"If you build it they will come" | Pedestrians and bicyclists and the Gordie Howe International Bridge

I mentioned this bridge in a blog entry about Trump ("Fourth of July | US 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence").  

The Windsor Ontario-Detroit Michigan crossing is the #1 place for goods movement between the countries.  

The Howe Bridge was built to provide better connections in the face of access and environmental issues with crossings at the privately owned Ambassador Bridge and that the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is not big enough to accommodate the size of today's trucks, let alone the volume of traffic

Of course, Trump f* it all up.  Canada ended up paying for the entire cost, and will give a portion of toll revenues to Michigan.

But one of the most interest points from the standpoint of bicycle and pedestrian mode planning, is that the Bridge, even though it will require going through Customs/Border Patrol on both sides, because it is an international bridge, planned for bicycle and pedestrian access.

Pedestrians on the Gordie Howe International Bridge.  

Photos: Justin Wan, Detroit Free Press

And bicyclists

Even a wheelchair user

A lot of intra-nation/intra-state bridge planning ignores this.  This came up when I worked as a bike planner for Baltimore County Maryland.  While there are a number of bridges in the DC area like 14th Street from DC to Virginia and Wilson Bridge from Maryland to Virginia, many bridges in the Baltimore area don't have this kind of accommodation.

Under anti-sustainable mobility governor Hogan, Maryland deliberately didn't include bike and pedestrian accommodations on the Nice Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River, connecting Maryland (Charles County) and Virginia (King George County) via US 301, a bypass route, in the exurban part of the DC region ("No Bike Path for New Nice/Middleton Bridge," Maryland Matters).

There is another bridge crossing barrier on I-95, the Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge carries Interstate 95 over the Susquehanna River between Havre de Grace and Perryville, Maryland. (It's also an issue between Philadelphia and New Jersey.)

While it's said that a bike crossing isn't allowed because it's an Interstate freeway, technically that isn't true.  Maryland could put a bike path there because ultimately these decisions are made at the state level.

Conclusion.  Generally I don't believe in "build it and they will come."  Instead I believe in "build it in the right place and setting it up for success and they will come," Canada illustrates the latter.  The right infrasstructure in the right place will be successful.  And it's better to add to access and connections rather than to subtract it.

Kudos to Canada!  

Ana Guajardo crossing into the USat Laredo, Texas on a 1,555 mile journey from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon to Chicago, Illinois ("Cyclist with a cause passes through Laredo on 1,555-mile journey," Laredo Morning Times).

Pedestrians and bicyclists can cross on at least some of the bridges from Laredo or El Paso to Mexico.

And there is a special international crossing, for pedestrians, only, the Cross Border Xpress, from California to the Airport in Tijuana.  

More on Crime: Flock license plate readers | catching cameras versus a nationwide surveillance network

Photo: David Goldman, Associated Press.

I've known about license plate readers for a long time.  First, because parking enforcement and police vehicles in DC had them and "read" the streets as they passed, looking for cars with a high rate of outstanding violations or stolen vehicles.

Second was when I was on grand jury duty and learned LPRs are installed in some intersection cameras and are used to identify stolen cars or cars used in crimes.

I guess third, but related to the second, is when the fired Virginia newscaster killed two journalists that were filming doing a story in rural Virginia and fled.  LPRs identified his car on I-66 and he was apprehended--well, he killed himself ("Suspect dead after shooting 2 journalists during live broadcast," NPR).

So for a long time I've thought that LPRs are fine.  In fact I want two for Sugar House Park, but for a very limited use--to capture license plates so we can look up the address but anonymize the data, just using the zip codes so we can figure out how many patrons come from the City and from the County (both own the Park but it's in Salt Lake City and we always need to build our case with the County).

Mistakes.  But I have read about mistakes, license plate errors when entering data into the system leads people who are "legal" getting apprehended ("Automotive journalist surrounded by police due to Flock camera confusion," KARE11).

What the Flock license plate reader camera captures.

Misuse by individuals.  But the fact that LPRs aren't one camera but a network can be a problem if users of the information are more nefarious.  

A large number of cameras in an area means individuals can be tracked/surveilled.  

Individuals ("lone wolves") can misuse the system ("Police Have Reportedly Used License Plate Readers to Stalk Romantic Interests at Least 28 Times in Recent Years," Institute of Justice, "How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking," Washington Post).

Organizational misuse takes the concept of network to another level.  For example, data can be shared with ICE, and many communities don't want that to happen.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a community near Harrisburg that is using speed traps as a way to identify immigrants for ICE ("This quaint Pa. borough is a ‘speed trap’ nabbing immigrants for ICE").  This would be supercharged with the addition of Flock camera based surveillance ("Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns," AP).  From the AP story:

The Border Patrol has recently grown even more powerful through collaborations with other agencies, drawing information from license plate readers nationwide run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, private companies and, increasingly, local law enforcement programs funded through federal grants. Texas law enforcement agencies have asked Border Patrol to use facial recognition to identify drivers, documents show.

This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation. Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars.

(Note. One thing I learned on jury duty is that people don't have the same kind of Constitutional protections in their car versus their house, because a car and a driver have to be licensed.)

Opposition.  As a result, people all around the country are fighting against the installation or maintenance of Flock cameras and systems in their communities ("Americans of All Political Ideologies Unite for Privacy Against Flock Surveillance Cameras," Military.com, "Why some cities are ditching their Flock license plate readers," NPR).

