Implementing a Substack version

My "new" Substack.

I am doing so in order to try to rebuild readership as blogs have long since been supplanted by other forms of social media.

Entries will include random musings and observations not strictly on urbanism, which is the primary focus on this blog.

But mostly I will be "reprinting" slimmed down versions of longer entries here, with links back to try to get people to read the full entry.

The "new" Washington Post editorial page blows a chance to be innovative | Nudging versus "nannyism" and senior health care

I was gonna end my online subscription to the Washington Post, but some of the articles from years ago I cited in the recently submitted grant application for a playground at Sugar House Park in Salt Lake ("Forget rest stops. Plan your road trip around playgrounds," "Kids getting burned on swings and slides? Here’s how to fix it"), made me realize that despite the destruction of the Metro and Sports sections, the devastation of the Editorial Page and how the range of op ed writings went from lean progressive to "personal freedom and markets," I still get value from a subscription, both for new articles and old (and often better) articles too.

But not from the editorial page.  And the national and international coverage is still holding up, despite many gaps resulting from staff firings.

Nudging is the behavioral economic theory that people who should change their behavior but won't because it requires a change in their routine or to act, will make the right choice given a nudge.

Nudge theory is a behavioral science concept proposing that subtle changes to the environment—known as "choice architecture"—can guide people to make better decisions without restricting their freedom of choice or altering financial incentives

Nannyism is a term popularized by the English Tories who believe that encouraging people to make positive behavioral changes with "nudges" is an overinvolvement by government in people's lives, that they should be allowed the freedom to f* up and impose the costs from doing so onto the State.

According to Wikipedia:

The term was coined by MP Iain Macleod in (1965) to describe a government that over-regulates personal lifestyle choices. 

In the Nanny State Index, the UK consistently ranks among the most heavy-handed countries in Europe for dictating health and consumer regulations.

The concept manifests across several specific areas of public policy:

• Tobacco & Vaping: The UK has pushed heavily toward a "smoke-free generation," alongside severe restrictions and proposed taxes on disposable vapes.
• Diet & Food: Following the implementation of a national sugar tax, England has enforced strict rules including calorie labels on restaurant menus and bans on junk food advertising near checkouts and on TV.
• Alcohol: Measures like minimum unit pricing aim to curb consumption by hiking the cost of cheaper alcohol.

Instead, the Tories would rather pay the high costs resulting from chronic health conditions resulting from poor behaviors and choices.  After all, higher than necessary costs from health care and a static tax base means government has to shrink to pay for people's bad choices, and that's in the Tory interest because they believe government ("we the people") is unnecessary.  

I call it anarcholibertarianism.

A great example of "nudge theory" decades before the theory was coined was how the now famed criminology professor, Ronald V. Clarke, was the creation of a theory called "preventing crime in situations":

Their theory of situational crime prevention used locks, access control and vigilance. Yet the most impressive demonstration of the theory examined the relationship between the lethality of household gas usage and suicide rates in England and Wales. Their research led to decades of innovations in the design of crime prevention measures, largely following their clear theoretical framework.

Prime example: Less lethal oven gas reduced suicides Between 1963 and 1975, there was an unexpected decline in the number of suicides in England and Wales. Clarke and Mayhew then reviewed the evidence to look for any change in the opportunity structure to prevent suicide. In 1988 they published a report showing that the decline was clearly due, at least in part, to a reduction of lethality in the chemical composition of household gas. It simply became more difficult to commit suicide by just turning on the gas and lying down – then waking up alive with a headache. They concluded that the practical feasibility of carrying out a particular act has a major impact on whether or not the act will be committed – and at what rate of occurrence.

Situational crime prevention theory is but a form of "choice architecture."

The Post is all in on being against "nannyism" even with clear economic/cost-benefits.  The editorial, "Seniors are adults: They don’t need the federal government to buy them bath mats.," criticizes Senator Angus King who wants to send everyone on Medicare (that includes me) a bathmat to help reduce the likelihood of falls, because bathroom falls by the aged cost the health care system a lot of money.

Older adults with assistive devices walking on a trail in the Sawtooth National Forest, Ketchum, Idaho.

Medicare doesn't pay for prevention measures like bath mats, grab bars, and shower chairs.  

According to a pre-Trump Administration report which is scrubbed from the HUD website, Overcoming Obstacles to Policies for Preventing Falls by the Elderly Final Report,  by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the annual cost of health care from elderly falls is at least $80 billion per year.

