I'm a lasagna boy!

In which we sing the Internationale

Two of my colleagues stood outside my office, poring over the bicycle parked in front. They finally came in and commented on "What an international bike you have!" 'tis true: an American-designed, Chinese-built frame hung with a French chainring and crankset, Japanese cog on an American hub laced to a much-beloved French wheel (with an Italian tyre in the rear, French on the front). The pedals are a Japanese copy of the classic Italian track pedal, with French leather straps. My California panniers mount to a gorgeous lightweight German rear rack. The stem and bars are a mix of Italian and Japanese components, mounted on an American headset. The corks stuck in the handlebar ends are American and French. And the saddle is, of course!, English.

In which raccoons appear, again

More raccoons, courtesy ritchey, who is in a different part of the Golden State entirely . Last night Anna and Matt saw the little ring-tailed beggars scampering across the street, looking about as tidy as the other Lower Haight denizens wandering about in their amazon costumes.

In which the vermin are getting restless

As jimg and I sat on the stoop after a customary Monday-evening repast of the deep-fried wings and rings, we saw a passel of ring-tailed raccoons run past, bold as brass. The leaders twain scurried up the fence separating our building from the corner realtor, and along the shoulder-height rail until they reached the back of the property. There they amazingly scrambled straight up a lattice-work wooden fence, and into the garden behind us. A third followed the two, and another pair hesitated in the narrow, ill-lit space between the two building across the street before running through traffic and following the others. I was amazed and horrified: the two biggest were about 20kilos, and fearless. I wanted to follow them and discover their disgusting lair, but the prospect of rabies held me back.

UPDATE: Our next-door neighbour, Nancy, reports that a grand total of six raccoons live in her yard. She introduced herself to us by way of saying, "If you hear someone banging on a pie-pan with a flashlight around ten o'clock at night, do'n't call the police." Her intrepid dog, which any of the raccoons could devour without swallowing twice, thinks that he will attack them. Should we call Animal Control or some similar urban pest-eradication group? I recall the night six years ago, when I heard two of them bullying a third to the point of tears -- the terrified screams of the smallest, hanging desperately off the roof of an adjacent building, woke me from sleep. I watched the two bigger raccoons bullying their playmate for several minutes, until they apparently lost interest and wandered away. There was no splattered coonskin on the pavement the next morning, so I guess that the third one somehow hauled himself to safety.

In which Ich bin ein Wasserkopf

Two calculators to estimate one's emissions, and environmenal impact, at airhead and Caltrain.

Paul Pena

Paul Pena, the subject of the energetic Genghis Blues, died earlier this month after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.

In which bad things happen without good lighting

Although I notice some correlation between outdoor floodlights and an absence of crime in the neighbourhood, I would stop short of figuring that good lights alone will fend off Skid Row:

But the lots, which are poorly lighted, are magnets for drug users, prostitution, homeless camps, graffiti and other illegal activities after hours. Neighbors and city officials believe that if the area were well-lighted and more people used it throughout the day, drug dealers and prostitutes would not frequent the lots.

For example, I walk along a one-mile stench^W stretch of Market Street, between Sixth and Church, several times each week. Morning, noon, and night, crack fiends, dealers, users, relics, and paraphernalia dot the sidewalk; urine, vomit, and god-knows-wot stick to the sidewalks (despite the elaborate street-cleaning scheme the city embarks on, late anight); streetwalkers, charlatans, harlots, panhandlers, and junkies stretch out in doorways and on corners. And all of this happens on a street that is not only well-used, but a synecdoche for San Francisco itself. Bring on the floodlights, bring on the Farmer's Market (who will buy $6/lb organic apples beneath an overpass? "This heirloom tomato is known as 'Exhaust-fume orange' ; you will love it"), bring on the skate park. Just so I can later pull out an I-told-you-so, you don't win friends by building skate parks. Kids and skate rats will still be shooting the steps at the Armory down the street. The way to make the acreage under the overpass useful is to not build the (elevated) freeway in the first place.

In which the spheres have music

The Long Now Project triumphantly presented its Orrery Clock.

a picture, because I like it.

In which graffiti jumps the shark

Street art has been on the cusp of mainstream media recognition for some time now.

(can't fool me: that picture is from Barcelona. Note the distinctive street sign, the BCNeta bin, and the two grinning fish from Pez. Barca has glorious street art: I suspect that city, not subway taggers in New York, is what sparked my love of graf.).
And I ask myself: hath ye shark been jumped? The rhetorical answer is, "Whatever. So long as people continue tagging and pasting-up and acid-splashing, and as long as fancy hair salons contract street artists to decorate their windows, then all is good in God's world."

In which it there is always room for San Francisco

I find Liz Hickock's scale model of San Francisco fiendishly exciting -- perhaps because it is made from Jell-O™.

In which it is a solemn occasion

A Memorial Ride for Michelle Mazzei takes place on Canada Road today. A "distracted" driver drifted into a bicycle lane where Michelle was riding, killing her. Her school has a memorial page with links to news stories.

In which density proves troublesome for trash

The New York Times has an article on the meagre cost-savings efforts underway in New York. As the world's largest garbage-collection entity (25,000 tons, or eight full floating barge-loads, daily), they should be able to find efficiency in operations and methods -- but no, the automation of curbside collection is hamped by street parking (probably a major source of revenue for the city, and thus an obstacle that cannot easily be overcome).

They're trying to squeeze a sponge that's already pretty dry," said Ben Miller, a former sanitation official and author of "Fat of the Land," a history of New York City trash. "At this point, reducing crews and increasing automation much more would probably slow things down in certain parts of the city."

Under the proposed contract, which still must be considered by the union's members, one worker would operate each of the city's so-called roll-on trucks, which collect the 15-ton steel containers often used in public housing projects, public schools and city hospitals. Currently at these stops, one worker drives the truck and handles the hoisting controls while the other helps guide the truck back into position and then attaches a cable to the Dumpster, which is dragged up the rails on the back of the truck.

