David Brooks, one of those writers who has helped build justifications and rationalizations for an SUV in every driveway and turning Republican, gets his comeuppance in this story. It seems Brooks never lets the facts get in the way of a sweeping generalization.

It may seem obvious to some of you, but the statistics appear to confirm it: A country that does not take transit doesn't walk as much.

In an era of mass-transit bombings, efforts persist to reinvent single-occupancy vehicle transportation. There's the Skycar -- recent darling of the TED Conference but also a failed concept for four straight decades. Then there's Personal Rapid Transit, which is also starting to look a bit long in the tooth, but also a transportation mode with a long string of failures behind it. My opinion: We can't engineer our way out of terrorist threats to transportation. We also can't afford these more exotic "personal transportation" options. Instead, can society gather the will to use technology to better regulate the existing motor vehicle highway system?

Budget cuts are threatening to close Sacramento's American River Parkway, the main east-west bicycling transportation route in Sacramento. According to Save the American River Association, "if funding is cut as proposed, this 5,000-acre jewel, the literal heart of [Sacramento] County, will rapidly tarnish, become unsafe and ultimately unusable by those of us who go to the Parkway to exercise, experience nature, gaze, reflect and refresh ourselves." A key budget cut meeting is scheduled for March 9.