Nate Berg

<p>A court of appeal in California ruled that a decades-old plan to realign a road and a two-year-old plan to build a big box improvement store nearby only need to undergo one environmental impact analysis under the state's Environmental Quality Act.</p>

<p>Business people join with transportation planners in calling for streetcar systems in the Washington D.C. area. Several are in the works.</p>

<p>Plans are bubbling for a "solar city" in the Arizona desert -- a new town for more than 300,000 people that will be largely powered by solar panels.</p>

A bit of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2209957,00.html?gusrc=rss&amp;feed=technology" target="_blank" title="Guardian: Japan's melody roads play music as you drive">bizarre news</a> caught my attention recently and it got me thinking. It was about these roads in Japan that had been designed to play music as cars drive over them. The engineers behind this idea cut thousands of grooves into the roadway, separated them by certain specific intervals, and then drove their cars. What resulted is a weird humming melody that reverberates in the cars as they drive. The video linked below showing the roads and their songs is awesome, but so much more could be done.<br />

<p>Public-private partnerships are the most viable option for building and maintaining California's infrastructure according to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently announced a plan to explore possible partnerships with private firms.</p>