RSS - Posts
CHICAGO (Reuters) – If asked to close their eyes and think of a locomotive, chances are many people would conjure up the image of a noisy behemoth belching black smoke — hardly the picture of an environmentally friendly industry.
Yet being a “green” transportation alternative to trucks is just what U.S. railroads are turning to as a marketing tool.
“For some months we have been communicating to customers the message that as well as being a cheaper alternative, we can lower their carbon footprint,” said Mark Schulze vice president for safety, training and operations support at No. 2 U.S. railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp (BNI.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
To sum up the story, a suspicious, IE not normal , maybe NORML behaving person from HSU placed stickers, on a plane, and tells the stewardess that he has to get off the plane he just boarded, before getting to his destination. Any reasonable person observing this would want the plane searched, and the person taken into custody. It took three hours to search though everything, to make sure everything was safe. Three hours of inconvenience, so this idiot can make a point. Trapping these people, making them prisoners.
Of course you have other pot supporters saying the police over reacted, and it is just another case of the fascism of America. Maybe this is an illustration of the Paranoia that modern pot causes, and therefore should never be made legal.
What other aspects of Jason Robo’s life can we examine?
He was impeached at HSU for unprofessionalism from being a student body leader. He agrees with the rest of the student leaders with a meeting time that everyone can make, then schedules a class during that time, and asks the rest of the leaders to change the time. That didn’t work for the rest of them, and they said no. He was unable to make the meetings, and he blamed them.
It is not the stickers that got him in to trouble, it is behavior. He should be banned from all airplanes.
By MARSHA DORGAN
Register Staff Writer
A solo crash on Solano Avenue and Darms Lane on Wednesday morning wiped out a Wine Train shed, one that contains machinery that helps operate the railroad crossing gates.The driver, Adam Lieberstein, 26, escaped serious injuries. The small aluminum shed was reduced to rubble, its debris scattered along the railroad tracks near Darms Lane, just south of Yountville.
Lieberstein was taken by ambulance to Queen of the Valley Medical Center. “He will be there for at least the night,” said his father, Napa County District Attorney Gary Lieberstein.Lieberstein’s Honda ripped the shed from its foundation and pushed it about 40 feet down the tracks. The front end of the Honda was crumpled and the windshield was shattered.
According to CHP and Napa County Sheriff’s deputies at the scene, Lieberstein was able to get out of the car on his own. His head hit the windshield, causing a cut to his head, paramedics said.Lieberstein told officers he was northbound on Solano Avenue, when he lost control of his car, careened off the roadway and plowed into the power shed.
“At this time, alcohol and drugs do not appear to be a factor,” CHP Officer Jaret Paulson said.
Along with the many green changes in Novato, the Novato Advance, is touting that having SMART back on the ballot, is one of them.
One from Marla Fields, an avid supporter, with writing most of the newspapers in that area. Still, paints quite a different picture than SMART opponents a) That it won’t be used enough, and b) that only big money people, developers, etc want it.
Visionary TAM board endorses SMART
Thursday offered yet another meeting on the transportation future of Marin, and the SMART proposal. But what set this Transportation Authority of Marin meeting apart were all the regular people who courageously spoke. Teachers, business owners, cyclists, seniors, parents … regular people, all sporting their green support SMART stickers.
There was the Mom whose kids play team sports. She noted how wonderful it would be for the team to meet at the local SMART station, be escorted by a parent to the location of their meet, picked up by the other team van and taken to the game, saving 20 parents from the grueling drive and taking all those cars off the road. There was the senior advocate who talked about the graying county, and how difficult it is to get caregivers here, but with SMART, shuttles to senior centers from stations would solve the problem.
There was a county worker who clarified that soon employers will be charged with cutting their employees’ commute emissions in the form of carbon offsets, and they need viable options like SMART to meet their goals. There was the teacher who wanted to ride his bike to the SMART station and to school at the other end, arriving fresh after a short ride, and then riding all the way home on SMART’s dedicated bike path to a warm shower and dinner.
What all of these people and the many more who spoke shared is vision. They understand that SMART will be the backbone of a more sustainable future transportation system, and as gas prices rise, we sorely need alternatives like SMART’s rail and bicycle pathway.
The Transportation Authority of Marin Board, comprised of elected officials from throughout Marin County, has spent months scrutinizing the SMART plan and overwhelmingly agreed to endorse it.
Do you think our continued reliance on highway 101 with no viable alternative is the direction for our future? Please support SMART Rail and Pathway, an alternative whose time has come.
Marla Fields
Neighborly dispute over SMART station
My friend and neighbor across the street, Alan Berson, wrote in last week’s Advance apparently urging no SMART station in Hamilton.
This makes no sense for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that, more than 10,000 residents live within a mile of the Hamilton station, out of Novato’s total population of 50,000. And thousands more work nearby at the Hangars. So a very significant portion of Novato residents and workers would have access to SMART rail if the second station goes in Hamilton.
And a recent survey of Hangar workers prove that the ridership estimates for Hamilton station in the EIR are woefully low.
