In my own damn words

Jew York

2012-01-03T13:27:00.002-08:00

I saw this Graffiti in the bathroom of Edi and The Wolf, last night, an Austrian restaurant in the East Village, 102 Avenue C to be exact. This is the first time I've ever encountered anything like this in New York. The fact that it was at a pricey restaurant made what I saw in the bathroom seem extra shitty.

Breast Recall

2011-12-21T23:39:00.000-08:00

30,000 french boobs are being recalled. Or is 60,000? Seems like they might be sold in sets of two.

world's largest breast recall

The Great Successor

2011-12-19T16:05:00.005-08:00

I like this image. It's the picture I'm less comfortable with.

A Back Of The Napkin Plan To Run NYC Garbage Trucks On Restaurant Waste Oil

2011-12-18T21:19:00.001-08:00

The NYC Department of Sanitation will use 10 million gallons of fuel, at a cost of approximately 40 million dollars, to collect and dispose of 3.2 million tons of residential waste, in 2011.

I’ve come up with a simple idea to reduce the cost, of collecting this waste, to zero. I have done a simple back of the napkin calculation to assess its viability, which I would like to share with you.

Before I present a vision of a more sustainable urban future, let’s first take a step into the past. The year is 1889, we are in Paris, and structural engineer Gustav Eiffel, has just completed his temporary tower for the World’s Fair. Another engineering genius, Rudolf Diesel, publicly demonstrates his high compression engine that is 500% more efficient, than the steam engine it is designed to replace. When he shows the world what he has just spent the last 13 years of his life working on, he uses peanut oil for fuel.

Now back to the future. Although modern diesel engines have improved over the last 112 years, they still work on the same principal; and they all can run on vegetable oil.

This is what led to the insight to make NYC more sustainable. Here’s the idea: Fuel the entire fleet of NYC sanitation trucks with used restaurant waste oil. Waste oil as fuel source for waste management.

This is why I think it can work.

According to the NYC Department of Health there are 24,000 restaurants in NYC. This number includes coffee shops, which don’t have fryers. Let’s assume that 20% of food establishments are coffee shops. This leaves us with 20,000 restaurants that do have fryers. These food establishments range from restaurants that have one lightly used 5 gallon fryer that needs to be changed weekly, to burger joints that have multiple fryers that need to be changed daily.

Restaurant fryer waste oil is an available and untapped fuel source; the question then becomes how much is available?

We know, that the average amount of oil a NYC restaurant uses is somewhere between a restaurant that does a lot of frying and changes its oil daily, and one that uses less oil and changes its oil weekly. If we use a conservative estimate between the extremes we come up with an average of 10 gallons a week per restaurant. If we multiply 10 (gallons a week) by 20,000 (restaurants) and then multiply the result by 52 (weeks in a year), we get 10 million gallons of restaurant waste oil that can be used for fuel per year.

We can use similar reasoning to figure out how much fuel is needed to run the garbage trucks. The Department of Sanitation has a total of 5,600 vehicles in its fleet, 2,230 of them are collection trucks. The trucks are powered by 4 MPG diesel engine workhorses. The department doesn’t breakdown their fuel use by vehicle type, but since we know the collection trucks are low mileage as well as the total fuel necessary for the whole fleet, we can assume that even though the collection trucks are about half of the entire fleet, they use more than half of the fuel. So let’s say they use 75% of the fuel. This would be 7.5 million gallons a year. It looks like we have more than enough fuel from restaurant waste to power the garbage trucks.

Now here is where it comes together. All NYC garbage trucks are stationed in depots. Which means, the used restaurant oil has to be brought to just a few central locations. This solves a distribution problem, that would make doing the same thing with the taxi fleet (hint, hint) more difficult.

Collection, shouldn’t be a problem. The oil that the restaurants use is currently disposed of as waste and is already being picked up by private carters. In order to use the fuel, the restaurant oil only has to be filtered so that no pieces of tempura, or french fries clog the fuel lines.

While admittedly, this is a back of the napkin calculation, it is based on accurate numbers provided by the city, and seems viable. Since it’s not every day that an urban idea makes economic sense, environmental sense and also has public health benefits, I think this warrants that NYC should take the next step and explore how to set up a trial in one depot, and based on the results, expand from there.

The only real disadvantage that I foresee is that garbage truck exhaust will start to smell like french fries and this will make people stuck behind one crave fried carbs. So while, this will make NYC more sustainable and save the city 40 million in fuel a year, it might be in conflict with some of the mayor’s other public health initiatives. But I think the trade off is well worth it, I really do.

Link

Current Resume

2011-12-16T01:21:00.002-08:00

Three observations about the Santa Ana Winds two nights ago not mentioned in the New York, or La Times.

2011-12-12T15:17:00.001-08:00

Note: I wrote this two days after the strong Santa Ana Winds on December 1.

Three observations about the Santa Ana Winds two nights ago not mentioned in the New York, or La Times.

1. Early in the afternoon the crows were making a lot of noise. What was really noticeable about this, is that usually they hang out individually or in small groups. This day there were hundreds of them. Filling up trees, wires, and sky, and just screaming at the top of their bird lungs. This was so noticeable, and I got up from my desk and went outside and asked them, "hey guys, what's going on?"

2. My wetsuit was really dry the next morning. Usually it's still damp.

3. Sharoz noticed a lot of bugs in the house. There are normally none. I think they came from the wind.

RQ-170 Stealth Drone Captured By Iran

2011-12-09T12:05:00.001-08:00

In my head this blog morphed into a meta commentary about media a while ago. The reality is much different as I have been concentrating on writing, instead of writing about writing, or writing about reading or some combination there of. So in the spirt of commentary about media. I present a little deeper view than one can see in the photo of today's front page of the New York Times about the captured CIA Stealth Drone.

Statue of Liberty Undressed

2011-12-02T08:24:00.001-08:00

Doing research for a future urban proposition, I came across this drawing. Its the structural drawing of the statue of liberty done by Gustav Eiffel. Enjoy.

Occu Pie Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T20:35:00.001-08:00

“MIC CHECK. MIC CHECK.”

The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, an old saying goes. In the same vein, but not quite as sentimental, is another old saying immortalized in neon at Katz’s deli in NYC. It reads: SEND A SALAMI TO YOUR BOY IN THE ARMY. To show support for the men (and women) in uniform serving abroad in the military, sending a care package, is a well established tradition.

My thinking, is that a wholly American act to partake in on Thanksgiving, a wholly American holiday, is to extend this tradition to an Occupy near you. We used to"Send a Salami To Your Boy In The Army", now lets "Bring A Pie To Occupy".

If you support Occupy, bring a pie to your local Occupy encampment this Thanksgiving. Occu_pie jokes aside, it behooves us to support others sacrificing their time and energy to participate in democracy and pushing for our shared government to be conscientious. To do more and become better–for the people, by the people.

What do I mean by support?

Do you support the idea of people participating in an unedited, unsanitized, and raw form of democracy? I’m speaking of a French Enlightenment Voltaire-ian ideal where you may disagree with what is said but defend someone’s right to say it. If so, bring your pie to coincide with a daily General Assembly meeting. They can be messy,uncomfortable and unwieldy, and are often unproductive and frustrating. Get over it because when was the the last time you saw direct democracy in action on a street corner near you? Bring the kids, for the free lesson in civics, history and social studies.

Do you support the ability to assemble peacefully and are taken aback by the militarization of the police as we witnessed last week during the unnecessary use of chemical weapons against UC Davis students? The world watched when Lt. John Pike calmly walked over and sprayed sitting students in the face with a chemical agent that left not only those hit with the spray gasping. If this is not representative of the society that you would like to live in, then perhaps you do support Occupy.

