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Visual content demonstrates the best way to protect an accident injury case

There is a one in three chance that a motorist will require roadside assistance in the next 12 months due to battery failure or a related electrical system issue.

Motorcycle enthusiasts are encouraged to take advantage of the European riding season and attend the world's largest BMW motorcycle party.

This marks the 3rd consecutive award the Houston personal injury firm has received for the quality of service it offers clients.

Billy Johnson of the Billy Johnson Law Firm in Pikeville, Ky., says highways are especially dangerous during summer months.

The global automotive aftermarket is rapidly evolving, with demand for starter solenoids being higher than before. T&X Starter Solenoid Manufacturers moved in supply the growing market, and their products have gained popularity the world over.

Billy Johnson, a personal injury attorney in Pikeville, KY, said that a greater awareness of the threats facing motorists could reduce the number of vehicle crashes.

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Co-Founders discuss the execution of their vision and exciting future plans

In exciting news, Hydro dipping experts TSAUTOP Hydrographics recently announced they have broken into the European market closing a large deal in Lissoneo, Italy.

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The Transportation Equity Network (TEN) has released More Transit = More Jobs: The Impact Of Increasing Funding For Public Transit (31p. PDF). TEN is a coalition of more than 350 grassroots organizations in 41 states that has worked since 1997 to build a more just, prosperous, and connected America.

This study asks two key questions:

What would be the effect on jobs in each metropolitan area of shifting 50% of the money spent on highways to public transit?

How many jobs would be created in each metro area if we increased funding on public transit at the rate indicated by the Transportation For America proposal for the next transportation authorization act?

The report highlights several statistics in answering those questions based on data from Transportation Improvement Programs (TIPS) in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas. For example, 1,123,674 new transit jobs would be created over a 5-year period for a net gain of 180,150 jobs without a single dollar of new spending.

However, if federal spending on transit increased as proposed by TEN and Transportation For America, an estimated 1.3 million jobs over the life of the law would be created, as well as almost 800,000 more jobs than under present federal transporation law (SAFETEA-LU).

The Federal Highway Administration published the 2009 Urban Congestion Trends (8p. PDF) document last week. This brief report utilizes a dashboard format to convey year-over-year changes in key traffic measures: daily hours of congestion, time penalty for eqach trip, worst-trip time penalty. Some key observations include:

• Overall, congestion had declined in almost all monitored regions between 2008 and 2009
• Less wasted time and fewer hours of the day were devoted to stop-and-go traffic in 16 of the 23 monitored regions
• At least one of the three measures improved in 20 of the 23 monitored regions
• Congestion is lowest during the summer vacation season

The report goes on to explain how operational improvements can mitigate congestion and promote smooth, safe and consistent traffic flow.

Examples provided from around the country include high-occupancy/toll lanes, freeway ramp metering, improved information coordination, work-zone management, and traffic signal system improvement programs.

In Managing Increasing Ridership Demand (32p. PDF), The FTA's Transit Cooperative Research Program presents an overview of a study mission investigating how several transit operators and agencies in Latin America accomodate sudden and significant growth in the number of riders and increasing demand for service.

Case studies from Guayaquil (Ecuador), Santiago (Chile), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Porto Alegre (Brazil) were selected because they have faced and successfully dealt with challenges similar to recent ridership grown in the United States.

Each city's responses offer unique insight into managing increasing transit ridership and providing various perspectives on serving the mobility needs of their communities.

Two International Transit Studies Program study missions such as this are conducted each year. They have three objectives: To afford team members the opportunity to expand their network of domestic and international public transportation peers, to provide a forum for discussion of global initiatives and lessons learned in public transportation, and to facilitate idea sharing and the possible import of strategies for application to transportation communities in the United States.

-- By Matt Barrett

Los Angeles has been a 24-hour city for much longer that most would imagine, and transit service has played an important role in keeping the city moving overnight for over 100 years.

