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Durham Freeway bridge set to be replaced, finally

It’s about f*ckin’ time. Known as “The Ugly Green Thing” on Waymarking’s website, the pedestrian bridge over the Durham Freeway is not the most attractive entrance to the Bull City. Yet, if you’re traveling up 147 from either Research Triangle Park or from I-40 (as most people coming to Durham from Raleigh would), then this behemoth is what greets you.

By the end of May, that may all change.

From today’s Herald Sun…

Bridge replacement set to begin
The Herald-Sun
May 19, 2009

DURHAM — Demolition and replacement of the pedestrian bridge at Alston Avenue will begin later this month, resulting in overnight traffic detours on N.C. 147.

Beginning May 26 and lasting approximately two weeks, traffic on the Durham Freeway will be rerouted using Briggs and Alston avenues as detours from 11 p.m. until 5:30 a.m. as crews complete the demolition of the old pedestrian bridge.

After demolition is complete and the new bridge span arrives, crews will again close N.C. 147 during the same hours and using the same detour routes until the new bridge span is in place. The second closure will be announced once this date is set.

Read the rest at the Herald Sun’s website.

I wrote a column about the 147 bridge in May 2006, at which time the story was that the bridge was set to be demolished in the fall of 2006 and that the new bridge might possibly be open by the fall of 2007. When delays in fulfilling promises take this long, what should be celebrated as good news turns into bittersweet resentment.

American Tobacco Trail bridge supporters take note. As I pointed out in October 2007, for most of the time I have lived in Durham construction dates for the American Tobacco Trail bridge over I-40 and the new pedestrian bridge over 147 are indexical: no matter when you ask, the answer is always “they should be completed in about 2 years.”

So, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Design images courtesy of Stewart Design

PennSound

Poets are social critics by default. That is, since not very many of us take the same care to craft our daily language that poets do, poets often are (or see themselves as) outsiders. And as outsiders, many poets are well-positioned to see things that not everyone is able to see. Hence the buzz of excitement Obama generated just by carrying (and thus being photographed with) a collection of Derek Walcott’s poems three days after the election. Imagine… a politician with a daily habit of thinking about something in a meditative way.

Celebrations of the power of words, succinct demands for our attention, suggestive as well as demonstrative. When done well, poems — like film — leave the reader/viewer with much to think about, much to interpret.

There are many, many poetry websites that host, share, invite, and collect the written text. But like Meyer Abrams argues, poems should be read aloud. I remember well the first time that I heard a college friend, poet Edward Bartók-Baratta, perform a collection of his writings. Without artificial amplification, his normally quiet voice took possession of the stirred atmosphere inside the Northampton, MA church. It was a look inside the soul of someone I knew best as a baker and gardener.

PennSound is a remarkable online archive of poetry readings. Supported by the University of Pennsylvania’s English Department Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and the Kelly Writers House, the web-based project is directed by poets, and the recordings are of poets reading poetry. [Thanks to Al Filreis for the correction.]

Collecting original recordings as well as hotlinks to recordings hosted in other archives, PennSound is the “first and the biggest site of its kind,” says Charles Bernstein, an English professor and the site’s co-director.

Launched in January 2005, their first press release boasted a collection of 1500 recordings. By 2007, the site had aggregated more than 10,000.

According to a May 2007 Associated Press article, recordings are…

contributed by poets, fans and scholars worldwide and converted to digital format. Some, such as Gertrude Stein recordings from 1934, date back decades.

The site mainly focuses on historical avant-garde and innovative contemporary poetry. So while you can hear Allen Ginsberg or current U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, you won’t find Maya Angelou.

You won’t find Billy Collins or Rita Dove, but you will find plenty of contemporary and historical readings, mostly with an avant-garde bent. Don’t miss the extensive set of Ezra Pound readings.

Sticking with the theme of this site, below is a poem that includes mention of a two-wheeled pilot.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

John Tranter reads “God on a Bicycle” at a March 30, 2005 reading at the Kelly Writers House.

