Matt Yglesias points to a recent IBM study trying to map much people hate commuting to work and points to this interesting chart:

From this, Matt concludes that all manner of government policies could be framed as a way of reducing the pain of commuting: higher gas taxes, congestion pricing, and so forth.

I simply don’t believe the numbers.   Matt’s commenter Paulie Carbone encapsulates my objection nicely:

I think people are radically overstating how much they dislike traffic. 18% are willing to pay over $30 to save 15 minutes? If you commute to and from work, and work 5 days a week, 50 weeks per year, that’s at least an extra $7,500 per year.

And who really values their time that highly? If you think 15 minutes is worth $30, that’s $120/hour. Would these same people not work for anything less than $120 an hour?

I make a decent living and insisted on the ability to work from home at least one day a week before taking my present job.  I find driving 45 minutes average each way a ridiculous waste of time.  But I wouldn’t pay $120 a day  ($20 x 3 x 2) to avoid it.

The problem with these surveys is that most people are innumerate.  (Which explains, for example, why a significant number of people spend more on child care, commuting costs, lunches, dry cleaning, and the like than they actually net from an unsatisfying job because the family “needs the money.”)

Monday, Samoa will switch to driving on the left side of the road in order to benefit from cheap used cars from Australia and New Zealand.  This gave Time’s Randy James to explain, “Why Don’t We All Drive on the Same Side of the Road?”  It’s especially odd that two-thirds of the world drives on the right, since most of us are right-handed and driving on the left is not only much more convenient but was the norm for centuries.

Theories differ, but there’s no doubt Napoleon was a major influence. The French have used the right since at least the late 18th century (there’s evidence of a Parisian “keep-right” law dating from 1794). Some say that, before the French Revolution, aristocrats drove their carriages on the left, forcing the peasantry to the right. Amid the upheaval, fearful aristocrats sought to blend in with the proletariat by traveling on the right as well. Regardless of the origin, Napoleon brought right-hand traffic to the nations he conquered, including Russia, Switzerland and Germany. (Hitler, in turn, ordered right-hand traffic in Czechoslovakia and Austria in the 1930s). Nations that escaped right-handed conquest, such as Great Britain, preserved their left-handed tradition.

Nor was the U.S. always a nation of right-hand drivers; earlier in its history, carriage and horse traffic traveled on the left, as it did in England. But by the late 1700s, the theory goes, teamsters driving large wagons pulled by several pairs of horses began prompting a shift to the right. A driver would sit on the rear left horse in order to wield his whip with his right hand; to see opposite traffic clearly, they traveled on the right.

One of the final moves to firmly standardize traffic directions in the U.S. occurred in the 20th century, when Henry Ford decided to mass-produce his cars with controls on the left (one reason, stated in a 1908 catalog: the convenience for passengers exiting directly onto the curb, “especially… if there is a lady to be considered.”) Once these norms were set, many countries eventually adjusted to conform to the right-hand standard, including Canada in the 1920s, Sweden in 1967 and Burma in 1970. The United Kingdom and former colonies such as Australia and India are among the western world’s few remaining holdouts.

One would think that the holdouts would switch to right-hand driving if simply for the ability to market their cars more easily.  But, as the decades-long effort to switch the United States to the near ubiquitous and much simpler Metric system demonstrate, people fight very hard to hang on to cultural norms.

In my early morning Teddy Kennedy Dead at 77 media roundup post, I observed, “That the Chappaquiddick scandal didn’t make the first several paragraphs — or even first page — of several of these obits is quite remarkable. It would be like writing an obit for Richard Nixon that didn’t mention Watergate or one for Michael Jackson that glossed over repeated allegations of pedophilia.”

Hanna Rosin expands on that point quite a bit, including implicitly pointing out that it was a rather large elephant in the room:

Google Trends this morning is a perfect window into our tabloid culture and the recesses of our depraved minds. While the papers are full of words like “dynasty” and “legacy,” Mary Jo Kopechne, according to Google Hot Trends, is uppermost in our thoughts. Her name comes up as number one in the ranking, and several more places on the list, misspelled. Chappaquiddick shows up high and often, too; once correctly, and then in several illiterate incarnations.

Partly, I blame this discrepancy on the American papers, which are still bent on hagiography. I prefer British obituaries, which tell it like it is. And partly, of course, this is the fault of our vapid tabloid culture. The only surprise today is that Kate Gosselin has been knocked back all the way to number 30. “Michael Jackson alive” is a popular trend. Yeah. Jamming with Elvis.

Finally, there is the issue of the obvious narrative the papers are not stringing together. In my mind, I’ve always equated Ted Kennedy with Chuck Colson, the disgraced Nixon aide who went on to found an admirable Christian organization called “Prison Fellowship.” Public officials who do terrible things and then say they’re sorry (often in a press conference or book) are a dime a dozen. But the ones who do something terrible and then repent indirectly in the form of a lifetime of dedicated public service are rare. Colson and Kennedy are just about the only two I can think of.

Mary Jo Kopechne is on our minds because this narrative about Ted Kennedy makes sense, in some intuitive, appealing way. Kennedy killed a girl. That’s his rosebud. He made up for it partly by declining the ultimate glory of running for president, and choosing the more humble path—helping the underclass using the slow, steady machinery of the Senate.

Other than the fact that Kennedy actually did run for president — in a bitter primary battle with President Jimmy Carter in 1980 — that all strikes me as right. And, indeed, the Guardian obit covers this neatly in a single paragraph:

Kennedy’s career was significantly blighted by the Chappaquiddick incident of 1969 in which the car he was driving ran off a bridge and plunged into the water, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. While he never reached the pinnacle of power, Kennedy eventually shed his playboy image to become a serious political presence in the Senate. His death marks the twilight of a political dynasty and deals a blow to Democrats as they seek an overhaul of the healthcare system, one of Kennedy’s personal goals.

Teddy Kennedy lived an extraordinary life of tremendous accomplishment interspersed with some horrible scandals and family tragedy.  It’s why he was such a fascinating figure. But his story simply can’t be told without the word Chappaquiddick.

UPDATE:  E&P’s Sam Chamberlain tallied how far into the obits the first mention of the incident appeared:

NY Daily News- 13^th graf

Associated Press- 7^th graf

Boston Herald-  10^th graf

Boston Globe-  5^th graf

NY Times- 14^th graf

NY Post- 14^th graf

Washington Post-  9^th graf

Wall Street Journal-  6^th graf

LA Times-  12^th graf

Chicago Tribune-  12^th graf (same obit as LA Times)

Miami Herald-  10^th graf

Reuters- 18^th graf

USA Today- 19th graf

Politico- 24th graf

The Hill-NO MENTION

Roll Call-25th graf

National Journal-11th graf

Times of London- 8^th graf

In fairness, for a variety of reasons having to do with the printing and editing process from bygone days, a newspaper “graf” is often much shorter than a proper paragraph.  Still, the most notable single fact about Kennedy’s life was mentioned well after the average reader would have lost interest.

John Cole points to a new law in Colorado making it illegal for motorists to throw objects at bicycles.  Previously, it has only been a citable offense if one’s aim was good.

Cole wonders, “What kind of twisted jackass throws something out of a car at a biker?” and several of his commenters note the high degree of hostility bikers face from those in cars.

It is indeed amazing that people would intentionally try to harm a stranger merely for riding a bike.  Then again, the concept of “road rage” has been around for years, so it’s not surprising that bikers get their share of the abuse.

More generally, because we’ve designed our roads for motor vehicles, having bicycles mixed in naturally promotes frustration.  It simply doesn’t work to have people in spandex peddling along at 15 miles an hour next to half-ton vehicles driving at 65 competing for space.

My daily drive out of DC into the Virginia suburbs is often frustrating because of the confluence of high volumes of traffic, tour buses, commuter buses, taxi cabs, and vending trucks.  Lanes are frequently blocked by buses and venders, causing people to unexpectedly change lanes.  People drive aggressively to avoid being run over or cut off.

Adding bicyclists to the mix is insane.  While they always seem to think they’re the aggrieved party, the fact of the matter is that few of them obey the rules of the road.  They weave in and out of traffic unexpectedly. They hog lanes rather than driving to the right.  They run stop signs and stop lights.  They’re alternately vehicles and pedestrians as suits them.

