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In a plan to help families and reduce car usage, anyone under 11 years old will be able to ride metro and buses for free, as will people with disabilities under 20. From a report: Starting in September, Paris is making all public transit free for people under 11, including non-nationals. Preteens aren't the only ones getting a bonus, either. All people with disabilities will get free public transit until the age of 20, while high school students between the ages of 14 and 18 will be entitled to a 50 percent tariff reduction. To make transit access for this group even easier, any 14- to 18-year-olds who buy a travel pass will also get a free bikeshare account as well.

The plans, which apply across the Greater Paris region and cost an estimated $17 million a year, are part of a staggered plan to make things cheaper for people with mobility challenges. Already last spring, the region introduced a (means-tested) scheme by which adults with disabilities and all people over 65 got a free annual travel pass if they were on a low-to-medium income. This new plan to extend cheap or no fares toward younger people should make the public transit system more widely accessible and prove to be a happy cost-saver for families.

The U.S. has added 10,000 of these budget retail outlets since 2001. But some towns and cities are trying to push back. From a report: A recent research brief [PDF] by the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit supporting local economies, sheds light on the massive growth of this budget enterprise. Since 2001, outlets of Dollar General and Dollar Tree (which bought Family Dollar in 2015) have grown from 20,000 to 30,000 in number. Though these "small-box" retailers carry only a limited stock of prepared foods, they're now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods, which has around 400-plus outlets in the country. In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonalds put together -- and they're still growing at a breakneck pace. That, ILSR says, is bad news. "While dollar stores sometimes fill a need in cash-strapped communities, growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress," the authors of the brief write. "They're a cause of it."

Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer. Using code made public by Jerry Shannon, a geographer at University of Georgia, CityLab made a map showing the spread of dollar stores since the recession.

The U.S. has added 10,000 of these budget retail outlets since 2001. But some towns and cities are trying to push back. From a report: A recent research brief [PDF] by the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit supporting local economies, sheds light on the massive growth of this budget enterprise. Since 2001, outlets of Dollar General and Dollar Tree (which bought Family Dollar in 2015) have grown from 20,000 to 30,000 in number. Though these "small-box" retailers carry only a limited stock of prepared foods, they're now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods, which has around 400-plus outlets in the country. In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonalds put together -- and they're still growing at a breakneck pace. That, ILSR says, is bad news. "While dollar stores sometimes fill a need in cash-strapped communities, growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress," the authors of the brief write. "They're a cause of it."

Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer. Using code made public by Jerry Shannon, a geographer at University of Georgia, CityLab made a map showing the spread of dollar stores since the recession.

When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone. But transit users around the world just can't be convinced. Linda Poon, writing for CityLab: I'm one of those people who speed past everyone on the escalator. As long as the left side isn't blocked, no amount of judgement from fellow riders to the right, or safety warnings, or even falls (two and counting) will stop me -- not yet anyway. I'm certainly not alone; it's a common enough habit that some cities occasionally try to change such behavior for safety's sake. London's tried, so has Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. Now it's Tokyo's turn. East Japan Railway Company (JR East) launched a campaign this month calling on riders to stand on both sides of the escalators inside some of the city's busiest transit hubs.

Signs are posted on walls and above escalators, reading, in both Japanese and English, "Walking on escalators may lead to accidents caused by collisions or luggage." Bright pink handrails carry similar messages. And in some stations, security staff with neon-colored vests stand watch and guide people. If people are really in a hurry, JR East suggests, they should take the stairs. So far, the effort has had mixed results: According to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), railway officials say that some people did stop but many commuters were still hustling up and down the escalator on Monday. The campaign is set to run until February 1.

When one side isn't reserved for walkers, it saves time for everyone. But transit users around the world just can't be convinced. Linda Poon, writing for CityLab: I'm one of those people who speed past everyone on the escalator. As long as the left side isn't blocked, no amount of judgement from fellow riders to the right, or safety warnings, or even falls (two and counting) will stop me -- not yet anyway. I'm certainly not alone; it's a common enough habit that some cities occasionally try to change such behavior for safety's sake. London's tried, so has Hong Kong and Washington, D.C. Now it's Tokyo's turn. East Japan Railway Company (JR East) launched a campaign this month calling on riders to stand on both sides of the escalators inside some of the city's busiest transit hubs.

