Latest data shows a decade of flat traffic.
Vehicle travel on Washington’s state roads fell again last year. It was a modest decline—just 0.8 percent—but as the chart to the right shows, it was a continuation of a full decade of essentially flat traffic. In fact, WSDOT estimates that total traffic on state roads was slightly lower in 2012 than it was in 2002.
There’s really not much to say about the trends that I haven’t said before. The flat-lining of traffic is due not to one single factor, but to many. read more »
A contrarian take on the IRS scandal, comparing fictional interstellar travel speeds, and more.
Anna
A shocking inside look at China’s air pollution problem.
Check out this terrifying, fascinating timelapse of thirty years of human impact on the earth.
A contrarian take on the IRS scandal from David Horsey:
As inept as the IRS may have been in the way they processed applications for 501(c)(4) status, the bigger scandal is that the IRS grants the tax-exempt designation to so many overtly political organizations, treating them as if they are no more engaged in partisan politics than the Girl Scouts.
Clark
Geekery for the week: Did you ever wonder who’s faster, the Starship Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon? Well, here ya go: a graphic comparison of fictional interstellar travel speeds. read more »
When rain gardens release too much pollution, engineers go back to the drawing board.
In the stormwater world, if a rain garden is releasing more pollution into the environment than it’s capturing, word gets around.
So when the city of Redmond crunched its first flush of data from a new roadside rain garden and discovered the water coming out of it was tainted with alarming levels of phosphorus, nitrates, and copper, the stormwater community took notice. Washington State regulators went on the record to say that they would be studying the data and possibly … read more »
Energy use in cars and trucks is declining at a surprising clip.
There’s been quite a bit in the news of late about the decline in driving and gasoline consumption: take, for example, last week’s report on what the long-term decline in driving means for the nation’s transportation finances, a report that generated some interesting press coverage.
And there’s also been quite a lot of attention to ethanol—particularly the fact that US ethanol consumption has grown so quickly that refiners are starting to bump against the so-called “blend wall,” the point at which no more ethanol can be added to highway fuel without running into legal troubles or mechanical difficulties.
But the two issues—declining gas consumption, increasing ethanol consumption—actually interact in interesting ways. read more »
