Category: People

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.

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).

Bikes are social

December 20, 2010 / / 0 Comments

This entry originally appeared as a guest post on Let’s Go Ride a Bike, last week. I am posting it here now for you and recommending you visit that blog.

Two Mondays ago someone on the sidewalk yelled “Happy birthday” to me while I was riding to Bridgeport through University Village (UIC’s south campus). It was my birthday. I turned around to identify the shouting person. Joe was a classmate and now I most often see him at a local bike shop or playing bike polo. We went inside the store and chatted for awhile.

The bicycle is an extremely social tool. While it helps me get to the places I need to go, it does so in such a way that fosters community and interaction. As I ride, I’m exposed to the whims of the street: the noises, the chatter, the honks, the people, and the people I know. But it also helps me get to know new people.

Ready to zombie?

I met some new people on the Zombie Ride in October that started at West Town Bikes in Humboldt Park and finished at Johnny Sprockets bike shop in Lakeview.

I participated in another bike light distribution with Active Transportation Alliance on November 17, 2010. I photographed a previous distribution in Wicker Park a week earlier. This time around, at the corner of Halsted and Roosevelt at the UIC campus, I took a more direct role by flagging people riding bikes without lights to pull over and stop. I would then attach a brand new headlight to their bicycle, courtesy of customers of Groupon and the law office of Jim Freeman. During the two minutes I had their undivided attention, I told them about the state law requiring a front light and the role of Active Transportation Alliance in the city and suburbs.

This time I wanted to record more information about all the people I helped and talked to. I kept a little note card in my pocket and recorded the revealed reasons why the person didn’t have a headlight, how many men and women I helped (I only recorded two categories), and some select quotes.

I think six people refused my offer for a free headlight – this is because they couldn’t hear me (several wore headphones), didn’t understand our intentions, or both. Also confused, a man driving a car said, “You little bastard with your bikes,” but I won’t let anyone distract me.

Genaro gives a free headlight to someone without it

Genaro installs a headlight to someone riding on Halsted Street in University Village.

Of all the people I stopped, I identified 21 men and 11 women (32 total). Four people said they lost their lights or had them stolen and hadn’t yet replaced the lights. One person forgot their lights. 27 of the 32 people riding bikes didn’t know it was state law to ride a bike with a headlight on at night. Here’s what some riders had to say:

“No one told me that!” I suspect this is an extremely common explanation. This is definitely an opportunity for local bike shops to educate their customers, but there are other places people can get this information, like resident advisers at dorms, churches, and workplaces. The Active Transportation Alliance fights tirelessly to instill basic information into the minds of people riding bikes around town.

One person I was talking to hadn’t heard of the Active Transportation Alliance and after I explained to him what the organization does, he said, “My friends and I want to start our own group.”

Someone on foot asked me, “How long are you going to be here? I want my friend to get one.” This guy came back with his friend and they both got free headlights.

Speaking of the bicycling leading me to meetings with people I know, three friends were walking by and said hello. I had met one of them, Andrew, at the same spot, in front of the UIC Skyspace as we both raced in an October 2006 scavenger hunt.

Blues unite!

Walk under the Skyspace to get a direct and undistracted view of the sky and space.

Another case for integrating biking and transit

December 3, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Integrating biking and transit can reduce a user’s transportation costs.

A friend just instant messaged me to describe his “bike instead of transit” commute,

“I spent $440 on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) this year and $300 on bike stuff. When I was just taking the CTA it was $1032 per year. I used to have the monthly pass deducted from my paycheck, $86 per month. Now I pay as a I go, and I go much less.”

In some places, and for other people’s situations, commuters could bike TO the train or bus and reduce their costs by eliminating a transfer. Transit also lengthens a bike rider’s possible trip distance when they combine the modes. In this sense, providing services or facilities for people riding bikes attracts new customers or maintains relationships with existing customers.

The Department of Transportation is now funding projects that improve bicycling (and walking) connections to bus and train stations. We should continue focusing on expanding and improving our bikeway networks by connecting them with our transit networks. By doing so, we make each system more robust and give people more options to choose the route that’s best for them.

Boarding northbound Caltrain at Palo Alto University Avenue station.

Some buses can hold three bikes (see Seattle and Silicon Valley). Highway 17 Express bus Santa Cruz bound at San Jose State University stop. Photos by Richard Masoner.

Don’t vote for this guy

December 2, 2010 / / 0 Comments

Will the next Chicago mayor be the same kind of urban planner like Richard M. Daley was? Will they build new parks and libraries at the same time they sell off infrastructure at a fraction of its value or abuse Tax Increment Financing funds?

I attended the UIC mayoral candidate forum on Wednesday to find this out. There was some talk about creating an open and transparent government (Patricia Watkins), with budgets that a 5th grader could read and spending denoted for each Ward or Community Area (I really like these ideas).

One candidate, Fredrick White, wants to support the building of a water bottling plant that would bottle water with “CHICAGO” on the label and have it sold in local stores and restaurants in order to create jobs (I don’t like this idea at all).

Fredrick K. White is probably telling the audience to visit his website.

I liked Miguel del Valle’s responses to the question about paying for higher education and ensuring the University of Illinois is funded. He recommended better integrating the community colleges and supporting the 3+1 program, where the final year of a bachelor’s program is completed at a university.

At least two candidates want to create technology parks, one even saying he wants Chicago to become the Silicon Valley of the Midwest. Another said Chicago can become the hotbed for nanotechnology development (William Walls).

Whatever was said, it wasn’t said by Fenton Patterson. I can’t recall anything he said. When responding to questions, he swaggered to the front of the stage, pulled his jacket back, stooped his head down, mumbled something that didn’t answer any question that was asked. His demeanor looked like that of a detective on [insert name of cop TV show here] ready to grill a perpetrator.

This forum was the first step in weeding out bad candidates like Fenton Patterson.

More of my work on the Chicago elections: