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Vox Civitatis the New Colonist weblog

David Seymour of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy lays bare the high financial, social, and environmental costs of free parking and minimum parking requirements for new buildings in the Montreal Gazette this week. Quoth he:

The cost of parking can be substantial. The Toronto Parking Authority estimated that the cost of providing a single parking space could be up to $40,000. U.S. researchers estimated that parking subsidies are several times the price of gas used by cars.

Perhaps the most insidious characteristic of parking regulations is their self-reinforcing nature that progressively molds the urban landscape into a gigantic parking lot. By taking up land, parking spots reduce density and make car travel more appealing, which leads to--surprise, surprise--greater demand for parking.

Read the entire article at There Is No Free parking.

Richard Risemberg on 07.02.09 @ 06:08 AM PST [link]  

by Chip Haynes
Thirteen years ago, in 1996, I bought a small folding bike and sold my old truck. On the first Monday in January of 1997 I began riding my folding bike to work, and still do, some thirteen years later. Fairly early on, as I searched for information on car-free communities around the US (I really got into that bike thing), I stumbled across information on peak oil instead. Now, you have to understand: in the late 1990's, peak oil was an event only a few fringe types were predicting would happen far, far into our misty distant future. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to see here. Just keep driving.

READ MORE

Eric Miller on 07.01.09 @ 01:00 PM PST [link]  

Wow. I remember The Living Room, but The Bicycle People was a little before my time. Ten years of The New Colonist is something to celebrate. That's a lot of electrons under the mouse. My congratulation to everyone at The New Colonist for a job well done for the last 3652 days (I'm figuring there had to be a couple of leap days in there some where). Keep up the great work, keep fighting the good fight and know that you really have made a difference. People do notice. They told me so.

Good job!

Chip Haynes
Clearwater, Florida

Eric Miller on 07.01.09 @ 10:28 AM PST [link]  

Billy Mays, an Allegheny County native who got his break at the Pittsburgh Home Show, has died. I'm just floating the idea of making a lasting tribute to this television infomercial magnate by naming something in McKees Rocks or Allegheny County after him. The Billy Mays Home Show? The Billy Mays (McKees Rocks) Bridge? If you agree, contact us via email, Facebook or Twitter. Links at the top right.

 

Eric Miller on 06.29.09 @ 08:09 AM PST [link]  

In a study on the productivity benefits of working at home, Cisco estimated employees saved $10 million per-year on fuel costs in addition to in-house savings. There's not anything negative about telecommuting in the report-productivity improved, employees were happier and retention greater-but it brings to my mind questions about whether telecommuting is good for our communities as a whole.

On one hand, how much street life can there be if everyone is locked away in their suburban houses? It's only at lunch time that many suburban-dwellers experience vibrant street life at all (unless they work in an office park, then they never experience it on a daily basis).

To counter this, working at home, it's more likely you'll want some personal interaction and a city will undoubtedly be a better place to live for telecommuters (should we say pccommuters--who the hell uses telephones anymore anyway?). Pondering pre-industrial America, most people worked at home anyway. Cities were filled with artisans and craftsmen (and women, even then) who often worked in their home. Perhaps pccommuting can usher in a new era of the pre-industrial city, except our corporate lords will be off somewhere in a quiet office park.

Cisco Promotes Telecommuting

Eric Miller on 06.29.09 @ 02:59 AM PST [link]  

With the recent Washington DC Metro wreck, we thought it would be a good time to talk about just how dangerous commuter rail is. We compare it to walking, riding a bike, flying and more. Some knee-jerk responses to the crash also brought to mind killing geese in New York after a couple ran into a U.S. Airways flight. If you're a goose, I'd venture you have more chances of dying from the reactionary exterminators than from hitting an airplane. Listen from our Podcasts Page

Eric Miller on 06.25.09 @ 04:19 PM PST [link]  

My former co-worker Andrew posted this on Facebook today. I searched for the City of Toronto Parks Summer Fun Guide and sure enough it's for real. Here's the link to the cover and I've posted it side-by-side with the stock photo on The New Colonists' Facebook page. I think they may need a special visa program for graphic designers.

Eric Miller on 06.24.09 @ 03:19 PM PST [link]  

Looks like the the US Department of Defense has determined that the Constitution is an inflammatory terrorist screed, judging from their instructional materials. To quote the ACLU:

Anti-terrorism training materials currently being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) teach its personnel that free expression in the form of public protests should be regarded as "low level terrorism." ACLU attorneys are calling the approach "an egregious insult to constitutional values" and have sent a letter to the Department of Defense demanding that the offending materials be changed and that the DoD send corrective information to all DoD employees who received the erroneous training.

