I'll take interview suggestions. I want to do one with Michael Klare because -- it's in the news -- Iraq is predictably falling apart. Civil War. I believe the consequences of that will be pretty big and the Shia'/Sunni conflict in the region will define the geopolitics of the Middle East (and therefore the oil and natural gas production there) for sometime to come. To see who's at ASPO-USA, check out the Speakers List. Any particular interest in anyone on that list? I'll take note while I'm still on-line.

The Great American Highway

"Nomad. I am a nomad. The odometer reached 70,283 miles yesterday. That's 4,000 miles a month for the last two months. I've lost count of the number of time I've driven 101--about twice a weekend (once = one way). I've got a tally in my gas records, and one day I'll count the 101 trips. I've driven 299 from Redding, and 36 from Red Bluff (twice)--once with my significant other in the car, admiring the wonderful scenery, the trees, the isolation, and a lone coyote on the eastern side. I've already seen snow down to 3,000' in the Siskyous. I drive 10-12 hours a weekend, keep two bags packed all the time, think in terms of being in two places at once--three tooth brushes (one for the road), do I need to get groceries before I go..."

I made that journal entry on 05 Dec 1998, near the beginning of what I call my "Highway 101 Nomad" era. My life companion had enrolled at Humboldt State University to get a master's degree in biology. I had a good job in Berkeley working for the Lawrence Hall of Science, a children's museum. For nearly two years, we lived apart. Nearly every weekend, I drove up to visit her. Sometimes she drove down, but mostly I headed north. Every so often, I'd go south to visit my parents, who lived in Los Angeles.

Highway 101 became my familiar, the length of California my home. This is when the realities of the carnage sank in. In a way, it is sad to think that it wasn't smashed insects or birds that caused the breakthrough. It was mammals, of all kinds.

Small herds of mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus, were always a joy to behold on the trips, but they also instilled a sense of caution. Dead deer were present on nearly every drive. I recall an Odocoilian that had been smeared down a twentieth-of-a-mile of highway by a semi, a voluminous splat followed by a two-hundred foot trail of crimson. Glad I wasn't that deer. Another time, while I climbed a low hill lush with stands of tanoak and madrona, I passed a freshly killed ungulate--it wasn't bloated by the sun. A little ways beyond, at a pull-out, sat a motorhome. I could see the driver in it clearly, sitting stiffly and staring forward. From a spinout I had on black ice many years in the past, I knew that stare. Driver shock, I called it. I understood immediately that this was the vehicle--the perso--that had struck that deer. A supposedly fun and relaxing weekend abruptly ruined by the death of a big, brown-eyed mammal, and potential loss-of-control of a massive vehicle. The road machine at work, demonstrating its indifference, its callousness toward animals of all kind.

Other mammals, of course, weren't immune to this brutality. Raccoons, Procyon lotor, for instance. I recall one that had been hit dead center of a truck's double wheels, which left most of the creature flat, save the peak of compressed flesh that happened to pass between the heavy tires. Many procyonids were simply shredded and painted down the slab by countless vehicles whose drivers didn't bother, or simply couldn't manage, to avoid the corpse. Such was the fate of mammals of all kinds. In this fashion, a powerful message was repeatedly written in blood: the road is a cold, indifferent creation that, like the indigenous peoples who have faced the powerful machine of progress world-wide, exists at the suffering of others.

Such is the message that American drivers face all the time, one that is typically ignored. "It can't be helped," some would argue, "for I need to drive to work, and I live out in the suburbs." Indeed, many Americans are now dependent on cars. I, too, am dependent on a car for my daily commute.

With such dependence enters a kind of fate. Fate: a path that has been laid out before us by a higher force (a deity, say, or Nature). Road: a path that has been laid out before us by a higher force (progress). Americans, in essence, have created a situation where fate operates as never before. The road becomes the perfect metaphor for not only fate, but progress itself. In this manner, roads are a logical outcome of an industrial society that essentially values "regularity, punctuality, constancy and industry" over life. Many Americans have become bound by a technology that is so pervasive that it can only rarely be avoided. The pervasiveness of roads reinforces the progress mindset, despite its brutality.

