Stock photo. Not Damien's baby!

Until we get the content flowing again, you might want to pretend you live in San Francisco or use this opportunity to catch up on federal transportation policy. Likewise, the Streetsblog Network is generating more than enough good stories to keep you busy.

Here's wishing luck to Damien and family. Hopefully we'll have him back soon.

And Al Gore and the folks at Repower America say call your U.S. Representative today because you can be sure the guys from the coal industry have made their calls. Here's Al...

To me, and I suspect no one else on earth, there is something wonderful about listening to country music playing in the cab, air conditioner running, the hum of a huge diesel engine in the background, the tranquility that comes with being in a virtual wilderness of trees and marsh, the day breaking and vibrant pink coming alive in the morning clouds — and getting to build something with each scoop of dirt.

How romantic!

And as if this story weren't weird enough already, a profile of Sanford in American Conservative magazine provides another sordid tidbit about the governor's diesel-powered meditation technique:

During Sanford's first gubernatorial campaign in 2002, an 8-year-old African-American girl wandered onto a Sanford family property on Lady's Island and drowned. A source close to the governor said she fell into a "retaining pond." Her family's lawyer, Manning Smith, called it a "pit." Other sources claim that Sanford, who owned a hydraulic excavator at the time, digs holes on his property to unwind.

We are excited to announce the official launch of Streetsblog Capitol Hill. With major transportation, climate and energy legislation coming before Congress in the next year or two we felt that it was critical to have a talented journalist down in Washington D.C. covering the issues on a daily basis. With the financial support of the Surdna Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund the Livable Streets Initiative has hired reporter Elana Schor to cover the federal beat for us. DC.Streetsblog.org (as it's known to your web browser) will be her new home. Sarah Goodyear, editor of our national blog nework, and talented writers like Ryan Avent will be contributing to Streetsblog Capitol Hill as well.

Broadly speaking, we hope to do two things with this new edition of Streetsblog. First, we aim to make it a high-quality daily source for news and analysis of federal transportation policy and related issues. We want to create a blog that is a daily must-read for the advocates, lawmakers, Congressional staffers, urban planning practitioners, policy wonks and lobbyists who are working to shape the future of America's transportation systems.

Our second goal for Streetsblog Capitol Hill is to help bring outsiders into the federal transportation policy-making process. For decades, transportation policy on Capitol Hill has mostly been an arcane, complex insiders game -- a game that's been played best by highway lobbyists. Streetsblog Capitol Hill will put locally-oriented livable streets advocates on the playing field and help them better understand the rules of the game. As the 293 bloggers who are now members of the Streetsblog Network make clear every day, a vibrant, grassroots movement for sustainable transport, smart growth and livable streets is active and growing increasingly powerful in cities and states nationwide. Streetsblog Capitol Hill will help connect these local activists to the important action taking place inside the Beltway. 

As you may have noticed, we've got a new reporter here at Streetsblog, Elana Schor. Elana will be covering this year's big federal transportation story down in Washington D.C. with an eye towards helping transit advocates and livable streets activists gain a better understanding of what has typically been a very inside-the-Beltway, highway-oriented process. If you have tips, comments or questions for Elana, email her: elana [at] streetsblog [dot] org.

Elana has covered Capitol Hill for more than four years, most recently as a staff reporter for The Hill, The Guardian, and the Talking Points Memo blog. Her work has also been published by MarketWatch and the Biloxi Sun-Herald. She holds a masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and lives in Washington's very walkable Mount Pleasant neighborhood. 

Streetsblog's national work is being funded by grants from the Surdna Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund.

Regarding this national work -- here's a question for you: What would you like to see Elana cover in the coming months? Or, more generally, how would you like to see Streetsblog approach the federal transportation issues?

I've found that Streetsblog tends to work best and engage readers most when we focus on the hyper-local and hyper-personal side of policy issues. Yet, unlike neighborhood street fights and seemingly timeless issues like sidewalk cycling and rolling stops, federal transportation policy often feels too big and distant to get a handle on. It sometimes feels more like a spectator sport, taking place on this whole other playing field where, I think, locally-oriented livable streets activists often don't feel like they have much influence.

So, this is going to be our challenge in the coming months: Cover the federal transportation policy process in a way that makes Streetsblog a daily read for national advocates, elected officials, Hill staffers and U.S. DOT personnel while also making the issues engaging and tangible to grassroots livable streets activists. By making transit coverage more accessible, the goal is to take the blinders off policymakers who have historically been beholden to moneyed lobbies rather than new ideas.

