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Comment on The cycling revolution in Paris continues: Bicycle use now exceeds car use in ~transport
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Comment on The cycling revolution in Paris continues: Bicycle use now exceeds car use in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Bicycles are a form of vehicle independence. They are very simple, inexpensive machines which can go...- Exemplary
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Bicycles are a form of vehicle independence. They are very simple, inexpensive machines which can go quite long distances in a day. Their use also doesn't necessarily depend on the price of oil or electricity, or certainly not to the same extent as an automobile. As far as self-sufficiency goes, they offer about as much "independence" as one could possibly ask for beyond your own two feet.
Paris' public transportation system is remarkably good, and that's one reason why going car-free or car-lite in that city is so possible. But I wouldn't say the US is a lost cause. We are inching toward a better built environment. A lot of people choose to live in inaccessible and dangerous (from a pedestrian perspective) suburbs for one reason or another, in large part because they think they need more space than they really do, and because the kinds of dense/walkable neighborhoods that support cycling are illegal to build in most US municipalities -- so the ones that exist are expensive. These things make it hard for Americans to get around with anything other than a car.
There just hasn't been a conversation about pedestrian and bicycle safety for over 75 years, so local towns haven't invested in good designs. To some extent that is because local councils literally do not know what a "good" design is -- they simply have never considered the problem.
But better zoning and housing policy can make it more affordable to live in somewhat more dense areas, and can offer more real "places" instead of strip malls and arterials; better street design can make it safer to make local trips in your town using a bicycle rather than a car; and thoughtful amenities for bicycles can make that more reasonable. Public transit is kind of its own conversation but is certainly related. Modern discourse on "urbanism" (including in small towns) has moved the needle in many respects as it has become much easier to find good examples of good infrastructure.
If you have been to New York City in the past 5 years (as a large city example), you will see that it is moving in the direction Paris is. The bicycle lanes in Manhattan and Brooklyn are relatively extensive and generally pretty good. There's a lot of work to be done, but it isn't an exotic European dream. Plenty of smaller cities have demonstrated remarkable progress on pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure as well.
If you are interested in this sort of thing on the local level, I would suggest getting involved with or reading up on the material published by the organization Strong Towns. It is actually not so hard to get a bike lane built in a town or city as long as you know what to ask for and actually make the effort.
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Comment on The cycling revolution in Paris continues: Bicycle use now exceeds car use in ~transport
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: personal reaction Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Like Amsterdam, this is the result of good policy decisions. Paris has not always been a cycling city. For many...- Exemplary
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Like Amsterdam, this is the result of good policy decisions. Paris has not always been a cycling city. For many years there is no way you would ever see me on a bicycle there. And many areas of Paris are still absolutely overwhelmed by automobiles (Arc de Triomphe is very unpleasant, and Champs-Elysees still has too many cars for my taste). But the mayor's initiatives into dedicated, safe bicycle infrastructure has made a resounding impact on the way people get around. In addition to the city's world-class metro and light rail system, effort has been made to keep the city walkable and pleasant for pedestrians.
Because I currently live in the United States, I am always concerned with American cities. Almost universally, they have pretty poor bicycle infrastructure. In many ways they resemble Paris pre-2015 (ish). The conversation is always "BUT THE CYCLIST WENT THROUGH A RED LIGHT" or "But you can't cycle in the winter!!!1!" This completely neglects the innumerable safety problems associated with automobiles as well as the utterly irreconcilable issue of space-inefficiency, which necessarily causes absurd congestion all times of the day. (In a fairly large city, endless car traffic is a physically impossible problem to solve without either making the transportation system more multi-modal, or de-densifying to such an extent that the city becomes economically unfeasible as a location to live and work.)
I think people who live in or travel through cities ought to appreciate that driving a car should not always be considered the default way to get around in such places. The full-sized automobile is an inefficient, congestion-inducing, dangerous, noisy, and frankly ugly piece of machinery to which there are many better alternatives in even vaguely dense areas. I think Paris is well on its way toward reversing the 20th century's poor decision-making and machine-first thinking. Better to replace that with human-first thinking.
