tingilinde

issues with navigating the arctic ocean

Just because the waters are opening doesn't mean safe navigation is a given.

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On August 24, 2018, the Russian passenger vessel Akademik Ioffe ran aground with a shudder as it sailed through narrows in the Canadian Arctic. I was aboard when the accident occurred in the remote Gulf of Boothia, an area not surveyed to adequate hydrographic standards and where none of the vessel’s crew had ever been before.

On board were 24 of us on a U.S. National Science Foundation-sponsored expedition, as well as 102 tourists and 37 crew members. We knew the ship was in trouble, but we had no idea how bad things actually were until the Transportation Safety Board of Canada released a report two weeks ago. Among other findings, the report says that the Russian crew had turned off the low-water depth alarms; that the captain immediately used the engines to try to refloat the vessel, a decision that went against standard practices because using propulsion could further open up a gashed hull; and that the ship’s officers wrongly informed passengers that the hull had not been breached and that the ship was not leaking oil.

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a: norway

Q:. Which European country has the stiffest driving penalties?

 

 

A most unusual railway - and a tip of the hat to Greg

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The line opened in 1888, and is one of the few funiculars employing water propulsion. At the upper station, tanks on the downhill car are filled with up to 7,000 litres (1,500 imp gal; 1,800 US gal) of water to ensure that it is heavier than the uphill car. The downhill car then pulls the uphill car uphill with a 452-metre (1,483 ft) long steel cable. When the downhill carriage arrives at the lower station, the water is discharged and pumped uphill.[1]

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the history of the automobile

A nice 40 minute audio piece on BBC's Forum.

a lot of interesting commentary in this one

 

 

 

the roman roads of britain

 

 

copenhagen takes aim at being the best bicycling city in the world

Currently 62% of residents commute to school or work on a bike.  There's been a boom in the past decade and the city government is improving cycling infrastructure.   

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To make commuting by bike even easier, faster and more comfortable, Copenhagen has built 17 new bridges dedicated for bicycles over the city’s harbors and canals since 2006 — 15 of them in the last four years. Also, a series of more than a dozen supercykelsti — or cycle superhighways — have been set up to create higher-speed, traffic-light-free bike paths from the suburbs that stretch up to 15 miles.

Taken together, the efforts to bolster the cycling infrastructure while making driving and parking into the city prohibitively expensive and difficult send strong signals to commuters about where the priorities lie. (A parking ticket can cost as much as $80.)

“Cycling has truly exploded in the last 10 years,” said Yael Bassan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur whose Copenhagen Bicycles shop rents out about 2,000 bikes per day — nearly triple the number of four years ago. “It has even become an important tourist attraction in its own right. People come to Copenhagen from around the world to do some serious cycling in the city, or they just want to ride around for a few hours to get a few pictures to be able to prove they were cycling in Copenhagen.”

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ditching supercars in the desert

global fuel costs

Gasoline and diesel - by the liter and as a percent of income.

 

cash for clunkers

Finland and France have been offering cash that can be used for a bike or ebike in return for an old car - €2500 in France and €1000 in Finland. In Finland you can also use the money towards and electric car, but the ebike option has been more popular.  France also gives out €50 vouchers to repair old bikes - that's been extremely popular this year with more than 1.5 million bikes repaired. 

 

 

take the train

France may ban air travel on routes that trains can cover in 150 minutes. It only impacts a few routes and France has a robust passenger rail network, but it's a start.