Posted on 03/13/2016 7:25:49 PM PDT by MtnClimber
DENVER -- Denver is one of seven finalists for the country’s first ever “Smart City” and a $50 million prize.
The “Smart City” challenge will choose one city to define what it means to be a “Smart City” and become the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies – self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors – into their transportation network.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced Denver along with Austin, Texas, Columbus, Ohio, Kansas City, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco as the finalists.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has pledged up to $40 million and Vulcan Inc., added $10 million to the pot for the winning city.
“We want to win this, make no mistake about it,” Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said. “This is a big deal. I don’t want to understate that.”
Denver’s population is growing rapidly and so is the traffic.
“The whole world is moving to Denver right now,” CDOT’s Executive Director Shailen Bhatt said. “We have a transportation system that was designed in the ‘50s, built in the ‘60s, for a population of the 1980s in Colorado.”
Technology has advanced since then, so the idea is to use it to improve our mobility.
“Instead of having to widen a highway or roadways we can use the system and technology to move traffic more efficiently,” Bhatt said.
It may sound crazy – but the idea of self-driving cars, and an entire signal system connected by a database – is not far off.
(Excerpt) Read more at kdvr.com ...
Is the check signed by George Soros?
Right, skiers never touch pot - lol
if my town ever’goes this way, i will be moving.
I never thought I would see a sentence where they called Denver a smart city.
$50 million! That won’t even get the bureaucrats coffee.
The downtown homeless had been camping out near the Samaritan shelter. The past 7 days the camps were cleaned up with the make shift tarps and crates hauled away. And now look...Denver is a finalist for a bunch of money. How coincidental. A bunch of spy sensors will not improve the traffic congestion. They just need to keep widening the roads. Already done: Boulder Turnpike, I-225, I-25 near downtown. The next big project is to widen I-70 from I-225 to I-25. And stop building housing in every spare plot of land such as to increase population density. The Denver government and the land developers want to build, build, build. The spy sensors(smart grid) will be a worthless joke of an expenditure. Preserve open space. More parks. More nature trails. If you build it, they will come...so stop building it.
Just finished watching the 2008 series The Last Enemy. Your pic remember nded me of that as that skyline is in many scenes.
Sounds like Denver thought the show was a “How To” instead of a warning.
Your remark makes perfect sense.
Anything the lefties say, generally the opposite is true.
Yes, smart means stupid.
Just like the Affordable Care Act is not affordable and has nothing to do with care.
I don’t want to be a slave to a self driving car or any “smart” technology. No more of my freedom will be given to our government tyrants.
We visited my sister-in-law in Colorado Springs a couple summers ago.
The place is a real crap hole compared to what it used to be.
In her neighborhood most are too lazy to mow their grass, tall weeds growing 2 & 3 feet high. Trash littering all over. No one cares.
the marijuana smokers would probably rather spend their money on their habit instead of renting skis and lifts...
Things must have changed a lot since I was there
This smart city nonsense is dumb, dumb, dumb. Denver can have the title, and waste their money on it.
I smell it too!
The U.S. Treasury is the country’s newest Publisher’s Clearing House giving away prizes? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
H O W E V E R …
The only clause in Congress’s constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers that arguably gives the corrupt Washington cartel a lame excuse to appropriate taxes for such an INTRAstate proect is Clause 7 which gives Congress the power to make mail roads.
Note that Thomas Jefferson advised deliberately forcing narrow interpretations of the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers to force the states to amend the Constitution in such cases.
"In every event, I would rather construe so narrowly as to oblige the nation to amend, and thus declare what powers they would agree to yield, than too broadly, and indeed, so broadly as to enable the executive and the Senate to do things which the Constitution forbids." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.
So just as with Obamacare and possibly Trumpcare, the states need to amend the Constitution to actually make such federal spending programs like “smart” cities constitutional.
Otherwise, unconstitutional federal funding for this “smart” city program is another example of the corrupt feds unconstitutionally expanding their powers in small steps which James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had warned against.
”I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” —James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)
”To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” —Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791
”The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797.
Remember in November !
When patriots elect Trump, Cruz, or whatever conservative they elect, they also need to elect a new, state sovereignty-respecting Congress that will not only work within its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers to support the president, but also protect the states from unconstitutional federal government overreach, federal funding for “smart” cities an example.
Also, consider that such a Congress would probably be willing to fire state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices.
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Not me, I believe in recycling
Was referring to the Millenials in general
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