Breakfast links: SmarTrip, the environment, Japan, and more

SmarTrip Web reload, autoload coming

By the end of the year

sometime in 2010, you’ll be able to add value to a SmarTrip card online, and set it to automatically reload from a credit card when it gets low. By the end of this year, you’ll at least be able to check your balance online. (We Love DC)

Metro MasterCard: priceless?

Many other organizations have them, even Amtrak. How about a transit credit card, which combines a regular credit card and a SmarTrip, automatically refills itself, and gives you rewards in the form of money back on fares or fare discounts? (Extraordinary Observations)

Chicago real-time bus info spurs app competition

Thanks to Chicago having a real-time API for bus arrival information, there are now not one but two iPhone apps to help Chicago riders find their way. Hopefully after Metro launches NextBus, they can start creating an API for similar apps here. (Ars Technica, Damon)  (Tip: Damon)

Environmentalist except in your backyard

Ben Adler asks, “Can environmentalists be their own worst enemy?” He’s referring to the common pattern of people who support a healthier planet, but when it comes to something that affects them personally, whether housing in Brookland, wind turbines in Nantucket Sound or roads through a park, those values go out the window. This is a sad and common pattern, but not at all specific to environmentalists.  (Tip: Jaime)

Break out the white paint

It turns out there’s a very simple way we could save $1 trillion in carbon emissions: just paint roads and roofs white in warm climates. (Infrastructurist)

Japan’s roads to nowhere

Japan has far more roads and expressways than other industrialized nations, many in places where nobody needs them, or people need a walkable street instead of a high-speed expressway. Who made them do this? Americans.

Streets are different in Japan, too

In Tokyo, there’s no on-street parking at all, because the roads are too narrow. Also, instead of gutters between the sidewalks and the traffic lanes as in most countries, the gutters are right against the buildings, with small ramps bridging them at entrances. (How We Drive, Planetizen)

Lewis, Kojo talk big box reuse

Yesterday’s Kojo Nnamdi Show covered the growing movement to reuse dead strip malls for other purposes, whether “neighborhoods crafted in the suburban mold can be “retrofitted” and re-energized and whether neighborhoods with a suburban feel should be open to these projects.” (Jaime)  (Tip: Jaime)

Navarro probably wins District 4

On election night, Nancy Navarro led Ben Kramer by a narrow 78 votes in the Montgomery District 4 race. After most of the absentee ballots were counted, she leads by 75. Maryland Politics Watch declares it extremely unlikely Kramer can win now.

Arts event for city’s elite excludes emerging arts

Color me unsurprised: a fancy event to showcase DC’s arts world, attended by Councilmembers, White House staffers, and Michelle Obama, focused entirely on the major arts institutions like the Shakespeare Theatre while excluding small theaters, music, crafts and young people. (Creative DC)