The public good of available affordable broadband may need to be supplied by some municipalities in much the same way that some municipalities supply some other utilities But the brief municipal WiFi history suggests that municipal governments are not going to be the builders of the network in most American cities.
This comes from a new article by Harvey Jassem in the Journal of Urban Technology, one he calls a coda for municipal WiFi. It's an interesting story and he pulls out several cases, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New York City, to illustrate the problems of municipal WiFi provision during the mid-2000s.
Still, Jassem argues there is a place for cities in broadband provision and that US cities should want to speed up the deployment of broadband.
His suggestions for cities include:
- "encourage spectrum efficiencies by the use of smart radios/transmitters";
- "encourage more spectrum be set aside for broadband... when scarcity is reduced, so are prices. The more WiMAX, the more use of “white spaces,” the more 3G and 4G, etc., the better";
- "encourage competition in the alternative broadband technologies, network neutrality, Carterfone-like open network philosophies, and require or incentivize low-cost broadband availability when firms look to use licensed spectrum or when they seek antitrust waivers or other such gifts from the government."
Jassem is not specific as to how cities should encourage these changes. In Vancouver, procurement is a helpful carrot, which could apply here, too.
Continuing, Jassem writes:
Policies should incentivize and permit open architecture and shared networks that spur innovation and competition. Cities must support the use of broadband in schools and should consider expanding access to the networks that the municipalities build or contract for themselves wherever possible.
In the Vancouver case, the city has long been an advocate on issues that don't normally fall into the municipal domain. There is a space here for Canadian cities to push the federal government on a robust and open national broadband strategy as they continue to do on climate, energy, jobs, and infrastructure.
But let's hope cities have more success with the fed on the broadband issue than they've had so far on climate, jobs, energy or infrastructure.
Andrew Jones calls for Vancouver's Main Street-Science World Skytrain Station to be renamed Pacific Central Station:
If you hadn't been to Vancouver before, you would not know that Main Street-Science World and Pacific Central Station were the same place. Even if you were travelling on the Skytrain and had to connect to a Greyhound bus at Pacific Central Station, you would have to figure out that the station you needed to get off was called Main Street-Science World. Given that Science World is actually no longer called Science World (and is a relic from the days of Expo 86), and Main Street is a reference to the six car-lane road below, I feel one of the best connectivity improvements that could be made is a name change. Calling it Pacific Central Station would not only be an improvement to wayfinding and connectivity, I think it sounds better too. Maybe even in the league of Waterloo, King’s Cross and Grand Central.
The City of Vancouver has passed a motion to work with police and the Vancouver School Board to identify the most dangerous pedestrian intersections in the city. This is a welome move move by the City: 318,000 walking trips are made every day, which account for 17 per cent of all trips. (It's not clear whether this number includes transit trips, which begin and end on foot.) This number is likely to grow as a result of land use change, support for transit, economic restructuring, an older population, and rising fuel costs.
The Vancouver Province highlights the need for better data and action on the issue:
SFU Prof. Anthony Perl, who specializes in urban transportation, said Vancouver is the only place in Canada where numbers of downtown residents is increasing faster than numbers of cars, with the proliferation of large, new apartment buildings.
“Our system is designed to keep cars moving safely — pedestrians are a sideshow,” he said. “More people are walking, but nothing has been done to expand the space. Pedestrians have to jaywalk or step off the sidewalk in an unsafe manner.
“Burrard and Robson is chaos at 5 p.m., with people walking back to the West End."
Perl suggests making some roads pedestrian-only, such as Robson Street between Burrard and B.C. Place Stadium.
The City is planning to have all trips in the city be walking, transit or cycling by 2020 -- a number that I hope becomes more ambitious.
Staff will report back to Council in the spring of 2011 with specific recommendations for improving pedestrian safety and accessibility
From the Vancouver Sun:
Re: It's always a walk on the wild side for pedestrians, Oct. 29
I commend Daphne Bramham for her recent articles regarding pedestrian traffic.
Safer pathways for pedestrians in both the urban and suburban environments are needed.
It is time to stop catering to the car culture, which comes at too high a price and to start developing a pedestrian heaven. Business owners who have been reluctant to let go of a few street parking spaces in favour of a bike lane seem to forget that it is people who enter their shops, not cars.
In cities where pedestrian-only areas have been established, such as Rue St. Catherine in Montreal, the streets have become lively with restaurants, bars, entertainers and art installations.
People flock to these safe, pleasant areas by the thousands to shop, dine and stroll and businesses thrive.
Our city can sign on to the International Charter for Walking and be an exemplary host for the Walk21 annual conference being held in Vancouver in 2011.
"Let's expand the vision of our world so that people choose and are able to walk as a way to travel, to be healthy and to relax."
Vancouver can and must do much more to augment and enhance the experience of those travelling by foot.
From the bottom of my soles.
Joey Lesperance
Vancouver
The Georgia Straight interviews local peak oil organizers and a board member from Village Vancouver, the city's primary Transition Town body:
42-year-old [Brennan Wauters] is not the type to hunker in a bunker. He isn’t storing food, buying gold, or stocking up on weapons to survive in a post-oil world.
“I’m more a survivalist in the sense that I think we have to be psychologically prepared,” Wauters said. “I concentrate on being able to do things with as little as possible. It’s also an exercise to me, like there’s many things that I could just go to the store for. But I deliberately take a harder route just to test my own capabilities, to give me confidence that whatever happens, everything will be fine...”
For Wauters, incidents like the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico—the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, which was triggered by an explosion at a British Petroleum rig on April 20 of this year—are an indication that the world has reached peak oil production.
“Nations understand the strategic importance of energy, and the push to get that oil as deep as it is, where it is normally inaccessible by conventional means…is a direct result of oil companies and governments realizing that there is less and less oil out there,” he said.
Vancouver's local food system is catching up to where it was in 1908, with New City Market proposed for False Creek Flats. With Deputy City Manager Sadhu Johnston showing interest, it can't be far off.
New City Market will fill the hole in the centre of our local food system by consolidating production and consolidating consumption. "It's going to be a place where multiple forms of direct marketing can happen," explains McDonald. "So, that's farmers' markets plus producer to buyer direct sales, and those buyers could be processors, retailers, restaurants or institutions." Although the design is unconfirmed, the focal point will be a central open space, accessible to farmers who will roll open one of the access doors, back their farm truck up to their stall and set up shop for the day. Around the periphery and on the second floor of the (hoped for) LEED Platinum certified facility, will be processing and teaching kitchens, temperature specific storage and office space.
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