'The 19-mile section of 695, from I-70 to White Marsh Blvd., will get a new lane, shifting the inside shoulder to a new travel lane in each direction'.
I 70 is Baltimore's BRIDGE TO NOWHERE ---an interstate that dead ends before entering Baltimore. If we look at today's ENERGY DEVELOPMENT-----we see a pathway for CRUDE OIL AND NATURAL GAS pipeline with I 70 and I 695 being that point those PIPELINES COME DOWNTOWN TO PORT OF BALTIMORE.
RED LINE light rail we say was never about PUBLIC TRANSIT---it was the continuation of this pipeline to PORT---using public transit as reason for EMINENT DOMAIN.
Envision the WIDENING of all INTERSTATE roads into Baltimore and we see what is preparing for CARGO carried by RAIL, TRUCK away from downtown Baltimore.
'wbal.com
Major Roadwork Coming to I-895 North Of The Harbor Tunnel
WBAL NewsRadio 1090/FM 101.5 - Traffic along I-895, the Harbor Tunnel…'
All these infrastructure plans were hatched in MASTER PLAN of 1980-90s.....CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
With $461M Plan, Hogan Pledges To Widen I-695, Lengthen I-95 Toll Lanes
By Pat WarrenDecember 19, 2017 at 3:08 pm
Filed Under:Governor Larry Hogan, Local TV
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Tired of Beltway traffic jams? There’s a new plan to ease the pain of a few of them.Governor Larry Hogan says a $461 million traffic relief plan will widen I-695 and lengthen the northbound I-95 Express Toll Lanes.
“The important traffic relief initiatives we are announcing today will benefit the daily lives of millions of drivers throughout the Baltimore region,” Hogan says.
The $461 million will be divided to add a lane on 695, redesign the triple bridges, and extend the 95 north toll lane.
The 19-mile section of 695, from I-70 to White Marsh Blvd., will get a new lane, shifting the inside shoulder to a new travel lane in each direction.
The “triple bridges,” 695, and 70 interchange will be reconfigured to ease bottlenecks in six trouble spots.
The toll road extension into Harford County gives drivers a speedier option.
“These exciting new projects are the latest addition to our administration’s ongoing and continued efforts to transform transportation infrastructure in and around Baltimore. With the new investments being announced today, our administration has invested a total of $7 billion for new transportation projects in the Baltimore region.”
The express toll lane expansion, for 7.75 miles from north of MD 43 in Baltimore County to MD 24 in Harford County, is expected to cost $210 million.
Of course, there will be construction to contend with, and that’s expected to start next summer.
Funding for the projects comes largely from gas tax revenue.
_____________________________________________
Here are the same FAKE NEWS surrounding RAIL TUNNELS-----these in West Baltimore as too in East and Central Baltimore are not being done for PUBLIC TRAINS---LIGHT RAIL OR MARC. They are being done for oil and natural gas pipeline and CARGO TRAIN RAIL.
When a COMMUNITY JUSTICE NGO allows this to sound like a public interest rail project as below-----they are not being REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. We must be fighting the development at the PORT OF BALTIMORE to be fighting for actual protection of BALTIMORE COMMUNITIES----whether EAST, CENTRAL, WEST, SOUTH, OR NORTH.
This project in WEST BALTIMORE with rail and tunnels is tied to the PORT COVINGTON/UNDERARMOUR global corporate campus and the GLOBAL FACTORIES that will take all of West Baltimore ----no communities need apply.
'disrupt Amtrak and MARC passengers'
WHAT KIND OF TRANSPORTATION IS NEEDED IN A PORT OF BALTIMORE WATERFRONT EXTREMELY INDUSTRIALIZED?
Certainly not SCOOTERS AND BIKES------
This article makes clear Baltimore Public Health has all the DATA on how much HARM all this pollution and toxicity will do on citizens living in Baltimore MOVING FORWARD....The future if we continue is only a few decades away.
The Clean Water Blog
We All Live Downstream
Train Tunnels through West Baltimore
Civic Engagement and Elections
Maryland
August 18, 2017
By Jennifer Kunze - Maryland Program Organizer
On Wednesday, the Baltimore City Council held an investigational hearing on the proposed B&P Tunnel expansion through West Baltimore. For the past few years, the Federal Railway Administration tasked Amtrak, MDOT, and Baltimore DOT with finding a solution to the constraints of the existing B&P Tunnel underneath West Baltimore: its narrowness and disrepair slow down and sometimes disrupt Amtrak and MARC passengers traveling betwen Baltimore and DC. But residents of the neighborhoods above the proposed new tunnel have been sounding the alarm, concerned that the proposal could concentrate air emissions, construction contamination, and even hazardous freight underneath their homes. Clean Water Action showed up to testify alongside RATT (Residents Against the Tunnels) before the City Council about air quality concerns related to the project - read our testimony below.
August 16, 2017
Dear members of the Land Use and Transportation Committee,
Hello. My name is Jennifer Kunze, and I’m the Maryland Program Organizer for Clean Water Action, a grassroots environmental nonprofit with over 8,000 members within Baltimore City. I'm here to express concerns about the B&P Tunnel expansion and its potential environmental, safety, and health impacts. Improved public transit and regional rail service are certainly important public goods, but these must be considered alongside the negative impacts of this project on communities in West Baltimore already facing significant barriers to racial, economic, and environmental justice.
THESE RAIL PROJECTS ARE NOT TIED TO ANY PUBLIC TRANSIT GOOD------THESE PROJECTS ARE ABOUT LAYING PIPELINE AND BUILDING CARGO RAIL LINES SUPER-SIZED FOR MULTI-LAYER TRAVEL.
Although this project is proposed as a means of improving passenger rail service, these improvements would also open up our section of the Northeast Corridor to freight. According to the Final Environmental Impact Statement, the current B&P tunnel is used by regional and Acela rail passenger trains, MARC trains, and only two local Norfolk Southern freight shipments per day, typically including vegetable oil, plastic pellets, paper, lumber, and produce. However, that is not typical of the North-East Corridor as a whole, of which the B&P Tunnel is a part. Norfolk Southern and CSX have rights to operate on the whole North-East Corridor under the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, but according to the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, “While these agreements guarantee private rail freight companies access to the NEC, these rail freight companies have other route options around Baltimore that make the B&P Tunnel route less attractive as a major through route across or around the city.” But expanding the tunnel from two to four tracks and raising its height to accommodate double-stacked freight are exactly what could make the tunnel more attractive for through shipments of freight.
Regional planning documents name this as one motive for expanding the B&P Tunnel. Following the 2001 Howard Street Tunnel fire, the Federal Railway Administration commissioned comprehensive assessments of our city's rail capacity. The 2011 report, “Baltimore's Railway Network: Analysis and Recommendations,” states that “the conditions in the [existing] B&P Tunnel—as well as its criticality to the protection of a reliable passenger service—preclude its expanded use for most freight and constrain the flow of commerce to and through the Baltimore region.” In 2013, the North-East Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission developed a report on the need to enhance the Corridor as a high performance rail corridor for the whole region. The report identifies the existing B&P Tunnel as a “major capacity bottleneck for both passenger and freight trains,” and it identifies that one goal of redeveloping the B&P Tunnel is to “enhance freight access.” With this enhanced access and the trackage rights that Norfolk Southern and CSX already hold, shipments of all kinds of freight could begin with no process for public notification or input.
The most gripping concern related to freight is, of course, hazardous shipments. As you know, Clean Water Action has been concerned about shipments of extremely volatile crude oil through Baltimore since 2014, when a proposal emerged to build a new crude oil train terminal in Fairfield. By engaging in MDE's permitting process for this terminal, Baltimore residents were able to prevent that terminal from shipping crude oil, stopping a tremendous increase in crude oil train shipments traveling through South Baltimore and the rest of Maryland. But Baltimore would have no similar power to affect what travels through the B&P Tunnel. Local governments have no authority to regulate freight shipments through their jurisdiction, only the power to regulate terminals and other land uses. Once the tunnel's capacity is expanded and made attractive to freight shipments, Baltimore City would have no ability to regulate what hazardous freight is shipped through, including crude oil, chlorine gas, nuclear waste, and other hazards. We must be proactive about these risks at this stage of the process before it’s too late.
Even non-hazardous freight poses a threat to local air quality. Amtrak trains operate with electric locomotives, and MARC trains currently operate with electric-diesel hybrids, but MARC plans to transition its fleet to all-diesel locomotives. Diesel engines emit nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and other pollution known to contribute to asthma, respiratory and cardiovascular illness, and premature death. The B&P Tunnel team conducted modeling of the anticipated air quality impacts of increased MARC train service in the B&P tunnel with the more-polluting diesel locomotives, and found that changes in MARC train service will cause a net increase in carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter pollution in the neighborhoods surrounding the B&P tunnel route, but that this increase would not surpass federal air quality thresholds. However, freight rail shipments also operate on all-diesel locomotives, so an increase in freight train shipments through the tunnel would cause an increase in diesel emissions in the surrounding areas. The projected air pollution models assumed that in 2040, only two freight trains per day would travel through the tunnel, and did not account for the impacts of any increased freight. This is a significant oversight and we urge the Council to carefully consider the potential impact of various scenarios for increased freight shipments through the B&P Tunnel on air quality – not only for the communities immediately surrounding the proposed B&P Tunnel route, but also on the communities of East and Southwest Baltimore along the Northeast Corridor that would also receive the air quality impacts of freight shipments through that corridor.
