Design vs. Develop

It has been recently suggested that public transit should go free. There is a very good point here that highways are usually 100% subsidized, yet public transit is always expected to make back a large portion of its expenses. Removing fareboxes would also expedite boarding. However, all of the examples cited were smaller cities (or suburbs of larger ones) where the annual system ridership is less than a typical weekday for Metro. I think free buses could work within the larger systems in certain situations, but I don’t think this is something that can be universally applied. I can think of at least one series of buses in DC that were chronically overcrowded (when I rode them) and don’t see how providing free fares would improve service there. The idea should probably be given more thought though.

Walk Score is a Google mashup where you can punch in an address and see how walkable the neighborhood is (tip thanks to City Comforts). My current place gets a 65, compared to 98 for Dupont Circle, 100 for Market Street in San Francisco, 35 for my old suburban apartment in Tulsa, 80 for my childhood home, and a whopping 2 for the bucolic rural home where my parents live. It’s a reasonable rough guide, but it’s solely based on how close non-residential properties are to the address in question. Still interesting though.

Money Magazine recently released their list of the best places to live, most of them places people have never heard of. Along with this ranking comes ones for the most affordable places (most being in the Rust Belt), the highest earning places (NYC suburbs, LA, Chicago, Silicon Valley, blah blah blah), and where the most singles live (entirely composed of college towns). Somehow, Indiana, yes that’s right, Indiana, PA makes it on the singles list as #8. I’m quite amused; I never knew Indiana was the place to hook up.

Evidently, sidewalks. Why?

The county is seeking to strengthen its pedestrian transportation network, but funds are limited. Gas tax revenue pays for a handful of walking or bicycling projects a year, said Charles Acker, a Loudoun traffic control engineer. Developers, on a project-by-project basis, do most of the work.

That’s the county with the highest median household income in the country talking.

Mitch has a good post about open source software. Go read it.