Category: People

Rep. Mica of Florida is confused about how best to support high-speed rail

January 28, 2010 / / 0 Comments

From Associated Press writer Joan Lowy’s article, “White House doles out $8 billion for fast trains,”

Rep. John Mica of Florida, the senior Republican on the House transportation committee, complained that the Midwest lines awarded grants will achieve top speeds of only 110 mph and were “selected more for political reasons than for high-speed service.”

No, John, the Midwest was selected because it had a comprehensive plan with a regional approach, and with all Midwest states on board a collaborative effort to make Chicago the hub of an expansive network of fast trains that go to many, desirable destinations.

The Midwest was also selected because many of the Amtrak routes showed increased ridership over the past three years (2006-2009), and the ones that received a higher state subsidy or targeted improvements (with funding from the states) that reduced travel time and increased reliability showed an especially high increase in ridership.

And excuse me, Florida received a lot of money for a high-speed train between Tampa, Orlando, and Miami.

View more of my articles on this expanding topic.

Google snaps up another open web advocate

January 13, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been following the work of Chris Messina (also known by his handle, factoryjoe) for a couple years now. I can’t remember how I found him (maybe it was BarCamp, OpenID, of the Firefox ad), but I know why I follow him. Like me, he wants to keep the web open and data transferrable or transportable.

While browsing the New York Times Technology section Monday morning (my favorite tech news site, hands down), I saw the headline that he now works for Google (Monday was the first day). This kind of shocked me. I feel Google gets a little scarier every week: some of my friends have admitted that a lot of their online life exists on Google servers and feel queasy about what could happen (some call this “the cloud” and have pointed out the devastating possibilities for privacy and business).

Open web advocate, Chris Messina, presents at the Open Source Bridge conference in Portland, Oregon, in June 2009. Photo by Aaron Hockley.

The author pointed out Messina’s history in open web advocacy (he hijacked his high school’s website because of its refusal to allow an ad for a new gay/straight alliance). The article offers some speculative reasons why Messina made the move, but I want to discuss the inclusion of a quote from Eran Hammer-Lahav, who works for Yahoo!.

With Messina, Smarr, [inventor of OpenID and more Brad] Fitzpatrick and others all working for Google, focusing on the Social Web, there is less and less incentive for Google to reach out. Google has a strong coding culture which puts running code ahead of consensus and collaboration. Now with so many bright minds in house, they are even less likely to reach out. Quote continues…

In other words, with all of the open web advocates being Open Web Advocates (Messina’s new title), who will advocate for web users now? There’s me, for sure. And there are folks standing behind Open Government and Government 2.0. People like Barack Obama (he issued the Transparency and Open Government memo), Adriel Hampton (host of Gov 2.0 Radio podcast), Mark Abraham (urbandata on Twitter), and anyone in the government “black box” who’s willing to set government data free.

In addition, new websites are up and running that remix and mash up government data into useful applications that can promote, through the web, a different level of ownership of one’s community. Or websites that provide useful and relevant information for residents. Websites like SeeClickFix (identify problems in your neighborhood to get city politicians and staff to take notice), or the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing and Transportation Affordability Index.

And don’t forget that the Chicago Bicycle Parking Program liberated its bike parking data into Excel, KML, and GIS-compatible formats in 2009.

Screenshot of the Advanced Search page in the Chicago Bike Parking Public Interface web application from which you can download bike rack installation data.

Circle Line brings out the public’s comments to the CTA

January 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments

The public should always be involved in city and community planning. It can be a difficult exercise, though, but morally, and legally, we must do it. I got my own experience with dealing with the public by setting up and running, from the venue to the content, a public meeting about bicycling in Chicago in summer 2009 (reports and documents, photos).

Participants at the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Council public meeting on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, discuss relevant bicycling topics.

What’s unfortunate, though, is that public participation tends to turn into meeting theater.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has just released the public comments from the third “screening” of the Circle Line Alternatives Analysis study. Screen 3 presented the Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA), including route alignment and new station locations. I’ve collected a handful of some of the irrelevant or humorous comments members of the public submitted to the CTA after the open houses in September 2009. I’ve also included a selection of thoughtful, serious, and relevant ideas and questions (these ideas comprise the majority). Download the entire collection.

Irrelevant

These comments are recorded by the CTA study team, but not addressed and thrown in “Topic Area 23, do not pertain to the Circle Line.”

  • Nobody builds 1890s technology like Chicago!
  • What would Daniel Burnham think of this “LPA?
  • The connection for regular service to the Old Orchard Mall has my support.
  • These comment cards are meant to constrain public debate. RTA does not use these. Why does CTA need to control the public? [Note: If the commenter feels the need to say this, a comment card is the wrong outlet; also, an open house is not an opportunity to debate anything]
  • What is this “future plan? [Note: It seems that the commenter is unsure of their presence at the open house, or they don’t understand that the Locally Preferred Alternative includes only a small part of the Circle Line vision]

Serious

  • Tonight I was handed a flyer from LVEJO claiming that MidCity is cheaper than Circle even though it is 20 miles longer. CTA’s study says the opposite. Which one is more accurate? [Note: I would also like to know the answer]
  • The material provided on the CTA web site (the presentation slides and display boards) do not seem to be sufficient for public comment except at the most superficial level. Especially for those citizens who were unable to attend one of the three public sessions, the web materials are all that are available, and I do not believe they are adequate to meeting your requirements for public participation.

Common Topics

While the team who puts on the public meetings categorizes the comments into distinct topic areas (in order to more quickly address them), there are at least three major topic areas I saw prudent to discuss here. Read these after the jump. Continue reading

Your New Year’s resolution: Share more photos

January 1, 2010 / / 0 Comments

I hope you got a camera for Christmas, and if you didn’t I hope you buy yourself one. Let 2010 be the year you share more photos. Write detailed descriptions so others can learn. Photos are how we travel to places around the world we can’t afford or can’t work into our schedules. Be your own National Geographic and we’ll subscribe to your photostream or blog.

In downtown Tempe, Arizona, you’ll find the Islamic Community Center mosque (or masjid).

Photograph as much as you can and know as much as you can. By knowing we can know to change, and change, we can share.

I carry my pocketable digital camera with me every time I leave my house, because I never know what I can capture and I don’t want to miss the chance. I share nearly all of it online and sometimes in this blog.