(LAMTA Car 3022 trundles down the R Line tracks on owl service in 1963. Photo courtesy of Alan Weeks)


According to the September 11, 1906 edition of the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper, in a brief article entitled “Owl Cars Are Run on Principal Lines”:

The “owl” car service began last night. Cars on the principal lines left First and Spring streets at 1 and 2 o’clock. They were well patronized. The lines included are Boyle Heights, Grand Avenue, Vernon Avenue, University, Main Street, and Pico Heights.

At the time service began, these lines linked Downtown with what were then LA’s most populated neighborhoods around 6th and Rampart, Central and Slauson, Boyle Heights, 46th and Wesley, Vermont and 54th, and Pico and Wilton.

Owl service continued in operation as the fledgling network of streetcar lines, buses and interurban rail lines was purchased in 1911 and organized into two main transit companies: Pacific Electric, for long-distance interurban service, and Los Angeles Railway serving urban inner-city Los Angeles.

As Los Angeles grew outward, so did the length of the lines offering owl service. Special owl service guides were published and system maps included extensive owl service information for passengers.

Even as streetcar service slowly began the conversion to bus service, beginning as early as 1925 and continuing until the last rail line was shut down in 1963, owl service remained a part of the transit system – as it does today.

(This 1947 brochure advertised LAMTA's Owl Service)

Currently, Metro has 59 buses running on 26 lines during its overnight owl service, roughly midnight to 5 a.m., connecting Downtown to points north to the San Fernando Valley, south to Long Beach, east to El Monte and west to Santa Monica and Venice.

The organization CEOs For Cities released a widely-cited report last month titled Measuring Urban Transportation Performance: A Critique Of Mobility Measures And Synthesis (71p. PDF). Their research finds that the secret to reducing the amount of time Americans spend in peak hour traffic has more to do with how we build our cities than how we build our roads.

The report explains how the cities studied have managed to achieve shorter travel times and actually reduce the peak hour travel times. Some metropolitan areas have land use patterns and transportation systems that enable their residents to take shorter trips and minimize the burden of peak hour travel.

This runs counter to the conclusions of the Texas Transportation Institute's Urban Mobility Report year after year. The CEO For Cities document explains that the UMR approach has completely overlooked the role that variations in travel distances play in driving urban transportation problems.

In the best performing cities -- those that have achieved the shortest peak hour travel distances -- such as Chicago, Portland and Sacramento, the typical traveler spends 40 fewer hours per year in peak hour travel than the average American. Because of smart land use planning and investment in alternative transportation, Portland has seen its average trip lengths decline by 20%.

In contrast, in the most sprawling metropolitan areas, such as Nashville, Indianapolis and Raleigh, the average resident spends as much as 240 hours per year in peak period travel because travel distances are so much greater. The report's 20-page Executive Summary is titled Driven Apart: How Sprawl Is Lengthening Our Commutes And Why Misleading Mobility Measures Are Making Things Worse.

In The New Sharing Economy, a study by Latitude in collaboration with Shareable Magazine, the authors look at new opportunities for sharing.

An interesting graph (click to enlarge) plots various endeavors on a market saturation and latent demand scale. The resulting plot points fall into four quandrants, labeled:

Low Interest and Low Prior Success (e.g. bike, outdoor sporting goods)

Done Well Already (e.g. work space, storage space, food co-op)

Opportunities Still Remain (e.g. physical media, digital media)

Best New Opportunities (automobile, time/responsibilities, money lending/borrowing)

This last category, Best New Opportunities, provides the launch point for discussion of car sharing. The report notes that there's still a large amount of unfulfilled demand for car-sharing. More than half of all participants surveyed either shared vehicles casually or weren't sharing currently but expressed interest in doing so. For people who share in an organized fashion, cars and bikes were popular for sharing amongst family and close friends but weren't commonly shared outside this immediate network, relative to other categories of goods.

This intriguing and visually appealing report goes on to point out the new sharing takeaways for non-sharing businesses, including "we-based brands," the value in social and alternative currencies, and the "contagiousness" of sharing.

Finally, Transportation For America recently released a White Paper titled Smart Mobility For A 21st Century America: Strategies For Maximizing Technology To Minimize Congestion, Reduce Emissions And Increase Efficiency (39p. PDF).