The Boston Globe has a good article about why these cameras are controversial, "Why Flock surveillance cameras are drawing fierce backlash across Massachusetts."  From the article:

... some uses by law enforcement have been more controversial: Authorities in Texas, which has a near total ban on abortions, allegedly accessed Flock data to investigate a woman suspected of having an abortion, claiming they were working on a missing person’s case; some jurisdictions have shared people’s data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Another concern privacy advocates raise is the lax oversight over searches in the system. To conduct a search, officers must select a reason for the search and have a case number. But the American Civil Liberties Union says it found officers often just put down a single word: “investigation.” Earlier this year, two officers in Milwaukee used the technology to search for their ex-girlfriends — one reportedly did so more than 120 times.

Conclusion: Salt Lake City offers a way forward.  Flock has made it harder for users of the database to search for immigrants, but only in the states that have forbidden the practice.  Obviously, the remaking of the Border Patrol into a surveillance agency is extreme, and should be forbidden.  But that's less likely to happen.   

Salt Lake City is proposing new rules for its use of the cameras so that they can be used only for specific criminal investigations ("Salt Lake City proposes new rules for the license plate cameras that dot the city," KUER/NPR). From the article:

Salt Lake City Council Chair Alejandro Puy worked on the city’s new draft ordinance after “considering the public outcry and the misuse of these tools in other agencies across the country.”

His goal is printed on page one. It reads, in part, “the City seeks to balance the operational benefits of ALPR technology with the need to protect privacy, civil liberties, and constitutional rights.”

The key provision in the code, Puy said, would require law enforcement agencies to submit a case number to prove their use of the cameras is tied to a criminal case. He argued this would prevent agencies like ICE from using the cameras to track undocumented immigrants who are involved only in civil cases.

That seems to me to be an important distinguishing policy.  Basically making the use of the data "reactive" in response to a specific crime, versus proactive surveillance where there is no crime.

The Border Patrol use is moving towards the level of "The Minority Report" movie and their use of the database should be severely restricted.

Bonus: The surveillance states of China ("Big data and the social credit system: The security consequences") and Israel ("Watched, Tracked, and Targeted Life in Gaza under Israel’s all-encompassing surveillance regime," New York) show us that opposition to LPRs isn't unfounded.  

As the power of the network grows, so does the ability to surveil.  

A headline of a Toronto Star piece, "Friend, enemy or useful tool, AI will reflect the values of politicians who use it," albeit about AI is no less applicable here: the intent and the values of the users dictate whether or not technology can be used to build or to oppress.

It makes me think it's time to re-read Neuromancer.

National Farmers Market Week, August 2nd - 8th

Food is more than just picking up the item and buying it:  Farm and farming issues.  I've been keeping track of some of the broader issues concerning farms and farming, as something we should be thinking about all the time, but especially when it comes to National Farmers Market Week.

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Farmers markets as events.  Most people think of farmers markets as events--I call them activation devices--to go out and do something.  

WRT activation, many years ago I wrote a piece outlining the different reasons to sponsor a market, and how that should shape policy wrt what can be sold, and the distance away by which a farm can be considered local.  

-- "The reason(s) why a farmers market is created shapes the type and mix of vendors allowed to sell" (2011)

One reason is to support farm income and the regional economy.

In DC, you get lots of vendors from West Virginia and Pennsylvania because they get better prices in the big city.

For example, there is research about the social value of markets as community hubs--that's great for the attendees, but what about the value to the farmers? ("Do Farmers Markets Build Community? New Research Says Yes," PPS)

Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Market, University District Farmers Market, Seattle, Washington. Credit: Redstone Photography

Farmers markets are supposed to be places to buy food first and foremost, food that is locally produced ("Local, organic, and bipartisan: How Vermont is challenging Big Food,," Christian Science Monitor).  

Secondarily we think about how farmers markets are supposed to be ways to cut out the middleman in a quest to get better and local (regionally sourced) food, ideally at a cost lower than from the supermarket.  

This is an old photo.  This year stone fruits are in short supply in Utah because of a late freeze in early June.

Well, maybe just maybe cheaper than Whole Foods--last week at the Downtown Farmers Market in Salt Lake City, which is a great one, in large part because there aren't dozens of markets in the area, but a handful, making it worthwhile for a large number of vendors to show up, vendors were selling corn for $8 per dozen.  

Granted it's not the 70s when you could get that many ears from a truck farmer for $1.  Still that's a shocker.

While a lot of the items sold at markets are value added products--e.g., hot sauce made from locally grown peppers, and the sauce costs more than selling raw peppers--the fact is food comes from farms.  And cost-wise, inputs, labor, taxes, it might not be enough ("Massachusetts loves its small farms. Will that be enough to save them?," Christian Science Monitor). 

BLT at Middle Child.

Farm to Table/Featuring local foods in special ways promotes the regional food system.  Farm to table is a longstanding movement where restaurants make items based on what they can source from local farms and farmers markets.  Some restaurants even have their own farms.

Middle Child in Philadelphia features for one month heirloom tomatoes grown at Philadelphia's Urban Roots Farm in BLTs--also with locally grown arugula and bread from the artisan Merzbacher’s Bakery ("Middle Child’s BLT season has arrived. This is how they prepare for the frenzy," Philadelphia Inquirer).  They also offer tomato agua fresca, tomato water ice, frozen tomato pops, and tomato martinis.  

An increasing number of bakeries are using regionally-grown harvested and milled grains, rather than standardized industrial seed varieties ("Regionalizing Michigan’s Small Grains: Highlights from the 2026 Food-grade Grains Field Day," Michigan State University).

