Congestion Pricing. Let's clear the air

The short version: Good Idea. The plan needs work.

The longer version. http://citystreets.org/congestion.html

Ship of Fools

File under you can't make this stuff.

Arab country with links to 9/11 and hub for Pakistan Nuclear profliferation purchases New York/ New Jersey ports and this is defended by White House despite coast guard concerns.

I promised myself I wouldn't write about this. I thought Teddy Vegas did a great job. Plus I think this whole notion of everyone becoming a pundit is just so silly.

But then this story blows up. Thomas Freidman writes a piece in defense. So do a bunch of other people. The rationalist view is that Security doesn't change with ownership. The conversation drones on.

I promise myself there is no need to write anything someone will say what I'm thinking. No one does. I walk out of the subway today and I see a sign. "all bags subject to inspection" It's a sign. I break my promise and write about this.

It's kind of frightening to me that with all the press coverage not one person has said the problem with having a country sympathetic to Al Quadea running our ports is not that they will take over security of the ports--the argument that is posited to us--rather that if someone who is sympathetic to Al Quada infiltrates the operation--which is likely. They will understand how security works so that they can breach it. Hello? Why isn't this what people are talking about.

Hit by Cyclist

I was hit by a cyclists crossing the street last night. I saw him coming so braced for it and wasn't hurt. The cyclist got knocked off balance but didn't fall. He had to stop and remount his bike. Instead of apologizing he started swearing at me. Proving once again that you really have to be crazy to ride a bike in New York.

State of War

Recently finished reading "State of War" The secret history of the CIA and the Bush Administration by James Risen. It was a good follow up to "Ghost Wars" The secret history of the CIA , Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll.

A while back I read the "Price of Loyalty" George W bush, the White House and the education of Paul O'Neil by Ron Suskin, which is condemnation of the decision making process in this administration by a cabinet level executive.

If you care about the world and want to understand where we are and how we got there I would file these under "must reads" the only thing that can make them seem cheery are Elizabeths Kolberts writing in the New Yorker about Global Climate Change.

Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Boring

What the hell happened to the Olympics?

Hey it's not just me. Ratings are way down.

And I don't buy into the lame argument that the reason they are not interesting is because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gimme a break...

I guess the first people we have to thank for ruining the Olympics are the corporations that have commercialized the games to the point of...the point of people don't watch them or care about them anymore.

And then of course there are the networks that televise the games as if cable, the internet and video i-pods don't exist. Hey thanks guys cuz you know what? I actually don't find guys in leotards spinning on ice that interesting to watch every time I tune in.

And speaking of the geniuses running the networks how about canning the canned footage? I don't care who you interview a year before the games, there's just no way you are ever going to capture any Olympic moments as "b- roll". It's trite man. If you want to give me some background on the athletes put it on the internet and if I'm interested I'll check it out but don't stuff it down my throats as if its newsworthy, or has anything to do with the what's happening on the ground.

And of course there are the athletes whose selfish behavior is completely uninteresting and definitely not inspiring. Whether it's Bode Miller who thinks it's cool to sleep in a bus rather than to hang with other athletes in the Olympic dorms, or Shani Davis refusing to participate in the team relay. Way to pull for the team dude.

Then there are the countries. I think after the Austrians left a clinics worth of supplies in their rented home at Salt Lake the entire country should have been banned from participating in the winter Olympics. But not only are they back their head dopester is back with them. Apparently so on top of his game that to prove his good judgment he drove into a parked police car set up as a barricade for him. Hey great message for the kids Franz.

And of course there's the organizers who tarnished the games by blurring the line between professional and amateur athletes. What's the difference between NHL fantasy hockey teams and Olympic Hockey? And who have allowed a policy of athletes performing for different countries that makes about as much sense as the USA's immigration policy with Mexico. And who have gotten x-game itis and have added events to the Olympics that just don't seem very Olympic like and by that I mean sport like.

We've tolerated the Bob Sled, Luge, and Skeleton for years as amusement park ride masquerading as sport. But is that really an excuse to call kids playing in half pipes sport? Hey don't get me wrong I think it's pretty amazing what these kids can do but it's not sport, it's fun, rad, bad-ass and corporate fueled entertainment posing as sport.

And come to think of it dancing on ice and being judged by a bunch of old white guys to determine a medal winner doesn't really feel like sport either. Oh I know, it's popular but is it Sport? Yeah it's athletic? Yeah it takes skill but is it sport? An obvious question needs to be asked. If the athletes are winning based on the judgment of the judges why aren't the judges also tested for drugs?

Maybe in order to save the Olympics we have to start at a basic place and define what sport is and then just jettison the stuff that really isn't sport.

I got more to say on this but it seems no one really cares about the Olympics.

The Real State of the Union

In his State Of The Union Address, President Bush talked about America's addiction to oil and our need to end it.

This type of talk unfortunately has nothing to do with the real State of the Union as a recent experience traveling between New York City and Philadelphia showed me.

Let me elaborate. I live in NYC, this weekend I traveled to Philadelphia with the girl I married to visit friends. The cheapest tickets on Amtrak were $240 dollars for both of us--If we took a subway to Amtrak that would add $8 dollar to the train total. And if we took a taxi instead of having our friends pick us up that would cost about $25 bucks ($12.50 each way) for a total of $273 and this assumes that we take the cheapest Amtrak train. As taking the Acella to Philly could cost $436 and taking a Metro-Liner could also cost as much $296.

Renting a car in NYC--which is probably the most expensive city in the country to rent a car in--by comparison cost $104.29. Other charges were $21 for gasoline $6 for the Holland tunnel, about $13 in tolls and $2 in parking. Total cost of the car door to door was $146.29.

Trains between Philly and NYC travel often so the advantage of being able to come and go on your own schedule by renting a car is somewhat mitigated.

My preference was to take the train. I could have used the time to read or think, and with everything going on in the world politically and environmentally it also seems like the right thing to do. But given the price disparity it was a no brainer to rent a car instead.

As flights to California are about $99 bucks it's a fair question to ask why it cost as much to rent a seat on a train to Philly, as it does to rent a seat on a jet to California? Amtrak, the most efficient way to travel between cities is instead a prohibitively expensive transportation option.

On some level the answer to this question is in part that the cost of Amtrak is an attempt to run the railroad as a profitable enterprise. However, this market based approach is not only simplistic but also disingenuous. It seems clear to me that there are both hidden and obvious subsidies for driving. And no one is demanding that drivers pay the true cost of driving; the building and maintaining of roads, and the oil delivery infrastructure.

I guess what I'm saying is that traveling by rail should be an option and in the current state of the Union it really isn't. I guess what I'm also saying is while it's nice to talk about America's energy independance these words seem really hollow when the cost of traveling by train 100 miles is more than travelling 3000 miles by jet.

Bob Shrum is no Strategist

He is a hack advertising copywriter.

I understand that this may sounds harsh. But I hope you the reader, also understand that there is also an urgent need to for this to be said as well.

I don't remember the last time I sat in front of TV yelling. But the other night watching Bob Shrum on TV I did. In fact my exact words where, "Did he just say that" "Did he just say that" "Did he just say that" repeated over and over and over again, until the people I was watching with politely asked me to stop.

This is why, when he was brought on TV to discuss Cheney's hunting accident last Saturday.

He opened with quip one: "Now there is finally someone with combat experience in the White House."

and then went right into quip two" "We all know that this is an administration that can't shoot straight."

Hmm Cheney shot a man by accident and then drunk on arrogance and entitlement (and hopefully nothing else) didn't issue a public statement for 14 hours and then when the story blew up continued to show his contempt for the press by going on Fox to get his message out instead of holding a proper news conference.

What Bob Shrum did was just shoot himself in the foot and showed everyone who was watching, that he is not a strategist but rather a guy with bad judgement who writes easy lines that only serves to strengthen the side that he is attacking.

Showing a little concern for the man that was shot, acknowledging that this is obviously an accident with no malicious intent whoing a little understanding for how bad Cheney must feel about this, and just asking some honest questions such as: Why isn't the President and Vice President and everyone else in the administration working every weekend when we are a nation at war––to name just one is what a strategist would have done.

Bob Shrum has made boat loads of money losing big elections for the Democrats--and helping to destroy the party in the process. It's time for the Democrats to cut their losses and hire thinkers and not quippers.

Sticks And Stones

May break my bones but drawing a cartoon may lead to be-heading.

see them for your self

They've emptied the shelves in Saudi of all Danish Goods.

In Gaza they have used to Guns to intimidate and the moderates are saying be-heading is not necessary it is enough to cut off their hands.