We also must pay particular attention to where these air quality and public safety impacts would occur: in low-income and minority communities in East, West, and Southwest Baltimore that have suffered the impacts of redlining, other racially-based housing policies, industrial pollution, highway construction, and other cumulative impacts. According to the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, residents of the neighborhoods nearest the proposed B&P Tunnel route have a life expectancy as much as 15 years shorter than residents of the city's wealthier neighborhoods. It’s incumbent on Baltimore City to do due diligence to ensure this project does not add to the historic and ongoing racial, housing, economic, and environmental injustices faced by the affected neighborhoods. We urge the Council to continue taking community input and carefully consider the environmental and human health impacts of this project. Thank you.
____________________________________
It is because Baltimore is controlled by global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS---KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH definitely NOT---ALL-AMERICAN that Baltimore is losing its MANAGEABLE port used over centuries and is being made to be a SUPER-DUPER CARGO SHIP port-----beyond its means.
Here we see the super-duper cargo ship tied and bound as our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE should be doing to MOVING FORWARD PORT OF BALTIMORE policies-------
Looks like sovereign citizens ---the LILLIPUTIANS have their PUBLIC MILITIA on alert against FOREIGN INVADERS wanting to make THE US a colonial FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE.
All the current transit development in GREATER BALTIMORE and PORT---are driven by a FALSE NEED of being a SUPER-DUPER CARGO SHIP PORT.
'Cinema ModeOff
Gulliver's Travels - Trailer #1 from Gulliver's Travels (2010)Shipwrecked travel writer Lemuel Gulliver (Black) finds himself transported to an island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle, where he's a giant among the natives, the Lilliputians. Initially taken prisoner, Gulliver becomes a favorite of the court and schemes for a way in which the Lilliputians can outwith their rivals, the Blefuscudians'.
We will only mention again what we shout in DETAIL------there is no plan for JOBS AT THE PORT OF BALTIMORE. The goal of MOVING FORWARD is a COMPLETELY ROBOTIC/ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE operation of US PORTS deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Overseas FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES have indeed been working to install just that. This has happened completely here in US because we have 350 million people expecting their government to EMPLOY THEM. This is why global banking 1% has the US FED and FAKE NEWS media claiming the US has FULL EMPLOYMENT and low INFLATION---all FAKE NEWS.
Supposedly, with all this FULL EMPLOYMENT it won't matter that PORT OF BALTIMORE expects to be FULLY AUTOMATED. Where are people in Baltimore employed? Mostly being BLACK MARKET CRIMINAL NOSY NEIGHBORS AND THE GANG ----making illegal surveillance PORN of all 99% of BALTIMORE CITIZENS black, white, and brown and new to BALTIMORE WORKERS.
HITTING PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE ALL THESE MOVING FORWARD TO COLONIALISM PLANS-----IS BALTIMORE'S TOP EMPLOYER
US labor union 5% freemason/Greek player leaders KNOW the goals are NO JOBS---any jobs will be global labor pool wages from overseas. Overseas FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES have already installed all this DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY which MOVING FORWARD OBAMA ---now TRUMP is working hard to do here in US.
Techports
U.S. Ports Take Baby Steps in Automation as Rest of the World Sprints
By
Clay Dillow
and
Brooks RainwaterJanuary 30, 2018
At the Port of Los Angeles’s TraPac terminal, a series of massive cranes effortlessly hoist a steady stream of brightly-colored container boxes—some weighing up to five tons—from the decks of newly-arrived container ships, depositing them dockside. From here, the robots take over.
Automated cargo-haulers towering four-stories high glide among the waiting boxes, straddling and lifting them before wheeling them to the nearby “stacks.” Here the boxes are passed off to another massive robot—an automated stacking crane—that arranges them into meticulous stacks. When it comes time for a specific box to continue its journey inland, those same robotic cranes will find it and load it onto a waiting truck--no human operator necessary.
TraPac terminal—along with a terminal at the nearby Port of Long Beach—is among the first U.S. ports experimenting with robots, artificial intelligence, and other digital tools to choreograph the complicated dance that keeps goods flowing into and out of major U.S. ports. The technology—though not without its critics—is widely seen as the most efficient way for seaports to cope with rising global shipping traffic and massive new ships that haul more and more containers. By digitizing and automating activities once handled by human crane operators and cargo haulers, seaports can reduce the amount of time ships sit in port and otherwise boost port productivity by up to 30% by some estimates.
The automated facilities at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—two of the nation’s busiest—are important proving grounds for technologies that have firmly taken root in European and Asian seaports but remains a relative rarity in the U.S. Only four U.S. seaport terminals currently use the technology. The other two, in Virginia and New Jersey, were the first in the U.S. to implement dockside automation. But while some of the world’s largest container ships make calls at East Coast docks, they rarely unload all of their cargo at a single port as they do on the West Coast.
That means West Coast shipping terminals are likely to automate faster than their East Coast counterparts, placing the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach at the front of a wave of automation needed to bring U.S. shipping logistics up to speed.
Doing so is not as easy as taking one facility’s automated systems and grafting them onto the next terminal, Port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka says. “You’ve got probably 190 or 200 ports in the United States, you’ve got 25 ports of national significance as classified by the Army Corp of Engineers. Each one is different. Once you’ve seen one port, you’ve still only seen one port.”
Still, there are common components at every seaport where automation can make the work more efficient. Every seaport needs cranes to load and unload cargo, for instance, as well as a means of moving containers around the storage yard in an organized fashion so that specific boxes can be located at the specific time they are needed. These kinds of coordinating, organizing, and choreographing tasks are more efficiently handled by machines than by humans. It doesn’t hurt that robots and algorithms don’t require breaks, weekends, or health insurance.
For terminal operators, automation isn’t just about handling more cargo. Automated systems also allow seaports to boost the efficiency of one of their most limiting, finite resources: space. With only so much waterfront property to go around and the volume of cargo rising, seaports face a dwindling amount of real estate in which containers can be stacked and stored, even if only for a few hours.
“The real opportunity is densification,” says Dr. Asaf Ashar, an emeritus research professor at the University of New Orleans’ National Ports & Waterways Institute and an independent consultant for the shipping and transportation industries. “You can use existing land more efficiently.”
But automating seaports is also wildly expensive. The process doesn’t consist of any single thing, but a continuum of digital technologies, software systems, and robotic hardware.
Deploying automation to any given port terminal can cost more than $2 million per acre, Seroka says. Upgrades to the Port of Long Beach’s automated terminal will cost in excess of $1.3 billion by the time the technology is all in place in over two years.
Automating the 210-acre TraPac terminal at the Port of Los Angeles will likewise cost more than $1 billion in public and private funds, and it’s not exactly clear when or if that investment will pay off. APM Terminals, a part of Dutch shipping giant A.P. Moeller-Maersk, told the Wall Street Journal that its automated terminal in Rotterdam—where terminals have embraced various levels of automation going back to the 1990s--has paid dividends, requiring just half the human labor that its conventional terminal at the same port requires. But when the same company opened the first semi-automated port in North America in Virginia in 2007, similar returns didn’t immediately materialize (APM Terminals has since sold the facility).
The high costs and shaky record of returns—not to mention pushback from labor unions intent on preserving seaport jobs--have left stakeholders in other U.S. ports leery of going all-in on dockside automation, allowing ports in Europe and Asia to become models of modern logistics. That in turn makes the experiments at Long Beach and Los Angeles all the more critical. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the No. 1 and No. 2 for container volume in the United States, respectively. In 2015, a total of 8.16 million TEU—the equivalent of 20-foot containers—moved into Los Angeles, while another 7.19 million TEU came through Long Beach, according to the World Shipping Council.
“Automation is a business decision and it really has to pencil out before any further work is pursued,” LA’s Seroka says. Making the math “pencil out” should grow easier as other digital technologies—artificial intelligence and big data analytics among them—are further integrated into the seaport enterprise as well. A pilot program currently underway at the Port of Los Angeles with GE—known as the Port Information Portal—digitizes maritime data and will ultimately create a computer dashboard that provides a window into the entire port supply chain. The test was recently extended to run for three years—a testament to the support the technology has garnered at the port, including from organized labor.
“With respect to digital technology, for cents on the dollar we can expand this port capacity,” Seroka says. “We can do it quicker than waiting for the current administration to work out an infrastructure plan, utilizing the land that is within inside our four fences, almost immediately.”
_____________________________________________
Tomorrow we will look at what a SUPER-DUPER GLOBAL CARGO SHIP/GLOBAL FACTORY port needs as regards TRANSPORTATION-----and guess what-------------it will not be SCOOTERS----it will not be GREEN -----it will not be WALKABLE.
What global banking 1% is telling those far-right wing 5% freemason/Greek players to say to our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new to US immigrants is this-------MARKET-BASED PARKING.
CORPORATIONS WILL DECIDE WHAT PUBLIC PARKING IS NEEDED IN DOWNTOWN PORT AREA.
In Baltimore most HARBOR buildings are HOTELS/RESTAURANTS--------and high-rise residential. We have shouted for a decade that these HARBOR HOTELS ET AL are being SUBSIDIZED----they are not profitable ------they would not be here if not to secure REAL ESTATE ON HARBOR ---and not necessarily for restaurants or hotels. Today's harbor businesses are not tomorrows----and the owners are glad to say----
WE DON'T NEED PUBLIC SIDEWALKS, PUBLIC CURBS, PUBLIC STREETS----WE ALREADY PRIVATIZED PUBLIC PARKING DECKS/LOTS.
'The reform, known locally as “market based parking,” allows developers and business owners to decide how much parking they need at their buildings, rather than conform to an arbitrary number imposed by city law'.
When the goal is to MOVE OUT hundreds of thousands of Baltimore citizens from communities having historically been high-residential-----global banking 1% simply makes moving around hard to impossible. We see that already as private global bus transit is not required to meet AMERICANS WITH DISABILITY WHEEL CHAIR ACCESS. This is the first population group to be affected to include SENIORS with aging mobility problems.
'which will help us be greener, healthier and a more walkable Houston,” City Councilmember Karla Cisneros said'.
Below we see CISNEROS-----great big raging far-right wing global banking CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL whose relative is now HOUSTON CITY COUNCIL-----pretending to want GREEN STREETS/WALKABLE CORPORATE CAMPUSES -----in what are slated to be HIGHLY INDUSTRIAL ZONES.
CISNEROS WAS CLINTON'S HOUSING AUTHORITY WHICH ALLOWED PUBLIC HOUSING TO BE DEFUNDED AND BECOME DANGEROUS/DECAY.
'Henry Cisneros - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cisneros
Henry Gabriel Cisneros is an American politician and businessman. He served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, from 1981 to 1989, the second Latino mayor of a major American city and the city's first since 1842. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. As HUD Secretary, Cisneros was credited with initiating the revitalization of many public housing developments and with formulating polic'
Each US CITY has a CHARTER/CODES requiring public streets, public sidewalks, public access to all of downtown-------that is what ROLLING BACK PARKING REQUIREMENTS is trying to END.
'rather than conform to an arbitrary number imposed by city law'.
I'm a WINNER say our US citizens with all those SMART PHONE APPS-----needed just to pay for a PARKING METER. What happens when those APPS disappear---how do these people PARK? Global banking 1% will have something else designated for PARKING USE keeping those APP PARKERS at bay.
Houston Rolling Back Parking Requirements
Houston took a step toward becoming an “increasingly urban city” this week when lawmakers put the kibosh on minimum parking requirements in two center-city neighborhoods.
The reform, known locally as “market based parking,” allows developers and business owners to decide how much parking they need at their buildings, rather than conform to an arbitrary number imposed by city law.
The change “will lead to better streetscapes in this transition period of becoming an increasingly urban city, which will help us be greener, healthier and a more walkable Houston,” City Councilmember Karla Cisneros said.
Part of Midtown and Downtown East will be exempt from the city’s minimum parking requirements under the zoning code. The rest of the city, excluding downtown, must construct for example, 1.66 parking spaces for every two-bedroom apartment or 10 spaces per 1,000 square feet of restaurant space.
A lot of research shows these arbitrary parking minimums are poor predictors of actual parking use. Furthermore, they act as a backdoor subsidy for drivers by hiding the cost of parking in rents and restaurant bills.
In neighborhoods like Downtown East and Midtown they also drive up the price of housing, while making traveling by foot and transit harder and less practical. Combined, these two neighborhoods have about 10,000 residents and excellent transit access. And with relaxed parking requirements, there is room for more residential development in the kind of accessible urban setting that Houston has only in limited supply right now.
According to Leah Binkovitz at Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, the zoning exemption measure passed with support from the local business community. Only one council member voted against the bill: Greg Travis, who remarked “Walk for two blocks? It’s not going to happen.”
Jay Crossley, a long-time Texas smart growth leader and head of the nonprofit group Farm and City “It’s a good step.”
But he added “It’s too bad the city will continue to impose car storage mandates for the rest of the city.”
But Margaret Wallace Brown, the city’s planning department director, said on Twitter it was a “first step toward moving toward a context sensitive parking regulation system.” So further reforms may be forthcoming.
Lots of cities have been rolling back or eliminating minimum parking requirements lately, including Buffalo and Minneapolis.
_______________________________________________
Here we have MARKET URBANISM REPORT telling us in 2019 ---last month what we have shouted for over a decade---we have known these goals to end PUBLIC STREETS/PUBLIC SIDEWALKS, PUBLIC CURBS in US downtown development.
Does it help to explain this a decade after public policies have opened the door to these FUN TRANSPORTATION PATENTED PRODUCTS? It is not PRO-ACTIVE----it is reactive and this media outlet MARKET URBANISM is global banking media made to look POPULIST.
BIKE LANES BEING BUILT INTO DOWNTOWN SOLD AS GREEN/HEALTHY ARE SIMPLY BLOCKING STREET PARKING SPACES ON ONE SIDE OF STREET. WHAT IS TODAY BOTH PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL WILL BE TOMORROW MINUS THE PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL.
So, after all US city CHARTERS AND CODES have been passed allowing all these PRIVATE TRANSPORT corporations to take our curbs, streets, and sidewalks-----we hear FAKE NEWS media letting us know this happened.
We take a lot of JOKES for writing against SCOOTER/BIKE policy as REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES would support these 'goals'. CITIZENS' OVERSIGHT MARYLAND IS AGAINST SCOOTERS say THE NETWORK.
We are against a FAKE ECONOMY that will disappear in a decade or so leaving all PUBLIC TRANSIT SPACE privatized and gone.
When a small town government official makes jokes about scooters being entertaining---let's bring scooters to small town US----that goal of ending PUBLIC SPACE is being exported to our RURAL TOWNS in US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
These are NOT INNOCENT small businesses-----they are global corporations wanting our PUBLIC STREETS, SIDEWALKS, CURBS.
Op-Ed: Are scooters a transit solution or a Trojan Horse for big tech to colonize our public spaces?
By John Tinnell
July 19, 2019
3:15 AM
Summer is here and the electronic hum of scooters is filling city sidewalks all over the world. From L.A. to D.C., many American downtowns have hit their one-year anniversary with scooters, and European capitals have begun to allow them.
The benefit is obvious: Scooters provide on-demand, affordable mobility to any able-bodied smartphone user. As the vehicle’s fan base grows, however, so do the frustrations that provoke other urbanites to detest them — abandoned scooters left on walkways and even scooter-pedestrian collisions. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo says escalating tensions are leading to “anarchy” on her city’s boulevards and footpaths. And an even bigger issue looms over arguments for and against this revamped child’s toy. Scooters may well be the Trojan Horse with which big tech colonizes the world’s public space.
Scooters (and dockless e-bikes) inhabit cities like few other consumer products ever have. Through location-tracking and app-based transactions, scooter barons oversee their business from a distance while storing their entire inventories on our streets and sidewalks for next to nothing. When in use, scooters generate revenue for Bird, Lime or some other “micro-mobility” company. When not in use, they just sit there, wherever there happens to be: a bike lane, a doorway, a neighbor’s front yard. Citizens have no lawful recourse, leading some to resort to micro-vandalism.
BIKE LANES BEING BUILT INTO DOWNTOWN SOLD AS GREEN/HEALTHY ARE SIMPLY BLOCKING STREET PARKING SPACES ON ONE SIDE OF STREET. WHAT IS TODAY BOTH PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL WILL BE TOMORROW MINUS THE PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL.
Scooters’ success in spite of the persistent backlash is a warning about whether tech can succeed in leveraging public space. A playbook seems to be taking shape. First, identify a point of friction in urban life (such as “the last-mile problem” in public transportation). Next, develop a profitable solution and deploy it in cities and ask for permission later. When people howl, let your early adopters fight the battle for you — use them as a shield whenever critics speak ill of your business model. Finally, push aggressive expansion while voicing support for sensible regulations that are essentially unenforceable.
Like Uber and Airbnb before them, scooter companies aim to satisfy their customers with little regard for how their businesses affect our cities’ ecosystems. All three services tamper with neighborhood norms in ways that are annoying at first and deeply disturbing upon further inspection. Via Airbnb, for instance, a quaint bungalow surrounded by family homes suddenly becomes a bachelor party pad replete with fresh groups of drunken idiots each weekend. Annoying. But what’s far more worrisome is recent data indicating that Airbnb is worsening the housing crisis in cities like Los Angeles and New Orleans. Landlords love Airbnb: Why lease a place to lower-income tenants for $900 a month when you can earn double by renting it out here and there to well-off tourists? When residential units are converted into the equivalent of chic motels, the pool of long-term housing decreases and rental prices rise.
As for Uber and other ride-sharing apps, originally framed as a solution to urban congestion, they are instead putting more cars on the road, making traffic worse. A San Francisco study found that bumper-to-bumper delays soared 62% from 2010 to 2016, and roughly half of this increase was caused by ride-sharing vehicles. Very few riders are choosing to share trips with other passengers and rates of car ownership in the city remain steady. The big loser has been public transit, particularly buses, whose ridership has decreased nearly 13% — a drop that presents grave challenges to a service that is both more affordable and energy efficient than Uber’s fleet of vehicles.
Now, as big tech monetizes curbs and doorways and sidewalks, we’re seeing the marginalization of non-motorists who, by choice or necessity, traverse the city on their own power. Scooters at rest and in motion create barriers for parents with strollers, frail elderly pedestrians and especially the disabled. It is perturbing for a jogger or cyclist to come upon an abandoned scooter blocking their path. That this happens regularly to wheelchair users and the visually impaired is unconscionable. Decades of activism and legal battles to secure ADA accommodations in the built environment are being causally brushed aside in the name of enhancing mobility for those who can easily walk.
Granted, it’s early days for scooters; perhaps a solution will emerge. But soon it won’t just be scooters anymore. In Amazon’s office parks and Google’s test towns, drone services are being readied to pick up and drop off items at a slab of concrete near you. Even Georgia Tech’s library is using drones to fly books around campus to students too busy to swing by the stacks. Eight states have recently passed legislation that will allow delivery robots to roam the sidewalks. Meanwhile, wannabe Zuckerbergs that no one yet knows about are learning from scooters and dreaming up the next big thing they can plop all over the place.
The scooter experiment proves how difficult it is to establish a retroactive ban after some residents have already fallen in love with a new disruptive gadget. Absent better laws anticipating the takeover, the next battles, too, are likely to be lost on Day 1.
