Tag Archives: cities

Will New York’s next mayor keep the city’s bike lanes?

by kastijoo8753 Posted on February 13, 2013

Will New York’s next mayor keep the city’s bike lanes?

By Philip Bump

This May, New York City is expected to unveil its long-awaited bike sharing program, adding 5,500 bikes at various stations around Manhattan and Brooklyn. Eventually, the city will have 10,000 blue, Citi-branded bikes rolling around its streets.

Ed Yourdon

While the city may soon have more bikes, it may very well have fewer bike lanes — depending on who is elected mayor in November. From the Times:

In the early stages of the campaign for mayor, the candidates have expressed little enthusiasm about the expansion of bike lanes, and a few have made comments that suggest they may seek to erase some of them. …

John C. Liu, the city’s comptroller and a likely Democratic candidate for mayor, said in a phone interview that removing existing lanes would be “a likely scenario in some parts of the city,” particularly in Brooklyn and Queens, if he succeeded Mr. Bloomberg. …

Joseph J. Lhota, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a Republican candidate for mayor, also said he “could see” removing lanes that he deemed problematic. He noted that some bus drivers along the B63 route in Park Slope, Brooklyn, had complained about the perils of sharing space with bike riders.

Even public advocate Bill de Blasio suggested that bike lanes that “haven’t worked” should be scrapped. (Public advocate, for those wondering, is a New York-specific elected position intended to serve as a sort of civic ombudsman. It is often most effective at preparing candidates to run for other offices.)

Bike advocates and Bloomberg staffers suggest that rolling back bike lanes is unwise and unwelcomed. While opponents of bike lanes are often noisy, the Times also notes that they see 2-to-1 support among New Yorkers.

At least one candidate recognizes the value of bike lanes, even suggesting an expansion. Interestingly, he’s the candidate who came surprisingly close to upsetting Bloomberg’s bid for a third mayoral term in 2009.

Cyclists remember William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller and a likely Democratic candidate, for pledging, during a 2009 campaign against Mr. Bloomberg, to rip out a bike lane on Grand Street if he was elected. In an interview last week, he said he had no intention of removing lanes, and added that he would even consider expanding bike projects if the bike-share program, scheduled to begin in May, proved successful.

If the program is successful, and the city has 10,000 residents and tourists biking around congested stretches of midtown and lower Manhattan, there are two options: more bike lanes and added safety, or inadvertent Critical Mass-style road closures and biker fatalities. The candidates for mayor can be the judge of which will be a more effective tool for winning reelection.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Minnesota mayor doesn’t see why he can’t also run a sand-mining advocacy group

by h0rt67bx11 Posted on February 12, 2013

Minnesota mayor doesn’t see why he can’t also run a sand-mining advocacy group

By Philip Bump

dougtone

An auditorium in Red Wing, Minn.

Congratulations, Dennis Egan, on your new job as executive director of the Minnesota Industrial Sand Council, an organization that advocates for the industrial use of sand, particularly in fracking. But, while we have your ear, maybe we should talk about your other job as mayor of Red Wing, Minn.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

At an intense City Council meeting attended by about 50 people who applauded the harshest rebukes of the mayor, two City Council members directly asked Egan to resign as mayor or step down as executive director of the Minnesota Industrial Sand Council. He steadfastly refused either option, saying he has no conflict of interest that can’t be managed on a case-by-case basis by recusing himself from city action on sand-mining issues.

“I deeply care about Red Wing,” said Egan, who was elected in November to a four-year term before he went to work for the sand council.

In an AP article, the honorable mayor notes that he signed a ban on frack sand mining in the city before he took the second job with the advocacy group. Interestingly, the prospect of sand mining in Red Wing is not the only point of concern for the city council. Again from the Star-Tribune:

Council President Lisa Bayley said Egan’s post with an industry that has encountered public opposition in its plans to expand sand-mining operations in Minnesota has taken a negative toll on the city and could hurt economic development.

You catch that? The argument Bayley is making is that people dislike sand mining so much in Minnesota that Egan’s position puts the city of Red Wing in a bad light. I’m not privy to the political relationship between Egan and Bayley (though I gather it’s not great), but that’s a remarkable argument. The taint of industrial fracking.

All of this was avoidable.

Egan said it wasn’t reasonable for the council to ask him to resign, partly because he is a professional consultant and lobbyist and the sand council is only his latest client.