Signs are posted on walls and above escalators, reading, in both Japanese and English, "Walking on escalators may lead to accidents caused by collisions or luggage." Bright pink handrails carry similar messages. And in some stations, security staff with neon-colored vests stand watch and guide people. If people are really in a hurry, JR East suggests, they should take the stairs. So far, the effort has had mixed results: According to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), railway officials say that some people did stop but many commuters were still hustling up and down the escalator on Monday. The campaign is set to run until February 1.

Jonathan English, writing for City Lab: One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.

This has not happened in much of the rest of the world. While a decline in transit use in the face of fierce competition from the private automobile throughout the 20th century was inevitable, near-total collapse was not. At the turn of the 20th century, when transit companies' only competition were the legs of a person or a horse, they worked reasonably well, even if they faced challenges. Once cars arrived, nearly every U.S. transit agency slashed service to cut costs, instead of improving service to stay competitive. This drove even more riders away, producing a vicious cycle that led to the point where today, few Americans with a viable alternative ride buses or trains.

Now, when the federal government steps in to provide funding, it is limited to big capital projects. (Under the Trump administration, even those funds are in question.) Operations -- the actual running of buses and trains frequently enough to appeal to people with an alternative -- are perpetually starved for cash. Even transit advocates have internalized the idea that transit cannot be successful outside the highest-density urban centers. And it very rarely is.

Jonathan English, writing for City Lab: One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.

This has not happened in much of the rest of the world. While a decline in transit use in the face of fierce competition from the private automobile throughout the 20th century was inevitable, near-total collapse was not. At the turn of the 20th century, when transit companies' only competition were the legs of a person or a horse, they worked reasonably well, even if they faced challenges. Once cars arrived, nearly every U.S. transit agency slashed service to cut costs, instead of improving service to stay competitive. This drove even more riders away, producing a vicious cycle that led to the point where today, few Americans with a viable alternative ride buses or trains.

Now, when the federal government steps in to provide funding, it is limited to big capital projects. (Under the Trump administration, even those funds are in question.) Operations -- the actual running of buses and trains frequently enough to appeal to people with an alternative -- are perpetually starved for cash. Even transit advocates have internalized the idea that transit cannot be successful outside the highest-density urban centers. And it very rarely is.

Jonathan English, writing for City Lab: One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.

This has not happened in much of the rest of the world. While a decline in transit use in the face of fierce competition from the private automobile throughout the 20th century was inevitable, near-total collapse was not. At the turn of the 20th century, when transit companies' only competition were the legs of a person or a horse, they worked reasonably well, even if they faced challenges. Once cars arrived, nearly every U.S. transit agency slashed service to cut costs, instead of improving service to stay competitive. This drove even more riders away, producing a vicious cycle that led to the point where today, few Americans with a viable alternative ride buses or trains.

Now, when the federal government steps in to provide funding, it is limited to big capital projects. (Under the Trump administration, even those funds are in question.) Operations -- the actual running of buses and trains frequently enough to appeal to people with an alternative -- are perpetually starved for cash. Even transit advocates have internalized the idea that transit cannot be successful outside the highest-density urban centers. And it very rarely is.

On July 1st, the country of Estonia will create the largest 24/7 free public transit zone in the world, making it feasibly possible to travel by bus from one end of the 1.3 million-strong Baltic nation to the other without paying a cent. CityLab reports: Estonia is already a world leader in free public transit: In 2013, all public transit in its capital, Tallinn, became free to local residents (but not tourists or other visitors, even those from other parts of the country). The new national free-ride scheme with extend this model even further, making all state-run bus travel in rural municipalities free and extending cost-free transit out from the capital into other regions. The plan will not, however, extend Tallinn's existing free public transit policies to other Estonian cities, and it also won't make riding Tallinn transit free to visitors (at least, not initially). So while most of the country's land area and population -- which is overwhelmingly concentrated around Tallinn -- should get fare-free daily lives, it's not precisely the case that no Estonian will ever buy a bus ticket in their own country again. Further reading: Pop-Up City