I'm convinced that the local activists are key. The hundreds of thousands of people across America who are working to make their own communities more bikeable, walkable and transit-oriented are the most powerful force for pushing federal transportation policy in a smarter more sustainable direction. We've just got to get informed and engaged. Elana is going to help us do that.

Over at Streetsblog San Francisco, Matthew Roth has the first installment of what will surely be an ongoing story...

Our ideal candidate is a talented, experienced writer and reporter who knows the players in transportation and environmental policymaking on Capitol Hill. The ability to navigate the intricacies of the legislative process, to dig beneath the surface, and to track the interests and influences behind the scene is a must.

Qualifications

While Streetsblog has a distinct advocacy bent oriented towards reducing automobile dependence and improving conditions for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders, we bring newspaper-quality journalism to the issues that we cover. Towards that end, we are seeking a reporter/blogger with previous professional experience to do original research, interviews, investigation and coverage of events. Qualifications include:

• Professional journalism experience, ideally covering the legislative processes related to transportation, planning or environmental policy issues.
• A network of existing sources – and an ability to cultivate new sources – among the lawmakers, lobbyists, advocates and other players who work on federal transportation policy issues.
• Experience with WordPress or other blogging technologies is a plus.
• A personal passion for the issues that Streetsblog covers.

To Apply

Send a resume, cover letter, and relevant clips/links to jobs@streetsblog.org.

Streetsblog is produced by The Open Planning Project, a New York City-based non-profit that uses technology to catalyze civic action and social change. This position is full-time, and the Reporter will work remotely from Washington, DC.

• For Streetsblog, one of the big goals of the redesign was to make our San Francisco, Los Angeles and National Blog Network web sites more accessible. In the old design, links to these sites were buried in our sidebar. Now you can find them via the tabs in the header.
• You can still find handy links to the Comments, Calendar and Submit Content pages up in the Streetsblog header as well. "Submit Content" used to be called "Contribute" but we thought that it sounded too much like we were asking for money (which we may be doing soon, but not yet). For now, we're just asking you to tag your links, photos and videos so we can feature them here on Streetsblog. This is actually a really interesting part of the web site if you haven't visited it before.
  
• In the thin header at the very top you may notice that the Livable Streets "Groups" site has been renamed "Community." We felt this better reflected our mission to help Livable Streets activists connect with each other, share information and resources, and generally become more aware of themselves as a growing national movement. We've been steadily improving the Community features over the last few months and really want to ramp that up in the coming months. Have you joined yet?
  
• Streetfilms and Streetswiki have remained pretty much the same, aside from the new header. I'd be curious to hear what people think we need to do with Streetswiki to make it a more useful resource.
  
• You'll note that we've added Livable Streets Education to the top nav bar as well. Run by Kim Wiley-Schwartz and Rebecca Jacobs, the Education Project is starting to work in classrooms throughout New York City to train the next generation of Livable Streets activists. This is a very cool program and we'll have a more detailed post on it tomorrow.
• We are hearing some people say that they miss seeing our logo depicting the silhouetted street scene. We like it too but felt that it contributed to the site's header being a bit too busy and heavy. For what it's worth, you can still find the logo on the Livable Streets Initiative homepage. If there's enough of a popular outcry, perhaps we can ask our designer Andy Cochran to figure out a way to bring it back to the other sites as well. (In addition, the L.A. Streetsblog logo can be found at the Los Angeles Streetsblog page on Facebook.)
  

That's all for now. If you have any feedback on the new design or features that you'd like to see us improving or developing, please leave a comment or shoot us an email.

Today we are launching the Streetsblog Network "Action Widget." The Streetsblog Network, as you may already know, is a collection of about 200 bloggers from all around the United States who focus on livable streets, sustainable transport and smart growth issues, usually with a local focus.

The Action Widget is a tool that members of the Network, or anyone else, can install into the sidebar of their blog using the code found on this page. Network editor Sarah Goodyear will update the Action Widget regularly with legislative alerts, breaking news and top stories from blogs participating in the Streetsblog Network. Above are three examples of how the widget would have appeared last week as the House of Representatives debated the transportation portion of the stimulus bill. 

One of the things that's become clear to me watching the Streetsblog Network grow is that these bloggers represent a vibrant and potentially powerful national movement pushing for fundamental change in the way we do transportation policy here in the United States. It is both a strength and weakness of this movement that its most active and committed members -- the people in the trenches fighting for better biking facilities, new light rail lines and less automobile-dependent cities -- tend to be focused on local issues to the extreme.