Nope. Not Sarcasm but a quote. Here it is in it's entirety from the NYT article.

"We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible," one preacher at Al Omari mosque in Gaza told worshipers during Friday Prayer, according to Reuters. Other demonstrators called for amputating the hands of the cartoonists who drew the pictures.

And of course there's nothing like good leadership to calm things down

Clerics in Palestinian areas called in Friday prayers for a boycott of Danish and European goods and the severing of diplomatic ties. Tens of thousands of incensed Muslims marched through Palestinian cities, burning the Danish flag and calling for vengeance.

''Whoever defames our prophet should be executed,'' said Ismail Hassan, a tailor who marched in the pouring rain with hundreds of other Muslims in the West Bank city of Ramallah. ''Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up,'' the protesters chanted.

Foreign diplomats, aid workers and journalists began pulling out of Palestinian areas Thursday because of kidnapping threats against some Europeans.


And in Denmark the illustrators have gone into hiding in fear for their lives.

While the leaders of the world--make that the West are now spending resources away from issues of governance trying to mitigate both the political and economic damage from this--stuck as they are in the impossible situation of explaining that as leaders of democratic governments they are not in control of the press which they also have a responsibility to defend.

I think they are all stunned to learn that it is not just American flags that catch on fire.

I find the description that this is a clash of civilizations to be insulting to me and I imagine others who stand with civilization. It is giving too much to a side that is taking too much. And acting uncivilized

A lot has been said about this Cartoon controversy. Too much in fact.

One word that I am not hearing in all this is hypocrisy. Has anyone seen the Cartoons that run in Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Saudi, and the list goes on, papers. Talk about Vile.

But certainly no talk about killing, maiming, burning embassies or severing diplomatic relations over them.

Time's Up for Time's Up

Critical Chaos: Two Cops Hurt, 17 Arrested at Mass Ride

Long over due response posted in comments.


If the goals of Critical Mass are to promote the benefits of cycling culture perhaps It's time to initiate a long overdue dialogue to understand how riding a bike became a crime in NYC?

Let's start with a couple of questions:

Why is the City so upset with cyclists that they have turned the party that used to be Critical Mass into a ride that you have to be willing to be arrested to participate?

Why isn't there more public support for Critical Mass?

Why do so many residents of New York believe that cyclists and not automobiles are the cause of endangerment on our streets?

Why after almost 3 decades of cycling advocacy, despite our City's density, grade, and bike friendly climate does riding a bike remain so dangerous that its still a fringe activity.

Whom is to blame for the gross strategic and communication failures of the Critical Mass Movement that has allowed contextually relevant and important ideas about use of public space, energy, and the environment to be turned into a monthly pissing contest with NYPD?

With Bloomberg in office we are dealing with a Mayor who gets it. Mayor Bloomberg is not predisposed like Giuliani to be anti-bike and pro car. Mayor Bloomberg is not against cycling he's reacting much like a parent would to what can only politely be described as the childish and unreasonable behavior of Critical Mass leadership.

With Mayor Bloomberg in office the city is standing at the intersection of opportunity and progress and instead of moving forward, he is instead mugged by a bunch of angry cyclists.

Maybe so much anger comes from the collective sense that we are running out time, so it's not with a heavy sense of irony that I suggest that we stop pretending that a group called Times Up doesn't take a lead role in organizing these rides and needs to immediately figure out a way to fix this unnecessary situation which they created or entrust this to others who can.

Andrea Bronfman killed in New York

Andrea Bronfman was killed crossing the street near her home last week by a driver. The Bronfman foundation website describes what happened to the billionare philanthropist as a traffic accident. That's not how I would describe it.

The New York Sun wrote a strong editorial about this and another death a NYU graduate student a couple of days previous.

http://www.nysun.com/article/26393

A follow up article as well.

http://www.nysun.com/article/26448

A Million Little Pieces

Part of the problem of blogs is that you start writing to them. I've been fighting this trend for a while and it's just not working. I may need to start another blog to keep this one purely on transportation and urban issues.

Until then...So I'm pretty stunned by the entire James Frey scandal, let me tell you why.

A couple of months I was in Barnes and Noble on 17th street and gravitated to the beautiful cover of A Million Little Pieces. I picked it up and started reading and read about the author who was so drunk and high he couldn't remember where he lost his teeth.

I stood there for a minute thinking why is this a book? More specifically on what book buying planet am I living on that a life memoir can include someones journey into rehab.

So when this "scandal" arrived I was more surprised that anyone read this in the first place than cared whether it was fiction or non-fiction.

Death to Am-ri-ka

War is a messy, dirty, disgusting affair.

It's very nature requires that decisions are made with incomplete and rapidly changing information.

Mistakes are made. People are killed.

I read with sadness and regret about 18 people that were killed in Northern Pakistan by a hellfire missile fired from an unmanned predator done in an attempt to kill a high level Al Queda operative.

In the following days there were news report of protests in Pakistan in reaction to this. In an oft repeated and scence protestors burned American Flags chanting "Death to Am-ri-ka" while calling for our withdrawal from the region.

What struck me as somewhat odd a week earlier the Taliban had beheaded a teacher in Southern Afghanistan for the crime of teaching women. Yet there were no similar reports of protests in Pakistan or anywhere in the Pashtun valley or Northern Pakistan about this disgusting crime perpetuated by people that want to set their Timex watches back to 7th century. And left the headless body of a school teacher in the town square as an overt intimidation for all to see.

Maybe it was the fact that so many innocent people died that was the cause of the protest?

After all, Pakistan is our ally in this war on terror and surely there must be some shared goals between our societies?

Yesterday, the Taliban in another attack killed 20 people in a suicide bombing in Southern Afghanistan which shares a porous border and similar culture with Northern Pakistan as well.

20 innocent people were murdered. The crime they committed was watching a public wrestling event when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of the crowd.

Still there have not been any reaction or protests about the Taliban and their purposefully disregard for human life only protests about a brutal and horrible but also accidental killing by our side.

With allies like these...

Mayor Mike

Today Mayor Mike Bloomberg began his second term. He ended his remarks at the swearing in ceremony with these words.

"Thank you and may God bless New York City."

We are so lucky to have such a great mayor, possibly the best mayor this city has ever had at such a challenging time so I would just like to add these words.

"May God also bless Mayor Bloomberg."

Chainsaws Don't Sing

I've been saying this for a while, and Christmas day is unfortunately the perfect day to say it again. I find the tradition and symbol of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center to be sending the wrong message.

Think about what we are doing. We go out and find a perfect tree kill it and drag it to Manhattan, decorate it so people can look at it for a couple of weeks and then throw it out.

To me this is symbol of waste and degradation of our planet more so than a cherished and a joyous symbol of the holidays. Why not find the nicest tree in Central Park and decorate that tree for a month without cutting it down?

Think about the different symbolism of these two ideas. One encourages us to take care of trees while they are growing. And the other encourages us to destroy our environment.

And that's just one big symbolic tree. What about the hundreds of thousands other trees, bought from Korean delis, or some tree farmer in Vermont who comes down to NYC around thanksgiving time, pays no rent to use our streets, and sells trees by the tractor trailer load to New Yorkers, who in about a week or streets are going to be littered with people discarding trees on the streets in no different way than they discard plastic, or other trash?

Even if there wasn't global warming, and melting polar ice caps, and a host of other tree-hugger issues facing the world right now. It seems that this is extremely and unnecessarily wasteful.

Yes I understand that trees are a renewable resource. And yes I do think a well decorated Christmas tree is beautiful.

But cutting down trees, and creating an industry of trees to cut down, and burning fuel to transport these cut down trees is so far removed from the spirit of the holidays that it represents that it's really time for some people to end this tradition and start another one of decorating living trees instead.

New York City Transit Strike

I had an oped run on day 3 of the transit strike in the New York Sun

While the piece was a positive one, there were certain things about the strike that really annoyed me that I kept out of my piece that I thought deserved some further conversation.


a) TAXI ZONES

I thought the zoned taxi system caused a lot of financial hardship for people at exactly the time that taxi's went from being luxuries to necessities.

In fact, because of the city's polices of changing the payment system of cabs from meters to zones, for many people taxis became unaffordable. I think it's a no brainier to realize with a yellow taxi fleet of under 15,000 there just aren't enough vehicles for the amount of people that need to get from point a to point b. To help people move around, I think a better option would have been for the city to allow private automobiles to pick up passengers during the strike thus creating an instant market for surface transportation. Another no brainier would be to enable all "black cars" to pick up street hails as well.

