Anatomy of a to-do
In a brilliant act of sustained provocation, the Post-Gazette has kept the back-and-forth between bicyclists and drivers alive for three weeks running. Since the August 12 story about the appointment of a city bicycle “czar”, it has been nearly impossible to go a day without witnessing an exchange.
Following the publication of this story, the letters to the editors on August 13, 16, and 17 had at least one bicyclist or driver opining on the awfulness of the other.
Sensing blood, the P-G collected anecdotes from frustrated drivers, wrapped some weak reporting around it, and threw it on the front page on August 18 under the headline “When bicyclists break the safety chain, driver complaints mount.”
Predictably, this set off another round of furious letter-writing, some of which were published on August 20, 21, 23, and 25. The paper’s normally conservative page 2 columnist also spent a column supporting the bicyclists’ cause.
There has been ample debate on the topic on the paper’s own discussion form as well as on at least one local blog, which has racked up an impressive 100+ comment count on a post that was just trolling for abuse.
I have little to add to this noise, except to say that I think that both sides are yelling past each other, and that no amount of increased law enforcement, or painted bike lanes, or bicycle licensing fees will change how cars and bikes interact on the city’s streets, in their current state.
That’s not to say things can’t get better. What I would like to see is a fundamental rethinking of the function of the city street.
This story of Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer is a wonderful study in counter-intuitive approaches to better moderate the role of the automobile in the city.
While redesigning a major thoroughfare in a Dutch village after two children were fatally stuck, Monderman employed psychological tricks, not signs and speed bumps, to calm traffic:
Signs were removed, curbs torn out, and the asphalt replaced with red paving brick, with two gray “gutters” on either side that were slightly curved but usable by cars. As Monderman noted, the road looked only five meters wide, “but had all the possibilities of six.”
The results were striking. Without bumps or flashing warning signs, drivers slowed, so much so that Monderman’s radar gun couldn’t even register their speeds. Rather than clarity and segregation, he had created confusion and ambiguity. Unsure of what space belonged to them, drivers became more accommodating. Rather than give drivers a simple behavioral mandate — say, a speed limit sign or a speed bump — he had, through the new road design, subtly suggested the proper course of action.
Of his approach, Monderman says:
“I don’t want traffic behavior, I want social behavior.”
Better social behavior is something we should all strive to practice. Perhaps as the oil era cedes center stage, we can once again reclaim our urban spaces and infuse them with a humanity that has been missing for far too long.
Bad business
Downtown, the cage is up around Market Square, which can only mean one thing: St. Patrick’s Day. The masses are smartly gathering at the end of our street, waiting for a bus to take them to the “fun.” There’s one problem, though: there’s no bus.
I’ve watched the crowd grow from 5 to 20 to probably 50. With each passing bus, the mumur of drunken discontent grows louder. Some Most are abandoning the wait, choosing, probably unwisely, to walk back to their cars and make the trip by other means.
The buses run at a frequency unchanged from their normal weekend schedule, and the ones that do go by fail to stop. I don’t know if the riders are being passed by because the buses are full, or because the drivers don’t want to deal with a bunch of happy drunks in Abercrombie & Fitch.
Either way, it’s a loss for the Port Authority, and for its regular riders. Failing to be flexible and accommodating to the special needs of the day is just fuel for the fire of those who posit the growing irrelevance of our transit system. I can imagine 50 different conversations once the revelers arrive downtown, all going something like this:
“Dude, what took you so long? I’m already smashed!”
“It’s the fuckin’ bus, man. I waited an hour for it and watched three go by without stopping.”
“Dude, the bus sucks.”
“I know.”
A better schedule getter
Inspired by Nathan’s self-motivated improvement to the Port Authority’s Trip Planner, I decided to task myself with my own small project that would eliminate the need to visit the Byzantine structure that is the Port Authority website. I hope you like it.
Whoops, wrong project.
Actually, my goals were much more modest. As one who is not altogether trusting of the times given via the online scheduling tools, I prefer to rely on the paper, or “hand schedules,” that the Port Authority distributes.
However, carrying more than three paper schedules at a time leaves one open to the valid assumption by others that you are a nut who hordes bus schedules like Elliot Spitzer hordes prostitutes. Believe me, I’ve seen the type in every city we’ve been to.
