Sanford, Florida Power Sports Dealership Continues Partnership with Kyle Farnell

Jinggu Energy, a leading inverter supplier in China, announced the publication of their website content: The Ultimate Buying Guide of Power Inverter.

Burt Brothers announces an exciting weekend as they welcome Mario Andretti to celebrate the opening of their 10th Utah auto repair shop. To complement the events, BIGFOOT will be on location for a car crush and photo opportunities.

The Online Shopping Experience at www.peninsulageneral.com is Fast and Provides Customers with More Choices

New system will offer faster service and even more attractive auto insurance quotes to residents of California.

Washtech is headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia and has been in the car wash equipment sales and service business for over 20 years.

Peninsula General's website continues to offer a fast, online auto insurance quote system that was released in early September 2018.

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

Schachter, Hendy & Johnson (SHJ), a personal injury law firm with a long heritage of serving clients in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and nationwide, is now Hendy | Johnson | Vaughn | Emery (HJVE) - "Justice Starts Here."

To accommodate rapid growth and expansion of the product line, BMS promotes one of their top dealers to lead them into the next decade.

In celebration of National Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, Personal Injury Attorney Ed Smith Offers Tips to Help Motorcyclists Ride Safely

A leader in audio electronics, Glenn Stasky turns a near-disastrous encounter with wildlife, into a life-saving mission to produce motorcycle lighting unlike anything that the market has ever seen before. Introducing Clearwater Lights.

The Sidekick Stool SK3, the essential garage companion

Mobile 24/7 Locksmith Offers Key Replacement And Key Duplication Services For Residences, Commercial Businesses, Automobiles, High-Security Safes, And More In Riverside, California

Southern California: Just thinking about our vast region (larger than many states), diverse population (numbering in the millions), and its unique role in the historical and cultural development of the state and nation boggles the mind.

(Click on all images to enlarge)

How the Los Angeles region became what it is today is a long and complex story. Much of our local history is preserved in libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions. Other valuable and unique collections - those that reveal the stories of neighborhoods, families, influential Angelenos - are scattered across the region, and are curated by smaller institutions and individual enthusiasts.

Our own collections at Metro's Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive are also an integral part of the history of the Los Angeles area. In order to promote the rich legacy of transportation history in Southern California, we play an active role in L.A. As Subject, a research alliance of more than 250 separate collections dedicated to preserving and improving access to the unique history and culture of Los Angeles. L.A. As Subject is hosted by Unversity of Southern California, and has announced the program for its marquee event of the year.

On Saturday, October 23, 2010 during American Archives Month, L.A. As Subject holds its 5th Annual Archives Bazaar in USC's Doheny Memorial Library.

The event runs from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., features more than 70 historical collections and archives, and is free of charge.

History comes alive at this wonderful event where you can browse rare collections, consult with experts, and learn about researching Los Angeles and Southern California history, online tools, how to preserve your own personal history collections and images, and many other topics.

The full program for 2010 can be found here. The Special Guest Speaker will be KPCC host and L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison, discussing how libraries and historical archives have informed her work. Morrison was a member of two Los Angeles Times reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of the 1992 riots and the city's 1994 Northridge earthquake.

The Archives Bazaar is a great opportunity for the public to interact with these member institutions and individuals who bring their unique collections together in one place. This event allows scholars, researchers, archivists, librarians, students, history enthusiasts, documentary filmmakers and "L.A. Nerds" the opportunity to visit several institutions at once - to network, explore, ponder, and marvel at the many fascinating facets of Los Angeles and Southern California.

Imagine all those fascinating libraries, archives, museums, historical societies and cultural institutions from throughout Southern California sharing their collections and stories in an "Antiques Road Show" type of setting. It would cost a small fortune in admission and transportation costs to visit just some of the more than 70 participating institutions (including us) which have reserved their exhibit space so far. On October 23, they're all on display for you to peruse, ask questions, and explore...for free!

