My freshman physics course had something called a Missouri Club. It was an informal gathering of students and instructors - usually graduate students. The students would have questions, the instructors would have explanations. Many explanations. They would explain things eight ways from Sunday.
The name of the club came from an old saying: "I'm from Missouri. Show me."
After watching the pictures of Memorial Day celebrations on the evening news last night, I felt despair. What is about to happen in this country was, until yesterday, largely avoidable. Now it's inevitable. Brace for impact, Missouri. The coronavirus is about to show you.
You could have watched and learned from New York. It would have been nice if something good like that could have come from the example of New York, but it is not to be.
Another old line from my college days: There are basically three kinds of learning - precept, example, and experience. Experience is the best teacher, if you live through it.
And remember, New York's medical system frayed, but it didn't break. If your medical system breaks down under the stress, your experience will be worse than that of New York. I don't even want to think about what that will look like.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Monday, May 4, 2020
My New Idea
Clearing a Route Through the Heart of the City
We could have been a leader. Instead we will be slow followers, picking our way along the parade route, dodging the horse droppings left by the cavalry in the lead. Philadelphia used to be a leader, back in the days of Dilworth and Bacon. Yes, we made a lot of mistakes, but at least we were attempting to mold the future in a positive direction.
New York City recently announced that it was going to do 100 miles of Open Streets, upping the ante on Oakland, California, which is only doing 74 miles.
We're not doing anything; we're not going to do anything. And City Hall won't even tell us why.
I and many others have politely asked the City for a number of marginal improvements - repurposing the outer lanes of the Ben Franklin Parkway and roads in West Fairmount Park and Roosevelt Park and a few other places. This would involve closing them to cars and opening them to pedestrians and bicyclists.
The small ask didn't work. So, just for the record, I'm going to tell you what I really think. Why should Dilworth and Bacon have all the fun?
This idea got its start with the outer lanes of the Ben Franklin Parkway. Giving these lanes to peds and bikes is a no-brainer. If you'd like a fuller explanation, click here. And then Inga Saffron of the Inquirer suggested repurposing Walnut Street. This isn't quite a no-brainer, but I'll leave struggling with the details to our capable traffic engineers.
So I was staring at these two stretches on a map, and the thought occurred to me that we could connect them, and provide a highway for pedestrians and bicyclists from the heart of Center City to the Art Museum and the wilds of Fairmount Park beyond. Well, at least to Martin Luther King Drive and Kelly Drive. It's pretty bucolic, but no elk or moose or bison. And you can ride a bike to Valley Forge if you're so inclined.
I looked at 20th and 22nd streets, and picked 22nd because it's a bit wider and already has a bike lane. Then I said let's make it two-way; finding a southbound mate for the bike lane on 22nd has been basically impossible. So we'll club up the northbound and southbound traffic on 22nd, and while we're at it make the other pieces two-way as well.
Certain people will immediately say this repurposing of 22nd Street is impossible. Just look at Trader Joe's with its heavy traffic into the parking lot on 22nd. And then of course, there are the entrances and exits to the Vine Street Expressway. To quote the Princess Bride: "Inconceivable!"
Well, here's the thing. We're still letting cars onto 22nd Street. But only for one block or less, and they have to go slow. They're doing this on 14th Street in New York City, and it's working well.
But that won't work here, you say. Yes, people can turn onto 22nd from Market, but when they're done shopping and leave the parking lot, they'll have to go to Arch, and then they can only turn left.
But wait. The street is two-way for cars also. So a customer leaving the Trader Joe's lot can turn left or right and go to Market or Arch. Actually better options for egress than exist currently.
As for the Vine Street Expressway, the eastbound entrance and exit are largely unaffected by these changes. Drivers exiting would still have the option of turning on 23rd or proceeding on Winter. And if they're headed for Park Towne, they can do that because it's less than one block.
As for the westbound exit, drivers could still go to the Parkway and turn, or head up into Fairmount on 22nd. People would have to use the Parkway to access the westbound entrance - no more tromping up 22nd Street at 50 mph. Sorry for the inconvenience.
What does all this give us? The future. I'm not going to rehearse all the arguments in favor of a balanced transportation system, instead of the predominantly automotive system that we currently have. What I will say is that I think this setup would be pretty cool, and like the Schuylkill Banks and the bike lanes, the City could brag about it when they try to attract large corporations like Amazon. And I think it would be extremely popular with the people who live here. And pay taxes. And vote.
Will it happen? No. With Dilworth and Bacon in the saddle, I think we might have had a good shot at actually getting some of this stuff done. With this mayor, and this city council, and this streets department, I just don't see it.