One Sunday evening in late 1999, I rolled onto Highway 101 south, after a nice weekend with my mate. A forest of redwoods skirted past to either side as I rumbled down the superslab at about 60 mph. The sun hung low, casting a warm yellow light on forest giants that had sprouted before there was a "New World." These were trees that had reached ancient status long before the first roads were cut through them, and such roads happened over a century before my particular drive. Now the old redwoods stood above Western Culture's symbol of progress, silently awaiting their fate. "Awaiting their fate" may be a cliché, but it is an appropriate one, for the road embodies fate. The trees' fate had been determined when the continuity of the forest was broken by a roadcut, allowing the warm sun to reach deep into the moist, sheltered woodland, and enhance local evaporation. Highway 101 was an open wound on the land, one that, even as the forest tried to heal, was constantly agitated by vehicles and road maintenance crews. Most of the trees that I passed had dead tops. They suffered from "edge effects" and were dying. The road determined their fate, as it determines the fate of many lives.

I rounded a broad bend and cruised the straightaway that approached the exit to Meyer's Flat. Emergency vehicles blocked the road. Flares burned on the asphalt like brilliant red stars. I slowed, broken from my music-filled reverie. Police guided me toward the exit. The reason for this abrupt intrusion to my anticipated smooth and trouble-free drive was scattered across the road before me. The devastation was unreal, alien, seemingly impossible. A black Acura Integra was upside-down, crushed and mangled. A Chevy Blazer stood further down the highway, broken, smashed on nearly all sides--it had rolled, though it had returned to its wheels. Broken glass, personal effects, toys, trash, were scattered everywhere.

And bodies. They were covered up, but blood had seeped from under some of the canopies. War. That's the word that entered my mind as my stomach turned, and my arms began to shake. It looked like a war zone. A place far away, like Afghanistan, or the former republic of Yugoslavia, where people fought, and died. But the death was here before me, real, tangible, horrible. I rolled down the exit ramp, in shock. I pulled off the road in Meyer's Flat, and sat still, holding the wheel. Like the motorhome driver who had hit the deer months ago, it was my turn for that distant stare. What was I doing on the road? Was it wise to drive so many miles each week? Was there a way I could quit being the 101 Nomad? If not now, how soon?

My mate soon learned how shocked I had been--I called her shortly after. The visions occupied my whole drive back to Berkeley, and the return trip to Eureka at the end of the week. The memory returns every time I pass through Meyer's Flat. My life companion also knew that one of my coping mechanisms is to study things that frighten me. The next weekend, she showed me the article on that particular accident. Out in remote Northern California, such a carnage took on an importance greater than in the big city, and was an significant news item.

The owner of the Acura had been an undergraduate at Humboldt State. She was driving northbound to Arcata, heading for a new week of school after a visit with her fiancé over the weekend. The driver of the Blazer was a mother of two who was transporting her children, and two children of a friend, southbound to home. For reasons unknown at the time the article was written, the Blazer veered into the oncoming lanes of 101. The stretch of road at Meyer's Flat is considered divided, though there was no divider, just a double-double yellow line. At the time, divided highways were posted 65 mph in California. Likely, both cars were traveling at this rate of speed when they collided. The woman in the Acura died instantly. In the Blazer, only the mother and one child survived. None of the children had been wearing restraints, and they were thrown from the vehicle when it rolled. The survivors were seriously mangled, and had to be hospitalized long-term.

Like a machine, the road, and the vehicles that are driven on it, are without feeling. The drivers themselves often tend to feign indifference, choosing to pretend that they are alone even as they participate in one of the grandest group activities yet devised. As a result, lives end. Young lives, old lives, full lives, empty lives. The road does not care. After each death, the road still is. The symbol of progress remains. Since the first automobiles in the United States, there have been about as many human deaths on U.S. highways as there have been Americans lost in all U.S.-involved wars combined. Even after millions of human lives have ended, the great slabs continue.

