Streetcar Serenade

Madison's Mayor Dave recently took a lot of heat for his advocacy of streetcars. Many critics, refusing to take off their blinders, fell back on that old saw of the city as "X square miles surrounded by reality".

Now, thanks to an article in today's New York Times, there's a chance for folks to take a wider view on the topic.

"Downtowns Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future "

Excerpt: At least 40 other cities are exploring streetcar plans to spur economic development, ease traffic congestion and draw young professionals and empty-nest baby boomers back from the suburbs, according to the Community Streetcar Coalition, which includes city officials, transit authorities and engineers who advocate streetcar construction.

The indefatigable streetcar critic, Randal O'Toole, seems to be the go-to person on these types of stories. The New York Times refers to him as "as expert on urban growth and transportation issues. Here's my very own editorial corrective. A self-professed expert with an ax to grind on various urban growth and transportation issues.

Mr. O'Toole played an active role in Madison's streetcar discussion. Check out these Wisconsin State Journal opinion pieces.
Portland's Streetcar Success Just a Hoax (By Randal O'Toole, January 8, 2007)
Don't Fall for Streetcar Hoax. (By Randal O'Toole, December 19, 2006)

Mr. O'Toole, by the way, is affiliated with the Cato Institute, which promotes public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peaceful international relations. In other words, he's a true believer in the invisible hand of the free market.

For more on the free-market crowd, see http://bennel.blogspot.com/2008/02/call-to-conference.html.

Latest Analysis Shows Internet Growth Slowing

Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS)

Link to August 6 techdirt post, "Broadband Crunch Still Nowhere To Be Found; Internet Growth May Actually Be Slowing".

Excerpt:

While consultants, telco lobbyists and politicians keep insisting that the internet is on the verge of collapse as more high bandwdith apps and services move online, we continue to rely on the folks who actually understand what's going on (and have access to real traffic reports) to give us a more accurate picture. The most reliable on this subject tends to be Andrew Odlyzko who has been calling the claims of a coming broadband crunch a myth ("What Bandwidth Crunch?" from techdirt 9/18/2007) for quite some time.

Broadband Reports points out that Odlyzko is back with his latest analysis of internet traffic (and he actually makes his data available). And, once again, he's quite skeptical of any broadband crunch, noting that internet traffic appears to be growing at a rather predictable pace that can easily be handled by standard technology upgrades.

So it's not just the Olympics that made Middleton's computer lab look like a ghost town yesterday evening? (OK, slight exaggeration, but I've never seen so few computer stations occupied on the day of a library board meeting -- both before and after.)

Retiring Guy's final board meeting as Director, by the way.

Online Library of 78 rpm Recordings

Link to August 12 Wired Blog Network Listening Post, "One Man's Quest to Digitize and Publicize Rare Vinyl".

And I'm more than happy to help him out with the publicity part of it.

Cliff Bolling has recorded 3,739 titles (as of now) from his collection of 78 rpm records. (You have to be of a certain age to remember playing these discs.) All of them are linked to MP3 files. "No sound enhancement, just what was recorded," Bolling notes.

See also......

The 78 rpm Record Home Page. (Buying & selling, history, labels, discographies, etc.)

History of record formats (78, 45 33 1/3)

Assessing the Condition of Old 78 RPM Discs from Tim's Phonographs and Old Records website

University given huge collection of 78 rpm records, 7/8/2008 CNN.com article.

And for irony's sake...

Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin, Wired, 10/29/2007