Went for a ride through the Central Artery Tunnel at 10:30 pm on Sunday night, and – as usual – the road was down to just one lane. Several police cars, a few parked construction vehicles, and two workmen standing next to an idle machine that comrade E. assures me is a concrete cutter. I actually can’t recall driving through Boston after 10pm on any night of the week without having the Central Artery either reduced to one lane or closed completely. The maze of on-ramp closures and diversions has, on occasion, been severe enough that I’ve unintentionally ended up in East Boston.

How much does it cost to have a highway that stays open all night long?

How much does it cost to build an integrated urban transit system that actually makes sense? In 1990, the Commonwealth committed to doing things like building the Green Line out to Medford, building the Blue Line out to Lynn, adding walking paths and bicycle trails, and restoring commuter rail service to the southern burbs on the Greenbush Line. If you follow the money, you can guess which ONE of these options has actually come to pass (yes, the Greenbush Line — probably the least useful in terms of passenger-miles, but the most vociferously demanded by relatively wealthier suburbanites).

Another proposal that was prominent throughout the planning stages of the Big Dig related to passenger rail service. Currently, all the rail lines into Boston terminate either at North Station or at South Station. The two stations are about a mile apart, and there is NO direct transit link between them – Amtrak advises passengers with luggage to take a taxi, although they could also walk down to the Red Line platform, and board a Red Line train to Downtown Crossing, then walk up and over and down again to the Orange Line platform and ride the Orange Line to North Station, and then go up two levels and into North Station itself to board their continuing train.

The Big Dig entailed digging a huge tunnel in which to bury the Central Artery highway…eight lanes of traffic underneath downtown Boston, stretching from… yes, you know this by now… North Station to South Station.

People with an ounce of fucking common sense insisted that the planners include a provision for TRAIN TRACKS in the tunnels that would be built from NORTH STATION TO SOUTH STATION.

What happened? Here’s an excerpt from a Boston Globe article from 1994:

Calling a proposed rail link between North and South Stations too expensive, a panel of transportation specialists yesterday threw cold water on a Weld administration plan cherished by supporters as a way to help solve Boston’s vehicular chaos.

The final report of the three-day “Boston Conference: Shaping the Accessible Region,” held last April and May, said alternatives should be sought for the $2 billion to $4 billion link designed to unite Boston’s communter rail systems.

In the report the panel endorsed development of the 14-mile route known as the Urban Ring.

So… in 1994 the Commonwealth killed the idea of linking North and South stations via rail because it would have added $2 billion to the cost of the project.

Fast-forward fifteen years: the Globe estimates that taxpayers will have spent over $22 BILLION on the Big Dig, including debt payments… and that 73% of those costs are borne by Massachusetts alone.

For what it’s worth, the original project estimate was $2.6 billion.

It’s that time of year again: the Fluff Festival returns to Union Square, Somerville this Saturday, September 25 from 4-7 pm!

Since 1993, The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension has been bringing you esoteric and visionary knowledge (and a lot of other crap, too). That tradition continues with their recent posting of a six-part interview with Peter Lamborn Wilson, better known in some circles as Hakim Bey.

What’s this?

A woman at Congressman Barney Frank’s Town Hall forum on health care reform referred to President Obama’s “Nazi plan” and asked Frank why he supported this “Nazi plan.” In his response, he snapped, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.”

See it below on Larry King Live:

I’m a huge fan of Stamen Design out of San Francisco. One of the things they excel at is data-driven map presentations. And SF Crimespotting (pictured above) is a terrific example thereof!

I do a lot of map-based presentation, and I’ve leaned heavily on their work in the past (particularly their open-source project ModestMaps).

For those of you in the East Bay, you might also check out their original work in this genre, Oakland Crimespotting.

Stay safe!

Barbara Ehrenrich writes an op-ed for the New York Times that tries very hard to wake up the paper’s elite readers to the desperate reality of poverty in America:

Al Szekely… A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington — the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Fu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until last December, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants.

It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant — for not appearing in court to face a charge of “criminal trespassing” (for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb). So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. “Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.”

The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, and several members of the group were arrested. A federal judge just overturned the anti-sharing law in Orlando, Fla., but the city is appealing. And now Middletown, Conn., is cracking down on food sharing.

Of course, Michael Franti had this beat well-covered back in 1994:

“Joester5” shares his method of eliminating Google’s sidebar ads in your emails. Just include a few “catastrophic” words like “9/11” or “suicide” and the ad space will remain blank.

Of course I am already blocking all Gmail ads (at least in Firefox) using WebMail Ad Blocker, but this method allows you to explore your darker side.

via BoingBoing

An article in New York magazine discusses the dozens of stalled or foreclosed residential construction projects in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn… home to some dear friends of Noise Is Information.