To put that number in perspective, if Jeff Bezos who is one of the globe's wealthiest and owns the Washington Post, was responsible for covering that cost year after year, his fortune would be wiped out in 3 years and 2 months.

Although note that Senior Housing Services programs, which used to be funded by HUD, will make these kinds of fixes, as part of broader renovation assistance aimed at keeping seniors in their homes despite infirmities--keeping people at home as long as feasible costs a lot less than nursing homes, another major health care cost, but for Medicaid.

Housing renovation data by age and economic and physical circumstances.  Years ago I saw a presentation from the Joint Center for Housing Studies.  

Right: house in the Trinidad neighborhood of DC showing severely deteriorated roof conditions.

It contrasted overall housing remodeling statistics with statistics for lower income households.

Most households do one major remodeling project annually, targeting one key element of the house, either repair, maintenance, or the creation of a new feature.  Annually, the average household spends $2,400 on improvements and $700 on repairs.

Their research finds that a disabled household spends 10% less than the average, senior households 20% less, minority households 30% less, households with houses under $100,000 in value 50% less, and households with under $20,000 annual income spend 50% less.

Households with all of these characteristics spend an average of $500 year on repairs and improvements, less than one-sixth of the national average, and a majority of these households spend no money at all.

Nursing homes/social care.  The US is running into a fiscal cliff as society ages and Medicare doesn't provide nursing home care ("New Study Explores the Need for Expanded Long-Term Care Services to Support Aging-in-Place," JHU).  

And what about social security?  Plus the fiscal cliff of Social Security benefits having to be cut because Republicans won't take proactive steps, they'd rather "defund" part of the government by letting it fail naturally ("Waiting To Rescue Social Security Has Weakened Our Options," CRFB)

In England, local government is responsible for providing what they call "social care" for the disabled and aged, and it's driving cities into bankruptcy ("Social care is bankrupting councils. Why aren't we angry?," New Statesman).  Families are sending their relatives needing care to Thailand because it is cheaper ("Families sending relatives with dementia to Thailand for care," Guardian).  Anti-nannyism has real and escalating costs.

Waiting for a ride.

These costs demonsrate the value of changing the policy on assistive devices.

In my comment on the Post editorial, I said that Medicare could make bath mats a "joining premium" like how PBS and NPR give you premiums (gifts) in return for donations.

It's an intellectual and policy failure of great proportions for the Post to not acknowledge the reality of the severe economic cost of falls.

The other thing, while the term "ableist" is in decline these days by Trump mandates against inclusion, you really get insight into the need for universal design--in the old days, the Post published articles about it, such as:

-- "Adapting Your Home To Maximize Mobility," 2006
-- "A Safe Home, Step by Step," 2010
-- "Making the case for cottage homes," 2019
-- "A major renovation yields a multigenerational home on Capitol Hill," 2021

to better deal with the changes in psychomotor prowess that come from illness, disability, and or age.  Instead, the Post's worldview is shaped by its writers being able, not infirm.

At one time too, the Post had an award winning Health section focusing on wellness and behavior change.

Last year they did one of their "Washington Post Live" events on the "Future of health policy in the United States."  Times sure have changed.

My circumstances changed in a flash.

I went from biking to work for 30 years to being a hospital "frequent flyer," but for good reason.

I had colon cancer, presented heart failure in post-op after surgery, and the biopsy found I also had an aggressive rare Lymphoma, so I started chemotherapy within a month of the colon surgery.  Without treatment for the Lymphoma the oncologist said I'd be dead within a year.

Chemotherapy f*s you up.  

I was so weak, but I didn't vomit.  Though once it did take me 3-4 hours to have a bowel movement.  Suzanne said the prednisone made me mean.  It did help my appetite.

I did use chairs in the shower some because my FIL had dementia before he died, and we kept the equipment.  I even used a transporter because for a time I couldn't handle the "long walk" from the entrance of the hospital to my heart doctors or to the radiology/lab testing section. For more than two years, I was pretty damn weak, especially because even more medical things happened:

• I was hospitalized for covid, 
• probably could have died thank god for remdesivir, but it did worsen my heart
• got a heart pacemaker
• then an additional lead
• then a stent, even though less than a year before my angiogram found limited plaques, and 
• serious reduction in appetite as a complication from chemotherapy and the medicine, 
• which led me to a few months of enteral nutrition feeding + regular eating--enteral really sucks, the tubes can clog easily, and emergency rooms aren't set up to deal with feeding tube clogs.