Red Wing elected a lobbyist to be its mayor. Guys, I don’t want to tell you how to live your lives, but maybe that’s the first thing you need to fix.

Hat-tip to Midwest Energy News.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Minnesota mayor doesn’t see why he can’t also run a sand-mining advocacy group

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Can we blame climate change for the Northeast’s massive blizzard?

by mirorita02 Posted on February 11, 2013

Can we blame climate change for the Northeast’s massive blizzard?

By Philip Bump

The great blizzard of 2013 (which shall remain nameless) has come and gone. At least 15 people were killed, and 700,000 lost power. A nuclear power plant in Massachusetts was knocked offline. Storm surge in the state flooded several communities. In many parts of the Northeast, new one-day snowfall records were set. It was a massive storm — one whose damage could have been much worse.

Christopher Burt at the Weather Underground puts the storm in perspective:

The storm was certainly among the top five to affect Southern New England and Maine and for some localities, the worst winter storm on record (going back 300 years since European inhabitants began keeping track of such things). …

It can probably be said that winter storm Nemo was the 2nd most intense winter storm event for Long Island, Connecticut, eastern Massachusetts, and perhaps Rhode Island. For Long Island and Connecticut the Blizzard of 1888 remains unparalleled whereas for Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts the Blizzard of 1978 remains the top event. For southeastern Maine it would appear that Nemo has been the most extreme snowstorm on record. …

I might add that it is a bit unsettling that two of the most significant storms in the past 300 years to strike the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. have occurred within just four months from one another.

Emphasis added, because it’s worth emphasizing.

NASA

In our preview of the storm last Thursday, we noted the circumstantial evidence that climate change might make the blizzard worse. Over at ThinkProgress, Joe Romm dove a lot deeper:

Like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace. And like a baseball player on steroids, it’s the wrong question to ask whether a given home run is “caused” by steroids.

But:

The blizzard is also pulling in an extraordinary amount of moisture, which is consistent with recent trends in the Northeast toward more frequent one-day precipitation extremes during the cold season, including snowstorms. The satellite-derived image of total precipitable water shows that the storm has been drawing tropical moisture from the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean.

[Former head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research Dr. Kevin] Trenberth’s second point is an important one — warmer than normal winters favor snow storms (See “We get more snow storms in warm years“).

The ThinkProgress post includes this graph, showing the growth in one-day precipitation extremes as the climate has warmed.

Did climate change create this storm? No. Did climate change make the storm bigger and more powerful? Evidence suggests it. Is it disconcerting and alarming that two major storms have struck the Northeast since the end of October? Well, I live in the Northeast. So: very much so.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Biggest cities with biggest transit systems still face biggest congestion

by MayeskiLatouf679 Posted on February 7, 2013

Biggest cities with biggest transit systems still face biggest congestion

By Susie Cagle

Congestion is gross whether it’s in your sinuses or your city. Urbanists spend a lot of time complaining about clogged up city roads and all the cars full of only one commuter that contribute to the traffic.

But here’s some good news for a change: Public transportation takes a huge chunk out of that congestion in dense cities. Transit saved drivers nearly a billion hours of potential car-driving delay in cities nationwide last year, according to the new annual congestion report from the Texas Transportation Institute.

“The 2012 Urban Mobility Report makes clear that without public transportation services, travelers would have suffered an additional 865 million hours of delay and consumed 450 million more gallons of fuel,” the American Public Transportation Association said. “Had there not been public transportation service available in the 498 U.S. urban areas studied, congestion costs for 2011 would have risen by nearly $21 billion from $121 billion to $142 billion.”

The biggest winners by these metrics were not necessarily the most transport-heavy metros, but the most congested ones: New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. I mean, duh, right? But the study misses a lot of other salient factors that contribute to congestion, such as where people live in relation to work and how long their commute times really are. Take those into consideration, and big metros, while super-congested, still win at public transit (because, you know, they at least have some). Diana Lind at Next City pretty much sums it up:

I guess the bad news is that we don’t have more transit, in these places and elsewhere, and that the stuff we do have doesn’t necessarily run super well and on-time, which is the most alienating thing for would-be riders.

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We answer your questions about the coming East Coast blizzard

by u60uurf Posted on February 7, 2013

We answer your questions about the coming East Coast blizzard

By Philip Bump

pbumpA New York City bus, stuck during a 2010 blizzard

It’s going to snow on the East Coast tomorrow, lasting overnight until Saturday. That much is known and agreed upon.

