Selling trees, LA traffic tech, best performing city, diversity shifts, and the best USA map ever
It's another week of smaller items:
- Could somebody explain to me why the Forest Service can sell their dead trees and get them removed for free (or actually a profit), but Harris County has to pay taxpayer funds to do the same thing? Is it a volume issue? The type of trees involved? Has Harris County even explored a similar option? Maybe a private company would remove them for free and resell the lumber?
- A Forbes story on the sophisticated, real-time traffic light synchronization system in Los Angeles. I know Houston does some good traffic light syncing, but I don't think it's adjustable on the fly like it is in LA. Something we should definitely look into. And more good news: LA will sell all the software for a relatively inexpensive $75k. Money well spent if it makes the traffic flow better in this town. First up: Uptown! (Hillcroft and Harwin to Weslayan)
"Repeated studies since the 1990s have found that travel times fall by 15% near connected signals and motorists make 20% to 30% fewer stops, massive improvements for a cost of about $150,000 per intersection."
"The Milken Institute's annual survey of Best-Performing Cities reveals that, for the second year in a row, other states can't mess with Texas.
San Antonio led the list of 200 large metro areas, and Houston was first among the 10 biggest. In fact, Texas metros occupied four of the Top 5 positions (vs. three last year), and nine of the Top 25 (vs. 11 in 2010)."
- From New Geography: "Houston, the nation’s energy capital, has enjoyed the fastest growth in per-capita income in the past decade. No reason to expect this to slow down much this year."
"Houston's total personal income (TPI) grew at an annual rate of 5.69 percent between 2000 and 2010. That was the fastest pace set by any of America's 75 major metros, according to an On Numbers analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis."
- Some cool maps from Aaron Renn showing the shifting diversity of the country. Relative to the rest of the country, Houston has been losing proportional Black and Hispanic population concentration, and gaining Asian population concentration and children. Sort of surprising (this was in the decade of the Katrina evacuation of New Orleans). Obviously we're gaining tons of population overall, it's just that Black and Hispanic population concentrations have grown nationally faster than they have in the Houston metro.
- Federal rules are getting a little more logical for funding mass transit. Hat tip to Nathan.
"Transit projects should be built where it’s cheapest to serve the most riders. This principle can and should stand on its own."
Finally, check out the coolest USA map ever created. A guy spent a solid two years full-time making it. Highly recommended, especially if you have children and you want them to learn some geography. I ordered two, including one as a gift (you can buy it here). Just got it up on my wall yesterday, and it looks amazing. Just beautiful.
Labels: census, costs of congestion, demographics, economy, environment, growth, mobility strategies, rankings, transit
posted by Tory Gattis @ 6:38 PM
1 Comments:
I've been told timber companies won't buy urban trees because they might have nails in them that ruin their saws. Just hearsay.
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