Other programming for the 5th Annual Archives Bazaar includes:

PANEL DISCUSSION: EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Today, the iconic newsboy hawking a newspaper on the street corner is only a memory. When will the newspaper and the newsstand also become memories? When will newspaper morgues become just that, or are they still a viable source for researchers? Join a panel of newspersons and newspaper archivists who will discuss the past, present, and future of the newspaper industry in Southern California.

PANEL DISCUSSION: BLOGGING L.A.
In recent years, blogs have become an indispensable source of news and information about the Los Angeles region. But what is their role in promoting Los Angeles history and investigating the city’s identity? Join three Southern California bloggers as they discuss how blogs can interpret the region’s past, present, and future.

PANEL DISCUSSION: UNCOVERING THE LEGACY OF DAVID ALFARO SIQUEIROS
Join Luis C. Garza, Oliver Mayer, and moderator Liza Posas for a conversation about the ongoing legacy of Mexican mural artist David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974). In 1932, Siqueiros traveled to Los Angeles and painted three murals, which were met with resistance—two were whitewashed shortly after their creation. Despite the efforts to censor his artistic vision, his work has inspired artists from the 1930s to the present day and contributed to the development of the modern mural movement in Los Angeles and beyond.

PANEL DISCUSSION: L.A. TAKES FLIGHT
From aviation pioneers to daring test pilots to space shuttle assembly plants, human flight has long played an important role in Southern California. Learn how Los Angeles took flight as panelists Kenneth E. Pauley, Linda McCann, and Michael Palmer share the hidden aviation stories they have discovered in the region’s libraries and archives.

DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENING: BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: TOM BRADLEY AND THE POLITICS OF RACE
This documentary is the first to tell the story of Tom Bradley, the first African-American elected mayor of a major U.S. city without a black majority. It is the story of an extraordinary multiracial coalition that transformed the city and in, the process, changed American politics. We will be screening a 20-minute trailer of this work-in-progress.


DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENING: THE LEGEND OF PANCHO BARNES
Florence “Pancho” Barnes was one of the most important women in twentieth century aviation. A tough and fearless aviatrix, Pancho opened a ranch near Edwards Air Force Base that became a famous—some would say notorious—hangout for test pilots and movie stars. Known as the Happy Bottom Riding Club, it became the epicenter of the aviation world during the early Jet Age. Since then, Pancho herself has become something of a legend, a fascinating yet enigmatic icon whose swagger is often celebrated, but whose story has been largely unknown—until now.

EDUCATIONAL SESSION: PRIVATE PASSION — PUBLIC RESOURCE
A personal fascination and individual zeal can create a collection that has value to the wider world. Such focus can illuminate details and connections that more general collections might miss. Local collectors will share their personal insights into history, and how they have assembled materials that might otherwise be dispersed and potentially never available to researchers.

EDUCATIONAL SESSION: RESEARCHING LA 101
Ever wondered how to get started with your Los Angeles research, or research in general? This presentation will provide a detailed overview of how and where to start, including researching basics useful for anyone working with primary and secondary source material. Topics will include researching from home, visiting the archives, the ins and outs of reading rooms, and more.

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.

This week, we highlight three new titles from the ASPA Series in Public Administration and Public Policy.

Market disruptions, climate change, and health pandemics lead the growing list of challenges faced by today’s leaders. These issues, along with countless others that do not make the daily news, require novel thinking and collaborative action to find workable solutions. However, many administrators stumble into collaboration without a strategic orientation.

Using a practitioner-oriented style, Strategic Collaboration In Public And Non-Profit Administration: A Practice-Based Approach To Solving Shared Problems provides guidance on how to collaborate more effectively, with less frustration and better results.

Linking collaboration theory to effective practice, this book offers essential advice that fosters shared understanding, creative answers, and transformation results through strategic collaborative action. With an emphasis on application, it uses scenarios, real-world cases, tables, figures, tools, and checklists to highlight key points.

The appendix includes supplemental resources such as collaboration operating guidelines, a meeting checklist, and a collaboration literature review to help public and nonprofit managers successfully convene, administer, and lead collaboration. The book presents a framework for engaging in collaboration in a way that stretches current thinking and advances public service practice.