So I prefer to do my hoarding electronically, via PDF. Since my laptop is never far from my person, it’s an ideal situation. Throw Spotlight into the mix, and I can summon up any bus schedule at will, and can out-crazy the best of the crazies.
Well, almost. See, the process of getting the schedules and keeping them updated is the not fun part. There are about 11 bus routes that I use with varying degrees of regularity, and I despise having to remember if I grabbed the newest schedule and, if I didn’t, visiting the Port Authority’s website to get a new one. Too much thinking and too many clicks.
Enter the Mac, its Unix underpinnings, and the beauty that is shell scripting.
I spent some time tonight polishing a project I had started a couple of months ago — a command-line schedule retriever. It uses wget and a lot of pipes and output redirection to download and manage the latest Port Authority schedules. It’s not pretty (although it does have a cool ASCII progress bar), but if you are a CLI ninja, it beats the alternative.
However, if you didn’t understand that last paragraph, it’s probably not for you.
My experience with releasing software that doesn’t run within a web browser is somewhat limited, so your mileage may vary, but I welcome you to download it and give it a shot.
Update: Also see the simplified Port Authority Hand Schedule retriever for quick access to PDF schedules through your browser.
Now with more stupid
I feel like Bill Murray. Once again, my morning reading of the newspaper brought forth the need to create vitriol:
I have to disagree with the idea that bicyclists on the streets of Pittsburgh are a danger only during bad weather. They are always a danger. Why should a motorist have to ride behind a bicycle traveling at 5 mph until they get the chance to drive into the oncoming lane to pass them?
See “Untested Cyclists,” the fourth letter down for more. It only gets better.
The pot has been stirred over at Bike Pittsburgh. Attending this book talk and signing has also become the thing to do on Friday night.
Making a good thing better
During our trip back to Wisconsin in January, I had the opportunity to meet my best friend in Rochester, MN for a couple of drinks and dinner. Making the drive home, I was happy for so many reasons, not the least of which being that I did not reek like an ashtray, despite our presence in three bars and restaurants throughout the night.
Thanks to a statewide ban on smoking that was enacted in September 2007, nights out in the Land of 10,000 Lakes can be had smoke-free. Business certainly wasn’t suffering at any of the places in which we caroused, and no one seemed too put out by having to endure a few minutes out in the cold winter night to satisfy their habit.
Upon returning home, where things are a bit more regressive, I made the decision to finally and totally eschew establishments that still think it a good idea to mix smoke, drink, and food. Thankfully, it hasn’t been all that hard. Many are wising up, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised when walking into several places. SmokeFree Pennsylvania also publishes a thorough list of smoke-free dining options in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area.
So, the system works like it should: The smoke-free places are rewarded with my business, while I ignore the others. Fine. But do the places that still allow smoking know what they’re missing out on? Namely, the business of people like me who just don’t want to deal with it anymore? True, they probably couldn’t care less. But I’d find it personally satisfying to develop something that could bring people together to talk about where they decided not to go, and why. It could be an empowering tool.
But first, baby steps. Here’s a search form for the SmokeFree site:
Find a restaurant
If the restaurant that you search for doesn’t show up, there’s a good chance it still allows smoking.
Stretching it
Pittsburgh City Hall has a new filtering policy, one that now, among other things, apparently blocks Blogspot blogs. There are a lot of talented writers that provide valuable bits of criticism and cheerleading about Pittsburgh-related issues. Keeping these voices out of city hall is a rather closed-minded approach to governance, I think.
Of course, a government influenced by modern technologies is wishful thinking when there are people like this in charge:
City computer supercop Howard Stern said there was no conscious decision to block the blogs, and that the change in security settings came down, uninvited, from Websense. That said, he agrees with the new blog-proof city system.
“They’re untrusted Web sites,” he told us. They can transmit viruses, he said, “and that could knock out the whole city.”
I really hope the P-G took this quote out of context, or otherwise mangled it in some fashion. Because if they didn’t, that’s the most overblown and paranoid statement that I’ve read in some time.
(Hint: Google Reader + RSS = Unstoppable!)