Time Warner Cable getting greedy

A colleague first made me aware of Time Warner Cable’s move to sneak bandwidth caps into their existing markets. Now the news seems to be exploding in the blogosphere.

I received this from FreePress.net just yesterday.

We Want More Internet, Not Less
Just as Americans are suffering economically, Time Warner Cable is trying to squeeze us even further, forcing customers to pay a steep Internet penalty for exceeding an absurdly low monthly limit. This is ridiculous. Instead of meeting growing broadband demand, Time Warner Cable is gouging Internet users.

And when I posted the issue to my Facebook profile, a free-marketeer friend had the following to say:

While we are at it, we should insist on air traffic neutrality where you pay one price to fly all you want. Or ocean neutrality where you pay one price to fish all you want. Movie neutrality where one price allows you to watch all the movies you want (I guess Netflix already does this despite not having to.)

Phillip – don’t you think that people who hog bandwidth should pay more for reducing the bandwidth available to other net surfers. Do you think it’s unfair that cell phone companies charge differently for different times of the day so as to reduce network congestion? Or that charge me by the number of pages loaded?

Of course there is the small matter of monopoly providers of broadband access. But with competition I would expect that people would pay for the bandwidth they value and reduce the tragedy of the commons that occurs when I try to watch Netflix Watch it Now movies.

Right now, since I live in an area without real competition, I’m happy to raise awareness of TWC’s doings by any means available. I’ll lobby Congress if Congress is the mechanism by which I can stop TWC from switching their pricing mechanism midstream.

Should network providers charge more from individuals or businesses who use more bandwidth? Sure. But I should also have realistic options from my Internet Service Provider about which bandwidth cap I can sign up for. Right now, Time Warner Cable offers unlimited megabytes of downloaded data, within a context of limited download speeds. And that seems reasonable.

Think of it as if the Water Department offered residences unlimited use of water, through a pipe of predetermined width. That is, you could use each month as much water as you want. More precisely, you could use as much water will fit through a residential-sized pipe per month. The difference between business-class and residential-class service would be the diameter of the pipe.

For the most part, ISPs like TWC  have determined their monthly charges in this way. They allow unlimited use of the service, piped into your home at a predetermined speed. That is, they use speed caps, not cumulative caps.

Surely I’m not suggesting that the Water Department shouldn’t charge my neighbor more than me when he waters his entire property, driveway included, every week. That’s right, I’m not suggesting that at all. Water is a precious limited resource. YouTube isn’t.

A better analogy might be cable television. For years, the model for cable television pricing has been based on the number of channels to which one wants to subscribe. Once I sign up for basic, premium, deluxe, or the super-over-the-top-all-movies package, I can watch as much TV as I want. Whether I leave a television turned on 24/7 or tune in for just the nightly Daily Show, the cable company isn’t going to charge me any more or less.

Cable TV providers have somehow avoided the “tragedy of the commons.” Never in my life has the television program I’ve been watching been “slow” because all my neighbors also have their televisions turned on.

So why isn’t TWC keeping cable Internet priced like cable TV? Because people are dropping their cable TV. TWC’s move to implement download caps is a typically monopolistic response to the growing popularity of Netflix on-demand, Roku boxes, Apple TV and other ways of streaming the TV you want to watch into your home, without signing up for TWC’s cable television service. And if they can set their bandwidth caps low enough, they’ll find a wellspring of new revenue. Business Insider reports that

…[i]n Beaumont, [TWC] had been testing caps of 40 gigabytes per month. That’s less than it sounds, especially as companies like Apple (AAPL) and Netflix (NFLX) increasingly offer hi-def movie services. (A hi-def movie can take up about 4 gigabytes.)

We think Comcast’s (CMCSA) caps are more reasonable — about 250 gigabytes per month. But Comcast is mostly trying to manage its network and weed out pirates. Time Warner Cable seems to be looking for new revenue growth areas as subscriber growth slows.

I think my friend is right on; TWC wouldn’t be able to get away with this if there were real competition. AT&T’s new service has not yet reached into my part of town, but as soon as it does, I’ll consider switching. But I’m also not going to wait (nor encourage) competition from another big business.