A guidebook through the minefield of government contracting and procurement, Government Contracting: Promises and Perils describes the dangerous practices commonly applied in the development and management of government contracts and provides advice for avoiding the sort of errors that might compromise their ability to protect the public interest.

It includes strategies for increasing profits for government contractors, rather than incurring burdensome costs, through compliance with government mandated subcontracting and financial management systems.

Drawing from his in-depth investigation of government agencies across the country, the author examines present-day scenarios that regularly lead public servants and government committees to manage contracts with tools that are less than optimal and to select contractors that may not be the best qualified. He then delineates practical processes, contracting documents, and contract management tools to mitigate detrimental outcomes and alternative approaches to supplant the imperfect methodologies.

The author includes a CD-ROM with the book that provides a number of practical tools that you can apply as well as examples of contracts and templates that are the best he discovered during his research. The book also outlines an approach for performing advance contract planning, conducting contract negotiations, and administering contracts useful when planning for the management of the contracting process throughout the contracting cycle, negotiating a contract that protects the interest of all contracting parties, and ensuring successful contractor performance.

Filling a gap in project management literature, Managing Public Sector Projects: A Strategic Framework for Success in an Era of Downsized Government supplies managers and administrators—at all levels of government—with expert guidance on all aspects of public sector project management.

From properly allocating risks in drafting contracts to dealing with downsized staffs and privatized services, this book clearly explains the technical concepts and the political issues involved.

In line with the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the PMBOK^® (Project Management Body of Knowledge), David S. Kassel establishes a framework those in the public sector can follow to ensure the success of their public projects and programs. He supplies more than 30 real-life examples to illustrate the concepts behind the framework—including reconstruction projects in Iraq, the Big Dig project in Boston, local sewer system and library construction projects, and software technology.

This authoritative resource provides strategic recommendations for effective planning, execution, and maintenance of public projects. It also:

• Highlights the differences between managing projects in the public sector versus the private sector
• Explains how to scrutinize costs, performance claims, and the backgrounds of prospective contractors
• Presents key safeguards that should be included in all contracts with contractors, consultants, suppliers, and other service providers
• Details the basics of project cost estimation, design and scheduling, and how to hold contractors responsible for meeting established project standards

In an age of downsized government and in the face of a general distrust of public service, this book is a dependable guide for avoiding management practices that are common to projects that fail and for adopting the practices common to projects that succeed in terms of cost, schedule, and quality.

The need for effective public transport is greater than ever in the 21st century. With countries like China and India moving towards mass-automobility, we face the prospects of an environmental and urban health disaster unless alternatives are found--it is time to move beyond the automobile age.

But while public transport has worked well in the dense cores of some big cities, the problem is that most residents of developed countries now live in dispersed suburbs and smaller cities and towns. These places usually have little or no public transport, and most transport commentators have given up on the task of changing this: it all seems too hard.

Transport For Suburbia: Beyond The Automobile Age (London: Earthscan, 2010) argues that the secret of European-style public transport lies in a generalizable model of network planning that has worked in places as diverse as rural Switzerland, the Brazilian city of Curitiba and the Canadian cities of Toronto and Vancouver. It shows how this model can be adapted to suburban, exurban and even rural areas to provide a genuine alternative to the car, and outlines the governance, funding and service planning policies that underpin the success of the world's best public transport systems.

Getting To Know ArcGIS Desktop (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2010) introduces principles of GIS as it teaches the mechanics of using ESRI’s leading technology.

Key concepts are combined with detailed illustrations and step-by-step exercises to acquaint readers with the building blocks of ArcGIS Desktop including ArcMap, for displaying and querying maps, ArcCatalog, for organizing geographic data, and ModelBuilder, for diagramming and processing solutions to complex spatial analysis problems.

Its broad scope, simple style, and practical orientation make this book an ideal classroom text and an excellent resource for those learning GIS on their own.