VINE Foods, a new agricultural innovator to the market, starts its inaugural harvest of vine-ripened tomatoes on June 25, 2026 at 4451 Knight Arnold Road in Memphis.  Photo: Stu Boyd II-The Commercial Appeal

Relatedly, VINE Foods in Memphis is a small urban farm aiming to grow items that are best grown and consumed locally, like tomatoes ("VINE Foods plants roots in Memphis with innovative urban farm," Memphis Commercial Appeal).  

This is sort of what Urban Roots Farm is doing, and could be done in more places.  They also focus on the recovery and reuse of vacant lots, which is important in cities that have lost population ("Memphis-founded VINE Foods turns abandoned lots into organic produce farms," ActionNews5).

Years ago, I came across the Tomato Independence Project initiative in Treasure Valley/Boise, which now seems inactive ("Building a Better Tomato" Edible Idaho) and if you've tasted a great heirloom tomato off the vine, you know how important it is to spread the understanding of food that is not so industrialized that the flavor is gone, which is a problem with most tomatoes sold at the supermarket.  

More farming and promotion initiatives like this need to be developed throughout the country, to promote the consumption of what is otherwise highly perishable but super tasty locally grown foods.  The Dwarf Tomato Project is a national version, still at a small scale, of the TIP.

Wasatch Community Gardens in Salt Lake holds an annual "Tomato Sandwich Party." (Photo at right.)

Now, VINE Foods needs to find a restaurant partner like Middle Child.

Food needs sun and water (and other inputs) to grow | Climate change.  Crops need sun and water and other inputs to grow.  And labor to tend to the crops and then to pick them.  Bad weather can be catastrophic ("Spring’s bizarre weather caused up to $200 million in lost crops in Pa. N.J. farmers also suffered." Philadelphia Inquirer, "A late spring frost wiped out much of Utah’s tree fruit crop. Here’s what growers are selling instead," Salt Lake Tribune).  Weather is becoming much more extreme due to climate change, and the geographic areas where food can be grown are shifting in response to higher temperatures.

Weeks after December’s historic floods, water remains on Yeng Lee Cha’s farm in Snohomish. Cha says her farm experienced up to 9 feet of flooding, and the water didn’t recede for nearly two months in certain areas. The rushing water damaged farm... (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)

Flooding too ("WA’s Hmong farmers face floods at generational crossroads," Seattle Times).  Not just flooding, but land sinking as water is drained from underground aquifers ("Study finds California farmland is sinking shockingly fast," SFGATE).

1.  Food borne illness is a symptom of regulatory failure and the perils of large scale mass agriculture.  The media is full of reporting on cyclosporiasis associated with lettuce.  "Cyc­lospora isn’t new. Why it’s dif­fer­ent now," USA Today:

Every sum­mer, it seems, we get the same headline: a cluster of cyc­lospori­asis cases traced to fresh pro­duce, a recall, a brief wave of concern and then silence until next year. The news cov­er­age almost always frames this as a food safety story – con­tam­in­ated basil, bad lettuce, a sup­plier that slipped through the cracks.

I want to offer a dif­fer­ent dia­gnosis, because I’ve watched this exact pat­tern before, in a very dif­fer­ent dis­ease. This is a slow, envir­on­ment­ally depend­ent para­site with no capa­city to out­run a func­tion­ing sur­veil­lance sys­tem. It has no abil­ity to evolve its way past inspec­tion. It only needs one thing to spread fur­ther than it used to: for us to stop look­ing as care­fully as we once did. That’s the part of this story nobody is telling.

Import inspec­tion capa­city, pro­duce sampling at the bor­der, the state pub­lic health labor­at­or­ies run­ning whole-gen­ome sequen­cing to match an isol­ate from a sick patient to a spe­cific lot num­ber, the epi­demi­olo­gists con­vert­ing scattered case reports into a recog­nized cluster – this is the immune sys­tem pro­tect­ing our food sup­ply. And like any immune sys­tem, when you starve it of resources, you don’t get a health­ier host. You get a slower, blinder response to a threat that was always there.

Decades ago Jim Hightower wrote a book, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times, criticizing Agricultural Colleges and their research programs designed to promote big agriculture by creating nee tools and crop seeds modified for easier picking and distribution over great distances rather than for nutrition and flavor.

Who knew that one of the outcomes of Big Agriculture/Big Farming could be Big Diarrhea.

Trading farm futures on your phone.

2.  Tariffs, foreign policy fights, etc.  Many farmers have lost access to markets because of tariffs or responses to US foreign policy ("Already under financial pressure, farmers squeezed further by tariffs and Iran war," PBS).  

Plus the Iran War has impacted the production of fertilizer inputs and the transport of fertilizer using the Strait of Hormuz ("The Iran War threatened a food crisis. The next Gulf conflict could do the same," Reuters).

... another reason why many farmers are active in buying and selling futures.  Or going bankrupt ("Minnesota bankruptcies rise as a ‘perfect storm’ of challenges roils farm country," MinnPost).

3.  Farming is hard work and its hard to convince younger people to take it up ( "Why The Kids Won't Farm," New York Times).

4.  Food science and technology.  Growing food involves scientific research ("Her Lab Worked to Future-Proof Fruits and Vegetables," New York Times), some of which the US under the Trump Administration doesn't want to fund anymore.  Some favor large scale production--industrial food--others don't ("Stop Worrying, and Learn to Love Industrial Food,," and "What Our Industrial Food System Can't Do," NYT).