As for the suggestion that we ought to push for ocean neutrality while we’re at it… First, as a vegan, I probably don’t have a lot to say about this. But as far as I understand an individual’s fishing license, you can fish as much as you want with your license. If I could get away from work every day and go fishing, the state isn’t going to charge me any more than my friend who can fish only on weekends. Pricing based on volume comes into play only for commerical fishing, which just isn’t a relevant analog to home Internet service.

Like Woodward and Armstrong say about Justice William Douglas’ unabashed liberalism, I am “for individuals over government, government over big business, and the environment over all else.”  In this case, by contacting members of Congress through freepress.net, I’m OK with using the government to protect the individual and stick it to the corporation.

NO to electronic billboards in Durham

At its meeting tonight (7 pm, March 24, in the Herald Sun Community room), the InterNeighborhood Council (INC) will debate and vote on two resolutions concerning the billboard industry’s request to be able to upgrade billboards, to move them to new locations along I-85, 15-501, 501, 147, and Hwy 70, and to turn as many as 25 into the digital display variety that can show a different ad every eight seconds.

One resolution, put forward by the Watts-Hillandale neighborhood, asks INC to support Durham’s current billboard policy, which has served the City well since the 1980s.

The other resolution, ostensibly put forward by the Rockwood Falconbridge neighborhood, supports an effort led by Fairway Outdoor Advertising to overturn Durham’s current policy and open the door for electronic billboards in Durham. Of note is the fact that Rockwood’s resolution is being put forward by a resident who is also an attorney with K&L Gates — a firm representing, you guessed it, Fairway Outdoor Advertising.

UPDATE: According to an email from Tom Miller and Josh Allen of Watts-Hillandale, the second resolution “was put forward by the delegate from the Falconbridge neighborhood and was supported by Patrick Byker, the delegate from the Rockwood neighborhood.”

So, is that what INC is for? Is the InterNeighborhood Council of Durham just a shill for corporate entities who find local stand-ins to help manipulate community politics? Does the Rockwood neighborhood really support overturning Durham’s ban on new billboards?

Below is an opinion column from today’s Herald Sun. Penned by Durham residents John Schelp and Larry Holt, the column introduces a new website, which I am happy to host, and explains why new billboards in Durham is a bad idea.

Visit this site to learn more about why Durham has as few billboards as it does, and how you can help keep it that way.

The billboard industry is campaigning hard to overturn Durham’s existing ban on billboards. To counter the misinformation coming from industry, folks in the community are launching a new website today at http://SupportDurhamBillboardBan.com/.

On this site, you can see photos of billboards over homes in East Durham, video clips of blinking electronic billboards in action, and a thoughtful presentation supporting Durham’s current ban on billboards.

Overturning Durham’s ban on electronic billboards would open the door to big, bright, blinking billboards on I-85, 147, 15-501 and 70. Do we want large billboards at the top of tall metal poles — flashing ads every eight seconds — near homes, schools, parks and places of worship?

The site outlines many reasons to oppose the billboard industry’s attempt to overturn our ordinance.

Billboard taxes and the local economy: Billboards are not taxed on the amount of revenue they generate. So, billboards contribute an extremely small amount to Durham’s tax revenues.

Fairway Advertising paid just $2,605.60 in taxes last year. Just $2600 for the 46 billboards Fairway owns in Durham. Many single family residences in Durham pay a lot more than that.

Replacing standard billboards with electronic ones would generate 10 times more revenues for billboard owners — from $2,000 to $14,000/month (Inc. magazine). And yet, tax revenues would remain tiny.

Adding insult to injury, if local officials wanted to remove an electronic billboard for any reason in the future, Durham taxpayers would have to compensate the owners for lost revenues.

Jobs: Durham would see few economic benefits from new jobs, since billboard companies employ very few people (mostly managers and sales personnel), and Fairway’s offices are in Georgia and Raleigh. Fairway’s impact on Durham’s economy is negligible.

