Quick Mini-Manifesto:

1. Urban freeways are linked to childhood asthma and other health issues.
2. Urban freeways concentrate tailpipe emissions.
3. Motorists passing through urban cores on freeways generally don’t pay local taxes but leave their carbon footprint via the tailpipe.
4. Motorists passing through urban cores should be made to travel around the core, affecting less people.
5. Urban freeways should be removed, replaced with higher-bandwidth transportation options – light rail, heavy rail and commuter rail – to serve residents
6. Feeder systems and regional service should interconnect with the urban transportation network.

You could do everything above, or just do the following:

1. Adequately tax the price of tailpipe emissions through congestion pricing.

I know this isn’t fully resolved, especially the increased emissions from making people drive around urban cores and the cost of infrastructure. I get that. This statement is polemical and one-sided on purpose to form a dialectic to studying this urban issue.
Comments?

Typographic Desk Reference, originally uploaded by imjustcreative

The new version of the Typographic Desk Reference is now available. Buy the Typographic Desk Reference from Amazon, and give me a little kickback (why don’t ya?).

A Road not Taken is a documentary about the solar panels President Carter installed at the White House in 1979 which were taken down in 1986 during the Reagan presidency. Very interesting subject matter, but the trailer unfortunately isn’t very good or succinct.

Helvetica v Akzidenz Grotesk, originally uploaded by plemeljr

High Street, originally uploaded by plemeljr

Girih tiles are a set of five tiles that were used in the creation of tiling patterns for decoration of buildings in Islamic architecture. (via)

But the area’s most prominent waterfront landmark, the 1906 Long Island City Power Station, lies just outside the project boundary. Although the huge red brick complex and its four great smokestacks are not in the way of any planned development, unusual structural conditions may make it an attractive site for private development, if the city’s project actually gets off the ground.
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To supply electricity for tunnel service, the railroad built a power plant in Long Island City between Second and Fifth Streets, from 50th to 51st Avenues. Completed in 1906, the Long Island City Power Plant consisted of two sections, one with coal-fired boilers producing steam, and the other with turbines to convert the steam to electricity. The power plant was built on a bed of over 9,000 piles, covered by a layer of concrete six feet thick.

STREETSCAPES: Long Island City Power Station; A 1906 Railroad Landmark on the Queens Shoreline

On this Friday, Feb 13 at exactly 6:31:30 PM (EST), Unix time (WTF is Unix time?) will equal 1234567890.