It’s hard enough to make a right turn in DC because of the buses, which often seem to ride in convoys that amount to a moving road block and/or force their way into the lane.   So, drivers of normal vehicles have to make snap judgments — if it’s clear, you go.  And then some idiot on a bicycle darts in from the sidewalk or a non-existent lane of traffic.   It’s truly a wonder more of them aren’t killed.

The answer, of course, is more bike lanes so that bicyclists can ride on their own terms.  But, unless or until we do that, motorists and cyclists are going to be at odds.

Aaron Brazell passes along word that DC and Baltimore are the most dangerous driving cities, as calculated by Allstate Insurance.  Bengt Havorson has the list:

The Safest Driving Top Ten

1. Sioux Falls, SD
2. Fort Collins, CO
3. Chattanooga, TN
4. Cedar Rapids, IA
5. Knoxville, TN
6. Fort Wayne, IN
7. Lexington-Fayette, KY
8. Eugene, OR
9. Boise, ID
10. Colorado Springs, CO

Bottom of the List – Riskiest Driving Cities

1. Washington, D.C.
2. Baltimore, MD
3. Glendale, CA
4. Hartford, CT
5. Newark, NJ
6. Philadelphia, PA
7. Elizabeth, NJ
8. Providence, RI
9. San Francisco, CA
10. Los Angeles, CA

I’ve lived and driven in Chattanooga and now live in the DC suburbs and commute into the city most days.  While I found both aggravating, mostly because constant construction projects added to traffic congestion, there’s not much doubt in my mind that DC is a worse place to drive.

Looking at how these are calculated, though, I’m a bit dubious.

To arrive at its lists, Allstate, which has about 11.3 percent of U.S. auto-insurance policies, analyzed its claim data for all collisions resulting in property damage claims. To help reduce the chances of influences like weather or construction, Allstate looked at a period of two years from January 2006 to December 2007. The figures were calculated toward “average years between collision” for drivers, and though they might represent an element of relative risk they’re not being used to determine rates.

Let’s presume that Allstate has representative policy holdings across the states.  Wouldn’t “accidents per mile driven” or “accidents per hour driven” by more useful than “years between accidents”?

UPDATE:  Steve Bainbridge thinks it may be no coincidence that DC is both the most dangerous city to drive in and that “DC also has more red light and speed cameras than almost any metro area in the country. Indeed, DC has nearly 10% of all the traffic cameras in the United States.”

Meanwhile, Stacy McCain has some, um, interesting suggestions on how to solve the problem.

The release for a new Harris Poll is titled “Large Majority of Drivers Who Own Cell Phones Use Them While Driving Even Though They Know This Is Dangerous.”  The key findings:

• 72% of those who drive and own cell phones say they use them to talk while they are driving;

• A quarter of drivers with cell phones report using them to send or receive text messages while driving, although a large majority (74%) does not.

• Most of these people (66%) say they usually use hand-held rather than handsfree telephones to talk;

• Even in states that have banned the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, half (49%) of cell phone users use hand-held, rather than hands-free, phones;

• Only 2% of those who use cell phones while driving believe this is not dangerous at all. Most believe it is very dangerous (26%), dangerous (24%) or somewhat dangerous (33%);

• A 71% majority of those who use cell phones while driving believes that handsfree cell phones are safer than hand-held phones (even though some research suggest otherwise);

• Younger drivers are more likely than older drivers to talk on the phone while driving. Most (58%) “Matures” (people older than Baby Boomers, currently aged 64 or over) who drive and own cell phones say they do not use their cell phones while driving; and,

Andrew Malcolm quips, “So much for legislating chatter” and snarks “Prohibition laws caused the entire nation to stop drinking alcoholic beverages so successfully.”  And, indeed, the two may be comparable in that it’s very hard to stop people from doing what they want to do.  Even good citizens routinely exceed the speed limit and jaywalk, for example, because they (er, we) trust our own judgment and value our own convenience.