Still, to paraphrase Senator McConnell, I will persist. Why? I am a member of the Vaclav Havel school of optimism. Here's what he said:
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." - Vaclav Havel
See also My Life in Fairmount Park, Transportation Should Not Trump Destination, Do We Secretly Want Ugly Cities and Dangerous Streets? Love Park Redesign: Why Are There Still Five Traffic Lanes on 16th Street? Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway.
We could have been a leader. Instead we will be slow followers, picking our way along the parade route, dodging the horse droppings left by the cavalry in the lead. Philadelphia used to be a leader, back in the days of Dilworth and Bacon. Yes, we made a lot of mistakes, but at least we were attempting to mold the future in a positive direction.
New York City recently announced that it was going to do 100 miles of Open Streets, upping the ante on Oakland, California, which is only doing 74 miles.
We're not doing anything; we're not going to do anything. And City Hall won't even tell us why.
I and many others have politely asked the City for a number of marginal improvements - repurposing the outer lanes of the Ben Franklin Parkway and roads in West Fairmount Park and Roosevelt Park and a few other places. This would involve closing them to cars and opening them to pedestrians and bicyclists.
The small ask didn't work. So, just for the record, I'm going to tell you what I really think. Why should Dilworth and Bacon have all the fun?
This idea got its start with the outer lanes of the Ben Franklin Parkway. Giving these lanes to peds and bikes is a no-brainer. If you'd like a fuller explanation, click here. And then Inga Saffron of the Inquirer suggested repurposing Walnut Street. This isn't quite a no-brainer, but I'll leave struggling with the details to our capable traffic engineers.
So I was staring at these two stretches on a map, and the thought occurred to me that we could connect them, and provide a highway for pedestrians and bicyclists from the heart of Center City to the Art Museum and the wilds of Fairmount Park beyond. Well, at least to Martin Luther King Drive and Kelly Drive. It's pretty bucolic, but no elk or moose or bison. And you can ride a bike to Valley Forge if you're so inclined.
I looked at 20th and 22nd streets, and picked 22nd because it's a bit wider and already has a bike lane. Then I said let's make it two-way; finding a southbound mate for the bike lane on 22nd has been basically impossible. So we'll club up the northbound and southbound traffic on 22nd, and while we're at it make the other pieces two-way as well.
Certain people will immediately say this repurposing of 22nd Street is impossible. Just look at Trader Joe's with its heavy traffic into the parking lot on 22nd. And then of course, there are the entrances and exits to the Vine Street Expressway. To quote the Princess Bride: "Inconceivable!"
Well, here's the thing. We're still letting cars onto 22nd Street. But only for one block or less, and they have to go slow. They're doing this on 14th Street in New York City, and it's working well.
But that won't work here, you say. Yes, people can turn onto 22nd from Market, but when they're done shopping and leave the parking lot, they'll have to go to Arch, and then they can only turn left.
But wait. The street is two-way for cars also. So a customer leaving the Trader Joe's lot can turn left or right and go to Market or Arch. Actually better options for egress than exist currently.
As for the Vine Street Expressway, the eastbound entrance and exit are largely unaffected by these changes. Drivers exiting would still have the option of turning on 23rd or proceeding on Winter. And if they're headed for Park Towne, they can do that because it's less than one block.
As for the westbound exit, drivers could still go to the Parkway and turn, or head up into Fairmount on 22nd. People would have to use the Parkway to access the westbound entrance - no more tromping up 22nd Street at 50 mph. Sorry for the inconvenience.
What does all this give us? The future. I'm not going to rehearse all the arguments in favor of a balanced transportation system, instead of the predominantly automotive system that we currently have. What I will say is that I think this setup would be pretty cool, and like the Schuylkill Banks and the bike lanes, the City could brag about it when they try to attract large corporations like Amazon. And I think it would be extremely popular with the people who live here. And pay taxes. And vote.
Will it happen? No. With Dilworth and Bacon in the saddle, I think we might have had a good shot at actually getting some of this stuff done. With this mayor, and this city council, and this streets department, I just don't see it.
Still, to paraphrase Senator McConnell, I will persist. Why? I am a member of the Vaclav Havel school of optimism. Here's what he said:
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." - Vaclav Havel
See also My Life in Fairmount Park, Transportation Should Not Trump Destination, Do We Secretly Want Ugly Cities and Dangerous Streets? Love Park Redesign: Why Are There Still Five Traffic Lanes on 16th Street? Put Traffic Lights on the Schuylkill Expressway.
Friday, May 1, 2020
The Impact on Children
All People Need Some Breathing Room
My three-year-old grandson lives with his parents in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. They're in a nice two-bedroom apartment in an old brownstone, and they're all doing pretty well.
But there have been some adjustments. My grandson is not seeing his little friends in preschool these days. Or his teachers either. There are five playgrounds that I know of within walking distance of the apartment. He's not going to any of them. They're closed.
The family can still go to Fort Greene Park. Prospect Park is a stretch, but they've done it.
