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Mapping the Future of Bicycling, Walking, and Transit
Erica Barnett, WorldChanging
Google Transit has just expanded its trip-planning service–again. This nifty service now includes nearly 20 US cities and Japan, providing a useful tool in areas where the trip-planning services offered by public agencies leave something to be desired.
Here are some of the newest features:
- A comparison of trip time taking transit vs. driving, including an estimate of how much longer your auto trip will take during heavy traffic, connected to…
- A traffic map on the right side of the screen that helps you decide if taking transit might be a quicker, more pleasant option;
- A tally of the total cost of your trip on transit, compared to how much it would cost to drive. (Google estimates the cost of driving using the standard IRS deduction of 48 cents a mile, multiplied by the length of your trip–an imperfect system that we would love to see expanded to include gas prices, vehicle model, and tolls).
…Several similar, though less functional, tools exist to calculate your walking, running, and cycling distance, like Geodistance and Jogrun. Created as tools to enable runners to figure out how long their routes are and how long they’ll take to run, bike, or walk at a given pace, these tools are also useful for cyclists, pedestrians, and others who want to know how far away their destination is — these groups typically aren’t well-served by traditional mapping software.
(10 October 2007)
Backyard car conversion kits
Sara Knight, San Francisco Bay Guardian
Hybrid cars – those that run on a combination of gasoline and electricity – are all the rage among drivers looking to go green. But imagine a car that could drive 100 miles on one gallon of gas. That’s what a hybrid could get if converted into a plug-in version, something Bay Area residents are starting to do themselves, filling a void left by the auto industry.
The California Car Initiative (a.k.a. CalCars) is on a mission to make plug-in hybrid electric vehicles widely available. In collaboration with organizations like Plug-In Partners and Plug-In Bay Area, CalCars is on a mission to persuade carmakers to mass-produce plug-in hybrid vehicles. The technology already exists, allowing our cars to be much more fuel efficient.
The first prototype PHEV was created by CalCars in 2004. This Palo Alto nonprofit converted a Toyota Prius into a Prius+, a plug-in hybrid able to travel more than 100 miles using only one gallon of fuel.
(9 October 2007)
China drives shipping costs to record high
Tom Stevenson, UK Telegraph
The cost of shipping raw materials such as iron ore and coal has soared to a new record as the economic boom in developing economies like China sucks in natural resources to fuel their breakneck industrialisation.
Yesterday, the benchmark Baltic Dry Freight Index, which tracks daily charter rates for dry bulk ships, broke through 10,000 for the first time, closing at 10,218. It is 150pc higher than a year ago and has almost doubled since June. David Bradley, head of dry freight markets at the Baltic Exchange, said: “The global economy is very strong and demand for ships is huge. With 90pc of all bulk trade carried by sea, the index is a very good indicator of the strength of the global economy”.
…Fast-rising shipping costs are the result of soaring demand for the building blocks of industrialisation and supply bottlenecks due to port congestion and a shortage of suitable ships. Soaring day rates have been translated into sharply higher values for ships and the companies that own them.
…No one knows how long shipping costs will stay this high but most analysts think the market will remain tight for the next two to three years.
(11 October 2007)
