I sat through a ‘webinar’ on blogging today. The presenter was Dan Zarella, author of The Social Media Marketing Book and an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing ‘scientist.’ He said scientist, not me. Dan studies social media behavior to teach marketers best practices for whatever type of social media they’re using to push their product. Which in this case is transportation.
Among other interesting points, Mr. Zarella said that if you want comments on your blog, just ask for them. It turns out to be a slow day as far as transportation news goes, so this is your chance. I’m going to turn it over to you. Anything you want to say? Any topics I haven’t addressed that you’d like to see info on? Any general transportation observations you’d like to share? Just don’t tell me about your cat Fluffy or what you had for breakfast. Please keep it focused on transportation and I’ll do my best to come up with an answer or reply or dance around the issue and try to change the subject. Just kidding, that’s not my style. I’ll share whatever I know. Now ask away.
Here's what's been on my mind since last weekend: What a waste it was to stripe a bike lane on Howard Street. With all the parked cars and parked snow in the lane, it was worthless. It had been better for riding when there were two "car" lanes in each direction.
– Ventura
How about a bicycle built for two??
http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=3397
Well, you asked for it…
I want to fight, y'all, so read this and put up yer dukes!!!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013540043_restless28m.html
Woo hoo! This is what I'm talking about! Tell me what's on your mind. Now that you've done that, give me about 8 hours to process it. Normally this is my favorite time to check out what everyone else is checking out but it just took me almost 2 hours to get home in this crazy snow/rain mix. Most of the time I ride the bus but when I know I'm going to be out fairly late I drive. I have a thermometer in my car that is fairly accurate most of the time but it kept giving me weird low 50s and high 40s readings tonight. And at the same time it was snowing. Really big fat flakes. Which really slowed things down on the far south hill where I was.
Okay, I'm going to go in order here. Ventura- I've heard that before from a couple people about Howard Street. I see it as one of those symbolic gestures. True, it's not usable now but it shows that the City is at least open to the idea of increasing it's bike network. When I worked at the City in the Engineering and Public Works department about five years ago, no one even TALKED about non-motorized transportation, let alone did anything to acknowledge that people are getting around by other methods than driving.
Charles- your bicycle built for two is awesome! I'm going to give it it's own post. Not like the slick tandems of today. And how in the world could that woman ride in that huge dress??
Vanillajane- I tried to go to your link and I got a message saying 'You have tried to access a page that does not exist or has been disabled.' I was redirected to the front page of the Seattle Times where I perused the articles to see if there were any obvious transportation articles. All I found was the one about a second dog that almost got electrocuted by a streetlight and a picture of an alligator wearing a santa hat. Which was cool, by the way.
Sorry about that, srtc staff. I see there were some missing items. Darn it. I'm still ready to brawl though if anyone is interested…. HE HE!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/restlessnativeblog/2013549218_anger_over_freeway_lane_campers_heard_in_olympia.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/restlessnativeblog/2013549218_anger_over_freeway_lane_campers_heard_in_olympia.html
I see it cut off again…. Weird. Maybe I shouldn't be trying to fight…
OK. I'm giving up now. Actually, no I'm not. here's the rest of it after the heard_
in_olympia.html
There.