I visited Milwaukee on the Sunday before Labor Day this year. I haven’t uploaded any photos or written about the trip. My friend Brandon and I brought our fixed-gear bicycles and rode around town for several hours. Here’s a video of some of their streets and trails.
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What is a utility bike
Well, if I had to choose, it’s the WorkCycles Fr8.
But if I had to define it, here goes:
- It can carry stuff so that I don’t have to carry it on my person, thus hurting my body. Carries in such a way so as to not negatively affect the handling and maneuverability of the bike.
- Has a design with devices, features, elements, materials that help prolong the life of the bicycle. This includes chain guard to prevent rust, fenders to prevent dirt, internal gearing to make that last longer, etc…
- Can be ridden by a variety of person sizes (I’m not sure if this represents utility, not 100% sure on this one).
Why does this matter?
Photo by Jonathan Maus of BikePortland. Read his reporting on the topic.
Oregon Manifest judges chose the winning bike on Friday, September 24, 2011, and it’s far from being the ultimate utility bike.
Tony’s bike – centered around an electric pedaling assist — was specifically designed to get people out of cars, introducing amenities that drivers have grown accustomed to on the road; stereo, locking storage, stable loading and a huge dose of Fun Factor.
And I wasn’t the only concerned observer. Travis Wittwer, a Portland resident, was present at the announcement and wrote on Bike Noun Verb, in a post titled The Cargo Bike Future Sucks:
There was a palatable pause as the first place winner for the Ultimate Utilitarian Bike was announced at the the 2011 Oregon Manifest awards. The pause was long enough to register as a pause. A stop. It was uncomfortable. Clearly people everywhere in the crowd were saying, “What the hell?” I looked around and saw other people looking around. There was some confusion.
It doesn’t meet my definition of utility bike above:
- The wide front rack is mounted to the steering and thus will make maneuverability difficult. The double-leg kickstand is not very wide.
- The drivetrain is exposed, it uses electrical parts that will fail or need maintenance that many people will not be able to provide.
- The high top tube may make it difficult for some to mount the bicycle.
I do love the locking storage, though!
Clean Power Ordinance, delayed again
Updated September 30, 2011: The ordinance never got on the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection’s agenda for September. So my fingers are crossed for the October meeting.
Clean power advocates march in Pilsen on Saturday, September 24, 2011. Photo by Ryan Williams.
Instead of voting on the Clean Power Ordinance on September 8, 2011, the Committee on Committees, Ethics and Rules “re-referred” it to the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection. This is a companion post to Rollin’ beyond coal, on Grid Chicago.
What the Clean Power Ordinance is
It sets emissions standards for coal-powered plants in Chicago. It applies modern standards about air pollution, as they apply to coal and natural gas power plants, to any coal-powered plant in Chicago.
The Chicago Clean Power Coalition has a summary of the ordinance.
Why this is needed
Residents of Pilsen, Little Village, Bridgeport and other communities (pollution has no boundary) have suffered for decades from the release of carbon dioxide, mercury, lead, hydrochloric acid and other chemicals into the air. Read the Toxics Release Inventory for the Fisk Generating Station.
A large portion of the population is 18 and younger; this portion is growing. Pollution has a greater negative effect on young people.
The Fisk and Crawford power plants, owned by Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison International, were grandfathered in to the Clean Air Act of 1970. That means the standards imposed by that legislation don’t apply.
The ordinance’s “Whereas” clause lists six studies that define the effects of certain levels of particulate matter (better known as soot) on human disease, mortality, and life expectancy. A 2002 Harvard study (PDF) that found the power plants combined caused 41 premature deaths per year.
What else
It appears that Alderman JoAnn Thompson, 16th Ward, is no longer a co-sponsor. The Chicago Clean Power Coalition lists her as a co-sponsor as of August 12, 2011, but on the ordinance document (ordinance number O2011-6489) published on the City Clerk’s website, her name is missing.