One of the big goals of the Streetsblog Network is to get livable streets advocates to take a moment to lift their heads from their important neighborhood-level work and take note of the fact that 2009 is going to be a watershed year for federal transportation policy, and they need to be involved in shaping that policy. If they're not, then the policy-making will be done by the business-as-usual folks, the Road Gang who, incidentally, can not find 200 local bloggers writing enthusiastically about the shovel-ready road widening on the outskirts of town. The Highwaymen have no such grassroots movement behind them.

So, we hope that the Action Widget can help progressive transportation bloggers to keep their readers informed, mobilized and connected to other local activists and to the action taking place on the federal level. If you have any feedback or questions about the Action Widget, we really want to hear it. Do you need help installing it? Does it work on your blog? Would a certain change in design or function make you more likely to use it? Please shoot an email to tips@streetsblog.org and let us know what you think.

“We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars…”
-- Barack Obama's inaugural address.

“The last thing this nation needs now is a stimulus plan aimed at the development of non-gasoline-powered automobiles married with extensive rehabilitation of the highway system.”
-- James Howard Kunstler

SF.Streetsblog.org

Streetsblog seems to be arriving in the Bay Area not a moment too soon. As Streetsblog San Francisco editor Bryan Goebel reports, the SF MTA's board voted to eliminate a critical piece of bike infrastructure at Market Street at Octavia Boulevard on Tuesday. Why? Apparently, the eastbound bike lane on Market Street is interfering with motorists' ability to make an illegal right turn on to the 101 freeway.

It looks to me like a classic example of old school traffic-engineering at its worst: Reduce cyclist and pedestrian injuries by simply discouraging cyclists and pedestrians from using the street. Frankly, it's incredible that this kind of planning and engineering still holds sway in a city whose mayor claims to be building "a new green economy" and a "sustainable vision."

Bryan and Streetsblog San Francisco reporter Matthew Roth are going to make sure that issues like this receive the regular coverage that they deserve and officials are held accountable for their press releases. It should be fun. And Streetfilms was already there...

A few notes:

1. We know that we need to redesign our web sites to make it easier to find Streetsblog San Francisco, Los Angeles and Streetsblog.net, our national network of 175 livable streets bloggers. We hope to have a quick, interim redesign finished soon and a more comprehensive redesign of the Livable Streets Network later this year.

2. Streetsblog San Francisco is funded by a generous donation from Jonathan Weiner, a bike-commuting, Muni-riding, San Francisco-based software entrepreneur, a grant from the Wallace Global Fund and ongoing support from Mark Gorton and The Open Planning Project.

Let's give a warm Streetsblog welcome to Mr. Theo, the newest member of the Livable Streets Network. You may recognize Theo as the star of the Louisville, Kentucky transit system's YouTube hit, "Bikes-on-Board." Sure, some LSN members will criticize him for uploading a photo of himself standing next to a vehicle that gets about 7 miles per gallon and runs on leaded fuel. But give the man some credit for supporting urban infrastructure investment; his personal web site is BigDiggity.com. If you're looking for a transit-oriented M.C. in the River City area, Mr. Theo is for hire.

Before the financial meltdown severely undercut John McCain's presidential ambitions, his campaign was giddy over the apparent success of its energy policy message: Drill, baby, drill!

It is, after all, a simple sounding solution that appeals to politicians in love with the quick fix, oil companies desperate for access to new sources, and auto-dependent Americans, many of whom now find themselves stranded in far-off suburbs, trapped in expensive car commutes and completely lacking freedom of choice when it comes to transportation. No matter that drilling here and drilling now isn't going to do much of anything to reduce gasoline prices or wean Americans from their crushing oil dependence. 

If you're curious about the masterminds behind the message, head over to Newt Gingrich's "tri-partisan" American Solutions web site. There, you can download "The New Language of Smart Energy," a 42-page talking points memo from Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz handily sums up his findings as "The 10 Communications Commandments for 2008." Not surprising, given the buckets of fossil fuel money behind Gingrich's American Solutions, the Commandments can pretty much be summed up as "Thou Shalt Drill. Thou Shalt Drill Here. Thou Shalt Drill Now."

Here, courtesy of Frank and Newt, is some of the messaging that oil companies are using to maintain their grip on U.S. energy policy and get to those environmentally-sensitive leases. Mock and ignore them at your own peril.