He also cites a 2003 Harvard study showing that “cellphone use contributed to 6% of all U.S. crashes, or 636,000 collisions, 330,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths annually.”  From this, he concludes, “Put another way, the risk center numbers would tell determined cellphone drivers that if they’re ever in an automobile accident, there’s a 94% chance it won’t have anything to do with their phone. Better odds than the lottery.”

Certainly, the odds of a particular cell phone conversation resulting in a serious accident are virtually nil.  The problem, of course, is that having most drivers on the road — and especially teens, the least safe among them — yapping on their phones increases everyone else’s risks.  And, while you or I may be able to successfully drive while engaging in a conversation via our mobiles, some percentage of the other drivers (in my experience, a number approaching 100%) are much less intelligent.

I’m not at all sure what the solution is.  The poll already demonstrates that people are aware of the danger; they merely discount it.  So education isn’t the likely solution.  Similarly, the fact that it’s illegal doesn’t seem to make much difference; people rationally conclude that the odds of getting caught are nil. And, frankly, I don’t want an army of cops out there peering into our windows.

So this may just be one of those dangers of living that we’ll have to cope with.

Photo by Flickr user Ryan Harvey under Creative Commons license.

Reacting to a report buttressing the obvious fact that “very small cars generally can’t protect people in crashes as well as bigger, heavier models,” an angry Michael O’Hare’s wonders “why is oversizing and up-weighting not the behavior associated with an increase in deaths on the highway? Why is the ’standard’ car the fat, thirsty, heavy vehicle of the reckless and self-indulgent?”

Proud Cooper Mini owner  Megan McArdle retorts, “As long as Americans insist on having children, and those children are legally required to spend their prepubescent years in some elaborate safety contraption, American cars aren’t going to get much smaller than an Accord.  And those Accords will continue to pose a mortal threat to those of us who drive smaller cars.”

What’s particularly bizarre about this debate, from the perspective of someone older than Megan and younger than O’Hare, is that I recall a time when very small cars were a virtual non-option for American drivers.  The first car my family owned that I can remember was a Rambler station wagon that would be thought of as enormous today but was just a normal car in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Our next car, a 1973 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus, was considered a mid-size car in those days but would be a very large car now.  Finally, in 1979, we bought a Toyota Corolla hatchback.  It was a decidedly small car but I was able to fit with reasonable comfort in the back seat as a taller-than-average 13-year-old; I suspect it was larger than Megan’s Mini.

That’s a longish way of saying that O’Hare’s sense — which seems to be widely shared — that Americans are suddenly driving behemoths rather than sensible cars is flat backwards.   The heyday of the very small car is now.  And even the Hummers and Escalades of today have a footprint smaller than our old Rambler wagon.

I just received the following as a CNN Breaking News Alert:

An amorous motorist faces a fine and a driving ban after he was caught having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on a highway, Norwegian media reported Tuesday.

Police spotted the car driving erratically on Sunday evening in Lier, southeastern Norway. It had been doing 123km/h in a 100 km/h zone, local news Web site ABC Nyheter reported. The officers quickly realized the driver was doing more than just breaking the speed limit.  After filming the incident for evidence, they finally pulled the car over.

Police officer Tor Stein Hagen told ABC Nyheter that the driver had the woman “on his lap” while the car was moving. “It was creating a various dangerous situation,” Hagen added.

After charging the driver, police allowed the 21-year-old woman to switch seats and drive her lover home.

Now, I’m not sure this qualifies as breaking news.  Indeed, I’m rather sure it doesn’t.

One has to love the sensibilities of Norwegian police however. They spot a speeding car and decide to pull it over.  They realize that the driver is doing something considerably more dangerous than driving 13 mph over the speed limit.  Naturally, they decide that, rather than pulling the dude over, they should capture the activity on film.  For evidence, of course.   Finally, they pull him over.  Hmm.

Photo by Flickr user Andreas H. Lunde under Creative Commons license.

People in Matt Yglesias‘ neighborhood have petitioned to increase the amount of time pedestrians get to cross New York Avenue at 5th St. NW from 20 to 45 seconds and they’ve been rejected.  The rationale:

DDOT is concerned that changing the walk time at this intersection may negatively impact pedestrian safety at this intersection further, in addition to negatively affecting traffic flow.  We would like to share these two impacts with you.

