Tag: cars

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Bicyclists for people – Let’s be neighbors

Mark Cathcart

Eric Budd has an excellent letter in Boulder Weekly in response to an earlier Op-Ed by Gary Wockner. I never read Garys op-ed, but Erics response makes great reading. It eschews the accusatory, selfish language often found in driver vs cyclist exchanges, and focuses on the positive aspects of cycling in a community, much of which you’d never know unless you had cycled. Among other things, Eric says: Whether it’s riding bikes downtown for happy hour, to the grocery store or to go on a hike, putting people close to the places and services they need makes biking a great … Continue reading Bicyclists for people – Let’s be neighbors

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People not Parking – What Next for Louisville?

Mark Cathcart

I wrote an in Op-Ed in the Colorado Hometown weekly back in December 2018. On August 21st, CHW printed a follow-up. The website for the Hometown Weekly seems to have stopped updating back in April, so I’ve reproduced it here. It is, I think, very germain to the November Louisville CO election. There are 3x councillors and a new mayor up for election. I attended the City consultation on the Transportation Master Plan, and there are little to no improvements under discussion for Main St. Louisville can change and still be historic If things don’t change, they’ll stay the same, … Continue reading People not Parking – What Next for Louisville?

environment, Life, transport, travelLeave a comment

Residential Parking Permit Programs

Mark Cathcart

This is bound to come up here in #louisvilleCO sometime, given the city wants to expand downtown, and doesn’t have a parking solution. Back in my old town, Austin Texas, it’s still a thing. I read this excellent blog post by Meghan Skornia. I’d like to have commented on her blog directly, sadly it requires a facebook ID, which regular readers will know, I don’t have anymore. I tried to reply via twitter but it was typo-ridden and out of sequence. So, here it is with corrections. I lived on the 600-block of W Johanna St for 10-years. The block … Continue reading Residential Parking Permit Programs

healthcare, Life, Politics, politics, tax, technology, transport, workLeave a comment

Government US style

Mark Cathcart

It’s clear that many Americans view “Big government” as a bad thing, it seems though that they are OK with lots of branches of small government, that is ineffective, costly and open to misuse, and often technology challenged. Given the size of the USA, any government is going to be a big government. With over nearly 320-million people, and almost the largest country in geography in the world, most people clearly are clueless about the scale and the challenges of delivering services in what was the worlds most advanced country. Listen to this 10-second clip from NPR’s Morning Edition today, a … Continue reading Government US style

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Will self driving cars save Austin from itself?

Mark Cathcart

If you had 100 destinations you’d have removed some of the major bottlenecks, but we don’t. We have the Central Business District. It’s a major constraint and getting people in cars in and out of it no matter how automated the cars are will have the same fundamental problems and constraints. Anyone who says otherwise really doesn’t understand the problem. Continue reading Will self driving cars save Austin from itself?

politics, transport, travel1 Comment

Austin Traffic: Poor planning

Mark Cathcart

So prop-1 failed, no bad rail, no gloating from me. We still have a major commuting problem. Repeat after me though, we don’t have a traffic problem. One of the problems we have, that comes from growth is so many places are having infrastructure work. Google are all over south Austin laying underground conduit for fiber optic cables, mostly though they are not the problem, apart from a half day here or there where the close off a lane. The RapidBus dedicated lanes have caused some problems downtown, but slowly people have got used to not using the bus lanes, … Continue reading Austin Traffic: Poor planning

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Austin doesn’t have a traffic problem

Mark Cathcart

Tomorrow is voting day for Texas and Austin, there is some excitement over the new 10 district system in Austin among the political classes, but not much among the voters. One of the big issues, at least for me and the general media has been the traffic, and more specifically congestion. Up for vote is Prop-1. a mixed rail and roads bond with a cost of $1.4 billion. It has become a total political football, although either way it is a win/win for the urbanists who either get rail and can pursue density; or don’t get rail and can use that … Continue reading Austin doesn’t have a traffic problem

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Austin, divided by roads

Mark Cathcart

Austin Business Journal Editor Colin Pope published an op-ed on the future of I35 through downtown Austin. In the op-ed he was basically saying that any attempt to sink and cover I35 was a waste of money, and they should just add lanes. I added a biting comment pretty quickly on the dependency on cars, the division of the downtown area. Later in the morning, ABJ added a poll to the article, and in the process, my comment disappeared. I re-wrote a comment and posted it last night. Just in case it vanishes again… You want growth in downtown, but … Continue reading Austin, divided by roads

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Why buying a car is so awful?

Mark Cathcart

The whole State of Texas vs Tesla game/blackmail, campaign is in full swing. Tesla can’t sell direct in Texas, Texas is trying to work an exchange a deal on allowing Tesla to sell cars direct, in exchange for bringing a battery plant to Texas. For the most part people have always only known the dealership model in the USA, and especially in Texas where the same dealership company owns multiple car franchises, and can afford to buy cheap land and build what look like separate businesses to give the illusion of competition. What has become obvious is that most don’t understand … Continue reading Why buying a car is so awful?