Day: May 17, 2011

The idyllic cross-country train trips that many Americans still take could get derailed by today’s “slash and burn” federal budget policies. Meanwhile, fears for the safety of rail passengers in the post-bin Laden era are drumming up political support for costly security measures and raising, once again, questions about why the federal government funds rail routes without any promise of profitability.

(Today marks day two of our special series on biking, and bike issues, around the county.  Yesterday, Mark Elliot talked biking in Beverly Hills.  Today,  Marissa Christiansen, South Bay Initiative Director for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, talks about biking in the South Bay and their new Master Plan.)

For the second time this year Streetsblog rolled in to Pasadena to take to a stage and talk Livable Streets.  We didn't quite pack the house as we did back in January, but we did have a fun night showing Streetfilms to roughly 50 people with CICLE, New Belgium Brewing, and REI as part of Bike Week Pasadena.  Thanks to a raffle, we even made a couple of bucks off the fun.

The Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank, is not always a transportation reformer’s best friend. Its scholars gave Florida Gov. Rick Scott inaccurate advice he then used to justify killing high-speed rail in his state. They want to prevent the gas tax from funding “peripheral” programs like transit and active transportation. But Reason Foundation experts have teamed up with Transportation for America and Taxpayers for Common Sense to champion seven cost-effective and eminently “reasonable” strategies for improving transportation outcomes even in the midst of a budget crisis.

Gerontologists in a laboratory at the University of Southern California exposed a group of mice to the same atmospheric conditions that humans encounter when driving along the freeway. Horrifyingly, they discovered that the mice’s brains showed the kind of swelling and inflammation associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The researchers didn’t super-dose to get these results: the mice were exposed to freeway air for the equivalent of 15 hours a week-- less than the 18.5 hour average Americans spend in their cars. Jokes aside about getting those darn mice off the road, the study suggests that driving less can reduce our risk of brain damage.

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill