Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the librarys blog.

Balloons and an office chair (The Story)

This may not be the type of transportation you’re looking for — but it’s a great story about getting right, albeit in an nontraditional manner. In May, Jonathan Trappe became the first person to cross the English Channel by sailing underneath a big cluster of helium-filled balloons. In this fantastic radio interview, Trappe explains how he became obsessed with the idea of taking flight while sitting in an office chair tied to a bunch of balloons. It’s kind of like the movie “Up,” but without all that annoying sad stuff.

Turtles and the oil (The Story)

On the same program as the above segment, this is an interview with David Godfrey, a conservationist who has frantically been trying to save sea turtles from the giant BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If you want to see how much ground (actually, water) a leatherback turtle can cover, check out this great map, built with data collected from a turtle wearing a radio transmitter.

In praise of the Eco Pass (Riding in Riverside blog)

A very smart blog entry looks at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s efforts to sell deeply discounted transit passes to employers and even clumps of residences in an effort to get more people to take public transit. Homeowner associations, apartment buildings and condo associations can even buy the discounted passes. I don’t know anything about this — but I think it’s certainly something Fred and I will be looking into. Here’s the Eco Pass website.