The road marks a kind of fate embodied in one of the greatest symbols of progress ever created. The road paints a powerful image of Americans moving ever-forward with unstoppable purpose. Due in part to these two traits, the road supports its own continued operation despite a carnage that most sensibilities immediately cry out against when the reality, suddenly and most violently, is revealed. In essence, the road, and its builders, have created a synergy that is a new and violent force of nature, one that the Earth in its multi-billion-year history has never before witnessed.

This new phenomenon will continue to spread across the globe.

-best,

Wolf Read

Local transit advocate forwarded the following to me for the Sunday after the conference.

The Association for Public Transportation has several items of note for public transportation advocates and commuters:

                               Greenbush Map (Boston Globe)          This coming Sunday, October 29, APT will sponsor an inspection tour of the soon-to-be-completed Greenbush leg of the Old Colony South Shore lines.  The Greenbush line cost a one-half billion dollars to rebuild and is a lesson in both the benefits and costs of large scale transportation projects.  While the tour will be very informative for general interest, it will be especially valuable for anyone interested in advocating new transportation initiatives such as: Green Line extension to Medford/Somerville, commuter rail to South Coast (New Bedford & Fall River), North South Rail Link, Red-Blue Connector at Charles, Green Line restoration on the Arborway, commuter rail to Nashua/Manchester etc.  But, to take part in this tour, you must register today.  Price is $25 for APT members, $30 for non-members.  There will be a limited number of tickets sold on the day of the tour for $35, first come, first served.

This will be a guided tour in a climate controlled motor coach, lead by T and construction firm project managers.  (The tour will start at ~8:45 AM and end at ~2:45 PM.  Full details are on the registration form.) The motor coach will pick you up at either the Plymouth/Cordage (for train commuters) or Kingston (for auto commuters) train stations. Please note ­ train & subway fares to meet the motor coach and/or return to your starting point are not included in the pricing listed below.  (Subway / train fares will be an additional $3.00 to $6.00 per person.)  Although there will not be a lunch stop, you can bring your own as, it is too late to order a box lunch in advance.  Soft drinks will also be available for purchase on the motor coach.  Please use the form from the URL below to order tickets.  For further information, please contact APT's Barry Steinberg by phone: 617.773.7495, or e-mail: bmsteinberg@earthlink.net .  Further information will also be on the APT website:  www.car-free.com.      ALL ABOARD!!!

Click on the following URL for a downloadable registration form for the tour:  http://www.car-free.com/apt/Greenbush_Tour2006.pdf

          NSRL Spider Map with 9 line pairs.      On another topic of interest, APT has placed on its website www.car-free.com a hard hitting position paper on "An Integrated Regional Rail Network for New England".   One of the most significant advantages that the Northeast has over other parts of the country is it rail network.  However, this rail system is working at only a fraction of its potential as it desperately needs certain critical investments.

The keystone for this vision is the construction of the North-South Rail Link.  The NSRL, by connecting North Stations and South Stations in Boston, will extend the Northeast Corridor Acela service northward and will facilitate commuting and transportation throughout the region.  This road map, which has been lead by former Amtrak Vice-Chairman, Massachusetts governor, and democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis is likewise supported by elected officials, business leaders, and advocacy groups, including the Association for Public Transportation.  Please read it and give us your comments.

Click on the following URL to download the report:  http://www.car-free.com/papers/NSRL_Exec_Summary.pdf

Best regards,

Richard Arena
President
The Association for Public Transportation

*************************
Richard J. Arena
President, The Association for Public Transportation, Inc.
P.O. Box 51029;  Boston, MA  02205
rarena@car-free.com    www.car-free.com
APT Hotline: +1.617.482.0282   Direct: +1.732.576.8840   Fax: +1.732.576.8839