A shuttle to downtown from the Atherton station is already included in the SMART plan. Also, many of the 180 boardings forecast at downtown will be drawn from the same rider pool as Atherton because downtown is so close, it overlaps. Plus, 180 are already fewer than Hamilton’s forecast ridership.
Neither Atherton nor downtown have parking.
If these were the only Novato stations, then the next stop, at Civic Center, would be 7 miles away, skipping all of central and southern Novato. Also Alan’s math was a little off – 70 boardings are 70 riders, 90 percent of whom currently drive solo. A ‘boarding’ only happens in one direction – getting off the train is counted as “alighting”.
There is broad agreement that Hamilton is the best place for a Novato SMART station, including some of those who live directly adjacent to the tracks and station. Many Hamilton homeowners would get a boost in their property values from a Hamilton location. Let’s do the ’smart’ thing and put a SMART station in Hamilton.
Donn Davy
By ROB BURGESS The Daily Journal
Article Last Updated: 07/30/2008 12:01:35 AM PDTDoug Crane has enough trains on his property to comfortably fit every resident of the city he leads.
That is, if they were all a half-inch tall and didn’t have a desire to travel by rail outside his basement.
“There are only a few thousand of us left in the world who collect at this level and we’re dying off slowly,” said the Ukiah mayor at home Tuesday morning as he stood in front of one of the seemingly endless rows of model train-laden track. “My interest is primarily engines. This isn’t even all of it — I’ve still got a fair amount in boxes.”
Model railroading is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modeled at a reduced scale, or ratio. Model railway engines are generally operated by low-voltage DC electricity supplied via the tracks.
“These are all based on real trains,” said Crane, standing in front of a 400-watt transformer that powers the loop of tracing through the rows of engines.
In addition to the queues of white folding tables that are almost completely covered with track and train in Crane’s downstairs room, an entire wall of the room is devoted to shelving and display of the collection.
Crane said he preferred to leave the landscaping aspect out of his pastime and instead focus on amassing his now sizeable assemblage.
“I enjoy the collecting aspect of it,” he said. “It’s less time consuming to put them on tables and shelve them than it is to get them into a layout.”
Crane said the collection has been a lifelong passion that began
in his childhood.“I started as a kid,” he said. “I started with wind-up trains as a small boy. Over the years people have said things like we don’t have space for this, you can take it for four boxes for $10.’”
Crane said that whether it was the cable cars of San Francisco or the passenger train he took to Boy Scout camp, rail travel has always been a significant part of his life.
“When I was a kid it was common to have two trains a day go through with 100-plus cars each.” he said. “The Southern Pacific as we knew it doesn’t exist anymore. The number of real’ railroads is down to less than a dozen. I thought it would be good to have a commuter rail, but the numbers have to work. The problem becomes: who is going to pay for it?”
Crane said he finds inspiration for the problem-solving he performs during his daily tasks in the number of varied propulsion techniques represented in the engines that populate his collection.
“Typically we’ll find a train to ride on for vacation,” he said. “It’s astounding how many different variations exist on the theme of getting steel moving down tracks. There are lots of different efforts and solutions.”
Rob Burgess can be reached at udjrb@pacific.net.
I will keep saying that if you wanta good look at Maritime issues, tech, etc you have to take a look at his blog. Top rated Maritime blog. Skysails plus top 10 green ship designs.
Pollution issuses here.
E.P.A. Petitioned to Limit Ship Emissions
John Frederick /My Word/For the Times-Standard
Article Launched: 07/29/2008 01:27:50 AM PDTIn Patrick Higgins’ “My Word” he states that the Marine Terminal Business Plan is flawed because “shipping tariffs and dockage fees are … fabricated.” You paid consultants to lie to you? Wow.
The whole idea of Goldman Sachs is to have an outside company develop both the marine terminal and the railroad. Goldman Sachs is an investment banker, not a marine terminal operator. They are a bank, like the bank that financed your house. Does your bank live in your house or tell you what color to paint your house or what to plant in the yard? No, they just provide the financing. And your bank is probably not local, either.
The state of California owns the tidelands and grants them to the harbor district to improve the harbor. The harbor district leases the property to a responsible operator. It is called a business plan. So the argument goes — don’t auction off our assets to outsiders, but don’t develop it yourself because it costs too much. So, if improvements should not be done, then why is there a harbor district?
The talk about having environmental analysis completed before anything is approved: It is pretty tough to have an environmental review when there is no project. Cart, horse thing. Think it through, please.
The budget is not in horrible condition. The budget report should be read by the commissioners. Go to page 17 of the 2008/09 budget and see for yourselves what the deficit or surplus has been since 1993. Two of the last five years have had a deficit and in three of the years there was a surplus. It can be found at humboldtbay.org, right side look for documents, and at the bottom of the page look for budget.
Send an e-mail to the Harbor District at dhull@portofhumboldtbay.org to let them know how you feel.
John Frederick resides in McKinleyville.