Do you support freedom of the press and think that barring and arresting reporters from covering the eviction of Zuccotti park is something you are not comfortable with, even if you are unsure how you feel about anarchists, homeless, and people who missed Woodstock taking over public space or in the case of Zuccotti Park, privately owned public space?

Do you support ending the war on drugs? In Los Angeles Marijuana is just not in the air at Occupy, it’s wafting its way into the message. Sure, the kids are enjoying getting high but maybe there is more to it? Think about it. We've been fighting a war against a plant for 20 years, and losing. And there are all those people who don't live in States like California, where weed is legal, and choose to self-medicate. Their marijuana use, may be the only illegal thing they do; Why does this matter? Because it changes their relationship to government. And then there are all those people in jail at great personal cost, and a larger societal cost for marijuana related offenses. Do we really need to spend billions every year to keep people in jail for smoking weed? What about the lost tax revenue from a very profitable crop? So while the kids in LA need to change their bong water, maybe its time for us to change some policies that smack of prohibition.

Do you have student loans? Do you support ending the practice of onerous interest on loans to get an education, that borders on usury?

Do you not have student loans and are still disgusted that AIG was bailed out with 182 billion dollars of our tax dollars while students were given $0. While we were told with a straight face that this is what’s best for America’s future?

If you support any of these bring a pie to your local Occupy this Thanksgiving. Sending a “Salami To Your Boy In The Army” shows gratitude to the people who take their orders from the government, bringing a pie to Occupy shows gratitude to the people who are challenging such orders. I’m not saying they are both equal. I am saying that they are both American.

“CAN WE GET A TEMPERATURE CHECK ON THAT?”

Time For A New Gauge

2011-11-20T15:27:00.001-08:00

For the first 100 years of our relationship with cars, the important metric of automobile performance has been speed. The automobile dashboard has evolved over time to reflect this relationship. No matter what type of car you drive, the modern dashboard is familiar to all drivers. There is a prominent speedometer, a less prominent clock, a fuel level, an odometer, a temperature gauge, and depending on the make and model a tachometer and turbo boost gauge.

We are entering a second era where another type of performance is gaining in importance and that is efficiency. Perhaps it is necessary for the dashboard to reflect this change.

With the recent popularity of hybrids we are starting to see a new gauge that lets the driver know their current miles per gallon. This can take the form of a dial or readout showing the driver how many miles per gallon they are getting in real time.

Anyone who has driven a car with this type of gauge quickly becomes aware that they are not a passive observer but rather become an active participant in their vehicle’s fuels efficiency. The way you drive affects your efficiency performance. With an efficiency gauge you experience this in real time. With a heavy foot you can watch your miles per gallon drop. Coast to red lights and you see your performance go up, substantially. By watching the gauge, you learn how to drive more efficiently. Driving more efficiently quickly becomes an unspoken challenge. And even if a driver, for whatever reason doesn’t want to take up that challenge, the gauge will always be there, ready for the driver that will.

What this gauge also shows is the limits of the EPA fuel standards. Cars just don’t operate in “city” or “highway” modes and actual fuel economy reflects real world conditions more accurately than window stickers. In fact it’s widely known that car companies tune their cars to perform well on the EPA tests.

Perhaps a way to think about this is through our obsession with dieting. Fuel energy is just another form of calories. One of the secrets to successful weight loss is to have a scale and to use it everyday. The act of measuring ensures feedback into a caloric consumption loop. By applying this thinking of food calories to fuel calories we can begin to see the importance of a fuel efficiency gauge in all cars, not just a few to get drivers to drive more efficiently.

The benefits are clear. By putting the gauge in cars we literally will be training drivers to drive in a more efficient manner. If the gauges were made mandatory the fuel savings would be astronomical as even the most inefficient car can still be driven in a more efficient way.

The only argument not to make a fuel efficiency gauge mandatory is that it might distract drivers. With the introduction of this gauge on a smaller scale we have learned that this is not the case. One more piece of information won’t be a distraction to drivers.

Incorporating an efficiency gauge in the main information display on a dashboard should be made mandatory on new vehicles. This dovetails with national interests, as well as societal consciousness about energy matters. As we enter this new era of efficiency it is inconceivable to think that we can know where are going without participating in how we get there.

Yes Mayor Bloomberg Occupy Has Got To Go.

2011-11-15T10:45:00.001-08:00

...one obvious lesson that we can learn from Occupy Wall Street is the need for public restrooms in urban environments. For years in NY this responsibility has been put on store owners, mostly restaurants and bars who have had to let the public use their private facilities, often begrudgingly. We are all accustomed to seeing the ubiquitous hand drawn sign that says "Restrooms For Customers Only" This sign is often underlined --more I think to express the owners frustration with the situation than for emphasis. The polite among us become instant customers, understanding that there are bigger battles to be had. Of course if you are dressed properly you can often just walk in and head towards the back and someone will inevitably point and say "that way". Hotels generally have restrooms but since people know that hotels have restrooms, some of them require a room key for access. What I am getting it is NYC residents develop specific strategies for going to the bathroom while using the city. Strategies that are considered normal but really aren’t. With millions of residents and millions of visitors and millions of workers there is just a natural need to go the bathroom. And going to the bathroom in a city shouldn’t require a strategy. This issue while not primary rallying cry for the 99% has been magnified with the occupy movement. But the 1% has the same needs. So the urban question then becomes if 100% of the people in the city have this need why isn’t it provided for?

George Washington on Government

2011-11-08T09:54:00.003-08:00

Picked up a copy of the constitution at Occupy. George Washington quote stuck out. George Washington: "Government is not a reason, its not eloquence–its a force! Like fire, it is dangerous servant and fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

Mister Silver what are you reading today?

2011-11-07T15:51:00.000-08:00

Meet the .0000000001%

2011-11-06T09:59:00.003-08:00

While for the last couple of weeks a lot of people have been talking about the 1%. Today I wanted to talk about the .000000001%. Geoffrey Mutai just set a course record for for the NY Marathon finishing in 2:05:06. He had an average pace of 4.77 minutes a mile for the 26.2 mile marathon course. If you don't know what that means. Try to run 100 yards at his breathtaking pace. Good luck.

Andy Rooney Dies at 92

2011-11-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

This morning I was planning to make some headway on a piece I started yesterday about the current design show at LACMA; Or work on the idea of going behind the scenes a little on my latest column in the Huffington Post. But when I read the newspaper this morning I found out that Andy Rooney died. And so I thought I would tell a story about Andy Rooney because he was one of my teachers. We were formally introduced one evening near San Simeon California. Sharoz and I were sleeping in a hotel conference room. The hotel was full and they kindly let us sleep in their conference room on the floor. The TV was on and and we don't know how to change the channel when this old guy with big bushy eyebrows came on the screen, but since he had a typewriter in front of him we didn't turn it off. We were both working in advertising agencies at the time as creatives struggling with trying to learn how to write ideas. And then this guy who I kind of recognized from 60 minutes but didn't know who he was started talking about writing. The process of writing. He called phooey on inspiration and creative juices and just talked about work. Getting to work. That if you want to write you just sit down and write. That the process of writing is writing. That things come from the process of of doing them. I'm really not doing a good job of describing what he said so I'll stop. But I will say the effect it had on me. What he said changed my life. I never thought of the act of making something or being creative the same way again. I never thought of writing the same way again. I always knew his name after that and looked forward to his columns on 60 minutes with much deeper appreciation. So that's my personal story about Andy Rooney today, in memory of him today, the day I learned he passed away.

