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As I’ve been pointing out for a while now, mass transit is dying thanks to a pandemic that has accustomed many white collar workers to spending one or two days a week at home. The situation is especially grim in the Bay Area which was once considered one of the best rail and bus systems in the country.Its pre-COVID ridership is unlikely to return in the next decade, making BART’s future especially perilous as transit agencies across the Bay Area and the nation project massive budget shortfalls.In its worst-case scenario, BART would impose mass layoffs, close on weekends, shutter two...

Inflation is crippling rural America and driving some people to consider moving closer to cities in an effort to ease the financial stress, according to the latest analysis from one expert. Iowa State University professor Dave Peters has been studying the effect of inflation on people in rural communities as part of the school's Small Town Project. He found that this year alone, expenses for rural Americans had increased by 9.2%, but their earnings only increased by 2.6%. And Peters has pinpointed where it's hurting most. "Mainly, fuel prices, particularly among the farmer and agricultural community," he said. "They really...

Welcome to The Bicycle Thread. A monthly PING List for bicycle enthusiasts to share experiences, information and ideas.

SEATTLE, WA — Of the many rage-inducing behaviors you encounter out on the roads, HOV-lane cheaters are among the most infuriating. But there's a subclass of those cheaters who take the infraction one step further by putting a fake passenger in the car to make it look like they're not cheating

Commuters who live in western Prince William and Fauquier counties can leave the driving to someone else come Dec. 17 when a new bus begins round-trip service from Haymarket to Arlington. The “OmniRide Haymarket Express” will make four trips in the morning and four return trips in the afternoon and early evening. It will run along I-66 between Haymarket and the Rosslyn Metro station. The trips will originate from the new park-and-ride lot on the northeast corner of U.S. 15 and Interstate 66. The Monday-through Friday service is meant to give workers an alternative to traveling by car. It’s the...

<p>It’s a good thing that New York is the city that never sleeps — since it takes all day to get anywhere.</p> <p>A perfect storm of subway repairs, highway construction, commuter rail woes and worsening gridlock is creating a commuter doomsday the likes of which the city has never seen before.</p>

Ryan Heenan used to make $30,000 a year as a preschool music teacher. Now he makes $30,000 a month producing jingles and videos through a website caller Fiverr -- and he does so from the comfort of his home in Orange County, California. Heenan is part of an explosion in home-based work opportunities occurring thanks to the Internet. Consumer reporters such as myself used to struggle to offer people legitimate work-at-home options. In fact, most of our stories on the subject were about work-at-home scams. But now there are all sorts of solid opportunities to make a living in your...

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Maryland officials are eyeing a $2.9 billion light rail project long in the works for Baltimore as a way of combating the crushing poverty that fueled rioting in the city after the police-custody death of Freddie Gray. Backers say the proposed Red Line light rail project could speed city residents to jobs and help end the isolation of poor neighborhoods, some of which still bear the scars of race riots in the 1960s...

Between commuting time and work hours, New York City residents have the longest work weeks among the country's 30 biggest cities, city Comptroller Scott Stringer said in a report released Tuesday. The report said a typical week for a full-time New York worker adds up to more than 49 hours, including an average of more than six hours of commuting time. That was more than four hours longer than in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the average work week was about 44 1/2 hours. Commuting time made up just under 3 1/2 hours of that. The report was based on data from...

From “Commuting in America 2013″ via AASHTO. Lots of growth in private transportation, but public transit, telecommuting and walking to work have stayed fairly flat. Despite prognostications of a newly urbanized populace that’s hungry for public transportation, the statistics seem to tell a different story.

It's been 21 years, and John Moore still eagerly leans against his passenger window to watch the landscape pass by as the train he commutes on every day roars over the Moodna Viaduct in Cornwall, New York. The green hills and vibrant leaves just below the elevated track make the trestle one of the prettiest scenes on the 57-year-old's trip. For more than two decades, the senior business analyst has been traveling about 67 miles for work from his home in Cornwall to lower Manhattan. His total commute time is 2½ hours each way.

