AltWeeklies Wire
The New Battle Cry: Don't Touch My Junk!

Will "Don't touch my junk!" be the battle cry of the next American Revolution? You can walk through one of the new "backscatter" body-image X-ray scanners, suck up 2.4 microrems of radiation, or you can choose the pat-down. But think twice. By all accounts, the pat-down procedure is thorough. Extremely thorough.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
11-22-2010 |
Transportation
Who (Re)Built the Electric Car?new

ChargeCar reimagines plug-in vehicles.
Pittsburgh City Paper |
Bill O'Driscoll |
07-24-2010 |
Transportation
Tags: ChargeCar, Illah Nourbakhsh
Privatize Public Transit?new
Chicago's tried it before. Here's how that went.
Chicago Reader |
Robert Loerzel |
06-14-2010 |
Transportation
Our Bodies, Our Carsnew

The links between urban design and public health.
Austin Chronicle |
Katherine Gregor |
06-14-2010 |
Transportation
Tags: transportation, New Urbanism
Fold-Up Follies: Tiny Two-Wheelers Race Through Fairmountnew
"Monty Python meets Tour de France" is what Trophy Bikes co-owner Michael McGettigan keeps calling the Brompton Folder U.S. bike race. The more he talks about it, the more apt the term he coined seems.
Philadelphia City Paper |
Julia West |
03-23-2010 |
Transportation
When it Comes to Risky Business, Driving Has Nothing on Parking in Pasadenanew

Where does it all end? No one knows. But we do know where misery begins for people victimized by money-hungry state and local officials imposing bankbook-busting fines for such “crimes” as improper parking, rolling through stop signs and running red lights.
Pasadena Weekly |
Kevin Uhrich |
03-15-2010 |
Transportation
Fines Jacked Up by L.A. City Council Send Strapped Residents to Community Servicenew
What to do when, as Professor Thomas Griffith puts it, "we're running out of tricks"? Raise fines and fees: parking tickets coupled with meters that now must be fed well after 6 p.m.; "Denver" boots on cars; tow-away surcharges; littering fines. None of it has to go before L.A. voters.
L.A. Weekly |
Michael Goldstein |
02-26-2010 |
Transportation
A Portland Street Changes its Name to César E. Chávez Blvd., After a Fightnew
The city's effort to rename a major street after the activist and farm worker crumbled in 2007 after a push to rename Interstate Avenue spurred allegations of racism against opponents. The rename process kicked off for a second time last winter, this time with a professional consultant and a new street.
The Portland Mercury |
Sarah Mirk |
02-04-2010 |
Transportation
Tags: César E. Chávez, Portland
Los Angeles' Red-Light Ticket Ripoffnew

I was captured on camera doing a “California roll” while making a right turn at a red light. The damage was $446 plus a $64 traffic-school fee and a pricey separate fee that an eight-hour traffic school charged.
L.A. Weekly |
Michael Goldstein |
01-04-2010 |
Transportation
A Driving Force Behind Safer Streets Asks Connecticut for Red-light Camerasnew
Shortly after a hearing about the use of red-light cameras in New Haven, I was nearly hit by a black Mercedes SUV speeding through a red light. Unfortunately, I'm not alone: Too many people in New Haven are endangered by red-light runners.
New Haven Advocate |
Betsy Yagla |
12-29-2009 |
Transportation
New Report Raises Questions About Portland as 'Bike City USA'new

The number of bike trips in Portland dropped for the first time in five years, according to a new report. Meanwhile, city officials are launching their most ambitious plan yet to upgrade the city’s bicycle infrastructure to meet what they say is strong demand.
Willamette Week |
Beth Slovic |
12-16-2009 |
Transportation
Money, Environmental and Political Worries Halt Big Bridgenew
AFTER YEARS OF steamrolling steadily in the same direction, the controversial Columbia River Crossing (CRC) plan has hit gridlock as leaders of the I-5 bridge replacement project clearly split last Friday.
The Portland Mercury |
Sarah Mirk |
12-10-2009 |
Transportation
Want to Kill Someone in Oregon? Use Your Carnew
Without strict punishments and tough enforcement of dangerous driving, lawyers and alternative transportation advocates say that even fatal traffic crimes often fall through the cracks of the state's justice system.
The Portland Mercury |
Sarah Mirk |
11-13-2009 |
Transportation
Ghost Riders: Bicycling in Houston is a Killernew
According to data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Houston is almost always the most dangerous place in Texas to ride a bike. There is also lots of anecdotal evidence.
Houston Press |
John Nova Lomax |
10-13-2009 |
Transportation
The Dead Freeway Society: The Strange History of Portland's Unbuilt Roadsnew

While other American cities have built, built, built, Portland's freeway history is boom and bust: massive road projects were planned, mapped, and sold as progress by one generation, then killed by another.
The Portland Mercury |
Sarah Mirk |
09-25-2009 |
Transportation