Friday Miscellaney

• Forecasts show that Maine's Department of Transportation's Highway Fund is going to be short 3/4 of a billion dollars over the next two years, as more Mainers ditch their cars and as the remaining cars on the road get more fuel-efficient (the DOT gets most of its money from gas taxes and vehicle registrations).
  
  The bad news is that the state will not have any money to invest in sustainable forms of transportation for the foreseeable future. The good news is that the state was never very interested in spending its money on anything but highways, and this should put a definitive damper on Augusta's highway expansion plans. Filling the budget gap this winter in the Legislature should be a golden opportunity to cut the Maine DOT down to a more reasonable size, and implement some sensible policies that would actually reduce the state's dependency on oil while we reduce the deficit.
  
  
• Corey at Portland Daily Photo has some nice photography of the newly-opened Bayside Trail. Also, check out his Flickr account for an on-the-street view of Park Avenue's freshly-painted bike "sharrows." These appeared last year, but the City has painted more of them this summer to make the routes more clearly defined and give motorists an extra heads-up that bikes are allowed to occupy the full lane on those routes. You can find more of them on Forest Avenue downtown and near Morrill's Corner as well.
  
  
• Broke207 brings up a good idea: a monthly Ikea bus on Concord Coach. My wife is a fine carpenter and might be offended if I showed any personal interest in buying particle board furnishings but I think it would be a big hit for most Portlanders, and Mainers in general.