Plus, one of the medicines I took made me cough constantly--it turned out it was from a medicine I didn't really need, fortunately, and once I got off it, and other medication changes my appetite improved.  Although I still only weigh 20ish more pounds than my low of 110.  From a high of about 175.

Today's shower.  

And that was after I went through chemotherapy swimmingly.  I had three treatments, then covid, so treatment stopped.  In preparation for resumption 14 weeks later, testing found I no longer had the Lymphoma (thank you to mRNA maybe).

But it took me until about the past two months when everything finally came together "at once" and I am super better.  (I'm still susceptible to illnesses like norovirus which can wipe me out.)

Yet only two years ago I thought I was a candidate for a heart transplant.  My ejection fraction could be better, but I haven't been tested since my recovery kicked in.

Our shower has a "natural grab bar" the soap dish, and is a pretty tight squeeze so I could lean against the walls.  But I was damn tired, had balance problems etc.  I think I might have had assistance once or twice...

Now I don't.  It helps that last summer I joined the JCC Wagner in Salt Lake first for the pool, and weight lifting really started only this year (not much so far 30-60 pounds depending on the machine or free weights), cycling (I've just started being able to bike a bit "in the wild," after not having done so since September 2023), spa, and pool walking.  The JCC has indoor and outdoor pools, that + the spa have been incredible for me.

Another premium that should be part of Medicare: fitness memberships/a MAHA agenda for aging.  I'm not part of Medicare Advantage, so I pay from my limited social security income the monthly cost of JCC membership.  The local rec center is cheaper especially with a senior discount, but there is no pool.  Rec centers with pools are much less convenient.

But Medicare should consider paying for fitness memberships for all enrollees, regardless of the type of plan, because lifting weights and other fitness activities have so many positive benefits (Physical Activity Benefits for Adults 65 or Older, CDC, "Resisting decline: the neuroprotective role of resistance exercise in supporting cerebrovascular function and brain health in aging," Frontiers in Physiology, "How can strength training build healthier bodies as we age?," National Institutes on Aging).

Or a deduction program funding the purchase of bicycles like in England ("The Benefits of Biking for Seniors, Including the Mental and Physical Payoffs," Bicycling)

They could do this in conjunction with County and City Recreation Centers, Senior Centers, and yes, for profits.  Better that fitness centers make money off of Medicare than prescription mills and other fraudulent activity.

If we were really about MAHA, "Make America Healthy Again," ("Dr Oz at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services: a chance to improve food service in hospitals") those are the kind of preventative care measures we should be instituting.  

A FitLot exercise station at the Columbus Center in the City of South Salt Lake.

While RFK has done stupid PR stunts with unhealthy people like Kid Rock ("RFK Jr.'s erotic workout video with Kid Rock sure is weird," USA Today), imagine if the FitLot exercise equipment station piloted by AARP on its 50th anniversary--they funded one, but just one, in every state--were rolled out to playgrounds and parks across the country.  

(I am working to install one at Sugar House Park.)  Especially because it turns out they aren't just used by the elderly, but by people wanting to maintain and improve their fitness.

My energy level has rebounded significantly.  The past week, although I developed a cold as a result, I worked 10 hour days for about 9 days on the grant application, doing some 8-15 discrete tasks each day.  Before the last  two months, I maybe could have done 3-4, took naps many days of the week, etc.  Now I am waking up before 7am which is what I used to do naturally, before I was sick.  I'm not taking naps.

(Oh, and I am drinking alcohol some again, and coffee.)

What about the people who are in a permanent state of debilitation?  But most people who are debilitated remain debilitated, no Lazarus Effect for them.  They need compassion and assistance.  The Post really fell down by not considering this issue more broadly than the opportunity that they saw to shoot an arrow at "government waste" and overinvolvement of government in our lives rather than "personal freedom" to be really sick and unhealthy.

Fuck you Washington Post editorial page, until your writers have similar kinds of experiences and develop some empathy.

Just based on my response, the Post clearly missed an opportunity to move better policy choices forward.

========

These are articles I wrote suggesting DC could develop a wellness oriented program in association with building a new hospital in Southeast DC, where suffering from chronic conditions is high.  Of course, DC took the least innovative path.

-- "Health equity devolves to cities and states as the federal government cuts taxes for the wealthy," (2025)

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River" (2018)
-- "Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "A glaring illustration of the need for comprehensive health and wellness planning in DC: Providence Hospital" (2018)

-- "Community Health Improvement Planning" (2019)

-- "Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health" (2023)

-- "Big omission in blog series on advance hospital/health and wellness planning, public health planning: addiction services" (2024)

-- "Costly failures in the mental health system" (2025)

An online ad promoting that electric bicycles don't face rising gasoline prices, Murf

 

Lady in a seating area off the main lobby at the Sun Valley Resort, Ketchum, Idaho

She's in her 80s.  Her husband was significantly older and died 10+ years ago.  She obviously kept spry by doing things in town, she had walking sticks and said she hikes and skis.

She had stories to tell, she lived in San Francisco's Haight Asbury district in the 1960s.  

She volunteered for the voting rights registration campaigns in the South.  She knew Martin Luther King, Jr.  She said he was handsome but too short to sleep with.

The Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho has some distinguished elements

 1.  Great collection of national newspapers, even the Financial Times Weekend, but the magazine collection is average.

2.  Nice seating areas and a fireplace.

3.  Projection of children's art on a wall in the lobby.

4.  Really nice Lecture Hall.  The back wall is their rare books collection, and they have a hearing loop for the hard of hearing.  And they have decent comfortable chairs for the speakers on the stage, which is unheard of.

5.  Should have thought at the time they were planning for a new building to include an exhibit hall.

Walk Ketchum pedestrian program signage on streetlight poles, Idaho

So simple.  Any place can do this.

However, the Ketchum Master Transportation Plan doesn't mention this scale of pedestrian signage.  

Similarly, while the 2006 Downtown Master Plan does mention pedestrian wayfinding and offers some examples from elsewhere, it didn't include photos of what they ended up with.  Which is pretty subtle and easy.

There was a Walkable Ketchum group, but given that the last post is 14 years old, I'm guessing they accomplished what they wanted, and moved on.

Talking to strangers | Modern shotgun style houses as workforce housing for firefighters in Ketchum, Idaho + playgrounds

I take a lot of photos in public places, or not so public places, and people wondering if I am up to no good challenge me.  Because "I can talk" (your ear off), usually it's not a problem. 

There's an article in the Washington Post, "The mental health benefit of striking up conversations with strangers," about the value in talking with strangers.  For me, it's an opportunity to learn--to interview and interrogate, even if it doesn't seem like it.  From the article:

Nick Epley was commuting to work at the University of Chicago when he looked across the train and wondered: Why are all these people sitting elbow to elbow ignoring each other?

Epley, a professor of behavioral science, thought about how very lonely people are, and he challenged himself to strike up a conversation with the woman sitting next to him. It changed his life — and led him to write the book “A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health and Connection.”

After reading it, I decided to try the experiment myself. For the past month, on my commute to work, at kids’ birthday parties with my daughter, in the elevator at the office and on the street while walking my dog, I’ve been challenging myself to talk to strangers. Would it actually feel good, or just awkward?

I’ve always been a fairly outgoing person, but the idea of talking to strangers and befriending acquaintances still made me feel anxious. As I contemplated opening my mouth to talk to the stranger sitting next to me on a nearly-silent bus, I felt as if my jaw was sealed shut by fear. What if she didn’t want to talk to me? What if I said the wrong thing, or she felt like I was bothering her?

Ever since my involvement in college student government, I can "talk".  This increased manyfold as I got more involved in urban planning.

In my recent playground study for a grant application, I talked to people at "playgrounds," like the "senior" Fitlot at Columbus Center in South Salt Lake.  

Even though it was built with money from AARP, it turns out an Instagram group called  #slc.calisthenics organizes meetups there and at similar sets of equipment, and lots of people of all ages end up using it--part of my observation is that people/kids play with what's there especially when "more appropriate" equipment isn't present.  I saw a four year old doing pull ups on the same set.

I talked to little kids like this one.  She said the monkey bars are her favorite element at playgrounds.  (So did an older boy at a different playground.)  So I aim to have more types of monkey bars present at the playground.

Observations, analysis, and conversations made the application so much stronger.  Going to about 15 different playgrounds in a couple days educated me fast and deeply about playgrounds--including realizing I needed to be there when kids were, because I didn't know how they used certain equipment.

