Photo: takomabibelot

From the Washington Post, a good article (actually talks about both sides of the argument, skeptically) about red-light and speeding enforcement cameras. I’m quite interested in this topic. You may have noticed that I’m not a big fan of official camera surveillance in general, but have generally been in favor of automated traffic enforcement cameras. Is there a big difference? Am I being inconsistent just because I’m a public transit person?

I’m starting to rethink my support of the traffic cams, mainly because if it’s driver behavior modification that we’re interested in, there are better ways – less punitive ways – to accomplish it. The big answer is the complete streets design/movement/philosophy. If streets are designed so that speeding is physically – and mentally – difficult, then people won’t speed. Highways can be designed like highways, but anything local should be designed for all modes – walking, biking – on the same level as autos. If a driver has to be more aware of their surroundings, if they don’t feel as comfortable stepping on the gas, they will actually slow down and pay more attention.

One statistic which doesn’t solicit much handwringing by anyone except transportation people: there were 37,000+ people killed in the US in 2008 in traffic-related crashes. That’s way past epidemic level for anything, and if it were a disease, we’d be scared witless. But since it’s the normal state of affairs, we ignore it (because we have to get around) until someone we know gets seriously hurt or killed. Travel, a necessity for pretty much everyone, shouldn’t be so dangerous.

 Two trees in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden were named to the New York State big tree registry. I didn't even know the state had a big tree registry. A simple search shows that many states have them, and there's a national big tree registry - the national champions - kept by American Forests. Did I mention that I'm a fan of trees? And that I love the book Tree: A New Vision Of The American Forest by James Balog?

Photo: markhillary

Good article on recycling, composting and waste in the NYTimes yesterday. I remember when I was younger, maybe back in the late 80s, the lack of landfill capacity became an issue. The projections that we were going to run out of places to put our garbage brought up recycling on a larger scale.

I had thought that the growing amount of recycling happening in the US had made the lack of landfill capacity not too much of a big deal - we weren't going to fulfill those projections, and we'd have enough space for a while. Well, I guess the coming (again) lack of landfill space has got people talking about how to throw out less stuff. The conversation seems more advanced now - how to get people to recycle more, to compost, and to just have less garbage to begin with.

We had been composting for a while, and while I definitely helped out my wife with it, I saw it as not too necessary - organic waste in the landfill breaks down, and probably creates lots of nutrients in the end product fill, so what's the big deal. I never thought that the organic wastes are a main contributor to the methane that landfills create. Bummer. Learn something new every day.

I've been hearing about the massive amount of gas in the Marcellus Shale that stretches into upstate New York. While domestic natural gas supplies are all well and good, the well drilling is seriously damaging to the environment, and the companies that do it seem hell bent on doing it their way. They've managed to skirt by regulations that 'don't apply' to the natural gas industry etc. There seems to a pretty good groundswell of support for New York State actually restricting the drilling companies from having their way with the land.

And there's a in-progress documentary film that has some amazing footage of tap water from a sink that's become flammable due to local well drilling.

And a good article in Planning about how drilling affects communities, and how to plan for it.

Photo: akenekal

So the NYC Police announced they're expanding their downtown surveillance network to midtown, from 30th to 60th streets. One wonders when they'll just admit that they'd like to put surveillance cameras throughout the entire city.

I'll admit that I'm a supporter of congestion pricing, and that would necessarily require cameras to take shots of license plates and such - around the area perimeter, anyway. But one difference in that setup is that it would be run by the DOT or some other agency, which would hopefully have defined data retention policies, and have to respond formally to law enforcement requests for info. Having the police run the network means that they could just keep the info and pictures for whatever, whenever, however long they want - I've never seen the NYC Police department's 'data retention policy' for it's surveillance cameras (somebody please prove me wrong on that).

When even the NYC Police are putting together dossiers on protesters and other 'troublemakers', do you really want them indiscriminately tracking everyone? Sure, we'd all like to catch the real crazies, and prevent whatever the next attack might be, but at what cost to our basic rights?

 The runoff election for a few NYC positions in coming up the XXX. I’d like to encourage everyone to vote, and especially to vote for David Yassky for City Comptroller.

One of my main complaints with John Liu is that he’s a regressive when it comes to transportation issues. Liu likes to spend his time criticizing the MTA, but rarely offers anything in the way of useful solutions. He didn’t support congestion pricing, because he cares more about his outer-boro supporters who drive everywhere than the majority of New Yorkers who take transit. He criticizes the Broadway pedestrian islands in Manhattan for vague reasons, saying the DOT hasn’t done enough public outreach, when frankly they’re doing more now than in a long time, possibly ever. His biggest gripe is that small businesses (no one ever talks about big businesses) have problems with delivery – but what would a business rather have, easy delivery, or more pedestrian traffic that generates more business? If the business is there, the business owners will figure out a way to get goods in and out.

The comptroller is a good check and source of opposing views on the City departments, led by the mayor’s office. We need someone who represents all the City in that office, not just a few small parts of it. Someone who speaks the truth about himself and the issues. Please vote for David Yassky.

 New York City has a great website/app that makes the question of ‘where/how can I volunteer?’ so much easier to answer. NYC Service can show you opportunities within your zip code or further, by skills or type of opportunity. I’m sure you can find something in here to help out with. With a site like this, I wonder if there’s a measurable effect of bringing ‘new’ people to volunteer opportunities, or if it just provides another way for people already interested to find out what’s going on. Even the latter is good, but for most people I think (at least, it is with me unfortunately) that even small barriers to entry keep them from volunteering more, if at all.

•  Nu:Tone - System feat. Natalie Williams (Matrix & Futurebound Remix)
  
  • Always quality from Nu:Tone - a beaut of a track, great vocals, remix that compliments the original. What more could you ask.
• John Gorka - I Know
  • One from my folk music days a long time ago. I like almost every track, but I have always loved 'Branching Out' - I have a thing for trees - and I wanted something I could sing to my daughter - my wife already claimed 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'
• Flying Lotus - LA EP 3x3 
  • Really liked the FLying Lotus release Los Angeles, so I got this set of remixes and extras. Quite good, the remixes are a bit more ambient then the originals, but still contain the off-kilter funky vibe.
• Fat Freddy's Drop - Based On A True Story
  • Reggae from New Zealand, from 2005. The first indie album to go gold in NZ. Solid and soulful, with Joe Dukie on vocals. They have a new one out now, but I figured I'd start from the beginning.

So Wired mag has a cover story on Craig Newmark and his 'enigma' that is craigslist, and some side pieces in the epicenter blog . I have a feeling that the author is trying to give a balanced story, I guess. Is it me though, or does it seem like there's an implied disdain/rejection/confusion of some people running a business (or more like a foundation or something) that doesn't really care about maximizing profit? Ok, so they're not like everyone else, but isn't this a free country? They're dominating a section of internet 'commerce' and somehow by not raking in the cash and showering us with ads they're doing something wrong?

I'm a craigslist fan, having sold a ton of stuff over the past several years. Yes, the UI is basic - but that's part of the deal. It's simple, no BS, and that's it. Heck, half the for-sale listings are so brief and lacking pictures you wonder if people would know what to do with more features. Promoting local commerce in this carbon-footprint fearing time seems like a good thing to me also.

Long live craigslist.

photo: laffy4k

Find out how your senator voted for transportation (mainly public transit) on this handy chart. Yes, this is one person’s conception of a voting record on the issue, but I’m more than willing to go with what Yonah says.

Interesting about Arizona (noted in the blog comments) and Colorado senators, since they both have major public transit investments that are going forward (CO: FasTracks) or have recently opened (AZ: Valley Metro).