And the coffee shops are closed. He likes coffee shops, and behaves very well in them. His grandmother and I love to take him to a coffee shop and buy him a cookie.
The world is becoming smaller for all of us. I think it's particularly hard for children. After all, one of the main jobs for a growing child is to grow, not shrink. This applies to the body, the mind, the child's world.
My grandson loves to go outside and move. Today, going outside and moving mainly involves the sidewalk in front of his house. As always, he needs to be careful of cars - Brooklyn drivers are notorious, and there are still quite a few of them around. And now he has to be careful about touching things. The coronavirus, you know.
He has fears. His parents try to help him deal with them, but they also need him to be careful. It's a balancing act.
Much of the country seems ready to rush blindly into a mass reopening of the economy, but my concern, in Philadelphia, is that we will err in the opposite direction.
Children and grownups do need to get outside and move. They need space to do this. And the city government in Philadelphia is unwilling to provide this space. In fact, I fear they will start closing open spaces, like the Schuylkill Banks, that are often swamped with visitors who basically have nowhere else to go.
Shutting down even further than we already have will, in my opinion, be counterproductive. Yes, it's not as bad as opening wide and letting the disease rip through the body politic.
But both of these options are, to my mind, symptoms of intellectual laziness. We need a balancing act, with constant monitoring and regular adjustments. More work for our leaders, who have other things to do - and I do think they're terrified that we will become the next New York. I share their fear.
There's a wonderful scene in Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. The prisoners are let out into the yard after a long period on lockdown. At first dazed, they slowly start to bloom like flowers. The music is amazing. (For the Prisoners' Chorus, click here.)
I think we're going to be living with this virus for a very long time. A year, two years - I don't think anybody knows. But my grandson may be five years old by the time this is all over. I want him to have a life between now and then.
 |
| Social distancing on the Schuylkill Banks. |
My three-year-old grandson lives with his parents in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. They're in a nice two-bedroom apartment in an old brownstone, and they're all doing pretty well.
But there have been some adjustments. My grandson is not seeing his little friends in preschool these days. Or his teachers either. There are five playgrounds that I know of within walking distance of the apartment. He's not going to any of them. They're closed.
The family can still go to Fort Greene Park. Prospect Park is a stretch, but they've done it.
And the coffee shops are closed. He likes coffee shops, and behaves very well in them. His grandmother and I love to take him to a coffee shop and buy him a cookie.
The world is becoming smaller for all of us. I think it's particularly hard for children. After all, one of the main jobs for a growing child is to grow, not shrink. This applies to the body, the mind, the child's world.
My grandson loves to go outside and move. Today, going outside and moving mainly involves the sidewalk in front of his house. As always, he needs to be careful of cars - Brooklyn drivers are notorious, and there are still quite a few of them around. And now he has to be careful about touching things. The coronavirus, you know.
He has fears. His parents try to help him deal with them, but they also need him to be careful. It's a balancing act.
Much of the country seems ready to rush blindly into a mass reopening of the economy, but my concern, in Philadelphia, is that we will err in the opposite direction.
Children and grownups do need to get outside and move. They need space to do this. And the city government in Philadelphia is unwilling to provide this space. In fact, I fear they will start closing open spaces, like the Schuylkill Banks, that are often swamped with visitors who basically have nowhere else to go.
Shutting down even further than we already have will, in my opinion, be counterproductive. Yes, it's not as bad as opening wide and letting the disease rip through the body politic.
But both of these options are, to my mind, symptoms of intellectual laziness. We need a balancing act, with constant monitoring and regular adjustments. More work for our leaders, who have other things to do - and I do think they're terrified that we will become the next New York. I share their fear.
There's a wonderful scene in Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. The prisoners are let out into the yard after a long period on lockdown. At first dazed, they slowly start to bloom like flowers. The music is amazing. (For the Prisoners' Chorus, click here.)
I think we're going to be living with this virus for a very long time. A year, two years - I don't think anybody knows. But my grandson may be five years old by the time this is all over. I want him to have a life between now and then.
Monday, April 27, 2020
What We Lost
Cars Did Not Invade a Vacuum
The streets are quieter now. A few days ago I fell into conversation with a bicyclist on Pine Street. An older man, possibly my age. He had just dismounted and was getting ready to take his bike into his house. It was a nice bike, and it was a nice house. He was wearing spandex and a helmet, and he'd just been on a ride to Norristown. I asked him how it had gone. He smiled. "They're not trying to kill you," he said. By "they," he meant the cars.
I like the quiet. You can speak on the street without having to raise your voice. We get used to things, and if the world was already that way before we came along, we assume it has always been that way. This is hardly ever true.
I think better when it's quiet. We've had cars for a little over a century. They just showed up and took over our streets, and I think most people today can't imagine streets that aren't dominated by cars.
