscar Mayer's Wienermobile.

No one who comes before the NYC Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission is going to admit to liking congestion. If they're against the mayor's congestion-pricing plan, they are usually going to come up with some kind of alternative.

 

Robin Chase is the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar and the founder and CEO of GoLoco, a ride-sharing service that uses social networks like Facebook to connect people who want to carpool. A Harvard University Loeb Fellow, Chase is an authority on the use of wireless and mesh network technology as it applies to transportation. She'll be giving a talk at Baruch College, 151 E. 25th St., Room 759, at 9:30am on October 19th. There she'll discuss some of the ways wireless technology can facilitate near-term reduction of CO2 emissions. What follows are some excerpts from a telephone conversation last week with Sarah Goodyear.

Community activists in Jackson Heights have been complaining about congestion at the corner at 73rd St. and 37th Ave. (right) for years. A major traffic study of the area is underway, but according to a DOT spokesman, the department didn't want to wait to implement "short-term initiatives" that could ease the problem. Problem is, some of the activists--including Will Sweeney of the Western Jackson Heights Alliance--aren't necessarily thrilled with the department's solution.