Young children like learning to bicycle on soft surfaces because it doesn't hurt when you fall.

We need wider sidewalks around the playground oval because there is mixed traffic--kids on scooters, bikes, skates, skateboards, adults on bikes (because we have inadequate bike parking, people walking, people sitting to the side, etc.

Greenhorn Fire Station Workforce Housing, Ketchum, Idaho.  When I was taking photos of these buildings at what turned out to be the Greenhorn Fire Station, I learned the back story, which I wouldn't have known otherwise.

I took the photos because I thought the buildings were an interesting interpretation of the New Orleans shotgun style house, and years ago, I helped write a chapter in a book compilation about the type.

618 Jefferson Street, Flickr photo by Elliott Cowand, Jr.

I learned after being challenged, not realizing it was a fire station, and photographers could be would-be terrorists, one of the tenants came out to ask me what I was doing.  As a result, I learned the back story of the complex, for which I would have had no idea about otherwise.

In an area of ever increasing housing costs because of its being a resort area, it's an effort by the North Blaine County Fire District to provide workforce housing.  They rent the land from Idaho DOT, for the Greenhorn Fire Station, and built eight prefabricated units, mostly with donated funds.  

The 870 s.f. units are rented below market rate to tenants who agree to serve as volunteer fire fighters ("Final housing units arrive at Greenhorn Fire Station" Idaho Mountain Express, "Greenhorn Firefighter Housing Fully Occupied," Wood River Weekly).

What an interesting and important project.

The men's restroom is closed. I ended up peeing behind the building, Brigham City Rest Area, I-15, Box Elder County, Utah | Tourist Services, Public Art

They should have brought in porta potties.  You see the world differently when one of your medications for heart disease is a diuretic (I actually take two different ones).

It might have been because the building seems like it is still under construction on the interior?  

The building was closed but the restrooms are to the side and were theoretically open.  The women's and a family restroom.  Men were directed to the family restroom.  I couldn't wait the line was long.

Many of the convenience stores in the Intermountain region have restrooms, as they are positioned to serve longer distance travelers.  Even in cities, Maverik convenience stores have restrooms.

But we stopped at one place, two stalls, one each for men and women.  

The line was so long, I decided it was easier to go to the gas station on the other side of the freeway--where the wait was blissfully short.

Alas, the Texaco brand is no longer in business.  They marketed clean restrooms as a featured element.  This ad is from 1941.

The Brigham City rest stop had some decent amenities, including a pollinator garden and a small fenced in pet area for small dogs.

The pollinator garden is an extension of my concept that we should plan for public art when building structures in parks, but in public buildings more generally ("Gaps in Parks Master Planning: Part Five | Planning for Public Art as an element of park facilities"). 

This case being purposeful landscaping that satisfies multiple constituencies, even insects (fauna).

Some municipalities like NYC have a percent for art program where they incorporate public art into new buildings.  This should be extended to landscaping.

In Utah, many public and private properties have nice plantings as part of their parking lots.  Years ago, I was blown away when then Mayor Sheila Dixon of Baltimore had herbs that people could pick as part of the landscaping at City Hall.

The Pollinator Garden at the Brigham City Rest Area on I-15 in Box Elder County, Utah was planted recently.

But it doesn't have to be complicated.  An elementary school in Hailey, Idaho has a small mural on the backside of the building.

And they've incorporated public art into bus shelter stops on Woodside Boulevard, which is served by the Mountain Rides Transit System, which like buses in a lot of resort areas (Sun Valley) is free, primarily as a transportation demand management strategy for employee transportation, to reduce demand for parking vis a vis "higher value tourists".  Also see "Bus stops as neighborhood focal points and opportunities for placemaking."

Another way to think about it is what Project for Public Spaces calls the "Power of 10" and how at different scales--city, neighborhood, destination, place--you need 10 things to do.

This Hailey bus stop also has a Little Free Library--and I snagged a couple myself.  

So three things to do (wait for the bus, look at the public art, browse the Little Free Library.  Considering this wasn't a primary arterial, that's pretty good.

Learning from anywhere and everywhere.  When I first got involved in the Main Street commercial district revitalization program in the DC neighborhood of H Street NE (""The community development approach and the revitalization of DC's H Street corridor: congruent or oppositional approaches?"), members from various programs across the city got some support to attend the national conference.  Early on it was in Baltimore.  

