PPA ending 65mpg & free parking
A friendly PPA agent gave me some unpleasant news today. I was respectfully loading my bike and moving it from its unobtrusive parking spot on 20th and Market when he walked by.
I've notices some motorcycle shaped parking spots on that corner and knew this news was coming. Turns out that if you charge 50% for motorcycle parking but put 4 bikes in a car slot you can still earn 2x in parking fees.
But you only get to make the cash if you have armies of people 'encouraging' riders not to park on the free abandoned lot or in alleys.
http://www.kyw1060.com/Philadelphia-Considers-Motorcycle-Only-Parking-Spa/5123020
I ride for the pleasure of it as well as for the economy. I pay as much to park my car at the septa station as I do in fuel for the entire ride.
As much as I enjoy riding if I have to pay for a day of off-street parking anyway I may as well drive the car.
With winter coming I guess the PPA is doing its share. If we all abandon 2 wheels for 4 we will warm the globe and slash heating costs this winter....
Having a bike makes Philly an even better town then it already is. I can easily zip from work in center city to dinner in chinatown and then cruise home. There must a better way to preserve Philly's growing reputation as a scooter friendly city....
Feel bad for GM, I couldn’t make this up
I went researching to Chevy Volt to find some facts to offset my calculator below. I did get lots of feedback about people thinking that price is not the only factor here.
So when I went to chevy to look at 'affordability' I found this. Check the URL
GM Working on affordability
ROI of MPG
I've been car shopping lately and thinking about what mileage I need in the new vehicle. The cars that I like and are more fun to drive hover just under 30mpg while the 35+ models tend to be a bit mushy on the gas (or tiny)
Today I came across this: http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20090811/US.GM.Volt.Mileage/
GM is unveiling a car that get 230MPG in the city! I thought that was awesome until I came across 3 facts
- That mileage is in City driving
- The car is not shipping yet (and all my projects are 'bug free' until they ship also)
- The car is $40k
I wrote up a quick app to let me calculate how many miles I have to drive in order to recoup the $40k price tag. Even comparing it against a $20k hybrid that gets 50 MPG I still have to drive almost 320,000 miles to break even! (at $4/gal)
Specialization is for Insects part II
Came across the Heinlein quote again today:
http://personalmba.com/core-human-skills
this time in the context of a "Business" professional. There is another point made in the blog post about how to be successful. You can either be an expert in a narrow field (top 1%) or be very good (top 25%) in multiple fields. The author calls these "Core Human Skills"
This is worth a read, and I will definitely abstract these concepts out in my interview process.
http://www.aaronheld.com/post/specialization-is-for-insects
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