On May 28, the Journal announced and launched their new website.  If you haven't seen it, check it out.  Part of the website is their events calendar, probably Humboldt's most comprehensive.  They already offered convenient driving instructions for venues.  That made me think, "Why not transit?"  (click "Read more" to find out what happened)

These are Jul 25 to Aug 24 statistics for the Redwood Transit System website:

Click the image for a larger view.

A minor Redwood Transit System schedule updates goes into effect today, August 25.

Times for a few trips have been adjusted.  There are no revisions that are more than five minutes different from the previous schedule.

The information on the schedule page has been updated, including for the downloadable mobile schedules.

The Regional Transportation Plan is updated every two years by the Humboldt County Asssociation of Governments (HCAOG).  The document plays a central role in decision-making on transportation projects in the county that involve inter-government/agency collaboration (ie: collaboration between Caltrans, the county, the cities, and public transportation agencies).

The final 2008 RTP was just released (available on the HCAOG website).  Hopefully, Green Wheels comments were well-incorporated in the final document.  Green Wheels Executive Director Chris Rall offered extensive comments on the Regional Transportation Plan in the draft phase.

This is from the excellent Sightline Daily blog:

I'm a bit late on this, but it's still worth mentioning. Via the NY Times:

Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday. Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,600 from 2006. It was the fewest number of highway deaths in a year since 1994, when 40,716 people were killed.

As a sidenote to my last blog post on SMART, or Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, I thought I'd note a little experiment I'm trying — I created a Facebook group to save traffic and traffic jams in the Sonoma and Marin Area (it's basically a spoof anti-SMART group, Colbert Report style).  So far, it just has two people, but I haven't sent out the invites yet.

It was inspired by this video, I love traffic:

Good things are on the horizon for our neighbors to the south: SMART, or Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, is a proposed 70-mile passenger train service proposal with a companion bicycle/pedestrian pathway paralleling Hwy 101 from Cloverdale to Larkspur.  In November 2008, SMART will be put before voters in those counties (it involves a quarter cent sales tax).  In 2006, the measure passed in Sonoma with over 67% of voter support, but failed in Marin by less than 1% (it has to be passed by a super-majority, or two-thirds vote of Marin and Sonoma Counties).

A few times now, Green Wheels HSU has done Parking Space Projects on HSU's B Street. For one, the Google Street View cam car just happened to drive up the street and capture it.

View Larger Map

If you're not familiar with Google Street View, check out the NC Journal blogthing announcement on the launch of Street View for Humboldt County. I am really excited about this because it works nicely with Google Transit for people to locate and put transit stops in the context of their surroundings before they ever make the trip!

Many thanks to Green Wheels friend Ben Mattio for alerting us!

Kevin's last blog post on BartRage.com inspired me to bring up GetSatisfaction.com.  It's a user-powered customer service forum when customers and company and organizational representaitves can interact and share their experiences.

Transit is an important part of people's lives, and its users talk about it in many different aspects.  GetSatisfaction.com seemed like a way to expose some of those conversations, find some of the most useful suggestions which might otherwise never make it to decision-maker's ears, and stop the same questions from being asked over and over again.  In short, it seemed a perfect fit for transit.

• Which roads are dangerous?  Find traffic fatalities near a specific U.S. address at SafeRoadMaps.  This is a great start, but the inclusion of more years of data, and all collisions, not just fatalities, and the abitily to link to data views and embed the maps on other sites would make this resource great.
• Lask week, Google announced walking directions became part of Google Maps.  (It's great that Google Transit now shows much nicer walking instructions.)  Google Maps Mania suggests that Google Maps could use collision, fatality, and crime data to deliver the safest possible trip itinerary.  Imagine a shopping district deciding they need to calm traffic because Google Maps is telling folks to avoid walking through their area.  Interesting.
• L.A. Times: "What I've discovered by walking," Expensive gasoline allows an L.A. resident to get to know her neighborhood better.
• NYTimes: "Many families limiting themselves to a single car." Good article, but how about a title change, Times Editors: "Many families free themselves from hassles and cost-burdens of multiple cars?"
• NYTIMES: Derides Drilling, Ethanol, Gas Tax Holidays, and Blaming Speculators for High Gas Prices: "Gas Price Follies"