Several European cities are rolling out separate traffic lights for cyclists, while Paris officials are test-piloting a strategy to let cyclists legally run red lights. Here's their logic:

According to officials and public documents about the law, the goal is to reduce bike backups clogging intersections. Cyclists are slower with less control as they accelerate from a stop, making them more likely to swerve or fall into a car lane.

Likewise, a crowded gaggle of them waiting for a green light means they will pack closer up against cars in more dangerous proximity once everyone starts moving at different speeds. Plus, drivers of cars densely packed together waiting for a light may have lower visibility of a cyclist up ahead in a lane over. In all, when there are too many cyclists waiting at a red it becomes a danger.

Of course, this strategy would never work in Seattle because we're so unique and special and blah blah blah. Need I say more?

Helmut tip to Max.

There are only two kinds of people in this world. There are those who, when riding the bus, allow the bus to come to a complete stop and patiently wait to board the bus only after everyone who wishes to exit the bus has had the chance to do so. They are nice people. And then there are those who obnoxiously walk along the side of the bus, directly in front of the door, as the bus comes to a complete stop and then, no matter if someone wants to get off the bus or not, they step onto the bus the instant the bus doors open blocking anyone from getting off. They are assholes.

I have noticed an increasing number of assholes on my morning commute. Even this morning, when it's beautiful out. What's the rush? It's not raining. It's not freezing. Why must you jerks FORCE YOUR WAY onto the bus without letting others depart first? Even when the bus driver alerts you that people are coming off the bus. STOP IT.

Seen from a seat in the wildly heterogenous 7 bus...

The billboard is located near the border between homogenous Seattle and heterogenous Seattle. The 7 bus that passed the billboard when the image was captured only had two white passengers.

From UMVUE:

God is not (yet) dead.

Following up on Charles' Slog post "Alaska Airlines Finally Kills God", I've attached evidence of god's continuance at Alaska. Picture taken 30January2012 at approximately 2:30pm on AS509.

The background is a first class turkey and melted cheese on ciabatta...

Cheers

• UMVUE

The prayer cards, which the Seattle-based airline began offering in the 1970s after an executive spotted them on another airline, were intended to serve as a marketing strategy and to put passengers at ease, a spokeswoman said.
The airline sent an e-mail to its frequent flyers on Wednesday explaining the change, which takes effect February 1.

Reuters:

Alaska Airlines, America's seventh-largest carrier in terms of passenger traffic, said on Wednesday that it would end a decades-old tradition of handing out prayer cards with its in-flight meals.

The prayer cards, which the Seattle-based airline began offering in the 1970s after an executive spotted them on another airline, were intended to serve as a marketing strategy and to put passengers at ease, a spokeswoman said.

The airline sent an e-mail to its frequent flyers on Wednesday explaining the change, which takes effect February 1.

"This difficult decision was not made lightly. We believe it's the right thing to do in order to respect the diverse religious beliefs and cultural attitudes of all our customers and employees," Alaska Air Group Chairman and CEO Bill Ayer and Alaska Airlines President Brad Tilden wrote to customers.

"Religious beliefs are deeply personal and sharing them with others is an individual choice."

WSJ has an excellent break down of the world's longest flight, in coach: Sydney to Dallas. The journey takes 15 hours, the plane travels at 600 miles an hour, and the distance covered is 8,800 miles. The longest flight I've ever taken, which was more like space travel than flying, was between Atlanta and Johannesburg. Though not as great a distance as the one between Sydney and Dallas, I recall it taking 16 hours. Indeed, the flight was so long that a part of me is still on it, still flying through those shifting twilights (bright white clouds below night stars, clear blue sky above night clouds), still seeing the endless ocean below, still approaching the coast of Africa.

• This flight was from Madrid to DC

A 60-year-old Chicago woman on her way to visit family in Seattle was one of two people killed Sunday morning in a bus crash on an icy interstate highway in western Montana.

Fatimah Amatullah, of the 7200 block of S. South Shore Drive in the South Shore neighborhood on the South Side, was one of four people who were pinned underneath the bus when it came to rest after it skidded off the road after hitting black ice on Int. Hwy. 90, according to Jason Johnson, a public information officer for the Missoula County sheriff's office.

