Lincoln is not LA or NYC, but we share some concerns. The scales may
not be the same, but the issues are similar.
A planner talks about transportation issues and bringing about
change:
LA and Lincoln share an entrenched auto-centric culture, both in their
citizens and public officials. People desire the freedom provided by
automobiles: freedom of time and freedom of location. You can go where
you want, when you want. Particularly elected officials are sensitive to
this, because their constituency may not care for public transit or
transportation reform, even if that is the best thing for the city.
It was interesting to here Ms. Whitaker's opinion that traffic
engineers cling to the status quo. We can't change because we've done it
this way for so long.
Also, the idea that providing free parking encourages auto-based
transport was something I hadn't really considered before. In fact it's
a feedback loop: the vast parking lots we use to store our vehicles as
we move around cause destination structures to be farther apart, making
it more attractive to get to them by auto, requiring parking.
She also talks about improvement by baby steps. Like she did,
I want to see world-changing improvements, but those are unlikely to
happen, either because of expense or just because they are out of the
mainstream. Small changes, though, can make things better, too, and over
time, they add up to big changes.
An ethicist talks about the imporantance of livable streets:
...[I]f you live anywhere but a few cities and you want a quart of
milk, you have to take the car. Lincoln is one of those cities
where, in general, you currently have to take the car.
Mr. Cohen describes indiscriminate use of cars as selfish for
various reasons, but the question for us is, in Lincoln, what other
choices do we have? We aren't as compact as Manhattan, with neighborhood
groceries, etc., and we don't have the public transportation system
enjoyed by some other municipalities.
Discussion of the parking placards used by officials in NYC
allowing them to park wherever they care to reminds me of some of our
elected officials and their attitude toward bus service and public
transportation. In New York, officials may not perceive parking and
pedestrian friendliness as high-priority issues because they typically
drive from place to place, and can park wherever they care to. Members
of Lincoln's City Council may not put stock in public transportation
simply because it's not useful to them.
Our server was veggie-aware and helpful, but had the misconception
that while a vegan might object to shrimp and/or fish, a
vegetarian would be okay with them. It's probably wise,
therefore, to tell the server you are vegan when ordering, even if you
are ovo-lacto.
While I think the increased regularity with which buses will make the
rounds under the proposals of the Transit
Development Plan are a good thing, I generally don't think the
plan goes far enough to encourage new ridership. I have a few
ideas...
Squash the meme that public transportation, StarTran in
particular, is an entitlement program for the poor. Little things
make a difference: stop advertising WIC and child support
enforcement and addiction recovery programs on the buses. Don't
reinforce the idea that a self-sufficient member of society is
stooping to ride the bus.
Remind policy makers that reliable, comfortable, and safe public
transportation is among the things sought by young, creative,
highly-educated professionals. According to the much-touted Angelou
Report, these are people Lincoln should be courting. The
perception is, real cities have good transit. Young, highly-educated
professionals are looking for real cities.
Think outside the box, and come up with some special promotional
routes to and from places people want to be at times they want to
be there, and make public transportation to and from recreational
and cultural opportunities a viable option. Run a route Friday night
and Saturday afternoon between the Grand and SouthPointe, and call
it the Cinema Express. Run a bus back and forth between the malls on
Saturday and Sunday. Run it through downtown if you really want to.
Establish Park and Ride routes for Lied Center events.
Position StarTran as the Green alternative to the auto culture
in Lincoln. Strive to become greener, and continuously remind us all
about it.
Self-promote shamelessly: consider live radio remotes from buses
during drive times. Give special fares to people bearing a ticket
stub from the Lied or a movie theater. Free-ride Fridays. A First
Friday Gallery Walk shuttle. Work to make the bus a part of the
Lincoln scene.
And while I'm asking for a pony, how about public wifi on
buses?
When a business is struggling to get in the black, you don't cut
services and raise prices, though you might try to cut costs where
possible. No, you promote the business to draw awareness and try to
provide the best product you can so people will want it. StarTran
doesn't have control over its own purse strings, so it's up to policy
makers to make that happen.
If you don't ride the bus already, what would get you to consider
alternate modes of transportation?
There's been a move toward use of laptops in chambers among members
of the Planning Commission. Despite governmental love of paper, it's my
preferred way to work, as it saves me from carrying large binders full
of important information. I thought I'd jot down a bit about how I use
my laptop during a hearing.
During the days before the hearing, I go over the agenda and the
staff reports. Using Tomboy, I create
one note which represents the agenda, with each item listed as a link to
another note specific to that item.
On each item's subnote, I place a link to the online staff report
along with any questions or comments I have. I highlight things I want
on the record. Even if these questions are answered in the staff
briefing or testimony before I can ask them, as they often are, this
helps me organize my thoughts. Sometimes I have no
specific questions on an item; when this happens, I think maybe I'm too
complacent about it, but that's how it is.
On hearing day, I try to get into chambers a few minutes early to
boot up and establish a connection. The wifi ESSID is
City_Cnty_Public. Sometimes the wireless connection in the City
County Building gets flakey, and I'll lose connectivity for a few
minutes at a time, but it's the nature of the hearing that a realtime
connection is not critical.
Aside from the connectivity issues, there are a few drawbacks to
the system:
Page numbers referred to in the hearing are usually in terms of
the entire packet, instead of the original report. Page three of a
particular report might be page 127 of the distributed packets. Some
mental gymnastics are required to convert from one system to the
other. (Or maybe your neighbor on the dais is using paper, and
you can look over his or her shoulder to find the real page
number.)
It's hard to annotate the reports themselves. I think you
can do it using Adobe Acrobat or something, but with free
software tools, the capacity doesn't exist yet.
Perhaps most significantly, City Council member's laptops were
unsuccessfully
subpoenaed by a disgruntled petitioner in a suit brought
against them in federal court. Even though the request to do a
forensic examination of the laptops was denied, the city was still
required to supply a list of websites the council members browsed
during the hearing.
These drawbacks are offset, in my opinion, by the benefits of not
having to carry binders full of stuff, the ability to search in the
reports and packets, and network access, especially Google Maps and the city/county's
interactive maps,
both of which, I've been told half-seriously, qualify as ex parte
communications. I reject that, though, because the same would apply in
my decidedly non-lawyerly opinion to visiting the application site, which
some commissioners do from time to time.
Dating back approximately my return from PyCon, I have been having
trouble sleeping. It's not every night, and it's not just tossing and
turning. It's more like my brain never makes the transition from waking
state to sleeping state. I'm not sure if that distinction is clear; it's
sure clear when I'm lying there staring at the ceiling.
The accompanying fatigue has been sufficient to suppress my urge to
update my journal, hence the dearth of new entries. There are a few
things percolating, though. While those are developing, though, here are
some links of interest for the week.
