Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletinhomepage
Bill Would Allow Bicyclists to Legally Roll Through Stop Signs
Bill Schneider, New West
Idaho has had this law on the books for 27 years with no increase in bicycle-related accidents.
—
I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a complaint about cyclists not stopping at stop signs. I’d have enough money to buy at least one new bicycle, maybe two or three.
And now one Montana lawmaker would like to make this normal behavior legal, just as it has been for 27 years in Idaho.
… I suspect this idea might give some motorists and police officers–at least those who don’t ride their bicycles–heartburn or worse. Before giving in to a knee-jerk reaction, consider this.
Commuting on a bicycle isn’t easy, which is why most people don’t do it, of course. Yet, for many reasons such as promoting preventive health care, saving fossil fuels, and addressing municipal parking and traffic issues, we should encourage bicycle commuting.
Residential neighborhoods, where city officials usually designate “bicycle routes,” are often awash with stops signs. The idea is to keep bicycles off high-traffic thoroughfares, which may or may not be a good idea, but the plethora of stop signs means cyclists must continually unclip and put a foot down instead of keeping some of their hard-earned momentum–or technically violate the law by not coming to a full stop.
(14 January 2009)
Students, communities pay when schools cut busing
Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN
Bright yellow buses have long represented reliable daily journeys between home and the classroom, but schools are increasingly parking the durable icons and unintentionally compromising community coffers and student safety in the process.
When budgets plummet, experts say, administrators look to cut costs. Busing is easy to ax because its connection to the classroom is indirect.
“We’ve seen it for the past year or two,” said Robin Leeds, industry specialist for the National School Transportation Association. “If it comes down to cutting teachers or cutting buses, they’re always going to cut buses.”
School districts all over the nation — from San Diego County, California, to Walden, New York, to Collier County, Florida, and myriad locales in between — have slashed or proposed slashing some bus services in recent months, according to media reports.
… Buses account for a quarter of school transportation, but only about 2 percent of fatalities, a report says
(16 January 2009)
Expensive oil means end of roads – why include them in stimulus?
Robert Burton, Energy Bulletin
PROBLEM: The Highway Department in Los Angeles concluded that once the price of oil passed $50 per barrel, the roads could no longer be maintained, even if all government money was diverted to maintain existing roads.
URL’s: I have searched repeatedly on the web but cannot find these articles, and I am really good at web searches. They appeared shortly after oil crossed $50 per barrel, 2005? This was first reported in the ‘LA Times’, then Seattles major paper did a very similar story interviewing their highway dept folks, then it was reprinted in papers all across America.
MY THOUGHT: This should be of intense interest now that roads and bridges are becoming the main focus of the new ‘stimulus bailout’, but the future price of oil is predicted by most folks to be over $75 per barrel.
If this information was dug up and presented to our leaders, the only conclusion to be drawn is that roads should not be the focus of the stimulus since they have no future.
This is all I know, I hope someone there can use this info.
(17 January 2009)
Email request/suggestion from reader. -BA
