Odds and ends, 5/7/07

Bureaucrats and do-gooders can nag us all they want about using public transportation, but there's nothing like high gasoline prices to get people on the bus:

CINCINNATI (AP) — Since gasoline topped $3 a gallon, many commuters have left their cars at suburban park-and-ride locations and are taking the bus to work.

The number of long-distance commuters taking Metro buses jumped last month, with overall ridership up 8 percent on express routes of 25 miles or more, the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority said Tuesday.

One route from the West Chester area north of Cincinnati had a 19 percent increase, compared with April 2006, the bus operator said.

Total ridership on express routes reached 36,088 last month.

Fares for many long-distance commutes are $2.50 one way, which would be less than the cost of gasoline for many cars traveling 25 miles. Bus riders also save the cost of parking downtown, generally between $3 and $10 a day.

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If you're like me and you like following population trends, try this, where Michael Barone looks at the trends in major metro areas and how that could affect the next couple of election cycles.

Okay, few of you are like me. But scan it anyway.

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This is from an e-mail from the National Wildlife Federation:

WRDA to Include Language on Global Warming?

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) will offer an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act that would require the Corps to account for the impacts of global warming on the nation’s flood, storm, and drought risks. The amendment will ask that water resources policy consider the future impacts of global climate change-related weather events, such as increased hurricane activity, intensity, and storm surge, sea level rise, and associated flooding.

So, how will rebuilding the two locks at the Greenup Locks and Dam affect global warming, hurricane intensity and sea level rise?

Years ago, I think it was MAD magazine that had a cartoon where a bailiff asked a person in a witness chair, "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" and the man replied, "If I knew the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I would be God."

Methinks the senators are carrying this global warming accountability thing a bit too far.

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Here's something I discovered in our archives while looking for something else: This summer marks the 10th anniversary of the closing of Nick's News and Card Shop in downtown Huntington. The premises were used for a while by another magazine shop, but it wasn't the same as Nick's. Nick's had been in business something like 50 years.

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And one more thing.

I see from today's legal ads that Marshall University is advertising for bids to build two parking areas. One is on the south side of 6th Avenue between 18th and 19th streets. The other is on Commerce Avenue at 202 Elm Street. I assume that second one has something to do with replacing spaces lost for construction of the Engineering Lab building.