It proposes that improving transportation efficiency through operational innovation is critical as our population grows and ages, budgets tighten and consumer preferences shift.

As Congress prepares to review and reauthorize the nation’s transportation program, an array of innovations that were either overlooked or did not exist at the time of previous authorizations can be incentivized.

Just as the Internet, smart phones and social media changed they way we acquire news, listen to music or connect with friends and family, these same innovations have implications for how we move around. While high-tech gadgets can be a problem when they distract motorists from driving, they open up a whole new world for people using other modes.

But what if we could manage traffic to help drivers avoid congestion before they get stuck in it? What if you always knew when the next bus was going to arrive, the closest parking space or which train car had a seat available for you? The innovative technologies and strategies outlined in the White Paper include:

Making transportation systems more efficient (e.g. ramp meters, highway advisory radio)
Providing more travel options (e.g. online databases to match up vanpool riders, car-sharing services)
Providing travelers with better, more accurate, and more connected information (e.g. computerized vehicle tracking)
Making pricing and payments more convenient and efficient (e.g. EZ passes, electronic benefits)
Reducing trips and traffic (flex-time, consolidating services online)

The report goes on to discuss changes in demographics and make recommendations for federal transportation policy, as well as highlight several intriguing "smart mobility case studies."

Each and every day, social media tools change the way that organizations
interact with their users.

A recent report from the Center For Urban Transportation Research at University of South Florida titled Routes To New Networks: A Guide To Social Media For The Public Transportation Industry (66p. PDF) explains how these new platforms offer not only more personal one-on-one interaction than traditional media, but also represent the essence of niche marketing.

It is undeniable that social media is all the buzz. For some, utilizing new media tools may come as second nature. For others, however, entering the world of social media means taking a giant leap into the world of online communications.

One thing is certain – social media platforms are allowing a new opportunity for transportation providers to directly communicate with their target audiences. Communication is moving in this direction – with or without your organization.

The report analyzes the usefulness of and applications for social networks, written blogs, audio/video blogs, microblogs (e.g. Twitter), photo sharing, video sharing, user-generated content and mobile web content.

The report states that key points to consider when determining which tool(s) to use are:

1) Who is my target audience and what tools are they using?
2) What type of information do I want to communicate?

Content must always resonate with your audience. What can you provide that would be of value?

Earlier this year, the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) published Funding The Public Transportation Needs Of An Aging Population (57p. PDF).

It explains how rapid growth in the number of older people in the United States during the coming decades will lead to greatly increased needs for expanded and enhanced public transportation services. This report:

a) identifies the range of actions that will be needed to expand mobility options for older people, including accessible public transportation services;
b) quantifies the demand for these public transportation services; and
c) estimates the funding that will be needed to provide them.

Needed actions have been identified by means of a review of the extensive literature on this
subject. The actions needed to expand mobility options for older people include:

• Enhancements to fixed-route public transportation operations and planning such as additional bus operator training, incorporating travel needs of older people in route planning and stop placement, and coordination with other agencies and transportation providers
• Enhancements to public transportation vehicles such as low-floor buses, kneeling buses, improved interior circulation, additional stanchions and grab bars, ergonomic seating designed for older riders, and accessibility features either required or encouraged by ADA like lifts and ramps, larger letters on head signs, and stop announcements
• Actions to help older people take advantage of existing services, like presenting information in ways that are easy to read and as clear as possible, information and assistance programs to connect older people with appropriate services, and outreach and training programs
• Expansion of supplementary services including flexible route and community transportation services, ADA complementary paratransit, non-ADA demand-responsive services, taxi subsidy programs, and volunteer driver programs
• Application of universal design strategies at transit facilities, bus stops, and on streets and sidewalks in the immediate vicinity of transit facilities and stops

These are the actions of greatest concern to public transportation agencies, but they are not the
only actions needed.

Other important actions include assuring supportive services to caregivers
who provide transportation, encouraging further development of unsubsidized private
transportation services, increasing the availability of accessible taxicabs, coordinating with non-emergency medical transportation provided under Medicaid and Medicare, and supporting
modifications to automobiles and roadways to increase the safety of older drivers.