Signal and pedestrian timing at this intersection is set as a standardized actuated signal, which is in agreement with the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). Further, this standard is consistent with the requirements of Americans with Disabilities Act.  The MUTCD is the national standard for traffic signals and other infrastructure  matters.  In following these standards, the signal is designed to display visible countdown time only during the “do not walk” flashing time.  Therefore, the viewable walk time on this signal is only 20 seconds. The total time for pedestrians to cross however, is 30 seconds. The breakdown for the signal’s walk time is as follows:

5 seconds of walk time as background time (not seen)

3 seconds of yellow as background time (not seen)

2 seconds of all red signal as background time (not seen)

20 seconds visible walk time (viewable)

Although ten seconds are unseen, 20 seconds are still present for pedestrians to cross.  Thirty full seconds are documented as walk time in this signal.

If the signal is changed, even in a small increment, the total cycle signal length of the entire intersection will be altered and the allowable green time for traffic will be reduced.  This could result in additional traffic delays further along New York Avenue.  An overflow of traffic may adversely affect pedestrian safety as gridlocked traffic could occur through the intersections and crosswalks.

Matt summarizes: “beneath all the verbiage in their reply, what they’re saying comes down to the basic point that if you gave pedestrians more time to cross New York Avenue, that would slow New York Avenue traffic.”  Readers can decide for themselves whether that’s a fair reading.

This, though, strikes me as odd:

Management of a city involves hundreds—if not thousands—of these little decisions. Do we do what’s best for people on foot, or what’s best for people in cars? Since tilting policy on behalf of pedestrians rather than drivers is distributively progressive—the poor are less likely than the rich to own cars, especially in a place like DC—and environmentally beneficially and good for public health, I don’t see it as a very difficult choice. But not only did DDOT not make the pro-pedestrian choice, they don’t even really seem to see it as a choice. They just take it for granted that their job is to maximize the flow of vehicle traffic along New York Avenue. The rest of us just live in the neighborhood.

First, people are people regardless of whether they’re in a car or walking at any given moment. So, the question is “what’s best for people,” period.

Yes, there are tradeoffs here but they’re more complicated than who has to wait longer at the intersection.  DDOT is right that making cars wait longer results in backups, which create ripple effects.  Further, 30 seconds is more than long enough to cross the street.

Most of us who are driving are doing so because we’re going a long way — usually between DC and its suburbs but sometimes between far-flung parts of the District — not because we’re too lazy to walk.  Driving in DC is sufficiently inconvenient as it is that most of us will walk for many blocks rather than attempt to drive.

Because cars tend to move faster than pedestrians — although not always given DC traffic — there’s more likely to be a number of cars ready to go through an intersection at a given time than there is to be a queue of people waiting to cross.  Cars stopped at a light have to wait for the cars in front of them, one by one, to move through a light before they can do so themselves; this is known as the “accordion effect.”  Contrariwise, a gaggle of pedestrians waiting at a light can travel as a pack across the road in smart fashion, clearing the pent-up demand within the 30 seconds allotted without problem.   Indeed, I’ve never not made it across the street in one iteration of the light in pedestrian mode whereas I frequently have to wait through multiple iterations as a driver.

It’s worth noting, too, that the cultures of driving and walking are different.  I frequently drive into DC.  Once there, I become a pedestrian.   When I’m driving, I invariably stop for red lights and stay stopped for the duration of said lights.  When I’m walking, I stop at Don’t Walk signs and promptly cross as soon as I deem it safe to do so.   The vast majority of drivers and walkers act in this manner.  That means that longer lights are a far greater nuisance to drivers than pedestrians.

Finally, if one’s desire is to reduce the environmental impact of automobiles, creating longer periods of idling time is decidedly not the solution.

Photo by Flickr user Sara Richards under Creative Commons license.