Today's Revolution Brought To You By The McDonalds Corporation

2011-10-21T10:39:00.008-08:00

I visited Zuccotti Park on Sunday October 1, 2011, it was the day after more than 700 people were arrested for attempting to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and the week after NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna pepper sprayed a group of women in the face, near Union Square. I wanted to see and feel for myself what was going on.

I walked to Zuccotti Park from Brooklyn Heights and spent most of my Sunday morning there. I helped myself to a classic NY egg sandwich with cheese, a red apple, and some cookies from the free food that was offered but not in that order and not all at once. I took pictures of the hand made protest signs. I tried not to step on anyone still asleep. I spent time just sitting and observing. I listened to live drumming, I watched people hand roll cigarettes, I tried to make sense of it all. I spoke to a lot of people. The conversations I had with protesters were in a word, disappointing. Everyone I spoke to, wanted to replace our economic system and monetary system with something new--and as yet undefined-- and everyone I spoke to also wanted a new government system.

Make that everyone except Marnie, who had come from Burlington Vermont for the Slut Walk that took place the day before. Marnie thought it was important to drop by so had slept there and was pissed off that every guy had hit on her during the night. She was disappointed with the movement in general. "Anarchy is just not a way to make the change that we need. Without leadership nothing will change for the better." Pretty smart words from a 23 year old.

These conversations with people that were down there that morning have been in stark contrast with the conversations that I have had with people about the protests, who haven’t been down to Zuccotti Park. These group seems to like the idea of some mechanism to vent the frustrations that most of us feel on varying levels to the economic injustice around us. But they understand the protest in much different terms than the protestors that I talked to that morning. This was confirmed by an article in today's WSJ that discusses the results of the first poll of the protesters and how they are out of step with the concerns that most Americans have.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020447950457663708296
5745362.html?mod=rss_opinion_main&utm_source=feedburner&utm_me
dium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7041+
%28WSJ.com%3A+Opinion%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Speaking of conversations, the questions that I was curious about, was why the NYPD was letting people sleep in parks, when the police have aggressively enforced Park Department nighttime curfews after the Tompkins Square Park Riot of 1988. The other question I was interested in, was where was everyone going to the bathroom?

Zuccotti Park it turns out, is a privately owned by Brookfield Office Properties, a large real estate corporation. As private property it is not subject to the nighttime curfews that public parks are subject too. The police have no right to remove trespassers until the property owners ask them too. Think about it, an anti-corporate protest is being protected by corporate ownership of public space. Things are indeed so out of balance that we let corporations buy and control parks, public space, the people’s space, in our cities. Brookfield is not sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street Crowd and did attempt to rid their park of the protestors, by writing a letter to police Commissioner Raymond Kelly asking for help to clear them our on October 11^th. Thankfully clear heads prevailed at City Hall and the request was turned down. I guess we should also be thankful that Brookfield sent the letter to the NYPD and not the Blackwater Corporation, the USA’s corporate mercinary army.

Now onto the bathroom question. On the north end of Zuccotti Park across Broadway is a McDonalds that is open 24 hours. From the first night that the park was occupied it has been the policy of this McDonalds franchise to let people use the bathroom without requiring a purchase. On the South Side of the Park across Church Street there is Burger King, which closes at 11:00 PM on weeknights and 1:00 AM on weekends and requires a purchase before allowing people use their restrooms. Without access to sanitation facilities there can be no protest. The McDonald's corporation has enabled the protestors to occupy the park. I'm pretty sure that the McDonalds Corporation is unaware of the role they have had in helping this protest against corporate interest, gain world wide traction. This is one of the many ironies of Occupy Wall Street –make that deep-fried irony.

File Under Holy Shit.

2011-10-14T14:14:00.003-08:00

If you don't have a folder on your computer titled "Holy Shit" make one now and put this in there. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?

1097

2011-09-28T19:13:00.005-08:00

Mister Andy Rooney,

The word column is an interesting word isn't it? Architects use them to hold things up. Generals use them to tear things down. And then there is a special writer, like you, who uses the column in perhaps a more powerful way than either generals or architects–proving perhaps that words are more powerful than architecture and armies. Thank you sir for all of your columns, all 1097 of them.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/reduced-role-for-rooney-on-60-minutes/

Gulf Oil Spill Day 41

2011-09-27T05:28:00.003-08:00

As I think about reactivating this blog...I wanted to post something I wrote last summer about the Gulf Oil Spill.

June 3 2010

Gulf Oil Spill Day 41.

40 million gallons and counting. No end in sight.I start to think of the terms differently. I shift sides and begin to root for the oil. As this is not the most popular position, perhaps it requires a little explanation?

A way of looking at the world is through top-down and bottom-up systems. Top-down systems are rigid inflexible and determined. Large centrally planned corporate structures like BP come to mind. Bottom-up systems are self-organizing. This is how nature works. A set of simple rules that create complexity. The way a flock of birds flies, or a school of fish travel. Or in the case of oil, how pressure allows a fluid to escape.

Man’s relationship with nature can be seen as a battle between top-down systems trying to overpower a bottom-up system. An arrogant and unnecessary war that won't end well. We rely on technology to avert catastrophe in a series of escalating stakes. The stakes now being an entire ocean.

This is a way to understand what is going on in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil is literally gushing up from the bottom of the sea. Moving from the abstract to the real, BP’s latest failed attempt to stop the flow is called “Top Kill” literally the ability to stop the bottom-up system by forcing muck and debris from the top with more pressure. It didn’t work. The bottom-up is more powerful than the engineers thought. Nature is more powerful than some science nerds at an oil company? Really? What a surprise.

In the traditional narrative the polluting oil is the enemy, this is what needs to be stopped. Once we understand this in terms of competing systems. We can look at this differently. Perhaps it is not the oil that needs to be stopped but rather these large corporate entities that use top-down extraction methodologies to power a top-down energy infrastructure is what needs to be stopped. The polluting oil, after all, if not leaked into the ocean would be leaked into our atmosphere powering a top-down infrastructure.

Once we understand things from this perspective we can see that perhaps this gushing oil from the bottom of the Gulf of the Mexico isn’t the largest environmental disaster in our nations history rather that honor goes to suburban developments requiring a car for every person and a drive for every task.

The image of the oil gushing out of the bottom of the ocean is shocking and disturbing. Our lack of understanding of technology, which leads to an out of control situation is disheartening. The bottom-up fighting back the top-down. Our top-down minds are in a constant race and expectation for a technological answer. Yet if the bottom-up developed an equal intelligence and awareness perhaps it would be shocked by millions of people driving SUV’s a mile to a grocery to pick up a quart of milk every day. This abhorrent image is considered normal, not shocking. Perhaps if it was considered shocking we would not be looking for oil 20,000 feet below the oceans surface.

A bottom-up system doesn’t lie to exert control. A top-down system does. The oil never claimed how much it was leaking. It just took advantage of the hole provided by the top-down to do what the laws of physics require from fluids under pressure. Nature has rules. Those rules do not take place in 1,000 barrel increments as the top-down system claimed. The very claim was a lie. The current claim is now 15,000 barrels a day. The top-down system strives for accuracy only when the entire world is paying attention. 1,000 barrels a day is much better number for a top-down system to describe a leak. Enough to admit the problem. Not so much to alarm. The illusion of control in the description of the problem rather than control of the actual problem.

A bottom-up system does not need to hire a PR firm to manage the message. A bottom-up system doesn’t hire an advertising agency to rebrand it. A bottom-up system will not try to save money by cutting corners. A bottom-up system will not risk the entire network to insure its existence.

