The StreetView team goes to Whister!
For the Vancouver Olympics, the StreetView guys have been hittin’ the slopes to get imagery from snowmobiles. The little StreetView guy is even a skier!
Mockup drawings of Robert Moses’ NYC highways in Google Maps.
Moses wanted to build Mid-Manhattan and Lower Manhattan Expressways to connect Long Island with Jersey via Manhattan. The first would’ve connected the Lincoln and Queens-Midtown Tunnels, the second would connect the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges to the Holland Tunnel. Needless to say, NYC would be a completely different place had these projects been pursued.
What we’re learning about the DC area is that there are 30 of these walkable communities here. I’m only talking about regionally significant places, not individual neighborhoods. So, for instance, downtown DC, Reston, Bethesda and so on. Of these places, 90 percent are on the metro system and most of the rest will be linked into it in the next five years. So that’s a pretty obvious correlation right there. But most of these walkable places are in the suburbs.
The local government here in the Tampa Bay area has been trying to put together grand strategic plans for infrastructure for the last decade. Plans include light-rail transit and incentive programs to attract people back to local city centers. St. Pete (where I live) has done a pretty good job restoring the downtown area and drawing young people back to high rise condos and smaller townhouses. Walking is now the primary means of transport down there (once you get close).
Timelapse of a ship’s journey through the Panama Canal.
I love watching the ships rise up through the locks into the lakes of Panama and fall back down to exit on the other side.
And I can’t believe human beings dug that massive channel.
A satellite image of Amsterdam Island making waves in the passing clouds.
Taken by NASA’s Terra satellite in 2005.
(via)