There are noises I like. There's a school about a block from our house. I like the sound of the children playing in the schoolyard. They always sound so happy.
What I find wearing is the continuous, grinding hum of motor vehicles, punctuated by aggressively revving engines and the angry blare of horns. Some will say, well, it's a background hum. You learn to ignore it. I'm opposed to the concept of white noise, always filling the background. I'd rather hear the birds sing.
About the danger. I knew a fellow, years ago, when I was working at the New York City Planning Commission. He had written a bit about the South Bronx, including this line: "The streets vibrate with violence and fear." He was talking about the collapse of civilized society in a part of New York City.
Streets have always held their dangers. The Roman emperor Nero used to like to go out for a walk after dinner and beat up people he met in the streets, stabbing those who resisted and throwing their bodies into the sewers. He would also break into shops and loot them. (See Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy, 2015, p. 69.)
When the cars arrived, they brought something with them that was also new: massive death on our streets. Killing in these numbers had previously been seen mainly in wars and epidemics. And the drivers who did the killing were no more accountable than Mr. Nero.
The novel coronavirus has changed our lives temporarily, and I suspect in some ways permanently. Governor Cuomo of New York has suggested that we citizens take an active hand in shaping these changes while they are still malleable. He sees an opportunity to make our world better than it was before the pandemic came to visit.
I can think of a few changes I would like to see. Readers of this blog can probably guess what some of them would be.
But more broadly, I would like us to have a look at the history of cities before cars. You will find a lot of noise, by the way. And also a lot of filthy air. And you will find some good things that we should try to bring back in some form.
Take a look at the picture above. It's market day in the small Italian town of Luzzara, located near the Po River not terribly far from Mantua. The year is 1953, and yes, the people are poor.
And they have a gift to give us: a pedestrian street. What strikes me most in this picture is the freedom of human movement. There is nothing regimented here. Pedestrians are not marching down sidewalks like so many infantry soldiers, turning and crossing at the crosswalk, all on the command of a traffic signal. People here are behaving naturally, walking where they want, stopping and talking - even shopping. It is market day, after all.
Yes, Governor Cuomo, I want that back.
See also Jersey Homesteads; Small Streets Are Like Diamonds; Looking and Not Seeing, Listening and Not Hearing.
 |
| Market Day, Luzzara, Italy. Paul Strand, 1953. |
The streets are quieter now. A few days ago I fell into conversation with a bicyclist on Pine Street. An older man, possibly my age. He had just dismounted and was getting ready to take his bike into his house. It was a nice bike, and it was a nice house. He was wearing spandex and a helmet, and he'd just been on a ride to Norristown. I asked him how it had gone. He smiled. "They're not trying to kill you," he said. By "they," he meant the cars.
I like the quiet. You can speak on the street without having to raise your voice. We get used to things, and if the world was already that way before we came along, we assume it has always been that way. This is hardly ever true.
I think better when it's quiet. We've had cars for a little over a century. They just showed up and took over our streets, and I think most people today can't imagine streets that aren't dominated by cars.
There are noises I like. There's a school about a block from our house. I like the sound of the children playing in the schoolyard. They always sound so happy.
What I find wearing is the continuous, grinding hum of motor vehicles, punctuated by aggressively revving engines and the angry blare of horns. Some will say, well, it's a background hum. You learn to ignore it. I'm opposed to the concept of white noise, always filling the background. I'd rather hear the birds sing.
About the danger. I knew a fellow, years ago, when I was working at the New York City Planning Commission. He had written a bit about the South Bronx, including this line: "The streets vibrate with violence and fear." He was talking about the collapse of civilized society in a part of New York City.
Streets have always held their dangers. The Roman emperor Nero used to like to go out for a walk after dinner and beat up people he met in the streets, stabbing those who resisted and throwing their bodies into the sewers. He would also break into shops and loot them. (See Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy, 2015, p. 69.)
When the cars arrived, they brought something with them that was also new: massive death on our streets. Killing in these numbers had previously been seen mainly in wars and epidemics. And the drivers who did the killing were no more accountable than Mr. Nero.
The novel coronavirus has changed our lives temporarily, and I suspect in some ways permanently. Governor Cuomo of New York has suggested that we citizens take an active hand in shaping these changes while they are still malleable. He sees an opportunity to make our world better than it was before the pandemic came to visit.
I can think of a few changes I would like to see. Readers of this blog can probably guess what some of them would be.
But more broadly, I would like us to have a look at the history of cities before cars. You will find a lot of noise, by the way. And also a lot of filthy air. And you will find some good things that we should try to bring back in some form.
Take a look at the picture above. It's market day in the small Italian town of Luzzara, located near the Po River not terribly far from Mantua. The year is 1953, and yes, the people are poor.
