Ben Wear has a nice entry on his Statesmen pseudo-blog about the myth that gas taxes fully pay for highway construction, indicating that in the past, the legislature directly contributed to highway construction from the general fund. Didn't we just pass a five billion dollar general obligation bond for TXDOT? Highways don't pay for themselves, even if you only compare gas tax revenues to construction and maintenance costs. Gas taxes generally pay for less than half of the construction and maintenance costs of any new highway. If you take costs associated with congestion, sprawl and global warming into account, highways look like an even bigger waste....

Photo courtesy of supersassafrasThe city's Urban Transportation Commission is currently at a crossroads over the future of our quickly-expanding pedicab businesses. As we discovered from The Texan over the weekend, two transportation commissioners are each recommending very different resolutions, hoping to strike a balance between a growing business of bicycles and a growing city whose streets seem to be getting a bit more cramped. There are five registered pedicab companies currently operating in Austin: PediChad,......

Could there be a better emblem of corporate "zaniness" than the Segway? You know, the two-wheeled "personal transporter" device that, while marketed as a solution to traffic congestion, is in fact a really annoying adult toy that gets in everyone's way? To filmmakers Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell, however, the Segway scooter embodies the American Dream. Or something like that, because they decided, after purchasing a Segway "on impulse" (note: the things cost 5 grand......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too—two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the city's Congonhas......

The City of Austin has convened a new Street Smarts Task Force, whose mission will be to make this burg more bike-friendly. The Task Force (which, despite its nifty name, will not wear nifty matching uniforms) promises to investigate recent cyclist fatalities; figure out ways to make commuting and traveling more bike-friendly (important, onaccounta our city's little congestion problem); and put together a biker/motorist safety education initiative. More here. Image from daniel_bryant on Flickr......