Addictive Walkscore tells you how walkable a community is:

I love this. Type in your address and it gives a walkability index regarding how walkable your neighborhood is: how easy it is to walk to a grocery store, a school, a bookshop, a cafe or a park. It's very 1.0, which means it doesn't understand that the shop is across a canal or an arterial, it doesn't distinguish between a corner store and a mega grocery store, and it doesn't factor in McDonald's vs our local organic Bridgehead coffee shop. What it does do is illustrate the walkability of some communities. It gives some samples: George Bush 's ranch scores a big fat zero. Central manhattan does a lot better. Mine scores in the 70's, and a block away it scores in the 80's.

The unintended benefit is that it tells you things about your hood that you may have not known about. Little details and surprises: I didn't realize that there was an underground experimental cinema a few blocks from my house. Cool!

Tastes Like Chicken

I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen

The Detroit News: Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the
leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to
prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen
tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last
week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration
of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical
outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the
hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed
someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel
tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the
President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated
all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved
him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure
he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen. This is all off
the record, right?"

Leafs Hockey Song (with apologies to Stompin' Tom)

With Harry and Bob, those two old knobs,
It's Leafs night every night;
Panic grows as the season blows,
even eighth place sure seems nice!

The goalie flops, the defense just stops,
The fans are all insane (inane?);
Harry Neale roars, "Oh no the other team scores!"
He still doesn’t know their names.

Oh! The Leafs old hockey games,
are the best games they can name,
The best games are now played,
by those teams with whattheirnames.

(Learn ‘em, Harry….)

The fans make a dash as the players crash,
The Leafs again fall far behind;
They then grab it up and go hooking up,
And they trap along the line.

They approach the zone like an old dog on a bone,
Who’s offside again? McCabe!
A giveaway pass in the defensive zone!
Oh no, it’s a 5-1 hockey game!

Oh! The Leafs old hockey games,
are the best games they can name,
The best games are now played,
by those teams with whattheirnames

Third period.... Third last game of the season, for the Leafs. Forty Years, too.

Oh, take me where the hockey players,
Face-off down the rink;
And the Stanley Cup is all filled up,
For the champs who win the drink.

Now the final flick of a hockey stick,
Are seen on a gigantic screen,
For TV is how Leafs get to see these games now,
Between a few good golfing games.

Oh! The good old golfing game,
Is the only game Leafs can name;
And the only game Leafs can name,
Is the good old golfing game!

CBC News: Analysis & Viewpoint: Mary-Ellen Lang - Schooling

This is a rare excellent piece that gets to the heart of the matter of special education:

CBC News: Analysis & Viewpoint: Mary-Ellen Lang - Schooling: "As a teacher in the public school system, I'd have to say the ones often getting the least consistent amount of funding, nurture or notice aren't the students who are challenged by the regular classroom environment. They are the ones who aren't being challenged enough — the gifted and talented.

Whereas the other special needs students often stand out in some obvious way, gifted and talented students are often invisible and unrecognized in schools. They drop out of school at rates that are out of all proportion to their numbers, sometimes after having been categorized as troublesome or lazy."

Of course the dirty little secret is that other parents want it that way to eliminate competition with their own children.

CBC Interview on-line

Here is a link to a Real Audio stream of my interview. Clearly, I am not a professional speaker. I think I acquit myself adequately given how green I am at this.

My friend Michael Boyle makes the point that an expanded O-train / GO-train line (OGO, as in Ogopogo?) with a Carp Arnprior Almonte spur would cross the 417 near ScotiaBank Place, in line with the existing transit system that terminates near there.

It would tie the western edge of the system with a huge parking lot that lies idle most of the time. Hmmmm.

CBC Radio Interview

Yes that we me this morning on CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning, going on about the O-train debacle, right after the outgoing mayor said his farewell to city politics and hinted at his run at Federal politics. Tough act to follow.

Kathleen Petty? Rowr. A proper Calgary woman, she probably drinks her beer straight from the bottle.

