Category: Information

Pilsen pollution

March 15, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Pilsen is a neighborhood in Chicago’s Lower West Side that is made mostly of Mexican immigrants and descendants. It’s sister neighborhood is Little Village, which is close by to the southwest. I lived here for two years from 2006-2008.

When I moved in, the smoke from a nearby, but yet unseen, exhaust stack was quite apparent. An uninformed or malicious local offered that it was a heat generation plant for the nearby public housing homes. This seemed unlikely, and only slightly plausible, but I didn’t question it.

Both neighborhoods have coal-fired power plants. There is Fisk Generating Station at 1111 W. Cermak in Pilsen (which I mentioned above and pictured above), and Crawford Generating Station at 3501 S. Pulaski in Little Village. Both are owned by Midwest Generation

It was not long until I read several news reports in the major Chicago newspapers about the actions of local social advocacy organizations trying to bring awareness about the danger the Fisk plant was causing for the minority residents in Pilsen. The problems became well-known in 2001 after a group of five researchers from Harvard and two private consulting agencies (one for wind, and one for environment) studied coal-fired power plants in the Midwest exempt from the provisions of the Clean Air Act. See “More information” below for a local group’s opinion on these plants’ impacts on health using information derived from the study.

The most recent call for action was from the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, who, in August 2008, demanded that Mayor Daley close the Fisk plant on Cermak.

Now, the Sierra Club magazine is reporting on a new and younger organization ready and willing to fight alongside LVEJO the battle to fix the pollution problems in Chicago’s west side Latino neighborhoods. I recently read this article at work in our “office lending library” – this along with the fact that I pass by the station quite often prompted me to write this blog entry.

More information:

Earmarks: Good and bad, put simply

March 2, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Earmarks are wonderful for the people and organizations for whom they’re designated. It’s a way to bypass normal funding procedures and jumpstart or finish a project. Instead of a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., and your state capitol analyzing your project for its funding worthiness, you work with your locally elected official to get project funding.

Earmarks also help institutions ineligible for federal funding (for example: many local museums) get projects built for them. Earmarks may mean that your project starts getting federal grants earlier.

What earmarks also do is reduce the amount of money available for formula and Department of Transportation discretionary funding as well as lower the statewide “transportation pot.” It’s also probably immoral to use political instead of objective considerations to decide which projects are funded and which aren’t. 

However, with the right politician and the right group speaking in their ear, earmarks may mean the difference in your town getting that bike lane funded or not, because the state Department of Transportation continues to say no.

In the federal spending bill President Obama plans to sign soon, there are $7.7 billion dollars in earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). This, so far, only includes disclosed earmarks (a handy table listing all earmarks and requesting politicians is downloadable), and the group is searching through the bill text to find the billions more in undisclosed earmarks.

Here I note a couple items of interest to Illinoisans in transportation (download searchable PDF with national table or download Excel spreadsheet from TCS):

  • Alternative Analysis Study for the J-Route Bus Rapid Transit (BTR) Project; $237,500; Rep. Roskam
  • Peoria Regional Airport; $950,000; Sen. Durbin
  • DeKalb/Taylor Municipal Airport, Various Improvements; $1,235,000; Rep. Foster, Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Red line Extension (Alternatives Analysis); $285,000; Rep. Jackson, Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Yellow Line Extension (Alternatives Analysis); $237,500; Rep. Schakowsky, Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Brown Line* (Capital Investment Grant); $30,00,000; Sen. Durbin
  • CTA Circle Line** (Capital Investment Grant); $6,000,000; Sen. Durbin
  • Metra Rock Island 35th St. Station Improvements; $712,500; Rep. Rush
  • Multimodal Center in Normal; $237,500; Rep. Weller
  • Paratransit Vehicles, West Central Mass Transit District; $104,500; Rep. LaHood
  • Replacement Heavy Duty Transit Buses, Madison County Mass Transit District; $475,000; Rep. Costello
  • Replacement of Paratransit Vehicles, Greater Peoria Mass Transit District, Peoria; $380,000; Rep. LaHood

And the list goes on. Click Read More for the notes about the CTA, info on Metra’s share, and BRT. Continue reading

Obama’s promise for open government

February 12, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I’m excited about Obama’s memorandum he wrote in his first week of office, on January 21st, 2009. In it, he calls for federal agencies to stop looking for legal ways to say no to requests for data, or in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

He will help usher in a new American government, where “[a]ll agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure.” 

And the agencies shouldn’t be so passive about the distribution of their data. President Barack Obama continues with:

“…agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely.”

The United States Government is probably the world’s largest collector and holder of data. It probably stores more data and information than the internet (minus what the government publishes there). I hope I can expect an onslaught of data, but it must be accessible in multiple formats and in ways we can use. Saving spreadsheets is NOT distributing data. That’s protecting it and trying to make it harder to manipulate. It means providing raw access to tables and databases, providing APIs for custom queries, and XML feeds for simple and broad presentation.