The following points are up for debate.

How much snow will there be?

Boston’s mayor, Thomas Menino, held a press conference this morning, canceling school and suggesting that people not be on the roads after noon. At that time, the city will be in a state of snow emergency. Why? Because of this:

weather.gov

That blizzard could dump two feet of snow on the city — perhaps as much as 30 inches. Or, according to one report: over four feet.

New York, meanwhile, could see an equal amount. Or it could see three inches. Gawker explains the discrepancy:

Right now, American (GFS) computer models are predicting a few inches of snow for much of the tri-state: a little over two inches for New York City; under an inch for much of New Jersey. Some of it might be rain. The sky-water is expected to start falling Thursday night through Friday morning, but the the brunt of the storm probably won’t hit until late Friday night. …

The European model, like a European model, is much more intimidating (and mean). According to the ECMWF (European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting — boring name; brainstorm improvements while trapped in your home this weekend), the amount of snow in New York could reach over a foot by Saturday evening (about 15 inches). The European model is generally considered by meteorologists to be the most accurate (it was the first to accurately predict the track of Hurricane Sandy).

So the answer to the question above is: We’ll see.

Does the storm have a name?

If you work in the marketing department at the Weather Channel, your answer to this will be an emphatic “yes.” The network has declared the storm to be “Nemo,” after the terrifying submarine captain in that old book, or maybe the terrifying clownfish in that newer movie.

Others, like Time TV critic James Poniewozik, don’t embrace the idea.

What’s the scariest part of the National Weather Service’s blizzard alert?

Well, of all of the words in the alert, it’s probably this section:

VERY STRONG WINDS UP TO HURRICANE FORCE ARE POSSIBLE FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY. THIS MAY RESULT IN SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE ALONG WITH BLIZZARD CONDITIONS FOR A TIME. SCATTERED POWER OUTAGES ARE A POSSIBILITY.

Why is this storm happening?

(This issue isn’t actually up for debate.)

The Capital Weather Gang explains:

The cause of the storm is the explosive combination of two weather disturbances.

“A strong northern stream system will translate its energy to a southern stream low coming up the coast,” says [Wes Junker, the Gang’s winter weather expert]. “The latter will pull lots of moisture northward setting the stage for a major blizzard for the northeast as the low bombs out and slows off the New England coast.”

Is this a climate-change-related thing?

We can’t attribute specific weather events to climate change. It is the case that a warmer atmosphere results in more energy and stronger systems, and that incidents of heavy precipitation have increased over the past 60 years.

Will everyone who is still affected by Hurricane Sandy be OK?

God, I hope so.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Seattle and San Francisco consider divesting from fossil fuels

by pedzacastrzala87 Posted on February 6, 2013

Seattle and San Francisco consider divesting from fossil fuels

By Susie Cagle

350.org

The divestment campaign that 350.org began in late 2012 has grown up so quickly! It seemed like just yesterday that Bill McKibben et al were convincing colleges to pull their money out of the fossil fuel industry and in turn feel much better about their moral selves.

Now the movement’s graduated and moved on to lobbying municipal governments to do the same. So far Seattle and San Francisco’s city employee pension funds are both looking at divesting from fossil fuel companies.

From the Financial Times:

If the Seattle retirement scheme were to divest from such companies completely, it would be the first to take such a step, said Stephanie Pfeifer of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, which represents some of Europe’s largest pension funds and asset managers.

Mindy Lubber, president of the US-based Ceres investor advocacy group, agreed, saying the move underlined the mounting push for investors to acknowledge the long-term risk of investing in fossil fuel companies, as policies to curb climate change keep emerging.

“The divestment movement without question is re-raising the question of whether fossil fuel companies are the best investment and I think over time they’re not going to be,” she said.

Seattle’s $1.9 billion pension fund currently holds $17.6 million in investments in oil and gas companies.

Today in San Francisco, City Supervisor John Avalos introduced a resolution calling for his city’s $16 billion retirement fund to divest from fossil fuel companies.

“San Francisco has aggressive goals to address climate change,” Avalos said in a statement. “It’s important that we apply these same values when we decide how to invest our funds, so we can limit our financial contributions to fossil fuels and instead promote renewable alternatives.”