_________________________________________
Here is what we called CORPORATE EDUCATION -----providing global corporations with FAKE DATA---FAKE NEWS regarding the goals of these MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE policies-----pretending they are GREEN----pretending they are PUBLIC HEALTH----pretending our US 99% ----or even those global banking 5% freemason/Greek players will be part of what is MOVING FORWARD PORT DEVELOPMENT tied to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Kinder Institute at RICE is a raging global hedge fund corporation ---it is not a political think tank and not POPULIST---or caring about PEOPLE.
'The Port of Houston is a cooperative entity consisting of both the port authority, which operates the major terminals along the Houston Ship Channel, and more than 150 private companies situated along Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay.[3] Many petroleum corporations have built refineries along the channel where they are partially protected from the threat of major storms in the Gulf of Mexico. The petrochemical complex associated with the Port of Houston is one of the largest in the world'
'Galveston Bay Haunted by Toxic Chemicals, Industrial Waste
environmenttexas.org/news/txe/galveston-bay...
In anticipation of Halloween, Environment Texas unveiled the Ten Scariest Facts about the Galveston Bay, showing that a terrifying concoction of toxic chemicals such as arsenic, industrial waste, and other pollutants have made Galveston Bay a ghost of its former self'.
We have the same here in Baltimore-------claiming this is GREEN/SUSTAINABLE/HEALTHY TRANSIT------and all that is FAKE.
It is not too late to STOP MOVING FORWARD---JUST DO IT. Global banking 5% freemason/Greek players/pols tied to HITTING ME------using illegal surveillance of my living space and making PORN of me-----making fun on public surveillance as I go about my ordinary activities-------want our US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE to think -------
THERE IS NO STOPPING THIS ---WHEN WE JUST NEED TO SHAKE OUR TAIL FEATHERS.
Kinder Institute will expand urban data work with $2.25M from Houston Endowment
Amy McCaig
– July 24, 2019Posted in: Current News
Thanks to renewed funding from Houston Endowment, Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research will be able to expand its data-driven work in the public, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. The new $2.25 million, three-year grant follows a previous Houston Endowment grant that supported several Kinder initiatives, including the Urban Data Platform (UDP).
“We are immensely grateful to Houston Endowment for its continued support of Rice and the Kinder Institute,” Rice President David Leebron said. “This renewed funding will allow the institute to continue its critical data-driven work to better understand the challenges that Houston and other cities are facing and create lasting solutions. Contributing to our home city and others in this way is central to Rice’s mission and its strategic plan, and we are extremely appreciative of this generous support.”
The Kinder Institute will use the grant to continue building on its essential data tools, which are the basis for its work. The funding will support the Houston Urban Data Project 2.0, which will leverage existing data infrastructure, including the UDP and Houston Community Data Connections (HCDC). The goals for the project include:
Aligning and enhancing the Kinder Institute’s urban and community data efforts.
Developing robust training and research support programs to support a larger user base.
Broadening awareness of data-driven research by expanding related communications and outreach efforts.
The HCDC Dashboard currently provides neighborhood-level indicators for 143 areas in Harris County. Since its launch in September 2017, it has had more than 9,000 users, nearly 16,000 site sessions and more than 45,000 page views. The team has also processed and completed almost 120 requests for data and research assistance since the program’s launch.
The UDP, a secure computing platform and data repository, provides access to more than 200 curated research-ready datasets about Houston. Those who study the Houston region can share their data by publishing it with the UDP. To date, the UDP supports 400 users who have accessed the system and website approximately 6,000 times and downloaded data 650 times since the launch in spring 2018.
Over the next three years, the Kinder Institute will focus on two broad categories through two initiatives: Building Better Cities (with an emphasis on government efficiency and critical urban systems) and Building Better Lives (with an emphasis on quality of life and addressing urban disparity among urban residents, especially in Houston).
“The UDP and HCDC have laid the foundation for a shift in how data is used and decisions are made in the public, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, and this funding will allow the Kinder Institute to build on this work,” said Bill Fulton, director of the institute. “This project will help drive effective, data-driven decision-making for the region and will make the Kinder Institute the data hub for the entire region and a model for other cities around the world.”
“At Houston Endowment, our vision is a vibrant region where all have the opportunity to thrive,” said Ann B. Stern, president and CEO of Houston Endowment.
“We believe that making good data available to the public leads to better-informed decision-making on the part of our public officials and allows residents to more effectively advocate for their communities’ needs. This is why the UDP and HCDC are so important for the future of our region.”
Established in 2010, the Kinder Institute is a “think and do” tank that advances understanding of the challenges facing Houston and other urban centers through research, policy analysis, public outreach and collaboration with civic and political leaders.
Houston Endowment is a private philanthropic institution that works across the community for the benefit of the people of greater Houston. With assets of over $1.8 billion, the foundation provides approximately $70 million in funding each year in order to enhance civic assets, strengthen systems that support residents, promote post-secondary success, and build a stronger region. Established by Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones in 1937, Houston Endowment has a rich legacy of addressing some of greater Houston’s most compelling needs. Today the foundation continues efforts to create a vibrant community where all have the opportunity to thrive.
____________________________
It would be absolutely CRAZY to subject the population numbers of people here in Baltimore to what MOVING FORWARD PORT OF BALTIMORE as export terminals for crude oil and natural gas has in store---this is why Baltimore has FAKE MEDIA --FAKE NON-PROFITS pretending all these POPULIST policies are REAL.
'Moving forward with a deal opponents contend was improperly struck, a City Council committee has approved a franchise giving Baltimore Gas & Electric the right to use a 2.2-mile-long natural gas pipeline across Leakin Park'.
Here is the most recent example of Baltimore City council/Mayor passing those GORILLA IN ROOM policies for PIPELINE while FAKE LEFT NGOs are pretending and placing focus on GREEN, FUN TRANSIT.
Environment
by Fern Shen
4:53 pm
Apr 26, 2019
Amid campaign contributions and Healthy Holly purchases by BGE and Exelon officials, pipeline bill advances
A City Council committee okays a Pugh administration franchise agreement that critics have called a sweetheart deal
Above: Councilman Kristerfer Burnett explains his “yes” vote on the franchise for BGE’s Granite Pipeline project, which has claimed nearly 800 trees in Leakin Park. (Fern Shen)
Moving forward with a deal opponents contend was improperly struck, a City Council committee has approved a franchise giving Baltimore Gas & Electric the right to use a 2.2-mile-long natural gas pipeline across Leakin Park.
Critics of the franchise made an impassioned plea before the vote, citing the deal’s possible connection to Mayor Catherine Pugh’s unreported children’s book sales to entities that do business with the city and state.
“A board member of Exelon [BGE’s parent company] purchased a cache of Healthy Holly books,” said Sarah Lord, former president of the Baltimore City Forest Conservancy Board, at the hearing on Tuesday.
“And why is that?” she asked.
The opponents reiterated their contention that the project, which has claimed nearly 800 trees across a 50-foot swath through the park, was being grossly undervalued by the agreement proposed by the Pugh Administration.
The Department of Recreation and Parks originally valued the franchise agreement at $14 million, but the Pugh administration settled for one-tenth of that amount – $1.4 million, The Brew has reported.
“I find it appalling to hear that city government engages in transactions of this magnitude without independent analysis,” said Andy Hinz, one of about a dozen people in the audience for the bill.
BGE recently agreed to increase the franchise fee to $2 million. But with that amount still about one seventh what the Rec and Parks originally proposed, critics of the deal remain dissatisfied and have sued the city.
$32,000 to Pugh’s CampaignBrew reporting has documented the close relationship between Pugh and BGE and its corporate parent, Exelon.
BGE and its chief executive, Calvin G. Butler Jr., for example, were notable backers of her run for mayor.
More than $32,000 in contributions flowed from executives at BGE, Constellation and Exelon into Pugh’s campaign committee during and after the 2016 election.
This included $18,500 from 30 executives before the April 2016 Democratic Party primary where Pugh narrowly defeated Sheila Dixon.
In addition, a member of the Exelon board, John W. Rogers Jr., has been identified as paying $3,600 for 400 “Healthy Holly” books – or $9 per copy – plus $80 in shipping.
The purchase was made through Ariel Investments, a company based in Chicago that Rogers founded and serves as CEO.
In 2013, Ariel sponsored a black corporate directors conference in California.
Inviting Pugh to speak at the conference, the company handed out Healthy Holly books to participants.
The books were purchased through Baltimore’s Associated Black Charities.
Burnett: “I love the park”Before voting in favor of the bill, Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, whose West Baltimore district includes Leakin Park, said, “I love the park” and said he hoped his “yes” vote would not cause “any irreparable damage to the relationship with the park advocates.”
Along with Burnett, members of the Housing and Urban Affairs Committee voting “yes” on Council Bill 18-0298 were Chairman John Bullock and members Zeke Cohen, Bill Henry and Shannon Sneed.
Two other committee members, Ryan Dorsey and Isaac ” Yitzy” Schleifer, were not present.
ALL OF BALTIMORE'S NEW CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS VOTED 'YES'-----NOT VOTING IS A YES VOTE.
Asked for his reaction afterwards, a leader of the opposition sighed, saying the outcome was not a surprise, but was still “disappointing.”
“I thought we would at least get a few ‘no’ votes. But not a one,” said Jack Lattimore of the Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.
The franchise bill is expected to win final passage when it moves to the full Council for a vote this Monday.
“I guess the thing now is to just focus on the lawsuit,” Lattimore said, referring to the complaint he and two other group members filed in Baltimore Circuit Court earlier this month.
“This is not a rich city. This is money that could very much be used in other parks.”
Citing stark differences in estimates of the value of the parkland property, the suit asks for an independent appraisal of the nearly 20 acres permanently altered by BGE’s pipeline work.
“This is not a rich city,” Lord said in her remarks to committee. “This is money that could very much be used in other parks.”
I 70 is Baltimore's BRIDGE TO NOWHERE ---an interstate that dead ends before entering Baltimore. If we look at today's ENERGY DEVELOPMENT-----we see a pathway for CRUDE OIL AND NATURAL GAS pipeline with I 70 and I 695 being that point those PIPELINES COME DOWNTOWN TO PORT OF BALTIMORE.
RED LINE light rail we say was never about PUBLIC TRANSIT---it was the continuation of this pipeline to PORT---using public transit as reason for EMINENT DOMAIN.
Envision the WIDENING of all INTERSTATE roads into Baltimore and we see what is preparing for CARGO carried by RAIL, TRUCK away from downtown Baltimore.
'wbal.com
Major Roadwork Coming to I-895 North Of The Harbor Tunnel
WBAL NewsRadio 1090/FM 101.5 - Traffic along I-895, the Harbor Tunnel…'
All these infrastructure plans were hatched in MASTER PLAN of 1980-90s.....CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA.
With $461M Plan, Hogan Pledges To Widen I-695, Lengthen I-95 Toll Lanes
By Pat WarrenDecember 19, 2017 at 3:08 pm
Filed Under:Governor Larry Hogan, Local TV
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Tired of Beltway traffic jams? There’s a new plan to ease the pain of a few of them.Governor Larry Hogan says a $461 million traffic relief plan will widen I-695 and lengthen the northbound I-95 Express Toll Lanes.
“The important traffic relief initiatives we are announcing today will benefit the daily lives of millions of drivers throughout the Baltimore region,” Hogan says.
The $461 million will be divided to add a lane on 695, redesign the triple bridges, and extend the 95 north toll lane.
The 19-mile section of 695, from I-70 to White Marsh Blvd., will get a new lane, shifting the inside shoulder to a new travel lane in each direction.
The “triple bridges,” 695, and 70 interchange will be reconfigured to ease bottlenecks in six trouble spots.
The toll road extension into Harford County gives drivers a speedier option.
“These exciting new projects are the latest addition to our administration’s ongoing and continued efforts to transform transportation infrastructure in and around Baltimore. With the new investments being announced today, our administration has invested a total of $7 billion for new transportation projects in the Baltimore region.”
The express toll lane expansion, for 7.75 miles from north of MD 43 in Baltimore County to MD 24 in Harford County, is expected to cost $210 million.
Of course, there will be construction to contend with, and that’s expected to start next summer.
Funding for the projects comes largely from gas tax revenue.
_____________________________________________
Here are the same FAKE NEWS surrounding RAIL TUNNELS-----these in West Baltimore as too in East and Central Baltimore are not being done for PUBLIC TRAINS---LIGHT RAIL OR MARC. They are being done for oil and natural gas pipeline and CARGO TRAIN RAIL.
When a COMMUNITY JUSTICE NGO allows this to sound like a public interest rail project as below-----they are not being REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. We must be fighting the development at the PORT OF BALTIMORE to be fighting for actual protection of BALTIMORE COMMUNITIES----whether EAST, CENTRAL, WEST, SOUTH, OR NORTH.
This project in WEST BALTIMORE with rail and tunnels is tied to the PORT COVINGTON/UNDERARMOUR global corporate campus and the GLOBAL FACTORIES that will take all of West Baltimore ----no communities need apply.
'disrupt Amtrak and MARC passengers'
WHAT KIND OF TRANSPORTATION IS NEEDED IN A PORT OF BALTIMORE WATERFRONT EXTREMELY INDUSTRIALIZED?
Certainly not SCOOTERS AND BIKES------
This article makes clear Baltimore Public Health has all the DATA on how much HARM all this pollution and toxicity will do on citizens living in Baltimore MOVING FORWARD....The future if we continue is only a few decades away.
The Clean Water Blog
We All Live Downstream
Train Tunnels through West Baltimore
Civic Engagement and Elections
Maryland
August 18, 2017
By Jennifer Kunze - Maryland Program Organizer
On Wednesday, the Baltimore City Council held an investigational hearing on the proposed B&P Tunnel expansion through West Baltimore. For the past few years, the Federal Railway Administration tasked Amtrak, MDOT, and Baltimore DOT with finding a solution to the constraints of the existing B&P Tunnel underneath West Baltimore: its narrowness and disrepair slow down and sometimes disrupt Amtrak and MARC passengers traveling betwen Baltimore and DC. But residents of the neighborhoods above the proposed new tunnel have been sounding the alarm, concerned that the proposal could concentrate air emissions, construction contamination, and even hazardous freight underneath their homes. Clean Water Action showed up to testify alongside RATT (Residents Against the Tunnels) before the City Council about air quality concerns related to the project - read our testimony below.
August 16, 2017
Dear members of the Land Use and Transportation Committee,
Hello. My name is Jennifer Kunze, and I’m the Maryland Program Organizer for Clean Water Action, a grassroots environmental nonprofit with over 8,000 members within Baltimore City. I'm here to express concerns about the B&P Tunnel expansion and its potential environmental, safety, and health impacts. Improved public transit and regional rail service are certainly important public goods, but these must be considered alongside the negative impacts of this project on communities in West Baltimore already facing significant barriers to racial, economic, and environmental justice.
THESE RAIL PROJECTS ARE NOT TIED TO ANY PUBLIC TRANSIT GOOD------THESE PROJECTS ARE ABOUT LAYING PIPELINE AND BUILDING CARGO RAIL LINES SUPER-SIZED FOR MULTI-LAYER TRAVEL.
Although this project is proposed as a means of improving passenger rail service, these improvements would also open up our section of the Northeast Corridor to freight. According to the Final Environmental Impact Statement, the current B&P tunnel is used by regional and Acela rail passenger trains, MARC trains, and only two local Norfolk Southern freight shipments per day, typically including vegetable oil, plastic pellets, paper, lumber, and produce. However, that is not typical of the North-East Corridor as a whole, of which the B&P Tunnel is a part. Norfolk Southern and CSX have rights to operate on the whole North-East Corridor under the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976, but according to the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, “While these agreements guarantee private rail freight companies access to the NEC, these rail freight companies have other route options around Baltimore that make the B&P Tunnel route less attractive as a major through route across or around the city.” But expanding the tunnel from two to four tracks and raising its height to accommodate double-stacked freight are exactly what could make the tunnel more attractive for through shipments of freight.
Regional planning documents name this as one motive for expanding the B&P Tunnel. Following the 2001 Howard Street Tunnel fire, the Federal Railway Administration commissioned comprehensive assessments of our city's rail capacity. The 2011 report, “Baltimore's Railway Network: Analysis and Recommendations,” states that “the conditions in the [existing] B&P Tunnel—as well as its criticality to the protection of a reliable passenger service—preclude its expanded use for most freight and constrain the flow of commerce to and through the Baltimore region.” In 2013, the North-East Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission developed a report on the need to enhance the Corridor as a high performance rail corridor for the whole region. The report identifies the existing B&P Tunnel as a “major capacity bottleneck for both passenger and freight trains,” and it identifies that one goal of redeveloping the B&P Tunnel is to “enhance freight access.” With this enhanced access and the trackage rights that Norfolk Southern and CSX already hold, shipments of all kinds of freight could begin with no process for public notification or input.
The most gripping concern related to freight is, of course, hazardous shipments. As you know, Clean Water Action has been concerned about shipments of extremely volatile crude oil through Baltimore since 2014, when a proposal emerged to build a new crude oil train terminal in Fairfield. By engaging in MDE's permitting process for this terminal, Baltimore residents were able to prevent that terminal from shipping crude oil, stopping a tremendous increase in crude oil train shipments traveling through South Baltimore and the rest of Maryland. But Baltimore would have no similar power to affect what travels through the B&P Tunnel. Local governments have no authority to regulate freight shipments through their jurisdiction, only the power to regulate terminals and other land uses. Once the tunnel's capacity is expanded and made attractive to freight shipments, Baltimore City would have no ability to regulate what hazardous freight is shipped through, including crude oil, chlorine gas, nuclear waste, and other hazards. We must be proactive about these risks at this stage of the process before it’s too late.
Even non-hazardous freight poses a threat to local air quality. Amtrak trains operate with electric locomotives, and MARC trains currently operate with electric-diesel hybrids, but MARC plans to transition its fleet to all-diesel locomotives. Diesel engines emit nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and other pollution known to contribute to asthma, respiratory and cardiovascular illness, and premature death. The B&P Tunnel team conducted modeling of the anticipated air quality impacts of increased MARC train service in the B&P tunnel with the more-polluting diesel locomotives, and found that changes in MARC train service will cause a net increase in carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter pollution in the neighborhoods surrounding the B&P tunnel route, but that this increase would not surpass federal air quality thresholds. However, freight rail shipments also operate on all-diesel locomotives, so an increase in freight train shipments through the tunnel would cause an increase in diesel emissions in the surrounding areas. The projected air pollution models assumed that in 2040, only two freight trains per day would travel through the tunnel, and did not account for the impacts of any increased freight. This is a significant oversight and we urge the Council to carefully consider the potential impact of various scenarios for increased freight shipments through the B&P Tunnel on air quality – not only for the communities immediately surrounding the proposed B&P Tunnel route, but also on the communities of East and Southwest Baltimore along the Northeast Corridor that would also receive the air quality impacts of freight shipments through that corridor.
We also must pay particular attention to where these air quality and public safety impacts would occur: in low-income and minority communities in East, West, and Southwest Baltimore that have suffered the impacts of redlining, other racially-based housing policies, industrial pollution, highway construction, and other cumulative impacts. According to the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, residents of the neighborhoods nearest the proposed B&P Tunnel route have a life expectancy as much as 15 years shorter than residents of the city's wealthier neighborhoods. It’s incumbent on Baltimore City to do due diligence to ensure this project does not add to the historic and ongoing racial, housing, economic, and environmental injustices faced by the affected neighborhoods. We urge the Council to continue taking community input and carefully consider the environmental and human health impacts of this project. Thank you.