This starts with infrastructure, not manual or even automated enforcement of traffic laws (although that is still useful sometimes). Bicycles need proper, separated lanes; physical protection from automobiles; bike-specific traffic lights; bicycle parking amenities; road diets; curb extensions; and so on. Putting police officers on bikes rather than in cars also encourages enforcement of bike-specific safety issues (issues almost universally caused by car drivers) and can also keep the police force better in touch with the communities they serve. Cities also need to invest the bare minimum of maintenance, like sweeping trash from bike lanes (there are many machines that can do this). All of these factors I mention are things that cities around the world have invested huge sums of money into for automobiles, to such an extent that our society has become poorer, more stratified, and more ecologically destructive. Shifting some of that attention away from automobiles and toward bicycles is not only possible, but one of the environmentally and socially most beneficial things we can do as a species.
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Comment on New EPA regulation requires coal plants in the United States to reduce 90 percent of their greenhouse pollution by 2039 (gifted link) in ~enviro
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral Opinion: none Sarcasm/humor: none Gas is a different energy source than coal. It has different characteristics both environmentally...Comment box
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Gas is a different energy source than coal. It has different characteristics both environmentally and health-wise. EPA has already signaled that they are skeptical of methane gas as an energy source for environmental reasons and the current administration has halted permitting of new gas plants. But the article does say that future (hypothetical) gas plants are seeing new regulations, which will limit future emissions:
Under the new regulations, future natural gas plants that generate electricity at the rate of at least 40 percent of their maximum annual capacity would have to reduce their emissions 90 percent by 2032. New gas plants that generate electricity at less than 40 percent of their maximum annual capacity would be required to use low-polluting technology, such as energy-efficient turbines.
Emphasis is mine. The purpose of this rule's application to future gas projects is to discourage utilities from switching from coal to gas. The goal is to get them to switch from goal to something actually green.
As for the coal plants, this regulation compresses the timeline for 90% emissions reduction by a year (from 2040 to 2039). That is not "nothing." Remember that an EPA decision that would immediately put an economically significant corporation out of business would, generally speaking, be overturned in court just as quickly.
But technically, the paragraph you're looking at is misleading. The real timeline is this:
Under the plan, coal plants that are slated to operate through or beyond 2039 must reduce their greenhouse emissions 90 percent by 2032. Plants that are scheduled to close by 2039 would have to reduce their emissions 16 percent by 2030. Plants that retire before 2032 would not be subject to the rules.
Emphasis is mine. The regulation compresses the categorization of plants with different life expectancies, but still presents a timeline for the near future. Plants that expect to exist for a long time have until 2032 (that's 8 years, not 15) to get to a 90% emissions reduction. And obviously that is not going to happen all at once; it will be incremental over the next eight years. That means that in as little as, say, one or two years, we could start to see some reductions.
The article also writes:
The E.P.A. also imposed three additional regulations on coal-burning power plants, including stricter limits on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin linked to developmental damage in children, from plants that burn lignite coal, the lowest grade of coal. The rules also more tightly restrict the seepage of toxic ash from coal plants into water supplies and limit the discharge of wastewater from coal plants.
That is significant. Again, hardly "nothing." And this part of the regulation would go into effect much more immediately than the emissions limits.
It's worth reiterating that the overarching reason the EPA has to take such an incremental and narrow approach to regulation is that, as the article mentions, the Supreme Court restricted the EPA's ability to mandate a move away from coal.
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Comment on Why is your train delayed? Common signalling system faults. in ~transport
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary Tone: neutral Opinion: none Sarcasm/humor: none Most train delays are a result of signaling system failures. The specific causes of these failures are manifold. This...Comment box
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Most train delays are a result of signaling system failures. The specific causes of these failures are manifold. This video discusses a number of possible causes of physical and electrical failures that lead to delays. It also describes some of the methods signalers use to solve these problems.
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Why is your train delayed? Common signalling system faults.
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Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. in ~enviro
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: information, comment response Tone: neutral Opinion: none Sarcasm/humor: none It was a good comment and you’re asking a good question. The answer is ultimately not a matter of...Comment box
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It was a good comment and you’re asking a good question. The answer is ultimately not a matter of percentages but of cost of implementation, which is location-specific in much the way nameplate capacity is.
I’m also kind of speaking about the future in a vague way and not right now (because right now, the generation gap is immense).
There are economic and political reasons that some tech will be employed in some area—not just its theoretical efficiency. And in some places there may even be greater perceived or actual value in overbuilding renewable infrastructure to account for rogue efficiency drops, even if that means a certain amount of idle equipment.