New York City, which once saw an unprecedented infrastructure boom -- putting together iconic bridges, opulent railway terminals to build the then world's largest underground and rapid transit network in just 20 years -- has not built a single new subway line in more than seven decades. As New York's rapid transit system froze, cities across the globe expanded their networks. A closer inspection reveals that things have actually moved backward -- New York's rapid transit network is actually considerably smaller than it was during the Second World War, and due to this, today's six million daily riders are facing constant delays, infrastructure failures, and alarmingly crowded cars and platforms. This raises two questions: Why did New York abruptly stop building subways after the 1940s? And how did a construction standstill that started nearly 80 years ago lead to the present moment of transit crisis? The Atlantic's CityLab explores: Three broad lines of history provide an explanation. The first is the postwar lure of the suburbs and the automobile -- the embodiment of modernity in its day. The second is the interminable battles of control between the city and the private transit companies, and between the city and the state government. The third is the treadmill created by rising costs and the buildup of deferred maintenance -- an ever-expanding maintenance backlog that eventually consumed any funds made available for expansion.

To see exactly how and why New York's subway went off the rails requires going all the way back to the beginning. What follows is a 113-year timeline of the subway's history, organized by these three narratives (with the caveat that no history is fully complete).

New York City, which once saw an unprecedented infrastructure boom -- putting together iconic bridges, opulent railway terminals to build the then world's largest underground and rapid transit network in just 20 years -- has not built a single new subway line in more than seven decades. As New York's rapid transit system froze, cities across the globe expanded their networks. A closer inspection reveals that things have actually moved backward -- New York's rapid transit network is actually considerably smaller than it was during the Second World War, and due to this, today's six million daily riders are facing constant delays, infrastructure failures, and alarmingly crowded cars and platforms. This raises two questions: Why did New York abruptly stop building subways after the 1940s? And how did a construction standstill that started nearly 80 years ago lead to the present moment of transit crisis? The Atlantic's CityLab explores: Three broad lines of history provide an explanation. The first is the postwar lure of the suburbs and the automobile -- the embodiment of modernity in its day. The second is the interminable battles of control between the city and the private transit companies, and between the city and the state government. The third is the treadmill created by rising costs and the buildup of deferred maintenance -- an ever-expanding maintenance backlog that eventually consumed any funds made available for expansion.

To see exactly how and why New York's subway went off the rails requires going all the way back to the beginning. What follows is a 113-year timeline of the subway's history, organized by these three narratives (with the caveat that no history is fully complete).

An anonymous reader shares a report: There are two kinds of horror stories about Airbnb. When the home-sharing platform first appeared, the initial cautionary tales tended to emphasize extreme guest (and occasionally host) misbehavior. But as the now decade-old service matured and the number of rental properties proliferated dramatically, a second genre emerged, one that focused on what the service was doing to the larger community: Airbnb was raising rents and taking housing off the rental market. It was supercharging gentrification while discriminating against guests and hosts of color. And as commercial operators took over, it was transforming from a way to help homeowners occasionally rent out an extra room into a purveyor of creepy, makeshift hotels.

Several studies have looked into these claims; some focused on just one issue at a time, or measured Airbnb-linked trends across wide swaths of the country. But a recent report by David Wachsmuth, a professor of Urban Planning at McGill University, zeroes in on New York City in an effort to answer the question of exactly what home sharing is doing to the city. [...] Their conclusion: Most of those rumors are true. Wachsmuth found reason to believe that Airbnb has indeed raised rents, removed housing from the rental market, and fueled gentrification -- at least in New York City. "

An anonymous reader writes: Over the last year, many companies have ended their liberal work-from-home policies. Firms like IBM, Honeywell, and Aetna joined a long list of others that have deemed it more profitable to force employees to commute to the city and work in a central office than give them the flexibility to work where they want. It wasn't supposed to be this way. In 1975, when personal computers were little more than glorified calculators for geeks and the Internet was an obscure project being developed by the United States government, Macrae, an influential journalist for The Economist who earned a reputation for clairvoyant prophesies -- including the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Japan -- made a radical prediction about how information technology would soon transform our lives. Macrae foretold the exact path and timeline that computers would take over the business world and then become a fixture of every American home. But he didn't stop there. The spread of this machine, he argued, would fundamentally change the economics of how most of us work. Once workers could communicate with their colleagues through instant messages and video chat, he reasoned, there would be little coherent purpose to trudge long distances to work side by side in centrally located office spaces.