The implications of this are ominous for a free society such as the Untied states strives to be. And the danger is more than just political, as the many accused of being "eco-terrorists" for publicly stating a verbal challenge, or even just an opinion, to the despoilers of our country can attest.

Read more at the ACLU website or (!) Fox News.

Richard Risemberg on 06.22.09 @ 11:39 AM PST [link]  

The tourism promotion folks in Philadelphia have spent a lot of energy trying to find ways to get visitors to sleep over. I'm going to assume you don't and suggest a number of ways to spent time seeing a lot. We're not focusing on the major attractions here, like the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the big museums. More, each attraction can only be a minor time suck, so you'll still get to see a lot without springing for a hotel.

From New York there are a number of convenient ways to get into Philadelphia. New Jersey Transit connects from Penn Station with a change at Trenton for Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. MegaBus and Bolt Bus provide low-priced options from Mid-Town or Chinatown starting at $8 each way. 2000 New Century lines operated out of Chinatown provides a $20 round-trip option with buses running every thirty minutes. Your arrival point, Philadelphia's Chinatown, is located right by Reading Terminal Market, and it's a short walk to most attractions, so there's no need to bring a car.

READ MORE

Eric Miller on 06.21.09 @ 01:09 PM PST [link]  

We have posted a new review of an older book, Edward T. Hall's The Hidden Dimension, which contains valuable insights on the way humans use space across time and cultures. Follows an excerpt from the review:

Fortunately this book is available new or used online, as it is a valuable exploration of the way human beings in different times and cultures have interpreted and used space, and of the effects of both appropriate and inappropriate spatial configurations in urban cultures. In fact, it was author Edward T. Hall's specific intention that the findings examined in this book be applied to urban design.

Mr. Hall (who coined the term "proxemics" to describe this field of study) begins with an overview of "distance regulation in animals," to quote one chapter heading, and the effects of crowding and spatial arrangements on social and non-social, territorial and non-territorial animals. After collating the findings of numerous studies, including several he managed himself, to do so, he examines the physiological bases of perception in both animals and humans before moving on to what he calls the "anthropology of space," that is, the different ways humans have devised to arrange, demarcate, and exploit space throughout our history.

As he approaches the modern era in his narrative, he deploys specific examples of spatial conventions, mostly derived from his own studies. These focus on US, Northern European, Southern European, Arabic, and Japanese cultures, as well as describing various adaptations and misadaptions of space devised by or imposed upon different subgroupings of US residents, including not only immigrants but internal immigrants, such as southern blacks who moved north.

Read More....

Richard Risemberg on 06.18.09 @ 07:57 AM PST [link]  

Newcolonist.com Editor Eric Miller recently spoke with Susan DeMark, the Mindful Walker, about New York and Pittsburgh, the peaceful co-existence of creative destruction and preservation, the ongoing and pending changes in Coney Island, the lasting impact of the financial crisis on New York and more. Listen to the conversation, then check out Susan's weblog at Mindfulwalker.com

Eric Miller on 06.17.09 @ 12:11 PM PST [link]  

The world without Twitter must have been a terrible place. No, I don't remember it as so terrible, but like telephones and computers, it's one of those things you didn't know you needed until you had it. I think the last two days have proven that Twitter is good for more than sharing recipes and the status of a flight. Twitter is good for Democracy, perhaps to an extent on par with newspapers. In fact, Twitter is free-press on steriods because there's no way to stop this army of citizen journalists.

In just the few moments it took to write that first paragraph, 226 more entries have shown up baring the hashtag of #Iranelection on Twitter. Now it's up to 257. Iran may have been able to block CNN, Fox News and text messages, but they've been unable to keep the tweets from getting through. In the time it takes cable news networks to update their status, hundreds, even thousands of tweets are sent from inside and outside Iran.

Of course efforts are being made to block Twitter too, but users continually send ip addresses to go around the blockade. Moreover users inside Iran are changing their Twitter locations to U.S. cities like Houston, confounding Iranian authorities. Outside twitterers are changing their profiles to show Tehran locals.

At this point the number of new tweets with that hashtag is 519. Among them alauria says "CNN is televising Iranian Twitter IDs. They are risking lives for ratings." Chandlerhora says "All press passes have been revoked in Iran, foreign media banned and not allowed to leave offices to cover events." Running says "CONFIRMED!!! Army moving into Tehran against protesters! PLEASE RT! URGENT!"

Think Twitter is not important? Last night one Tweet told the story best. Rosana said "One Person = One Broadcaster" It's the Twitter users who are telling the story, leaving the networks out of the loop on the ground in Iran, reporting only the story of the Twitter revolution.

Eric Miller on 06.16.09 @ 10:41 AM PST [link]