Out of Town

Jeff Marshall avoids onerous airport security by commuting in his own Soviet fighter jet.

Remember Wednesday's guess-the-anonymous-suburb contest? I'm very impressed: You all knew the right region -- the northeast United States. (Was it the Ames sign? The trees? The first comment suggesting that this was a place "north of the city"?)

In 2001, shortly after being elected the Mayor of Paris on a platform promising to "fight, with all the means at my disposal, against the harmful, ever-increasing and unacceptable hegemony of the automobile," Bertrand Delanoë began implementing a series of far-reaching transportation reforms throughout the City of Light.

DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall's two week European vacation has gotten off to a lousy start. NPR is reporting that Weinshall, her husband, Senator Chuck Schumer, and their two daughters were stuck in Heathrow Airport for hours after yesterday's terrorism arrests. The Commissioner and her family were planning on visiting Amsterdam and Paris but have decided to stay put in London and then go to Paris, a DOT spokesperson says.

Correpsondent Pascal van den Noort sends news of this project that his organization, Velo Mondial is working on in Qatar. The ruler of Qatar, Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani wants to get his people riding bicycles. One of the challenges in accomplishing this goal is the fact that, for much of the year, Qatar is hotter than a blast furnace.

Transponder on the dashboard of a car zipping through the traffic-free streets of Stockholm on January 3, 2006, the first day of that city's congestion pricing experiment. (Photo: Papa Razzi1)

London Mayor Ken Livingstone:"Cycling is the fastest, cheapest, most healthy and environmentally friendly way to get around London, which is why we are investing almost £20 million this year to improve cycle facilities in the capital. The number of cyclists on our roads has doubled since 2000 and we've already exceeded our cycling targets five years ahead of schedule, on top of achieving a shift from car use to public transport. I will now be looking at setting tougher targets so we can continue to build on this success and encourage many more cyclists in London."

Tonight is the Museum Mile Festival. From 6:00 to 9:00 pm, twenty-three blocks of Fifth Avenue from 82nd Street to 105th Streets will be closed to traffic for the event billed as "New York's Biggest Block Party." Admission to the museums is free and there are all kinds of events, workshops and street performances.