5.  Food as intellectual property/Big corporations and massive supply chains.  As seeds beome patented, problems are created for farmers, including if they aren't licensed ("A California farmer is giving away tons of nectarines that he’s not allowed to sell" AP).  

Driscoll's has shifted from being a large farming operation to a massive "systems integrator" operating across the globe to make strawberries available every month of the year ("Why Are Berries Everywhere, in Every Season? Driscoll’s," NYT).

A fire burns piles of grapevines and stakes after they were ripped out at Sarmento Vineyard. Photo: Nic Coury for The New York Times

6.  Big farmers are less flexible with major changes in conditions.  For example, because people are buying fewer canned peaches, Del Monte is closing canneries and peach orchards need new markets (s ("California farmers must destroy 420,000 peach trees after Del Monte closes its canneries and cancels more than $550 million in long-term contracts," Fortune Magazine).  

As people drink less alcohol, including wine, more vineyards are shutting down ("Sales Are So Low, California Wineries Are Burning Their Vineyards," NYT).

7.  Right to repair.  Like with the concept of food as intellectual property, farm equipment has become much more technologically complex, full of electronics and sensors and connections to data systems and services that make recommendations on how to plow particularly plots, how much seed and fertilizer, etc.  

As equipment becomes more complex companies like John Deere had licensing agreements that prevented farmers from fixing the equipment themselves.  They had to wait for registered technicians, which can put equipment out of service for days. 

For years farmers have been fighting for the "right to repair."  They made some gains at the state level ("Colorado gave farmers the right to repair their own equipment, but Great Plains, Oklahoma farmers continue waiting," KOSU/Oklahoma Public Radio) but enacting federal legislation was impossible.  

Nevertheless, John Deere, the leading manufacturer, finally capitulated ("John Deere owners will get the right to repair their own equipment under a new FTC settlement," AP).

Farmers Andrew Cadwallader and his father David Cadwallader (front) at Waldac Farms in Salem, N.J., on Jan. 29. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

8.  Smaller farms need multiple revenue streams to survive.  In the past, there has been opposition to farms adding event spaces and agritourism accommodations, new types of facilities,  

There was a dairy selling ice cream issue years ago in Baltimore County, selling out to housing developers, now solar and wind farms, which some farms aim to add to increase and stabilize revenues.  

Boston Globe photo.

Salem, Pennsylvania wouldn't allow a dairy farm to add solar panel electricity generation to add revenue ("Will this Salem County town love its last dairy farm to death?," Philadelphia Inquirer).  So they got rid of their cows.  From the article: 

The future of a family farm in rural Salem County was at stake, and after multiple meetings and hours of presentations, questions, pleas, and complaints, a local planning board was set to vote.

Before the vote, one longtime resident of Mannington Township came to the podium with a warning. In preparation for this crowded, mid-March meeting, Alice Waddington, 98, said she’d made a list of dairy farms she remembered from her decades in the little town.

At one time, she said, there were close to a dozen. “There’s only one farm left milking cows,” Waddington told the board, “and that’s the Cadwalladers.”

In Vermont, farmers are fighting similar kinds of restrictions ("A rural rebellion in Vermont is on the verge of unlikely success," Boston Globe).

9.  Some farmers are making more money off social media than farming ("The Family Farmers Making More From Clicks Than Crops," Wall Street Journal).  This is led by younger generations of the family.

The Trump Administration and Stone Age Thinking | Announces bike lanes are "woke" (and hasn't been funding transit infrastructure projects)

It goes without saying that to most people in the United States "Fuel" = Gasoline.  

General Curtis LeMay is famous for saying the US would "bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age" in the quest to "win" the Vietnam War.

The Trump Administration is reducing American resilience in many ways:

• Denying climate change
• Defunding science and medical research, especially at universities--programs are being cut, people are being laid off, and acceptance of new graduate students and postgraduate fellows are on the wane
• But also in various government programs, including the Park Service, the Forest Service, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research because it focuses on climate change("What the US Would Lose If It Eliminates the National Center for Atmospheric Research," Inside Climate News)
• Promoting anti-vaccine beliefs and easing vaccine requirements and guidance, thereby increasing people's susceptibility to diseases that once were rare, like measles
• Ceasing health surveillance programs such as for germ-free produce, which likely has contributed to the current mass problem of cyclosporidia ("How Trump admin cuts have compromised food safety," CBS)
• Paying wind turbine companies to not build sustainable energy projects ("Here’s where Trump has canceled wind farms – and how states are pushing back," Christian Science Monitor)
• Deemphasizing support for electric vehicles, which helps to reduce the demand and dependence on fossil fuels, and puts the US automobile industry behind in the development of new technologies and their ability to compete with EV-focused companies especially from China ("Trump’s Isolationism Is Losing the Great E.V. Races," New Yorker, "The American E.V. Has Been Crushed. Will It Take the U.S. Auto Industry With It?," New York Times)
• Although the foolish/fuelish War with Iran has led to major rise in gasoline prices and a disruption in production and supply chains that will take years to unravel and this is encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles despite the lack of tax credits and other inducements ("California hopes to lure a new generation to electric cars, with help from rebates, high gas prices," Los Angeles Times)

Source: "Explainer: In gasoline-guzzling U.S., high pump prices can be political poison," Reuters.

• Firing competent military officials in favor of Christian Nationalists, and boosting them with testosterone, instead of focusing on how drones are completely changing the military "battlespace"
• Eliminating graduate military education programs at "woke universities" like Harvard, which means that military personnel are less well educated and innovative
• etc.