I think the city should have kept the taxi metering in place and offered a minimum surcharge for the rider.

b) PYLONS IN BIKE LANES

This one had me seeing red for two reasons. Why were the pylons placed inside the bike lanes which are already so narrow that two people can't ride side to side? The fact that when the city really needed to think about and encourage people to move around without cars and reflexively took what little space that was being given to bikes and took some of that away just shows how imbedded a car culture DOT still is. It would have been just as easy to place the pylons on the edges of the bike lanes and taken some space away from the car lanes.

But What really had me seeing red was to see pylons was that it confirmed to me something that I have already known is that the bike lanes are unsafe. Think about it from an infrastructure perspective there is no change to bike lanes during a transit strike so this is the city both acknowledging and admitting that the lanes that they provide are inadequate and unsafe if they have to make an adjustment to them.

Ironically with some avenues closed for essential vehicles, and more cars in the city traveling at a reduced speed riding a bike was probably safer due to the reduced speed.

Even with the pylons, and the raised awareness I of course did see double parked vehicles in the bike lane.

This is why it's not a surprise that a very fit and healthy 39 year old firefighter was curitically injured while cycling to work during the strike.

It's really time for change. There is such a groundswell for change, such a need for a change, and the bottom line is you can't have a change in transportation use away from cars without a change in infrastructure.

I guess the point I'm getting to is that it's clear that there is no planning or thinking on a much needed stratedgy to reduce auto dependancy and congestion in NYC and that this is enexcusable.

We Aren't Winning

It was only a few years ago in September of 2001 that the entire world was shocked, saddened, angered, horrified by the attacks that murdered almost 3,000 innocent people and left the World Trade Center a pile of twisted, bent charred metal. The world stood with and by America as the smoke wafted from the burning wreckage

Well come to think of it, it wasn’t the entire world. There was dancing in the streets in Ramallah where sweets were passed out to children in celebration. Poor kids to be taught to celebrate death what a horrible nasty lesson.

Cut to December 9th 2005:

Condoleeza Rice, our nation's top diplomat is in Europe explaining to our allies that the United States will no longer torture prisoners we are interrogating whom are held in secret jails outside of the United States.

Just pause on that last sentence for a moment and really let it sink in.

The exact language as quoted in the New York Times was “The United States prohibited Americans working in the United States or abroad from inflicting cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment on detainees anywhere.”

And apparently the United States is now going to adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Talk about the world being upside down. Is this really happening? The nation that liberated Europe from the Nazi’s is being questioned by the German Chancellor on torturing prisoners. Oh my.

During one exchange when Condoleeza Rice was asked about these secret CIA run jails she apparently said in defense of them (and what happens inside of them) “That many European lives have been saved because of the information we received.”

And while this is probably true, go ahead and put on your poofy down jacket as this is a chilling the end justifies the means message.

It gets better.

Apparently in order for the Netherlands to send more troops to Afghanistan we had to ensure them that none of the prisoners that we capture would be subject to execution.

Maybe it’s me, but while the terrorist might not be winning we are certainly losing. We have frittered away the sympathy the world had for the United States after the attacks. And let me be clear about what I am about to say. I understand that the era of Stalinist type authoritarian dictators such as Saddam Hussein is or should be over. But by lying about WMD’s as an excuse to invade Ira we have frittered away trust in our government. And we are frittering away the reputation of the United States. In Joseph S. Nye's book Soft Power. Professor Nye makes an argument that America hegemony is based on hard power and soft power. Hard power being things like making airplanes, military, nuclear weapons, and thing like pilot less drones that can pinpoint a hellfire missile in the driver seat of an automobile from over 10 miles away. Soft power being things like culture. In a brand conscious world, a way to think about this soft power is America as a brand. And our brand is in serious decline.

Having just finished Steven Coll’s Pulitzer Prize winning Ghost Wars, a book about the CIA in Afghanistan from the invasion of the Soviet Union, up until the Murder of Massoud I’m probably a little more sensitive to the back-story of this story.

Which is not the fact that the CIA is outsourcing, incarceration, and interrogation to secret sites in other countries, we are.

But rather the reason we are doing it, which is for legal reasons. According to one of the threads of the book one of the reasons Ossama wasn’t taken out under the Clinton administrations, which recognized the growing threat to America of the rise of was the fact that they were looking at all action through a legal lens. Starting with Guatamono, which was set up specifically to change the legal status of incarcerated prisoners, offshore interrogation centers are nothing more than a legal loophole. It’s just that simple. That uncomplicated that raw and that stupid and that wasteful of a fine ivy league education, whoever was the ivy league FGE (fucking government employee) that thought this was a way to deal with this issue. Because you know what? No one likes a semantic argument winner. And that’s all this is. It’s basically doing huge damage to America so someone can win the semantic point of an argument while not solving or even addressing the larger issues at hand.

Look I get it. I live in New York. I watched the second plane fly into the world trade center. I had front row seats to the horror show. I smelled the smoke from the fire that burned for months. I know we live in a messy dangerous world. I know there are bad guys that we have to stop and the world is a messy place and some of the jobs are messy. I know this. I also want to win.

Yeah it sucks but we have to be aggressive and probably what that means that we have to rough some bad people up. But wouldn’t it be better to just have an honest dialogue about this (or just not talk about it) then to pretend it’s okay to do this if we do this out of the country. Lawyers? How can smart people so dumb and why do we listen to them?

But torture? Man, that’s just sadistic uncivilized behavior. It’s not really a big mental stretch for to viscerally understand that the information you get from torturing someone is bunk intel. Just think about it for a second if you are torturing someone they will tell you exactly what you want to hear to stop breaking them. Start torturing me and I will tell you anything. I will be guilty of any crime you want me to, I will be involved in any conspiracy you can think of and by the way I did kill Kennedy now that you mention it and are about to yank off another finger nail.

We have to win. There is no question nor conversation to be had about that. But there is a conversation to be had about the changes society is making and the direction we are heading during the persecution of justice. Because while the terrorists will never win. We may very well still end up losing. Funny (not in the ha ha way) how that works isn’t it?

It Could Have Been Me, It Could Have Been You

On December 7th an upset passenger, was shot–oh hell let’s use the “M” word–he was murdered, while leaving an American Airlines flight prior to take off.

An undercover air Marshall Shot Rigoberto Alpizar, to death on the jet-way.

According to news reports, the air Marshall said he heard him say he had a bomb but somehow this observant law enforcement agent failed to also see his distraught wife chasing him off the plane or hear her screaming that he was sick and hadn’t taken his medication.

We all hear what we want to hear. But when a hundred and fifty other people don’t hear the word bomb it’s called hearing things.

According to the initial news reports, Mr. Alpiza were wearing a fanny pack had a knapsack on. I’m surprised the news didn’t also tell us that his pants had pockets.

According to one eye witness probed on CNN by Anderson Cooper this passenger was acting erratic and refused to answer the stewardess on an earlier flight when she asked whether he wanted crepes or an omelet. Oh my can’t decide between an airline omelets or a crepe what a suspicious troublemaker, eh? And that will also send a clear message to all future passengers about dilly-dallying when the airline food is hot. Actually what it does is question why Anderson Cooper conducted such a feeble interveiw on CNN for so long.

According to a many to many other passengers Mr. Alpizar seemed visibly upset before boarding the plane. Except of course the one person trained to observe people getting on to airplanes and that would be and undercover air officer who shot him to death.

Another thing that apparently this maniac did, was he didn’t stop when the air marshal told him to. Wait let’s make this the undercover air Marshall. Which begs a question; if someone is undercover why should you listen to him or her? I mean if a cop pulls out a gun and says, “freeze” to me. I would probably stop. If some freak in a business suit pulls out a gun I’m running or ducking but probably thinking that he’s a crazy and not a cop.

Well that’ll teach him not to listen. Of course maybe he never heard the guy. Or maybe the guy was just upset and didn’t want to listen. Look, I’m not saying this guy acted according to all social norms, but he certainly didn’t act in a way that justifies killing him. Especially by a highly trained gun wielding anti-terrorist air agent. Which brings up a whole slew of uncomfortable questions.

The most uncomfortable among them. If you knew that the one thing you could say to justifeable murder someone was to say that they had a bomb what would you say?

The white house tried to spin this the next day, and I think they spun it the wrong way. Instead of saying that an innocent American was murdered leaving an aircraft on the ground, and we need to look into this, and prevent this from ever happening again, they incredibly and incredulously justified the murder. All this without an investigation, which however long or in depth would invariably come to the conclusion that there was no bomb.

The next day, amid chatter that the guy had some mental problems the Whitehouse put out a statement that the murder was justified. Which is really the reason that I am writing this post.

You know what? I know that the world is a messy place and accidents happen and people make mistakes, sometimes-big ones that they have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. This is one of those situations and not a justifiable murder.

To couch it as if his supposed mental problem or the fac that he was upset justifies it is infuriating. Does every Prozac popping, Zoloft swallowing, Zanac eating traveler deserve to die because they get upset while on airplane?

Let me call this one the way it is. It could have been me. It could have been you. I usually get upset just getting to the airport. And the second I have to take off my shoes to get through security, because some deranged individual tried to light his sneakers on fire, like out of an episode of loony toones I’m not usually in the best mood.

You know, come to think of it that last time I was on a plane, the stewardess banged my knee with one of the those carts that’s used to hold hot meals It really hurt. I think I screamed when it happened. And then I grasped my knee in pain. I then was holding my knee writhing in pain and wasn’t polite to anyone until the throbbing subsided. Oh such suspicious behavior.

Or who among us hasn’t got into a personal fight, or had a meeting go bad, very bad, or find out some upsetting personal moment, or just been irrated when flying.

What happened was a tragedy. It wasn’t justified and if someone can’t tell the difference between a bi-polar upset passenger who just wants to leave a plane and someone who blows it up then they should probably get a new job, probably one that doesn’t require having a gun.

Being upset is not an excuse to kill someone. Not even on a plane, despite how sensitive we are to things that happen on planes after 9/11.

Letter Submission To The New York Times

Unpublished

A strategy to reduce the amount of cars that come into Manhattan is long overdue.(Sewell Chan, Driving around Manhattan, You pay under one idea) But there may not be a need to follow the London model to achieve similar results. After all, Manhattan unlike London, is an island. All we need to do is toll the east river bridges, change the toll direction on the Verrazano Bridge (which will end the mess on Canal Street). And then adjust the toll pricing for the time of day. To implement a more complicated system as discussed may not be necessary. Which means this is something that absolutely should be implemented by the innovative and capable Bloomberg Administration.

Letter Submission To The New York Times

Unpublished

An article by Sewell Chan (Hail This: You May Not Recognize Taxis of the Future, November 3rd 2005) mentions one of the many ideas that I presented as the founder of Citystreets, a pedestrian rights group in NYC for the redesign of the New York City Taxi.

The article said that Citystreets suggested that we "place video cameras in Taxi's". As written, the article leaves readers with the inaccurate impression that we proposed that cameras be placed inside the vehicles to watch passengers, and thus a clarification for readers and the record is necessary.

Our idea "eyes on the streets" was to place cameras on the outside of all vehicles facing the street, that would be networked and tied to GPS technology, so that NYPD could activate them as needed for law enforcement. i.e. if a 911 call came in for a crime on a street, NYPD could see on a map where the cab was and flip a switch to see (and record) what was going on if a taxi was at the location of a crime.

Ahem...

Sunday New York Times Magazine.

More specfically Rob Walker's Consumed Column.

A bit more of a backstory to the story.

Letter Submission To The Nation

Unpublished

Running on Fumes by Sasha Abramksy

I couldn't help thinking that maybe it wasn't such bad news that with, rising gas prices people could no longer afford to drive their SUV's to work. It is unfortunate that Sasha Abramsky didn't offer any solutions more interesting than government handouts to support unsustainable behavior.

War On War

Our nation was battling the war on drugs, then came 9/11 and we started fighting the war on terrorism. After Katrina there was chatter about starting a war on poverty. The politically powerful minority who want to force their religious beliefs on kids and teach creationism are waging a war on science. Now the U.S. attorney general Gonzalez in a crackdown on porn has started the war on porn , which will presumably be fought with cold showers, which is just my way to say this is a ridiculous waste of resources at a time when we are out of time for foolish behavior from our leaders. But then what do we do about our only war, the one in Iraq. Can we have a war on a war or is it a war on peace?

An Observation About Running For Your Life

FEMA, the federal disaster agency that is itself is a disaster is charged with ensuring that there are adequate evacuation plans for our nations fleet of Nuclear Power Plants. After watching 2 million people trying to flee hurricane Rita and causing 100 mile traffic jams, and depleting all of the fuel of gas stations en route and using so much fuel that the Governor of the state of Georgia is suggesting to cut school days to save fuel. Considering that Kentucky schools have Fridays off to save energy gives you pause to wonder if James Kuntsler might actually have his finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist with his thesis in the Long Emergency. but I digress, my point is much more immediate, there is a Nuclear Power plant about 35 miles from midtown manhattan. FEMA has signed off an emergency plan that doesn't include NYC presumably because you can't evacuate NYC, which is not really a valid reason but I dgress again, as watching millions unsuccessfully leave a place that is much less congested than the area around Indian Point and not be able to, and knowing that FEMA has authorized all of the evacuation routes for our nations aging Nuclear Power Plants, Indian Point included. This means one thing. We need to re-look at all of these evacuation plans through the lens of common sense instead of blind optimism.

I hate being right

While I have written about the need for inter-city rail since 9/11 when we bailed out the airline with 15+ billion in loans without reciprical financing for Amtrak. More recently I have pointed out the need for rail for evacuation due to katrina and now Rita. From President Clinton to Joe Maller people have have talked about busses and not rail. With 1.3 million people trying to flee Rita and interstates at stand stills for over 100 miles the logic of rail over busses becomes clear. Hello? Trains don't get stuck in congestion. Trains don't get stuck on the side of the road because 1 million people are in their cars as gas stations run out of fuel.

Letter Submission To The New York Times

unpublished

(The Nuclear Waste Site In Utah) editorial September 16

Casting aside the Times’ unfortunate endorsement of a proposal that a poor Indian tribe in Utah be the recipient of our country’s spent nuclear power plant waste, the claim that spent fuel pools used to store waste nuclear fuel rods are safe is inaccurate and dangerously outdated.

The National Academy of Sciences recently released a study concluding that the uncontained and largely unprotected irradiated “spent” fuel pools at places like Indian Point represent a serious safety issue at nuclear plants and are vulnerable to sabotage or terrorist attacks that could result in large releases of radiation. The radioactive release would result from the fuel rods catching fire when the pool is breached, and would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to put out.

A former whistleblower at Indian Point testified that, in a security drill, he was able to reach the pools undeterred and place mock explosives in under a minute. And just yesterday, we learned that radioactive coolant has been leaking from Indian Point's spent fuel pool.

Regardless of whether we decide to foist highly radioactive nuclear waste on a poor tribe in Utah, we need to take a closer look at the problem of spent fuel storage at existing nuclear plants before we relicense or add to our current fleet of nuclear facilities.

A Question For Commissioner Weinshall

It’s hard to drive with your foot on the brake pedal but after attending a breakfast meeting with Irish Weinshall commissioner of NYC DOT, sponsored by NYU’s Rudin Center For Transportation Policy and Management earlier in the week, it seems that exactly how Weinshall is leading the DOT. Currently we are stuck at the intersection of bureaucracy and progress.

Reading from a prepared script commissioner Weinshall spoke so complimentary of her agency you wondered if her neck was sore from all the self- congratulatory back patting. Using words and a tone that was new and refreshing for the DOT. She spoke in a monologue of the need for dialogue with the public, the vibrancy of neighborhoods and the need to balance all users needs. She specifically said that her agency supports all modes of transportation. Which of course is specifically not true as the DOT has come out against Segway without studying or evaluating this new mode.

It would be hard to imagine a more docile, if not friendly room of people eager to hear her ideas and plans and otherwise talk transportation. Yet even in this room, underneath the politeness of professionalism and academia, you could sense the frustration of people who had set their alarm clocks a little earlier than usual and cleared their schedules to meet the commissioner and hear her speak about transportation.

That's because no vision was shared. No plans unveiled. No policy was wonked. But for some odd reason a good part of the commissioners prepared statements was spent discussing the new ways her agency worked and to demonstrate this success she pointed to was a community in Brighton Beach Brooklyn that wanted to slow cars down on one street. She was proud that after 4 years of working with community they solved the problem by putting in a bike lane and a pedestrian activated light.

WHAT?