Getting in the way
Leave it to Allegheny County to muck up the elegant Flexcar process.
From the Flexcar website:
The Allegheny County Council has enacted a $2 per day Rental Vehicle Tax to help fund mass transit programs. The tax code states that any establishment that rents motor vehicles without a driver for less than a thirty day period must comply with the provisions of the law and charge the new tax to its respective customers.
The Allegheny County Treasurer has informed Flexcar that we must begin to collect the Rental Vehicle Tax from members starting January 1, 2008. You will see this tax reflected on invoices for any January Flexcar charges. The rate of tax assessment shall be $2 per day, or any part of a day, on which a Rental Vehicle is rented within Allegheny County.
Flexcar apologizes for any burden this may cause. Flexcar intends to address the issue by educating Allegheny County on the community benefits of car-sharing and key differences from traditional car rental. We are prepared to work with the County on a differing interpretation of the current law or to achieve a fix that will more specifically exempt car-sharing from the Rental Vehicle Tax.
While I do support these unfortunate taxes as a way to keep the buses rolling, I hope something can be done to lessen the burden for Flexcar users, whose rentals are measured in hours, not days.
I figure that writing the county council and county overlord is a good start.
A retraction, sort of
After attending tonight’s mayoral form, I realized some of my earlier comments regarding the mayor may have been a bit harsh. Going to a Toby Keith concert is still a stupid thing to do, obviously, but I was impressed with the way he handled himself at the debate. Given what we’ve got to choose from, he’s the city’s best bet. (Or one could write in one’s favorite city councilman.)
Tony Oliva (no, not that one), the Libertarian candidate, felt a little philosophically inconsistent and soft on the issues. But he was always ready to offer up an answer to any question that was thrown his way. Points to him for that. Plus, in the course of about 10 minutes, he mentioned litter, better music venues, passenger rail, and how neighborhood redevelopment could lead to better transit options. It’s nice to know someone else cares about this kind of stuff.
I really wanted to find some common ground with the Socialist Workers Party’s candidate, Ryan Scott, but his constant refusal to directly address nearly any question posed to him grew tiresome after a while. Because the editorial panel failed to rein him in, a lot of his answers did give the debate an interesting tinge of absurdity, though. I would have liked to see the questioners and some of the audience (particularly the old lady behind me) treat him with more respect. It takes some balls to get up and rail against things as he did.
And although I tried to go into the forum with an open mind, the Republican candidate, Mark DeSantis, failed to impress. After reminding everyone several times in the first 10 minutes how “old” he felt up on stage, he proceeded to slip in snarky, and downright mean, comments at the mayor the rest of the night. Way to keep the asshole businessman stereotype alive.
What a letdown
Yukongate, the latest “scandal” to “rock” Pittsburgh city hall has gone on for way too long. I would like to get more worked up about this, but I just can’t. Why? I just don’t have the respect for our Mayor like I used to:
The issue came to a head after Mr. Ravenstahl used the SUV over the weekend of Aug. 18. Among other things, he took it to a Toby Keith concert at the Post-Gazette Pavilion. He said he went with his wife and friends.
Shit, Luke, come on. Two hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic in an SUV to see a xenophobic, good ol’ boy “country” singer? What’s next? A weekend outing to the nearest NASCAR race? You’re dead to me now.
Fresh air
We took our friends who are visiting from Wisconsin out to one of our favorite watering holes, The Sharp Edge. Its massive beer selection and acceptable food makes it an attractive destination for a night out. However, the thick pall of cigarette smoke that usually hangs over the bar turns us off from going there as often as we’d like.
But no more. In what I hope is a growing trend, regardless of the asinine wranglings of the court system (from all sides), our hapless legislature’s moves to enact a ban, and the unfair nature of the proposed ban (bars and restaurants: yes; the new casino: no), places like The Sharp Edge are instituting no-smoking policies on their own.
Spending time there without my eyes watering and leaving with (relatively) fresh-smelling clothes and hair made my night. I think I’m going to type up a form letter supporting these kind of bans, and whenever I have an inkling to go out somewhere that still permits smoking, I’ll send them my missive instead. It just feels like the right thing to do.
