Source: RITA, Buearu of Transportation Statistics - Table 1-12: U.S. Sales or Deliveries of New Aircraft, Vehicles, Vessels, and Other Conveyances.

& asks for Sidewalk Diversions to become a standard tool in the design of worksites

Accomodating walking needs to be standard operating procedure not just on Main Street, but in the entire city.

Thank You!

Thanks go out to Louisville Department of Public Works & Assets and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for moving quickly to address this important issue! Thanks also to Phil Miller at the Mayor's office, Terra Long at Councilman Owen's office, and Rob Haynes at Councilman Tandy's office. The thanks are for this!:

Read more below the fold...

Protest Planned For Friday

UPDATE: check out the exciting news about Main Street.

Downtown Louisville has the most important sidewalks in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Not only are the walkers here incredibly numerous, but they're also the economic engine that keeps the state afloat. The business deals, the bus stops, the remote parking lots, the lunch meetings - all these trips have a walking component. So you would think that we would take special measures to keep walking downtown safe and dignified - it's just common sense.

Our elite cadre of CART photographers recently took to the streets to see how we're doing on that...

Here you see the long-standing Arena construction site. We're looking at Main Street between 2nd and 3rd. You can see they've blocked the sidewalk with a fence and some orange-and-white barricades (they're technically called "longitudinal channellizing devices" or LCDs).

Kentucky & Southern Indiana, I am surprised & actually kind-of impressed:

Map of national bike route system from Ray LaHood's USDOT official blog entry.

Want to go through the country on an epic journey, without getting too hot or too cold? Well, you pretty much will be coming through our region/state, won'cha? That's just what this nutjob had to do. While bicycle tourist dollars are not going to single-handedly revive our economy, it's nice to have these folks coming through. Nothing in life is more fun than rolling into an new town on your bicycle and finding an open diner or grocery store.

This new hybrid bus was purchased with ARRA stimulus dollars. It features a new 'hybrid' color scheme (har har), merging the new grey bus scheme with the butterfly from the older iconic blue "Breathe Easier" hybrids. Hybrids have better fuel economy than their pure-diesel counterparts, but they cost more up-front. Whether they repay that initial investment is a gamble on the future price of diesel.

Updated 7/1/2010 -DM

CART has filed a motion to intervene in the National Trust for Historic Preservation & River Field's suit against Ohio River Bridges Project. Here, in Q&A format, are some frequently asked questions about the suit.

Why did CART file suit?

1. NEPA requires all reasonable alternatives to be fully and fairly evaluated in an EIS. FHWA did a preliminary analysis of light rail and found that it would not reasonably meet ORBP's objectives so it was never evaluated as an alternative in the EIS.  FHWA "cooked the books" in the preliminary analysis by treating light rail unfairly.

2. When you invest in a massive captial project backed by federal funding, environmental laws force a review of the project if conditions change. ORBP was designed in the early 90s, when ...

   • oil was around $20 a barrel
   • driving was forecast to increase forever
   • bus public transit was forecast to expand service to keep pace with the new roads
   None of these assumptions turned out to be right, but the FHWA has not appropriately responded to these concerns.

What does it mean that you're "intervening" in a suit?

Main Street, between 1st street and 2nd street. Sidewalks are closed on both sides of the street in the dead center nucleus of Louisville.

Photo courtesy flickr user ngochieu

It's not every day that a new public transit technology pops up that can claim:

1. faster real-world speed than Light Rail
2. marginally cheaper to construct
3. <1 minute waits
4. powered by the grid
5. proven in multiple cities
6. travels above grade, ignoring street level obstacles
7. plenty of capacity (by Louisville standards)
8. ennobling and fun to ride

Ladies and Gentlemen, from the continent that invented Bus Rapid Transit, we give you Cable Propelled Transit. This technology has just gone mainstream in the North American Transit Blogosphere. There's a technology overview here. Wow.

Beating the heat on your bicycle surprisingly possible with some tricks learned over the years. Got your own trick? Please post it in the comments below.

HEAT

Your body will begin to pick up heat from various sources, and you can fight them all.

Never pedal hard. A slow, minimal amount of power keeps you cool and rolling, without breaking a sweat. Shift gears to always use a light amount of pressure and spin at 75 rpm+. Consider coasting down hills.

Minimize changes to speed - if it's a choice between rolling into the light slow at 3mph, versus zipping up to it and making a complete stop, choose the former. Look at crosswalk timers and perpendicular traffic signalheads to gauge when the light is going to go green.