Most of the people from DC's "urban programs" were haughty with the "small town" problems, believing they had nothing to learn from them.  I argued that the programs weren't "all of DC" but smaller commercial districts outside of Downtown, and they were equal or smaller in size compared to many of the other programs.

I've always had the attitude I can learn from anywhere.  Ketchum, Idaho, where the Sun Valley Ski Resort is, and nearby towns like Hailey had plenty of best practice and/or provocative ideas that hit me at a good time, when I was in the midst of writing a large grant for a playground for Sugar House Park in Salt Lake.

My original concept had everything but the kitchen sink.  I joked there was a fine line between a playground and an amusement park.  Urban design features in both towns, plus Sun Valley, helped me look at my concept with fresher eyes, and the recognition that it needed "editing" and refinement.

Some elements make less sense now.  Other elements take on a new prominence.  But still editing and "simplification" of a sort--still a complicated project, but less cluttered, less full of stuff, and "cleaner" and better.

May is National Bicycle Month | More on the concept of adding services icons to bicycle route wayfinding signage

I have been so busy with other projects with hard and crunch deadlines, so I haven't had the time to write more about May's two big events, National Bicycle Month and National Historic Preservation Month.  I should have some time next week to catch up and finish some partially written entries on the two topics.   

This wayfinding sign for the Pioneer Historic Byway and visitor services in Soda Springs, Idaho, list public restrooms as a "destination."

On Friday, in "Man peeing in hiding because there are no restrooms," I mentioned how a half mile up from where this guy stopped to pee, is a new public restroom at the Glendale Regional Park.  

But why would he know that?  There is no wayfinding signage on the bike lane or sidewalk abutting the park that points people to the restroom.

I also pointed out that the Jordan River Parkway signs at the 1700 South entrances, don't list nearby restrooms.  

It's understandable for the new park, because Jordan River Commission hasn't updated signage for awhile and the Park just opened its first phase.  

But across the street is "the old" Glendale Park and it has restrooms too, and the Parkway signage didn't acknowledge that restroom either, and it's been there for many years.

I suggested that how the Iowa State Department of Transportation's Bicycle Map uses a standard set of icons related to services for bicyclists could also be ported/adapted/adopted for bicycle route signage as well.

Something like this.  Hey, I'm not a graphic designer.  It could also somehow include the distance and direction to reach these services, just like the signs on the highway do.

Below, on the left is a pedestrian scaled wayfinding sign from Europe, where the sign just doesn't point to single out disabled people for additional accommodations, but adds and acknowledges pregnant women, young children and seniors as people who could benefit from the ramp as well.  

On the right is an example of the off the highway signage that provides more detailed direction information to the services as listed on the highway sign.

There are many opportunities here for better and more innovative wayfinding signage treatments for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Even the award winning Route Verte network of long distance bicycling routes across Quebec could do a better job, listing not just bike routes, but services too.  Especially because VeloQuebec has organized a lodging certification program, "Bienvenue Cyclistes" to better serve cyclists on long distance trips.

A treeless expanse of 1700 South on Salt Lake City's west side | We need "Safe Routes to Parks" and "Nice Routes to Parks" initiatives

For her first term, Mayor Mendenhall ran on a platform including planting lots of trees, especially on the West Side of the city where the population is a preponderance of people of color, and there is the belief that the area was systematically disinvested (I happen to think it's more complicated than that, but that's another conversation-blog entry).  

The city aims to address this disparity by making the area preferred for new public investments in infrastructure.

The unexpected agenda imposed by real time and ever changing conditions like a massive windstorm, earthquake, and covid pushed that aside.  

But a street like this shows the need is still present.

The street is now the main route to a new regional park in West Side's Glendale neighborhood.

We don't plan for this because all government agencies tend to plan only for elements that it controls directly and the roads outside of a park are a transportation department's responsibility.  But as I said when I worked for a County, if we don't tell other agencies what we want, think, or have learned wrt intergovernmental matters, they won't ever know what we want.

Being out and about a couple weeks ago I realized a particular street is a main route in and out of Sugar House Park, especially for bicycles, but without a "Safe Routes to Parks" and a "Nice Routes to Parks" program we don't think about it enough.  And Departments of Transportation rarely think about it--although in Salt Lake the City has built nice enhanced bike lanes next to two parks.   But.... they don't think much about further enhancing decent enough crosswalks.