This to me, is a form of bombing the US back to the Stone Age.  Related is what historian Timothy Snyder calls the Trump Administration's actions as a form of "Superpower Suicide" where the country through its actions is reducing its power and relevance on the world stage.

A new car showroom.  The US automobile industry spends more than $12 billion per year on advertising and marketing, from manufacturing companies to dealerships to ancillary organizations financing cars, selling car warranties, etc.

To the Trump Administration, energy is derived only from oil (and coal and nuclear).  Not from solar, wind, or geothermal sources.  From the Politico article "The Trump administration wants more gasoline made in idled refineries from California to sunny St. Croix":

Three industry executives told the news outlet that the White House has had discussions about reopening refineries ranging from the Virgin Islands to California. “Energy security is national security, and America’s refining capacity is essential to ensuring the United States has continuous access to secure, affordable, and reliable energy,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

“The President’s National Energy Dominance Council will continue supporting the reopening of shuttered refineries and the construction of new ones to lower prices and strengthen our national security,” Rogers added.

In the meantime, truly advanced nations are building their resilience, which among other actions means a big shift away from fossil fuels.  In fact, China's ability to reduce their consumption has reduced what are the already high costs for gasoline as a result of the Iran War ("China's oil imports have plunged during the Iran war. How much will they recover?," Reuters).

Sustainable mobility as a financial and health resilience strategy and tactic.  You might not think so, but every transit user, bicyclist choosing biking over driving for trips, and pedestrians walking instead of driving, reduces the demand for automobiles and gasoline, and increases their household resilience by reducing dependence on expensive cars and gas--a new car now costs not quite $12,000 per year according to NerdWallet.

This in turn reduces the demand for gasoline, which when your President has already f* up availability and cost, helps the nation in times of strife.

E.g., wrt biking and not owning a car, that supported $100,000 of our mortgage in DC.  It also reduced other costs and saved time for me.  Plus, there were major health benefits--granted I chose to bike in 1990 because I knew there were health benefits and I had a paternal line history of heart disease, but my cardiologists and oncologists attribute my survival from heart disease and two cancers in part to 30 years of biking.  So far I've outlived my father and other relatives by at least 12 years.

Suzanne doesn't bike.  But she used transit (aided by the federal transit benefit, which is a big help).

Hill Family Biking is a community group in DC's Capitol Hill, promoting biking over driving, especially in getting kids to and from school.  This event had 450 cyclists of all ages.

Trump Administration Hostile to Transit.  So in terms of "Stone Age Thinking" it makes perfect sense that the US Department of Transportation, which is already defunding transit by not acting on applications ("Congress Budgeted Billions for Big Transit Projects. Trump Isn’t Spending It," New York Times),

Trump Administration is now expressly hostile to Biking/Biking isn't hostile to cars.  The Administration has recently made clear its belief that bike lanes are "woke" pro-diversity/equity/inclusion initiatives that are antithetical to a dependence on automobiles and gasoline ("Trump Cancels Trail, Bike-Lane Grants Deemed ‘Hostile’ to Cars," Bloomberg).  Relatedly, the Trump Administration refused to sign on to a UN Declaration on the importance of road safety ("The U.S. Alone Votes Against A Road Safety Declaration," Forbes).

From Bloomberg:

The Trump administration canceled grants for street safety measures, pedestrian trails and bike lanes in communities around the country this month, each time offering a simple rationale for yanking back federal aid: the projects aren’t designed for cars.

A San Diego County road improvement project including bike lanes “appears to reduce lane capacity and a road diet that is hostile to motor vehicles,” a US Department of Transportation official wrote, rescinding a $1.2 million grant it awarded nearly a year ago.

... the wave of cancellations issued Sept. 9 by the DOT demonstrates just how determined the administration is to promote the use of single-occupancy vehicles in cities and towns – and to thwart local governments’ attempts to develop other ways for residents to get around.

Hostile to cars?  Heterogeneous versus homogeneous mobility systems. What a joke.  This fits in with my point that while countries like Germany are fine with a heterogeneous approach to mobility--they are big on cars with big manufacturers like VW, Mercedes, and BMW, but at the same time they recognize transit is the best way to get around in cities, that traveling by train between cities is often more efficient and less environmentally costly than flying, and that biking is a good way to reduce demand for gasoline, parking spaces, space on the road, etc.

By contrast, the US forces as much as possible, policies to promote automobile and gasoline dependence, in part because the US is one of the largest producers of oil.  Germany is a big producer of automobiles, like the US, but they aren't much of an oil producer.  So they take a more balanced approach.

The US could hold up cities like NYC as a premier transit example, and Portland Oregon as a premier city for biking (there are many other best practice neighborhoods), and neighborhoods across the country as premier walking places, and accept a multi-modal mobility system, but instead it takes the one sided view and favors cars.

Even EVs, while better in terms of reduced fossil fuel demand, especially with the rise of sustainable energy generation complemented by batteries, are really just another form of automobile primacy--what I call "Next Generation Asphalt Nation."

The True Snowflakes are the Right.  The right has called the left "snowflakes" for promoting bike lanes, LGBTQ+ issues and the like.  But the right in shutting down all kinds of programs that challenge their narrow minded world view of what is "muscular" are the true snowflakes.

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Bike sharing/micromobility.  It's taken more than a decade but city bike sharing systems in places like NYC and DC have experienced a huge increase in take up over the past few years ("Citi Bike surge: Ridership increases, showing ‘critical’ need in NYC transit deserts, says advocacy group," amNY, "Bikeshare Beat: Capital Bikeshare breaks all-time annual ridership record," GGW).  