As a point of comparison, civil engineers design structures to withstand theoretical “100-year events” (or 200, or 50, or 10000…) based on the value of the structure relative to the cost/risk of various solutions. In these cases the issue isn’t that they can’t build a dam a thousand feet high, it’s that an actuarial table tells them not to. But they could, if sufficiently motivated, ignore such a table (in either direction).
The other thing I neglected to mention is nuclear power, which is admittedly hard to modularize (though people are attempting). A place like Germany has willingly chosen not to invest in nuclear energy for political reasons mostly, and thus has shot itself in the foot as far as “renewable stability” is concerned. Like most problems, we create them ourselves.
Very long-term (end of the century), there will very likely be a viable method of generating electricity using fusion. We are already decently far along. That’s not really a climate change solution though. Too far out.
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Comment on Amazon grows to over 750,000 robots as world's second-largest private employer replaces over 100,000 humans in ~tech
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: information, personal perspective Tone: neutral Opinion: I suppose so Sarcasm/humor: none US unemployment is extremely low right now, at around 3.8%, so I have a hard time...Comment box
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US unemployment is extremely low right now, at around 3.8%, so I have a hard time believing that there are “less jobs [fundamentally] available”.. I see how automation can be a problem in an extreme situation, but inefficient societal uses of resources (such as to pay workers to do a menial task) is not ideal. It is more useful for effort to be expended in places where humans excel, which appears to be the case here (or at least could be the case).
There are so many ways society can spend capital. Any of those ways will put food on the table. I’m certainly not opposed to government intervention in order to ensure that people aren’t left without a support mechanism—New Deal-type work to do useful things while also providing employment. I just think there is a tendency for progressive minded people on our website to “CORPORATION BAD” in these discussions when what’s happening is just the market shifting over time. (I say this as someone very skeptical of corporations… see my ~enviro threads.)
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Comment on Amazon grows to over 750,000 robots as world's second-largest private employer replaces over 100,000 humans in ~tech
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: prompt Tone: neutral Opinion: not explicitly Sarcasm/humor: none Has Amazon laid off 100,000 people doing menial labor? Or have 100,000 people found different, perhaps...Comment box
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Has Amazon laid off 100,000 people doing menial labor? Or have 100,000 people found different, perhaps better-paying jobs, perhaps doing something with AI over the course of three years? That company has incredible turnover as people change jobs for unrelated reasons. The article is unspecific.
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Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. in ~enviro
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: information Tone: neutral Opinion: underlying my comment, yes Sarcasm/humor: none Enhanced geothermal systems could supply consistent energy in cases where traditional wind and...Comment box
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Enhanced geothermal systems could supply consistent energy in cases where traditional wind and solar can only take part of the demand. Newer geothermal technology doesn't need to exist everywhere or cover 100% of electricity use; it just needs to cover the generation gap between solar+wind real capacity and consumer demand.
With those three sources in tandem, the amount of long-term energy storage required (sand batteries, etc.) for a community becomes relatively small. Not nothing, but far more feasible.
It is also worth noting that solar cell efficiency has increased over time, both in laboratory settings and in consumer-available products. New types of solar cells, such as perovskites, now have higher theoretical efficiencies than silicon cells. (They aren't expensive either. In this case, the work that remains to be done mostly has to do with extending the lifetime of the cells.)
Likewise, wind turbines are constantly changing. Efficiency improvements so far have largely come from larger wingspans, which has its limits, but simulation research indicates that slight modifications to the curvature of the blades to resemble condor wings could result in a 10% boost to efficiency. This new design requires no more space than current ones.
Thus current production gaps from solar and wind can be expected to decrease as the technology improves. And unlike some other kinds of technology, both of these areas are promising (especially solar).
Transmission infrastructure is always going to be necessary in some capacity to maintain a healthy grid during extreme localized weather events and other catastrophes, but I think it's quite safe to say that moving toward a semi-decentralized model using renewables is both feasible and worthwhile.
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Comment on Indiana will test a highway that can charge moving vehicles in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment reaction, opinion Tone: humorous, then informational/neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: sarcastic first sentence, the rest is serious But don't you want to drive on a...Comment box
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But don't you want to drive on a wireless FREAKING roadway?