McKibben says it’s “a show of Pacific solidarity.” A climate change to one is a climate change to all! But will the movement hit other, less traditionally progressive city governments as well?

Editor’s note: Bill McKibben serves on Grist’s board of directors.

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U.S. ends record streak of days without tornado fatalities

by nension Posted on January 31, 2013

U.S. ends record streak of days without tornado fatalities

By Philip Bump

Climate Central reports that a weather-related record ended yesterday morning: the longest the U.S. has gone without a tornado-related death, 220 days.

[A] large and powerful tornado struck Adairsville, Ga., killing at least one person in a mobile home park. That tornado, which may rank as an EF-4 — the second most powerful on the Enhanced Fujita Scale — overturned cars on I-75 and damaged numerous buildings in downtown Adairsville, which is about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta.

A local news broadcast included a helicopter flight over the area damaged by the twister.

One reason the no-fatality record stood so long was the unusually hot and dry weather of 2012.

During 2012, the same weather pattern associated with the record heat and drought also stifled tornado activity by keeping a very hot, dry, and stable air mass in place across Tornado Alley. The heart of Tornado Alley was where the drought was most intense. For example, Nebraska had its driest year on record last year, and extreme drought conditions were present in Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and other states where spring and summer twisters are typical. While natural climate variability likely played a major role in initiating the drought, climate scientists said global warming may have made the drought worse by making conditions hotter, and therefore drier, than they otherwise might have been.

The man who died was named Anthony Raines. He was 51, and was killed when a tree crushed his mobile home while he slept.

Source

Deadly Georgia Tornado First in a Record 220 Days, Climate Central

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Marktown, Ind., a historic town shivering in BP’s dark shadow

by greenenergy4 Posted on January 31, 2013

Marktown, Ind., a historic town shivering in BP’s dark shadow

By Philip Bump

This is the historic neighborhood of Marktown, near East Chicago, Ind. It’s a historic area, built a century ago to accommodate workers at a nearby steel plant, dubbed one of the “Seven Wonders of Northwest Indiana.”

Now zoom out.

Marktown is like that house in Up, surrounded on all sides by newer, uglier buildings — in this case, industry. Scroll to the northwest a little and you’ll see Marktown’s greatest threat: the BP Whiting oil refinery. Midwest Energy News tells the story:

About a quarter of the pastel, stucco Marktown homes are now vacant and crumbling. There is a general appearance of abandonment and decay. But on the evening of Jan. 23 the Marktown community center was bustling, packed with residents confused and alarmed about the news circulating over the past few days. …

Kim Rodriguez, a 54-year-old lifelong resident, had called the meeting to try to save the neighborhood.

That’s because BP officials recently acknowledged they are looking to buy up and raze Marktown homes.

chicagogeek

The state of Indiana has recognized the neighborhood as a historic area. But that doesn’t matter.

In 1975 Marktown — which is officially part of the city of East Chicago, while the refinery is in adjacent Whiting — was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. That means federal resources cannot be used for redeveloping or destroying structures.

But the historic designation offers no such protection against private development or demolition by an entity like BP.

Dean said that, “BP respects the historical designation of the Marktown Community and is exploring preliminary possibilities related to the historic designation,” though he also said that “once acquired, the property would be razed.”

The full story (go read it!) is distressing and sad, outlining an encroachment of wealth and industry on history and community. And then, everything else aside, there’s why BP wants the property. The company wants to displace families and destroy historic homes because it wants a place to stage equipment.

And it needs more parking.

And it wants some green space.

Source

As Chicago-area refinery grows, historic town fears for its future, Midwest Energy News

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Right-wingers’ dream town is a new urbanist paradise, but full of guns

by Unacoomt Posted on January 29, 2013

Right-wingers’ dream town is a new urbanist paradise, but full of guns

By Susie Cagle

Remember this?

This was Glenn Beck’s worst nightmare. Sustainable planned communities were going to destroy our future, he feared.

But over the past few weeks, Beck seems to have had a change of heart. He’s now promoting his own Independence, USA, a “city-theme park hybrid” to be located somewhere in Texas with abundant “craftmen and artisan” small businesses and stores, a working ranch “where visitors can learn how to farm and work the land,” an innovation center, and dedicated mixed-income housing.

Hold on to your hats, though, folks, because Beck is not alone. The dense green community idea is catching on among the right-wing crowd, and these people even use some of Beck’s dreaded key words.