One factor has been expansion.  The other, increased deployment of electric bikes which are faster, easier to ride, and cover more distance more quickly compared to regular bikes.  

Plus, in cities bike sharing has the advantage of offloading parking/storage and security to a third party.

A person rides on an electric scooter on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin on Tuesday July 7th, 2026.  Photo: Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman.

Separately, "free range" bike and scooter sharing offered up by companies like Lime, Spin, and now Veo--sitting scooters further expand the willingness of people to use "micromobility devices" as primary forms of transportation ("What to know about the new rental scooters now on Salt Lake City streets," Salt Lake Tribune). 

These companies also provide coverage in cities without city-sanctioned dock based systems ("Austin riders turn to Lime, Bird scooters after CapMetro Bikeshare suspension," Austin American-Statesman).  

Lessons from murder reduction in Boston

The Boston Globe has an article, "What makes Boston so safe? Black pastors have different theories," updating the "Boston Miracle," because murders currently are below the five year average at this time the previous years.

The Boston Miracle ("Straight Outta Boston," Mother Jones, 2006) involves collaboration across nonprofits, churches, police and other government agencies, work with communities and on the street, to significantly cut the murder rate.  It's smaller in Boston than in cities like DC and Baltimore with comparable populations.

-- Policing in Boston webpage, Christopher Winship, Harvard
-- "How Boston became the safest big city in America," Economist
-- "Expanding the 'Boston Miracle,'" Boston Globe

Those collaborations haven't stopped as the murder rate dropped, they've continued--one such meeting has been held weekly for 30+ years.  No one has come up with the "one answer" on what has changed the trajectory.  One suggestion is of gentrification and displacement of potential shooters.  But that hasn't been as much of a factor in DC, which has a great deal of it.

Participants arrived for a weekly peace walk organized by the 10,000 Fearless Peacemakers. Photo: Taylor Coester for The Boston Globe.

The article starts out discussing Nation of Islam Preacher Randy Muhammad, and how his community has a weekly walk on Mondays through the community.  

They come upon a group of people hanging out at the T Station.  If it were DC, it could easily erupt into a public wilding event.  Here, Preacher Muhammad talks and interacts with the group.

From the article:

He’s wearing a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with a quote from Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who attracted controversy in years past for antisemitic, homophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric. The quote itself is unobjectionable: “Making our communities safe & decent places to live.”

The idea behind events such as the peace walk is to build a rapport with community members, he said. That way, when it comes to disputes that could end in violence, his group can act as a neutral third party. “We offer an exit ramp,” said Muhammad. Oftentimes, he said, “we’re the only voice of deescalation.”

Not living in DC's poor neighborhoods anymore (H Street, 1980s-1990s), I don't know how much street presence there is of clergy and other committed community members.  

Community group involvement helps reduce crime.  Patrick Sharkey's book Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence credits the crime drop in part because of the rise of involvement of such organizations.  

I participated in one such group that was a response to the neighborhood center of crack dealing by Rayful Edmond's crew ("Rayful Edmond, Drug Lord Who Stoked D.C.’s Crack Cocaine Epidemic, Dies at 60," New York Times).  I also learned about how street design can help create protected areas conducive to drug dealing.

I know we had walks, I don't think we had weekly walks like Preacher Muhammad.  We did meet with the police precinct representatives every month at our meetings, among other government officials.  There was concern that people communicated some of what happened at the meetings to the drug dealers.

According to Crain's Chicago Business and their forum on the city's crime drop

Communities where nonprofits increased the most, such as those focusing on youth support and substance abuse programs, had lower crime rates. Community-based resources like this can also increase collective efficacy—social cohesion and trust among residents.

Also see "Nonprofit Crime Reduction," Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Our group and Preacher Muhammad's are congruent with "social efficacy theory" that posits more connected and involved communities, including the presence of a fair number of community organizations, have fewer social problems, despite income disparities. And Eric Klinenberg's discussion of the importance of social infrastructure in his book Palaces of the People.

Demographics are a factor.  The fact that Boston's murder rate is significantly lower compared to other cities means that they are doing something right, although part of it has to do with the rough percentage of black population in poverty.  For example, the black population in Boston is half that of DC, and one-third of Baltimore.  According to CNN:

The homicide rate for Black Chicagoans is nine times higher than for any other racial demographic, according to data released by the city Department of Public Health.

Differences in homicide rates by race account for significant differences in murder rates across cities.  E.g., Honolulu City and County with a population of one million--predominately Asian, and Asians having the lowest murder rate per capita--had 29 murders last year, which was a significant jump from 19 in 2024.

Summer always has a rise in crime and murder | Develop Summer Crime Suppression Strategies and Tactics.  Summer is known for an extranormal number of murders.  Focus resources on it.  That's the whole point of Broken Windows theory--focusing police time proactively not reactively, and addressing pattern crime ("Back from the Brink, an oral history of the introduction and implementation of Broken Windows theory policing in New York City").  Murders in the summer should be thought of as a pattern.

For example in Chicago 15 areas account for half the city's murders ("Chicago is throwing its ‘whole government’ at summer violence," CNN).  They focus resources on those "zones" with the most murders, bringing to bear all of the community's social infrastructure to address the problem.  DC knows where the murders are, I don't think they focus resources there.  Partly, because people in relatively safe areas still advocate for a high level of police presence.

Probably, there are more murders on weekends too, so that should be an area of focus.