Public Service Ads: A common industry tactic for undermining public opposition to electronic billboards is to offer free billboard space to non-profit organizations. The industry has employed this tactic in Durham, asking City Council members to name their favorite local non-profits then approaching the groups and offering them free billboard space. This explains why you’re suddenly seeing non-profit billboards around town.

The often unnoticed irony in this tactic is that the ads on electronic billboards change about 10,800 times/day. So, we can see PSAs for anti-drinking programs followed by ads for Bud Lite and Seagram’s Vodka.

Billboards and the environment: Electronic billboards have a big carbon footprint — equivalent to that of about 13 houses. At the same time citizens are being urged to use florescent light bulbs to reduce our individual carbon footprints, we’re being urged to embrace billboards and their energy consumption?

Public safety: Anything that distracts a driver’s eyes from the road for more than two seconds significantly increases the chances of a wreck. Electronic billboards are designed to attract drivers’ attention and are an intrinsic safety hazard. Do we really want drivers on our increasingly congested thoroughfares intentionally distracted by attention-grabbing electronic billboards?

Aesthetics: Durham citizens, neighborhood groups, and local officials worked hard to reduce billboard blight along our highways and in our city. There have been a many, many letters to the editor from Durham citizens who oppose electronic billboards and a only a few supporting the billboard industry, with most of those coming from the Friends of Durham/Chamber of Commerce camp. Some of these letter writers have blamed local government for the deterioration of billboards in Durham. The fact is that current ordinances allow billboard companies to make annual improvements in order to maintain their billboards, but the industry has allowed its billboards to deteriorate anyway. These billboards may be ugly, but don’t blame current ordinances or local government.

The Chamber’s efforts on behalf of the billboard industry to overturn the current ban on electronic billboards, despite citizen outcry, begs the question: Why are the City and County giving the Chamber $128,000 in taxpayer subsidies/year so the Chamber can turn around and lobby local officials on behalf of outside interests that contribute little to our local economy or quality of life?

And it’s inexcusable that billboard industry lawyers target a Planning staffer because the facts she presents don’t support their client’s attempt to overturn Durham’s ban on electronic billboards (Officials’ objectivity questioned, Herald-Sun, 3/08/09). Surely, the billboard industry isn’t suggesting that relevant facts should be kept from the public?

As a recent article points out, there are plenty of compelling reasons not to overturn Durham’s ordinance (Planner: Proceed with caution on billboard issue, Durham News, 2/07/09)…

• Fairway’s billboards now produce about $2,600 in county tax revenue; switching some to digital “would still not generate significant revenue”
• Local government cannot require the signs to carry public-service messages
• Digital billboards could be found to violate the federal Highway Beautification Act
• Allowing digital billboards while safety studies are pending could expose Durham to liability for accidents
• Full sunlight reaches about 6,500 “nits;” a digital billboard can reach 10,000 nits.

Please visit our new website. Electronic billboards are a bad idea for Durham. Together, we can stop the billboard industry.

Coffee with Council

Durham City Council periodically hosts these open-house style events. Each would be a great opportunity to share your thoughts on pot holes, bike lanes, tree pruning, digital billboards, and other potential obstacles to Council’s re-election, er, opportunities to enhance our quality of life in Durham.

Monday, March 9, 2009, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Durham Public School Resource Center, 2107 Hillandale Road.

Thursday, March 12, 2009, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Council Committee Room, Second Floor of City Hall, 101 City Hall Plaza.

Saturday, March 14, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Community Family Life and Recreation Center at Lyon Park, 1309 Halley St.

From an announcement:

Durham City Council is hosting a series of Coffee with Council meetings where residents can have an opportunity to provide input to council members on the upcoming 2009-2010 fiscal year budget.

In addition, for the first time this year will be a Citizen Engagement Workshop on the budget. The workshop is set for Monday, February 23, 2009, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Community Family Life and Recreation Center at Lyon Park, 1309 Halley St. The workshop is intended to engage citizens in conversation about City government’s budget priorities during these tight fiscal times.

This workshop is in addition to the Coffees with Council and will be more interactive. Space will be limited to the first 100 residents and reservations are required. Reserve a spot by contacting Mildred Rogers at mildred.rogers@durhamnc.gov or call (919) 560-4111, ext. 284.