For reference, the per-mile cost of installing catenary wires on a train track in the US is about $4.5 million per km (or $7.3 million/mile). That's expensive, but only because it's the US, where we don't know how to build infrastructure (and refuse to learn from other countries). In countries with better construction practices, like France, the cost is more like 1/3 of that. Even less in places like New Zealand.
The base cost of building a highway in the US is apparently around $19 million/mile ($12 million/km), though I've seen estimates well over double that for the same kind of road. Being extremely generous, the paving of a single lane on a highway is in the millions per mile (a "major [arterial] road" around $1.7 million/mi according to this page; but highways are built to higher standards). That number is an underestimate because it omits the cost to destroy existing pavement to install the wires (with all associated delays), so you can probably double it. Then multiply that by at least 4 for the cost of a small highway. So ~$14 million/mi is, at the bare minimum, double the cost of electrification of a passenger railroad and would likely leave you with a lower theoretical throughput (and definitely a lower maximum speed). The additional copper wiring would skyrocket the cost to greater proportions... it would be at least as expensive as catenary wires ON TOP of the road work. Completely unfeasible.
My calculations aren't scientific at all, but even if you are pretty lenient, the costs are exorbitant.
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Comment on Indiana will test a highway that can charge moving vehicles in ~transport
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, opinion Tone: deeply skeptical Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none An experiment in Indiana, USA to wirelessly charge electric vehicles along a highway while those...Comment box
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An experiment in Indiana, USA to wirelessly charge electric vehicles along a highway while those vehicles are in motion.
Cars and trucks must be equipped with special receivers for the wireless charging to work, meaning current models are incompatible. The coils are installed underground and use magnetic fields to deliver the electricity wirelessly.
I think this article is funny because the technical solution being described here is essentially an inefficient version of a catenary wire powering an electric train. Unlike a catenary wire, in which the train's pantograph makes contact with the wire aboveground, this experiment tries to wirelessly charge cars from underneath the pavement. It also has a speed limit of 65mph, above which it apparently doesn't work.
The article does not estimate how much charging could happen while driving a particular unit distance along a highway. My guess is not a whole lot, but I could be wrong.
Contactless charging is usually relatively inefficient. Copper is expensive. Building/rebuilding long stretches of highways is extremely expensive. Digging up highways to do maintenance on power delivery systems (as opposed to doing work above ground) sounds quite expensive too, not to mention how disruptive that would be to throughput compared to conventional aboveground work. And remember that highways are already inefficient and expensive in their current state. They aren't great ways to move a lot of people quickly or safely (space-inefficient, friction-inefficient, prone to crashes), and they cost more than you think to maintain. Making that whole process even more expensive to operate is probably not workable.
So this solution is not really a solution, just a way for a state Department of Transportation to waste a lot of money on highways instead of investing in technologies that are more efficient to begin with, like... fully electrified inter-city passenger rail, and even zero-emission freight rail. Or, I don't know, the bare minimum of building more rapid charging stations along interstates, including some such stations for long-haul delivery trucks.
Indiana could do a lot better. It chooses not to. My recommendation to residents of this state and every other state is to vote for political candidates who support funding for useful transportation projects (especially railroads) and who will subsequently appoint leaders to Departments of Transportation to carry out that mission without pretending it's 1955 where expensive car-centric infrastructure will always the solution to every problem.
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Indiana will test a highway that can charge moving vehicles
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Comment on California sets nation-leading limit for carcinogenic chromium-6 in drinking water in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: information, summary, my own remarks Tone: neutral Opinion: yes, stated Sarcasm/humor: none Hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) is a carcinogenic heavy metal that causes lung...Comment box
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Hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) is a carcinogenic heavy metal that causes lung cancer and other serious ailments. It only exists in very small quantities naturally. Extra exposure is unhealthy.
Long-term exposure to chromium-6, which is odorless and tasteless, in drinking water has been linked to gastrointestinal cancer, reproductive harm and damage to the liver and kidneys.
Currently, this chemical is found in drinking water in many places, including California. This is because chromium-6 is a byproduct of many industrial and chemical activities. Most governments have not enacted adequate regulations to stop companies from further polluting the water supply with this chemical.
California's recent regulation requires water suppliers to filter chromium-6 levels down to 10 parts per billion. The regulation will improve public health when it goes into effect in October. The additional filtration will probably slightly raise slightly for water suppliers, costs which will be passed onto constituents (apparently on the order of $20-40/mo), but the economic savings from healthier lifestyles are significantly greater. Reduced medical costs = better societal spending efficiency = good.