____________________________________
It is because Baltimore is controlled by global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS---KNIGHTS OF MALTA TRIBE OF JUDAH definitely NOT---ALL-AMERICAN that Baltimore is losing its MANAGEABLE port used over centuries and is being made to be a SUPER-DUPER CARGO SHIP port-----beyond its means.
Here we see the super-duper cargo ship tied and bound as our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE should be doing to MOVING FORWARD PORT OF BALTIMORE policies-------
Looks like sovereign citizens ---the LILLIPUTIANS have their PUBLIC MILITIA on alert against FOREIGN INVADERS wanting to make THE US a colonial FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE.
All the current transit development in GREATER BALTIMORE and PORT---are driven by a FALSE NEED of being a SUPER-DUPER CARGO SHIP PORT.
'Cinema ModeOff
Gulliver's Travels - Trailer #1 from Gulliver's Travels (2010)Shipwrecked travel writer Lemuel Gulliver (Black) finds himself transported to an island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle, where he's a giant among the natives, the Lilliputians. Initially taken prisoner, Gulliver becomes a favorite of the court and schemes for a way in which the Lilliputians can outwith their rivals, the Blefuscudians'.
We will only mention again what we shout in DETAIL------there is no plan for JOBS AT THE PORT OF BALTIMORE. The goal of MOVING FORWARD is a COMPLETELY ROBOTIC/ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE operation of US PORTS deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Overseas FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES have indeed been working to install just that. This has happened completely here in US because we have 350 million people expecting their government to EMPLOY THEM. This is why global banking 1% has the US FED and FAKE NEWS media claiming the US has FULL EMPLOYMENT and low INFLATION---all FAKE NEWS.
Supposedly, with all this FULL EMPLOYMENT it won't matter that PORT OF BALTIMORE expects to be FULLY AUTOMATED. Where are people in Baltimore employed? Mostly being BLACK MARKET CRIMINAL NOSY NEIGHBORS AND THE GANG ----making illegal surveillance PORN of all 99% of BALTIMORE CITIZENS black, white, and brown and new to BALTIMORE WORKERS.
HITTING PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE ALL THESE MOVING FORWARD TO COLONIALISM PLANS-----IS BALTIMORE'S TOP EMPLOYER
US labor union 5% freemason/Greek player leaders KNOW the goals are NO JOBS---any jobs will be global labor pool wages from overseas. Overseas FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES have already installed all this DEEP, DEEP, REALLY DEEP STATE SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY which MOVING FORWARD OBAMA ---now TRUMP is working hard to do here in US.
Techports
U.S. Ports Take Baby Steps in Automation as Rest of the World Sprints
By
Clay Dillow
and
Brooks RainwaterJanuary 30, 2018
At the Port of Los Angeles’s TraPac terminal, a series of massive cranes effortlessly hoist a steady stream of brightly-colored container boxes—some weighing up to five tons—from the decks of newly-arrived container ships, depositing them dockside. From here, the robots take over.
Automated cargo-haulers towering four-stories high glide among the waiting boxes, straddling and lifting them before wheeling them to the nearby “stacks.” Here the boxes are passed off to another massive robot—an automated stacking crane—that arranges them into meticulous stacks. When it comes time for a specific box to continue its journey inland, those same robotic cranes will find it and load it onto a waiting truck--no human operator necessary.
TraPac terminal—along with a terminal at the nearby Port of Long Beach—is among the first U.S. ports experimenting with robots, artificial intelligence, and other digital tools to choreograph the complicated dance that keeps goods flowing into and out of major U.S. ports. The technology—though not without its critics—is widely seen as the most efficient way for seaports to cope with rising global shipping traffic and massive new ships that haul more and more containers. By digitizing and automating activities once handled by human crane operators and cargo haulers, seaports can reduce the amount of time ships sit in port and otherwise boost port productivity by up to 30% by some estimates.
The automated facilities at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—two of the nation’s busiest—are important proving grounds for technologies that have firmly taken root in European and Asian seaports but remains a relative rarity in the U.S. Only four U.S. seaport terminals currently use the technology. The other two, in Virginia and New Jersey, were the first in the U.S. to implement dockside automation. But while some of the world’s largest container ships make calls at East Coast docks, they rarely unload all of their cargo at a single port as they do on the West Coast.
That means West Coast shipping terminals are likely to automate faster than their East Coast counterparts, placing the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach at the front of a wave of automation needed to bring U.S. shipping logistics up to speed.
Doing so is not as easy as taking one facility’s automated systems and grafting them onto the next terminal, Port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka says. “You’ve got probably 190 or 200 ports in the United States, you’ve got 25 ports of national significance as classified by the Army Corp of Engineers. Each one is different. Once you’ve seen one port, you’ve still only seen one port.”
Still, there are common components at every seaport where automation can make the work more efficient. Every seaport needs cranes to load and unload cargo, for instance, as well as a means of moving containers around the storage yard in an organized fashion so that specific boxes can be located at the specific time they are needed. These kinds of coordinating, organizing, and choreographing tasks are more efficiently handled by machines than by humans. It doesn’t hurt that robots and algorithms don’t require breaks, weekends, or health insurance.
For terminal operators, automation isn’t just about handling more cargo. Automated systems also allow seaports to boost the efficiency of one of their most limiting, finite resources: space. With only so much waterfront property to go around and the volume of cargo rising, seaports face a dwindling amount of real estate in which containers can be stacked and stored, even if only for a few hours.
“The real opportunity is densification,” says Dr. Asaf Ashar, an emeritus research professor at the University of New Orleans’ National Ports & Waterways Institute and an independent consultant for the shipping and transportation industries. “You can use existing land more efficiently.”
But automating seaports is also wildly expensive. The process doesn’t consist of any single thing, but a continuum of digital technologies, software systems, and robotic hardware.
Deploying automation to any given port terminal can cost more than $2 million per acre, Seroka says. Upgrades to the Port of Long Beach’s automated terminal will cost in excess of $1.3 billion by the time the technology is all in place in over two years.
Automating the 210-acre TraPac terminal at the Port of Los Angeles will likewise cost more than $1 billion in public and private funds, and it’s not exactly clear when or if that investment will pay off. APM Terminals, a part of Dutch shipping giant A.P. Moeller-Maersk, told the Wall Street Journal that its automated terminal in Rotterdam—where terminals have embraced various levels of automation going back to the 1990s--has paid dividends, requiring just half the human labor that its conventional terminal at the same port requires. But when the same company opened the first semi-automated port in North America in Virginia in 2007, similar returns didn’t immediately materialize (APM Terminals has since sold the facility).
The high costs and shaky record of returns—not to mention pushback from labor unions intent on preserving seaport jobs--have left stakeholders in other U.S. ports leery of going all-in on dockside automation, allowing ports in Europe and Asia to become models of modern logistics. That in turn makes the experiments at Long Beach and Los Angeles all the more critical. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are the No. 1 and No. 2 for container volume in the United States, respectively. In 2015, a total of 8.16 million TEU—the equivalent of 20-foot containers—moved into Los Angeles, while another 7.19 million TEU came through Long Beach, according to the World Shipping Council.
“Automation is a business decision and it really has to pencil out before any further work is pursued,” LA’s Seroka says. Making the math “pencil out” should grow easier as other digital technologies—artificial intelligence and big data analytics among them—are further integrated into the seaport enterprise as well. A pilot program currently underway at the Port of Los Angeles with GE—known as the Port Information Portal—digitizes maritime data and will ultimately create a computer dashboard that provides a window into the entire port supply chain. The test was recently extended to run for three years—a testament to the support the technology has garnered at the port, including from organized labor.
“With respect to digital technology, for cents on the dollar we can expand this port capacity,” Seroka says. “We can do it quicker than waiting for the current administration to work out an infrastructure plan, utilizing the land that is within inside our four fences, almost immediately.”
_____________________________________________
Tomorrow we will look at what a SUPER-DUPER GLOBAL CARGO SHIP/GLOBAL FACTORY port needs as regards TRANSPORTATION-----and guess what-------------it will not be SCOOTERS----it will not be GREEN -----it will not be WALKABLE.
What global banking 1% is telling those far-right wing 5% freemason/Greek players to say to our US 99% WE THE PEOPLE and new to US immigrants is this-------MARKET-BASED PARKING.
CORPORATIONS WILL DECIDE WHAT PUBLIC PARKING IS NEEDED IN DOWNTOWN PORT AREA.
In Baltimore most HARBOR buildings are HOTELS/RESTAURANTS--------and high-rise residential. We have shouted for a decade that these HARBOR HOTELS ET AL are being SUBSIDIZED----they are not profitable ------they would not be here if not to secure REAL ESTATE ON HARBOR ---and not necessarily for restaurants or hotels. Today's harbor businesses are not tomorrows----and the owners are glad to say----
WE DON'T NEED PUBLIC SIDEWALKS, PUBLIC CURBS, PUBLIC STREETS----WE ALREADY PRIVATIZED PUBLIC PARKING DECKS/LOTS.
'The reform, known locally as “market based parking,” allows developers and business owners to decide how much parking they need at their buildings, rather than conform to an arbitrary number imposed by city law'.
When the goal is to MOVE OUT hundreds of thousands of Baltimore citizens from communities having historically been high-residential-----global banking 1% simply makes moving around hard to impossible. We see that already as private global bus transit is not required to meet AMERICANS WITH DISABILITY WHEEL CHAIR ACCESS. This is the first population group to be affected to include SENIORS with aging mobility problems.
