But... But... Where will I park?!

London 2012 Olympics the first to be "car-free" Eight million people are expected at the London 2012 Olympics but their cars are not invited. The 2012 games will be car free, a first for the Olympics, with the only options for transport between the venues 1) walking, 2) biking or 3) public transport. The "car exclusion zones" include parts of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Weymouth and Portland in Dorset. With 800,000 people expected to converge on venues in a day, one organizer described it as the "country's largest peacetime logistical operation." The organizers expect the ban on cars to extend to other events in the future. Hugh Sumner, the ODA transport director, said "We want to leave both a hard legacy in terms of infrastructure and a living legacy in the way people think about transport and about how they travel to sports and cultural events." The organizers don't even want to encourage driving to edge of the car free zones. Plans were scrapped for two park-and-ride sites on the M25 and M11. Even the handicapped will only be allowed a limited number of parking spots outside of the car exclusion zones. Hugh says "We want to accelerate the shift to public transport and cycling that we have seen in London in recent years. ... We will make it very plain to people that there isn't going to be parking." The organizers are giving detailed information on how to get to the events with the ticket order and updated information will be sent to cell phones. Organizers will help in getting to the games car free by giving out all-zones travel card and discounted, flat-rate rail tickets. Don't feel too bad for the people that decide to brave the first car free Olympics. The gap between the trains at the London 2012 Olympics will be 13.87 seconds. For two months around the games, 80,000 people in the "Olympic Family" (athletes, officials and media), get their own lane, called "Zil Lanes" on major routes in London. [Source: AutoBlogGreen]

Bummer

Late last night I was taking the recycling to the curb and I saw something I haven't seen for a long time... My breath. It's hard to believe another summer has come and gone. The days are getting shorter. The nights are getting colder, and I... am... bummed.

Friday Rant: You're On Notice!

Not so new blog: Greetings From Waldo

Today I cheat in an attempt to stave off my writer's block. I'll talk about someone else who is a damn sight better writer than I am. I've known Bridgette Heos from back in the day when she was the do-it-all writer for The Wednesday Magazine. She and I used to sit at the cool kids table at the Brookside Merchants Association meetings. Bridgette taught me that every conversation you have with a journalist can end up in print! Anyway, check out Greetings From Waldo. It's a glimpse into the world of a stay-at-home-mom-freelance-journalist and it's funny stuff. Today she chronicles a typical morning in minute-by-minute fashion. 7:10 a.m. Baby somehow gets out of bed and sees a tin of Pringles left on the kitchen counter. Damn. This conversation is not going to go well. It's good stuff. Add her to your feed reader. You can say you knew her when.

Just Write

Ugh! I haven't been able to write anything for over a week. I've had so many stops and starts. Nothing rings true. Nothing I start to write about excites me. Taking the advice of my undergrad American Literature professor, I'm going to kick myself in the pants and force myself to write. He advised us to write every day. About anything. About everything. So that is what I'm going to do. It's not like there's suddenly nothing to write about. There are so many things I could be talking about on TheKansasCityPost.com. The fact that the mayor seems to be doing an end-run around the Citizens Task Force on Light Rail and promoting his own "regional" plan, whatever that is. I could write about ticket sales at the Sprint Center (yeah I know, who cares?). The irony of attending our last Light Rail Task Force meeting and they had free parking validation but no transfer passes for those of us that actually took the bus? So today I write. I write to purge. I write to hopefully prime the pump and get some ideas flowing. Mostly I write because I miss it. More later. That is all. As you were.