My wife still crushes on Anthony Germain. The flirtatious intellectual banter between Germain and the cello-voiced RBC Capital Markets analyst Tania Kotsos is, um, sorely missed in my household at six-friggin-fifteen in the morning.

We're now even in the crush department, although she'll accuse me of being in double trouble as there is the still very lovely Tania. But it's just not the same. You can't have a wonk-edition Mulder And Scully routine now that Wonk Mulder got Shanghai'd, the CBC equivalent of being abducted by aliens.

Maybe Kathleen will get some hot-traffic talk going with the news guy, Stu Mills, who doesn't have a "face made for radio" either.

That'll boost ratings.

A Challenge For The Mayor-Elect Of Ottawa (continued)

Our city staff is lying to council about light rail.

Clive Doucet, my councilor, clearly didn't read what he voted on, even when it is his own key issue.

He didn't read the proposal. He didn't read all the details of an $800M project, and wasn't aware that the O-Train would be shut down until after the fact. He just trusted staff.

Clive trusted staff a little too much. It sure looks like he got sandbagged.

Check this out:



Then watch the lead staffer squirm:


The whole shebang is here.
What is going on?

A Challenge For The Mayor-Elect Of Ottawa

Dear Larry O'Brien;

Congratulations on your victory. You were my second choice for Mayor. You won't have to try very hard to figure out who my first choice was, but that doesn't matter. You won.

Now that the election is over and the writing is on the wall I suggest that you seriously consider the proposal put out by Friends Of The O-train. The current Barrhaven electric plan is a piece of social engineering, not traffic engineering, and it is going to die. Time to do better, much better.

The 85% of people who voted against the one mayoralty candidate that supported the existing plan have it right, and the city staff experts in house have it wrong: this is a wisdom of crowds effect that should not be ignored.

The FOTOT plan is clearly a better solution: With Diesel trains along Via track to Barrhaven station it solves a real need in a practical manner. Add a link to Gatineau and the Airport and two other dire urban issues are solved.

Existing track can be used westwards towards the Kanata business park, through Carp, all the way to Arnprior. People who live downtown and work in Kanata could finally get off the roads and take the train. The bus doesn't cut it. I've tried. This does.

New track would only need to be laid for the link from Hurdman to Rockland along the 174 corridor, and the core infrastructure is done. Existing track would bring service as far east as Cassleman. Those spurs could be done using low-cost diesel trains in the same mold as GO transit in the Toronto corridor.

The new deluxe trains are nice, but for the more rural extensions a less expensive GO train may be enough. Commuters already come in via converted school bus. Believe me; they will consider this an improvement.

The existing Carp line goes as far west as Arnprior, and joins with track that goes south through to Almonte, Carleton Place, and as far south as Smiths Falls before looping back towards Barrhaven in a great circle that needs no turnarounds. Existing track solves the problem of cars on our roads for the next century.

If Ottawa was serious about getting cars off the road this is it, it would eliminate the need for long distance commuting from locations as far as Smiths Falls, Merrickville, and Richmond.

All communities benefit, not just one.

A GO-Transit style Diesel train solution would solve traffic problems for the foreseeable future. People in Almonte could take the rail to their jobs in Kanata, and comfortably travel downtown. Living in Almonte and working in downtown Ottawa becomes a viable option, without a car. People living in the downtown core would take two trains, one electric and one diesel, to their jobs in Kanata.

This solves problems for the greater area, not just for one neighbourhood. It is practical and it is smart. Even if it takes as long or longer you are no longer driving, you can do other tasks.

VIA rail already has wireless Internet in its trains. For a fee you can take your office with you onto the train. Why not offer the same service for commuters from the far west to downtown? Why not offer this as a premium service that makes the train better than the car, no matter what, for the person that wouldn't be caught dead in a bus? Why not make transit the excellent choice, the professional's choice?