• First off, before even getting into the Ten Commandments, make sure you present yourself as having risen above partisan politics.
• Then frame the issue in terms of national security. Our dependence on oil isn't the problem. It's our dependence on "foreign oil" that's the problem. All that stuff about oil being a globally traded commodity? Too complicated. Skip that. 
  
• Shortages "are unacceptable in our 21st century economy." All that stuff about geology and peak oil? Too wonky. Skip that.
• "It is about American oil and American gas." (Bold and underline formatting courtesy of Frank Luntz.)
• The more you can talk about futuristic "breakthrough technology," the more you'll be embraced by the American public.
  
• "Diversity of supply leads to security of supply." But focus, mainly, on diversity of oil and gas supply not diversity of energy sources.
  
• Do: Talk about new technology and the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. Don't: Talk about conservation or sacrifice.

Newt, Frank, and the rest of their ilk seem to be in retreat for now. But with some drivers returning to their gas-guzzling ways, how long until the next "crisis" hits -- and the oil-suckers emerge from their crypt?

Happy Halloween.

Graphic: Carly Clark

In the coming months Streetsblog will turn increasing attention to Capitol Hill and the 2009 federal transportation reauthorization bill. With hundreds of billions of dollars up for grabs, organizations are mobilizing to influence the outcome of the debate. One thing many of the groups pushing for mass transit, smart growth and livable streets have in common is funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. The old adage says “Follow the money,” so Streetsblog spoke with foundation Managing Director Nicholas Turner.

Aaron Naparstek: What kind of work is Rockefeller Foundation doing in the transportation sector right now?

Nick Turner: We’ve undertaken an initiative that’s focused on trying to advance a more equitable and sustainable transportation paradigm in this country. When you look at the cost of transportation for low-income families, you see this is the second highest cost for working Americans. Then if you look at the slice of those who earn twenty to fifty thousand dollars a year, it’s the highest cost. Having to own and operate a car eats up 30 percent of household income.

The second thing that made us alight on transportation again was the climate impact. With transportation accounting for 33 percent of emissions in this country we thought it was essential to look at the lever of federal policy and funding as a way of reducing that impact.

The third thing, and it’s smaller than the other two, is when we look at this country and other developing countries we see an increasingly tattered social contract. Investing in sustainable and equitable transportation, and the building of that infrastructure, is a source of good jobs and increases access to good jobs for lower income Americans.

Transportation should be seen as a tool to achieve a variety of social benefits and ends. Transportation is not an end in and of itself but it should be a tool to enhance quality of life for people.

We see an increasingly tattered social contract. Investing in sustainable and equitable transportation, and the building of that infrastructure, is a source of good jobs and increases access to good jobs.

With rising gas prices crippling school bus fleets across the U.S., Clarion-Ledger editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsay offers an intriguing new school transportation idea. Click through to see it.

As the Democratic convention convenes in Denver, Matt Davies of the Journal News drills down on the national energy policy debate. Click through for the punchline.

He has hired new advisers, and with them he seems to have worked out a new approach. He is no longer telling the sorts of hard truths that people would prefer not to confront, or even half-truths that they might find vaguely discomfiting. Instead, he's opted out of truth altogether.

So, what is the hard truth about America's energy predicament? Kolbert goes on:

The Department of Energy estimates that there are eighteen billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in offshore areas of the continental United States that are now closed to drilling. This sounds like a lot, until you consider that oil is a globally traded commodity and that, at current rates of consumption, eighteen billion barrels would satisfy less than seven months of global demand. A D.O.E. report issued last year predicted that it would take two decades for drilling in restricted areas to have a noticeable effect on domestic production, and that, even then, "because oil prices are determined on the international market," the impact on fuel costs would be "insignificant."

If the hard truth is that the federal government can't do much to lower gas prices, the really hard truth is that it shouldn't try to.

With just five per cent of the world's population, America accounts for twenty-five per cent of its oil use. This disproportionate consumption is one of the main reasons that the United States-until this year, when China overtook it-was the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases. (Every barrel of oil burned adds roughly a thousand pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.) No matter how many warnings about the consequences were issued-by NASA, by the United Nations, by Al Gore, by the Pope-Americans seemed unfazed. Even as the Arctic ice cap visibly melted away, they bought bigger and bigger cars and drove them more and more miles.

The impact of rising fuel prices, by contrast, has been swift and appreciable. According to the latest figures from the Federal Highway Administration, during the first five months of this year Americans drove thirty billion fewer miles than they did during the same period last year.

Read on...