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Shrinking airlines park more planes in the desert
Joshua Freed, Associated Press
MARANA, Ariz. – Old jets come here, empty engine pods shrink-wrapped in white, tall red tails fading to pink in the desert sun. More will come soon. Some will never fly again.
Airlines have announced plans over the past year to take 1,700 planes out of service as fewer people fly. United Airlines is retiring all 94 of its Boeing 737s by the end of this year, and Northwest Airlines has cut its old DC-9 fleet by about a third.
(4 April 2009)
Students Give Up Wheels for Their Own Two Feet
Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Tiimes
LECCO, Italy — Each morning, about 450 students travel along 17 school bus routes to 10 elementary schools in this lakeside city at the southern tip of Lake Como. There are zero school buses.
In 2003, to confront the triple threats of childhood obesity, local traffic jams and — most important — a rise in global greenhouse gases abetted by car emissions, an environmental group here proposed a retro-radical concept: children should walk to school.
They set up a piedibus (literally foot-bus in Italian) — a bus route with a driver but no vehicle. Each morning a mix of paid staff members and parental volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests lead lines of walking students along Lecco’s twisting streets to the schools’ gates, Pied Piper-style, stopping here and there as their flock expands.
(26 March 2009)
Too many cars, and they’re not on the road
Brady Dennis, Washington Post via MSNBC
After ‘car bubble’ collapses, excess inventory creates a backlog
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The sea of new cars, 57,000 of them, stretches for acres along the Port of Baltimore. They are imports just in from foreign shores and exports waiting to ship out — Chryslers and Subarus, Fords and Hyundais, Mercedeses and Kias. But the customers who once bought them by the millions have largely vanished, and so the cars continue to pile up, so many that some are now stored at nearby Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport.
The backlog exists because many of the factors that contributed to the collapse of the housing bubble — cheap credit, easy financing, excessive production, consumers buying more than they could afford — undermined another large and vital American industry.
“There was a car bubble,”
(3 April 2009)
The American cars Obama wants
Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney
The Obama administration has made it clear: In order to get the billions of dollars of federal money that Chrysler and General Motors need to survive, they’ll need to build and sell more fuel efficient vehicles.
But even with many changes already underway due to stricter fuel economy regulations and public pressure, drivers won’t see new line-ups overnight, even if these companies get the funds they need.
(3 April 2009)
Portland, Portland Style: Touring by Bicycle
Matt Furber, New York Times
“A LOT of good cyclists come out of Portland just because you can ride year-round,” said Bruce Rogers, an athletic-shoe designer visiting from his home in Hailey, Idaho. “I love coming back because I love the biking, no matter what time of year it is. More than fitness, it’s a fun outlet. As long as you have decent rainwear you can ride in any weather.”
Careering through streets on a bicycle in Portland, Ore., this time of year can be an easy weekend adventure that mixes showers, sunbursts, cafes and a robust bicycle culture. And equipped with a sturdy rain jacket, booties, fenders and a bike map (a waterproof version that folds to the size of a credit card is handy), visitors can enjoy the city the way locals do.
On a recent misty Friday evening, bicyclists wearing blinking safety lights formed a spontaneous, festive parade across the Hawthorne Bridge. The impromptu peloton flashed by like a line of flickering fireflies.
Tourists will find that Portlanders seem to know how to avoid the biggest gushers, perfecting the art of ducking into a cafe at the moment that passing showers soak the streets
(3 April 2009)