900 South next to Liberty Park.

900 East next to Fairmont Park.

Crosswalk on 900 West connecting to Three Creeks Confluence Parks.

Enhanced crosswalk for bicyclists and pedestrians on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

WRT Sugar House Park I do have plans to try to recapture elements of the eastbound side of 2100 South with a similar lane to Liberty Park, but with big additions of median plantings, plant-themed bus shelters, and a public art treatment of the main intersection into the Park.  

Top:  Median and main intersection into Sugar House Park

Middle:  Median plantings near Red Butte Gardens, Salt Lake

Bottom: Crosswalk in San Isidro, Lima (Perú) 2018 by Carlos Cruz-Diez, Venezuelan artist

It would be complemented by a new entry into the Park with dynamic signage.

1700 South to and from the new Glendale Regional Park deserves a similar treatment.

ESPECIALLY, because it abuts the Jordan River Parkway, which is the trail alongside the River (Blueprint Jordan River Action Plan).  

It's a multicounty trail that goes from Provo in Utah County, through Salt Lake County, and ending in Davis County for a total of 48 miles.  But it connects to the Legacy Trail which then connects to the Denver and Rio Grade Trail ("Denver and Rio Grande Rail Trail in Davis County, Utah: a great foundation, full of (missed) opportunity"), adding an additional 35 miles.  How cool is it that you can move over 80 miles from Provo to Ogden mostly on protected trails!.

Right now there is no integration between the two parks, but that seems to be slated for a later phase. I still have to read the Glendale Regional Park Master Plan ("Pool? Pickleball? Skating? Basketball? Here’s what SLC’s big new park will have," Salt Lake Tribune).  

There is the Exchange Club Marina for launching canoes and kayaks but it seems decrepit and unused.  It could be replaced and enhanced with equipment for rent, even paddle boats.

And there could be a nature center of some sort like the one by Tracy Aviary at 3900 South and the River in the City of South Salt Lake (Vision).

I guess there are plans to revive the decrepit marina, offer kayak rentals and such.  At that point, the River is wide enough.

On Saturday I took this photo there, on the Jordan River section.  

There was also a feral but cute black cat on the west bank, but I wasn't fast enough to photograph it before it snuck away through the plantings.

Dog poop powered lights at dog parks

I am working on a design brief for a new playground for Sugar House Park, for a grant due next Friday.

So yesterday I went to 11 playgrounds, a separate pocket park, and a dog park.  

Tomorrow I want to double check a couple I went to, including ours at the Park so I can lay out a separate but equal facility program with additional features to differentiate the replacement for our failing playground from the relatively newer and still in great shape playground.  One my camera died.  

Plus, a recheck of another park I saw a couple years ago, and one new to me.

It wasn't until I saw these discarded bags of dog poop at the South Salt Lake City Dog Park that I realized there were no trash cans there.  However, there was a single bicycle rack.

In parks planning, dog poop is a total pain in the ass.  (1) Technically it's hazardous waste.  (2) If uncollected it is a vector in pollution of our local creeks and the river into which they flow, the Jordan River, and ultimately into the Great Salt Lake.  (3) It's better than leaving it but putting it in a can makes it smell, and (4) if put in cans it's not supposed be put in, like a recycling bin, the whole load is discarded because it's contaminated.

If you don't see recycling cans in your park--and the parks in Salt Lake City and the County Parks too, as well as Sugar House Park don't have them--it's because of rampant contamination, eg. trash in recycle bins, recycling in trash bins.  It's no longer worth it.  

Ideally, people would follow the "take it in, take it out" guidelines, but most people think if they throw something in a can, even if it is recyclable or compostable.

The Park Spark project in Pacific Street Park, Cambrige, Massachusetts was created as an art project.  Photo by Matthew Mazzotta.

Possibly the best solution is to create dog poop digester stations in parks, especially dog parks.  It creates methane used to power a street light ("Coming to a park near you: dog poo-powered lamps," The Observers, "Dog poop has bright side: Powering Mass. park lamp," Seattle Times).

The Park Spark project did this in Cambridge, Massachusetts almost 20 years ago, but in terms of scaling it up nothing came of it because the artist who conceived it wanted to prove it was doable, not to try to build a business out of it and scale it up and outward across the country.  It also turns out the process of "turning it on" is complicated ("Artist's Poo-For-Fuel Project Gets Messy," WBUR/NPR).

