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Toronto’s mysterious bicycle thief
Ian Austen, International Herald Tribune
TORONTO: What exactly was he planning to do with 2,865 bicycles?
That is just one of many questions the police and others are puzzling over after the arrest last month of Igor Kenk, the proprietor of a used-bike shop here.
Kenk’s legacy now fills the top floor of a former police garage. Organized by brand name and mostly resting on their handlebars, wheels pointed upward, are thousands of bicycles that the police allege Kenk either stole or arranged to have stolen.
The rat pack collection of bicycles arguably makes Kenk the unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves. But as he awaits trial next month on 58 charges related to theft and drugs, the biggest mysteries of all are Kenk’s possible motives and his ultimate plan for the armada of steel, rubber and aluminum he amassed.
… Since Kenk’s arrest, theories about his hoarding have proliferated. Because Kenk held a scrap metal dealer’s license, Evans speculates that he was playing the commodities markets, waiting for another spike in metals prices before melting down the bicycles.
In the past, Kenk has said that he was accumulating bicycles in preparation for a severe oil shortage
(21 August 2008)
Wins my vote for the Strangest Story of the Year. -BA
The End Of Aviation
Bradford Plummer, The New Republic
As the age of cheap oil comes to a close, it’s springtime for gloomy futurists. Visions of a brutish world marked by violent squabbles over dwindling reserves, of junkyards littered with abandoned cars, of suburban slums overrun by weeds, of the collapse of industrial agriculture–none of this sounds as outlandish as it once did. Still, most of these horror stories are likely overstated: Energy experts tend to agree that, with a little ingenuity and a generous helping of political will, we could transition away from fossil fuels without being forced to give up our modern lifestyles.
But there’s one big exception–an area where a post-carbon world really could mean a radical shift in the way we live. That’s the world of commercial flight.
Early signs of an aviation apocalypse are already upon us. As oil prices flirt with $130 per barrel and the dollar struggles, airlines are paying nearly 80 percent more for fuel than they did a year ago. Twenty-five airlines have gone belly-up this year–three to four times the usual yearly rate. Major carriers like American, Northwest, and United, still reeling from the industry downturn after September 11, go barely a month without announcing layoffs and capacity cuts.
And it gets worse from there.
(22 August 2008)
Drivers to pay for oil shock
Emily Watt, The Dominion Post via NZ Stuff
Motorists should pay more to drive cars – including more expensive car parks, and fees to use the roads – if New Zealand is to survive rising oil prices, a comprehensive new report says.
The increased costs would be coupled with investment in public transport, tax breaks for fuel-efficient vehicles, laws requiring new developments to provide showers and lockers for walkers and bikers, improved urban design, and encouraging businesses to swap company cars for cash or bus subsidies.
The independent report, Managing Transport Challenges When Oil Prices Rise, was commissioned by the Government’s New Zealand Transport Agency as a response to rising petrol prices.
Petrol peaked at $2.19 a litre in July for 91 octane and has since fallen, but the report, by transport consultants from McCormick Rankin Cagney and academics, says high oil prices are a serious and urgent risk and predicts petrol will rise to $2.80 by 2014.
New Zealanders would be particularly stung by rising prices because of their over-reliance on cars. Currently 80 per cent of the population travel by private car and only 4 per cent by bus. Fourteen per cent is commercial.
(21 August 2008)
The age of the train returns to French provinces
Lizzy Davies, The Guardian
Locals win fight to reopen station as network extends to other rural areas
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For almost 50 years, no train has stopped at the station of Bazancourt. A village in the Champagne region of France with just under 2,000 inhabitants, it was cut off from the railway network after the second world war and lay forgotten.
As France roared into a new era of high-speed train travel – or train à grande vitesse (TGV) as it is known in France – that linked up big cities, the provinces were left out in the cold.
Now, however, Bazancourt is back on track. Its dilapidated station has been given a lick of paint and restored to its former glory. The missing letters from its name have been fixed back on the freshly white-washed walls.
As of 1 September, twelve trains from the regional network will stop at its modernised platforms every day and the locals are claiming victory in what they have called the “battle of Bazancourt”.
(23 August 2008)
Suddenly, Sharing a Ride Looks Good
Pat Wiedenkeller, New York Times
RANDI MITZNER watched in alarm as the cost of driving to work rose from $15 a week three years ago to $35, then $40. One day last spring, she had had enough. Ms. Mitzner, a senior director of human resources at Education and Assistance Corporation in Hempstead, popped the question to her co-worker Charlene Middleton: Want to drive in together?
Now, four mornings a week, Ms. Middleton, a benefits manager, leaves her tidy brick-and-shingle cape in South Farmingdale at 8:10 and drives the two miles to Ms. Mitzner’s house in Wantagh. They alternate daily on who drives the next 10 miles, but on a rainy morning recently, it was Ms. Mitzner’s turn.
Ms. Middleton is mild; Ms. Mitzner is brassy. As the car wove through Jerusalem Avenue traffic, they fell easily into chitchat. They talked about weather and gardening (both have tomatoes), last night’s Mets game, the coming workday, Ms. Mitzner’s body temperature (“Am I freezing you out in here? Sorry, bad flash morning”), and – it came up three times – the price of gas.
… Car-pooling, seen by many as a relic of the oil-shocked 1970s, is one of those worthy ideas that people always found easier to admire than to do. But in sprawled-out suburbs like Long Island, it is creeping back for brand-new hard times. High gas prices, road congestion, limited mass transit options and fears of global warming are giving Long Islanders a powerful incentive to change their ways.
(22 August 2008)