Putting in a bike lane to slow automobiles is admitting that you are using humans as pylons. Pedestrian activated signals are okay provided they work. Let's not forget that under her watch thousands of pedestrian activated signals were removed, not fixed, when they were discovered to be mechanical placebos. But let’s talk about the time frame. This took 4 years of work? 4 years to paint a line on the ground and install a button that a pedestrian pushes when they want to cross? This is considered progress? If I was the commissioner and I was having an honest dialogue I would use this as an example of what was wrong and needed to be fixed by the agency. It seemed to me that commissioner Weinshall was wildly out of touch with the challenges her agency faced, the potential for positive transformative change, and lacked a vocabulary to articulate this to a room full of academics, professionals and concerned citizens.

This was confirmed when the the question and answer session started which was moderated by Eliot Sander, a former DOT commissioner under Mayor Giuliani. The first question went to a graduate student who uses a bicycle as transportation and wanted to know why the DOT continued put in unsafe bike lanes?

As what's considered a bike lane in New York, by Dot is also considered a double parking lane, a taxi hailing lane, and a passing lane, and door opening lanes by New Yorkers, It’s a fair tough question.

Commissioner Weinshall responded by saying “I challenge you on your comment that our bike lanes aren’t safe” She then said that a “Member of my family is an active bike rider and so is Daniel Doctoroff” Referring of course to her husband Senator Schumer and the deputy mayor for economic development. And then went on into her personal version of Alice and Wonderland to explain the progress that DOT has made on bike lanes. The questioner was not given an opportunity for further comment. So much for dialogue.

Of course bike lanes aren’t safe in NYC. The standard for safety of a bike lane would so that young kids unsupervised by adults could safely use them, so that pregnant women could safely use them and so that older and healthy New Yorkers could use them–which they can't. Imagine the outrage if a teacher took a 5th grade class pupils on class outing by bike in NYC she would probably be fired for showing such lack of judgment that put kids at such risk.

I wanted to ask a question about the built in design failure of our signal system that made all of our streets unsafe. Specifically the lack of a pedestrian phase that pits turning cars with crossing pedestrians. The example I wanted to point out was of Lea Zimmerman, an 86 year old year old holocaust survivor, who was described by those who knew her as “vibrant” and “always walking” and who was recently killed while crossing 14th and 6th. A pedestrian phase, also called a Barne’s Dance would have saved her life. And it’s really time that all arterial intersections have them. Another no brainer for intersection safety is to lower the speed limit for turning vehicles.

Although my hand was raised as well was Ethan Ruby, who was sitting in a wheel chair because he was hit by a car and can no longer walk , while crossing the streets of NYC, we were not called on.

More questions followed. the most interesting exchange was when a very dignified looking, concerned citizen, Christine Berthet from Hells Kitchen, wanted to know why her community group couldn’t cross the streets safely in her neighborhood. She had a list of requests of suggestions and a general complaint that DOT was not acting in a meaningful way to address her communities concerns. Commissioner Weinshall again challenged her on the fact that her neighborhood wasn’t safe and then defensively protected her agency.

This was the general tone and the reflexive answers of most questions except for the last one which was also asked by someone who cared about bicycle safety. Although he didn’t identify himself with an advocacy group but clearly was from one as his his question, was promoting a really poorly thought out communication strategy. He asked "What the Commissioner was doing to ensure the the three “R’s” of cycling". The last “R” stands for racks and apparently he was upset that he had no where to park his bike. Commissioner Weinshall informed him that ”DOT had a rack program and that racks were free and NYU could request more racks if they wanted to”. What little life of the room was sucked out by the the question and the way it was asked and the Q&A session ended.

Afterwards Commissioner Sander came by to talk with me, I asked him why "he had passed me over when my hand was raised "He said “I thought you were going to ask another bike question” I wasn’t sure why and then I remembered when there was a collective laugh in the room about bike safety I blurted out “why is this funny?” I told him I wasn’t a cyclist. He asked me what I would have asked commissioner Weinshall.

After listening to what she had to say, and her responses to the residents of New York City, it’s clear that her skills are bureaucratic and not strategic, that she has no vision and thus no executional plan for ideas that residents of this city are clearly ready for. So I would have asked her a different question then the one I raised my hand for. I would have asked her that if she really cares about New York City if she would consider stepping down as commissioner so that some real progress can be made on transportation in NYC.

Just Add Water

As a response to past housing emergencies caused by natural disasters, FEMA has purchased a thousand identical trailers, plunked them down, in the middle of nowhere–or close to it and turned over the keys and walked away.

While this might very well be an appropriate way to handle emergency housing needs prior to Katrina, the sheer number of homeless people requires a more innovative solution. In fact I would suggest that we even phrase the problem differently and think of it not as one supplying housing but rather one of building temporary communities.

What the former residents of New Orleans need, is not just a place to live but also a sense of place. What’s also obviously required is a different land use plan. One that is clearly more dense than anything that has been done on a temporary basis in the past

There are also design issues that need to be considered. In an increasingly nomadic and homogenous world how do we build a temporary place that feels permanent and unique? How do we quickly build a temporary place knowing that people will want to eventually move out but also make them content and comfortable while they are there?

The basic building unit should be modular. Since our trade imbalance with China has left millions of metal shipping containers stacked near our ports, empty and rusting let's use these as a basic building block.

One factory to reconfigure the insides of these units to transform them into housing, can be set up onsite offering future residents much needed jobs. Since the housing modules are shipping containers, they fit on the back of trucks and trains they can be easily transported anywhere in the country other factories can also be set up in other areas that need economic development.

Some forward trending architecture firms have already envisioned recycling shipping containers in innovative ways. In fact an exhibition made out of recycling shipping containers called the Nomadic Museum had a very successful 6-month stay in NYC last year. Building a whole mini city out of them is adimtedly a novel approach, but also one that is exciting and possible.

But a community is much more than housing. What we also need to do is think about other aspect of community life, like entertainment, food, restaurants, clothing, pharmacy barbers, all the things that make, a neighborhood, well a neighborhood. The shipping containers can also be configured for retail use.

The amount of housing requires a much denser mix than FEMA is used to planning for. Since containers are also designed to stack so they can be configured in innovative ways that are exponentionally more dense than a traditional modular trailer.

Instead of dividing up all the space evenly as is done in a suburban build out model, lets give each individual less space but create community common grounds, that can be use for recreational purposes such as parks, ball fields, basketball courts, and enough open space so that people can think, read and remember how to dream.

Transportation is also a crucial component. We need to consider how people move within the community as well as to and from it. Currently, the entire depth of FEMA’s thinking on transportation can be described in one word, driveway. Ironic since many of the people that had to be evacuated, couldn’t leave because they didn’t own cars. Let’s plan these instant communities without the need for every resident to own cars. We’ll save space, use less resources and build a model future community.

This is not pie in the sky future talk but available with some combination of car sharing, and the ability to access on demand light modes such as neighborhood electric vehicles, seaways, and bicycles and of course planning the entire place with walking distances in mind. This will not be a place where someone drives an 8,000lb SUV to return a video or pick up a quart of milk.

An interesting model for all this is Burning Man, a 5-day counter-culture celebration that draws tens of thousands of people to an empty spot, without any infrastructure the middle of the dessert. Where a livable community almost instantly and somewhat magically forms, and then just as quickly is taken down when the event is over.

It’s actually surprising how many lessons our government can learn from Burning Man about building instant communities for thousands of people, that have art, culture, and can instill a sense of place, but maybe the most important lesson is, that it can be done.

Being Taken For A Ride

Things haven’t looked this promising for rail travel in America in decades.

Here’s why: Fuel prices are at an all time high. Gulf Coast gasoline refinery production is reduced due hurricane Katrina. Gasoline supplies are at a 5-year low. Additionally, our vehicle fleet is an inefficient one with so many SUV’s and pick up trucks on the road.

So it made perfect sense for the president to help meet demand by opening the valves to the federal petroleum reserves and ask the nation consume less gasoline last week.

And one way to save gas is not to drive and take the train instead.

Traveling by rail has advantages to driving. There’s no stress, you can catch up on reading, or sleep, and unlike congested roadways trains typically arrive on time.

Having a Rail network is good for America.

With memories of our air traffic system closed down during the week after 9/11, safe dependable inter-city train travel would appear to be in our national interest as transportation links are vital for the movement of goods and people in times of national emergency.

Speaking of emergencies, one wonders if the situation in New Orleans would have been so dire for the 100,000 residents that don’t own cars if there was a reciprocal investment in our nations rail system as there was in our air system after the terrorist attack in NYC four years ago?

Amtrak travels to New Orleans, which means when the orders to evacuate the city were given, all residents that didn’t own cars could have in theory been transported out of the city by rail.

