Gateway Center Subway Station, which opened to the public in 1985, will close PERMANENTLY, following the departure of the last train on October 31, 2009 at 1:21 a.m. A new Gateway Center Subway Station is scheduled to open in 2011, across from the original station. This is the last chance for the public to take photographs of the first Gateway Center Subway Station.

If you wish to take photographs of the Gateway Center Subway Station before it closes early Saturday morning, Port Authority Public Relations Director Jim Ritchie requests that you contact him by calling 412-566-5136 so he can notify the Port Authority Police Department.

Eric Miller on 10.28.09 @ 01:23 PM PST [link]  

Before you read this consider that recent subsidies to American automakers not withstanding, roads don't pay for themselves either. Independent analysis has shown gas taxes only pay for about 1/3 of the cost of road building. Should you investigate, I think you may find the ratios look better for Amtrak. More, airlines are also subsidized and flights in and out of rural airports can amount to thousands of dollars in subsidies to each passenger. Flights in and out of Ely, Nevada for example are subsidized to the tune of $4,500 per passenger. Also consider that: 1. Airports and air trafffic control infrastructure are built and operated by tax-exempt government entities. 2. Air traffic control and other services to airlines are provided by the government. 3. Employee training for pilots, mechanics, etc. is provided by the military at no cost to airlines. More on airline subsidies If we all just stayed where we are, no subsidies would be needed. ALSO READ: Texas Dept of Transportation says highways don't pay for themselves

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The average loss per passenger on Amtrak's 44 nationwide routes was more than $32 in FY2008, according to analysis released today by Pew's Subsidyscope project. This is four times higher than the loss of $8 per passenger, which was calculated using Amtrak's own figures. Further, 41 of Amtrak's 44 lines lost money, between $5 and $462 per passenger depending on the route. Amtrak received $1.3 billion in direct payments from the federal government in FY2008.

Subsidyscope completed its analysis of Amtrak profits and losses by route using publicly available information. Unlike Amtrak's figures, Subsidyscope includes depreciation and overhead when calculating loss or profit per passenger on each of its rail lines, an accounting practice used in other capital intensive industries.

Amtrak's line with the highest per passenger subsidy -- the Sunset Limited, which runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles -- carried just 72,000 passengers in FY2008, at a cost to the federal government of $462 per passenger. The California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to San Francisco, had the second highest per passenger subsidy of $192. It carried nearly 353,000 passengers in FY2008.

"The nation's railways are an important mode of transport for many Americans, whether it's for commuting to work or seeing the country," said Marcus Peacock, director of Subsidyscope. "But we have an obligation to ensure that where taxpayer dollars are at stake, people can see a more realistic picture of financial performance."

The Northeast Corridor, which runs from Washington, D.C. to Boston, was Amtrak's least subsidized route in FY2008 and carried the highest passenger volume, nearly 10.9 million passengers. The high-speed Acela Express, one of only three Amtrak lines to turn a profit, made an average of $41 per passenger. In comparison, the heavily utilized Northeast Regional -- carrying more than twice the volume of riders as the Acela Express -- lost just under $5 per passenger in FY2008.

This analysis was released as part of Subsidyscope's broader look at all federal spending on subsidy programs in the transportation sector. Subsequent analyses will look at other sectors including energy, healthcare, nonprofits, defense, agriculture and housing.

Please visit www.subsidyscope.org for access to the transportation data as well as further information on federal subsidies. Subsidyscope is guided by a broad and bipartisan advisory board of budget, fiscal and transparency experts and is assisted by its technology and research partner, the Sunlight Foundation.

The Pew Economic Policy Group is a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts and promotes policies and practices that strengthen the U.S. economy. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life. www.pewtrusts.org

Eric Miller on 10.28.09 @ 11:38 AM PST [link]  

Yes, some of the mainstream media noticed the 350.org doings on Saturday!

Los Angeles Times
New York Times
The Examiner
Phillippine Daily Inquirer
The Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin

And many, many more....

Now, to do something about our addiction to energy....

Richard Risemberg on 10.25.09 @ 03:20 PM PST [link]  

The environmental awareness group 350.org is organizing a day of simultaneous educational or demonstrative events today, October 24^th, all over the world. In their words:

We're calling on people around the world to organize an action on October 24 incorporating the number 350 at an iconic place in their community, and then upload a photo of their event to 350.org website.

To find an event near you, go to their website for a description and a button to the event finder; or you can go directly to the event finder here.

