Breakfast links: Progress and detours

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by David Alpert • December 9, 2008 8:30 am

What the Stanford robocar sees.

Robocars are almost here: An autonomous VW built by Stanford managed to navigate a blockaded Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan during a demonstration, stopping at stop signs, avoiding other vehicles and pedestrians. How long until we have real autonomous vehicles on regular streets? Check out the video. Tip: Phil Lepanto.

Not saving the environment: A new Atlanta-area motorsports park will be LEED certified. Only thing is, motorsports is about driving loud cars very fast, and it's 57 miles from Atlanta. Via Richard Layman.

New Haven moving toward a boulevard: New Haven took one more step toward converting its underutilized, neighborhood-killing Route 34 stub freeway into a boulevard, soliciting proposals for consultant teams to design and execute the change.

11,000 tour buses and no place to park: District and WMATA officials are trying to plan for an estimated 11,000 tour buses to come to DC for the Inauguration, and where to park them. In addition to common sites during major events like RFK Stadium, according to the Post, WMATA will use some Metro station parking, but wants to keep some (free) for area residents. They're also looking at sites as far away as Laurel Racetrack, Six Flags in Bowie, and Wolf Trap.

And: Advocates of a more walkable Tysons argue Fairfax needs to move faster to change the zoning now that the FTA has approved the Silver Line; Annapolis' three-year-old municipal garage is losing lots of money, because people would rather park on the street for free (tip: Ben Ross); a tongue-in-cheek DailyKos diary attacks Obama's choice for Secretary of Transportation as not representing change ... even though he hasn't nominated anyone yet (tip: Jeff Wood).

9 comments Share	— tags: Annapolis, Atlanta, autonomous vehicles, Barack Obama, boulevardize, excessive parking, Fairfax, inauguration, LEED, links, New Haven, Silver Line, USDOT

Metro Inauguration prep mixing planning and prayers (Jan 9, 2009)
Free Metro parking for inauguration? (Nov 21, 2008)
Designing sustainable communities with LEED-ND (Nov 18, 2008)
Almost like Summer Streets: Bike DC (Sep 19, 2008)
Technological change, part 2: Autonomous vehicles (Aug 21, 2008)

Comments

On a related note, Wired's pick for Transportation Secretery is Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak.

by Froggie on Dec 9, 2008 8:39 am

Thank you for picking up our story! Maybe New Haven will be the first city (out of the 10 identified by CNU) to see its boulevardization plan move forward.

by DNH Collaborative on Dec 9, 2008 1:07 pm

Speaking of Obama and transportation, is anyone else disappointed by what he said -- or, rather, didn't say -- in Saturday's address?

by Adam on Dec 9, 2008 1:58 pm

Obama is talking about stimulus, not transportation. Transportation just so happens to be part of the stimulus. Any stimulus has to move fast, and any big time shift in transportation priorities will not move fast at all.

In short, the consternation over this is much ado about nothing. Let's see what they throw out when the surface transportation bill is discussed in 2009.

by Alex B. on Dec 9, 2008 2:15 pm

Well Alex, considering that Obama is talking about a public works program, and considering that transportation is part of public works, then yes I WOULD say he's talking about transportation.

by Froggie on Dec 9, 2008 2:29 pm

Especially considering he specifically mentioned roads.

by Adam on Dec 9, 2008 2:30 pm

Where did I say he's not talking about transportation?

The motivation of this public works program is the stimulus angle. Plain and simple. Look at the link Adam posted originally - which in turn links to Change.gov, where the plan is listed as a "Economic Recovery Plan."

In short, people are reading waaaaaay too much into this. Laying out a big NEW transportation program will take a long time to ramp up. Those investments will still have plenty of value, but not as an economic stimulus for an economy in recession. There are other reasons to make those investments, and I've seen nothing from Obama or his team that indicates they aren't taking the long term view on that.

What people don't seem to get is that the stimulus has to be short term in order to work. It can have a long term payoff too, but it must be a short term boost. Hence, this is not a comprehensive transportation program.

by Alex B. on Dec 9, 2008 2:43 pm

The problem is, as Richard Layman pointed out, that the road lobby is all set with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of projects ready to go. If economic stimulus is the solution in search of an infrastructure problem, the road lobby will be the ones more likely to benefit from the immediate burst of spending.

by Reid on Dec 9, 2008 3:23 pm

"Obama is talking about stimulus, not transportation."

This is where you sounded like he wasn't talking transportation (your post from 2:15pm).

That said, I generally agree with your 2:43pm post about the stimulus angle. And to link it to Reid's comment, there's a slew of unfunded/backlogged maintenance and repair needs for the highway system...needs that don't necessarily need full environmental documentation (unlike major road projects or new transit projects). Hence why they're "more likely to benefit" as Reid put it.

by Froggie on Dec 9, 2008 3:43 pm