Posted Sun, May 10, 10:08 a.m.

The example of Masdar in the United Arab Emirates, which is mentioned by this article and which Seattle City Councilmember Jan Drago raised during a panel discussion last week ( http://www.seattlepi.com/transportation/405796_transportation01.html ), is of a city being built from scratch to be carbon-neutral, zero-waste, and powered entirely by renewable energy. ...

Posted Thu, Jan 8, 10:40 p.m.

I made one misstatement in my last comment, that the London PRT system at Heathrow Airport will open next year, when it's actually scheduled to open later this year. Apologies. jniles, I don't know that I've ever heard a "podcar fan" describe "cattle car" trains in the way you suggest. ...

Posted Wed, Jan 7, 8:16 a.m.

Snoqualman, There is, of course, no reason not to build "steel wheels on steel rails" where appropriate, including high-speed rail. High-speed rail is proven and fast (maglev is even faster), but in urban applications the TGV you praise is far from appropriate, and would not attain higher speeds than conventional ...

Posted Tue, Jan 6, 10:30 p.m.

Knute, Neither 150 mph speeds nor hydrogen power (?!) are required; 40 mph for a nonstop public transit system seems perfectly adequate for many urban environments, with faster speeds possible in less dense areas; at its typical nearly-constant speed it would be faster than cars for most trips, to say ...

Posted Fri, Jun 22, 10:37 a.m.

How to maximize usage of our mass transit: In order to make mass transit work in a less dense metropolitan area like Seattle's, you need to make sure that a large proportion of the urban area has fast, convenient access to it, and that the transit system takes people where ...

Posted Thu, May 3, 12:23 p.m.

RE: An editor and rider defends his writer: It is neither elitist, arrogant, nor self-righteous, and it certainly isn't crap, regardless of whatever insults you might want hurl at whoever disagrees with you today. It may, however, save a life. And that life might be my own. Or one of ...

Posted Thu, May 3, 12:15 p.m.

RE: Hard to Laugh: Greg, please remember I had a cousin who was killed in a plane crash Me, too. so please, no humor about airplanes or plane travel That's not what I'm asking, and I doubt that's what anyone else here is asking, either. What I'm asking is that ...

Posted Wed, May 2, 9:29 p.m.

RE: An editor and rider defends his writer: Chuck, While I agree with much of your defense of Mr. Palmer's article -- there are certainly enough bicyclists who flout traffic laws, particularly in downtown Seattle, and sometimes quite brazenly (I understand that it's considered a badge of honor among bicycle ...

Posted Wed, May 2, 1:05 p.m.

RE: All I Hoped to Prove: Greg, >> All I Hoped to Prove ... is that bicycle riders are humor impaired. In other words, you were hoping to get bicyclists to flame your article, as I inferred. (Not that anyone has, at least so far.) Nice. Constructive, too. (How's the ...

Posted Wed, May 2, 9:40 a.m.

This piece seems to beg for flames from actual bicyclists: ... as opposed to the stereotyped ones depicted by the writer. I've seen this done in other areas of "journalism": writers pen pieces that they (should) know are misguided and inflammatory, in hopes of attracting large volumes of traffic from ...

Posted Fri, Apr 27, 11:41 a.m.

Three specific comments: cwesley, >> a slower speed limit does not equal increased safety Actually, it does. When Interstate speed limits were lowered in the 1970s as a result of that decade's oil shock, fatality rates immediately dropped. The same is true for neighborhood speed limits, especially when motor vehicles ...