Finally, we wanted to take a closer look at U.S. Parking Policies: An Overview Of Management Strategies put out by the Institute For Transportation And Development Policy in New York.

This report highlights best practices in parking management in the United States.

In the last decade, some municipalities have reconsidered poorly conceived parking policies to address a host of negative impacts resulting from private automobile use such as traffic congestion and climate change. Unchecked, these policies have proven to be a major barrier to establishing a balanced urban transportation network.

Many aspects of current parking management in the United States do not work reliably or efficiently for anyone: Motorists find themselves circling for long periods in search of a place to park; retail employees take choice parking locations away from potential customers; developers are compelled to provide more parking than the market requires; and traffic managers encounter difficulty handling traffic generated by new parking as there is often no link between parking price, supply and the amount of available road space.

Finally, the old parking paradigm doesn’t work for the environment, as hidden subsidies encourage over reliance on private car use — a major, growing contributor to global warming and air pollution.

This report identifies core sustainable parking principles and illustrates how smarter parking management can benefit consumers and businesses in time and money savings, while also leading to more livable, attractive communities.

Election Day has come and gone. Yesterday, our daily Transportation Headlines highlighted the Center For Transportation Excellence's state-by-state results of all transportation ballot measures in 2010.

43 of 56 measures passed: a 77% success rate.

This Friday, CFTE will host a webinar recapping the outcomes of this year's transportation measures across the country and take a look at key trends from other recent elections.

Free Webinar: Trends And Results From 2010 Transportation Ballot Measures (Register Here)

Hosted by the Center for Transportation Excellence, NAPTA and APTA State Transit Association Leaders

Fri, Nov 5, 2010 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM PST

CFTE's State-By-State 2010 Transportation Ballot Measures results

CFTE's report: Transportation Finance At The Ballot Box: Voters Support Increased Investment & Choice (34p. PDF)

Transportation For America's Future Of Transportation Nation Survey (26p. PDF : March, 2010), for which a summary of survey findings can be found here.

A relatively obscure book is receiving its 15 minutes (or more) of fame this week, The Manual On Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

This set of federal standards for traffic signs, road surface markings, and signals is a primary resource to know about, so we wanted to take a closer look – especially since it is in the news right now.

New MUTCD standards announced recently require compliance over the next several years, depending on what type of changes are required.

For example, states, counties, cities and towns across America will need to increase the size of letters on street signs for roads with speed limits over 25 mph from 4 inches to 6 inches by January, 2012.

Street signs requiring new reflective lettering which is more visible at night must be installed by January, 2018.

These required changes will affect both large cities and small jurisdictions across the country. ABC News reported on some sample impacts this week:

“In Milwaukee, this will cost the cash-strapped city nearly $2 million, double the city’s entire annual for traffic control.

In Dinwiddie County, Virginia – with lots of roads but not many people – the cost comes to about $10 for every man, woman and child.”

So where did these regulations, which some may consider to be overly-bureaucratic, come from?

In the early 20^th Century, roads were promoted and maintained by automobile clubs of private individuals. Each road and highway had its own type of signage, without regard for directional assistance or safety promotion.

By 1927, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO - the predecessor to today's AASHTO) published the first standards, titled the Manual And Specifications For The Manufacture, Display, And Erection Of U.S. Standard Road Markers And Signs, a precursor to the MUTCD that is still in use today.

The first MUTCD was released in 1935, setting standards for both road signs and pavement markings. Since then, eight more editions have been published with numerous updates that include changes in usage as well as technological improvements over the years.

Some of these changes are particularly noteworthy. It wasn’t until 1971 that all center lines were to be painted in yellow (as opposed to white) and all highway signs were required to be in white on a green background.

The most recent edition (2009) weighs in at 864 pages, dictating required standards for everything from simple items like street names and route signs to more complex topics, such as how to designate Bicycle Lane Treatment At A Parking Lane Into A Right Turn Only Lane and Examples Of Light Rail Transit Vehicle Dynamic Envelope Markings For Mixed-Use Alignments.