Interactive map of chromium-6 contamination levels in the US. This chemical is found in the highest density in California than pretty much anywhere else in the US, especially in the Central Valley, but it exists elsewhere too.
If you are interested in maintaining safe drinking water, I suggest voting for elected officials who care about public health more than short-term industrial margins. Governors and other elected officials are the ones who appoint people to influential health and environmental agencies. If you vote for elected officials who generally support scientific data, you will generally end up with agency leads who are scientists and do not have a financial incentive to pollute the environment. That ultimately leads to safer and greener regulations.
Long-term, electing public officials who want to prevent contaminants from leaking into the environment in the first place will prevent future issues of having to spend lots of money on expensive filtration systems just to make our water drinkable again. It is better to not pollute than to pollute and then have to clean it up.
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California sets nation-leading limit for carcinogenic chromium-6 in drinking water
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Comment on 5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030 in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: information, considering the issue Tone: neutral Opinion: some Sarcasm/humor: none If a signaling system experiences a catastrophic data failure while trains are in active...Comment box
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If a signaling system experiences a catastrophic data failure while trains are in active operation, it could lead to improper track occupancy such as a head-on collision.
Redundant floppy drives could theoretically address such issues, but any physically equivalent backup would have similar weak points. And if there is some major issue with the hardware reading the floppies (rather than the disks themselves), a redundant set of floppies in the same machine wouldn't necessarily be useful.
I'm not too much of a computer person, but my feeling is that it would be safer and more efficient to use systems that are less prone to failure to begin with. In general, when we're working with systems that require relatively specialized knowledge, the opportunity for an intern to blow something up is kind of high.
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Comment on 5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030 in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: information Tone: neutral Opinion: not really Sarcasm/humor: none Transportation system overhauls are expensive because they have unique and complex operations. Signaling is a...- Exemplary
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Transportation system overhauls are expensive because they have unique and complex operations. Signaling is a lot more dynamic than people think. Trains are constantly moving throughout different environments with different physical conditions (often tunnels) which affect power delivery (catenary, third rail, other), communication effectiveness, etc. When you factor in automatic train control (at all) and street-running lines, any technical solution has to be essentially foolproof.
You can find short-term solutions to individual problems, but if trains are running on old software and hardware, it's unrealistic for them to interface with other systems effectively. This includes both back-end systems that help with real-time positioning and miscellaneous problem detection (track or power issues, unanticipated conflicts), and user-facing systems that control people's access to schedules (station arrival screens, transit apps). Inefficient operational processes dramatically increase operational costs which in turn decreases an agency's ability to provide useful services, such as fast and frequent trains. The more funding spent on COBOL maintenance, the less funding can be spent on operations, accessibility upgrades, etc.
Because we're talking about light and heavy rail, people's lives are also at risk. New signaling systems typically undergo thorough safety testing to ensure that trains aren't going to run into each other, derail, and kill 300 people. Such changes typically require some amount of certification involving computer models and then real-world testing (which is constrained by routine passenger operations). That process takes time (easily months; often years) and money, and transit agencies are incredibly strapped for funding in this country.
Depending on the kind of signaling upgrades needed, the traincars themselves are likely to require non-trivial upgrades. Often, they need to be replaced altogether.
Insane how they proclaim to it costing them millions and millions.
Transportation spending inefficiency in the United States is higher than in peer developed countries, but "a few hundred million" for a complete technical overhaul to a regional system's technology seems relatively benign.
New York City's signaling overhauls and associated modernization work, all things considered, are easily in the billions (and Byford is someone who knows what he's doing). San Francisco's network isn't that large, old, or complex, but it's not nothing.
One of the (many) reasons that this country fails to make efficient use of funding for public transit is because many solutions are engineered around tech debt piece-meal style, and do not attempt to solve the underlying problem. So I welcome efforts to holistically re-architecture transportation systems.
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Comment on US aiming to ‘crack the code’ on deploying geothermal energy at scale in ~enviro
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: question Tone: neutral, interested Opinion: yes, casually Sarcasm/humor: none Barring a series of revolutionary breakthroughs that make nuclear fusion truly commercially viable...Comment box
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Barring a series of revolutionary breakthroughs that make nuclear fusion truly commercially viable before the end of the century (unlikely), I see plenty of opportunity for geothermal energy. It has opportunity even in that case because of its comparative simplicity.
