Category: Chicago

Environment and community – the latest Chicago mayoral forum

January 20, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Guess what. Rahm Emanuel didn’t show up. We all predicted that. He’s got his own style of campaigning and corporate Los Angeles fundraising – we’ll see where that gets him when no one knows why they should vote for him. Andy Shaw, an excellent moderator, explained how he called Rahm’s campaign office and basically was brushed off: “Thanks for telling us how to run our campaign” they said.

I brought my friend’s Apple iPad to the Marriott ballroom for the Community and Environment Mayoral Forum last night so I could “liveblog” the messages from the three candidates, Carol Mosely-Braun, Miguel Del Valle, and Gery Chico. But that didn’t happen because Marriott Magnificent didn’t provide “complimentary wifi” (as the staff member called it) to the attendees. I could have brought my laptop, but then you would have delayed updates and we couldn’t have that!

So instead I sent tweets to my 500+ followers on my dumb phone with 9 keys on its keyboard. Here are the 35 short messages about the forum, mostly unedited [edits/additions in brackets], in reverse order (last to first):

  • This was the best mayoral forum [I’ve been to] so far. (final tweet)
  • Braun: this election is about the future direction of the city and we need a city Council that is a real legislative body. [I think she was alluding how the city council has been a group of pushovers under the M. Daley administration]
  • Del Valle says we can’t achieve perfection but we have to continue reaching for it [that seems realistic]. Make neighborhood schools the anchor of the community. [He explains that he doesn’t want parents to have to struggle to decide if they should send their children to the school down the block, or the school across town. All schools should be good.]
  • Chico says running for mayor is the highlight of his life. “I want my grandson to be proud of Chicago.”
  • Chico wants to make a city where families want to stay.
  • Del Valle thinks the next mayor will be a one term mayor. It will be painful as the next mayor makes a lot of tough decisions. [I think he was really serious about this. If he believes it, then I think this says something about his rationale for becoming the next mayor.]
  • Braun: someone on Wall Street decided to make $10 billion the failure of Chicago city Council approving parking meter deal [this one was really hard to put into 140 characters – the way she spoke this message was much better than how I summarized it]
  • Chico looks better [in my eyes] with every new word he utters.
  • I like what Del Valle says but the way he talks needs to be refined.
  • Too many people are leaving the community and environmental forum and We’re talking about green jobs.
  • We need to educate the public on role and function of Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. Make water meters mandatory. [Del Valle]
  • Chico wants audit on water supply to ensure we have the cleanest. Water meters should be installed at every home and business to conserve.
  • Del Valle says he will liberate the 50 aldermen and demand open deliberation [open meaning that he would invite and encourage the public to come].
  • Del Valle says fast track park development to take the place of vacant lots and abandoned homes.
  • Chico agrees with Del Valle. Must talk to Springfield and Washington (filled with Chicagoans) more often.
  • Del Valle: Mayors need to go to Springfield more often. Gun control. Pensions. Transportation formula.
  • Braun says more bike lanes and pedestrian zones so people don’t have to compete with dangerous traffic.
  • What 3 priorities do you take to Springfield? Braun: address school & transit funding formulas. income tax. state not paying for teacher pensions.
  • Del Valle says if the candidates’ proposals are so good, why didn’t we do it before?
  • Chico says get rid of Ward based recycling and switch to grid. [Note: Recycling is based on which Ward you live in, but pickup within the connected Wards is based on a grid.]
  • Chico on downtown: In the summer you run into the flip flop crowd. 20 years ago you’d have seen tumbleweeds.
  • Andy Shaw is a good moderator. Environmental forum.
  • Braun says shut down the plants. Del Valle says City Council needs to vote on Clean Power Ordinance [which includes cleaning up or shutting down]. Chico says clean up or close down. [My favorite part of the forum. I’ve lived in their polluting domain for four years, in Pilsen and Bridgeport.]
  • Fisk and Crawford plants: What steps would you take to clean them up? This is my question of the year as I’ve lived near there for 4 years.
  • Chico talking about his rep as school board president. Oversaw building new schools and rising test scores.
  • Chico also telling us how much of a Chicagoan he is. Talking about Neighborhoods Alive, living on South Michigan Avenue.
  • To be a world class city, we need world class neighborhoods. Can’t happen until we do away with food deserts. -Del Valle
  • Del Valle says all candidates tonight will have same answers. But Del Valle talking about how true a Chicagoan he is.
  • Del Valle ribs Rahm for not showing up at forums. Forums are a very good way to meet Chicagoans.
  • Braun says the earth is “all of our mother”
  • Braun talking about her environmental chops as state legislator and senator.
  • Andy Shaw warns of tough, green questions ahead. At the environmental forum.
  • Tomorrow will be 4th forum of Andy Shaw that Rahm Emanuel will miss.
  • Brendan Reilly gives “a big downtown” welcome to Braun, Del Valle, Chico. (first tweet)

I tried to give equal attention to all candidates, but there’s obvious bias in all of the tweets because of my limited space to write and also because I only tweeted what I thought would be interesting to readers (“sound bytes,” I guess).