The factors affecting the economic viability of high speed rail lines include the level of expected riders, costs, and public benefits, which are influenced by a line's corridor and service characteristics.

High speed rail tends to attract riders in dense, highly populated corridors, especially when there is congestion on existing transportation modes.

Characteristics of the proposed service are also key considerations, as high speed rail attracts riders where it compares favorably to travel alternatives with regard to door-to-door trip times, prices, frequency of service, reliability and safety.

In High Speed Passenger Rail: Viability, Challenges And Federal Role (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2010), a strategic vision for high speed rail is offered, particularly in relation to the role that high speed rail can play in the national transportation system, clearly identifying potential objectives and goals for high speed rail systems and the roles that federal and other stakeholders should play in achieving each objective and goal.

The recently enacted Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 will likely increase the federal role in the development of high speed rail, as will the newly enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

The Metro Transportation Library has begun collecting, cataloging and providing access to “digital” documents via our online catalog. These important resources have been produced and disseminated in electronic format – rather than being released “on paper.”

Up until now, we had been providing access to plenty of digitized documents - those which were scanned to provide electronic portability for resource sharing.

Some of our print documents (books, reports, etc.) had digital versions published along with print copies, and we had linked to those in our online catalog. Other items that were published in print were scanned to create a PDF document, allowing them to be emailed or easily accessed in other ways. For example, our collection of historic L.A. transit plans offers numerous full-text digital documents.

In both cases, the digital documents supplemented the original print versions. They appear in our online catalog just as a book does, but with links to a URL that opens the PDF document for that title.

However, more and more information is being “born digital” -- published electronically, as opposed to in print format. Rather than printing these items out to add to our collection, we are cataloging the electronic version to conserve resources and provide better access and more options for our users.

We wanted to share with you some of the many benefits of growing our digital documents collection and why it is important to capture these “born digital” documents for posterity.

Digital documents do not take up valuable space. We save paper (and time, and ink) by not printing out electronic documents. We save additional resources by not binding, labeling and barcoding printed documents, as well as other physical processing. Cataloging the electronic version provides all the content directly to our users in a direct, cost-efficient manner.

Digital documents do not get lost or stolen. The Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library & Archive has its own server space to host digital documents in our digital libraries. We have created organized directories to facilitate sharing resources in a timely manner. By storing the documents electronically on our own servers, they are easily located and safeguarded from disappearing from the collection. There are numerous ways books, reports and other print documents can disappear from a collection: theft, mis-shelving, loss, never returned after checkout, or sustaining damage that hinders their use. Electronic access does not pose these problems.

Digital documents can serve multiple users simultaneously. While there is something to be said for the experience of curling up in bed with a great book, that book can only be experienced by one person at a time. Libraries are embracing eBooks because they reduce or eliminate the wait time for popular titles.

Likewise, our digital documents collection will accommodate multiple users at the same time. For example, when lengthy environmental impact reports (EIRs) are released to the public for review and comment, we now provide the user with the ability to consume this information at the same time as others, as well as at the time and place of his or her choosing.

Digital documents are findable as well as searchable. These resources are located the same way as other material formats in our collection. Our users will find relevant digital documents when searching the online catalog, although we do not currently have the ability to limit search results to only digital documents.

However, once a digital document is found, the user can open the link to the PDF and execute a keyword search within the document for the information they want.

Users can quickly locate specific data or text with a few keystrokes from home or their mobile device, as opposed to making a request of the Metro Library, having staff search for and locate a print document, scanning or sending the document to the user, and the user then searching through it for the information they need.

Like online news stories that disappear all too quickly, some resources that should persist forever often go away before they can be accessed. References to them often last longer than the access provided by the producer, leading users to waste time trying to track down something that no longer exists.

Transit advocacy groups go by the wayside, organizations merge with others, while other entities change their Internet domain names -- all these scenarios cause users to waste time searching for vanished resources, or search for URL links to desired documents that cannot be found.

Creating a lasting home for these items and making them permanently accessible meets these challenges. By cataloging electronic resources that fit our collection profile, we not only provide access to them, but preserve them as well.