Top-down systems have given us the military industrial complex, a mechanized way to end life on earth. Bottom-up systems have given us life on earth.

North Korea which starves its citizens is a top-down system. The food chain is a bottom-up system.

Suburban sprawl is a top-down system. A forest is a bottom-up system.

Our interstate system which paves over the landscape is a top-down system. Our oceans and the life in them is a bottom-up system.

So given a choice between rooting for a top-down system or a bottom-up system the choice seems clear. Perhaps not popular, but clear.

And it is why if given choice between a dumb powerful top-down corporation that has lied and cheated and will make a profit until the environment is completely destroyed, or a government that is laughably without any leadership and some oil that was minding its business 20,000 feet below the earths surface and is now just rising because a hole was a dug.

I am rooting for the oil.

MAKE IN THE USA

2011-09-23T09:13:00.002-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harris-silver/solar-homes_b_976665.html

Congestion Pricing. Let's clear the air

2007-07-17T06:12:00.000-08:00

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

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

Ship of Fools

2006-02-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-20T06:37:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-19T18:24:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

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

2006-02-03T22:17:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-29T22:51:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-29T22:36:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-29T22:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-17T00:25:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-02T02:47:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-24T23:44:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

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

2005-12-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

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...

2005-10-08T00:07:00.000-08:00

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

2005-10-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

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

2005-09-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-27T15:13:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

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

2004-11-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

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.

Swim At Your Own Risk

2004-09-20T10:17:00.000-08:00

Mahin Iqbal (17 years) wasn't the first person to drown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rockaway NY, and he won't be the last. He was just the most recent.

The morning after Mahin was overcome by rough surf, on September 2, at around 5:00 P.M., while 3 NYPD boats trolled back and forth close to shore in a deliberate pattern searching for him, his family held a vigil at the waters edge where he was last seen. Also unsettling, was how close to the lifeguard station his drowning occurred. Patrick Connolly, Timothy Geary, and Michael Galvin the lifeguards involved in the rescue, were literally seconds away, once alerted to swimmers in need of rescue and in fact were able to rescue two of Mahin’s friends who were also in trouble.

Unlike most drownings at Rockaway, Mahin wasn't swept away by the locally known currents that are so strong; you can see the water bubbling on the surface during changing tides. He was overwhelmed by a maelstrom of surging water from beautiful but deceptively powerful waves created by Hurricane Francis that had traveled thousands of miles up the East coast and had just begun to crash on New York’s shores. The waves continued to roll in, until his body was found two days later.

(this should be in all caps) A quick word of life saving advice if you don’t know how to swim and suddenly find yourself in overhead water: Do not panic. The moment you panic is the moment you start drowning. If only Mahin had known this--or had been taught how to swim.

This is a good time to make the case that New York should include swimming as part of the Public School curriculum because swimming is an essential life skill.

A less obvious lesson to be learned is that all parents should follow the example of Jewish parents and make teaching their children to swim a priority. There’s a reason you never hear about orthodox Jewish kids drowning. It rarely happens because their parents take the Talmudic obligation of teaching their children to swim seriously.

If there is anything else we can learn from this unnecessary death to prevent another we must also understand why well trained lifeguards would allow swimmers anywhere near the water during conditions so rough that Michael Phelps would have a rough go at it?

With this in mind I talked to Terry Laughlin a former Jones beach lifeguard, an author of numerous books on swimming and the founder of Total Immersion, a swimming method that can teach anyone to swim so well you would think they had grown a dorsal fin.

He said, "The job of the lifeguards is to control the beach not just pull people out of the water, and you don't want to be in a situation where you're expecting to make saves.” He continued. “It's up to the life guards to make the judgment if the water is safe to swim, but they certainly shouldn't let people past their knees when they are on duty if they can't save them."

This was also confirmed by NYC Department of Parks & Recreation spokesperson Megan Sheekey who said. “The Chief Lifeguards are empowered to limit beach use or close the water entirely to swimming based on local conditions.”

September 2nd was a perfect beach day. The sky was blue. The sun was hot. The water temperature was a balmy 74 degrees. The lifeguards didn’t want to ruin the experience for anyone who trekked out to Rockaway, so they allowed beach goers to enter the water knee deep to cool off. There’s an implicit understanding with this type of arrangement. That is, if the lifeguards allow you to go in knee deep and you don’t know how to swim you make sure you don’t go in past your knees.

Apparently this wasn’t the case. According to an NYFD EMT, who I talked to at the scene, and asked that I not identify him by name, “The lifeguards whistles to come closer to shore were ignored.” Although the lifeguards couldn’t save Mahin, it’s important to understand that’s not why he drowned. He drowned because he didn’t know how swim.

Mahin was 17 and not a child. He was aware that he couldn't swim so why go into the water in the first place? Based on the proximity of where he drowned to the lifeguard station, I think he hedged. That is, I think the presence of lifeguards lulled him into a false sense of security, which is why he strategically positioned himself in full view and close proximity to the lifeguard station. Why else pick that spot?

As far as Mahin entering the ocean on a false sense of security, I may be on to something as according to the NYC Department of Health and Hygiene 9 people have drowned at Rockaway beaches between 1997-2001. All of these drownings occurred during the summer months when lifeguards are on duty between the hours of 10-6. Since none of the these occurred in Septmeber when the ocean tempreture is warmest, one conclusion that can be made is that weak swimmers are less hesitant to enter the water without the safety net of lifeguards. People who know how to swim generally don’t drown.

But this may also be because the beaches are technically closed during the month of September, when the 521 lifeguards that New York employs to watch over cities beaches between Memorial Day and Labor Day season has ended.

You can make an argument that in retrospect it is obvious that the beach should have been closed for swimming, as three lifeguards could not carry out a save. And also conclude that in the future the city should not let swimmers in at all on dangerous days to prevent a similar situation where someone is lulled into a false sense of security due to the presence of well-trained lifeguards. But this would solve the wrong problem. The problem we want to solve is not to keep people out of the water but to remove the false sense of security that beachgoers may have.

Since the ocean cannot be drained when summer is over to keep people out, does a rule forbidding access because lifeguards are not on duty make sense? Seems to make about as much sense as closing a street because a policeman is not on it. It smacks overbearing paternalism to tell people that they can’t swim in the ocean when lifeguards aren’t on duty--besides it’s completely unenforceable. The only sensible policy, and one the city should implement, is a “swim at your own risk policy”.

Either way, one simple way to prevent further deaths, and remove any false sense of security the presence of lifeguards may provide, the city must publicize Rockaway’s danger instead of hiding it. The Department of Parks can do this by placing prominent and highly visible signs that alert the public to the fact that the water contains changing and unpredictable conditions, which have caused people to die. These signs really need to hit the point that the likelihood of drowning is extremely high if you don’t know how to swim. These signs should also state that even in the presence of lifeguards, swimmers swim at their own risk.

But swimiming at your own risk would be a change in Parks Department policy. I asked Adrianne Benepe, NYC Parks Commissioner, if he would consider adopting a swim at your own risk policy so that New Yorkers can enjoy the ocean all year round he said. “There’s a long history of state oversite on this. State health code regulations do not permit us to allow bathing without lifeguards, so it is not under our jurisdiction to allow a swim at your own risk policy” he continued. “A lot of people move out to Rockaway to be close to the Ocean and Rockaway residents would like to swim but can’t do it legally. And since we can’t provide lifeguards past septmeber even if we wanted to, it would be reasonable for them to be able to swim at their own risk.”

