Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

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Clearly, the existing infrastructure is not adequate.

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Las Vegas (KSNV) — Julie Coppin and her dog Betty know all about the weekend trip.

"I hate driving on this road," Coppin told me, as she was escorting Betty, a rambunctious and vocal 3-year-old pooch, around a gas station south of Las Vegas. Ask her about I-15, "I've been stuck on that thing for 8 hours," she says, recounting past trips.

She and the thousands of other Californians on I-15 all have their own horror stories, especially the trip back.

Jeff 5pm



"It's horrifying. It's horrifying. So not a good experience. You just want to get home. So getting on the train would be great," Coppin said at the prospect of an easier trip.

The train that could do it is the high-speed rail line Brightline, which already has a line running in Florida. The California-Nevada line, called Brightline West, has already made some progress.

This summer, it bought land south of the Strip for a station.

RELATED | Tourism officials say California, Nevada border traffic jams need to be addressed

This week, Brightline signed a memorandum of understanding with California transportation officials to use 48 miles on I-15 between Victorville and Rancho Cucamonga for a high-speed line. The "MOU" sets in motion work on right-of-way agreements and designing to make the extension happen.

Until now, Victorville was as far as proposed high-speed lines went. Brightline's California agreement would take the high-speed link into the LA region.

At Rancho Cucamonga, the line is planned to hook up with Metrolink, the commuter rail line in LA. Brightline says this will offer "seamless and straightforward" access in the region, offering a travel time between LA and Las Vegas of three hours and two hours between Rancho Cucamonga and Southern Nevada.

Brightline officials were not available for comment Friday. No timetable has been announced for construction to begin.

This is the latest step the rail line has taken to get the project moving. It is also working on financing the high-speed rail system, something that the pandemic had postponed.

Last week, officials at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said they're now asking Washington to put I-15 traffic on the radar, worried interstate traffic backups could keep our customers away.

Brightline's proposed Las Vegas station is in commissioner Michael Naft's District.

"We need to be looking at multimodal transportation options. Just adding a lane of pavement isn't gonna solve all the problems. It's gonna help; it's gonna help move freight. It's gonna help move people. But we need high-speed rail to Southern California," Naft told me last week.

Won't load for me.

Invented in Rotterdam and spreading across the country, the fietsvlonder is a “bike platform” that temporarily swaps one car parking space for 8 bikes.

If successful, the curb is permanently adjusted, and it is moved to another location. The Hague Vice Mayor @RvanAsten
 explains.

The Federal Cabinet approved the wording aid submitted by the Federal Minister of Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV) on April 27 for the parliamentary groups of the SPD (Social democrats), Bündnis90/Die Grünen (Green Party) and FDP (Liberal Democrats) for a draft of a Seventh Act to amend the Regionalisation Act to be introduced from the centre of the German Bundestag. With the amendment, which now enters parliamentary consultations, regionalisation funds are to be increased by a total of 3.7 billion euros in 2022. This is intended to finance both the implementation of the “9 for 90 ticket” and the federal government’s contribution to compensating the public transport companies for the loss of fare revenue due to the pandemic.

Oslo has caught on, it's claimed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k53JlxpXHs4

Note that at 8 minutes it shows painted gutters, not cycling infrastructure.

I draw a blank.

“In Sweden, electricity prices are almost 100 times lower on the electricity exchange than in the Lithuanian zone. And in our zone, electricity prices
are actually breaking records, reaching more than 400 euros per megawatt-hour, or about 40 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is a more usual
measure for households,” says Tomas Janeliūnas, political analyst and head of the Energy Research Institute.

The discrepancy, he says, is down to differences in infrastructure. Unlike Sweden, Lithuania imports most of its electricity, but the capacity of
electricity connections is limited and not enough to meet the demand.