Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
I have never witnessed the building of a new railroad yard, not that many people have. I suppose it would be akin to a new airport going in and witnessing that, which I have not done either. For the record, though, as a child I did observe construction of just a short section of highway … Read more
Number two in the Transport-in-a-Fine-Fix Series. Some may cry foul that I’m unfairly picking on transport when writing about negative-air-quality-impact-related matters. But, that’s the whole point, that not everything having to do with transport is positive in this or other regards. Take, for instance, America’s highways and roads. On them accidents claim about 30,000 lives … Read more
Saturday (July 20, 2013) I, like a wealth of other day trippers, set foot upon the land made famous by John Steinbeck – the Monterey Peninsula. I believe traffic there bore that out. Congestion was particularly heavy especially during the early evening hours as I was caught up in that crush heading home. As a side note, … Read more
It was in the year 2000 that Amtrak’s Acela Express Northeast Corridor (NEC) services were first introduced. Thirteen years later, locomotives being built by Siemens at its Sacramento, Calif., plant are destined for NEC and Keystone Corridor services, Amtrak and Siemens jointly announced. “The first units of the $466 million order will be field tested this … Read more
“According to [Natural Resources Defense Council staffer Kaid] Benfield, the six counties of Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura and home to some 18 million residents in 191 cities, is dispersed over an area totaling 38,000 square miles.” (See: “Landmark California program could have huge emissions-reductions impact”). By contrast, the state’s San … Read more
“A new state law that quietly moved through this year’s legislature gives cities and counties unprecedented freedom to spend tax dollars on transportation projects other than roads and bridges,” Monte Whaley wrote in the Denver Post. “This means communities for the first time can use their share of the $250 million pot of money made up of … Read more
“Diesel, used by most [heavy goods vehicles], causes more air pollution per kilometre than other fuels such as petrol.” This was a determination of the European Environment Agency (EEA), as brought to bear in the EEA’s Feb. 28, 2013 “Reducing the € 45 billion health cost of air pollution from lorries” press release – a … Read more
At one part in particular in the previous post, in essence, I asked if it is not more economical to expand California State Route (SR) 99 – which is currently being widened from four to six lanes at various spots between Kern County, located in the south San Joaquin Valley, and Sacramento to the north, rather than to … Read more
In my last post I was pretty direct by suggesting, in effect, that American roadway infrastructure was heading in the wrong direction. As you know, roadways can only handle so many vehicles per given unit of time operating at a per given unit of speed. The proper term is “capacity.” Too little capacity and traffic flow becomes … Read more
One would think, in America, based on ongoing conversation, significant strides have been made in the effort to save farmland from non-agriculture-related development. Case in point. To quote Jeff Turrentine from his “Neighborhood Watch” article, “Sprawl destroys the defining character of suburbs by conferring upon them many problems associated with urban areas: crime, congestion, paved-over … Read more