A reader shares a report: Spurred by concerns over climate change and the negative impacts of concrete manufacturing, architects and developers in France are increasingly turning to wood for their office towers and apartment complexes. Concrete was praised through much of the 20th century for its flexibility, functionality, and relative affordability. In France, the material ushered in an era of bold modernist architecture including housing by Auguste Perret and Le Corbusier. Today, however, wood is lauded for its smaller environmental footprint and the speed with which buildings can be assembled. "Wood had largely disappeared and was seen as a quaint material," says Steven Ware, a partner at the architecture firm Art & Build, whose latest wooden office building opened in Paris's 13th arrondissement earlier this summer. "[But] the energy it takes to put a concrete building up, to run it, and then dismantle it when it becomes obsolete was too much. Using mass timber in office buildings seemed like something we had to do." The production of cement, one of the main ingredients in concrete, generates an estimated 5 percent of the world's carbon emissions. Trees, in contrast, capture CO2, helping offset emissions produced by a typical building process. And then there's the string of other construction advantages that make wood economically appealing. It's lighter, which means digging smaller foundations in the ground. Crane costs come down, as they're no longer hauling blocks of cement hundreds of feet in the air. Driving a nail into a slab of wood requires a lot less energy than driving one into concrete. Months can be knocked off the construction timeline.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Is the typical Spanish daily schedule about to change forever? For decades, campaigners in the country have complained that the average Spaniard's habit of keeping extremely late hours and taking delightfully long lunch breaks was making everyday life harder for citizens. This week, change could finally be on the way, as 110 professional bodies in Catalonia have signed up to a plan to change the region's daily timetable by 2025, shortening the classic three-hour lunch break so that employees can finish work earlier in the evening. Such a change would radically reshape ordinary people's lives -- and controversially, it could drive a wedge between Catalonia and the rest of Spain, where the national government supports similar changes (and has adopted a shorter break for public offices) but hasn't yet fixed a timetable for action. You could call the plan an end to national harmony, a blessed release for hard-pressed workers, or an attack on the Spanish way of life. Whatever you do, however, don't call it the end of the siesta. That's because the beloved and much-misunderstood Spanish tradition of the afternoon nap more or less died out decades ago. What remained is a highly distinctive national timetable not found in any other European country, where it has often been read as a peculiarly exotic form of madness. The average Spanish working day is certainly unusual in shape. After starting work between 8 and 9 a.m., hungry workers hold out for a lunch break scheduled as late as 1:30 or 2:30. As if in compensation for this long wait, many then stay off-duty for a break of up to three hours, filling it with a protracted multi-course lunch and maybe a stop at a "nap bar." Most stores and many businesses close down until the late afternoon, before a final burst of office hours between 5:30 and 8 (or sometimes 4 to 7). Spaniards then head home at an hour when most people in other countries are cleaning up their dinner dishes, rarely getting food on the table any earlier than 10 p.m. This pushes bedtime past midnight for many.

The Atlantic's CityLab describes "a massive surge in deliveries to residential dwellings...creating a traffic nightmare." An anonymous reader quotes their report: While truck traffic currently represents about 7% of urban traffic in American cities, it bears a disproportionate congestion cost of $28 billion, or about 17% of the total U.S. congestion costs, in wasted hours and gas. Cities, struggling to keep up with the deluge of delivery drivers, are seeing their curb space and streets overtaken by double-parked vehicles, to say nothing of the bonus pollution and roadwear produced thanks to a surfeit of Amazon Prime orders... Often, the box trucks will double-park in a two-lane street if there's no loading zone to pull into, snarling traffic behind them... "The streets were not designed for that kind of activity," says Alison Conway, an assistant professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York.

