Snake Oil? Texas Oil Man, Part II
As Joseph Romm points out on Grist, T. Boone Pickens' energy plan is "half brilliant, half dumb."
Half of it is great -- the big push on wind power. Heck, even the Bush administration says wind power could be 20 percent of U.S. electricity. But the notion that we would use the wind power to free up natural gas in order to fuel a transition to natural gas vehicles makes no sense. Why would we go to the trouble of switching our vehicle fleet from running on one expensive fossil fuel to another expensive fossil fuel? Any freed up natural gas should be used to displace coal ...
Walk Score: Every Big-City Neighborhood in America
It's here! The largest 40 cities in America, ranked by their walkability. Plus, every single neighborhood in those cities -- all 2,508 of them -- rank-ordered for your walking pleasure.
** In a surprise upset, San Francisco edges out NYC for top honors in walkability. Who else made it into the Top 10?
** The Northwest's most walkable neighborhood is in Portland. It's the Pearl District, no suprise, ranking as the 15th best neighborhood for walking in the nation. (Seattle's best showing, Pioneer Square, is 18th). See the rest of America's best walking neighborhoods.
** But Seattle is the Northwest's walking leader, earning a higher overall score than Portland. (The Emerald City ranks 4 slots higher than the Rose City.) Still, both Northwest metropolises do well by national standards. Who doesn't do so well?
** Plus, there are all kinds of new goodies at the Walk Score site. You can take a photo tour of a walking oasis in an unwalkable city. Or you can learn the secrets of walkable cities. You read the Walk Score blog. And then you can help improve America's Walk Score.
Today's release from Walk Score is truly path-breaking. It's the first time this stuff has been quantified and compared on such a large scale. And it's a huge step toward creating great urban places. Walkable neigbhorhoods are easier on our pocketbooks; good for our waistlines; great for kids, older folks and others who don't drive; and helpful to the whole planet. All of us here at Sightline extend a big fat "Congratulations!" to our friends at Walk Score. Walk on, you guys!
Readers, you already knew all about Walk Score, right? We've written about it here and here, among other places. And we loved it when they roled out an early release of the Seattle neighborhood rankings last month.