And speaking of New Orleans, while there is a lot of blame to go around because of the lack of immediate and appropriate government response to hurricane Katrina that caused untold suffering, there are also lessons to be learned. One of them is that we need government.

We need government to help plan to mitigate the damage caused by natural and man-made disasters. We need government to bail us out of emergencies when they happen. We also need government to provide a basic structural foundation for our society, which includes our transportation infrastructure.

My point is that trains make sense. And train travel is an idea whose time has come again. And that now with our president requesting less gasoline use, it’s a perfect opportunity for Americans to get out of their cars and re-discover trains.

Yet this is not going to happen. In fact our administration made certain of this. Because the week after calling for conservation, Amtrak announced that it will raise fares an astounding 50% next week. To put that in context at $4 a gallon, it will still be cheaper to drive than to take a train. The stated reason is to increase revenues, but of course this will also have the effect of pushing current riders out of trains and into cars and not converting other drivers feeling the sting of high gas prices to rail travel. So while revenue may marginally increase rider ship will decrease with such an outrageous fare jump.

This is a good time to point out that, yes, the government funds Amtrak, which runs at a loss and not a profit. But let’s have a collective moment of honesty about transportation subsidies. All of our nations transportation modes require government subsidies and also run at a loss.

No one is asking drivers pay to build and maintain our nations roads, bridges and tunnels, or for air travelers to pay for building and maintaining airports, runways and an air traffic control system which are also government subsidized. And in fact these subsidizes make Amtrak’s subsidy look paltry by comparison.

So why is Amtrak expected to be run profitably and without subsidies when driving and air travel aren’t’? And more importantly how can Amtrak compete against other modes that are deeply subsidized by our government? Wouldn’t the field have to be level in order for Amtrak to have a chance at earning a profit?

Let’s also not forget that even before Katrina, gasoline prices doubled last year and the reason they doubled is because of increased demand. Demand can be met by finding new oil or using less of it. Sidestepping the entire debate right about Hubbert’s Curve–the theoretical point where half of all the oil in the world has been used–and which many geologists and even some large oil companies say has arrived or will imminently, it takes time for newly discovered oil to reach the market. So the only way we can realistically meet demand in the short term is to use less energy.

So aside for it being illogical for Washington to make it harder for American to travel by train right now. The decision to raise fares by 50% is also inconsistent with the president’s request to conserve gasoline.

To raise Amtrak’s prices 50% at a time of peak energy cost, high demand, during a time of war, is a calculated one. It’s specifically designed to keep people who might otherwise venture out of their cars into trains, in their cars, at a time when it is clearly in our national interest to fill up every rail seat we have. Even with both the former head of the American Automobile Manufacturer Association, and the former CEO of a major oil company on the Bush cabinet this decision seems difficult to justify.

Citizens Not Refugees

Sports stadiums are places to see football games and the occasional concert, not places to live. So while it is understandable to ride out the fury of a massive a hurricane within the protective confines of a stadium it makes far less sense to suggest that people who have been displaced by hurricane Katrina be shuttled across state lines in a human caravan of misery, only to take up residence in another stadium in Texas.

It seems what is missing beyond an appropriate response to this disaster, are practical ideas about how to take care of the former residents of a destroyed and evacuated New Orleans, so here is one.

America is a developed country with modern communications, transportation and financial systems yet our approach to dealing with hundreds of thousands of homeless people seems to be based on models that are more appropriate to undeveloped countries. For goodness sakes these people are citizens of the United States of America and not refugees.

What makes sense is to absorb these people into our society and not set up tent cities, or massive shelters where people are forced to live in isolation from the general population.

Here’s a better way to approach the problem. Resident of New Orleans should be issued an emergency credit card by one of our financial services companies. This card can be used to purchase a bus, train, or airline tickets to any city in the country with public transportation. Once in the city the card can be use to pay for hotel rooms.

Yes hotel rooms. Rooms with beds and bathrooms, and hot showers, and TV’s and a bible in every drawer. This card can also be used to purchase basic necessities like clothing and food.

I would even suggest that people could use the card to also purchase entertainment. It’s good to go to the movies to take your mind off of things, or to visit a museum with kids and remember we live in a world that contains beauty and not just misery

The bills for these credit cards will go directly to the government. Corporations that choose to donate funds to help in this time of national emergency can have their donations directly deducted from these emergency financial cards.

These people must be taken care of and must treat them like citizens and not refugees in their own country. We must not make them feel grateful for working toilets and handouts of bottled water. The final cost of this will probably end up being similar any other relief program that will have to be paid for anyway.

These cards will remain active until people can either move back to their homes in New Orleans or establish themselves in the urban centers of their choosing.

Like all credit cards there will be rules, accountability, finical controls and limits.

Last time I lost my credit card a new one was issued and sent to me the next day.

Exhaling Common Sense

This opinion piece evolved out of a letter I had published in the New York Times. Unbeknowest to me when I wrote the letter, The original article turned out to have inaccurate facts that I discovered after researching my piece. In fairness to the Times this fact might not have been commonly known at the time of publication. However, in fairness to the public, the New York Times should have printed a correction after I notified the corrections editor, as the fact that was wrong was the foundation of the entire piece. One would think in the post Jason Blair era that the Times would have been forthcoming with a correction.


There is a new strain of marijuana that is apparently so potent it even makes the people who don’t smoke it stupid. This new super-strong pot while easily available is not cheap. While an ounce sells for several hundred dollars, often a joint costs society thousands when you factor in police time and court fees for arresting a user. Nothing of course compared to the 40 billion dollars a year we spend on the war on drugs. Or the cost of incarcerating 2 million people for drug crimes, or the lost tax revenue that incarcerated people would be paying if they were working instead of in jail. Even drug testing has become billion-dollar industry, despite the constitutional protections afforded by the 4th amendment against unreasonable searches. All this brings up a lot of questions among them, when exactly did we decide to piss away our constitutional rights?

Lumping the marijuana plant into the war against drugs has done more damage to the American way of life than marijuana use ever has or will and when enforcement of the law does more damage to society than the crime the law is trying to prevent its time we take a look and see if we need to adjust our policy and change our laws. I think this is that time. Which is why I think its in the best interests of this country for marijuana to be thought of as a plant that we need to keep away from kids and not keep pretending that it’s a dangerous drug.

It’s sadly ironic to observe that our policy makers have created a self-fulfilling prophecy. By making marijuana illegal it has become exactly what people have feared, a dangerous drug. But it’s important to note it’s dangerous not as a drug–as when used it is much more likely to make someone order a pizza than rob a pizza store. All of the violence stems from the fact that because you can’t buy it legally, forces the price to be artificially inflated, which makes this appealing for criminals. If we were to decriminalize marijuana it could be regulated taxed as a business much like alcohol is today.

An apt analogy here is prohibition. In the same way that demand didn’t go away when alcohol was outlawed, and production moved to Canada which criminals then organized to smuggle, distribute and sell, is the same thing that is happening with marijuana. Millions of people still use it, the best weed comes from Canada, and criminals have organized to smuggle, distribute, and sell it.

Marijuana activists have been arguing for legalization based on the medical uses for the plant, I think this argument while well intended is strategically weak because while marijuana might have medicinal value that’s not the real argument here, so lets not pretend it is.

I think a stronger argument is based not on how marijuana can make a select few sick people feel better but on the cancer it is causing to society. Allow me to explain, the effects of criminalization of the marijuana plant acts like a malignancy on society. With mandatory sentencing laws that send first time offenders–often 20 year old kids for their entire adult lives–to jail for longer than we send murderers, we have prevented judges from doing their jobs which is why 24 federal judges have resigned over this issue. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Marijuana use is about the same among African-Americans and whites but African-Americans arrests for marijuana use is 6 times higher. And while you can argue that criminals get what they deserve you can also argue that the resulting disenfranchisement and ensuing mistrust in the legal system that such a bias causes in so many people cannot be healthy for society. Spend an evening in night court as I have done and this becomes clear. Case after case is of a brown or black person picked up for smoking or petty dealing.

And its not just urban youth that are disenfranchised. Think about the millions of healthy productive tax paying citizens whose only crime is smoking pot. This breeds an unnecessary culture of mistrust of government and fear of law enforcement in millions of citizens who at any moment could be branded as criminals and have their property seized, their freedom taken away and their lives ruined because they like the way smoking a plant makes them feel.

The main arguments against legalization is the fear that it will fall in children hands and it is a gateway drug that will lead others to a path of ruin. Really now? Alcohol and cigarettes are readily available in society with rules to keep it out of the hands of minors. And it seems to be mostly working as when was the last time you saw a 10 year old drinking in a bar?

