….and other assorted links

Board games: Greater Greater Washington notes that the Feds have filled two of their four slots on the WMATA board, naming Mort Downey and Marcel Acosta to the positions.

Downey is a former executive for the US DOT under the Clinton Administration and is currently a transportation consultant.  Acosta is the Executive Director of the NCPC, and formerly worked for the Chicago Transit Authority.  Personally speaking, Downey is a regular commuter and rider on Metro, and Acosta lives car-free in DC.

DCist has some good quotables.

Downey, a consultant who previously served in the Clinton administration and as executive director of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority — and a Vienna native who has ridden Metro for 20 years — has fairly modest aspirations as he takes his seat on the board on Thursday: “The federal government would like its employees to arrive at work on time, fundamentally alive.”

Can’t argue with focusing on your core mission.

Never mind the bollards: Second Ave. Sagas up in New York takes a look at some really horrendous security ‘bollards’ (using that term loosely) surrounding the new Atlantic Ave. LIRR Terminal in Brooklyn. Read up on the new terminal here (City Room, MTA press release).

When the new terminal building at Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, critics and columnists praised the light and airy nature of the building. Featuring a seemless integration of art and architecture, the new terminal building is representative of the MTA’s current approach toward offering its customers a convenient and mostly state-of-the-art facilities when it opens new structures. Outside, though, the security bollards tell a different story, one of overreaction and blocked sidewalks to a public structure that needs to be able to handle heavy pedestrian flow.

When the new building first opened, attention was focused on the inside, but the security bollards, shown above, drew some warranted criticisms. Gersh Kuntzman in The Brooklyn Paper was particular critical of their appearance and size. He noted the bunker-like mentality of the security measures and called the giant bollards “14 mammoth concrete coffins that give the beautiful new facility the look of an outpost in the Green Zone.”

Atlantic Ave station bollards - CC image from Ben Kabak on flickr.

Yikes.  SAS continues:

The specter of terrorism and counterterrorist measures make for uncomfortable subjects. New York City’s subways are notoriously porous, and New Yorkers try not to dwell on the ways our city has become a target for America’s enemies. Still, these bollards do nothing to make a new train terminal accessible or user-friendly. They exacerbate fears about our safety while blocking the city’s sidewalks and its transit access points. There are tasteful ways to guard against terrorism, and then there are these granite blocks, seemingly dropped from a quarry onto Flatbush Ave. with no regard for purpose or appearance.

Here in DC, we have to deal with all of the same terrorism concerns.  Clearly, some bollards are better than others in terms of their design and day to day function.  We have some well-designed examples here in DC (the paths/retaining walls around the Washington Monument come to mind), some bad ones (the doors at the Capitol Visitors Center that are too heavy to open), and plenty of ‘temporary’ barriers scattered across town.

Fifty Nifty United States: Matt Yglesias links to a James Fallows bit on an idea from Fakeisthenewreal.com to re-draw state lines every so often as a means of ensuring a relatively equal population distribution amongst all 50 states.

Two thoughts – if this seems odd, perhaps it shouldn’t.  Each state will be going through this process in the next few years after the collection of the 2010 Census data.  Even in DC, we’ll re-evaluate the ward boundaries to ensure that each one has a roughly similar number of people within it.

Also, the proposal reminds me of the 70s era proposal for the 38 states of America.

Political realities would likely stop anything like this from ever happening, but it certainly is an interesting thought experiment.  Furthermore, when looking at the political implications, it’s worthwhile to note how the arbitrary political boundaries have real political consequences in Congress.

Streetcars, eh? Planning Pool has a nice audio slideshow (complete with narration in a lovely Canadian accent) of Vancouver’s demonstration streetcar line.  The line is using borrowed cars from Brussels, and will be evaluated during the upcoming Olympics for future, permanent installation.

“Olympic Line” Streetcar Demonstration in Vancouver, Canada from Planning Pool on Vimeo.

Perhaps some foreshadowing for DC?