For the biggest savings, the mayor would need to consider moving to one-person collection crews not just for the city's 50 roll-on trucks but also for the 2,200 rear-loading trucks, which are used to collect the trash that city residents leave curbside.

Mr. Miller said that one way to make such a change would be for the city to switch to fully automated side-loading collection trucks. These trucks use a side-mounted mechanical arm to pick up special metal containers and they enable drivers never to have to leave the wheel.

But that would be easier said than done. Side loaders, which are already being used in certain neighborhoods in Los Angeles, would be difficult to operate in Manhattan, where parked cars obstruct access, Mr. Miller said. The trucks might be an option, however, for certain sections of Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn, he said.

I saw the Los Angeles trucks in action recently.

San Franciso has both automatic curbside collection and single-person crews on many of the trucks working residential routes. Barcelona's Neta has many specialised trucks and crews for overcoming the challenges of narrow streets, and also relies on public coöperation to collect trash in community bins, as does Dublin.

Mandela Parkway and 14th

A West Oakland park commemorates the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the fallen Cypress Parkway in West Oakland.

In which we are not quite east of the ryan

Or, In which we party like it's 1996

At last night's Daniel Tortois show at the Independent, the two records to which I listened the most in 1996, "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" by Tortoise and "Wrecking Ball" by Emmylou Harris, came together. I never imagined that I would hear Johnny Machine and Doug McCombs performing a heartbreaking song by Emmylou! The Tortoise hour of the set was surprisingly good: these musicians show so much enthusiasm for their instruments (all of them, as each player switches amongst vibes, drums, electronics, guitars, and melodica with each song). They had nice visuals, too, courtesy a 12" Powerbook -- Greg, who who has big news, described them as "organic". They had a nice Rorschach effect, in much the same way that clouds do: I could imagine at one moment a crowd of people in Tokyo, at the next a quiet morning in Washington Square Park.

Aram came back from the merch booth and said, "The guy who made these posters says he drove across country with you." And lo and behold, Lil Tuffy himself was selling the hand-screened gig posters. Indeed, Lil Tuffy and I spent three weeks rolling cross the great US of A, with the Sterns' "Roadfood" as our guide. We saw armadillos on the road in West Texas, stayed up three days straight in New Orleans, and played pool in just about every bar we could find on our lugubrioius route from Pittsburgh to San Francisco.

Daniel Lanois noted that one composition was an homage to Samuel Barber, but without strings. After five or six minutes of quiet noodling, Tortoise launched into a tight lock-groove and Lanois rocked out on the guitar. Lanois ended with a brief encore, in which he played a waltz on the pedal steel.

This was the second night running that I had the a particularly catchy song stuck in my head, both times prompted by drinking in the company of an Australian. The walk home did not clear it, either, so I would up listening to "A Digest Compendium of the Tortoise's World until the wee hours.

In which it is Welsh, of course

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf.org.uk lays claim to the World's Longest URL. Charming, wot.

In which violent crime receives a reward

An Associated Press story relates how a basketball-obsessed would-be murderer received a numerologically-significant sentence just by asking.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- A man got a prison term longer than prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed to because of Larry Bird.

The lawyers reached a plea agreement Tuesday for a 30-year term for a man accused of shooting with an intent to kill and robbery. But Eric James Torpy wanted his prison term to match Bird's jersey number 33.

"He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird's jersey," Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said Wednesday. "We accommodated his request and he was just as happy as he could be.

"I've never seen anything like this in 26 years in the courthouse. But, I know the DA is happy about it."

The approximate annual, amortised cost of housing a prisoner amounts to about $35,000, which means that this filip of judicial imagination will cost the ratepayers another hundred large. Usually sentencing guidelines mean that murderers behind the wheel of an automobile receive light or no jail time for wilfully navigating into a cyclist or pedestrian.

In which I love it when a plan(imeter) comes together.

The ACME Laboratories BART map is cool; the Metro map is cooler. As is the planimeter, which gives rise to a miserable play on words.
These do not work in Safari.

In which we can tear the weaving from our loom

Scraps of papyri arrive at Berkeley, and the crocodiles in the Nile are shivering. The Tebtunis Papyri form the largest and most bewildering collection of ancient writings in the US.

Though it took 105 years for the papyri to reach the campus, Berkeley was spared the long anxiety endured by Penelope, Odysseus' long-suffering wife. Berkeley didn't even know the missing material existed until three years ago.

Berkeley's papyrologist, Todd Hickey, discovered the materials were stranded on a distant island called Great Britain, where they were being held by a notorious document-hoarding tribe known as Oxford dons.

The bulk of the material -- much of it found in the wrappings of crocodile mummies at the ancient city of Tebtunis -- made its way to Berkeley early last century to form what campus officials say is the largest papyri collection in the Western Hemisphere.

In which we cannot teach an old dog new tricks

The San Francisco Examiner captures some neighbourhood discussion of what to do with the former UC Berkeley Extension site at Haight, Laguna, Herman, and Buchanan. I especially like the plan for housing for aging transgendered folk, who "can age in place" according to the developer. Might as well just stick 'em in a pine box, wot? I realise that the turn of phrase is an epithet for having all of the necessary shops, doctors, and community services nearby, but it sounds so horrible. I still have aspirations of spending my golden years on a decrepit cork farm in Portugal, raising chickens and drinking vinho verde.

Plans to develop UC Extension project revamped
By Emily Fancher
Staff Writer

Developers of the historic former UC Berkeley Extension campus in the Lower Haight have agreed to build fewer housing units, make more of them affordable and add senior housing to the mix as part of a revised proposal.

The developers, for-profit AF Evans and nonprofit Mercy Housing California, also responded to neighborhood concerns about their revised proposal by reducing parking, creating more open space, and saving nearly all of a historic building that preservationists had rallied around.

