Free Republic

As an innovator and early adopter of freeways, California became the symbolic capital of car culture. But the ease of movement conferred by the massive postwar freeway building boom was short-lived, turning the dream of car travel into a nightmare of congestion and long commutes. The story of how Californians went from getting around to getting stuck behind the wheel is deeply entwined with the history of the urban freeway, an enterprise that advanced earlier and on a larger scale here than anywhere else in the country. Half a century ago, there was reason for optimism about cars. Los Angeles...

HOV is good; HOT is even better. As we saw during the Pan-Am Games, High Occupancy Vehicle lanes were great for cars with three or more people and other designated vehicles. The trouble was that they went largely unused. High Occupancy Toll lanes solve that problem by opening up the designated space to cars that don’t have the numbers but whose drivers are willing to pay for the convenience. Premier Kathleen Wynne has hinted that she’s willing to implement HOT lanes, but has not been specific about where and when. If the U.S. experience is anything to go by, however,...

The technology needed for driverless cars is here and could be ready for the market in less than a decade. Automation holds the promise of revolutionizing the automobile industry and making our streets safer, but will it spell the end of Fahrvergnügen? … Self-driving cars, long dismissed as a utopian pipe dream, are rapidly reaching the stage where they will be ready for the market. “We’re not talking about 20 years here, but more like five,” says Sebastian Thrun, initiator and director of Google's project. … No other invention in the history of civilian technology has caused as much harm...

A Life Of Car Grime: Amazing Artwork Created In Dirty Vehicle Windows By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 12th August 2009 When Scott Wade's car gets covered in dirt, he doesn't just write 'clean me' in the grime - he uses it to create an intricate masterpiece. [Pics in URL] In fact, dirty cars are the perfect canvas for his unusual art and he has built up an impressive collection of pictures of 'grime art' from Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa to a portrait of Albert Einstein. The images are so incredible that motorists often stop at traffic lights and jump out...

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood defended the pro-mass transit policies of the Obama administration today, and fired back at conservative writer George Will, who devoted an entire column to attacking LaHood earlier this week. "We have to create opportunities for people who want to ride a bike or walk or take a streetcar," he said. "The only person that I've heard of who objects to this is George Will." Will wrote a column in Newsweek magazine criticizing the secretary, whom he dubbed "Secretary of Behavior Modification," for supporting measures to wean commuters off automobiles. LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois,...

President Obama will tomorrow announce a "historic" new policy involving new greenhouse gas emission standards and new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for vehicles sold in the U.S., sources tell ABC News. The announcement will involve a broad coalition including state governments -- Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from environmentally-conscious California and Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm from auto-friendly Michigan will be there -- as well as both the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, automakers, environmental groups, and others. The announcement was first reported by Politico's Mike Allen. The Transportation Department will handle the new CAFE standards, while...

HE FEEL-GOOD stage of California's leadership on global warming is unsustainable. Kudos to the pop stars with their calls to switch lightbulbs and unplug cellphone chargers when not in use. But we can't pretend that we will actually reduce 2020 greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels without tackling our region's embedded patterns of auto dependence and suburban sprawl. "A subway to the sea" remains largely talk. Instead, nearly $1 billion is being allocated to widen a stretch of the 405 Freeway. L.A. County transit fares have been hiked again, while Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority continue to pursue the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - As California recalls the catastrophic earthquake that struck San Francisco 100 years ago, seismologists warn that the golden state's love of cars could turn into a fatal attraction in the quake-prone state. Elevated freeways, highway overpasses, and garages built under homes are vulnerable to crashing down when the earth shudders, said seismologist Jack Boatwright of the US Geological Survey. "The automobile culture is really a knife in the heart of earthquake preparedness," Boatwright told AFP. "We are only as strong as our weakest overpass." Another key weakness is structural, including building code oversights exposed by the...

August 26, 2004 -- The "Bike National Convention" may have just had its tires slashed. The NYPD yesterday announced a crackdown on a group that promotes monthly mass bike rides and has promised traffic-disrupting events during the GOP convention. The group, Time's Up, founded the so-called "critical mass" rides on the last Friday of each month. The crackdown was spurred by Time's Up's planned Bike National Convention, timed to coincide with the Republican gala. On Tuesday, the riders evoked Paul Revere's famous ride, with bicyclists chanting, "The Republicans are coming!" along Lexington Avenue. A police source said that caught the...

NOTE: I did not write this diatribe, I will voice out in the "afterward". This weekend lots of folks are gonna be tearin' it up in NYC at the Republican National Convention, showing not only the country, but the rest of the world that not all of us are "united" behind the Bush administration and their "War on Terror." "Bring the war home," went a slogan for the Weather Underground. Similarly, Fugazi said, "There will be two wars." As long as the power elite wages war abroad, we will inevitably feel the effects at home: immigration restriction, and hightened racism,...

"Thirty-five years after Carroll Shelby and Ford Motor Co. parted ways, Shelby, 80, is back in the fold and shepherding a new era of Shelby Cobras, the first of which will be revealed to the media tonight at the auto show."