Logic aside lets look at reality. The purpose of making marijuana illegal was to limit its availability and this hasn’t happened it’s easily available so guess what? If kids want it and are curious and precocious they already have easy access. But if you’re concerned about marijuana effects on kids ask yourself what’s worse the potential of kids having easy access to marijuana (which they already do) or the effect of 2 million kids that are growing up with one of their parents in jail? I bring this up because many of their parents are in jail for possession of marijuana. Hint. If you’re not sure about this, ask a public school teacher how easy it is to teach kids with a parent in jail.

As far as being a gateway drug, the argument is probably true for some people in much the same way that it is true for some other people that getting ones drivers license is a gateway to crime. Without learning to drive there wouldn’t be getaway cars but no one is suggesting that a drivers license leads to armed robbery.

In a 2004 CNN/Time poll 72% of Americans favor the decriminalization of marijuana. Of course this data might be somewhat biased as one of the 70 million Americans who have tried marijuana with no ill effects might have participated in the poll. But public support is for the de-criminalization of marijuana. In a democracy all you need is 51% so what’s going on here? Could it be because unlike the liquor and cigarette industry pot dealers don’t have a trade association to lobby politicians? And lets face its just a little awkward for just about everyone else to take a stand on this issue as there is a certain stigma being associated with a pro-marijuana position. And with everything going on in the world there will always be more pressing social concerns for activists to get involved with than the seemingly narcissistic cause of legalizing pot.

Speaking of politicians, President Bush, President Clinton and Mayor Bloomberg have admitted smoking marijuana. It seems really unfair that they can admit to doing this when people are in jail for the same thing. Whatever your personal views, the role of Government is not to act like our parents or our nannies but to organize people so that they can live free and productive lives. So whatever your personal views our current policy is preventing our government to act as it was meant to.

And then of course there are the real security concerns that we are facing in a post 9/11 world. Every time a cop collars someone for smoking pot the police officer spends hours filling out paper work, and is off the street when he could be trying to catch people that are really a threat to society. And lets not forget about that observant FBI agent in Phoenix who couldn’t get funding to investigate Middle Eastern men who were taking flying lessons prior to 9/11 because the money was earmarked for the war on drugs and not for terrorism. We need our police and our border guards and everyone else in law enforcement focused on what’s important, and that’s fighting terrorism and not fighting a plant.

So with this in mind it is time to introduce something into the war on drugs that has been missing for a while. And that is a healthy dose of common sense.

De-railing Amtrak

As oil prices rise to historic levels, the US Senate voted yesterday to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. With proper planning, billions of gallons of oil will begin flowing shortly and we are told by President Bush that “This will ease our dependency on our foreign oil by up to a million barrels a day.”

The US Department of the Interior describes the 2,000-acre area to be drilled as “One small area in an immense region of Alaska.” and assures us that “Using state of the art technology” they can “Begin the environmentally responsible production of oil and gas.”

So to everyone who is worried about Caribou breeding grounds, and the destruction of a pristine ecological area, there is apparently nothing to worry about. And even if some Arctic Caribou are displaced, so what? Get over it, because it’s a small price to pay to move our energy hungry nation towards energy independence.

There’s only one slight problem with this plan, and that’s that there is a bigger whole in its logic than there is in the ozone layer.

If the administration thinks it’s in our country’s best interests to drill for oil in Alaska let’s not reflexively oppose it for enviromental reasons, let’s discuss it, but let’s also not pretend the reason to drill in a wilderness area is to make us energy independent because it won’t--nor will it lower gasoline prices. Drilling for more oil to become energy independent makes about as much sense as consuming more drugs to end an addiction. It might be fun while you're doing it but it’s not going to end well.

I think it’s an important and worthwhile goal to move our country towards energy independence. And I believe George Bush when he says he came to Washington to work on big problems. In fact I really don’t see a bigger a problem for the future of our nation than solving our long-term energy and transportation problems. And while I do believe this problem can be solved opening up ANWR is not a thoughtfull or long-term solution.

What can make us more energy independent in the long-term is new thinking in transportation vehicles, infrastructure and systems, in the short term it is driving more fuel efficient vehicles and driving them less. So what strikes me as disingenuous about drilling in the Arctic is it’s being proposed at exactly the same time as the administration is planning to bankrupt Amtrak.

What’s this you say? With everything going on in the world it was easy to miss this story last week. But the administration didn’t allocate any money for Amtrak in next years budget. The inevitable result of this will bankrupt Amtrak which will lead to even worse rail service in the future, which if you have ridden Amtrak lately is hard to imagine.

The administration is right to be frustrated with Amtrak’s performance financially and otherwise. But they also need to take responsibility for Amtrak’s failures as well and come clean and acknowledge that passenger rail is a responsibility of government and not private enterprise.

If we are serious about reducing our need for foreign oil we would be thinking of ways to take people out of their cars and putting them in trains, not ways to encourage wasteful consumption which is the only way to explain our trend towards larger and more inefficient vehicles.

Funding rail service isn’t cheap but it does put things in perspective to point out that that Generals Motor’s advertising budget is about equal to the US government's yearly investment in Amtrak.

Maybe if we added the equivalent of Ford’s marketing budget to the mix, we could talk about adding modern features to our trains like high-speed wireless Internet access, which are the types of features that will motivate people to take trains instead of figuring out how to scavenge parts to keep 28 year old trains, that break down frequently and rarely arrive on time, rolling.

If the administration was really serious about moving our country towards energy independence they would be making the case for the investment in affordable high-speed inter-city rail service as that can easily and quickly mitigate millions of auto trips a year while reducing the friction to our economy casued by congestion, which at billions a year, is not insubstantial.

It’s important to note that the ability to travel from city to city via rail isn’t just about reducing our dependance on foreign oil, as in the event of emergency it can quickly become a vital link in our nations transportation infrastructure.

When our nations air traffic ground to halt On September 11th, there was no question that it was in the best interest of the country to bail out the airline industry with billions of dollars in loans and subsidies. But where was the similar thinking about inter-city rail service?

Although there wasn’t an investment in rail infrastructure at the time, the reasons for doing so haven’t changed, which is one more reason why before we open ANWR for drilling we should be opening up a real dialogue, and start talking about the best ways to move our country away from our dependence on foreign oil.

Tipped Off

Historians might very well look to my recent experience at Bar Six, on 6th, avenue as the beginning of the end of New York as we know it, when after a night of healthy eating and drinking a party of 3 was presented with a multi-hundred dollar bill that included a “gratuity” charge of 20%.

Surprised, I told our server “I like to pay tips in cash and to choose my own tip amount instead of having the restaurant choose it for me”

The manager then came to my table to explain “That gratuities are automatically added to the bill for parties of 5 or more.” Maybe he wasn’t aware that since the fish we ordered as an entrée was inedible and had to be sent back, we already knew that it was just as easy to take things off the bill, as it was to add them.

Or maybe he didn’t recognize us from earlier in the week when we were there with a party of 6 where the only things added to the bill was the price for the food and drinks that we ordered.

Not wanting to have anything other than a quick resolution I didn’t engage him in a conversation about the negative implications of this policy for our city, so I said, “I only count 3 people.” As there were only 3 people at the table, I think this should have ended the whole thing.

To my surprise the manager, responded loudly and acidly, to a mostly empty room “You started the evening as 5, you have been here for hours and we have taken care of you” the tone in his voice suggested that we had been taking up precious space and the restaurant business wasn’t designed for people to order drinks, then appetizers, then food, and then order dessert and then linger over coffee—being taken care of the whole time, and ringing up a bill in the process.

Never one to argue facts I agreed and said “It’s true we started as 5, but two from our party left a long time ago and we have been 3 for most of the evening and we are 3 now.”

The manager then said “I’ll take it off the bill” as if he was doing us some great favor and then continued “but I don’t want you coming back here” as if he owned the place, which he didn’t.

Now I’m not sure where the “I don’t want you coming back here” part came from. Quite honestly it was a bit of shock. But all of a sudden I understood why this once always-bustling neighborhood restaurant, that I had, until those words were uttered, frequented often, was no longer filled with people.

Wondering were this policy came from I talked to Danny Meyer, someone who knows a thing or two about restaurants and owner of some of New York’s favorite eating establishments. He told me that the practice of including tips on guest’s bills is an attempt “To level the playing field as large groups are more challenging to take care of and with more foreigners visiting New York there is an incidence of no tips due to different tipping practices which can be a legitamely demoralizing experience to servers.”