In addition to 337 rental units, the developers are negotiating with Open House, a nonprofit organization, to build roughly 80 units of senior housing for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community as part of the overall 5.8-acre project at 55 Laguna St.

The site has caused considerable controversy since UC closed its extension campus and announced it wanted to redevelop the site because it could not afford to seismically upgrade the historic buildings and needed to lease the site to support its other extension campuses.

Some neighbors have fought for the property to continue as an educational site and New College has expressed interest in the site.

Patricia Walkup, president of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association, said the neighbors remain committed to the site retaining a significant amount of public space. Walkup said the neighborhood anticipates much higher density in the coming decade, making public spaces all the more important — she said recreation, particularly for young people, is needed.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi supports retaining the site for public use, and the proposal ultimately needs approval from the Board of Supervisors to rezone it.

But Ruthie Bennett, project manager for AF Evans, said at an event Wednesday that while it “remains no secret people want it to remain an educational use,” UC Berkeley is not considering that option. Bennett said to address the neighborhood’s concerns, the revised proposal does retain an auditorium that will be available for public use.

Walkup praised several aspects of the revamped project, such as the reduction in parking and the potential addition of senior housing by Open House.

Moli Steinert, executive director of Open House, said the nonprofit is still negotiating on the deal.

“There’s nothing final about this,” she said.

She added that the site is attractive because it’s nearby another location where the group is considering building roughly 80 units.

“We’re designing them with supportive services right on site so people can age in place,” Steinert said. “That’s the trend in the future.”

She said the hope is to have perhaps 20 percent affordable units on the UC site, which is near the LGBT Community Center and Market Street transportation.

In which we check the record

The Bikes on Transit database has a new home and plenty new features.
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority will hold another public session on the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit Corridor tomorrow:

( more after the jumpity jump jump )

Thursday,
October 13, 2005

6:00
PM to 8:00 PM

Transportation
Authority Offices

100
Van Ness Avenue, 25th Floor

Tuesday,
October 18, 2005

6:00
PM to 8:00 PM

Holiday
Inn, Crystal Room

1500
Van Ness Avenue

Study
Background

Retaining
and expanding transit's share of travel in San Francisco is a major strategic
challenge for the city as it grows into the future. 

Van
Ness Avenue is a key transit spine in the Muni system, with tens of thousands
of travelers using the routes in this corridor daily.

Despite
this, buses to not operate as reliably as is needed for this important
transit spine.

The
City's 2004 Countywide Transportation Plan helps to implement San Francisco's
Transit First Policy by funding cost-effective Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
treatments on the city's network of Transit Preferential Streets. 
BRT means operating rubber-tire vehicles in a way that achieves the speed,
reliability, and comfort of fixed rail.

Typical
BRT improvements include travel lanes for exclusive transit use; wider
sidewalks at bus stops; traffic signal priority for transit vehicles;
full stations with passenger amenities; multi-door boardings at sidewalk-level
platforms; pre-paid boarding areas; and real-time information systems.

The
centerpiece of the 2004 Countywide Transportation Plan is a Network of
Transit Priority corridors, including Bus Rapid Transit service along
Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue.

Study
Objectives

The
Van Ness Avenue Bus Rapid Transit Study will:

-
Understand transit needs based on travel time, delay, and reliability
studies, safety studies, and community outreach

-
Identify ways to prioritize transit service and raise the level of transit
performance using Bus Rapid Transit treatments

-
Develop a preferred transit treatment and an implementation strategy for
construction in 2008.

The
Authority and City departments have convened an interagency advisory technical
panel, including Caltrans, to oversee and help conduct the study.

Transit
Performance Needs

Data
collection and analysis conducted as part of this study identified the
following key transit performance concerns on Van Ness:

-
Traveling in mixed traffic causes slow travel times and unreliability
for buses. Transit reliability and speeds will increase if transit is
separated from mixed traffic. 

- Reliability and speed problems occur all day. Transit treatments must
be in place all-day to be effective.

- Delays associated with passenger loading and unloading can be reduced,
increasing reliability and reducing the time it takes to make a trip.

- Pedestrian crossing conditions are onerous. A number of basic steps
can be taken to increase pedestrian comfort. 

- Much of the transit delay occurs on Van Ness between Mission and Geary.
  Treatments should be prioritized in this lower segment.

Improve
Bus Performance Relative to Driving

- Bus travel times are twice as long as auto travel times. Average bus
travel times vary between 18 and 22 minutes, while auto travel times vary
between 10 and 13 minutes.

-
Bus speeds are only 42% to 45% of auto speeds – on average, bus
speeds are less than half of auto speeds. Average auto speeds are between
9 and 12 mph, while average bus speeds are between 5 and 7 mph.

-
Buses spend about half of their time completely stopped. Buses spend an
average of 10 minutes of their travel time in delays, whereas autos only
experience 5 minutes of delay on average.

-
Buses experience twice as many minutes of delay as autos (10 vs. 5 minutes).

Reduce
the Impacts of Mixed Traffic on Buses

- Buses are increasingly off schedule, and increasingly bunched, as they
travel further in mixed traffic.

- Even net of dwell time, buses remain 9 – 35% slower than cars,
reflecting right-lane mixed traffic impacts.

Increase
Reliability and Decrease Travel Time

Travel
time reliability is one of many factors influencing a person's decision
to ride on public transportation, and is the most important factor in
service quality.  It refers to how consistent travel times and wait
times are within the corridor.

Travel
by transit on Van Ness is often unreliable due to:

-
Unpredictable wait times for buses.  Passengers are just as likely
to wait 2 minutes as they are to wait 10 minutes. 10% of passengers wait
for 12 minutes or longer.

-
Traffic delays

Overall
travel time is greatly affected by transit infrastructure, such as the
type of vehicle and whether buses have signal priority, as well as transit
policy, such as whether proof-of-payment is permitted, allowing passengers
to board through rear doors.