Scott Kubly, director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, says "With the volume of deliveries, ticketing isn't effective for us in terms of managing the street. UPS and FedEx will just negotiate a lump sum payment for all the tickets they get instead of fighting every ticket"... In 2011 in Washington, D.C., UPS alone received just shy of 32,000 tickets. Instead of adjudicating each ticket, many large cities will strike agreements or introduce programs through which delivery companies can pay off all tickets in one swoop.
The article points out online retails sales have grown 15% every year this decade in the U.S. -- calling it the other side of the "retail apocalypse" that's killing brick-and-mortar stores.

During the protests over the inauguration of Donald Trump, more than 230 protestors were arrested -- many of which were charged with rioting and had their phones seized by Washington, D.C., police. One of the individuals who was arrested received an email from Facebook's "Law Enforcement Response Team," which raises the question: Did D.C. police ask Facebook to reveal information about this arrestee? CityLab reports: In an emailed response to CityLab's request for more information, Rachel Reid, a spokesperson for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, responded that "MPD does not comment on investigative tactics." The District of Columbia United States Attorney's Office -- the agency leading the prosecution of Inauguration protesters -- has not yet responded to CityLab's inquiry. CityLab also asked Facebook about the email. "We don't comment on individual requests," company spokesperson Jay Nancarrow said. He referred CityLab to the site's law enforcement guidelines page and to its Government Requests Report database, where the public can see how many legal processes it receives from countries worldwide. According to this database, U.S. law enforcement requested information on the accounts of 38,951 users over January to June of 2016, and they received some type of data in 80 percent of cases. Which "legal process" authorities sent to Facebook for information on the protester matters considerably in terms of how much data they can seize for investigation. According to Facebook's legal guidelines, a search warrant, for example, could allow Facebook to give away content data including "messages, photos, videos, timeline posts, and location information." A subpoena or a court order would give authorities less information, but would still include the individual's "name, length of service, credit card information, email address(es), and a recent login/logout IP address(es)."

Slashdot reader iONiUM quotes an article from Vice that calls attention to the fact that record-setting temperatures in July are just part of the story: On Wednesday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that July was the hottest month ever recorded on our planet, since modern record-keeping began in 1880. NASA has reached the same conclusion. July smashed all previous records... "We should be absolutely concerned," [NOAA climatologist] Sanchez-Lugo said. "We need to look at ways to adapt and mitigate. If we don't, temperatures will continue to increase"...

But the truth is that record-breaking temperatures, month after month, year after year, are starting to look less like an exception, more like the norm.
In fact, CityLab reports that the earth has now experienced 14 consecutive months of unprecedented hotness. Although July stands out, Vice notes that "each consecutive month in 2016 has broken its own previous record (May was the hottest May, April the hottest April, etc.)..."

An anonymous reader writes from an Associated Press report: The UN weather agency said it suspects that the 54C temperature recorded in Kuwait has set a record for the eastern hemisphere. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said Tuesday it is setting up a committee to look into whether the temperature recorded last Thursday in Mitrabah, Kuwait, was a new high for the eastern hemisphere and in Asia. WMO's Omar Baddour said it is "likely" to be an eastern hemisphere record. Last week, swathes of the Middle East and North Africa and were hit by heatwaves that have become more frequent over the last half-century, and Earth is fresh off the hottest six months on record. WMO says the world record high of 56.7C was recorded at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California, in 1913. In the UAE, highs of 49C are expected inland on Wednesday. Last year, the mercury rose above 50C in Sweiham, near Al Ain.An article on Citylab, citing NOAA's latest analysis notes that it was the warmest June in the modern history and also the 14th consecutive month of unprecedented hotness.

McGruber writes: Citylab has the news that the U.S. Federal Highway Administration is revoking its 2004 approval of the "Clearview" font for road signs. Clearview was made to improve upon its predecessor, a 1940s font called Highway Gothic. Certain letters appeared to pose visibility problems, especially those with tight interstices (or internal spacing)—namely lowercase e, a, and s. At night, any of these reflective letters might appear to be a lowercase o in the glare of headlights. By opening up these letterforms, and mixing lowercase and uppercase styles, Clearview aimed to improve how these reflective highway signs read.