As one of the premier transportation research collections in the country, we want to grow our collection to remain responsive to Metro’s ambitious mobility agenda moving forward. We can achieve this without using up more physical space or many of the costs associated with print documents.

Finally, we are mindful that more and more users will be accessing our collection via mobile devices in the coming years. New smartphones, e-readers and iPads allow students, researchers, historians, and anyone interested in transportation information the ability to access us however they like.

These devices will continue to provide users with greater amounts of information, more quickly, and in more customizable fashion, where they want and need it. Our growing digital documents collection helps us prepare for these for 24/7 access needs: anytime, anywhere.

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."

In 1920, as its population began to explode, Los Angeles was a largely pastoral city of bungalows and palm trees. Thirty years later, choked with smog and traffic, the city had become synonymous with urban sprawl and unplanned growth.

Yet Los Angeles was anything but unplanned, as Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod reveals in this compelling, visually oriented history of the metropolis during its formative years. In a deft mix of cultural and intellectual history that brilliantly illuminates the profound relationship between imagination and place, Inventing Autopia: Dreams And Visions Of The Modern Metropolis In Jazz Age Los Angeles (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2009) shows how the clash of irreconcilable utopian visions and dreams resulted in the invention of an unforeseen new form of urbanism--sprawling, illegible, fractured--that would reshape not only Southern California but much of the nation in the years to come.

At 401 pages, it could seem like a daunting read, but those interested in Los Angeles history, urbanization, or the rise of the automobile will find this enjoyable. It's a great compliment to the Metro Library's historic transit and transportation studies collection. Many of these documents, which date back to 1911, have been digitized and are available on our website in full-text PDF.

Axelrod focuses on the 1920s when Los Angeles was growing at a fast clip. As we noted back in July, the number of automobile registrations in Los Angeles County quadrupled between 1914 and 1922 - making it very clear that the city's embrace of the auto would set the stage for decades of congestion and other issues.

Going back further in history is another equally seminal story about transportation in the West. Acclaimed historian Walter R. Borneman has written a dazzling account of the battle to build the first transportation system across America.

Rival Rails: The Race To Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad (New York: Random House, 2010) is an action-packed epic of how an empire was born—and the remarkable men who made it happen.

After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago.

Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.

The author brings to life the legendary business geniuses and so-called robber barons who made millions and fought the elements—and one another—to move America, including:

William Jackson Palmer, whose leadership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad relied on innovative narrow gauge trains that could climb steeper grades and take tighter curves;

Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific lines, a magnate insatiably obsessed with trains—and who was not above bribing congressmen to satisfy his passion;

Edward Payson Ripley, visionary president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, whose fiscal conservatism and smarts brought the industry back from the brink; and

Jay Gould, ultrasecretive, strong-armer and one-man powerhouse.

In addition, Borneman captures the herculean efforts required to construct these roads—the laborers who did the back-breaking work, boring tunnels through mountains and throwing bridges across unruly rivers, the brakemen who ran atop moving cars, the tracklayers crushed and killed by runaway trains.

From backroom deals in Washington, D.C., to armed robberies of trains in the wild deserts, from glorified cattle cars to streamliners and Super Chiefs, all the great incidents and innovations of a mighty American era are re-created with unprecedented power in this new work destined to be a classic.

Turning now to urban planning, author Patrick Condon discusses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design rules that can, if followed, help save the planet.

Seven Rules For Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies For The Post Carbon World (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010) clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. This book takes on a wide range of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to convincing and practical solutions.

Of particular importance is how city form affects the production of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The author explains this relationship in an accessible way, and goes on to show how conforming to seven simple rules for community design could literally do a world of good. Each chapter in the book explains one rule in depth, adding a wealth of research to support each claim. If widely used, Condon argues, these rules would lead to a much more livable world for future generations—a world that is not unlike the better parts of our own.

In Last Exit: Privatization And Deregulation Of The U.S. Transportation System (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2010), Clifford Winston reminds us that transportation services and infrastructure in the United States were originally introduced by private firms.