But it's deserving of a new effort, not so much to power lights, but to divert dog poop at a bigger and better scale from the waste stream, make the environment nicer, to reduce contamination of land and water, and do something useful with it.  Imagine if when leaving a park, people could just put their bag in and the digester would go to work.

After all, now there are services that will pick up the poop in your yard, for people who are too gross to not do it at all--I knew a household like that, or because they don't want to do it.

For parks that don't have a formal dog park, they could still have a digester and use the power somewhere else.  For example a number of parks in the Salt Lake Valley serve as collection points for glass for people who don't want to pay a monthly fee for pick up (that's what we do).

Or we could use a poop digester to help power lights at the basketball courts.  Or along the bicycle path, etc.

A culture of waste versus a culture of waste reduction (zero waste).  Oh the things I saw in DC, like stopping at a sewer grate to throw away fast food containers, cars with Fraternal Order of Police license plates tossing litter--don't they get paid by the city to take good care of it?  A can rolling on the floor of a subway car.  A little kid said something to me, I said we had a responsibility to keep places clean.  His mother then said the opposite, etc.    Salt Lake City still has litter but so little compared to DC, even in comparatively nice areas.

It would be hard to build a culture where people would collect their dog poop and take it on occasion to these digesters, the same way our household saves up glass bottles to put in the dedicated glass recycling stations here (you can also pay to get it picked up).  

It happens that there is an insulation company in the region spinning fiber from discarded glass, so it's economically feasible to recycle glass.  But the company estimates only 10% of glass is recycled.

(Salt Lake City, followed by Salt Lake County, is a leader in putting pro environmental messaging on its trucks.  But Momentum Recycling, which collects the glass [and also does biodigestion] doesn't.  They have beautiful trucks, but they don't have messages to tell people to recycle glass.)

 

Trash trucks should be seen as rolling billboards for environmental messaging.

We haven't built the culture in the US to support an "in your bones" understanding of and responsibility for waste reduction.  

Plenty of people think throwing something away so it's not litter is the extent of their responsibility.  While it isn't litter, maybe it is recyclable or compostable.

When I take "disposable" recyclables or compostable with me, or buy them while I'm out, I bring them home to properly dispose of (but not on vacations, except if possible I will bring recyclables home even still).

 

As a bicyclist often I would pick up bottles and cans and put them in recycle cans.  Virtually every time I would stop for glass, and depending on the circumstances pick up broken glass, because that punctures bicycle tires.

As a pedestrian I pick up litter and separate it out between trash, recyclables and compostables.  As I walk if I spy the right cans and they are close enough to the sidewalk so I don't feel like I'm trespassing, I'll toss them in respectively.  Otherwise I bring it home and separate it. 

As a driver, in parking lots and parking on the street, and sometimes when I see a preponderance of recyclables on and around the street and curb, I will stop and pick it up and take it home.

I wish more people would do the same.

Adding screening for privacy, porch on an apartment building on 1700 South, Salt Lake City

20+ years ago beginning work on revitalization of the H Street NE corridor in Washington DC, I saw a great photo of a new apartment building with people on balconies in the Los Angeles Times (this was before I used Flickr to store photos so I no longer have a clue on how to find it).

I thought "what a great activation device for the street."

Since then lots of big apartment buildings have opened on H Street NE but none have balconies.

Across the country, at least in commercial districts, most of the new big buildings are constructed without balconies, although Park Place in Petworth ("Chris Donatelli, a DC real estate developer, dead at 58") does.  

I have a photo of people on a balcony there, but flaws in Flickr's current search function means I can't find it.

And I have photos of balconies with bikes, as the only secure place to park a bike in a building without dedicated, secure bicycle parking like this one in Boise.

This photo shows what can be done with bigger balconies.

Although with smaller buildings in Salt Lake, yes, people climb up somehow and steal the bikes.

The photo at the top of the entry, of a building balcony just a few feet from a busy roadway and likely what is a very noisy place demonstrates that "my activation" is "someone else's space they have to live in and with" and they modify it accordingly.

Up high, like the photo in the LA Times or even Park Place which is on busy Georgia Avenue, the sound gets dissipated and the space is more usable.

But not when it's only one floor above the street and sidewalk.  Balcony screens are then a good device.

Similarly, this porch screen, with a garden motif is placed on a house on 2100 South, which at the location is six lanes, one for parking.