Lastly: Both Mosely-Braun and Del Valle want to build more bike lanes and “pedestrian zones” (not sure what they meant by this) to ensure these users’ safety. Awesome! Del Valle even went so far as to say that he would like to see bike lanes on Grand Avenue at Milwaukee Avenue (an intersection he sees often and alluded to wanting to improve it). This is in addition to him bringing up how the parking meter deal sucks for Chicago because it removes the City’s ability to control its own streets.

Let’s make garbage pickup more efficient, says Fioretti

January 19, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Chicago Tonight, on WTTW channel 11, compared Chicago and Los Angeles with respect to garbage pickup. Recycling is also discussed. It aired on December 17, 2009, but the problem remains today: less than half of Chicago households have “curbside recycling”, recycling rates remain low, and garbage collection costs a lot of money. Will the new Chicago mayor address these issues?

Jay Shevsky says, “Garbage collection is one of the keys to staying in office.” Switch to Alderman Bernard Stone (50th ward, 10th term): “An alderman is judged mostly by his garbage collection. You can pass all the legislation in the world, but if you’re not a good housekeeper, you’re not going to get re-elected.”

Watch the video on WTTW’s website.

To Bernard, Ward-based garbage pickup, a superintendent (making $70k – $113k per year) and a refuse coordinator (making $51k to $86k per year) constitute a “personal touch” which “saves money in the long run.”

“There’s absolutely no reason why any Chicagoan needs to call the alderman in order to get a new garbage can.” – Laurence J. Msall, president of the Chicago Civic Federation.

A city worker picks up garbage on Michigan Avenue in Chicago in December 2010. Photo by John W. Iwanski.

Matt Smith, spokesperson for the Department of Streets and Sanitation (and still today), says that the recycling pickup is routed regionally to be most efficient, but about changing the Ward system for garbage pickup to a grid or regional system, he said you have to analyze that to see if it would be the right change. No word on if they have made such an analysis. “Sure we want to do it as efficiently as possible… but you want to ensure that any changes you do are gonna benefit you, they’re gonna be the most effective.”

Los Angeles uses 1 worker per truck – the driver. They pull up the truck next to the garbage bin and a robotic arm grabs the garbage bin and dumps it on the top. In Chicago, there is 1 driver and two laborers. Our other differences include:

  • Los Angeles is larger: 600 square miles versus Chicago’s 470
  • Los Angeles has more households: 750,000 versus Chicago’s 600,000
  • Los Angeles picks up more garbage: 1.4 million tons versus Chicago’s 1.1 millon
  • And they do it all with fewer trucks: Los Angeles uses 224 while Chicago uses 350 trucks

Host Phil Ponce closes the TV segment by mentioning that Alderman Fioretti said he will introduce a resolution in 2010 to examine switching to a grid system. I don’t know if he did this or not (neither the 2nd Ward or City Clerk’s websites are ideal news or document repositories).

Mayoral candidate Miguel del Valle’s view on sustainable transportation

January 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Active Transportation Alliance executive director Ron Burke wrote a blog on Friday (January 14, 2011) about his meeting with mayoral candidate Miguel del Valle (the current Chicago City Clerk).

Despite those caveats, he talked about his fondness for bicycling, its importance to the city and how his son is an avid cyclist. He also talked about one of the reasons he opposes the city’s parking meter contract, and has joined a lawsuit to overturn it: It’s because it limits the city’s ability to take away parking spaces for building bike lanes and sidewalks, and slowing traffic. We [Active Trans] share these concerns! [emphasis mine]

This meshes with a report Active Transportation Alliance released in June 2009 but recalled parts of the report five months later. But the message that report gave us remains true today and Miguel del Valle is repeating it. Margo O’Hare wrote announcing the report:

This limits any potential projects that use streets with metered spaces: bus rapid transit, bicycle lanes, street festivals, sidewalk expansion, streetscaping, pedestrian bulb-outs, loading zones, rush hour parking control, mid-block crossing, and temporary open spaces. The City’s ability to use streets in fresh, people-centric ways is now dictated, controlled and limited by the arrangements and penalties within the parking meters lease.