When I mentioned to commissioner Benepe that this makes no sense because the state allows both hunting and snowmobiling on state park land, which are both more dangerous than swimming and something that we can’t do in city parks although we can do them on State land.

He said, “Others have also made the case that there is double standard as well. The solution would be for the state lawmakers to pass a recreation immunity bill.”

What he’s really saying is that public policy is being determined not by what is in the interest of the public but by who carries the liability burden because we live in a society where people are quick to assign blame and not take personal responsibility for their actions which is why the result of an accidental drowning is often a lawsuit. But no matter how much you sue for, it will never bring someone back to life, or prevent others from drowning.

We can only hope this recreation immunity law is passed soon so that the ocean can be returned to the people of New York City. We also hope that at the next drowning lawsuit, if any money is awarded, the judge makes a stipulation that all of the money be spent on swim education in the drowning victims community. No family should have to go through what the Iqabal family is going through and the way to insure this is not by closing beaches or initiating lawsuits but by teaching non-swimmers to swim.

Beer Here

2004-09-14T14:20:00.000-08:00

Whether you are washing down a delicious $3.10 burger at the new Shake Shack in Madison Square Park on 23rd street, or on a much less tasty $15.00 burger, at Luna in Union Square Park, 8 blocks to the south on 16th street, you can’t help but notice the funny taste the beer leaves in your mouth.

How could it not, when fellow residents who are outside of the confines of the marked concession area are often arrested for the same act that you are enjoying under the protection of the law?

The way it has worked is: The police department parks a big MTA size bus on the north end of Union Square Park in the evenings. Undercover officers fan out through the park looking for lawbreakers.

Beer drinkers are included in the catch and treated as criminals by the police. They are handcuffed and brought to the waiting bus and made to sit, sometimes for hours, in full view of patrons who are—this is where it gets weird—protected by the police to drink beer in the park.

The first person in the bus has it the worst as he has to wait for the vehicle to fill up they are brought to a station house for processing where barring no outstanding warrants are then fined and released.

This can take all night, sometimes even longer, for the person. While not hard time it is nonetheless not a pleasant experience. It is humiliating, can be dangerous and sometimes people lose their livelihoods when their employers find out what happened. This whole experience can leave a worse beer taste in your mouth than Rheingold, and some New Yorkers remember how bad that was.

When I asked Seargent Irizarry if she ever thought about the fact that NYPD officers were both arresting people for drinking beer in a public park protecting people who are drinking beer at the same time. She said “beer drinking is a parks department rule.”

When I asked Kyong Jang manager of Toasties deli on Union Square West if he thought he would sell more beer if people could drink in the park. He said “I guess so”.

Where is the outrage? Lets face it there’s a lot of seemingly more important causes in the city than protecting the rights of park beer drinkers.

Nonetheless, there are two important urban issues that need to be resolved here.

One is a philosophical issue of public policy and how public space is used by private interests. After all Parks aside from being physical spaces are also ideas. And in the same way that trees need to be pruned and lawns need to be mowed, so do the ideas that support parks need to be maintained. This isn’t something that is top-of-mind but makes perfect sense when you think about how our usage of parks has evolved over time. But at the core it is also understood both philosphically and practically that parks are public space. And these rules as they are enforced benefit the interests of private business owners who are operating concession in our parks and are potentially arbitrary and confusing to the public.

When one visits the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park it’s hard to argue against the idea of a privately run concession inside a park can add to the public enjoyment of the park. While the Shake Shack seems like a model of a concession–if indeed we really want to allow concessions larger than food carts in pocket parks. The same cannot be said with Luna which by comparison is nothing more than a successful land grab by private interests of precious downtown public space.

To start, the entrance to Luna is blocked by bouncers who control the entry like nightclubs with velvet ropes in front. Besides being off-putting this is totally inappropriate for this to occur in a public park. And besides the 80’s are over, thankfully.

The other issue that we have here is two sets of rules for use of the park.There’s one rule for people who buy beers at city-licensed concessions and another for people who purchase beer at other city businesses. As all citizens are granted equal protection under the law, we need one set of rules enforced not two.

In a pre 9/11 world the story would end right around here and would be considered nothing more than a peculiar observations of urban life. But in a post 9/11 world, especially one where the office of Homeland Security has warned the public that Al Qaeda wants to disrupt the elections and is planning another attack, possibly in New York, this matters as this is a misplaced use of valuable NYPD resources.In case anyone is unsure, let me be the first to assure them that NYPD isn’t going to catch any Al Qaeda members drinking beer in City Parks.

Our police have an important, essential, and difficult job right now. The Bloomburg administration has made the case that New York is being stiffed on 9/11 security funding. If this is what we are paying police for then we can do a more for less. A lot more.

Certainly there is better use for our highly trained undercover detectives than having them enforce two sets of rules for Park users. If beer is allowed then it is allowed. If it’s not it’s not. And let’s admit that it is wrong for undercover detectives to arrest some people for drinking beer in a park while protecting others who doing exactly the same thing.

The Winning 9/11 Memorial Design Is A loser

2004-01-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

By Harris Silver and Sharoz Makarechi

People have died. We need a memorial.

Yesterday the winning design of the memorial contest was announced to the public. Reflection of Absence by Michael Araed and Peter Walker was chosen as the best of what can only be described as 8 finalists, that failed to resonate with the public. Even the jury was tepid about their own choice and required "significant" changes before announcing the winner after a long process. It's time to face the fact that the chosen entry does not satisfy our collective hunger for a design that reflects the soul of this city and every one knows it or somehow viscerally feels it.

Starting with a awkwardly worded mission statement this contest was flawed from the start. This is why all the selected design solutions feel so inappropriate. The right thing to do is start over, not with new designs, but with a new competition. A competition that is bold enough to say that what happened at the World Trade Center happened to all of us, each in our own personal way and not just to the 3,000 people that were murdered because they worked in soaring office buildings--symbols for our society culture and power. A competition that will inspire amazing creative ideas. One that is modeled less after a formal architectural competition and more accessible to the broader creative community. The memorial needs to reflect the energy and vitality of the people of New York and not just those that were murdered we need a new competition that recognizes this and that will inspire the kinds of ideas that we were all expecting to see on this round.

Yes of course the names of the individuals who perished at this site should be engraved and maintained in a dignified and appropriate manners. Yes, reverence should be paid to everyone involved with the rescue attempts, also known as heros. But the the winning entry feels like a cemetery which is 180 degrees conceptually from the memorial that needs to be built.

Let's just take a short time out to look at the big picture. No harm can come from a little more time passing and more thought going into this. Why are we in such a rush? Our time frames and schedules are self imposed. And it is not a valid argument to say it's more important to get it built than to get it right. Not this time.

This has happened once before in the re-development process. It wasn't that long ago that the initial plans for the buildings were unveiled to a similarly disappointed public. And again it was the rigidity of the requirements and not the ability of the architects that led to that first spectacular failure. Once the underlying questions changed Daniel Liebskands was able to realize Freedom Tower-- from this second round of competition not the first.

If there were a new competition that celebrated life instead of death this is what we would submit into idea lottery. What better way to demonstrate our reverence for the lives lost at the site than by creating a stage where the world can come together to connect, instead of a cemetery. Yes, a stage, a truly democratic stage, a place where any citizen would be allotted time and encouraged to exercise their American right to free speech and expression, without fear of consequence. A place were intolerance and violence are not tolerated. A place where all voices could be heard, a place open to ideas, a place that resonates with the the soul of New York and always reminds us of our culture and values and not just of our loss. A peaceful if not quite place, a public sanctuary for freedom of thought as well as speech. A place filled with inspiration and not absence. A place to for expression, not just reflection. This of course would be called the Freedom Stage.