Sources
of travel time delays to transit on Van Ness include:

-
Excess time spent loading and unloading passengers

-
Traffic congestion

Keep
Pedestrians Comfortable

Crossing
Van Ness Avenue is a long and difficult endeavor on foot.  BRT alternatives
will be designed to improve comfort and convenience for pedestrians as
well as transit passengers.  Crossing Van Ness on foot can be made
easier and more comfortable by installing:

-
Visibly striped crosswalks 

-
Pedestrian countdown signals

-
Median refuges

-
Corner bulb-outs to shorten the crossing distance

Provide
Remarkable Urban and Landscape Design

The
study involves an urban and landscape design program to integrate new
transit infrastructure with surrounding workplaces, homes, and businesses.
  The corridor includes a number of intersections where key transit
routes intersect, and where high volumes of pedestrians cross.  BRT
alternatives will feature quality design treatments and amenities and
these transfer points.  Treatments such as pedestrian-scale lighting
can make the street a more comfortable and beautiful place for San Franciscans
and visitors to walk and catch the bus.

In which we must move mountains

The New York Times has a fascinating report on the solid-waste disposal problem that results from the recent hurricanes: 22 million tons, which may require 3.5 million truckloads to haul it away.
x   3.5 million

October 16, 2005
The Cleanup
In New Orleans, the Trashman Will Have to Move Mountains

By JENNIFER MEDINA
NEW ORLEANS - On one front lawn, a two-foot-high pile of debris stands where a hedge would normally be. A rusting mattress lies next to a bottle of cleaning fluid and a television set. The stench of paint combined with weeks-old food is choking. Flies hover over the whole thing, zeroing in on a handful of foil-wrapped chocolate eggs.

This is just one pile. There are thousands upon thousands of others, totaling 22 million tons of waste, according to state officials. They have baked in the swampy heat for weeks now, making this city look and smell like a landfill.

It is more trash than any American city produces in a year. It is enough to fill the Empire State Building 40 times over. It will take at least 3.5 million truckloads to haul it away. "It is absolutely and completely revolting," Kathleen McGoey said on a recent day as she stood in front of a mound of Sheetrock, wicker chairs and moldy clothes outside an apartment building she owns.

This is not even counting the cars that have been abandoned on sidewalks, or the boats stranded on the streets. It is not counting the more than 1 million refrigerators, stoves and washing machines on curbs all over the area. This is not counting any of the hundreds of homes that will inevitably be demolished.

It is the largest, and most complicated, cleanup in American history.

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina, the state and the Army Corps of Engineers, which has been assigned to coordinate the effort, have just begun trying to figure out how to sort the blanket of debris. There are probably thousands of tons of household chemicals like bleach and pesticides. There are toxic substances like Freon and mercury.

"What we have looking at us in the face isn't like anything we've seen before," said Jim Pogue, a spokesman for the corps. "We've got to get this out of here as soon as possible." But officials acknowledge that could mean months, if not years.

The corps has already awarded $2 billion in contracts to get rid of the waste in the region - more than three times the annual operating budget of the city of New Orleans. State officials predict that the cost could grow substantially.

There are nearly 3,000 dump trucks that have started to make daily rounds in neighborhoods where residents have moved back in. Much of work is being done now by three major contractors and their subcontractors. The corps is still looking for more trucks to arrive every day.

It will take months to get rid of the muck already clogging streets, and only a fraction of former city residents have returned home so far and have yet to empty out their homes. The Army Corps of Engineers says it is likely to take seven months, while Chuck Carr Brown, the assistant secretary of the Louisiana Environmental Services Office, said the process could take as long as two years.

In some neighborhoods, the rancid piles permeate the air with a smell that seems a mix of sour milk, foul river water and rotting meat. Residents who have returned are complaining about the odor and the accompanying maggots. They wear rubber gloves and face masks to guard their senses and protect their health from bacteria and mold.

As Ms. McGoey spent one recent day cleaning out an apartment in the building she owns, the tenant who lived there spent the afternoon hunched over the balcony, vomiting at least half a dozen times because of the stench. The night before the storm, Ms. McGoey bought several pounds of peppers, now transformed into a pulpy mess at the top of one trash can. "Even if my house is fine, there's no way you could stand to be around this," she said.

There are still five other apartments in the building that must be emptied, but Ms. McGoey says she cannot do that until the garbage she has now is taken away.

"What in the world happens when my neighbors come back?" she asked, looking down the road at other heaps like hers. "I don't have any idea when somebody is going to move this."

Regular trash collection still has not resumed in several parts of the city. In the French Quarter, the odor assaults diners even as they walk out of recently reopened upscale restaurants.

Moving the debris from the streets is just one step. Although officials are urging residents to separate and label their trash, few people have the time or desire to pile their aluminum cans away from their microwaves. Instead, most simply just drag the trash to the curb and leave it to the contractors to sort out the paint thinner from broken telephone poles.

Contractors must then sort the debris at a collection site before the mounds of rubbish will be taken to burn sites, recycling areas or existing landfills within the New Orleans metropolitan area.

The corps is only beginning to make plans for the six categories of waste: green, household, construction, chemical, appliances and vehicles. They have no accurate estimate of how much of the debris fits into each category.

"We'll get rid of the most dangerous stuff first," said Darin Mann, a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. "The most difficult part is going to be when people start to realize you have entire homes that are going to be classified as debris."

Much of the natural debris, such as tree trunks, branches and leaves knocked around by the storm, will be turned into wood chips and compost, but some will be burned to prevent termites from spreading. The metal scraps and the tires are expected to be recycled. Most of the remaining debris - including couches, insulation and roof shingles - will be placed in landfills in the area.

"There is a desire to recycle as much as possible, but there is also a strong drive to do this as soon as possible," Mr. Pogue said.

There is no immediate threat of disease, and preliminary tests have shown less soil contamination than many feared. But the soppy, sticky mess has festered for weeks, and local officials worry that residents will be exposed to bacteria, chemical fumes or other toxic substances.