'which will help us be greener, healthier and a more walkable Houston,” City Councilmember Karla Cisneros said'.
Below we see CISNEROS-----great big raging far-right wing global banking CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL whose relative is now HOUSTON CITY COUNCIL-----pretending to want GREEN STREETS/WALKABLE CORPORATE CAMPUSES -----in what are slated to be HIGHLY INDUSTRIAL ZONES.
CISNEROS WAS CLINTON'S HOUSING AUTHORITY WHICH ALLOWED PUBLIC HOUSING TO BE DEFUNDED AND BECOME DANGEROUS/DECAY.
'Henry Cisneros - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cisneros
Henry Gabriel Cisneros is an American politician and businessman. He served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, from 1981 to 1989, the second Latino mayor of a major American city and the city's first since 1842. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. As HUD Secretary, Cisneros was credited with initiating the revitalization of many public housing developments and with formulating polic'
Each US CITY has a CHARTER/CODES requiring public streets, public sidewalks, public access to all of downtown-------that is what ROLLING BACK PARKING REQUIREMENTS is trying to END.
'rather than conform to an arbitrary number imposed by city law'.
I'm a WINNER say our US citizens with all those SMART PHONE APPS-----needed just to pay for a PARKING METER. What happens when those APPS disappear---how do these people PARK? Global banking 1% will have something else designated for PARKING USE keeping those APP PARKERS at bay.
Houston Rolling Back Parking Requirements
Houston took a step toward becoming an “increasingly urban city” this week when lawmakers put the kibosh on minimum parking requirements in two center-city neighborhoods.
The reform, known locally as “market based parking,” allows developers and business owners to decide how much parking they need at their buildings, rather than conform to an arbitrary number imposed by city law.
The change “will lead to better streetscapes in this transition period of becoming an increasingly urban city, which will help us be greener, healthier and a more walkable Houston,” City Councilmember Karla Cisneros said.
Part of Midtown and Downtown East will be exempt from the city’s minimum parking requirements under the zoning code. The rest of the city, excluding downtown, must construct for example, 1.66 parking spaces for every two-bedroom apartment or 10 spaces per 1,000 square feet of restaurant space.
A lot of research shows these arbitrary parking minimums are poor predictors of actual parking use. Furthermore, they act as a backdoor subsidy for drivers by hiding the cost of parking in rents and restaurant bills.
In neighborhoods like Downtown East and Midtown they also drive up the price of housing, while making traveling by foot and transit harder and less practical. Combined, these two neighborhoods have about 10,000 residents and excellent transit access. And with relaxed parking requirements, there is room for more residential development in the kind of accessible urban setting that Houston has only in limited supply right now.
According to Leah Binkovitz at Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, the zoning exemption measure passed with support from the local business community. Only one council member voted against the bill: Greg Travis, who remarked “Walk for two blocks? It’s not going to happen.”
Jay Crossley, a long-time Texas smart growth leader and head of the nonprofit group Farm and City “It’s a good step.”
But he added “It’s too bad the city will continue to impose car storage mandates for the rest of the city.”
But Margaret Wallace Brown, the city’s planning department director, said on Twitter it was a “first step toward moving toward a context sensitive parking regulation system.” So further reforms may be forthcoming.
Lots of cities have been rolling back or eliminating minimum parking requirements lately, including Buffalo and Minneapolis.
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Here we have MARKET URBANISM REPORT telling us in 2019 ---last month what we have shouted for over a decade---we have known these goals to end PUBLIC STREETS/PUBLIC SIDEWALKS, PUBLIC CURBS in US downtown development.
Does it help to explain this a decade after public policies have opened the door to these FUN TRANSPORTATION PATENTED PRODUCTS? It is not PRO-ACTIVE----it is reactive and this media outlet MARKET URBANISM is global banking media made to look POPULIST.
BIKE LANES BEING BUILT INTO DOWNTOWN SOLD AS GREEN/HEALTHY ARE SIMPLY BLOCKING STREET PARKING SPACES ON ONE SIDE OF STREET. WHAT IS TODAY BOTH PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL WILL BE TOMORROW MINUS THE PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL.
So, after all US city CHARTERS AND CODES have been passed allowing all these PRIVATE TRANSPORT corporations to take our curbs, streets, and sidewalks-----we hear FAKE NEWS media letting us know this happened.
We take a lot of JOKES for writing against SCOOTER/BIKE policy as REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVES would support these 'goals'. CITIZENS' OVERSIGHT MARYLAND IS AGAINST SCOOTERS say THE NETWORK.
We are against a FAKE ECONOMY that will disappear in a decade or so leaving all PUBLIC TRANSIT SPACE privatized and gone.
When a small town government official makes jokes about scooters being entertaining---let's bring scooters to small town US----that goal of ending PUBLIC SPACE is being exported to our RURAL TOWNS in US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
These are NOT INNOCENT small businesses-----they are global corporations wanting our PUBLIC STREETS, SIDEWALKS, CURBS.
Op-Ed: Are scooters a transit solution or a Trojan Horse for big tech to colonize our public spaces?
By John Tinnell
July 19, 2019
3:15 AM
Summer is here and the electronic hum of scooters is filling city sidewalks all over the world. From L.A. to D.C., many American downtowns have hit their one-year anniversary with scooters, and European capitals have begun to allow them.
The benefit is obvious: Scooters provide on-demand, affordable mobility to any able-bodied smartphone user. As the vehicle’s fan base grows, however, so do the frustrations that provoke other urbanites to detest them — abandoned scooters left on walkways and even scooter-pedestrian collisions. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo says escalating tensions are leading to “anarchy” on her city’s boulevards and footpaths. And an even bigger issue looms over arguments for and against this revamped child’s toy. Scooters may well be the Trojan Horse with which big tech colonizes the world’s public space.
Scooters (and dockless e-bikes) inhabit cities like few other consumer products ever have. Through location-tracking and app-based transactions, scooter barons oversee their business from a distance while storing their entire inventories on our streets and sidewalks for next to nothing. When in use, scooters generate revenue for Bird, Lime or some other “micro-mobility” company. When not in use, they just sit there, wherever there happens to be: a bike lane, a doorway, a neighbor’s front yard. Citizens have no lawful recourse, leading some to resort to micro-vandalism.
BIKE LANES BEING BUILT INTO DOWNTOWN SOLD AS GREEN/HEALTHY ARE SIMPLY BLOCKING STREET PARKING SPACES ON ONE SIDE OF STREET. WHAT IS TODAY BOTH PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL WILL BE TOMORROW MINUS THE PARKING AND BIKE TRAIL.
Scooters’ success in spite of the persistent backlash is a warning about whether tech can succeed in leveraging public space. A playbook seems to be taking shape. First, identify a point of friction in urban life (such as “the last-mile problem” in public transportation). Next, develop a profitable solution and deploy it in cities and ask for permission later. When people howl, let your early adopters fight the battle for you — use them as a shield whenever critics speak ill of your business model. Finally, push aggressive expansion while voicing support for sensible regulations that are essentially unenforceable.
Like Uber and Airbnb before them, scooter companies aim to satisfy their customers with little regard for how their businesses affect our cities’ ecosystems. All three services tamper with neighborhood norms in ways that are annoying at first and deeply disturbing upon further inspection. Via Airbnb, for instance, a quaint bungalow surrounded by family homes suddenly becomes a bachelor party pad replete with fresh groups of drunken idiots each weekend. Annoying. But what’s far more worrisome is recent data indicating that Airbnb is worsening the housing crisis in cities like Los Angeles and New Orleans. Landlords love Airbnb: Why lease a place to lower-income tenants for $900 a month when you can earn double by renting it out here and there to well-off tourists? When residential units are converted into the equivalent of chic motels, the pool of long-term housing decreases and rental prices rise.
As for Uber and other ride-sharing apps, originally framed as a solution to urban congestion, they are instead putting more cars on the road, making traffic worse. A San Francisco study found that bumper-to-bumper delays soared 62% from 2010 to 2016, and roughly half of this increase was caused by ride-sharing vehicles. Very few riders are choosing to share trips with other passengers and rates of car ownership in the city remain steady. The big loser has been public transit, particularly buses, whose ridership has decreased nearly 13% — a drop that presents grave challenges to a service that is both more affordable and energy efficient than Uber’s fleet of vehicles.
Now, as big tech monetizes curbs and doorways and sidewalks, we’re seeing the marginalization of non-motorists who, by choice or necessity, traverse the city on their own power. Scooters at rest and in motion create barriers for parents with strollers, frail elderly pedestrians and especially the disabled. It is perturbing for a jogger or cyclist to come upon an abandoned scooter blocking their path. That this happens regularly to wheelchair users and the visually impaired is unconscionable. Decades of activism and legal battles to secure ADA accommodations in the built environment are being causally brushed aside in the name of enhancing mobility for those who can easily walk.
Granted, it’s early days for scooters; perhaps a solution will emerge. But soon it won’t just be scooters anymore. In Amazon’s office parks and Google’s test towns, drone services are being readied to pick up and drop off items at a slab of concrete near you. Even Georgia Tech’s library is using drones to fly books around campus to students too busy to swing by the stacks. Eight states have recently passed legislation that will allow delivery robots to roam the sidewalks. Meanwhile, wannabe Zuckerbergs that no one yet knows about are learning from scooters and dreaming up the next big thing they can plop all over the place.
The scooter experiment proves how difficult it is to establish a retroactive ban after some residents have already fallen in love with a new disruptive gadget. Absent better laws anticipating the takeover, the next battles, too, are likely to be lost on Day 1.