To visualize what this could look like just look at the winning drawings and imagine on where you see pools of reflecting water solid ground. And on that ground 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year someone would on that space speaking or singing or stomping their feet, raising their fist in the air. They might have a song to sing, or a poem to read. Or just talk about someone they love, someone, they miss, or some injustice in this world they want to see change.

The families can read the names of their lost members to a global audience annually. Of course other appropriate events could be scheduled. The rest of the time, 24/7, stage and audience can be open to the public--giving new meaning to the phrase "Live from New York".

The world will be able to watch via web. Freedom Stages can be built in other cities and linked back to the memorial space in NY via well thought out projection screens. People would be continuously connecting with each other without censorship. Imagine that.

Doesn't a living breathing space in honor of those who paid for our shared values with their lives seem more symbolic than a reflecting pool? That's not to say reflection is bad but if we're going with elements lets face it what happened that day is more eternal flame than still water. And one can't help but wonder if the city will be legally required to drain the reflecting pools during the next declared draught emergency.

Sharoz Makarechi is Founder and Creative Director of Think Tank 3, A Modern Day Think-Shop located in NYC.

The Ferry Crash: The Proper Tribute To A Tragedy

2003-11-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

When the 3,300 ton Andrew J. Barberi slammed into a pier jutting off the coast of Staten Island at full speed, on October 15th 2003, the front of the boat was ripped apart like a sardine can. Ten people were killed, dozens others were critically injured. It is New York’s worst mass transit “accident” in half a century.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating. The NTSB will, no doubt, do a thorough job, and will offer safety recommendations, many of which will already be in place by the time their report is finished. However, their investigation will likely not go far enough as they will not examine the other deaths and injuries that take place under the watch of the Department Of Transportation (DOT), the agency responsible for ferry service. The NTSB will not ask the question that will lead to the real enduring changes we need to make NYC safer, which is:

Why would anyone trust an organization that can’t put up street signs properly, to run the nations second largest ferry fleet?

Initial indicators point to human error. The pilot lost control and the captain wasn’t in the pilothouse, as the rules required him to be. No other crew noticed in time. Iris Weinshall, the commissioner of the DOT, has deflected blame away from the DOT–an agency that has a long history of having little regard for human life–and has placed it exclusively on the individuals running the boat. In a press release dated October 21, Weinshall called Captain Michael Gansas’s refusal to cooperate with the NTSB “DISGUSTING”–strong public words coming from a city commissioner. The following day in another public press release commissioner Weinshall suspended Captain Gansas, who is not participating on advice of legal counsel.

Commissioner Weinshall would be doing far greater service to this city if she would concentrate her efforts on taking a good long hard look within the DOT rather than lashing out at employees who, despite DOT oversight, have an otherwise exemplary safety record.

NYC DOT is responsible for: Installing and maintaining street signs, traffic signals, and streetlights, resurfacing streets, repairing potholes, installing and maintaining parking meters, managing municipal parking facilities, maintaining hundreds of bridges including the East River bridges, and operating the Staten Island Ferry. It is a mammoth city agency stretched thin to the point of complete incompetence.

On paper the DOT’s mission is a great one but this agency effectively operates outside of its mandated mission and puts the movement of motor vehicles above the quality of life of city residents. In a meeting with top DOT managers, none of them could cite the agency's mission statement, meaning this is an agency run by people who don’t know what their job is. NYC deserves better.

Exacerbating the situation is that commissioner Weinshall is neither a trained engineer, an urban planner, an architect, a transportation maven, nor a visionary. Her main qualification seems to be her ability to thrive in a hydra-headed bureaucracy. She is new enough in her position where she isn’t held accountable for all of the agencies failures. However, she has been at her job long enough to demonstrate a decided inability to lead this city with ideas, innovation and vision. Like many commissioners before her, she has a windshield perspective, which means she sees the problems of her agency through the interior of an automobile. This is not exactly the intelligent (or democratically responsible) way to see things when 90% of Manhattan residents don’t own cars. Her marriage to career politician, Senator Chuck Schumer, has the distinct foul aroma of political nepotism. As the head of the D.O.T. it is commissioner Weinshall who should take responsibility for what happened and be held accountable.

The fact that there was no oversight of the pilothouse after ferries have been identified as potential terrorist targets is a clear signal that the public cannot trust this dangerously run, insular, out-of-touch agency. The cold hard reality is there are post 9/11 security reasons why allocating space for the efficient movement of emergency vehicles in our city has a more pressing need than ever before. And, it is crystal clear to everyone living in New York during 9/11 and more recently with the Northeast blackout on August 13th, 2003, that there is a need for an infrastructure that can support the pedestrian evacuation of Manhattan. The DOT has not even publicly identified these needs, let alone begun to address them in a meaningful way. What, exactly are they waiting for?

The claim might be made that it is far easier to be critical than constructive. So let us make a concrete proactive recommendation that we feel is essential to the long-term well being of our city:

We suggest that this D.O.T. be completely re-organized and re-prioritized according to NYC’s pressing security and safety needs. Additionally we are recommending two separate agencies be formed: One To maintain our cities bridges. The other to operate the cities ferry fleet.

Our thinking is that those seeking to maintain the structural integrity of all NYC bridges, including the east river bridges should not have to compete for resources with those seeking to fill potholes. Additionally, the creation of an agency responsible for operating the city’s ferry fleet with a mandate for promoting increased ferry traffic in our harbor and rivers as a way to relieve auto congestion is long overdue. Manhattan is after all an island, and our waterways are a vastly underutilized transportation corridor. A new agency needs to be formed to promote maritime travel. This new agency will also have a well-rehearsed emergency evacuation in place.

In what is currently the DOT we are suggesting a completely different organization--one that is geared towards human being and not automobiles. As this agency is responsible for maintaining all signals, practically, what this means is that all traffic lights in NYC will now be timed with a priority given to the safety of people crossing instead of the convenience of cars going through them. Re-timing signals based on human needs instead of auto convenience will be the most positive change in how this city feels in recent memory. Immediately the city will become a safer –and we would suggest a friendlier– place. Over a period of a decade, we estimate that this will save thousands of lives and prevent even more injuries.

The reason this will save so many lives is because there is a public health threat facing the residents of NYC that is so large it is almost impossible to see. We are of course talking about the patterned regularity with which people are mowed down by automobile drivers. Every 27 or so minutes a pedestrian is slammed to the ground so hard they can’t get up. This is the result of current DOT’s policies that over a period years have allowed cars to totally take over our urban environment.

The newly organized DOT will work to reverse the years of windshield perspective transportation policy. With an emphasis on human needs and a reprioritization of streets use.
1. Emergency Vehicles
2. Mass Transit (busses)
3. Personal transit (Bicycles, Segways, rollerblades etc)
4. Commercial (includes medallion taxis)
5. Private automobiles (further prioritized according to efficiency)

This prioritization would dovetail with a lane on arterial streets reserved for the use of vehicles responding to emergencies. This can leave emergency vehicles the necessary corridors they need within the grid to get to emergencies quickly. As this lane can then be utilized by cyclists, rollerbladers, and Segways during non-emergency use and provide the necessary space for people to safely travel who choose a non polluting way to move around it will also serve to rebalance some of our public space known as streets.