The plans to move forward quickly have drawn some concern from environmental advocates, who say that the pressure to simply get the stuff out could set a dangerous precedent with dumping in local processing sites and landfills.

"We're looking at a place that doesn't have the luxury of segregation that a normal, functioning infrastructure would have," said Allen Hershkowitz, the director of the solid waste research program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "There may be no alternative now, because there is such an urgent need to make sure that you get this waste away from people, but you've got all this stuff that is never mixed together normally."

If the debris remains mixed in the long term, Dr. Hershkowitz said, there will be public health risks from combustible material, rodent infestation or chemical leaks into the ground. Because so much of the debris was soaked in floodwater for days, there is an even greater concern for the spread of bacteria and mold, he said.

Even in places that suffered little damage from the storm, homeowners have returned to five-week-old food in refrigerators that stopped working the day of the storm. Now, those refrigerators sit curbside, wrapped tightly with tape. In Jefferson Parish, local officials have set up what some call a refrigerator graveyard, where residents can drop off their discarded appliances.

The freezers contain what were once pounds of fresh meat, crab and shrimp - all of it now liquefied and putrid. Many have messages that warn "gross" or "don't touch - stinky food."

But somebody must touch them. The corps has hired contractors to remove the Freon from the appliances so that they can be recycled. Those same contractors are also expected to clean out whatever is inside.

"Right now, our job is just to get this stuff off the streets," said Marnie Winter, the director of the Jefferson Parish Department of Environmental Affairs. "People have so much to worry about, the last thing they want to do is empty their refrigerators."

If the magnitude of it all is too difficult to understand, consider Carneal Knapper's dump deposit slips from one day of hauling debris. There were 10 tons at 9 a.m., and a 9-ton delivery two hours later. By the early afternoon, there were 23 tons and, during his final drop-off at 5 p.m., another 10 tons.

At the end of the day, Mr. Knapper, who works for a subcontractor hauling garbage, returned to his own destroyed home in the Lake Terrace neighborhood. He retrieved a wallet and a box of coins, about the only things he thought were salvageable.

"They're going to have to tear down all this and put it in a dump truck," he said, pointing to his brick home, where floodwater had destroyed everything inside but a wooden dining room table.

He thought about the rolls of sodden carpet he had put in his truck earlier and said: "I'm driving the stuff like this every day, all day. All day, every day."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

In which finding the cross street is a story-problem

The NYC Street Finder contains more complex rules than many spells of legerdemain: "Drop the last figure of the address you are looking to find, divide by 2, and add or subtract according to the chart below. The answer is the nearest numbered cross street. (This formula does not apply to Broadway below 8th Street because of the many streets with names instead of numbers). ... For Riverside Drive, divide house number by 10 and add 72, up to 165 St."

In which the neighbourhood has a fence-y plan

I have many fond memories of trips to Paris, all without leaving the neighbourhood. I have little affection for Duboce Park, the junkie- and vagrant-riddled local patch of greenery. The half-block-wide park, valiantly cared-for by the community, is made all the worse by the constant presence of dogs and their ill-mannered walkers. The dogs poop and pee everywhere, intimidate pedestrians and people who might want to play a game or have a picnic (in a park? of all the nerve. Parks in San Francisco are for dogs!): and the people walking them are, as a group, brazen and disrespectful of the notion of shared space. The dogs run everywhere, across paths and along all the pee-stained stretch of grass on the south side of the park, as dogs are wont to do. I cannot stand going to the park, nor even walking past it -- it stinks!
We already have a segregated play area for children, and the notion of cordoning off the already-ragged south-east corner of the park for the exclusive use of four-legged friends has raised some hackles. I say build a damn BART station on the half-block area and give 'em what for. Like taking coals to Newcastle it is, to give the Lower Haight another area for dumping fæces.
The city has not done an admirable job of handling, either through policy or through enforcement, off-leash dog areas (Duboce Park is not an off-leash area). For their part, San Francisco dog owners have a cutesy web site that gives lip service to the idea that you gotta scoop the poop. ... even if everyone's poop were scooped, the dogs still pee on all parts of the park. I do'n't want to pic-nic there, I would'n't want kids playing there (mine or anyone else's; so broad-minded of me), and I sure do'n't want to stroll about a smallish greenspace which reeks. I have Haight Street for that.

Edmund Bacon

Edmund Bacon died:

His 1967 book "Design of Cities" remains one of the key texts for architecture students.
Bacon, born in Philadelphia to a staunchly conservative publishing family, maintained his influence long after his retirement as the city's chief planner in 1970.
At 90, he lashed out at city leaders for banning skateboarders at a park adjacent to City Hall, saying, "Show me a skateboarder who killed a little old lady and I'll reconsider."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/10/14/edmund_n_bacon_city_planner_dies_at_95/

Edmund N. Bacon, city planner, dies at 95
By Joann Loviglio, Associated Press Writer | October 14, 2005

PHILADELPHIA --Edmund N. Bacon, a renowned city planner whose vision transformed postwar Philadelphia and whose influence continued to shape the look and feel of the nation's fifth-largest city, died Friday. He was 95.

Bacon, whose children include actor Kevin Bacon, died of natural causes at his home in Philadelphia, according to a statement from the family.

"He told me when he was a little boy, he went to the top of City Hall and looking out on the city, he understood the plan William Penn laid out," said Alexander Garvin, a Yale University professor and member of New York City's planning board.

"From that point on, his plan was very clear how the city should progress," Garvin said.

Bacon's work landed him the cover of a 1964 issue of Time magazine, which called Philadelphia's redevelopment "the most thoroughly rounded, skillfully coordinated of all big city programs in the U.S." His 1967 book "Design of Cities" remains one of the key texts for architecture students.

Bacon, born in Philadelphia to a staunchly conservative publishing family, maintained his influence long after his retirement as the city's chief planner in 1970.

At 90, he lashed out at city leaders for banning skateboarders at a park adjacent to City Hall, saying, "Show me a skateboarder who killed a little old lady and I'll reconsider."