In November 2009, the Chicago Reader reported how the Active Transportation Alliance was going to release a new version of the report. Mick Dumke wrote:

Yet Monday night the Active Transportation Alliance inducted Mayor Daley into its “hall of fame,” and the group will soon release a new version of the report—screened beforehand by city officials—that will recant many of the criticisms it made in June.

Said Rob Sadowsky, “On behalf of the Active Transportation Alliance, I would like to simply state that we should not have published this report. I am embarrassed that it not only contains factual errors, but that it also paints an incorrect interpretation of the lease’s overall goals.” Regardless of any errors or misinterpretations, the original report’s essence will prove to be correct and foretelling: The City lost control over its own streets, the most basic and widely used element of neighborhoods and our  transportation system.

I look forward to voting for a mayoral candidate who opposes Mayor Richard M. Daley’s parking meter “lockout” with Morgan Stanley and other investors.

Along with the parking meter lease came the removal of approximately 30,000 high-quality bike parking spaces.

I’ve written a few times about the mayoral election, including the two forums I’ve been to (one at UIC about the economy and higher education, and the second about public school systems at the Chicago Teachers Union).

Bike crash reporting tool: I receive a response to my FOIA request

December 14, 2010 / / 0 Comments

UPDATE 12-15-10: I forgot to add that the letter stated that the Freedom of Information Act doesn’t require the responding agency to create new datasets or records where one doesn’t already exist. This means that if what you ask for doesn’t exist in their databases or file cabinets, the agency is not about to filter or search through existing data to create a custom set for you.

I continue to prepare to create a bicycle crash reporting tool (or web application). Here are the previous posts. Readers have sent me many great suggestions and concerns about how to create it, what data to use, and how to present such data. I don’t expect to begin any demonstrable work on this until mid-January when I return from my 21-day European vacation.

Today I received a response letter from the Chicago Police Department regarding my recent FOIA request for bicycle crash data.

This was disappointing: “After a thorough search, it was determined that the Department has no existing record responsive to your request.” I thought, “that doesn’t seem right. They don’t make reports on bicycle crashes?”

Police respond to a bicycle crash in Newberg, Oregon. Photo by Matt Haughey.

The letter later states, “The Department  does not currently possess a record which aggregates bicycle crash data.” Ah, this means something now. It seems that while the Chicago Police Department does make reports on bicycle crashes, it doesn’t keep a running tally or stored database query which it can use to produce the data I want – what I want would require a little more work, I guess.

The final paragraph does recommend that I contact the Illinois Department of Transportation Division of Traffic Safety’s Crash Reporting Section, where the police forward their reports. It turns out that I already received crash data on IDOT and I’m “playing around with it” using Google’s Fusion Tables.

Best ways to present bicycle crash data

December 8, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I started some preliminary work on my crash reporting tool. I haven’t written any code, but I’ve been working on the logistics of analyzing and presenting the data to the public.

I obtained bicycle crash data for 2009 from the Illinois Department of Transportation’s Division of Traffic Safety. I’m not able to distribute raw data (you’ll have to ask for it yourself) and Illinois statutes prevent me from distributing personally identifying data (but it’s really hard to know what this is). In the meantime, based on Ben Sheldon’s suggestion, I loaded some of the data into a private Google Fusion Table that instantly maps geocoded data (it can also geocode the data for you).

Richard cautions me about way I choose to present data. I need to choose terms and descriptions carefully to avoid misinterpretations. Pete from the Boston Cyclist’s Union recommends against accepting self-reported data. I’ll be taking their advice into consideration as I move forward.

You see in the map (top) that a lot of crashes happen on Milwaukee Avenue (above). That’s where a lot of people ride (over 3,000 in 24 hours in the fall).

I have not begun to review the narrative details in the crash reports. Actually, they’re not very narrative because they’re fixed responses – no free writing allowed. And not every record represents a collision (meaning a crash with at least two parties). Many are self-crashes (is that a legit phrase)?

I’m not sure exactly what story I want the data to tell so it will probably be a while before I make anything public. One of my favorite geographic information books, Making Maps, talks about the endless ways maps can be designed and portrayed and that each tells a different story. It’s best if I know the story (a goal) ahead of time.