Constitution Avenue used to be a canal, and two creeks used to flow through central DC. David Ramos produced a series of maps showing where they went.

Imagine what a different city Washington might be today if these had been kept in place.

Image from David Ramos on ImaginaryTerrain.com.

This picture of Boston was taken by an American Airlines pilot shortly after the blizzard last weekend.

DC, on the other hand, is in the midst of its least snowy 2 year period on record, which comes shortly after our own 2010 snowpocalypse. But that’s OK. Extreme weather all the time probably isn’t climate change, right? Gotta be a hoax.

Boston in the snow. Image from reddit.

There are hundreds of thousands of birds in Washington, DC. It is virtually impossible to be outside and not see several of them. BeyondDC is hardly a nature blog, but birds are such a fact of life in cities that it’s worth being able to identify the most common ones.

So here’s a quick guide of the most frequently seen birds in DC.

Pigeons. Everybody knows pigeons. Photo by dragontoller.	Sparrow. The little brown birds you see everywhere. Photo by Mr T in DC.	Starling. “Washington Starlings” would have been a great name for a baseball team. Photo by Shawn McCready.
Robin. Very common in suburbs, a little less so in the city. Photo by Lucina M.	Mockingbird. Unfortunately, mockingjays are not real. Photo by Anne Davis.	Gray Catbird. Looks like a mockingbird with a shorter tail. Photo by goingslo.
Seagull. Obviously most common near water. Photo by Mr T in DC.	Duck. They love McPherson Square for some reason. Photo by thisisbossi.	Cardinals. The orange beak gives away females. Photo by Steve took it.
Grackle. Looks like a starling without spots. Photo by Carla Kishinami.	Hawk. More common than you think; one may live on your roof. Photo by Glyn Lowe.	Cockatiel. Common inside BeyondDC’s house, not so much elsewhere. Photo by BeyondDC.

Pollution? What pollution? Image from EnvironmentBlog.

China appears to be learning some poor lessons from the United States regarding how to handle environmental problems.

A few days after North Carolina made news by trying to outlaw sea level rise, China is demanding that foreigners stop reporting on Chinese air pollution.

As offensive as both of these strategies are, I actually wonder if they are not indication that some progress is being made on the acceptance of environmentalism as a legitimate global issue. Might these attempts to sweep environmental problems under the rug actually be a tacit acknowledgment that environmental problems exist? As opposed to just denying the problem exists at all. After all, why bother trying to hide something that you don’t think is a problem?

Anyway, this seems like a good opportunity to post an interesting map. This is from NASA, and shows global distribution of particles in the air. It includes both natural and man-made sources, which is why places like the Sahara Desert are highlighted. But holy smokes, check out China.

Yesterday on Twitter I linked to a neat map of tree biomass in the 48 contiguous states. Some people had trouble opening it and asked me to show it here. I’m happy to oblige.

The map is based on data from NASA, and originally came from Reddit. Correction: Here is the source.

Click the image for the full-size version.

Animals are smarter than we give them credit for. They know roads are dangerous to cross, and know how to avoid doing so.

According to a study by the University of Maryland, almost 60 different species of animals have been spotted using underground drainage culverts to safely cross roads. Not only do they use the tunnels, they also show preferences regarding tunnel design, and teach their young how to use the tunnels safely. Deer avoid tunnels with rocky floors, herons like tunnels big enough to flap their wings in, and just about all the observed species like tunnels with unobstructed views.

The study used motion-capture cameras to photograph thousands of animals using the tunnels. A few examples are reproduced below. They clearly show why this behavior is as beneficial to humans as it is to animals: no car driver wants to hit a giant horned buck or a stinky skunk.

I love a good water feature. Somehow, fountains just make parks and plazas better. So I was interested to read about Sherbourne Common, a new park in Toronto that’s centered around an architecturally and ecologically innovative series of water features.

The park doubles as a stormwater treatment plant. It collects runoff water from around Toronto, runs it through an ultraviolet cleansing processor that purifies it, and then routes it through a series of interesting fountains before releasing it into Lake Ontario.

Turns out the park is one of the centerpieces of a large waterfront redevelopment, not unlike DC’s efforts along the Anacostia River. It seems that urbanistically, Sherbourne Common is pretty comparable to Yards Park.

Here are some pictures, from the City of Toronto’s image gallery.

Above: A traditional electric trolley bus in San Francisco. Below: GM’s wireless electric bus prototype.

Electric buses offer many advantages over traditional fossil fuel buses, but they are more expensive and difficult to run. A new model by General Motors may bring them to the mainstream.

The most obvious advantage of electric buses is environmental, but the fact that they don’t spew any harmful gases into the atmosphere is hardly the only benefit. Electric buses are also quieter and smoother to ride than fossil fuel buses, resulting in a more comfortable experience for riders and fewer negative effects to the neighborhoods buses travel through.

Traditionally to run an all electric bus a transit agency had to install overhead wires. This can actually be an advantage as well, since it displays a sense of permanence to the transit line, which gives trolley buses some of the same economic development advantages of actual trolleys. On the other hand, wires can also be a big negative, both visually and fiscally. Installing and maintaining overhead wires adds so much to the cost of running a transit line that very few cities in the US use them.

But what if it were possible to run an electric bus without the wires? You’d lose that permanence advantage, but the environmental, comfort, and noise advantages would all still apply. And if, after all, wireless streetcars are being developed, why shouldn’t a wireless bus be possible too?

It turns out General Motors is working on one, along with a company called Proterra. Their EcoRide BE-35 model bus is fully electric and runs on lithium-ion battery packs that give it a 40-mile range for every 10-minute charge. The 35-foot, low floor bus design is basically comparable to normal city buses otherwise.

The website doesn’t include details such as whether the bus can run air conditioning (certainly a requirement in a muggy place like Washington), but if they can make the idea work it has potential to revolutionize urban busing.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Memo to everyone who thinks the 5¢ plastic bag tax is about raising revenue: IT’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY! The point of the tax is to discourage use of plastic bags, NOT to raise revenue. The less revenue the tax brings in, the better it is working. Seriously, this is not hard to understand.

The Examiner completely misses the point with this headline.
To be fair, the online story is pretty is much on-target.