Bike/ped opportunities in the economic stimulus bill

Make sure Transportation Enhancement funding is in the final bill.

This week there will be a conference committee where several members of the House and several members of the Senate will work together to reconcile the two bills. Conferees need to hear that Transportation Enhancements are important to stimulating the economy, creating green jobs, and moving us towards a sustainable future.

Make three calls or send three emails today:

1. Senator Kay Hagan
(202) 224-6342 (Washington, DC office)
(919) 856-4630 (Raleigh office)
Senator_Hagan@hagan.senate.gov

2. Senator Richard Burr
(202) 224-3154 (Washington, DC office)
(800) 685-8916 (Winston-Salem office)
(252) 977-9522 (Rocky Mount office)
(828) 350-2437 (Asheville office)
(704) 833-0854 (Gastonia office)
(888) 848-1833 (Wilmington office)
Write to Senator Burr using this link: http://burr.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

3. Call your representative
Find your representative here – http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml#nc

…and ask each of them to tell the Conferees to support Transportation Enhancements in the Economic Recovery bill.

Tell them:

• Bicycle and pedestrian projects create jobs at the same or better rate than highway projects.
• These smaller projects can move quickly to hire local businesses and help local economies.
• Providing safe and convenient bicycle and pedestrian access gives families healthier and cheaper transportation options.
• Improving sidewalks and bike lanes can make a downtown a destination, further helping the local economy.
• Better biking and walking options also help ensure greater energy independence, less pollution, and a healthier United States!

Please share this alert with all bicyclists (and pedestrians) you can, and encourage them to join you in supporting biking and walking today!

Adapted for from email action alerts published by MassBike and Durham for Obama.

ManifestHope:DC

ManifestHope: DC is the Georgetown installation of some of the most inspiring visual art produced during Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency. Judges for this juried exhibit include Shepard Fairey, Spike Lee, and Eric Hilton (of Thievery Corporation), among others. Who says art and politics can’t mix?

ManifestHope:DC from Phillip Barron on Vimeo.

From the website:

Art plays a pivotal role in creating cultural momentum. The MANIFESTHOPE: DC Gallery celebrates that role and shines a spotlight on artists who use their voices to amplify and motivate the grassroots movement that carried President-Elect Barack Obama to victory.

MANIFESTHOPE: DC gathers together a diverse array of the nation’s most talented visual artists under one roof to mark this monumental achievement in our nation’s history and encourages artists and activists to maintain the momentum to bring about true change in the United States.

Along with its partners, MoveOn.org Political Action, the Service Employees International Union and Obey Giant, MANIFESTHOPE: DC, will issue an inspiring visual call-to-action, encouraging a redirection of public energy toward true reform in three key areas:

• Health Care Reform
• Workers’ Rights
• The Green Economy

The MANIFESTHOPE: DC Gallery will be open to the public in Washington, DC for the days preceding the Presidential Inauguration, Saturday, January 17th, 2009 through Monday, January 19th, 2009 between the hours of 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM. Art exhibition management will be provided by our Washington, DC gallery partner, Irvine Contemporary.

We Are One, This Land is Your Land

We Are One, This Land is Your Land from Phillip Barron on Vimeo.

Kicking off Obama’s inauguration celebration, Pete Seeger — along with numerous other stars and artists including Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp, Beyonce, Usher, Stevie Wonder, U2, Herbie Hancock, Mary J. Blige, and Garth Brooks — performed at today’s We Are One celebration.

new arrivals

Clockwise from left: Shepard Fairey’s iconic HOPE poster, recently acquired by the National Portrait Gallery; We Are One concert/inauguration welcome event; Adams Morgan kiosk with notes to the incoming President.

OBAMA

From Election Day

I like this photo, captured with a friend’s cell phone, because it captures both the rainy ambiance and the uplifting spirit of being downtown last night. I wanted to stay until they called North Carolina, but that may yet be a few days away. The unofficial results, though, show that Obama will get North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes.

He’s my President, and I know he’s Durham’s.

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