My question is about the fracking. I have always been made to understand, perhaps wrongly, that fracking causes earthquakes and sinkholes in some capacity. (I understand that there is conflicting research.) Is advanced geothermal’s process subject to this same issue? Or have they somehow solved the earthquake problem?
I believe the government when they say there’s opportunity here, I’m just wondering if they’ve properly considered the costs. They were way too optimistic about leaks from methane gas extraction and now it’s a major environmental hazard.
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Comment on Joe Biden administration sets first-ever limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in US drinking water in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary Tone: neutral Opinion: none except the very end Sarcasm/humor: none I'm sharing this because it's an example of good policy being executed by the current administration...Comment box
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I'm sharing this because it's an example of good policy being executed by the current administration in the United States. I recommend that readers share this kind of information with likely voters.
PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a class of chemicals that are harmful to human health because of the way they accumulate in human blood and other locations. Media refers to them as "forever chemicals" because they have extremely long half-lives. They also have negative environmental consequences for this reason.
US president Joe Biden was narrowly elected in 2020, defeating the anti-environment incumbent. Biden appointed new leaders of executive agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and has issued directives to those agencies to strengthen regulations on the release of harmful chemicals in the US. The EPA derives its authority to enforce certain regulations based on laws passed by Congress, such as the Clean Air Act. Therefore, while its rules are not technically laws, they have the strength of laws as long as they are in line with the mandates provided by Congress.
The EPA and other agencies go through a tedious, months-long public outreach and review process when crafting new rules. The goal of this process is to engage stakeholders and figure out if the rules actually impose onerous challenges on, say, manufacturers who use harmful chemicals in their processes. Companies file documents with the EPA stating their positions, and if their arguments are strong enough, the EPA may change the language of the new rules. (Sometimes this makes sense. Other times, the companies are lying through their teeth!)
This time, even though some water utility companies opposed the rules, the EPA has essentially stuck to their original plan. The rule will require water utilities to install better filtration systems in order to protect individual Americans from ingesting these harmful chemicals, and by extension from releasing them into the environment. Through Biden's 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the federal government is providing $21 billion+ to help improve drinking water, and other sources of funding are also available.
The Biden administration on Wednesday finalized strict limits on certain so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water that will require utilities to reduce them to the lowest level they can be reliably measured. Officials say this will reduce exposure for 100 million people and help prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancers.
The EPA estimates the rule will cost about $1.5 billion to implement each year, but doing so will prevent nearly 10,000 deaths over decades and significantly reduce serious illnesses.
“It’s that accumulation that’s the problem,” said Scott Belcher, a North Carolina State University professor who researches PFAS toxicity. “Even tiny, tiny, tiny amounts each time you take a drink of water over your lifetime is going to keep adding up, leading to the health effects.”
Water companies have complained, but I think their complaints would be better aimed toward the manufacturers who are releasing these harmful chemicals in the first place... not the government who's trying to solve the problem. In general, I agree with the implementation of the regulation, and it inclines me to support this administration in November's election.
Here is the original press release if you care to read it. You can also read more about the EPA's broader plan here: PFAS Strategic Roadmap: EPA's Commitments to Action 2021-2024.
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Joe Biden administration sets first-ever limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in US drinking water
26 votes
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For the curious, the street sweepers cities can invest in for fully protected bike lanes look like this. There are actually a lot of them in the US already, but only in some cities. I think they're pretty cute. They also aren't that expensive as far as public maintenance vehicles go.
The phrase I use when talking about demand for infrastructure is "If you build it, they will come." In a place where a lot of people need to get around, good designs encourage people to change their behavior and switch away from cars -- sometimes or all the time. The hardcore cyclists will bike in any conditions, but so many more people only feel comfortable doing it when there's proper infrastructure. Kids, families, seniors, and plenty of cautious adults want actual infrastructure. Not everyone has to bike, but the benefits of even a few people doing it vastly outweigh the costs to set it up.
Though even when people do use bike lanes, naysayers remain. Someone on my city's council made a ridiculous suggestion to remove one of the most-used bike lanes in the city at a budget hearing last week. I have no idea why. Its installation has reduced car congestion (not increased it), it's used all the time by cyclists, etc. This council person was just speaking from a position of "it's not a car, so it's bad."