Breakfast links: Hot trains, hot tempers

HSR looks better when you consider real projects

Ed Glaeser’s “back of the envelope calculations” for a silly HSR segment nobody is actually considering suggest HSR isn’t worth the investment. Yonah Freemark does his own calculation based on a real HSR proposal, the “Texas T-Bone,” and discovers far more benefit. (Infrastructurist, цarьchitect)

The bike lane made me commit assault

Newspapers sometimes editorialize that cities shouldn’t build any bike infrastructure until cyclists obey every law. But then, when a Staten Island driver jumps out of his car and physically shoves a cyclist, the local paper blames bike lanes and Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to make the city more bike-friendly.  (Streetsblog)

Bye bye boarders

We’ve discussed in the past how family sizes were larger decades ago, meaning the same size houses held more people than they do today. In addition, in 1900, 24% of households had a boarder or lodger, but only 2% do today. BeyondDC notes that’s a lot of affordable housing we didn’t replace with other affordable housing. (BeyondDC, Matt Yglesias)

It’s hot in there

Transport for London created a temperature map of the Tube showing the actual temperature inside stations, which reach 32°C (90°F). We need a map like this of the DC metro. Tipster J. says we could use such a map here in DC. The Post’s Robert Thomson recently measured some temperatures on some recent, extremely hot days. (The Map Scroll)

Park the festival

Park(ing) Day is September 18th, where people nationwide temporarily take over parking spaces to create actual parks and demonstrate the benefits of having more public space for actual public use. Montgomery’s Public Arts Trust is getting into the act, commissioning individuals and artists to “park” a few spaces on Ellsworth Drive in downtown Silver Spring during the Magical Montgomery arts and cultural festival. (RPUS)

And…

Orange County (Virginia, this time) approved a Wal-Mart near a historic Civil War battlefield, on a site preservationists say is part of the historic battle area (MyFoxDC, WTOP, Froggie) … Prince George’s County will stop giving small children free bus rides (WMATA, Gavin Baker) … Sustainable Savannah argues the urge to keep adding more parking downtown is destroying the quality that makes downtown Savannah worth visting. (Michael P)  (Tip: Froggie)