And they have a gift to give us: a pedestrian street. What strikes me most in this picture is the freedom of human movement. There is nothing regimented here. Pedestrians are not marching down sidewalks like so many infantry soldiers, turning and crossing at the crosswalk, all on the command of a traffic signal. People here are behaving naturally, walking where they want, stopping and talking - even shopping. It is market day, after all.
Yes, Governor Cuomo, I want that back.
See also Jersey Homesteads; Small Streets Are Like Diamonds; Looking and Not Seeing, Listening and Not Hearing.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Void on Center
Ave, Caesar. Morituri te salutant.
You may have noticed that Greek and Roman temples have their front doors in the middle of the facade, or front wall. This has been called the void on center, and it is part of the larger system of symmetry in classical architecture.
The Roman architect Vitruvius, in Book III of his De Architectura, argued that buildings should be symmetrical, the same way the human body is symmetrical. And he describes a well-proportioned man (nature is not actually uniform, you know), lying on his back with his arms out. This is the source of Leonardo's famous drawing of the man in a circle and also in a square.
Symmetry has produced a lot of good buildings over the years - the front door of Notre Dame de Paris is smack in the middle of the facade, and that's just where I want it. Perhaps you feel the same way.
And then there was Philadelphia's own Frank Furness, who had a fondness for putting his doors at the corner, which if you stop to think about it, allows access from two streets instead of one.
But I digress. What I'd like to talk about today is the role of a void on center in large organizations. This is actually quite common, and it is not just a disease of government organizations. It is rampant in the business world.
On September 11, 2001, I was working for a large corporation in Philadelphia. Early on we switched the TV monitors in the elevator lobbies to the news. As we watched the towers in New York City collapse, we also started to watch our company collapse. The entire management chain seemed to have become invisible. And mute. We waited for instructions that never came. Eventually we decided to leave - we were in one of the tallest towers in the city, and an airliner on final approach to the airport could have diverted and hit us in about two minutes.
A friend and colleague was located on another floor, and I should have stopped by and told her I was leaving. But it simply never crossed my mind. I apologized later, and she forgave me. She said that, some time after I had left, an anonymous voice came over the loudspeaker and told everyone to go home. Pretty much everybody had already left.
It turns out that senior management couldn't decide whether to send everybody home. One executive was outspoken about what it would do to her production numbers. What they did decide to do was go to the company's emergency command center in New Jersey. Unfortunately, the bridges had already closed. So they dispersed, and then they found out that their cell phones were useless - jammed by the volume of calls.
This is the short version of the story.
During the last election, man-in-the-street interviews started quoting people saying, "I like Trump. He's a businessman. He'll know what to do." And that's when I knew in my heart that we were in grave danger.
See also Fascism, Jim Crow Was a Failed State, Narcissism and Dictatorship, What Can Pierre Laval Tell Us About Donald Trump?
You may have noticed that Greek and Roman temples have their front doors in the middle of the facade, or front wall. This has been called the void on center, and it is part of the larger system of symmetry in classical architecture.
The Roman architect Vitruvius, in Book III of his De Architectura, argued that buildings should be symmetrical, the same way the human body is symmetrical. And he describes a well-proportioned man (nature is not actually uniform, you know), lying on his back with his arms out. This is the source of Leonardo's famous drawing of the man in a circle and also in a square.
Symmetry has produced a lot of good buildings over the years - the front door of Notre Dame de Paris is smack in the middle of the facade, and that's just where I want it. Perhaps you feel the same way.
And then there was Philadelphia's own Frank Furness, who had a fondness for putting his doors at the corner, which if you stop to think about it, allows access from two streets instead of one.
But I digress. What I'd like to talk about today is the role of a void on center in large organizations. This is actually quite common, and it is not just a disease of government organizations. It is rampant in the business world.
On September 11, 2001, I was working for a large corporation in Philadelphia. Early on we switched the TV monitors in the elevator lobbies to the news. As we watched the towers in New York City collapse, we also started to watch our company collapse. The entire management chain seemed to have become invisible. And mute. We waited for instructions that never came. Eventually we decided to leave - we were in one of the tallest towers in the city, and an airliner on final approach to the airport could have diverted and hit us in about two minutes.
A friend and colleague was located on another floor, and I should have stopped by and told her I was leaving. But it simply never crossed my mind. I apologized later, and she forgave me. She said that, some time after I had left, an anonymous voice came over the loudspeaker and told everyone to go home. Pretty much everybody had already left.
It turns out that senior management couldn't decide whether to send everybody home. One executive was outspoken about what it would do to her production numbers. What they did decide to do was go to the company's emergency command center in New Jersey. Unfortunately, the bridges had already closed. So they dispersed, and then they found out that their cell phones were useless - jammed by the volume of calls.
This is the short version of the story.
During the last election, man-in-the-street interviews started quoting people saying, "I like Trump. He's a businessman. He'll know what to do." And that's when I knew in my heart that we were in grave danger.
