'Tis a sad day in Buffalo with the crash of Flight 3407:

'MANY' BUFFALO RESIDENTS AMONG THOSE KILLED IN CRASH

The 50 dead included four on-duty crew members on the Continental plane, one off-duty crew member, as well as 44 people traveling toward Buffalo on business and pleasure trips.

Among the crash victims was Beverly Eckert, the widow of Sean Rooney, who was killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Eckert was traveling to Buffalo for a family celebration of what would have been her husband's 58th birthday.

Family members and friends identified two people believed to be on the plane as Ellyce Kausner, a graduate of Clarence High School and Canisius College, and Maddy Loftus, a Buffalo State College graduate who lives in New Jersey.

The crew members were identified as Capt. Marvin Renslow, pilot of the plane; Rebecca Shaw, first officer of the flight; and flight attendants Matilda Quintero and Donna Prisco.

Another employee of the airline, Capt. Joseph Zuffoletto, a Jamestown resident who was off-duty at the time, was also killed.

My heart goes out to the families' of the victims.  read more »

While politicians mouth sound-bites about the "middle-class" Governor Paterson & Mayor Bloomberg are putting the bite on all of us. Their alter ego, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), is preparing for fare increases and service cutbacks.

No community is not affected and every one is trying to save his or her favorite bus line or subway stop from oblivion. Review the current MTA proposal . Consider coming to the public hearings the first of which is Wednesday night.

MTA Hearing This Wednesday Wed Jan 14 6 pm-9 pm Hilton NY, Trianon Ballroom (Third floor)1335 Ave of the Americas (between 53-54 Streets), Manhattan Subways: E,V to 5 Av/53 St, or B,D,F,V to to 47-50th St/Rockefeller Ctr. Buses: M5, M6, M7 Registration to speak: open till 9 pm at hearing. Limit 3 minutes per speaker.
You can register to speak in advance, or comment in writing: contact Douglas Sussman, Director of MTA Community Affairs, 347 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10017, 212-878-7483.

Other hearings are scheduled click here.

One of the more self-defeating parts of this charade -- thank you David Paterson, Michael Bloomberg -- is the opportunity for each adversely affected community to fight to prevent it's favorite service from getting the axe.  read more »

(Note: Reprinted from my website.)

As speculation continues over whether, and how, the Bush administration will choose to tap the TARP for $14 billion to bail out two enormous, domestic-owned automobile manufacturers, little discussion is given to whether there is a better way. While people debate the wisdom of keeping alive companies that have made many terrible business decisions in the past, nobody is debating whether to switch from automobiles to some other form of transportation. We should.

Our blindness to transportation systems other than automobiles is nothing new, and is the result of decades of propaganda, as well as monopolist and other crooked business practices, in the auto industry and related businesses.  read more »

Biodiesel is one of the most intriguing of those new possibilities...crops of soybeans and rapeseed and maybe even algae, grown by present day farmers, processed into a diesel fuel substitute that works just fine in modern Volkswagons and Mack trucks and school buses--even in the oil-burning furnace down in the basement. It is potentially a truely sweet solution, offering a new market for hard-pressed local farmers even as it begins to help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems. Greg Pahl's book...manages to raise the right questions (and raise them early enough) so that we can perhaps build a structure for this developing industry that serves local farmers and processors instead of simply corporate agribusiness giants.

--Bill McKibben in the Forward to Greg Pahl's Biodiesel

Biodiesel has been getting a bad name because of the potential for competition with food production. It has always struck me that some of the loudest voices criticizing biodiesel has come from the oil, coal and nuke lobbies. But it did seem like competition with food production may be a critical problem with biodiesel.  read more »

Through dreary rain, late Monday afternoon, I dodged jammed Madison Avenue traffic to the Municipal Art Society office in exquisite remains of the Villard Mansion. There NYC’s Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan explained her strategic plan for “Sustainable Streets.” The wine flowed, the sushi, ginger & wasabi were fresh (even without soy sauce), the tabuli tangy, the tapinade, salty.

People packed shoulder to shoulder, making dancing to the swing trio impractical. Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler was there, as was NYPC Commissioner Ray Kelly (Kelly was so freshly dressed, so creased, so unwrinkled, so calm, he glowed. I’ll bet he didn’t cycle over.) The overwhelmingly white, suited crowd had a few cycling advocates mixed in: Transportation Alternatives’ Paul Steely White in his signature vest, Straphanger Gene Russianoff in cacki chinos, Karen Overton, formerly of Recycle-A Bicycle. But, for me the big news was who was missing: I saw no elected officials at all.  read more »