He also recently railed against a new waterfront hotel, plans to reconfigure the Benjamin Franklin Parkway leading to the city's art museum and the impending redesign of Independence Mall plaza, created in the 1950s with his oversight.

Bacon also vehemently contested the lifting of a "gentlemen's agreement" in 1984 that skyscrapers couldn't be taller than the pedestal of William Penn's statue atop City Hall.

"He's not just significant in Philadelphia; he's significant as a national figure," said Garvin, who interviewed Bacon for a 1996 book on city planning.

In 1933, as a 23-year-old graduate of Cornell University's architecture school, Bacon used a $1,000 inheritance from his grandfather to travel the world. His visit to Beijing influenced his style for the rest of his career.

Beijing's groupings of black- and purple-roofed buildings leading to the red and golden buildings of the emperor's Forbidden City "taught me that city planning is about movement through space, an architectural sequence of sensors and stimuli, up and down, light and dark, color and rhythm," Bacon once said.

After returning from China, he studied city planning at Cranbrook Academy in Michigan. He worked as a city planner in Flint, Mich., but his push for public housing brought criticism, and that led him back to Philadelphia.

Bacon became managing director of the Housing Association of the Delaware Valley, a nonprofit group advocating low-income development, and spearheaded efforts to create a commission that would oversee and guide city planning.

He served in the Navy during World War II, then joined the commission's staff in 1946 and became its chairman three years later.

Bacon's renewal ideas gained momentum after reformers took control of City Hall in the early 1950s. His first major plan was Penn Center -- a complex of high-rise office buildings, shops and restaurants to replace a railroad yard.

The idea was considered so radical at the time that when Bacon introduced it to the city Chamber of Commerce, then-Mayor Joseph S. Clark "was so scared he refused to sit at the speaker's table," Bacon once recalled.

The complex was not executed exactly as Bacon and architect Vincent Kling envisioned -- more space was devoted to offices and less to aesthetics -- and it was criticized by some as bland. But it marked the birth of the city's urban renewal.

"The landscape of this city would have been measurably different and decidedly poorer had Ed Bacon not chosen to be a Philadelphian," Gov. Ed Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor, said Friday.

Bacon and many planners of his day had their critics. Many lambasted urban renewal as being indifferent, even hostile, to the poor.

Bacon oversaw projects including the demolition of the decrepit wholesale fruit-and-vegetable market, which was relocated and replaced by a trio of I.M. Pei-designed high-rise apartment buildings called Society Hill Towers. After the work, people began renovating the run-down 18th-century rowhouses in the area, now one of downtown's wealthiest neighborhoods.

After retiring as Philadelphia's planner in 1970, Bacon did planning work for the cities of Burlington, Vt., and Salem, Mass., and became vice president of a Canadian development firm.

Bacon is survived by sons Kevin and Michael, a musician and composer; and daughters Karin, Elinor and Kira. His wife died of cancer in 1991.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

In which he has no-one, no-one but himself to blame

While walking from the Civic Center, mine eyes caught three F-Market trains lined up at Gough and Market. Flashing lights in the distance signalled an accident of some sort, and I walked over to take a look. A single man was being tucked into a paddy waggon, and one of the toothless junkies reeling against the building at the corner told me that the driver had come a cropper eastbound down Market St., hitting the MUNI platform and then careening the remainder of the block until he and the k-car finished up against a tree. Lucky bastard that he was'n't being taken away in an ambulance! I walked up towards Octavia, a woman from the neighbourhood association told me that a few weeks ago, a car speeding off the new Octavia Boulevard exit ramp crashed full-tilt into a F-Market train. When I reached Octavia, one of SFPD's finest asked if I had seen the accident, and I said no; he pointed to the debris scattered across that intersection, and said that the same driver had hit the kerb or centre divider there as well, and continued on his rambunctious path down Market St. The accident did a fair job of snarfling Friday evening rush-hour traffic coming off the freeway, as the police cordoned off the blocks of Market St eastbound between Octavia and Gough.
I proceeded to The Orbit and had a cool glass of gin.

In which I am under the volcano of flowers

This morning I waited, inadvertently, until almost 9.30 to have my cup of coffee -- one per day has been my motto since resuming full-time work (wow, almost three years ago now); every now and again (34 times so far this year, according to my records, I find that I have a cuppa in the morning and then another in the afternoon, but on the whole the extent of the coffee is a double espresso early in the ack emma.
Today's cup was delicious: twenty-two seconds, the legendary time for a double-shot, and with a nice thick crema. (more great coffee photos and articles at Coffee Geek). The Fire Show's riveting and too-smart "Under The Volcano of Flowers" album goes very well with espresso, I find.

In we go faster, and pay people to help us out

Alec posted some exciting photographs of the human-powered vehicles speed trials a few weeks ago. My favourite is the slightly-blurry snap of Sam Whittingham in the Varna Diablo, the current land-speed-record holder.
Aram pointed out that for the slower amongst us, the Better World Club provides roadside assistance, triple-A-stylee, for bicycles (!!).

In which vector graphics appear

Eyebeam research (great name, that!) have added vector-graphics support for Google Maps. Their proof-of-concept application is a New York City Subway map. I like this better than the transit-maps-on-ipod widgets of a few months ago: different medium, yes, but easier to design programmatically, and more functional ( alpha portability, I suppose).

In which there's someone who knows and trips you when you fall

The San Francisco Museum of History screened Trina Lopez's short documentary, A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco's Cemeteries. The film garnered awards at the Womens Film Festival and at the Documentary Film Fest. Afterwards the film-maker answered questions -- she has great poise, and the Q&A session was as informative as the film itself.
Beginning in '01 with a Health Ordinance, San Francisco city fathers began pushing the various burial grounds: first westwards, and then south'ards. The public rejected the first official edict, in '14, to clear out completely, but by the mid-century all the interred had been moved to Colma ("City of the Dead"), a necropolis with its own BART stop.
Several years ago, I began writing a story in which the citizen of Colma, some 2 million strong, rose up and persecuted the grey-bearded city fathers, and especially "Sunny Jim" Rolph, who worked the hardest to shoo all them bones.
San Francisco still has bodies in The Presidio, a military graveyard; in the church-yard at Mission Dolores; in the Columbarium; and a one-off, Thomas Starr King, interred at the church on Franklin and Geary.