Midwest Generation, or one of its sister companies, Edison Mission Energy, is known to have lobbied the City Council, the Mayor’s Office, and the Department of Environment in 2010. “Midwest Generation officials said the ordinance is not needed because they already have started to comply with federal standards that will significantly cut pollution at their plants” (Chicago Tribune). The company also claims that a shutdown of the plant will harm electricity supply in Chicago. On that:
Chicago doesn’t actually need the electricity from the plants, though if the plants go offline before ongoing upgrades to local transmission infrastructure are completed it could cause instability on the grid including possible blackouts, according to a spokesman for the utility ComEd. (Midwest Energy News)
Alderman Solis (25th Ward) joined Alderman Joe Moore (49th Ward) during the election time this year as a lead sponsor, to help save his seat on the council in a fight with Cuahetemoc “Témoc” Morfin.
What’s next
Since the Committee on Committees, Ethics and Rules (CCER) “re-referred” it to the Committee on Health and Environmental Protection (CHEP), the members of CHEP, 18 of which are also on CCER, must discuss the ordinance. Oddly, CHEP did not place on its agenda for their Tuesday, September 27, 2011, meeting a consideration of the ordinance. After discussion, the committee can recommend that the full council vote on it. If the council passes it, Mayor Emanuel can sign or veto it.
In July, Mayor Emanuel talked about his support for the ordinance but didn’t go so far as to endorse it.
How to upload shapefiles to Google Fusion Tables
It is now possible to upload a shapefile (and its companion files SHX, PRJ, and DBF) to Google Fusion Tables (GFT).
Before we go any further, keep in mind that the application that does this will only process 100,000 rows. Additionally, GFT only gives each user 200 MB of storage (and they don’t tell you your current status, that I can see).
- Login to your Google account (at Gmail, or at GFT).
- Prepare your data. Ensure it has fewer than 100,000 rows.
- ZIP up your dataX.shp, dataX.shx, dataX.prj, and dataX.dbf. Use WinZip for Windows, or for Mac, right-click the selection of files and select “Compress 4 items”.
- Visit the Shape to Fusion website. You will have to authorize the web application to “grant access” to your GFT tables. It needs this access so that after the web application processes your data, it can insert it into GFT.
- If you want a Centroid Geometry column or a Simplified Geometry column added, click “Advanced Options” and check their checkboxes – see notes below for an explanation.
- Choose the file to upload and click Upload.
- Leave the window open until it says it has processed all of the rows. It will report “Processed Y rows and inserted Y rows”. You will be given a link to the GFT the web application created.
Sample Data
If you’re looking to give this a try and see results quickly, try some sample data from the City of Chicago data portal:
- Community Areas – 77 official community areas + 3 “out” areas to make 80 polygons.
- Special Service Areas – akin to business improvement districts, including Wicker Park-Bucktown SSA.
Notes
I had trouble many times while using Shape to Fusion in that after I chose the file to upload and clicked Upload, I had to grant access to the web application again and start over (choose the file and click Upload a second time).
Centroid Geometry – This creates a column with the geographic coordinates of the centroid in a polygon. It lists it in the original projection system. So if your projection is in feet, the value will be in feet. This is a function that can easily be performed in free and open source QGIS, where you can also reproject files to get latitude and longitude values (in WGS84 project, EPSG 4326). The centroid value is surrounded in the field by KML syntax “<Point><coordinates>X,Y</coordinates></Point>”.
Simplified Geometry – A geometry column is automatically created by the web application (or GFT, I’m not sure). This function will create a simpler version of that geometry, with fewer lines and vertices. It also creates columns to list the vertices count for the simple and regular geometry columns.
Notable about Chicago transit: Bikes
I forgot where I heard this, but it’s from a guy named Adam (he might be from Ireland*):
Biking in Chicago is great… because you can give up and at any time… and put your bike on a bus.
He’s right – every single one of the Chicago Transit Authority’s 2,000+ buses have bike racks to hold two bicycles.
Photo by jochemberends. Visit the Bikes and Transit group on Flickr for more photos like this.
*My notes are vague.