Albert Einstein who studied the traffic of electrons said “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction”. What happened on that ship was a violent tragedy. It ruined lives, it destroyed families, and, what’s worse, it was completely avoidable. The only fitting tribute for those who perished is for the capable Bloomberg administration to summon the courage and move in the opposite direction.

Segways and New York City Sidewalks: Lets Roll

2003-09-30T14:40:00.000-08:00

Citystreets is a leading pedestrian rights and advocacy organization. Accordingly, we consider pedestrian safety to be the number one priority for street use. When it comes to Segways, it would be easy and logical for us to argue against their being ridden on sidewalks, under any circumstances. In fact with a current recall this position would be almost expected. We are uniquely qualified to fiercely defend this position. Unfortunately, such a position would not only overlook the compelling merits of this new mode of transportation but also ignore the more holistic and absolutely vital discussion we ought to be having about street use and transportation in New York City.

The Segway is the world's first intuitively driven, self-balancing transportation device. You stand on the machine and it balances itself to you. Not the other way around. There is no gas or brake pedal. To move forward you simply lean forward. To slow down or stop you lean back. Turning is done mechanically via hand control. Segways are often talked about and thought of as a form of scooter. They are not electric scooters and have nothing to do with scooters.

From an urban perspective, Segways offer a number of advantages: They are quiet. There is no exhaust pipe spewing pollution. They can operate at 4 times walking speed. They take up almost no space. And they do all this without the rider ever breaking a sweat -- which means they can be used by the broadest possible cross section of the population, including the elderly and infirm. These devices can help our older residents move around with an ease and dignity that would otherwise be unimaginable. Look at this picture. The guy standing is 91. He had been on a Segway all of 3 minutes and didn't want to get off.

And while claims about the dangers of Segway use are completely abstract and theoretical (no one has ever been injured by a Segway on the sidewalks of New York City), this assessment of its merits is concrete and first hand. During the development of our position on whether Segways should be ridden on sidewalks, we contacted the company with the questions and concerns we had about their device and their rationale for its usage. Quite frankly, we were skeptical about the machine's appropriateness for use on New York City sidewalks. E-mails and phone calls were exchanged and Segway, realizing that we were independent, fair-minded thinkers, boldly offered to send us a machine for trial and evaluation. We took them up on their offer.

The machine they sent is not yet available to the public but will be soon. It is called the "P Series" (horrible name) It is smaller than the "I series" (another horrible name), the machine that is currently available for sale. The machine is so intuitive that it literally took less than a minute to learn how to operate. Within 5 minutes we were comfortable enough to ride it on a non-arterial sidewalk. Within 15 minutes it felt natural and we could operate it safely on any sidewalk, even a fairly crowded one. We thought the machine would be confrontational to pedestrians. It wasn't. We thought people would be annoyed and frightened. They weren't. To the contrary, people were either friendly, curious, or oblivious but never bothered, frightened, or annoyed. To our surprise, in the right hands the machine was surprisingly pedestrian-friendly. Between the two models, the P model, which is smaller, has a more human feeling scale and is better suited to the sidewalks in New York City. So much so in fact, that Segway should consider only selling that model here.

Although they didn't know it, the engineers had it right when they originally named what is now called Segway, Ginger (after Ginger Rogers). Being a pedestrian is a subconscious dance. We gracefully move out of one another's way when walking, we avoid objects in our way with ease, we subconsciously time our jay walking to be as close to the last passing car as possible to give us the most distance from the next car. All without missing a beat. We are urban dancers. Ginger (Segway P series) can be a great dance partner. These machines are engineered so well and their controls are so precise that they can also be operated gingerly by anyone. That said we don't think this dance partner is quite yet ready for escalators, stairs, and subway turnstiles. But who knows what the future will bring?

But, in our minds, the bigger and more vital issue doesn't concern the machines themselves but rather the space in which they operate. If architecture can be defined as "places", then we need to look more carefully at the space between these "places"-the un-designed and largely unconsidered area that has been completely shaped by and for the automobile. This space can be summed up with a made up word �carchitecture�. Indeed, fewer than 15% of Manhattan residents own cars yet 85% of public space is allocated for their use. As we have designed most of our public space for automobiles, how do we introduce and even begin thinking about a new transportation mode? To do this correctly we have to re-conceive how we use our public spaces known as streets. At Citystreets we have been advocating a philosophical shift from cars back to humans as the basic design unit--a movement from, if you will, "carchitecture� back to architecture. Cities built for people not cars.

One way to achieve a more balanced and democratic use of this public space would be to create a road network where bicycles, rollerbladers and, now, Segways were separated from cars. We use the word "network" and not the word "lane" to define a space separated by something more substantial than a line of paint. We seek a space that cars cannot enter. Far from being a utopian abstraction, this extensive network of bicycle roads is a concrete reality in cities like Amsterdam. It works, it is wonderful and it should be implemented in New York City. Segways fit perfectly into our vision of cities designed for humans and not cars. It is now a matter of waiting for our infrastructure to evolve from the auto-centric to the human-centric to accommodate their usage. If the city shifted its thinking to a new pro-pedestrian perspective, it is our estimate that it would take a mere 7 years for a complete transformation of our public space.

We wish there was an existing infrastructure in our city that could ideally accommodate the Segway. But there isn't yet. And so we have to address the question of how and whether they should exist in this present, highly imperfect context. So, here is our thinking:

We understand that the idea of this new means of transportation being used on the sidewalks of New York City makes some people uncomfortable. But we also understand that to say "Segways can't be ridden on sidewalks in NYC" is essentially to argue that "Segways shouldn't exist in NYC", since the only place left to ride them would be on streets. And to tell someone standing on an unprotected platform to mix with 8,000 pound SUV's is not a reasonable thing to say as it places the Segway rider in unacceptable danger. But most importantly, we at Citystreets understand the value of ideas. We know that good ideas need some coddling, shepherding and support, especially during infancy. Segways are unquestionably a big idea. And they are unquestionably in their infancy. They have been described as "disruptive" in certain circles. As urbanists, we prefer the word "transformative."

We do not know whether or not the Segway will thrive in New York, but we do know that the answer to the question "Do we want to try to support a new mode of transportation that has zero emissions, zero noise, is easy to learn, safe to ride, and can move people at 4 times walking speed?" is a resounding, upper case "YES!" For Segways to fail because our public servants don't know how to accept new ideas and because it is easier and more convenient to sweepingly dismiss them is simply irresponsible. This behavior is not in the public's best interest. It is intellectually lazy and, in a word, unacceptable.

So the position we have taken is this: Until our urban infrastructure has a chance to evolve to accommodate this new transportation technology, Segways may be ridden on all roads and pathways that their riders can safely navigate. This would include avenues, side streets, bicycle paths, bicycle lanes and sidewalks. Yes, sidewalks. We say sidewalks with some qualifications (which we will describe in detail below) but also with the real confidence born of our firsthand experience riding these remarkable machines around our city.

We understand the classification of Segways to be both technical and political. We also see it as somewhat problematic as regulations deal only with what exists and there is nothing quite like Segway. The easiest thing regulatory wise would be for the city to provisionally consider them as bicycles, with the understanding that they have pedestrian traits and should be allowed on sidewalks. Another, more honest, approach would be to say "we don't really know what they are but they are neat, so let's live with them for a while, get to know them, and then figure it out."

But as they aren't pedestrians, aren't bicycles and, despite having motors and wheels, aren't really motor vehicles, this matter will need to be resolved eventually. At Citystreets we have been thinking of vehicles that don't exist for a while. And in our heads we categorize them as Vehicle X. We didn't predict a self- balancing human transporter, but what we realized a while ago is that we need a way to think and talk about vehicles and modes that don't yet exist and plan for them on our streets. One of our ideas is to marry the idea of Vehicle X with a pressing need for a re-prioritization of public space. Here's one way it could work.

Phelps Eno, the person who wrote the first set of traffic rules in 1903 recognized the need for prioritization of emergency vehicles. Today 100 years later people die because ambulances can't get to the hospital in time. Citystreets has advocated that a lane on arterial streets be reserved for the use of vehicles responding to emergencies. This lane can then be utilized by cyclists, rollerbladers, and Segways during non-emergency use. There are post 9/11 security reasons why allocating space for the efficient movement of Emergency Vehicles in our city has a more pressing need than ever before and, in fact, it is crystal clear to everyone living in New York since 9/11 and more recently with the Northeast blackout on August 13th, 2003, that there is a need for an infrastructure that can support the pedestrian evacuation of Manhattan.

The irony is not lost on us that a large portion of emergency trips involve ferrying pedestrians struck by drivers of automobiles to hospitals. It is astonishing that cars strike approximately 14,000 pedestrians every year in NYC. Or stated another way, every 27 minutes a pedestrian is hit by a car. In fact, automobile crashes are the largest public health threat facing the residents of NYC. This problem is so pervasive that it is almost impossible to see. How else can one explain there being so much public concern about the imagined dangers of Segways on sidewalks and so little about the stark reality of people perpetually being mowed down by cars?

Finally, as residents of NYC we�re also well aware that more people riding Seqways instead of cars means less oil use. And given the insidious link between oil dependency and terrorism, this reduction would do more to promote Homeland security than any bunker-bashing bomb or hi tech surveillance system. The fact is, we are long overdue for a national energy policy based on Efficiency in the spirit of American innovation and ingenuity. Segways are exponentially more efficient than automobiles for moving people around cities. Further, our economy has for years been aided by a hidden gasoline subsidy that benefits big box retailers with sprawling distribution networks at the expense of cities. What is damaging to cities are bad polices that favor the automobile and a suburban growth model and not brilliant energy efficient innovative inventions like the Segway.

Now back to our qualifications for riding on sidewalks: We can come up with a list of scenarios and instructions for safe sidewalk riding but it's more meaningful to say it like this. A Segway rider, when on a sidewalk, should ride on the sidewalk as if he were a temporary guest who has already overstayed his welcome. If there is a bike lane adjacent to the Sidewalk the Segway rider should ride in the bike lane before the sidewalk. It also goes without saying that when a Segway is ridden on a sidewalk it must be in a way that is physically safe to people walking there. It is understood that there are certain sidewalks on which Segways can't be ridden because of the density of pedestrian traffic. It also means that Segways on sidewalks must always give pedestrians the right of way. They must never make a pedestrian move out of their way. They need to exercise great care when passing. And they need to be ridden conservatively and with common sense. On crowded sidewalks the person operating a Segway should operate at a walking pace, giving up the speed benefit of the technology in the name of safety. Finally, the fact that Segways don't seem to have any lights or reflective material to adequately illuminate them makes their nighttime use a source of some concern. Fortunately, sidewalks are generally well lit but, nonetheless, this is an issue we have been thinking about and one that will have to be addressed in some manner (most likely, by making lights or reflective material mandatory).

We're going to give the benefit of the doubt that someone who has bought into a new transportation vision has a self-interest to act responsibly when on a sidewalk and not adopt the arrogant attitude and behavior that drivers did at the turn of the 19th century when cars were introduced, and whose effect we're still dealing with today. What we would like to see happening is, in fact, the opposite: Behavior where Segway riders learn to act in a manner useful to pedestrians. For instance, we would encourage them to block turning cars for pedestrians in crosswalks and to act as a barrier between pedestrians and cyclists when possible. If a pro-pedestrian behavior is adopted by early Segway riders and is practiced consistently, we believe it will do more to win over the hearts and open the minds of New Yorkers than any writing ever could.

Thanks for reading please send any comments you have to info@citystreets.org and of course be safe out there however you choose to move around.

How to Make Up the City's Budget Deficit

2002-01-25T15:38:00.000-08:00

It is estimated that NYC's budget shortfall is 5 billion dollars. A truly staggering sum that has a lot of smart people worried. They're worried because they know this shortfall will affect every thing. This budget shortfall may indeed be one of the largest financial challenges that NYC has faced in decades, maybe ever. It is so large and daunting that it borders on the exciting because we can finally start a public debate about big civic ideas that can transform the urban landscape and redefine the experience of living in the largest American City.

One idea would be to completely re-think how we use our streets with the goal of changing the balance between cars and people back towards people-a relationship that has been out of balance since the introduction of automobiles a century ago. With our streets clogged with cars, over 14,000 pedestrians injured every year, 1 in 4 children afflicted with asthma in certain neighborhoods, and more pedestrians and drivers killed in crashes than murdered, the time is right for asking big questions that can lead to long overdue changes.

For instance, why does it costs the residents of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx $1.50 to commute to work in Manhattan by subway when residents who choose to drive are not charged for using the East River Bridges? There are many fair ways to toll the East River Bridges (revenue estimates range between 600 million to 1.2 billion dollars a year). Tolling the bridges would also bring congestion relief to communities near the bridges. This relief would have the secondary effect of increasing real estate values which the city also benefits from.

The taxi industry is worth taking a fresh look at too. The last time the city sold taxi medallions the cost was $35.00. These medallions are now worth $300,000 a piece and there are about 12,000 of them in circulation that trade privately. This amounts to a 4 billion-dollar market that has been transferred from public to private ownership. Does an industry known for dangerous and untrained drivers who injure 20,000 New Yorkers in crashes every year deserve what amounts to a 4 billion-dollar subsidy by the city? New Yorkers deserve a safe courteous taxi fleet. Drivers deserve to earn a fair wage for their efforts. Currently the city provides neither. A modest goal of increasing medallions by 10% (when was the last time you were able to catch a cab in the rain?) can add 300 million in revenue to the city. A more ambitious plan of transferring back ownership of medallions to the public at the rate of 25% a year, could add 1 billion to our budget every year for the next 4 years.

Parking is another area where the city can make up lost revenue. People who own cars in New York City pay on average $300 a month in parking fees at private garages. The city gives away over 2 million parking spots for free (public space reserved for the exclusive use of parking private automobiles). If the city leased only 10% of these spaces for the modest fee of $100 a month this could raise another 240 million dollars a year in revenue.

While pedestrian safety is on no ones political radar scope it is the largest public health threat facing city residents. The city writes over 7,000 parking tickets a day generating 150 million in revenue. By contrast, virtually no tickets are issued for drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians. A similar aggressive program to ticket drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians would go a long way to make the city safer for residents. It could also generate 100 million dollars in revenue.

Along a similar theme there are approximately 12,000 signalized intersections in New York City. At every light cycle (approximately a minute each) thousands of cars just try to make it

through the light but don't, making them red light runners. The amount of money that could be raised by fining these dangerous drivers, alone, could put New York City back in the black.

Why don't we push this line of thinking just a little bit further and take the radical step to bring NYC in compliance with the Clean Air Act? An aggressive program to fine cars with malfunctioning exhaust systems that spew out smoke could make a difference. We could also create a pollution tax where incentives would be given for people to drive the most efficient vehicles available and charge fees to owners of vehicles that pollute the most? Millions could be generated and everyone could breathe a little easier.

During the great wave of immigration at the turn of the last century many people arrived in NYC thinking that our streets were paved with gold. In fact they are, it's just a matter of knowing where to look for it.