Jim Blackett's San Francisco Cemeteries is a handy reference site; Ms Lopez drew her inspiration from Dr Weirde's Weirde Guide to San Francisco, now online at sfgate.com.

In which the infrastructure is built anew

A new Edward Burtynsky exhibition arrived at the Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco. Edward Burtynsky's photography continues to amaze me with its powerful details of the man-made landscape in industry and urban renewal. The Chinese series has some breath-taking portraits of cities teeming with factory workers, seemingly stripped of their individuality, just as his earlier landscapes of mining areas showed a denuded earth without its once-proud trees, hills, and rocks. Burtynsky's first solo retrospective, Manufactured Landscapes, runs at the Brooklyn Museum through January; it showed at Stanford University earlier this year, and had a marvelous exhibit catalog, Yale University Press.

Galahad at Blandings

After the delightful experience of re-reading Psmith in the City, I picked up a copy of Galahad at Blandings from a going-out-of-business second-hand bookstore (why are the works of Wodehouse available only erratically in the States? I should have bought the lush stack I espied at Dutton's tidy new location in Beverly Hills). The going is a bit slower than the other Blandings books, which I recall with great fondness as being especially light. Wodehouse famously said of his novels: "I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going deep down into life and not caring a damn". I have a faint memory of our sixth-grade English teacher reading Psmith and Mike aloud to us, emphasizing that the initial "P" was silent, and spurious (our hero Rupert could not abide having such a common name on his uncommon character), but I cannot imagine how such a book, filled not only with anachronistic English school-boy humour but also with many mentions of typical British institutions, came across to eleven-year-old Americans. No wonder Anar says that I have more affectations in my language than she does after three-odd years of living in London.
Galahad is the epitome of a type in Wodehouse: dashing and socially clairvoyant, he is uniquely able to negotiate the social strata "without a bean to his name". He brings sundered hearts together through the most outlandish schemes, and always emerges himself unscathed.

In which we age, and the country with us

Nicolai Ourousoff had a great piece in today's New York Times about American's failing infrastructure, as shown by the failures of recent technology in New Orleans. The last paragraph was especially moving:

Already, some have voiced a fear that this is the city that we will be left with - a Creole Disneyland, reduced to its traditional boundaries, surrounded by a sea of decay and poverty. Sitting in the dark outside his restaurant one recent evening, an entrepreneur suggested that this might be ideal. He joked that the flooded neighborhoods should be transformed into golf courses.

Such cynicism has been reinforced by the government's disastrous response to the storm, when the Superdome was famously transformed into a teeming refugee camp. Clearly, the pump operator's America - the America built by people like Wood and Mulholland - is an anachronism.

Today, the true descendants of these visionaries are more likely to be working in the Netherlands or Spain than in a major American city. Bilbao, for example, may have gained cultural cachet from the success of its Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum. Yet the strongest evidence of the city's enlightened planning is the enormous investment it made in a new high-tech subway system designed by the British architect Norman Foster. It's hard to imagine a similar undertaking in an American city today, especially when the federal government seems more concerned about doling out private contracts than reversing decades of neglect. The challenge we face is not just about infrastructure. It's about reknitting the connective tissue that binds us into a functioning society. This cannot be accomplished by retreating into a haze of denial; what's needed is an honest acknowledgment of what's brought us here. New Orleans was a warning.

A similar viewpoint comes from the Ball State Daily News, which notes that not only has the United States failed to make advances in maglev train technology, but also in spreading the gospel of Wi-Fi. Both problems devolve to policy issues: imagine spending five years plodding through the government bureaucracy which constrains the $1bln allocated to a magnetic-levitation project, only to have one's proposal reach "draft" status. Wikipedia has an illustrated entry on Magnetic Levitation trains which details the underlying technology and current implementations.

In which it is like a violet

From Bob the Angry Flower to Frazz, it's all about my favourite piece of English punctuation.

In which we relate the parable of the builders

Three men were discussing the beauty of the human body. The electrical engineer claimed that Man must result from one of his brethren, for how else one explain the perfection of muscles, tendons, and joints? The electrical engineer protested: the nervous system testified that only God must have been one of his ilk. And then then the bartender looks over and said, "Nah, it must be the urban planner. Who else would put a sewage line through a recreation area?"

This is how I feel about Octavia Boulevard: too short, too narrow, too few signs, and too abrupt with pedestrian interactions. I see confused drivers steered onto the freeway, and turning incorrectly across multiple lanes of confluent and cross traffic; I see pedestrians frightened to cross the too-short lights, and waiting uncomfortably on the awkward median (who thought to put benches there? who in their right mind would sit on a median amidst four lanes of 60kph traffic?); and I do not see signs noting that once you are on the road, you cannot turn until Fell (northbound) or are totally committed to Highway 101 (southbound).
And why does the Boulevard not connect with Geary? A longer roadway makes more sense for moving traffic and for creating a true cross-town route.

In which it is a walrus when it rains

I uncovered some good ol' snaps of our friend down at the Surf St Aquarium.

More photos are at my website, but (warning!) they load slowly.

In which we drink the lemonade

Alleluia, La Moone has returned! After the restaurant closed in March, they have hosted a series of small dinners at other local restaurants, and now they return with catering menus for special events. Yum. Any time I eat La Moone food is a special event.

