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Tech NewsOne City’s Bright Idea for a Dark Highway Overpass: A Huge Chandelier
The dark caverns created by freeway overpasses are some of the unfriendliest parts of our cities. A 16-foot chandelier has been approved by Vancouver’s city council to illuminate one such forgotten passageway. And it’s kinda brilliant. Local artist Rodney Graham conceived the piece for the Granville Street Bridge, and it’s being paid for by a … Continued
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Tech NewsThe US Is About to Waste $305 Billion On Roads We Don’t Need
A big infrastructure bill finally passed the House this week, pushing $305 billion over five years to transit and highway projects. In the same week, Uber raised another $2.1 billion, bringing its total valuation to $62.5 billion—roughly the same amount the new bill spends on infrastructure each year. Which of these figures do you think … Continued
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Tech News#BlackFridayParking Highlights Just How Much of the US Is Wasted on Parking Lots
A quick survey of any big-box store will show you that Americans devote far too much real estate to the parking of their vehicles. But wait, argue businesses, we need that parking for our customers! Yet even today, on the biggest shopping day of the year, chances are the parking lots near you are nowhere … Continued
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Tech NewsWhy It’s So Hard to Change American Minds About Refugees
Fleeing violence and starvation in their native country, the refugees arrived in their new home only to be ridiculed in the press, subject to overt racism, and faced with persecution in their places of worship. Sound like recent headlines? This was actually the reality for the first Irish refugees to come to the US. It … Continued
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Tech News
90 Years Ago, the Los Angeles Subway Was Born in This Lost Tunnel
By now almost everyone knows (I hope!) that Los Angeles has a subway. But did you know that this is not the first subway that LA has ever had? Ninety years ago today, the Pacific Electric Subway opened in Los Angeles, connecting the city’s growing transit network with a 1.9-mile tunnel. The Pacific Electric system—nicknamed … Continued
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Tech News
The Absolutely Insane $700 Billion Idea to Fix LA Traffic? Tunnels!
A few weeks ago LA unveiled a sweeping new transportation vision for the city that will swap car-centric planning with more transit, biking, and walking. But a different plan says getting people out of their cars is not the solution. What we really need, are more places for those cars to go. UNDERGROUND. Last week, … Continued
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Tech News
Behold the Dizzying Pedestrian Bridge Copenhagen Is Building Above Its Harbor
Cities can learn a lot from Copenhagen’s multimodal ways. But how about this inspiring piece of infrastructure from the Danish city: Instead of simply adding a frilly statue to mark its harbor’s entrance, this bridge incorporates housing and provides a stunning vista for tourists and residents alike. Copenhagen Gate is designed by Steven Holl Architects, … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Secret History of Silicon Valley and the Toxic Remnants of the First Computers
Today, Silicon Valley is a dreamy officescape, a place where ideas and networks are currency. But in the 1960s and 70s, Silicon Valley proper manufactured hardware–and this industrial boom created one of the most polluted places in America. If you live in Silicon Valley, this is probably not news to you. Maybe you even attended … Continued
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Tech NewsThis Freeway Overpass Got Completely Replaced in 43 Hours
Remember Carmageddon, LA’s massive freeway widening project that was supposed to paralyze the city? (It didn’t.) The demolition of a single overpass alone took an entire weekend. Earlier this month, a major Beijing overpass was demolished and completely replaced in less than two days. How did this happen? While the demolition of the old bridge … Continued
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Tech News
These Parks Are Reclaiming Ugly Urban Underpasses as Public Space
Manhattan’s rails-to-trails High Line sparked a global trend of turning old transit infrastructure into parks. But a new breed of public spaces aren’t waiting for the transportation around them to stop running—they’re transforming the ground below the still-active elevated tracks. Use the slider to navigate between before and after shots proposed for Miami’s Underline We’ve … Continued
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Tech NewsHow Taco Bell Brought Mexican Food To America
The tiny adobe structure behind a chain-link fence on a busy Southern California street doesn’t look like much today. But the first Taco Bell played a big role in the fast-food revolution, and more importantly, it helped to introduce the idea of Mexican food to US diners. The first place many Californians tried a new … Continued
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Tech News
Could Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson Have Stopped That Bomb If They’d Just Taken An Uber?
You could use the public data released by the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission to reveal critical insights about urban transit trends. Or you could use it to conduct a completely serious investigation on the plausibility of one of the transportation scenarios in Die Hard: With a Vengeance. To be fair, developer Todd … Continued
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Tech NewsVolvo Is Designing the Autonomous Car That Could Eliminate All Traffic Deaths
As usual, traffic was apocalyptic on the 10 Freeway. So I cued up the Master of None episode I didn’t finish the night before, pulled out the Greek yogurt I hadn’t had time to eat for breakfast, reclined my seat way back, and relaxed. I may have even dozed off as my vehicle steered its … Continued
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EartherClimate ChangeThe Reservoir That Made the World Pay Attention to California’s Drought
Do you remember where you were when you first realized the severity of the drought in the Western US? I would guess that you weren’t staring at a cloudless sky or a dry faucet. You were probably looking at a photo of Folsom Lake. Although drought conditions were technically declared after the low-precipitation winter of … Continued
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Tech NewsBaltimore’s Stealthy Plan to Make Its Harbor Swimmable By 2020
If a friend told you he was off to take a dip in Baltimore’s Harbor, you’d probably be concerned for his health and sanity. But five years from now, swimming in Baltimore’s waterways might not sound so crazy—and there’s an innovative piece of technology to thank. Meet the Water Wheel: A hydro and solar-powered barge … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
These Huge Roman Mosaics Were Hidden Under City Streets For 1,700 Years
Twenty years ago, construction workers in the Israeli town of Lod working under a city street came across something extraordinary: A massive mosaic, laid down almost two millennia before. Now, they’ve found another. The Lod Mosaic has become iconic over the years: It was removed from the city street where it was found, it has … Continued
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Tech News
Airbnb’s New Compact Pledges to Play Nicer With Cities But Doesn’t Go Far Enough
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for Airbnb. The startup spent $8 million to defeat Proposition F in San Francisco, which would have imposed stricter regulations for the company. Days later, a horrifying story about two deaths in Airbnb rentals raised concerns that the defeated regulations were badly needed and overdue. In today’s New … Continued
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Tech News
Dude Building $500 Million LA Mansion Also Building “Tinder for Straight Bros”
One of the largest houses in history is currently being built in Los Angeles. The man who is building it says he will sell it for $500 million, which would make it the most expensive single-family home ever sold. In the meantime, he made an app for straight men to find other straight men. Details … Continued
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Tech NewsThis Is How Autonomous Cars See The City
In a way, the pace of the self-driving car revolution will really be determined by a single technology: How quickly 3D laser scanners will improve until they’re as good as the old-fashioned 3D scanners in our human eyes. Lots of companies are working specifically on improving that scanning tech, also known as lidar. For a … Continued
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Tech News
New London Tube Map Shows How Long It Takes to Walk, Not Ride a Train
Transport for London has released another alternative version of the Tube map—and it’s actually really useful. The London transport manager has created a ‘Walk the Tube’ map, which shows how long it takes to totter between stations. The full-sized version is here. It shows that people who catch the Tube from Covent Garden to Leicester … Continued
Aatif Sulleyman