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Here is what we called CORPORATE EDUCATION -----providing global corporations with FAKE DATA---FAKE NEWS regarding the goals of these MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE policies-----pretending they are GREEN----pretending they are PUBLIC HEALTH----pretending our US 99% ----or even those global banking 5% freemason/Greek players will be part of what is MOVING FORWARD PORT DEVELOPMENT tied to US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Kinder Institute at RICE is a raging global hedge fund corporation ---it is not a political think tank and not POPULIST---or caring about PEOPLE.
'The Port of Houston is a cooperative entity consisting of both the port authority, which operates the major terminals along the Houston Ship Channel, and more than 150 private companies situated along Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay.[3] Many petroleum corporations have built refineries along the channel where they are partially protected from the threat of major storms in the Gulf of Mexico. The petrochemical complex associated with the Port of Houston is one of the largest in the world'
'Galveston Bay Haunted by Toxic Chemicals, Industrial Waste
environmenttexas.org/news/txe/galveston-bay...
In anticipation of Halloween, Environment Texas unveiled the Ten Scariest Facts about the Galveston Bay, showing that a terrifying concoction of toxic chemicals such as arsenic, industrial waste, and other pollutants have made Galveston Bay a ghost of its former self'.
We have the same here in Baltimore-------claiming this is GREEN/SUSTAINABLE/HEALTHY TRANSIT------and all that is FAKE.
It is not too late to STOP MOVING FORWARD---JUST DO IT. Global banking 5% freemason/Greek players/pols tied to HITTING ME------using illegal surveillance of my living space and making PORN of me-----making fun on public surveillance as I go about my ordinary activities-------want our US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE to think -------
THERE IS NO STOPPING THIS ---WHEN WE JUST NEED TO SHAKE OUR TAIL FEATHERS.
Kinder Institute will expand urban data work with $2.25M from Houston Endowment
Amy McCaig
– July 24, 2019Posted in: Current News
Thanks to renewed funding from Houston Endowment, Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research will be able to expand its data-driven work in the public, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. The new $2.25 million, three-year grant follows a previous Houston Endowment grant that supported several Kinder initiatives, including the Urban Data Platform (UDP).
“We are immensely grateful to Houston Endowment for its continued support of Rice and the Kinder Institute,” Rice President David Leebron said. “This renewed funding will allow the institute to continue its critical data-driven work to better understand the challenges that Houston and other cities are facing and create lasting solutions. Contributing to our home city and others in this way is central to Rice’s mission and its strategic plan, and we are extremely appreciative of this generous support.”
The Kinder Institute will use the grant to continue building on its essential data tools, which are the basis for its work. The funding will support the Houston Urban Data Project 2.0, which will leverage existing data infrastructure, including the UDP and Houston Community Data Connections (HCDC). The goals for the project include:
Aligning and enhancing the Kinder Institute’s urban and community data efforts.
Developing robust training and research support programs to support a larger user base.
Broadening awareness of data-driven research by expanding related communications and outreach efforts.
The HCDC Dashboard currently provides neighborhood-level indicators for 143 areas in Harris County. Since its launch in September 2017, it has had more than 9,000 users, nearly 16,000 site sessions and more than 45,000 page views. The team has also processed and completed almost 120 requests for data and research assistance since the program’s launch.
The UDP, a secure computing platform and data repository, provides access to more than 200 curated research-ready datasets about Houston. Those who study the Houston region can share their data by publishing it with the UDP. To date, the UDP supports 400 users who have accessed the system and website approximately 6,000 times and downloaded data 650 times since the launch in spring 2018.
Over the next three years, the Kinder Institute will focus on two broad categories through two initiatives: Building Better Cities (with an emphasis on government efficiency and critical urban systems) and Building Better Lives (with an emphasis on quality of life and addressing urban disparity among urban residents, especially in Houston).
“The UDP and HCDC have laid the foundation for a shift in how data is used and decisions are made in the public, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, and this funding will allow the Kinder Institute to build on this work,” said Bill Fulton, director of the institute. “This project will help drive effective, data-driven decision-making for the region and will make the Kinder Institute the data hub for the entire region and a model for other cities around the world.”
“At Houston Endowment, our vision is a vibrant region where all have the opportunity to thrive,” said Ann B. Stern, president and CEO of Houston Endowment.
“We believe that making good data available to the public leads to better-informed decision-making on the part of our public officials and allows residents to more effectively advocate for their communities’ needs. This is why the UDP and HCDC are so important for the future of our region.”
Established in 2010, the Kinder Institute is a “think and do” tank that advances understanding of the challenges facing Houston and other urban centers through research, policy analysis, public outreach and collaboration with civic and political leaders.
Houston Endowment is a private philanthropic institution that works across the community for the benefit of the people of greater Houston. With assets of over $1.8 billion, the foundation provides approximately $70 million in funding each year in order to enhance civic assets, strengthen systems that support residents, promote post-secondary success, and build a stronger region. Established by Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones in 1937, Houston Endowment has a rich legacy of addressing some of greater Houston’s most compelling needs. Today the foundation continues efforts to create a vibrant community where all have the opportunity to thrive.
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It would be absolutely CRAZY to subject the population numbers of people here in Baltimore to what MOVING FORWARD PORT OF BALTIMORE as export terminals for crude oil and natural gas has in store---this is why Baltimore has FAKE MEDIA --FAKE NON-PROFITS pretending all these POPULIST policies are REAL.
'Moving forward with a deal opponents contend was improperly struck, a City Council committee has approved a franchise giving Baltimore Gas & Electric the right to use a 2.2-mile-long natural gas pipeline across Leakin Park'.
Here is the most recent example of Baltimore City council/Mayor passing those GORILLA IN ROOM policies for PIPELINE while FAKE LEFT NGOs are pretending and placing focus on GREEN, FUN TRANSIT.
Environment
by Fern Shen
4:53 pm
Apr 26, 2019
Amid campaign contributions and Healthy Holly purchases by BGE and Exelon officials, pipeline bill advances
A City Council committee okays a Pugh administration franchise agreement that critics have called a sweetheart deal
Above: Councilman Kristerfer Burnett explains his “yes” vote on the franchise for BGE’s Granite Pipeline project, which has claimed nearly 800 trees in Leakin Park. (Fern Shen)
Moving forward with a deal opponents contend was improperly struck, a City Council committee has approved a franchise giving Baltimore Gas & Electric the right to use a 2.2-mile-long natural gas pipeline across Leakin Park.
Critics of the franchise made an impassioned plea before the vote, citing the deal’s possible connection to Mayor Catherine Pugh’s unreported children’s book sales to entities that do business with the city and state.
“A board member of Exelon [BGE’s parent company] purchased a cache of Healthy Holly books,” said Sarah Lord, former president of the Baltimore City Forest Conservancy Board, at the hearing on Tuesday.
“And why is that?” she asked.
The opponents reiterated their contention that the project, which has claimed nearly 800 trees across a 50-foot swath through the park, was being grossly undervalued by the agreement proposed by the Pugh Administration.
The Department of Recreation and Parks originally valued the franchise agreement at $14 million, but the Pugh administration settled for one-tenth of that amount – $1.4 million, The Brew has reported.
“I find it appalling to hear that city government engages in transactions of this magnitude without independent analysis,” said Andy Hinz, one of about a dozen people in the audience for the bill.
BGE recently agreed to increase the franchise fee to $2 million. But with that amount still about one seventh what the Rec and Parks originally proposed, critics of the deal remain dissatisfied and have sued the city.
$32,000 to Pugh’s CampaignBrew reporting has documented the close relationship between Pugh and BGE and its corporate parent, Exelon.
BGE and its chief executive, Calvin G. Butler Jr., for example, were notable backers of her run for mayor.
More than $32,000 in contributions flowed from executives at BGE, Constellation and Exelon into Pugh’s campaign committee during and after the 2016 election.
This included $18,500 from 30 executives before the April 2016 Democratic Party primary where Pugh narrowly defeated Sheila Dixon.
In addition, a member of the Exelon board, John W. Rogers Jr., has been identified as paying $3,600 for 400 “Healthy Holly” books – or $9 per copy – plus $80 in shipping.
The purchase was made through Ariel Investments, a company based in Chicago that Rogers founded and serves as CEO.
In 2013, Ariel sponsored a black corporate directors conference in California.
Inviting Pugh to speak at the conference, the company handed out Healthy Holly books to participants.
The books were purchased through Baltimore’s Associated Black Charities.
Burnett: “I love the park”Before voting in favor of the bill, Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, whose West Baltimore district includes Leakin Park, said, “I love the park” and said he hoped his “yes” vote would not cause “any irreparable damage to the relationship with the park advocates.”
Along with Burnett, members of the Housing and Urban Affairs Committee voting “yes” on Council Bill 18-0298 were Chairman John Bullock and members Zeke Cohen, Bill Henry and Shannon Sneed.
Two other committee members, Ryan Dorsey and Isaac ” Yitzy” Schleifer, were not present.
ALL OF BALTIMORE'S NEW CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS VOTED 'YES'-----NOT VOTING IS A YES VOTE.
Asked for his reaction afterwards, a leader of the opposition sighed, saying the outcome was not a surprise, but was still “disappointing.”
“I thought we would at least get a few ‘no’ votes. But not a one,” said Jack Lattimore of the Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.
The franchise bill is expected to win final passage when it moves to the full Council for a vote this Monday.
“I guess the thing now is to just focus on the lawsuit,” Lattimore said, referring to the complaint he and two other group members filed in Baltimore Circuit Court earlier this month.
“This is not a rich city. This is money that could very much be used in other parks.”
Citing stark differences in estimates of the value of the parkland property, the suit asks for an independent appraisal of the nearly 20 acres permanently altered by BGE’s pipeline work.
“This is not a rich city,” Lord said in her remarks to committee. “This is money that could very much be used in other parks.”
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