Broken windows/physical improvements.  BW theory is two pronged.  One is refocusing police time and on crime suppression.  The other is investing in community--maintenance of public spaces like removing abandoned cars and in plantings, and working on keeping properties in good shape.  There have been studies in Philadelphia and elsewhere that find a positive reduction in crime in association with maintenance of vacant lots and conversion to community gardens.  Etc.

DC and Youth Crime.  Another area where DC seems to be an outlier is with youth crime, including violent crimes like murder, assault, and car jacking.  Having more community groups and preachers doing walks would be in order.

DC's youth crime and the failures of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services have been an issue for more than 30 years.  Truancy is an issue ("Empty desks: How the District’s failure to curb truancy in middle schools fueled the biggest youth crime surge in a generation," Washington Post).

After a significant decline in the program over the 2000s and 2010s, Midnight Basketball is back up to 20 chapters.  Photo: Clara Mokri for The New York Times.

Recreation centers and programs and later hours on weekends.   Curfews are one way cities deal with a rise in youth crime and group wilding in the summers ("Cities, towns nationwide revive teen curfews amid summer crowds," Indiana Capital Chronicle).  I think they can be one element in a toolbox.  But how about offering more programs for youth in the evening and at night.

Recreation centers and programs should be open later, until midnight or later on Friday and Saturday, and have a system of Teen Rangers to organize the programming so its relevant to the target audience ("Clark County to open 4 recreation centers for late-night teen programs," 3News Las Vegas).  From the article:

Four recreation centers across Clark County will begin offering free late-night programs for teenagers starting Tuesday as county officials and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police work to address rising concerns about youth violence and juvenile crime.

The summer initiative, which runs June 9- July 31, will keep Walnut Recreation Center, Whitney Recreation Center, Cambridge Recreation Center and the Torrey Pines Resource Center open from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. for teens ages 13 to 18.

I aver the centers should be open later than 11pm.  Libraries too.  In Montgomery County, Maryland, libraries in town centers like Silver Spring and Bethesda used to be open later on Friday and Saturday during the summers.  Not now.  But with focused involvement programming, such programs should be considered. 

Many of the recreation programs serve adults in their 20s as well,  ("Midnight Basketball Returns, and Brings Community With It," New York Times, National Midnight Basketball Association).

Summer Jobs and impact on crime.  The Wall Street Journal reports on a positive association between summer jobs and reduction in youth crime and murders ("The Effects of Summer Jobs on Youth Violence," "Why Teenagers Stopped Working in the Summer," Wall Street Journal).  From the article:

Sara Heller studied Chicago’s jobs program and found that an eight-week summer job cut violent-crime arrests among disadvantaged teenagers by 43%, with the effect growing after the job ended. Mr. Gelber and his co-authors, studying New York’s program, matched roughly 290,000 lottery records to tax and death records and found that winning a summer job cut the risk of dying over the following years by about 18%, driven by fewer homicides, particularly among young men. Those same New York jobs, however, didn’t raise the kids’ later earnings; if anything they nudged them down slightly and left college-going untouched.

How about Co-operative High School?  Given the results from summer employment, I've suggested offering the option of co-operative high school, where after freshman year youth are placed in paying jobs alongside classroom learning.  Such programs are uncommon.  

High Companies, a multifaceted firm with a foundation in welding and manufacturing supports three schools--two in Pennsylvania and one in Denver ("How Co-ops Help Young People Start Their Careers," High Companies).  Orillia Secondary School in Ontario also.St. George's Technical High School in Delaware.  And probably others.

Seniors only.  Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District in Michigan offers co-op placements for senior, at more than 125 businesses, institutions, and nonprofits. Hodgson Vo-Tech in Delaware also only offers placements for seniors.

I do think as a crime reduction strategy, students from sophomore age schould be eligible for cooperative education.

I hadn't thought about SNAP cuts significantly impacting inner city groceries

This article is inspired in part by the Washington City Paper article, "Oh, SNAP: How Program Cuts Are Impacting Food Access in the DMV." From the article:

“The number of people receiving SNAP has fallen in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia,” says Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which tracks the impact SNAP cuts are having. Bergh, citing USDA data, tells City Paper that the number of people receiving SNAP in D.C. dropped by almost 7,500 between the law’s July 2025 enactment and March—a roughly 6 percent decrease.

Numbers are steeper in our neighboring states: “In Maryland, state data show the number of people receiving SNAP fell by more than 39,000 people between July 2025 and April 2026,” also about a 6 percent drop, says Bergh. “More than 17,000 were children.” Virginia has seen the worst with a roughly 13 percent decrease—that’s 111,000 people who are no longer receiving benefits—between July 2025 and May 2026. The federal government is also shifting a higher cost burden to states, which is making it harder for states—and D.C.—to balance their budgets.

It's always a struggle to have supermarkets, either full line or with a smaller set of items, operating in inner city neighborhoods.  

The costs are higher, including employee retention and losses due to stealing and fraud.  

Places without stores are called food deserts or food insecure places.  But this is deceiving because since people have to eat, they come up with ways to get to grocery stores, even if they have to go out of their neighborhood to do so.  

But this is something I noticed living in the H Street NE neighborhood back in the 1980s and 1990s.  People had ways to buy groceries.  Even though an independent opened in the neighborhood called MegaFoods, many didn't think it served them well enough, so they either protested, or continued to shop outside of the neighborhood.