See also Fascism, Jim Crow Was a Failed State, Narcissism and Dictatorship, What Can Pierre Laval Tell Us About Donald Trump?
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Make Walnut an Open Street
The Hamster Cage Should Come with a Wheel to Run On
Mayor Kenney recently said we may be staying at home until Labor Day. I've given this some thought, and I think he's probably right. The coronavirus is highly contagious, and people can carry it without having any symptoms. This is a really bad combination.
I personally think we won't be out of the woods until we have a vaccine. However, if we work really hard at developing and deploying tests for the virus and for its antibodies, and if we develop public health surveillance systems that are highly effective, I think we can start to open up a bit before the vaccine arrives - always, however, being on our guard.
I don't know about you, but I'm already tired of staying home. My wife and I have been at home for more than a month, and Labor Day would put us at 26 weeks, or six months.
I really look forward to our daily walks, and I think we need to recognize that our current regime is not nearly as restrictive as those in, for instance, France and Italy. For an idea of what things are like in a poor suburb of Paris, read this article.
If we're going to do this through the summer, I think we absolutely need to be able to get outdoors, and do it safely. I think we need more space, and I think we need better managed space.
I've been saying for a while that we need a lot more space, but I haven't said how much more space. Here you go.
The Hoop Skirt Theory
Social distancing currently requires maintaining six feet between yourself and other people you don't live with. This is up from three feet in the earlier days. And in normal times I think we can say your personal space on one of Philadelphia's small sidewalks is more like two feet. Frequently intruded upon.
Six feet might not sound like such a huge jump - only twice the earlier guidance, maybe three times your normal two feet. But let's have a look at the total area you're taking up. In your mind, draw a circle around yourself two feet from the center of your body - say somewhere around your esophagus.
Now calculate the area of the circle. I went back and dredged up some grammar school geometry. The area of a circle is pi (3.14) times the square of the radius (4). This comes to about 12.5 square feet.
What happens when the radius is 6 feet? It's about 113 square feet, or roughly ten times what you're used to. So we can jump ahead and say, as a general proposition, that we need about ten times more space than we've been accustomed to. This need is greatest in the places with small streets and small sidewalks, where there wasn't any wasted space to start with.
The sidewalk in front of my house is 11 feet 8 inches wide. The stoop is 28 inches deep. So continuous clearance is 9 feet 4 inches.
Imagine putting on a hoop skirt 12 feet in diameter and walking down my sidewalk. People are actually talking about hoop skirt social distancing online.
It might be fun for some computer whizz to develop a model of what social distancing actually looks like on our sidewalks. Since the six-foot circle is imaginary, two circles can overlap - you only need six feet of distance between people, unlike two people wearing our hoop skirts, who really would need twelve feet. And many of us are actually moving, often rather erratically as we stop to read our phones or look into the window of a closed store. I don't think a model of motor-vehicle traffic would do us justice.
Oakland and Friends
Other cities seem to have figured out that our current regime is not providing enough space. We, however, continue to shovel people onto the Schuylkill Banks and expect them to socially distance when there simply isn't enough space. Maybe give them a bigger pipe, or a second pipe. I've written about repurposing the outer lanes of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to provide another route to Kelly Drive and Martin Luther King Drive. I wouldn't move to enforcement until I'd provided adequate space.
As I said, other people seem to have figured out that social distancing requires a lot more space than is currently available, and they're moving to fix that. Oakland is repurposing 74 miles of city streets, allowing local motor-vehicle traffic only and creating shared public spaces where drivers must recognize the right of pedestrians and bicyclists to be in the street.
Oakland is in a class by itself, but other cities are also making significant moves. (For a story in the Guardian, click here. For a story in the Times, click here.)
And in Philly we're trying. The Bicycle Coalition and the Clean Air Council have sent a letter to the mayor, urging expansion of space for pedestrians and cyclists. Five members of City Council, including Council's president, co-signed the letter. And several community groups, including the Center City Residents' Association and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, have also sent letters to the mayor. (For a story in the Inquirer, click here.)
Walnut Street
Recently Inga Saffron of the Inquirer suggested adding Walnut Street to the list of streets that should be repurposed. I'm quite fond of this idea. As Inga reports, part of the 1300 block of Walnut has already been repurposed (see photos at the beginning and end of this story). The street space between 13th and Juniper is being used as part of a quarantine site that has been established at the Holiday Inn Express located on the north side of the block.
As Inga puts it, "Since buses and other traffic have to be diverted anyway, why not block off the rest of Walnut Street in Center City? It’s not like businesses are open. Turning Walnut into a place for joggers and cyclists could make central Philadelphia feel less desolate than it does now."
Will this happen? I have no idea.