Tragic.

For reasons that are both political and aesthetic, traveling down to Portland is best done by train. Traveling up to Vancouver, however, is best done by car. In this case, the aesthetics soundly beats the politics. The car ride is undeniably more beautiful than the train ride. The opposite is true for the trip down to Portland. The car ride is simply unpleasing and dull, while the train ride is really something else. These considerations were made here at Harrison Hot Springs, the closest thing the Northwest has to the mood of the Alps.

But the year is not over? We really should wait for the first day of 2012 to post things like this...

2011 has been the safest year ever to fly, with one passenger death per 7.1 million air travelers.

The development of the self also involves the deracination of bad things that were planted in one's thinking and language by one's society. For example, I used call Indians (East Indians) kurrimaanchas. I had no idea what this word meant; it was just what all the other Africans around me called Indians. Then one day I stopped, thought about the word for a minute, and realized it was racist. I was calling Indians the munchers of curry. I uprooted the word and discarded it.

Another example can be drawn from something that happened last night. After being hit by a car on the corner of Madison and 7th avenue, I thought:

It's a woman driver. I can't let her know I have been hurt. Men must hide their pain. I will reassure her that everything is fine and warn her to next time better mind the road. The light was green for me and red for her; she was clearly asleep at the wheel. Probably her nerves or something. I will be the man in this situation, make no big deal about it, and continue to my destination, the Pioneer Square Station.

I live in Columbia City. I had a train to catch at 7:30 am. I woke up late, 6:30 am, because I slept badly. I was out of the door at 6:45 am. I arrived at Columbia City Station at 6:50 am. A northbound train appeared at 6:55 am. I was at the Chinatown Station at 7:10 am and on the southbound Amtrak Cascades train at 7:20 am.

I missed this last week. Governor Chris Gregoire's announcement that we need a $21 billion transportation package dedicated largely to more roads (because it will relieve congestion and end gridlock) coincided with the Sightline Institute digging into a report on US road construction for the last 175 years. Here's Clark Williams-Derry on the findings:

Co-authored by researchers Gilles Duranton and Matthew A. Turner from the University of Toronto, it’s a careful and remarkably thorough analysis of the relationship between urban highway space and traffic volumes in the US. And its key finding is straightforward:

For interstate highways in the densest parts of metropolitan areas we find that vkt [Vehicle Kilometers Traveled] increases in exact proportion to highways

In short, the authors find that building new urban highways simply increases traffic volumes—not in some general, intuitive sense, but in the sense that, all else being equal, a one percent increase in urban highway space increases urban road travel by precisely one percent.

To be fair, Duranton and Turner also find that boosting transit doesn't reduce congestion, either. Any additional road space—created by new roads or by drivers switching to transit—is simply consumed by vehicles that fill up the empty lanes. The full report is here.

We are entering the era when it's safer to be up there...

Here's some good news for anyone boarding a plane this holiday season: Flying on U.S. airlines has become so safe that experts increasingly believe the biggest remaining risk of an accident is when the wheels are on the ground.

Update: Speaking of up there, Ben Demar sent this link.

I approve of this addition...

Get gay, get fat, get smelly, or sag your pants.

A London Bus poster from 1965:

[Click to enlarge. The details are neat.]

That backhoe with jackhammer attachment has been jackhammering those rounded concrete walls into smaller concrete chunks all morning. Nonstop. Since 7:00 am!

Well, not quite nonstop. Every 20 seconds or so, he'd pause, long enough for anyone living in the large apartment building across the street to think, "Sweet glory be, he's done, maybe I'll get to sleep just a little longer." And then—BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!

Some Americans will never learn. Never!

After being largely shunned during the recession, high-riding SUVs and workhorse pickups are regaining favor as U.S. consumers grow more confident and fuel prices remain below the $4 a gallon level that triggered a shift away from larger vehicles.

The rebound was clear Thursday as U.S. auto sales in November hit a 13.6 million annual pace, the strongest in more than two years, with sales of trucks and SUVs surpassing cars at many auto makers.