Additions and revisions are recommended to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) by the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD), a private, non-profit organization, which is made up of twenty-one sponsoring organizations comprised of transportation and engineering industry groups, safety-oriented organizations, and others such as the American Automobile Association.

This takes us back to this week’s controversy.

Federal standards promote safety and recognizable meanings, but when those standards are changed there will be ripple effects across local jurisdictions with limited resources to comply.

In places like Dinwiddie County, Virginia, citizens may argue that standards compliance could take funds away from education or public safety.

The Federal Highway Association says the new regulations, written under the Bush Administration, are designed to be easily read by America’s aging population. However, the FHWA announced this week a 45-day period for public comment on the new rules, “a step that could lead to easing on the guidelines,” according to ABC News.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation took matters a step further today, stating:

“I believe this regulation makes no sense. It does not property take into account the high costs that local governments would have to bear. States, cities, and towns should not be required to spend money that they don’t have to replace perfectly good traffic signs.”

LaHood tried to put a balanced spin on the controversy by summing up, "Safety is our priority, but so is good government."

Oil On The Brain: Petroleum's Long, Strange Trip To Your Tank is a smart, surprisingly funny account of the oil industry — the people, economies, and pipelines that bring us petroleum, brilliantly illuminating a world we encounter every day.

Americans buy ten thousand gallons of gasoline a second, without giving it much of a thought. Where does all this gas come from?

Author Lisa Margonelli’s desire to learn took her on a one-hundred thousand mile journey from her local gas station to oil fields half a world away.

In search of the truth behind the myths, she wriggled her way into some of the most off-limits places on earth: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the New York Mercantile Exchange’s crude oil market, oil fields from Venezuela, to Texas, to Chad, and even an Iranian oil platform where the United States fought a forgotten one-day battle.

In a story by turns surreal and alarming, Margonelli meets lonely workers on a Texas drilling rig, an oil analyst who almost gave birth on the NYMEX trading floor, Chadian villagers who are said to wander the oil fields in the guise of lions, a Nigerian warlord who changed the world price of oil with a single cell phone call, and Shanghai bureaucrats who dream of creating a new Detroit.

Deftly piecing together the mammoth economy of oil, Margonelli finds a series of stark warning signs for American drivers. Rave reviews for Oil On The Brain include:

“If you drive a car, you must read this book.” —Mary Roach, author of Stiff

“By giving voice to the people who are the links in the global oil chain, Margonelli invites us to leapfrog all the rhetoric, dry statistics, and dire pronouncements about oil in order to truly understand it.” —Fast Company

“Hugely enjoyable, compulsively readable, and brilliantly reported.” —Po Bronson, author of What Should I Do with My Life?

The PBS Newshour conducted an extensive interview with the author, which can be found here.

Transport Geographies: Mobilities, Flows And Spaces brings together a formidable range of expert insight to introduce the key ideas, concepts and themes of transport geography.

Using an issues-based, qualitative approach, the contributors feature a wide range of case-study material.

This work explores the relationship between transport geography and wider geographical concerns, as well as connections to other areas of study -- economics, engineering, environmental studies, political science, psychology, spatial planning, sociology and transport studies.

The book highlights the role of transport geography in globalization, and its interplay with economic, social and environmental geographies at a range of spatial scales. It reviews contemporary policy and the role transport geographers can play in policy debates.

Both empirically informed and theoretically robust, this compelling text shows the significance of transport in terms of the needs and demands of future travel.

Growing south from the plaza where the city of Los Angeles was founded as a tiny pueblo in 1781, the area now known as downtown L.A. was first developed in the late 1800s as a residential neighborhood, complete with churches and schools.

As the population surged at the turn of the 20th century, the downtown area was transformed into a busy business and entertainment center of shops, banks, hotels, and theaters.

The explosion of the postcard craze in the early 1900s coincided with this period of downtown's tremendous growth toward a formidable metropolis.

Early Downtown Los Angeles is a collection of vintage postcard images offers a glimpse into the changing city through the 1940s. Transportation is afforded its own chapter.