Mr. O'Brien, I'll put this in personal terms: You are a millionaire who lives in the most expensive condominium building in the city core. If the light rail system can't be made attractive enough for you to take to Calian headquarters for a board meeting, it's broken. It's not good enough. If instead you could step outside your building, be whisked to the western terminal in minutes, grab yourself a coffee from your choice of vendors, and on the next train catch up on board minutes and the last minute flurry of emails, why would you drive? I bet you wouldn't, because it would be a waste of your time, and that would be dumb. That last five minute walk, even in -30 weather, won't matter, and the walk will do you good, it braces you up for the day ahead. The airport? Piece of cake. Add a little walk or bike ride and the same story works from Ottawa South to New Edinburgh.

It works in Hunt Club. It works in Bell's Corners. And yes, it works in Barrhaven. It works if your coffee is a Bridgehead Organic. It works if your coffee is a Tim Horton's Double Double.
The amazing thing: The millionaire's choice costs less than the electric white elephant.

A little secret: This option isn't limited to millionaires and corporate CEO's. But it won't work unless white collar professionals like it too. Stop thinking of public transit as a public necessity for the poor and start thinking of it as a real viable competitor to the single-occupant car.

Think as an intelligent winner, not as an anti-car whiner.

I am not sure why electric cars are a requirement. They are impractical in the outer suburbs due to low density and high implementation cost. If GO works for TO why not here?

Why wasn't this considered from the get-go? Is it because it is not expensive enough? Why?

It is your duty to find out why, Larry. It is also your duty to do much, much better.

Make this a very personal responsibility: if you can't see yourself using the light rail system, you've failed. If despite your personal wealth, access, and stature, it's the better choice, the smarter choice, you've succeeded beyond all expectations.

So, which is it going to be?

Regards

Michael Slavitch

Ottawa Ontario

Primary-electric plug-in hybrids

This article from Edmunds is good for the layperson.

As batteries improve a hybrid will become primarily electric with gasoline assist, the reverse of today's model. I suspect that companies like Toyota will introduce such a vehicle as the fueling infrastructure is already in place, but not before 2010-2011. The pure-E car is for enthusiasts, but a vehicle that goes cross country without long stops has different requirements. The next edition of the Prius has more battery power and might have a plug-in option but will still be electric assist, gasoline-primary.

A primary-electric plug-in hybrid (how's that for a term!) would offer electric capacity in line with the Tesla along with internal combustion backup for charging or for long-range cruising.

Just doing the crude maths in Excel tells me that a 25KW (33.3hp) motor, something small and light, would offer 200mpg+ at highway speeds on long drives if the batteries were precharged and there are stops along the line. The ICE motor would never stop running (except during fueling, for safety reasons), it would either provide base cruising energy or charge the batteries during stops. Since the engine is running at a constant rate it will operate efficently and produce the minimum emissions possible, since emissions systems work best at a steady hot state. Such engines could be made very light and very simple because of their limited operating range. Both Toyota and Honda have experimented with plastic/ceramic engines that are reliable at middle energy levels. Such engines would be quick to manufacture as there is no metal in the casting, only formed plastics and ceramics.

A 25KW engine could also charge the batteries quickly during stops. An hour would be enough if the batteries could absorb the charge. More reasons for pit stops and picnics.

Such driving would require "programming", ie using a navigation system to describe the proposed route and proposed stops along the way. It's something that works great on a personal computer today, but is horrible in all cars, especially BMW, but even Toyota totally sucks at this.

An energy-plan program would tell the car how best to deplete it's cheap load of electricity, either quickly with no engine assist (commuting, errands) or with the engine as base energy provider using electric motors for acceleration (long range cruising). Both
work well in their respective regimes.

This is how all modern ships work. They are information technology systems. It's not by accident that engine systems engineers on large ships now have Microsoft and Cisco certification.

The biggest problem is marketing: How do you sell a car with a 33 horsepower engine when the sales guys are all mooks?

You change the sales channel, ie, who sells the car, from the realm of mechanical systems and horsepower to the realm of personal electronics and identity branding, in the same way Apple changed the model moved from geeks and suits to artists and hipsters.

I can just see Steve Jobs make greens swoon over iTrip and iDrive in the iCar.

Too bad BMW trademarked the latter for a fucked up implementation.