Since I’ve been to New York City several times for business, I thought I’d pass along some tips. If you’re in New York City for a week, I would highly recommend getting a 7-day Unlimited MetroCard ($29). A single ride is $2.50, so just two trips a day makes it worthwhile. However, you can’t use …
Category Archives: Transportation
Raise the gas tax NOW
Now that oil has fallen to half of what it was in the summer, we should the gas tax should be raised now, while gas is still cheap. The federal gas tax was last raised in 1993, and California’s state gas tax was last raised in 1994. In California, we would need to raise gas …
From concrete to water
A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature article on Lee Myung-Bak, the then-presidential candidate (and now president) of South Korea. As an aside, the article said that as mayor of Seoul, Lee had ordered an elevated highway torn down to unearth a buried stream and turn it into a park. Of …
The Lincoln Highway on the Colbert Report
Michael Wallis, author of The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate, was featured on the Colbert Report! That’s more than a million people who now know what the Lincoln Highway is.
Media appearances
I’m in the newspaper! Of course, it has nothing to do with my day-to-day job. Instead, I was photographed talking to the photographer of the new Lincoln Highway book: Along the Father Road, Contra Costa Times, August 11, 2007 This complements my appearance in Bay Area Backroads on KRON 4 about road rallyes: Windows Media …
Lincoln Highway Book Tour — San Francisco style
After work today, I made my way up to Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building to catch the endpoint of the tour for the new book, The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate, by Michael Wallis and Michael Williamson. The Lincoln Highway was the first road across America, yet …
Continue reading “Lincoln Highway Book Tour — San Francisco style”
El Camino de la Muerte
On Thursday night I saw a documentary on the History Channel on Bolivia’s Yungas Road, also known as the “Road of Death.” It’s a major transportation route running northeast from the capital city of La Paz, but the most dangerous section is gravel, only ten feet wide, with steep dropoffs of over 1000 feet and …
Cars; Willow Glen
I saw Cars over the weekend with Jon. Cars, of course, is based on a true story: the life, death, and rebirth of Route 66. It was astonishingly accurate in its renditions of roads, road signs, and maps. Pixar definitely had some roadgeeks advising them. In addition, Pixar got the author of one of the …
Residential airparks
Get this: a neighborhood where the streets are for cars and planes. One-plane garage with a view: Residential airparks make commuting a breeze for those with training, money • San Francisco Chronicle Here’s an overhead view from Windows Live Local. Notice the extra-wide streets named Boeing Road, United Drive, and so on, next to the …
Smart cards for transit
Both Hong Kong and Taipei have RFID smart cards available for paying fares on subways and buses. Taipei even knocks 20% off of each subway ride. You don’t need to take the card out, just hover your wallet over the reader. It’s amazingly convenient. The Bay Area desperately needs something like this, especially since we …