Owning a car will cost the average American driver more than $9,100 this year, the AAA has revealed. The automotive club unveiled its annual study of driving costs on Tuesday and found that the average sedan owner will rack of $0.61 for every mile on the road. SUV drivers are in for even more pain in the wallet - $0.77 per mile or $11,600 a year. The AAA estimates include nearly all expenses of taking to the road - from the cost of the car itself to gasoline, tires, insurance and repairs. The data estimates that Americans drive 15,000 miles...

JANESVILLE, Wis. – In the early dawn, after another week building cars, Michael Hanley leaves his job in Kansas. He quickly zips into Missouri, then heads up a ribbon of highway past grain silos and grazing deer, across the frozen fields of Iowa, over the Mississippi River and into the rolling hills of Wisconsin. Finally, he pulls into his driveway — 530 miles later. It's one heck of a haul: more than 1,000 miles roundtrip, 16-plus hours of driving, every week. "I like to say I gave up an eight-minute commute for an eight-hour commute," he says wearily, running a...

To my Conservative Friends: Since it is a slow news day, I would like to comment on a topic that has been sitting in my craw for some time... I, like many of you, commute to work and often use mass transit. Therefore, I am constantly amazed at the absolute, unabashed, naked selfishness of people. I live near New York City, which is comprised of approximately 75%-80% of the most bed-wetting, out-of-touch liberal socialists there are. So you would think the caring, open-minded, sensitive, PC libs of the big city should show some civility and care about their fellow man....

Block the road all nite BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Oct. 15, 2000.) According to a recent newspaper article that I carefully clipped out and then lost but I remember the gist of, traffic gridlock in the United States is very bad. It's getting to the point where many commuters arrive at work, use the bathroom, then immediately begin commuting home. FACT: The average American commuter whose car radio is tuned to a ''Classic Rock'' station spends more time singing along to the Kiss song ''Rock And Roll All Nite'' than talking with his...

The last time the three-wheeled Aptera was featured on our site, we promised to keep you abreast of any new information that we found. Thanks to a tip from a reader named Matthew, we are pleased to let you know that Aptera is now accepting orders. Aptera has a Web site here, but there is not a great deal of information or raw-data to be found there. A better source of information is at their MySpace page, which is here. According to this article, Aptera is looking at around 300 miles per gallon along with acceptable performance numbers of about...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The American Automobile Association of California said some drivers are now paying up to $5 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline. Crude oil prices hit an all-time high Wednesday, above $98 a barrel and analysts said with worldwide oil demand rising -- it is still not clear just how high prices will go. In Salinas, AAA recorded an average of $3.39 per gallon. Santa Cruz is at an average of $3.37 per gallon. KSBW checked and found gas in Gorda, south of Big Sur, is even higher. Drivers there are paying $5 for gas. Over the past...

For most of us facing gridlocked roads and packed trains, the Monday morning commute is a more pressing concern than climate change. Staggering rush hours could tackle climate change But there may be a single solution to both, according to business leaders. The Institute of Directors is calling for flexible hours and more home working to help tackle global warming. Miles Templeman, the institute's director-general, said offering employees greater flexibility would ease pressure on transport networks and cut rush-hour power demand - thereby reducing emissions. Mr Templeman urged ministers not to rush into policies that risked harming the economy, such...

MORE than 60 years after jets took to the air, the dream of using them for personal transport has come closer to reality with a new type of small aircraft that will begin filling the skies this year. The era of the relatively affordable very light jet was proclaimed by the US Federal Aviation Administration this week when it forecast that thousands of the winged limousines would be taking up airspace within a few years. Policing the traffic could be a headache, the administration said. Five firms are behind the first wave of the high-tech aircraft, which seat four to...

Americans commute earlier and longer: studyTue Oct 17, 2006 8:33 AM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans are leaving home earlier to get work, fewer are walking, and more are driving alone, according to a study of commuting trends released on Monday.The study, published by the Transportation Research Board, found people are also taking longer to reach their workplaces, with the number of people with commutes lasting more than 60 minutes growing by almost 50 percent between 1990 and 2000.Alan Pisarski, author of the study 'Commuting in America III,' said the average national travel times among the nation's 128 million...