Matt Yglesias explains why public transit should be free through an analogy:

Say there’s no road between Washington, DC and Frederick, Maryland. You can go from the one place to the other, but it involves going way out of your way even though it could be a pretty quick trip on a direct road. What you need to ask yourself about building such a road is what would it cost and would it be worth it? You don’t build the road expecting to turn a profit. And you shouldn’t really build it expecting tolls to finance it. You should build it because you want to encourage people to drive from DC to Frederick. But if you build the road and it comes to pass that it’s choked with traffic during certain periods of time you don’t respond by making the road wider. Just like with building the road in the first place, you make it wider if you want to increase the number of people driving. If you want to eliminate the congestion problem, then you charge people to drive on the road during the peak times. The transit situation is similar. If you don’t want people to take the Metro from Bethesda to Gallery Place, then you shouldn’t build the Metro. But if you do want people to take the Metro from Bethesda to Gallery Place then you shouldn’t charge them to ride. But if it turns out that your route is too popular at certain times of day, then you want to charge them in order to prevent overcrowding.

But, if the public policy goal is to get the benefits that come from getting people from point A to point B, I’m not sure this makes much sense.

For one thing, trying to prevent overcrowding by raising prices during popular times imposes the burden entirely on the poor.  The Tim Geithners and Tom Daschles of the world will travel when they damned well please but plumbers named Joe have to either fork over a meaningful chunk of their income or waste a lot of time arriving to places, including their workplaces, very early and leaving very late.   (There is, after all, a reason certain times are more popular than others.)

Beyond that, if we want people to drive from Bethesda into DC, then we should make it as convenient to do so as practical.  Indeed, I avoid driving to Bethesda, which is a perfectly nice place, like the plague because it’s not worth the hassle of getting there.  Give me more traffic lanes or faster, more pleasant public transit and I’d adapt accordingly.

UPDATE: Alternatively, we could replace people with ants and solve all the problems.

Photo by Flickr user Sagebrush Photography, used under Creative Commons license.

Megan McArdle has managed, after only five months of effort, to get an automobile registered in the District of Columbia.  Whilst not driving for said period, she managed to crack a mirror and run a red light.

I’m beginning to understand her preference for biking and public transit.

Photo via Flickr user shawnblog under Creative Commons license.

A debate about the relative desirability of city and suburban living is spreading through the blogosphere at a surprising clip, given the timelessness of the topic.   It began, as best I can determine, by Duncan “Atrios” Black (a PhD economist) explaining that there are tradeoffs to having a big yard.

[I]f everyone has a big yard the community ceases to be especially walkable. That isn’t to say that you can’t have developments with yards relatively near to retail, so that there is stuff within walking distance. You can still have corner shops or similar, but having sufficient residential density to support significant neighborhood-serving retail isn’t really compatible with everyone has a big yard.

Fellow economist Tyler Cowen passed along the post, headline and all as does econoblogger Megan McArdle (who’s tall and has an MBA), who responds,

Because I’ve always lived in cities, I don’t even understand the utility of the big yards I see in the suburbs.  I get the purpose of a yard for children and dogs to play in, and summers on the patio.  But I don’t get the point of the vast expanses of lawn that lie fallow in the more upscale suburbs.  They require vast upkeep for the benefit of . . . looking at green, empty space.  And the tradeoff seems to be a world where you can’t get anywhere without driving and your neighbors are distant apparitions.  Am I missing something?  Or do others perceive features where I see bugs?

Alex Massie, a journalist with, so far as I’m aware, no academic degrees in economics or business, observes that suburbia is the best real-life choice for many people:

[L]ife in suburbia is in many respects an attempt to split the difference, combining the fresh air, space and privacy of the countryside with the convenience and access to amenities of city life. (Plus, of course, in many American suburbs, better schools than are to be found in the inner-city).

Quite right.

Sure, there are trade-offs, especially for those of us with commutes.  But having grown quite accustomed to the space and privacy suburban living affords, I can’t imagine making the sacrifices required to live in a city full time.

There’s nothing quite like being in your own back yard — especially if it has a nice, high fence.  Neighbors as a distant apparition?  Unless you live in a mansion somewhere, that doesn’t exist in the suburbs.  But, yes, having the next residence 100 feet away — as opposed to sharing walls with them or, worse, having  their floor as your ceiling — is definitely a feature.