See also Relieving Pressure on the Schuylkill Banks.
 |
| Walnut at 13th. |
Mayor Kenney recently said we may be staying at home until Labor Day. I've given this some thought, and I think he's probably right. The coronavirus is highly contagious, and people can carry it without having any symptoms. This is a really bad combination.
I personally think we won't be out of the woods until we have a vaccine. However, if we work really hard at developing and deploying tests for the virus and for its antibodies, and if we develop public health surveillance systems that are highly effective, I think we can start to open up a bit before the vaccine arrives - always, however, being on our guard.
I don't know about you, but I'm already tired of staying home. My wife and I have been at home for more than a month, and Labor Day would put us at 26 weeks, or six months.
I really look forward to our daily walks, and I think we need to recognize that our current regime is not nearly as restrictive as those in, for instance, France and Italy. For an idea of what things are like in a poor suburb of Paris, read this article.
If we're going to do this through the summer, I think we absolutely need to be able to get outdoors, and do it safely. I think we need more space, and I think we need better managed space.
I've been saying for a while that we need a lot more space, but I haven't said how much more space. Here you go.
The Hoop Skirt Theory
Social distancing currently requires maintaining six feet between yourself and other people you don't live with. This is up from three feet in the earlier days. And in normal times I think we can say your personal space on one of Philadelphia's small sidewalks is more like two feet. Frequently intruded upon.
Six feet might not sound like such a huge jump - only twice the earlier guidance, maybe three times your normal two feet. But let's have a look at the total area you're taking up. In your mind, draw a circle around yourself two feet from the center of your body - say somewhere around your esophagus.
Now calculate the area of the circle. I went back and dredged up some grammar school geometry. The area of a circle is pi (3.14) times the square of the radius (4). This comes to about 12.5 square feet.
What happens when the radius is 6 feet? It's about 113 square feet, or roughly ten times what you're used to. So we can jump ahead and say, as a general proposition, that we need about ten times more space than we've been accustomed to. This need is greatest in the places with small streets and small sidewalks, where there wasn't any wasted space to start with.
The sidewalk in front of my house is 11 feet 8 inches wide. The stoop is 28 inches deep. So continuous clearance is 9 feet 4 inches.
Imagine putting on a hoop skirt 12 feet in diameter and walking down my sidewalk. People are actually talking about hoop skirt social distancing online.
It might be fun for some computer whizz to develop a model of what social distancing actually looks like on our sidewalks. Since the six-foot circle is imaginary, two circles can overlap - you only need six feet of distance between people, unlike two people wearing our hoop skirts, who really would need twelve feet. And many of us are actually moving, often rather erratically as we stop to read our phones or look into the window of a closed store. I don't think a model of motor-vehicle traffic would do us justice.
Oakland and Friends
Other cities seem to have figured out that our current regime is not providing enough space. We, however, continue to shovel people onto the Schuylkill Banks and expect them to socially distance when there simply isn't enough space. Maybe give them a bigger pipe, or a second pipe. I've written about repurposing the outer lanes of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to provide another route to Kelly Drive and Martin Luther King Drive. I wouldn't move to enforcement until I'd provided adequate space.
As I said, other people seem to have figured out that social distancing requires a lot more space than is currently available, and they're moving to fix that. Oakland is repurposing 74 miles of city streets, allowing local motor-vehicle traffic only and creating shared public spaces where drivers must recognize the right of pedestrians and bicyclists to be in the street.
Oakland is in a class by itself, but other cities are also making significant moves. (For a story in the Guardian, click here. For a story in the Times, click here.)
And in Philly we're trying. The Bicycle Coalition and the Clean Air Council have sent a letter to the mayor, urging expansion of space for pedestrians and cyclists. Five members of City Council, including Council's president, co-signed the letter. And several community groups, including the Center City Residents' Association and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, have also sent letters to the mayor. (For a story in the Inquirer, click here.)
Walnut Street
Recently Inga Saffron of the Inquirer suggested adding Walnut Street to the list of streets that should be repurposed. I'm quite fond of this idea. As Inga reports, part of the 1300 block of Walnut has already been repurposed (see photos at the beginning and end of this story). The street space between 13th and Juniper is being used as part of a quarantine site that has been established at the Holiday Inn Express located on the north side of the block.
As Inga puts it, "Since buses and other traffic have to be diverted anyway, why not block off the rest of Walnut Street in Center City? It’s not like businesses are open. Turning Walnut into a place for joggers and cyclists could make central Philadelphia feel less desolate than it does now."
Will this happen? I have no idea.
 |
| Walnut at Juniper. |
See also Relieving Pressure on the Schuylkill Banks.
Friday, April 10, 2020
NYC's Numbers
Will We Go Where They Are?
I've been keeping an eye on New York City, partly because I'm from there and have family living there, and partly because I think its experience can provide a rough crosscheck for our government's predictions about the course of the pandemic.