Richard Risemberg on 10.24.09 @ 04:38 AM PST [link]  

If you haven't been to Manhattan (New York, not Kansas) lately, you'd be amazed at how much easier (and safer) it's getting to walk around. It's also probably becoming more difficult to drive---but so what, there are no drive-thru's so keep the cars out! Here's a related article from Project for Public Spaces: Read More

Eric Miller on 10.23.09 @ 10:29 AM PST [link]  

The word "economy" comes from the Greek word "oikos," meaning "house," and so both "economy" and "ecology" refer to keeping one's house in order.

Unfortunately, all too often the "economy" is used as an excuse to pillage the "ecology," as we all know; and now this seems to be playing out in a most blatant and almost horrifying way in the progress of health care so-called "reform" in Washington, where healthcare corporation lobbyists, and especially insurance lobbyists, are perverting the original vision of the public's health as a public good, and turning it into a mandatory consumerism with actual fines assessed against those who do not choose to buy an overpriced product from a predatory merchant. In fact, lobbyists have been arguing that the proposed $750 penalty for not buying health insurance from their corporate masters--the public option having been shelved for now--is much too low, and that some consumers would pay rather than render themselves to the uncertain mercies of corporate CEOs and shareholders demanding ever higher bonuses and profits.

Corporate power has ever been shown to lead to exploitation, not only of individuals but of the Earth itself, and corporations see pollution as a profit center, as they do not wish to clean up after themselves; but to profit from fear and disease, from accident and age,and to finagle the government into being their goons as they shake down an entire populace, goes beyond dismaying. It is ghastly--sinful, one should say.

The European countries whose "socialistic" horrors the Neander-con right derides are, on the whole, freer and often richer than the US, where corporations struggle to control free speech if it might affect their profits, and file suit against environmental laws as "takings" of their right to make money by killing neighbors with their effluents. The biggest exporting economy in the world is not China, nor the US, but Germany, which has, of course, public health care and the strictest environmental laws on the planet; and in Denmark, according to those wild-eyed liberals at the CIA, the GDP per capita is one and a half time higher than that in the US--and is shared among more of the population. (Fewer billionaires, but almost no one struggles to pay bills,) Meantime, in the US, according to the NYT's Bob Herbert, "Two-thirds of all the income gains from the years 2002 to 2007--two-thirds!--went to the top 1 percent of Americans."

Leaving precious little for our own diminishing middle class to spend in support of what even Wall Street calls the "real economy."

If corporate lobbyists have their way with health care, the US economy will further degrade--as will our cities and the very land our nation's based on.

The time is now. Phone, write, or email your senators and tell them you want real reform, not a government-enforced mandate to patronize the latest in a long line of American robber barons. US citizens spend more on health care yet live shorter and unhealthier lives than the denizens of any other Western country. Our health care system is the reason. The current plans being shaped in WAshington now will make the situation worse, not better. A public option will introduce real cost savings and real competition to the system. Every insurance underwriter knows that the bigger the pool of insureds, the more effective the plan. A single plan open to all would be the cheapest and most effective of all--let the pinstripes compete with that.

Go to Congress.org and write all the people who claim to represent from one site.

Here's the letter I just sent my Senator Boxer (Feinstein being rather hopelessly on the corporate side):

It's hard to keep track of what's going on in the healthcare reform farce these days, outside of Mr. Obama's regrettable (for us, for him, and for the Democratic party) willingness to abandon the public option that has made lives longer, healthcare cheaper, and economies stronger in countries such as France and Denmark.

Now it looks as though your august body, the Senate, is preparing to grant the health insurance companies a giant vacuum hose to suck money out of our pockets, while not doing a thing to reduce healthcare costs to a reasonable level--and threatens to fine us if we don't kowtow to an industry that has proven itself piratical in the last three decades. (And I used to work in insurance.)

You are one of the last senators left us who is even remotely progressive--or at least your public image is.

What I want to know--and I don't want a boilerplate response--is what concrete public efforts you are making, as my Senator, to prevent the insurance industry from rewriting health care "reform" into a sort of retail serfdom?

I have friends who range from Goldwater Republicans to anarcho-syndicalists, and everything in between, of all ages and incomes, from dirt poor to filthy rich, and NONE of them has anything but scorn for the pseudo-reforms being noised about in Washington committee land.

So, as the old Progressive anthem used to say, "Whose side are you on?"

Richard Risemberg on 10.22.09 @ 05:31 AM PST [link]  

Yesterday, Oregon's Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a longtime supporter of bicycling, sustainable neighborhoods, and more, announced the formation of the Livable Communities Task Force, a working group that intends, in Blumenauer's words, to

"...Work to improve community livability and Americans' quality of life.