Much more living space for your buck?  Feature.

Guaranteed parking space?  Feature.

Having to drive everywhere?  Occasionally, a bug, although driving is itself much more pleasant in the suburbs than the city.   I enjoy having the ability to walk easily to a wide variety of restaurants and so forth and miss the fact that I don’t have that at home. Then again, it’s mighty hard to go grocery shopping on foot even in the best downtown areas, unless one wants to shop every day.  And it’s almost impossible to drive and park in most urban centers.  And don’t get me started on the trade-offs of public transportation.  (Let’s just say that knowing that everyone who’ll be commuting with you has bathed that day is a definite feature.)

Lawns to mow?  That’s a personal preference.  My dad always enjoyed coming home and working out in the yard; I never did.  When I had my first house, I mowed the grass mostly out of courtesy for my neighbors. Now that I’m older and can afford it, I outsource it.   But, yeah, I’d rather have a wide expanse of green vegetation outside my window than, say, winos.

Hank Williams, Jr. captured the sentiment nicely a quarter century ago:  “Just send me to hell or New York City, it would be about the same to me.”

UPDATE:  Two excellent points from the comments.  First, Charles Austin wonders, “Why do some people insist that we all have to enjoy and value the same things?”  Absolutely:  This is simply a matter of personal preference, not a value judgment, and one that I suspect largely depends on what one is used to.

Second, my colleague Dave Schuler points out that all “cities” aren’t Manhattan, Boston, or DC.

I live in a single family home in the city of Chicago (in the city) in the Sauganash neighborhood. I have a nicely sized front yard and back yard. I’m within walking distance of my bank, a Whole Foods grocery store, a drug store (mom and pop, not a chain), one very decent restaurant, two hot dog stands, and a dive.

I suspect the same “best of both worlds” possibilities exist in Minneapolis, Portland, and many other cities.

Photo credit: Urban Habitats

Megan McArdle argues that drivers who exceed the speed limit in their cars have no right to get angry at bikers who run stop signs and red lights, weave in and out of traffic, and otherwise ignore traffic laws.  Plus, because bikes are smaller and slower, they’re not going to cause any harm:

The reason cops don’t ticket bikers when they fail to observe stop signs at uncrowded intersections, etc, for the same reason that they don’t ticket people going 5 mph over the speed limit–those people do not cause many accidents. That’s because a bike going down a one-way street does not crash into cars. A bike passing through an intersection has neither the mass nor the velocity to hurt a car. A bike running a stop sign is maintaining a speed too slow to kill a pedestrian. Moreover, the fact that bike/pedestrian or bike/car crashes are at least as likely to hurt or kill the rider makes bike riders much more cautious than car drivers are likely to be.

Of course, cars that roll through stop signs at uncrowded intersections generally don’t cause accidents, either. Conversely, a biker who rolls out in front of a car illegally can not only severely damage the car but get himself seriously injured, to boot.

And guess who’s likely to get ticketed and have to pay the medical bills?  Why, the person operating a licensed motor vehicle for which he’s carrying insurance.  The numskull on the bike will inevitably be seen as the tragic victim that the driver of the heavy automobile should have been looking out for.

Making my exit from DC during the early part of rush hour, I frequently encounter bicyclists weaving in and out of very heavy traffic (southbound on 14th or 15th street) and running through red lights.  Cars are constantly forced to brake and have near misses with said bicyclists.   Why?  Because we’re expecting that those we’re sharing the road with will conform to certain norms.  If I’m changing lanes, I’m looking out for other vehicles (generally inching along on clogged roads) that are using the normal traffic lanes, not bicyclists who suddenly emerge in a lane that they’ve invented.

Even worse are the morons riding their bikes or Segways on the sidewalk who want to alternately be pedestrians or motor vehicles, depending on which is convenient at the moment.  These yahoos will come flying down the sidewalk and then cross the road at an intersection.   Again, drivers of vehicles are looking for 1) other motor vehicles in normal traffic lanes and 2) pedestrians who are walking at a snail’s pace.  So, when some yahoo comes flying across the road from the sidewalk at 25 miles an hour, we’re not expecting you.