New York City has about 3% of the U.S. population. (8.5 million in 2020 for New York City, 328.2 million in 2019 for the U.S. Actually 2.59%.) The government has projected between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths nationally. Let's look at the lower figure. If we have 100,000 deaths for 100% of the population, then arithmetic suggests that NYC, with 3% of the population, should have 3,000 deaths.
(On April 9, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, endorsed a new projection of 60,000 deaths from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The IHME forecasts 60,364 deaths by June 1, with a range of 31,220 to 126,543.)
Sadly, the 3,000 number for New York City has been passed, and is rapidly receding in the rearview mirror. The good news is that the death rate in NYC may have plateaued. But there's clearly a long way to go.
A simple projection like this assumes that the impact of the coronavirus will be uniform across the country. This is highly unlikely. Some communities will be hit less, and others more, than the average.
There are those who will say that NYC is atypical and that you can't project the city's experience on the nation. Governor Cuomo has even suggested that NYC's numbers are high because of population density. (He really means crowding. Density is the number of people in an apartment building. Crowding is the number of people in a room.)
I actually think that New York City's experience will be lower than many other places in the country. Why? Several reasons.
First, the state government is actually interested in governing, and even seems to be pretty good at it. On the other hand, several states have been distinctly laggard in issuing stay-at-home orders.
Second, the medical system in NYC is very good - much better than it is in many other parts of the country.
Third, the food distribution system appears to be holding up. This seems to be true across the nation. Spot shortages have been reported - either out of stock (empty shelves) or rationing (only two per customer, that sort of thing). And certainly there are shortages on non-food items such as cleaning supplies, However, basic supply seems to be there for food. Paying for it, of course, is another thing, and a lot of people are having trouble with that; but crowded food banks are not an indication of an overall supply problem. Instead they are a symptom of people not having money.
Fourth, the people in New York City seem by and large to be making a good-faith effort to comply with the new restrictions on their movement. Meanwhile, in other places, people are still going to church and the beach.
I should mention that all of New York City is currently under great stress, and breakdowns in any area are likely to cause breakdowns in other areas. Still, we have apparently not yet had any of the catastrophic breakdowns that can occur in a situation like this.
So I'm inclined to look at NYC's number as a lower bound, and I will be watching it, not just because I'm fond of the city, but also because I believe it can help the rest of us understand where we're headed.
I've been keeping an eye on New York City, partly because I'm from there and have family living there, and partly because I think its experience can provide a rough crosscheck for our government's predictions about the course of the pandemic.
New York City has about 3% of the U.S. population. (8.5 million in 2020 for New York City, 328.2 million in 2019 for the U.S. Actually 2.59%.) The government has projected between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths nationally. Let's look at the lower figure. If we have 100,000 deaths for 100% of the population, then arithmetic suggests that NYC, with 3% of the population, should have 3,000 deaths.
(On April 9, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, endorsed a new projection of 60,000 deaths from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The IHME forecasts 60,364 deaths by June 1, with a range of 31,220 to 126,543.)
Sadly, the 3,000 number for New York City has been passed, and is rapidly receding in the rearview mirror. The good news is that the death rate in NYC may have plateaued. But there's clearly a long way to go.
A simple projection like this assumes that the impact of the coronavirus will be uniform across the country. This is highly unlikely. Some communities will be hit less, and others more, than the average.
There are those who will say that NYC is atypical and that you can't project the city's experience on the nation. Governor Cuomo has even suggested that NYC's numbers are high because of population density. (He really means crowding. Density is the number of people in an apartment building. Crowding is the number of people in a room.)
I actually think that New York City's experience will be lower than many other places in the country. Why? Several reasons.
First, the state government is actually interested in governing, and even seems to be pretty good at it. On the other hand, several states have been distinctly laggard in issuing stay-at-home orders.
Second, the medical system in NYC is very good - much better than it is in many other parts of the country.
Third, the food distribution system appears to be holding up. This seems to be true across the nation. Spot shortages have been reported - either out of stock (empty shelves) or rationing (only two per customer, that sort of thing). And certainly there are shortages on non-food items such as cleaning supplies, However, basic supply seems to be there for food. Paying for it, of course, is another thing, and a lot of people are having trouble with that; but crowded food banks are not an indication of an overall supply problem. Instead they are a symptom of people not having money.
Fourth, the people in New York City seem by and large to be making a good-faith effort to comply with the new restrictions on their movement. Meanwhile, in other places, people are still going to church and the beach.
I should mention that all of New York City is currently under great stress, and breakdowns in any area are likely to cause breakdowns in other areas. Still, we have apparently not yet had any of the catastrophic breakdowns that can occur in a situation like this.
So I'm inclined to look at NYC's number as a lower bound, and I will be watching it, not just because I'm fond of the city, but also because I believe it can help the rest of us understand where we're headed.
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