Now, just 12 years later, the FHWA is reversing itself: "After more than a decade of analysis, we learned—among other things—that Clearview actually compromises the legibility of signs in negative-contrast color orientations, such as those with black letters on white or yellow backgrounds like Speed Limit and Warning signs," said Doug Hecox, a FHWA spokesperson, in an email. The FHWA has not yet provided any research on Clearview that disproves the early claims about the font's benefits. But there is at least one factor that clearly distinguishes it from Highway Gothic: cost. Jurisdictions that adopt Clearview must purchase a standard license for type, a one-time charge of between $175 (for one font) and $795 (for the full 13-font typeface family) and up, depending on the number of workstations.
That doesn't seems like a very good use of tax money, for something that can be nondestructively reused once created.

HughPickens.com writes: Elizabeth Olsen writes at the NYT that a growing number of older Americans are driving for Uber or its competitor Lyft to augment their retirement income. Older drivers are prized because they usually own their own cars, have adequate auto insurance and, according to insurance statistics, have fewer crashes. For most senior drivers, the biggest advantage is the extra income. Many of those who continue working after 65 do so because they would be too poor otherwise, according to a new report from the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute that found the current retirement system inadequate. But driving for a ride-booking service, some retirees said, also can offer more than money. For George Cameron, a 65-year-old former marine in Mechanicsville, Virginia, retirement was not all it cracked up to be. Chiefly, it was dull. "Although I've got a few community things I'm involved in," says Cameron, "I sit at home and listen to the news. And my wife says I'm getting too close to the dog."

Some drivers say it is a great chance to be independent and earn extra cash on their own schedule. Retirees are insulated from many of the shortcomings of the gig economy. But critics say Uber vastly exaggerates the amount of money a driver can make driving full-time. Its workers are contractors, and don't receive benefits. As with most gig economy work, there's no such thing as a career path. But many seniors don't need (second) careers. Not all of them need full-time work. Forty million of them already have health insurance through Medicare. Some say it is exploitation of older people who work as independent contractors, without any benefits, because their age means they have a harder time finding full-time employment. "You have to work close to 50 hours a week to survive," says Musse Bahta who says he has to spend more time on the road since Uber lowered the per-mile fare to $1.35.

An anonymous reader writes: Members of the New York City Council have sent a letter to Google asking that its Maps navigation system provide users an option to "reduce left turns." Pedestrian safety is the issue they're trying to improve. In the U.S., a quarter of all accidents involving pedestrians happen while a vehicle is making a left turn. "The first cause of death for New York City children under 13 is not gangs, it's not poverty, not violence. It's being hit by cars and trucks. This is the time for the city to reach out to the private sector, so they can help us to provide information to drivers about where you should avoid making left turns." The council members are also asking for an option that would let truckers stay on known truck routes, hoping that would prevent the problems that arise when big-rigs wander onto streets not large enough to safely accommodate them.

An anonymous reader writes: During a recent Urban Land Institute talk, the director of the Iowa Department of Transportation, Paul Trombino, told an audience that the road network in Iowa was probably going to "shrink." Calling for fewer highways isn't what you'd normally expect from a government transportation official, but since per capita driving has peaked in the U.S., it might make sense for states to question whether or not to spend their transportation budgets on new roads.

meghan elizabeth writes: Temple physicist Rongjia Tao has a utopian proposal to build three massive, 1,000-foot-high, 165-foot-thick walls around the American Midwest, in order to keep the tornadoes out. Building three unfathomably massive anti-tornado walls would count as the infrastructure project of the decade, if not the century. It would be also be exceedingly expensive. "Building such walls is feasible," Tao says. "They are much easier than constructing a skyscraper. For example, in Philadelphia, the newly completed Comcast building has about 300-meter height. The wall with similar height as the Comcast building should be much easier to be constructed." Update: 06/28 04:14 GMT by T : Note: originally, this story said that Tao was at Drexel rather than Temple -- now corrected