Bicycling is a convenient, environmentally friendly mode of transportation and we should do a better job of creating bike paths and otherwise making it safe.  But driving on busy metropolitan streets isn’t like peddling along in a suburban neighborhood.   If you’re going to use the road, you’ve got to observe the norms that everyone else is expecting or you put everyone in danger.

Google Maps is beta testing a new “walking directions” feature, Alex Chitu reports.  Apparently, it’s just being tested  out on a small number of randomly selected users.

Since I wasn’t among those selected, I was a bit dubious since I was unable to personally verify, let alone test, said service.  A quick search of another of Google’s products, its ubiquitous search service, revealed that  Caroline McCarthy couldn’t, either.  Doug Caverly, though, posts a screenshot.   The Inquisitr claims to have talked to people at Google and was told that “A random portion of users may see [the] walking directions experiment in Google Maps.”

For those living in the suburbs, the concept of “walking directions” is amusing.  If it’s close enough to walk to, you probably know how to get there.  Now that I’m working in DC, however, I’ve actually had several occasions where I needed to go somewhere in town where driving and parking would have been either frivolous or more trouble than it was worth, using Metro was slower than walking, and where the “Google Driving Directions” were certainly sending me along a circuitous route.  The prevalence of one-way streets and traffic circles adds substantial distance to a car trip that becomes a noticeable inconvenience when walking the same route.

via Techmeme

Louis Gray believes the importance of blog linkage is declining, noting that, “I’ve seen traffic from other blogs to be driving an ever-declining percentage of visits to my site, swamped by social media tools, aggregation sites, and of course, Google search.” He offers three likely explanations:

1. People are relying on aggregators to find them new sources of information, including Techmeme, Hacker News, Reddit, Mixx, FriendFeed and others.

2. People, especially those who read this site, are relying more on RSS readers, and many have subscribed to so many feeds that they are reading through stories in an effort to clear out their unread items, not clicking the embedded links.

3. People who actually read blogs on the site (outside of RSS) are clicking through to respond to the author with comments, rather than viewing links.

Indeed, I found his piece on Techmeme and had never heard of Gray before, despite his being a relatively big player in the tech-social media space.

Gray rank ordered his referrals from the last six months and, sure enough, search engines, social media sites, and aggregators delivered much more traffic than links from very popular blogs such as Scobleizer, TechCrunch, and Micro Persuasion.  None delivered more than 500 visitors!

My experience in the politics niche is quite different.  Yes, without question, Google and other search engines provide a significant share of OTB’s traffic.  For June, Google brought in 118,236 visits; Yahoo 10,574; MSN 4764; Google Images 2522; Ask 2147; and Windows Live 1914.  Aggregators memeorandum and RealClearPolitics brought in 1722 and 3635, respectively. Social media sites brought in negligible traffic:  Fark 1891, Digg 153, and StumbleUpon 129.

Still, blog linkage accounts for significant traffic and can bring in nice surges. In June, links from InstaPundit brought in 7502 visits, Balloon Juice 3812, Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish 2371, and Matthew Yglesias 1495.  And that’s only counting top-level referrals, as I’m not ambitious enough to add up referrals from individual URLs within those sites or www/non-www variants.   Certainly, though, plenty of them brought in more than 500 visits.  And that’s in a single month, not a six-month period.  Indeed, links from any of those sites and many more can bring in more than 500 visitors in a single hour.   The key variable there is the nature of the link.  One that (Like this post, I’m afraid. Sorry, Louis.) provides significant excerpts of a post and provides extensive original analysis tend to send much less traffic to linked sites than posts that provide only a teaser.

It may well be that the ethics of linking and the reader habit of clicking through is more engrained on the political blogs than other sectors of the blogosphere.  In the celebrity gossip space, where I’ve also got a presence (albeit mainly an ownership/management one) there is relatively little linking to other blogs and, indeed, outright theft of content without even a nod in the direction of attribution is the norm.

I suspect, too, that the reading habits of tech and politics bloggers are simply different.  The handful of the former I read, for example, seem to be much more engaged with Twitter and various other social media outlets than most of us in the political space.