In which we count up to sixty-six

As evidenced by the mixture of joy and rage when reading (of all things!) the beer menu at the outstanding Porterhouse bar, I cherish the unflattering memories of Ronald Reagan. Aram turned up this list when I muttered something about James Watt, and I figure that it is just the sort of convenient one-sheet to start printing on various networked printers around the globe. Lest we forget.
As for the menu at the Porterhouse: it contains a delightful invective (not reproduced in the online version) railing against American politics and beer. I read it after a few glasses of their (delicious!) XXXX stout.

In which The Governor tells pedestrians and cyclists to keep it local

The Governor vetoed AB 748, which would prohibit tolls for cyclists and pedestrians on state roads. He also vetoed the bill to maintain the current level of state funding for the Bicycle Transportation Account. The Governor's veto means that the funding for bike facilities, bike parking, and signage, et al., will decrease to $5 million/year, from the current $7.2 million per annum.
The Governor's veto does note the benefits of cycling and walking, but suggests leaving management of the toll to the local districts. My response:

I strongly support Assembly Bill 748 and any efforts to prohibit bicycle tolls on all public bridges and roadways, and I was disappointed to learn that you vetoed it. You are sending a message to Californians that cycling has the same environmental effect as driving, and, implicitly, that cycling and physical activity are not especially important. Not only does cycling promote useful physical activity, an interaction with one's community and environment, it is less wasteful and costly than driving. As fuel prices continue to rise, I am dismayed that you do not come out strongly in favour of low- and no-emissions, renewable transportation.

Walking and bicycling reduce traffic congestion, vehicle emissions, and oil dependency. In addition, bicycling and walking provide the kind of physical activity necessary to fight the growth in obesity, diabetes, and asthma.

AB 748 will encourage Californians to take advantage of the most sustainable and healthy modes of transportation possible, and ensure that they are not penalized for cutting down on traffic and harmful pollution.

I ride across the Bridge several times each month, to commute and for recreation. Were the toll in place, I will be less inclined to do so: I will ride elsewhere. Placing a monetary toll on activities which are good for tourism, the environment, and place little additional stress on the bridge infrastructure is simply not a good idea.

I also use my feet as my primary mode of transit, wherever I am. I walk and cycle to work, to almost all my errands, and around my neighbourhood.

I strongly oppose the Golden Gate Bridge District's efforts to penalize people who walk and bike on the Bridge. Please support AB 748 and a healthier, safer Bay Area. Please reconsider your veto, and send a positive message that walking and cycling are special to California.

banjaxed

Thanks to the esteemed Mr O Connor, I was reminded of banjax, verb:

banjaxes, banjaxed, banjaxing

1. To ruin, stymie or destroy.

Etymology: 1930s: Anglo-Irish.

But what else did you expect from swearing dot org? Google Print cites a half-dozen works for banjax, but three are dictionaries!

Psmith in the City

Books with climactic cricket concepts:
Dorothy Sayers's Murder Must Advertise: a match between an advertising firm and a teetotalling advertiser;
Sarah Caudwell's The Shortest Way to Hades: a match between Artists and Writers in Corfu's Esplanade;
and
P G Wodehouse's Psmith in the City: a match featuring our hero's amanuensis and helpmeet, Mike.

In which I pine for blueberries

Last night marked the return of Jen (and Max, although he was off at band practise), which we celebrated by hearing stories of the blueberry-laden hike through the Olympics, the pig roast and barn party in Ohio, and hiking in the shadows of grizzlies at Yellowstone. Jen said that she did not much care for blueberries before this recent hike! to which I thought, heavens, more for me. I have been putting back a pint almost daily since I discovered how luscious and sweet these berries are.

August Wilson

The New York Times has a special and colourful obituary of August Wilson.

I saw several of his plays at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and my father gave me several beautiful editions of his plays when I was growing up in an entirely different part of Pittsburgh from where Mr Wilson's plays are set.

In which we have a web site

Greg mentioned that some of our (now mutual!) neighbours have put up a tastefully-designed community resources web site for The Lower Haight (sometimes marked on maps as The Lower Haight Shopping District, presumably to entice tourists into spending their hard-earned monies on kindbud and outre one-off fashions). Greg stopped over yesterday after chowing down at Rosamunde's, had a glass of beer, and watched us maintain domestic tranquility (read: fold laundry and move boxes around).

In which I am workmanlike

This morning, Anna and I carefully planned our schedules (yes, even of a Sunday) so that we could consolidate errands that required a (much-hated, in principle if not in the particular) car. Much to our chagrin, we returned from some on-foot errands to find the driveway blocked by about a foot of gleaming white bumper. Anna looked desparingly at the car and realised that we could not back out unless the car moved (well, we could back out slowly enough to push the car into the road, and scrape -- literally! -- past: that is an approach more suited to ye poopmobile, however). Without hesitation, I called the DPT, and they arrived within minutes. About an hour later, the car had been tagged and was being towed, and we were just backing out when an unhappy young woman sat down on the stoop next to our and asked if we had towed her car. Beside her was a wailing four-year-old. I said yes, and, under prohibition against engaging people in fights, verbal or otherwise, kept my mouth shut. She walked over as we backed out and apologised, and Anna felt remorse.
Slightly exasperated with our calling the dpt and quite probably ruining someone's day -- someone with a kid to contend with while in the painful process of retrieving a car from the pound --, Anna tried to balance our convenience against hers. She figures that it is easier to tow someone argumentative and volatile than a nice mother, but I suggested that regardless of whoever we were towing, they had taken their chances in blocking the driveway.
The charm of calling for a blocked-driveway tow has already worn off, and I feel less as though I am acting territorial and more like I just want to finish my errands. Even when the car was going up on the dolly (it was a front-wheel drive, towed from the rear -- ouch), I was in the workshop banging on the kogswell and paying little attention to the hulabaloo outside.

I'm calling the DPT Engineering office tomorrow, again, to find out when we can have the kerb painted in official DPT Red.

In which jimg and dawn get hitched

jim and dawn got married. Hotcha.
... and I should not let the event pass without noting that the delicious foods provided the opportunity to drink bacon (actually, serrano ham. Yum!). More photos here.