The Citadel, a sort of castle-themed survivalist compound planned for the eastern mountains of Idaho, will have a dense town center and farmers market. The fortress aims to protect residents in part by “physical preparedness to survive and prevail in the face of natural catastrophes — such as Hurricanes Sandy or Katrina.” Calling all green-minded fans of The Games of Thrones: Homes will be made of poured concrete “for exceptional durability,” and may have those cute little windows for shooting arrows out of.

However, the website declares:

Marxists, Socialists, Liberals, and Establishment Republicans may find that living within our Citadel Community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles.

It’s kind of not though — the design hews pretty close to the core tenets of smart growth. But it also kind of is, because the Citadel’s main purpose is “preservation of liberty,” i.e. having all of the guns.

Not sure which eco-friendly neo-libertarian planned community to choose? Gawker has a breakdown of each community’s salient points, and declares Independence the winner (maybe because Beck also plans to include that theme park).

Has everything you thought you knew about political ideologies and lifestyles been destroyed now? I’m sorry. But if the right is going to run away to delusional Disneylands, they might as well be dense and livable, right?

And if they’re going to fill those places with guns and plop them in the boonies way the hell away from the rest of us, I’m not complaining.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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More vignettes from North Frackota, where rents are sky-high and adultery is illegal

by sssaa Posted on January 29, 2013

More vignettes from North Frackota, where rents are sky-high and adultery is illegal

By Philip Bump

Two updates in our ongoing series on North Dakota (which I like to call North Frackota in an ongoing, futile attempt to get that evocative phrase into the lexicon). The most recent entries in said series, in case you missed them: the massive growth of fracking in the western part of the state is straining its healthcare infrastructure, and the glut of oilmen producing that glut of oil is leading to an increase in inappropriate and illegal sexual behavior. North Frackota: It is now and has always been a paradise.™ (This is a motto I suggest the state adopt.)

Update one: The Minneapolis Star Tribune offers another good look at how the state is being transformed.

Pickups and semis jam long stretches of two-lane highways. Backhoes claw the ground even in frozen January. Recreational vehicles occupy former farm fields next to row upon row of box-like modular living pods.

In Williston, the epicenter of the growth, the local hospital opened a new birthing center, workers are building a giant new rec center and students are overflowing in a school that once sat empty. Civic leaders have been approving building permits and hiring police and teachers and nearly every kind of government worker. …

Lines at restaurants and stores are often frustratingly long, with few workers willing to take service jobs when more lucrative oil industry work is available. Rents have skyrocketed. With mostly men flooding into town to work, women hesitate to go out alone at night. There are more bar fights. Young parents can’t find day care for their kids.

In other words, the wealth and growth are unevenly spread and slow to flow outward. The first beneficiaries of the wealth are those industries that deal with flush workers directly. Like realtors.

On a large flashing sign next to the highway, the Value Place hotel advertised rates of $699.99 a week, well above rates for its other hotels around the country. Some people living in campers said they pay RV park owners $800 a month to park and hook up to water and sewer. Classified ads in the local Shopper listed a furnished two-bedroom apartment for $2,200. A trailer with a queen bedroom listed for $1,650 a month.

Here is a list of two-bedroom apartments available in New York City for $2,200 or less. No fracking allowed, for now.

afiler

A supper club in Lisbon, N.D.

Now, the second update. A word of caution for all of those lotharios trawling the state: Don’t cheat on your wives. The story (spotted by Abe Sauer) comes from The Bismarck Tribune:

The first criminal case filed in McIntosh County in 2013 was an unusual one. In fact, the prosecutor in the case had never filed an adultery charge in 30 years on the job.

Matthew Stasiulaitis, 23, was charged Jan. 3 with adultery for allegedly having a sexual relationship with someone other than his wife in November and December. According to court documents, his wife, Heather Stasiulaitis, found out about the affair through law enforcement officers. When she asked what she could do about the situation, an officer told her she could file for divorce or get the state’s attorney to charge her husband with adultery.

Under North Dakota law, adultery is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison and fines of up to $1,000. …

“Only the spouse can sign the complaint, and she wanted to sign the complaint against her husband,” McIntosh County State’s Attorney Terry Elhard said about the recent case.

Elhard then noted: “I guess she’s upset with him.”

Just another day in America’s fastest-growing state. North Frackota: Where the future is now.™

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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