Perhaps we’ll need a White House Office of Data to coordinate with agencies about the formats and presentation and distribution methods they choose or will choose.

I’m glad Obama’s transition team took the advice from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on this one – they fight for, among many things, the rights of the internet and information and how access to both should be equalized and open. Read the EFF’s news article about this about-face from George Bush’s archaic information policies.

To Obama: When you create that office, please consult the geniuses at EveryBlock for the Office’s “Public Consumption” division. They know how to package data for quick and informative understanding.

Converting shapefiles and KML files

February 10, 2009 / / 79 Comments

Google Earth Pro is a slightly more advanced version than the free edition of the popular satellite imagery application (okay, it does way more, but many people just use that feature). One major additional feature it includes is the ability to import GIS shapefiles and display their features on top of the imagery, including terrain. It’s useful to have your data as KML (Keyhole Markup Language) because KML (or KMZ) is easier to share and Google Earth standard edition is free. But then again, it’s useful to have your KML files as shapefiles because proper GIS software is more powerful at analyzing data. Also, someone might ask you for your data in shapefile format (but they could easily follow these instructions).

Good data management requires options. Options mean your data won’t be locked into a proprietary format. Data want to be free! Read on for ways to convert your KML and shapefile data:

Converting KML files to shapefiles

Like Google Earth Pro, Quantum GIS (QGIS) can convert KML or KMZ to shapefile, and best of all – it doesn’t cost $400 per year (it’s free!). QGIS is a cross-platform application meaning it will run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Use QGIS to convert a KML or KMZ file to shapefile:

  1. Click on Layer > Add Vector Layer
  2. Find your KML or KMZ file.
  3. Right-click your new layer and click “Save as shapefile.”

Zonums provides online conversion tools. Or, use ArcGIS and this plugin to convert KML files to shapefiles.

Converting shapefiles to KML files

The freeware Shp2kml 2.o (Windows only) from Zonums will convert shapefiles to KML files. Want some free, interesting data to try it out? Check my ever expanding repository.

ESRI’s ArcGIS can convert KML files to shapefiles using this plugin and then import the shapefile as a layer onto your map.

Creating KML files online

As I described in this post, BatchGecode will generate a KML file for you by inputting a list of addresses and names. Additionally, Google Earth (part of the rising Google GIS platform) creates KML files. Google’s My Maps feature also allows you to generate KML files (for sharing or download) by clicking and drawing points and lines on a map and inviting you to describe the features you create. Use this to get a map of your church congregation, or a map of people who voted for your candidate.

GeoCommons Finder lets you upload geodata in many formats, save it to your profile, and then download it into multiple formats. You can upload a shapefile (.shp) and its accompany files (shx, dbf, and prj), verify that it read your data correctly,

More choices for converting

Additional software with conversion capabilities:

  • MapWindow (another free software choice; Windows only) – An alternative to QuantumGIS and ArcGIS.
  • ExpertGPS (Windows only, not free) – Ideal for GPS device owners, or for researchers using GPS devices in projects. But it can convert the GPS and shapefile data into KML, shapefiles, or a spreadsheet, amongst other functions.
  • Zonums, creator of the standalone Shp2kml software converter, now offers many online tools for KML users, including one that reverses the conversion and exports shapefiles from KML files. I found the link on FreeGeographyTools.com.
  • OpenGeo Suite – Commercial software with non-profit licenses.
  • uDig – Free GIS software, but I haven’t had good experiences with it on my computers.

GeoCommunity has a good article, with screenshots, on how some of these programs work.

Need to work with General Transit Feed Spec (GTFS) data?

Finding geographic information about Chicago and elsewhere

February 10, 2009 / / 0 Comments

The City of Chicago’s GIS division of the Department of Information and Technology as well as the Zoning Department provide copious data on boundaries, crime, zoning, etc… And I’m not talking about a library of PDF files. You can’t analyze or manipulate or calculate using PDF – I’m talking about data sets, shapefiles, or aerial photographs.

You can start here on the GIS website.

 The Chicago Police produce the CLEARMAP website. And even the Bicycle Program throws down with bikeways and bike parking data. Check out Wicker Park’s Center for Neighborhood Technology and its urban data visualization websites, like their Housing and Transportation Affordability Index.

List sources for your city’s data in the comments. Milwaukee has its own Spatial Decision Support System called COMPASS. Here’s Maricopa County’s (Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe) ArcServer-based online GIS website.

Check to see if EveryBlock has started data mining your city. They began their news collection and repackaging efforts in Chicago, naturally 🙂 They are the first organization to find a new way to present Chicago’s bike rack installation info.

UPDATE: The community at OpenStreetMap has a huge list of datasets available for cities and places around the world.