The big transportation news for today was the announcement of who receives $8 billion in Federal stimulus funding for intercity high speed rail. Steve in Chicago has a good summary of which projects will receive grants to kickstart high speed rail development in the United States.

California received the biggest chunk by far, with $2.35B coming to the state of which $2.25B will go toward the High Speed Rail project to link San Francisco and Sacramento to Los Angeles. Other California projects receiving funding include improvements to San Jose Diridon Station, track work on the Capital Corridor and Pacific Surfliner Corridor, and equipment upgrades for the San Joaquin trains (including more bicycle storage space). LAist has more background and details on the California rail projects receiving stimulus funding.

During President Obama’s speech last night, the Palo Alto city council voted to budget $130,000 to fight high speed rail on the Peninsula, responding to NIMBY fears that frequent high speed rail service will bisect their communities and add noise (as if highways 101, 280, 92, 82, 84 and the various expressways already don’t do that on the Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley).

When I was a teenage computer nerd in the 80s, I really admired SUN and their workstations. I dreamed of working for Sun, and that dream came true in 2001 when I was hired to a small group that created custom Solaris kernel modifications in the days before Open Solaris.

These days I do operating system bringup on new server hardware, working on new technology that truly pushes the state of the art. I’ve had a hand in platforms that break I/O world records, surpass everybody in virtualization performance and are on the Top 500 list of worldwide supercomputing sites. The project I’m technology I’m working on today for release later this year is mind blowing in its capabilities. I’m proud to work for a group that remains profitable and growing within Sun.

Today is a difficult day for me as well as thousands of other former Sun employees. We’re watching the death of a Silicon Valley icon. The brands will remain, but the assimilation into the Oracle Collective should be interesting, to say the least.

I’m hopeful, though, with this new combined company. My skillset is pretty unique and my skills are in demand in spite of the economic downturn. Several recruiters who know of the turmoil and uncertainty at Sun have called, hoping to reel me in. With Oracle’s acquisition (official as of today), I believe Oracle’s huge marketing and sales organization will help my organization sell lots of the hardware I help design.

Nobody knows what tomorrow holds, whether it’s something good or bad. I to beleive that everything works out for the good in the end.

And like Sun’s ex-CEO Jonathan Schwartz encoded in his farewell message last week: Beat IBM! 🙂

One of the passengers on my bus occasionally gripes about the free provision made for bicycles on Santa Cruz County buses, especially the Highway 17 Express that we ride every day.

Santa Cruz installs bike racks with a capacity for three bicycles on their buses. The district spends about $1000 to purchase and install each rack on a bus. Of the 27,204 passengers who rode the Highway 17 Express last November, 1745 (6%) brought their bikes on the bus.

The Highway 17 Express makes 28 trips daily from Santa Cruz into San Jose. That’s potentially 84 passengers who bring their bikes on the bus. If you like visual comparisons, I’ve grayed out 84 parking spots (of 225 available, or 37% of the parking spots) in the image below of the Park & Ride lot in Scotts Valley.

When a commuter parks in a Park & Ride lot, that parking space is unavailable for the entire day. Parking is free in Santa Cruz County park and ride lots, and that publicly owned real estate does not generate property tax revenue for the local governments.

I’m simplifying greatly — not every Highway 17 bus passes through Scotts Valley, and the bike racks aren’t generally used to capacity for every trip — but I think I make my point that spending resources for bike transportation can be cost effective for the transit operator and beneficial for all bus riders. It lets the transit district design a smaller parking lot and makes more parking available for the riders who drive to the bus station.

From Go Blue Ridge in North Caorlina:

Officials on the Town of Boone’s Greenway, Parks, and Gardens Committee will discuss the possibility of prohibiting bicycles and joggers on portions of the Greenway Trail at their regular meeting Tuesday evening.

No word on if they plan to ban cars from the U.S. and State highways that pass through this college town.

Via.

Residents ride sled bicycles on the frozen lake on January 5, 2010 in Beijing, China.