It includes rarely seen images of La Grande Station, the passenger terminal constructed by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1893. Santa Fe and Southern Pacific's competitive rail pricing fueled the real estate boom and unprecedented population growth throughout the region in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Early interior images of Union Station, Angels Flight, and other rail lines are of particular topical interest.

Shami, you need evenweave fabric to do Hardanger. It will not work on aida. 22 ct fabric is specially for Hardanger or any evenweave above 22 ct can be used

This is so beautiful...spreads love all around.

Beautiful work. R u based in Muscat. So am I. Could u pls tell me where u purchase the crochet threads.

What a gorgeous embroidery! I would love to learn and have begun collecting just a few things. I really need to just do it!

This is beautiful Nima. Looks great on your wall. Glad you are in a better time. Through it all God is with you.

Your quilt is beautiful Nima. It looks so bright and happy there on your wall. Even the B&W photo is very striking.

Thats beautiful nima.

It's beautiful Nima! Love the neon colors .

Beautiful work as always Nima. I love the rich colours you used.

Wow beautiful projects there Nima. Peacock is one of my fav subjects to stitch too.

Chicken Scratch embroidery?? Never heard of it! How cool!!! Glad you are catching up on these different techniques!

Enjoy the new year and let's leave the pressure of life to others! I'm taking one day at a time...no more stressing and just enjoying my artwork, life, family and friends.

Hey friends, I thought today I’d just spend some time chatting about how life in isolation is really going around here. A brain dump of sorts. Maybe some of it will help you, maybe some of it will entertain you or maybe if nothing else it’ll distract you for at least 5 minutes. Since I […]

If you're seeing Catching Up with Org Junkie ~ How Life in Isolation is Really Going anywhere other than on I'm an Organizing Junkie (or via my email list or a feed reader) it is being used by someone else without my permission. Please let me know, thank you!

Happy Friday y’all. We made it to the end of the week, yay! And what better way to celebrate than with a little comfort food. I haven’t shared a recipe on here in a long time. Remember when I use to do it monthly? One of those recipes from long ago, the Chocolate Chip Walnut […]

If you're seeing Creamy and Delicious Gluten-Free Mac and Cheese anywhere other than on I'm an Organizing Junkie (or via my email list or a feed reader) it is being used by someone else without my permission. Please let me know, thank you!

Latest research aims to understand the changing nature of analytics and its impact on business

Independent analysis of software rates technology providers across seven product and customer assurance evaluation categories

JW Michaels makes comparing executive salaries of the financial service industry a snap with release of compensation data report data

Research initiative designed to explore and quantify key technology and process requirements for the future of enterprise resource planning

B+E CEO shares current state of NNN and key issues to review during these turbulent times; 1031 exchanges to stay strong, demand for Net Lease real estate to continue to grow; B+E shares recommended net lease investment sectors

Reorganization follows shareholder approval earlier this month

Top 10 Producer Honors Are Awarded to Brian Lefkoff and Courtney Brumbelow of Ackerman Retail and John Speros of the Land Group

Kator redesigned the traditional model of micro-finance to work for Nigerian entrepreneurs

Real Estate And Foreclosure Defense Attorney Roy Oppenheim Will Hold Court On Financial Survival Strategies For Businesses And Individuals During The COVID-19 Crisis in his upcoming webinar Tuesday, March 24th at noon.

Online angel investment platform, Angels Partners, announced this year had been exceptional in connecting entrepreneurs and investors across different locations (India, USA & EU) and industries.

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has shown the dire need to have essential health goods manufactured in the United States, rather than places like China. Startup company SerraeX is aiming to change this with their ambitious new crowdfunding campaign

Live Online Interactive Stock Analysis Training Wednesday, April 1st, 2020 at 4pm PDT (7pm EDT)

Wayne von Borstel has been recognized by LPL Financial as one of the country's best financial advisors for the past 18 consecutive years.

Brittany Melville Discussed Using Funds from Existing Workplace Retirement Plans or IRAs to Fund a New Self-Directed IRA, Take Advantage of Opportunities to Invest in Alternative Assets