Philadelphia Freedom

I've been out of touch for the last two weeks or so during our move, so this is going to be a pretty rambling update on what has been going on since we left St. Petersburg for our trek north to Philadelphia.

We've been in Philadelphia for one week now and we're starting to get settled in. We're about 90% unpacked and the main thing left for us to do is to hang all of our pictures and artwork. Our drive from St. Petersburg was pretty uneventful considering that I was driving a 22 foot Penske truck for the first time. I was ready to sit for my CDL by the time we rolled into Philly last Friday. Probably the most interesting part of the drive was as we were crossing the Howard Frankland Bridge from St. Petersburg into Tampa and Elton John's Philadelphia Freedom came on the radio. We thought that was a pretty good omen that our move was going to go well.

I'm really excited about our new neighborhood. Northern Liberties was Philadelphia's second suburb and is now one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in the city. There are a lot of cool shops and restaurants, as well as Liberty Lands Park and the Orianna Hill Dog Park, within a few blocks. It is located just to the northeast of Center City and is a quick subway ride to pretty much anywhere that we'd want to go in the city. We sold our second car before leaving Florida, so we are now carless. As such, we've jumped whole-heartedly into big city living and using public transportation. Also, some time next week I should get my membership stuff from Philly Car Share, so we'll be able to use a car to run to Ikea or Target or wherever.

I think that this will be a good home base for me given my research interests. Our elevated subway station is located above the median of I-95 which is appropriate given my interests in hybrid infrastructures. I also have a great skyline view from my desk which will be nice on the long nights of writing papers.

With all of that being said, I'm now getting really excited to be getting back to school. All of the orientation stuff starts on Monday. Orientation includes the obligatory campus tour, computer orientation, fabrication lab orientation, a walking tour of Philadelphia, and a Phillies game. Classes begin on Wednesday, September 3rd, although my first class won't be until Thursday.

Are bicycles a valid transportation option?

In an August 15th interview with Gwen Ifill on PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer", Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters hinted that too much federal money was being spent on bike trails and that was partially responsible for the bridge collapse in Minnesota. In the interview she said, "I think Americans would be shocked to learn that only about 60 percent of the gas tax money that they pay today actually goes into highway and bridge construction. Much of it goes in many, many other areas." She continued on to explain that "there are museums that are being built with that money, bike paths, trails, repairing lighthouses. Those are some of the kind of things that that money is being spent on, as opposed to our infrastructure." You can read the transcript of the entire interview here. You can also read a story about the interview at Salon.