This means reducing the nation's dependence on oil, protecting the environment, improving public health and investing in housing and transportation projects that create jobs and give people more commuting choices."

Blumenauer states that "...The federal government has all too often hindered or even blocked the ability of local communities to achieve these goals. In fact, federal policies have often led to today's unproductive and even destructive patterns of community neglect, inefficient energy use, economic dislocation, and environmental damage. Sadly, in many cases, American taxpayers have paid for it."

If the Task Force can help change this--and Blumenauer seems to have been pretty effective in the past--this could bode well for the US and, indirectly, for the world.

Read more about the Task Force and its membership at goals on Blumenauer's Congressional web site.

Richard Risemberg on 10.20.09 @ 04:23 AM PST [link]  

We don't often tout specific products here, but this Treehugger.com article on biodegradable shoes covers something worth shouting out: biodegradable sneakers, made with rubber that includes pelletized rubber-eating microbes that are "awakened" only under landfill conditions. (The non-rubber parts are natural materials such as hemp, which would biodegrade anyway.)

The shoes, by Simple Shoes, look like they'd work for bicycling as well as walking, and the rubber comes from recycled car tires, so you get double brownie points for wearing them!

Read the entire article, with numerous hotlinks, here: BIO-D Biodegradable Shoes, on Treehugger.com.

Richard Risemberg on 10.18.09 @ 05:37 AM PST [link]  

This evening I came across this "new urban" type development outside Dallas. It seems a lot like the Waterfront in Pittsburgh. I don't see any transit and the housing is seperate, although adjacent and walkable to retail. There's also a post office and public library, which help with the authenticity. LINK TO MAP

Eric Miller on 10.13.09 @ 04:23 PM PST [link]  

From a speech of Robert Kennedy's, a passionate critique of the American obsession with endless growth, what Edward Abbey called the "ideology of the cancer cell":

We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product. For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads.... It includes...the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.

And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.... The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America--except whether we are proud to be Americans.

Doesn't need much comment....

Richard Risemberg on 10.09.09 @ 06:24 PM PST [link]  

Eric Miller on 10.08.09 @ 03:22 AM PST [link]  

Few are the architects and landscape designers who successfully build into a community. Ours is an age that prides itself with designs that may exist on their own artistic merits, but are not able to be integrated into their environments. A new book, Building Commons and Community from New Village Press documents 45 years of the late Karl Linn's legacy creating neighborhood spaces for communities and by communities.

Landscape architect, psychologist, and educator, Linn's work started on the ground, not the drawing board and built places that filled lots and engaged lives.

Linn considered nature a source of inspiration and leaving psychology behind, re-entered the field of landscape architecture, thinking of it as a healing profession. It was here on lots in Berkeley, South Bronx, Newark and elsewhere that a wide-array of components including nature, civilization, art, science, heart and intellect came together.

Building Commons and Community is a rich and colorful book, both in its design and in the stories that fill its pages. In these days of gated communities and a world where social changes brought on by economic difficulties and a changing environment, taking time to ponder the idea of space in common is in order. This book, celebrating Linn's life and work, is a first step into our common future.

Buy the Book

Eric Miller on 10.06.09 @ 12:00 PM PST [link]  

Here's a quote from a superb article in the Guardian about waste and America:

There are some places in the world where there is no word for garbage. The idea that an object could have no purpose, or be brought into being only to be discarded, is so alien that the concept simply does not exist. America is not one of them.

On the contrary, we have become such a disposable society that we are one of the top garbage producers in the world, dumping an estimated 254 million tons a year, less than a third of which is recycled.

Indeed, even in my own neighborhood, a popular area called the Miracle Mile, considered one of the showpieces of Los Angeles, there is trash everywhere: flyers, fast-food cups and boxes, plastic and glass bottles, dogshit, endlessly drifting inner pages of newspapers, adsheets, blots of congealed chicken, everything. Most of it, of course, packaging waste that is almost completely unnecessary. Whence the American obsession with wrapping things in several times their weight of paper and blister, I don't know; it's probably an attempt to promote the often-useless product within and make it seem worthy.

Oh, and I left out the maddening plastic shopping bags, now banned in more and more cities: markets inevitably--unless you beg or sometimes threaten them to desist--will stuff even a single tube of toothpaste into a large plastic bag, sometimes two! These drift around like Homer's souls in Hades, bemoaning their birth and frightening anyone who has any common sense.

Packaging has become a sort of sacrament in this weird land. Ms. Walshe, who wrote the quote above, has a good understanding of the problem. You can read the complete article here.

What to do about it is up to you, if you are an American.

Richard Risemberg on 10.03.09 @ 06:25 AM PST [link]