The case for subsequent public ownership and management of the system was weak, in his view, and here he assesses the case for privatization and deregulation to greatly improve Americans satisfaction with their transportation systems. How can this be done?

Writing in the New York Times, Harvard University economics professor Edward L. Glaeser points out that:

Because the public sector controls almost all roads, airports and urban transit, we see the downsides of public control on a daily basis, but we don’t experience the social costs that could accompany privatization. A private airport operator might try to exploit its monopoly power over a particular market or cut costs in a way that increases the probability of very costly, but rare, disaster.

The complexity and risks of switching to private provision means that Mr. Winston is wise to call for experimentation rather than wholesale privatization. An incremental process of trying things out will provide information and build public support.

Yet many of Mr. Winston’s recommendations are incremental and can be done without privatization or much risk.

The book covers privatization and deregulation of roads, airports, air traffic control, mass transit, intercity buses and railway networks.

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.

We wanted to share important (and frankly, frightening) news with you regarding the findings released last week of an audit of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

The audit (42p. PDF) was prompted in part by the loss of the Wright Brothers' original patent and maps for atomic bomb missions in Japan.

These losses led investigators to discover that some of the nation's prized historical documents are in danger of being lost for good. It follows a previous audit (66p. PDF) earlier in October highlighting oversight and management improvements, but pointing out that more action was needed.

The Government Accountability Office has also released a Summary Of Audit Findings as well as a Highlights page. The NARA website has posted a Statement in response to the audit findings from Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero.

Nearly 80 percent of U.S. government agencies are at risk of illegally destroying public records and the National Archives is backlogged with hefty volumes of records needing preservation care, the audit by the Government Accountability Office found.

The report by the watchdog arm of Congress, completed this month after a year's work, also found many U.S. agencies do not follow proper procedures for disposing of public records.

The report comes more than a year after news reports of key items missing at the nation's record-keeping agency. Some of the items have been missing for decades but their absence only became widely known in recent years.

The patent file for the Wright Brothers flying machine was last seen in 1980 after passing around multiple Archives offices, the Patents and Trademarks Office and the National Air and Space Museum.

As for maps for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, military representatives checked them out in 1962, and they've been missing ever since.

The GAO report did not specifically mention those or other examples of missing items including Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln, Eli Whitney's cotton gin patent and some NASA photographs on the moon.

Meanwhile, some documents face the threat of deterioration even though they're already at the Archives. Figures from 2009 show 65 percent of its holdings need preservation steps. In some cases, a document's condition already is so poor, it can't be read – a backlog amounting to more than 2 million cubic feet of records.

The National Archives and Records Administration has 44 facilities in 20 states, including 13 presidential libraries, funded by about $470 million this year from Congress.

NARA also maintains a "Help The National Archives Recover Lost And Stolen Documents" website.

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.

Avid readers of local history are usually intrigued by photos of historic sites juxtaposed against contemporary images. This format of visual history has a particularly strong impact when the subject is Los Angeles: a city that grew up -- and outward -- so quickly.

Those seeking pictorial overviews will likely have checked out aerial photography books as well.

Los Angeles From The Air: Then And Now (San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2010) is a hybrid of these two types of pictorial books. It presents decades-old photographs of both familiar and lesser-known landmarks along side more current ones.

This takes the reader on a trip through Los Angeles like never before, featuring inspiring, sky-high then-and-now images of some of LA's most famous locations.

Some of the landmarks' origins are well-known, but the authors provide context for both familiar and hidden pieces of Los Angeles history.

Many of the photos feature snow-capped peaks in the distance -- a testament to our clear Winter days being the best for photography.

Unfortunately, the work falls flat in its description of transportation in downtown Los Angeles. The authors write:

"Metrolink [sic] provides service to Union Station in the form of three rail lines -- Red, Purple, Gold..."

While Metro and Metrolink may sound similar to those outside of Los Angeles (the book is, after all, published in San Diego), it gives one pause that other information found here may not be entirely accurate. Ultimately, one can ignore the text entirely, as these beautiful photos speak for themselves.

In Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities (New York: Scribner, 2010), noted architecture writer Witold Rybczynski offers a glimpse of an urban future that might very well serve as a template for cities around the world.

Rybczynski integrates history and prediction of the development of the American city in a brisk look back that takes us from colonial town planning to the Garden City and City Beautiful initiatives of the early 20th century and on to the "Big Box Era."

He also examines how contemporary urban designers and planners are revisiting and refreshing older urban ideas, such as bringing gardens to a blighted Brooklyn waterfront.

Rybczynski's study is kept relevant by his focus on what the past can teach us about creating the "cities we want" and "cities we need."

The prose is instructive and always engaging, and the author's enthusiasm for the future of cities and his enduring love of urban settings of all kinds is evident.

He not only writes about what people want from their cities, he inspires the reader to imagine the possibilities.

In Down The Asphalt Path: The Automobile And The American City, author Clay McShane examines the uniquely American relationship between "automobility" and urbanization.

Writing at the cutting edge of urban and technological history, he depicts how new technology, namely the private automobile, and the modernization of the American city redefined each other.

The author motors us across the country -- from Boston to New York, from Milwaukee to Los Angeles and the suburbs in between -- chronicling the urban embrace of the automobile.

The New York Times calls this work "A treat to read, loaded with interesting facts...a notable book about urban transportation."

Barron's wrote that "this fascinating, well-researched history of the automobile industry...is written from a social and cultural perspective rarely included in traditional books about the business."

The Whole Earth Review claims "this fascinating treatise is the most credible look yet at how automobiles have changed American society for better or worse."

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

Superb nima. Perfect french knots. For the woven rose have u used variegated thread?

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.

Welcome to Menu Plan Monday! Affiliate links are included in this post. This means I make a small commission should you purchase product using these links. This is at no extra cost to you. Hi friends! I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend and made the best of the circumstances. We had a […]

If you're seeing Menu Plan Monday ~ April 13/20 Weekly Dinner Inspiration 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!

Welcome to Menu Plan Monday! Affiliate links are included in this post. This means I make a small commission should you purchase product using these links. This is at no extra cost to you. Hi friends! How many of you are still menu planning while in isolation? I am but it’s a pretty flexible plan […]

If you're seeing Menu Plan Monday ~ April 20/20 Weekly Dinner Inspiration 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!

Welcome to Menu Plan Monday! Affiliate links are included in this post. This means I make a small commission should you purchase product using these links. This is at no extra cost to you. Hi friends! How are you? We are still doing okay here. The good news is our snow melted away so fast. […]

If you're seeing Menu Plan Monday ~ April 27/20 Weekly Dinner Inspiration 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!

Welcome to Menu Plan Monday! Affiliate links are included in this post. This means I make a small commission should you purchase product using these links. This is at no extra cost to you. Hey there menu planners. Hope you are still staying safe and healthy. We are doing okay here. In fact a few […]

If you're seeing Menu Plan Monday ~ May 4/20 Weekly Dinner Inspiration 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!

The following is a guest post about how to set up an emergency preparedness binder from regular contributor, Kristin at The Gold Project.  Being prepared in case of an emergency is never a bad thing. When I think of an emergency, the first thing that pops into my head is losing my house to a […]

If you're seeing How to Set Up an Emergency Preparedness Binder + Free Printable 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

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EQ Token 2 IEO Phase

Paulson brings more than 30 years of commercial real estate brokerage experience, including investment sales, and landlord and tenant leasing.

More Than $500,000 Already Raised to Support Local Rapid Response Grants

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.

SMEs, startups, and entrepreneurs are responsible for a huge part of the GDP. As a result, many factors affect their stability. In such a vicious and terrible cycle, TimeBit offers a way of dealing without hurdles.

Financial organizations and corporate entities are invited to participate in the 10th annual Global Banking & Finance Awards

At the new year, many people resolve to make changes. Attorney Paul Black recommends adding a few estate planning items to your new year's resolution list.