Of course, many people use transit to grocery shop.  I hated using the bus for groceries.  Mind the subway less.  But mostly shopped by bike, putting the bags on my handlebars, and using my backpack--sadly it took me 20 years to figure out I could put my backpack on the handlebars too--imagine riding uphill from Capitol Hill to Manor Park with a watermelon in your backpack, not fun.

(Separately, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has an article on DC Central Kitchen, which is a social enterprise that in part addresses food access issues: "How DC Central Kitchen Keeps Expanding While Other Nonprofits Shrink")

Also see:

-- "Grocery stores in cities: the failure of the "15 minute grocery store"" (2023)

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Gross profit margins on groceries are minimal.  As it is, the average grocery store only makes 1.5% that is a penny and a haf per dollar of sales.  That doesn't leave a lot of room for error, or provide the ability to react when there are scalar changes in economic conditions.  Tariffs are making it worse.  Same with increased transportation costs because of the Trump Iran War.

This is why supermarkets would rather donate food to events and organizations and not money (I tried to get the grocery store cooperative in Salt Lake to fund grills at Sugar House Park and they said they had no money to give.).

Chicago: Yellow Banana's Sav-A-Lot stores on the brink of closure.  Yellow Banana is a grocery "start up" from a few years back that bought a bunch of Sav A Lot stores--a discount low number of items store operating primarily in low income areas.  Sav A Lot is a chain that has company stores and franchised stores.  

SAL was owned by Supervalu which sold it off to private equity before being acquired by UNFI.  The current owner is trying to sell off the stores, and function as a wholesaler/franchisor.  That's how YB got the stores they operate.

YB has/had seven stores in Chicago.  And they received money from the city to do so.  They had a lot of problems getting going, and the stores have to be operated for 10 years for the company to get the full amount awarded.

In the last year, the company's president died unexpectedly of a stroke, without anyone to replace him, and the "One Big Beautiful Bill" cut funding for the federal Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides a modicum of money to poor people to buy food--the amount provided is paltry, it's a crime.  Most people getting benefits get less than $200/month.

Customers shop at Save A Lot’s remodeled West 63rd Street store in West Lawn on April 9, 2025. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune)

According to the Supermarket News article "Yellow Banana ready to close 7 Chicago stores, loses tie with Save A Lot":

SNAP money at the six stores accounted for almost 50% of revenue, and SNAP sales have declined about 27% year over year.

Projections at the start of the year showed the stores were getting close to breaking even but would still lose in the range of $500,000, a figure the source said was not insurmountable. Then the SNAP cuts kicked in.

SAL, which had been providing the company with inventory on credit, pulled the rug and cancelled the franchise agreement.  

The company has been crushed by the loss of SNAP-related sales.

It's not news that the Trump bill has had a lot of negative effects, including one they think is positive, which is reducing the tax rate on rich people and corporations.

Sadly, this is not an unintended consequence.  It was intended.  And this is but one of the many fallouts from the Act.

(There used to be a SAL on Chillum Road in nearby Maryland, and on occasion I would bike there to buy groceries.  It's long since closed although they still have other stores in Prince George's County.  When you're buying shortening, why pay a lot more for it at a mainline grocery when you can get it at a store like SAL or Aldi?)

Also see:

-- "Save A Lot grocery stores could shutter abruptly this week," Chicago Tribune
-- "Save A Lot grocery operator gets an extension on City Hall-funded deal amid missed deadlines, lawsuits," Chicago Sun-Times

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Thoughts.  The margin issue is real.  That, plus lack of management expertise is why government owned groceries aren't likely to be successful.  And the least bit of problem in getting the store up and running and then operating--such as community opposition for any reason--makes it that much harder to succeed.

Recently, a more upscale grocer in Cleveland, Heinen's, closed its downtown store.  They said they lost $18 million over 11 years ("Heinen’s Cleveland location was losing millions," Supermarket News). And they sold alcohol too, which has higher margins.

Grocers in hard pressed areas probably need more subsidy than people realize, considering that 1.5% margin.  I know a cooperative in Connecticut had to close because they foolishly signed a lease requiring a percentage of gross revenue be paid to the property owner, even though $1 of additional revenue yields only 1.5 cents.

One such subsidy, and I'd have been against it before, is probably, "zero property tax" until the store shows a profit.

Boston to get pretty big PILOT payments from Boston University

 Big cities have lots of civic institutions, including universities and hospitals.  Tax exempt, they don't pay property taxes, and since property taxes are the primary way cities earn revenue, that makes it harder to fund operations.

In Canada, nonprofits mostly still have to pay property tax, unless they get an exemption, which is pretty hard.  The municipality has to believe it gets big benefits in return.

Over the years, many cities including Providence Rhode Island, Pittsburgh, New Haven Hartford--50% of the city's property is tax exempt, Philadelphia and Boston have tried to get decent sized "payments in lieu of taxes" from major nonprofits and they've been unsuccessful.  (In Connecticut, the state reimburses jurisdictions for a percentage of lost property tax issues due to tax exemptions.  Decades ago under Nixon, the federal government had a similar program for cities and federal undertakings.)

In Philadelphia, rather than submit to any kind of tax, the University of Pennsylvania, its hospital system, Drexel University and Amtrak's 30th Street Station joined together to fund the University City District business improvement district through annual contributions.

So the fact that Boston has managed to get a 5 year agreement, and about $20 million per year from Boston University is a big deal ("BU to pay city of Boston more than $104 million over five years in record deal," Boston Globe).  It's a mix of money and in-kind services, but the cash part is still pretty hefty.

Now for Harvard, MIT, the big hospitals, other universities....