This was also confirmed by Chris Randall a personable server at the Hard Rock Café who said “My average can drop from 18% a shift to 11% a shift simply because of two tables of international guests.”

But neither thought that 3 or even 5 was a large party worthy of an added gratuity.

While the word tip isn’t an acronym its meaning can be though of as To Improve Performance. The fact that compensation is based on how well one performs at their job helps keep standards high. Living in New York isn’t easy but dining out is usually a hassle free and enjoyable experience, and part of the reason for this is because there is a financial incentive for the waiter to take care of you.

Mr. Randall concurred. “If waiters thought they were getting 20% on every table they wouldn’t care about how they treated people, that’s how people are.”

Danny Meyer had a more philoshipcal take on the issue and told me that he thought, “Tipping was an arcane practice that really fostered an old servitude mentality.” Think about he said. “It’s the only aspect of the restaurant experience where we ask the guests to be an expert and decide on what someone is to be paid to do their job.”

He continued, “I was on a one-man mission a couple of years to end the arcane practice of tipping.” But he confided. “I was wrong. I’ve come to realize that waiters love working for tips. It’s the American way.”

This lead to a more fundamental question. Can a restaurant decide what tip you should pay and then add it to the bill? According to Dina Improta at the office of consumer affairs “Under New York City's Consumer Protection law, restaurants are prohibited from charging surcharges to listed prices. For example, it is not allowed to state at the bottom of a menu that $1 or % charge will be added to all menu prices. However, restaurants can impose a tip requirement on large parties (generally parties of eight or more) but it must be disclosed on the menu, and before the food is ordered. In regards to the situation you described, restaurants cannot charge a gratuity for a party of three when the menu says it will be charged for parties of five or more” She then encouraged me to file a complaint.

I asked Danny Meyer what would happen at one of his restaurants if someone didn’t want to pay the added the gratuity could a guest ask for the added to gratuity to be removed? Without pausing he replied. “Sure” adding, “If the tip was less than what we asked, we just want to know if you’re a 10% tipper or if there is something we can do to improve your experience.”

As you can imagine the whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth, so I decided to get rid of it with a hot dog and tropical drink from Papaya King, which according to Clay Walker, VP of operations, “Has been a New York food landmark for almost 75 years, where people can nosh on high quality food without having to deal with the pretentious side of the food business.” Mister Walker wanted the average New York to know that someone was watching out for them “With cocktail prices rising along with the price of oil and now with the introduction of the $500 dinner in NY, the only ceiling New Yorkers will find at Papaya King is the one above their heads, and the only rude waiters will be the ones that are on line for a hot dog.”

Hearing such refreshing words couldn’t help make you think that maybe, just maybe, there was still a little New York left in New York after all.

Intersections

A soft glowing white light is known to be associated with near death experiences. What is less known, is that a flashing orange light, is also associated with near death experiences—well at least in NYC. That’s because 72% of the 15,000 pedestrians that are injured by drivers of motor vehicles every year are hit while they are in a crosswalk.

Our crosswalks are so unsafe that a strong argument can be made that as designed, built, and maintained, by our Department of Transportation (DOT) they do not provide for safe use of our streets by all residents. All we have to do is look at the deaths of Victor Flores, (11) and Juan Estrada, (10) who were run over earlier this year on their way home from school, when they were in the crosswalk, with the light and killed, to confirm this. If our crosswalks were safe they would be alive and not dead. It’s really that simple.

Why are our crosswalks so unsafe? The reasons are numerous but a good place to start is with Iris Weinshal our current Commissioner of DOT, who like many commissioners before her, has put the movement of cars above the safety of pedestrians in NYC as official policy.

You don’t have to be a trained traffic engineer to know that the safety of human beings should have a higher priority than the movement of cars in a city. Nor do you have to have an engineering degree to understand that crosswalks are a completely man made and thus can be designed to be safe. The reason they are so unsafe is the inevitable result of sloppy thinking passing as traffic engineering in NYC.

There are many things that can be done to make our crosswalks safer. A good place to start is with our out-of-date signal system.

It was Cleveland not NYC that unveiled the first modern traffic light, the year was 1914. Unknown to most people today, traffic signals were installed to speed traffic up not to slow it down. This is why there were tiny statuettes of Mercury, the god of speed, on NYC’s first traffic lights.

Although the control and timing of signals was centralized and computerized in the 1960’s, our signals haven’t changed much since the 1920’s. There are very few items we depend on everyday as old as traffic signals. I believe it’s time that we take a look at our signal system and how we can modernize it to enhance public safety.

Specifically a simple idea to make our crosswalks safer is based on the observation that despite the fact that over 8 million people call NYC home there is no pedestrian phase in our signal system.

What this means is that when a light turns green and a pedestrians is given the signal to cross a street, a driver is also given a signal to make a turn. Cars turning into people lead to deaths and injuries. If cars couldn’t turn into people our crosswalks would be safer. It’s really that simple.

The obvious idea is to add a separate phase of our signal system for pedestrians. This is actually an idea first tried out in the 1960’s during Mayor Lindsay’s administration by a traffic commissioner whose last name was Barnes, which explains why a pedestrian phase is also known as a Barnes Dance.

The way this works is that the lights are 4-way red for cars and 4-way green for pedestrians; This also allows pedestrians to cross the streets safely diagonally. By giving the pedestrian their own light cycle you effectively separate cars from pedestrians thus making crossing streets safer and more comfortable for pedestrians.

But like all good ideas it was summarily rejected by our DOT. And while cities around the world have adapted it, we haven’t. Our transportation policies are still based on the anarchistic idea that that the movement of private automobiles should have a priority over other modes of transportation. When cars were invented this might have made sense. It no longer does. It’s time to evolve. We need to make an about face in our thinking and realize it’s more important to make our streets safe for the people that live work and play here than push more cars through our intersections.

Another simple idea is based on the observation of a mistake in the logic of our signal system as well. When you cross a street in NYC—if there is a pedestrian signal—the light is a solid white (walk) and then turns to flashing orange (don’t walk). Everyone in NYC knows that if you are in a street when the light changes from solid white to a flashing red that you are allowed to continue crossing the street.

However, because the signal remains green for drivers who are turning, from the driver’s perspective it appears that the pedestrian is in the crosswalk against the signal. This flaw encourages aggressive and antagonistic behavior towards pedestrians.

This became crystal clear to me when a driver recently yelled at me to “get the @#* out of the street”. When I yelled back that “I had the @#* light” he pointed to flashing light as proof that I was wrong and thus believed he had the right to run me over. When I jumped out of the way of his close approaching bumper I noticed the Jersey license plates. I wasn’t surprised. Only someone not from NY would act that way, but yet there aren’t instruction manuals given to drivers from other places, when they come into NYC.

The obvious solution is to change the flash from the orange signal to the white signal. The cadence of the flashing pulse can increase towards the end of cycle so that walkers can use it as an intuitive timing guide.

Another idea to make crosswalks safer is to recognize that the relationship between vehicle speed is directly related to the severity of an injury. The speed limit on NYC streets is 30 mph unless other noted. While one can make an argument that the speed on say 6th avenue should be 30 mph, one cannot make the same argument that a turn from 6th should be executed to any side street off of 6th avenue at 30 mph. The speed in crosswalks needs to be lower than the speed on our arterials. There is never a reason to drive at more than 5-10 mph in through a crosswalk. Reduced crosswalk speed should be a law. Drivers should be taught and reminded of the need to slow down to 5-10 mph or less when in a crosswalk.

There are other ideas to make crosswalks safer but these 3 are a good start. To people outside of the DOT these ideas will seem relatively intelligent and based on common sense. Despite the fact they should be implemented on a small scale, evaluated, and fine-tuned prior to citywide deployment this will never happen under the current DOT leadership. Why is a good question?

Another good question to ask is what qualifications does commissioner Weinshall have to run the largest urban transportation system in America as she is not a trained civil (or any other type) of engineer. She is neither architect, industrial designer, or self taught transportation maven. And her only transportation experience prior to this was as a Brooklyn driver. Her lack of professional qualifications would be acceptable if she showed leadership, vision and competency, which she hasn’t. In fact her reign is scarred by mismanagement and considered an abject failure by everyone working on transportation issues, and fellow urbanists. While she uses her maiden name professionaly, Commissioner Weisnhal is married to New York State Senator Charles Schumer. it’s hard not to wonder if this relationship is shielding her from criticism and otherwise preventing others from holding her responsible for the failures of the DOT under her watch in fear of retribution. At the end of the day the resident of NYC deserve to have safer crosswalks. It’s really that simple.