Face the Face.

There's a reason for #DontBeAMaskHole.

I've said all along, and will now repeat, that it's the ultimate in despicable governmental cowardice to "encourage" face masks, but to allow retail workers to do the dirty work of enforcement.

A restaurant subject to health department guidelines regarding hygienic standards, generally now including face masks, must obey (and most are aboard) or face sanctions. Meanwhile elected officials from BOTH major political parties see no issue with issuing unenforced mandates leading to ordinary workers being compelled to act as police on behalf of spineless politicians.

It's bullshit, and it needs to stop. I live in a place called New Albany, Indiana, and the unmitigated, calculating drivelers currently serving in elective office here can be the place where rationality begins.

Fed up with anti-maskers, mask advocates are demanding mandates, fines — and common courtesy, by Marc Fisher

 ... In a country stumbling to control a rampant and deadly virus, masks are effective and popular weapons. Three-quarters of Americans favor requiring people to wear face coverings in public to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, including 89 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July.

Now, with the nation reeling from more than 5 million infections and nearly 170,000 virus-related deaths, a rising sense of outrage is leading this silent majority to push back against the smaller but louder anti-mask contingent.

Instead of flashy protests and confrontations, however, mask supporters are expressing their exasperation in quieter ways, writing letters to local newspapers, posting on social media, patronizing businesses identified as mask-enforcers on dedicated Facebook groups and urging state and local officials to mandate mask-wearing in public.

So far, 34 states and the District have adopted mask requirements. Now, mask advocates want police to enforce those orders, a move some police chiefs have said they are reluctant to make. They are seeking legal protection for retail workers put in the awkward position of enforcing mask rules. And they are lobbying for a coordinated federal mask policy ...

The Torture Never Stops.

Let's see if I have this straight.

It took laborious behind-the-scenes lobbying to convince New Albany's city council Democrats to approve a toothless face covering/mask resolution, an eloquent statement of abdication. This done, a committee of customary suspects was appointed to consider a "heavier" ordinance, and all involved -- including the mayor, who'd also done precisely zilch -- breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing  of substance had occurred, and responsibility was deferred.

(As an aside, now I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, they'll return to the ordinance idea. They might.)

But, still: The score begins Nothing 1, Something 0.

Then, after President Trump emerged from his Twitter war room in a state of consciousness suitable to tepidly support the wearing of face coverings/masks, Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, decreed a statewide mandate for Indiana, to begin a week after his announcement, this delay coming because -- well, there's all the time in the world, I suppose.

Nothing 1, Something 0, but with a runner on base.

Then, after standing by for weeks, Dr. Thomas Harris read the governor's proclamation and belatedly discovered the effectiveness of face coverings/masks, issuing his own Floyd County Health Department writ mandating masks to take effect three days in advance of Holcomb's order.

Nothing 1, Something 0, but with another runner on base.

Today, Holcomb signed an executive order mandating face coverings/masks, but without any semblance of an enforcement mechanism. Subsequently it was revealed that Harris's order also is absent any teeth, and what the hell, it didn't matter anyway, because both the sheriff (Frank Loop, R) and the police chief (Todd Bailey, D) -- in agreement for the first time in living memory -- conceded their shared disinterest in enforcing ANY such law.

Let's see -- double play, then a runner picked off; Nothing comes to bat and blasts home runs on two straight pitches.

Nothing 3, Something 0. Game over. Pandemic very much NOT over.

I ask, again: if politicians are not going to muster the simple courage demanded of them by their oaths, and expend the necessary political capital to help the populace stay safe DURING A PANDEMIC, then when, exactly, do they feel that the proper time might actually be?

This is why I detest the two-party system with every last fiber of my being.

Our elected officials from both parties have combined to incessantly politicize public health during this crisis, and to hand us a document written in invisible ink. But I must say in utter candor that the GOP, in charge of "governing" throughout the state, bears more of the sad burden of ignominy.

Let's call the non-outcome Triple Secret Probation.

Better yet, why not refer to it as a DEAD LETTER. 

After all, their combined non-efforts will lead to Hoosiers ... that's right, dying.

(for the next few days, I'll be titling my posts after songs. That should confuse them even more)

Dead Man's Curve has killed, and it will kill again unless our cowardly ruling clique does its job.

Sorry, but we need to be blunt.

We can't possibly be progressive unless the truth about street safety for all users is told aloud, and make no mistake: if the speed-through status quo works for you, that's not progressive at all.

In fact, it's embarrassingly regressive.

Of course, rule of law would be helpful on widely scattered occasions.

Here, there and everywhere, "In crashes that kill pedestrians, the majority of drivers don't face charges."

By the way, Gahanesque and Hendersonian bi-partisan political cowardice isn't the only phenomenon causing us to be killed.

America’s Car Culture is Literally Shortening Your Life: Study, by Angie Schmitt (Streetsblog)

The U.S. has been falling behind its peer nations on traffic safety and now life expectancy as well. There's a connection.

Driving is driving us to the grave.

Life expectancy at birth declined steeply in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, a new British Journal of Medicine study reports — a finding that was attributed partly to the opioid crisis, but also to America’s ongoing traffic violence problem.

In 16 peer nations studied, life expectancy at birth was fairly steady over the same period, but dropped by .2 years in the United States — a decline that is two-and-a-half times worse than the dip in 2012.

The researchers said that about 42 percent of the shortfall is due to the opioid crisis. But the leading cause for declining longevity remains “external factors” such as traffic fatalities, which is blamed for 44 percent of the decline, the study said.

Study author Jessica Ho, a gerontology professor at the University of Southern California, didn’t address the role of traffic accidents in this study, but told Streetsblog that an earlier study found that traffic fatalities accounted for 18 percent of the “life expectancy shortfall” for men under 50, and 16 percent for women in the same age range between 2006 and 2008 compared to similar nations.

So while the opioid addiction grabs headlines, cars have quietly remained a leading killer. In 2015, for example, the U.S. traffic fatality rate jumped 9 percent. And in 2016, it jumped again 5.6 percent, wiping out nearly a decade of improvements. It was the biggest two-year jump in 50 years.

Traffic fatalities have long been a leading cause of death of Americans, and in 2015, they were the 13th leading cause of death in the U.S. overall. But because cars kill a disproportionately high number of younger people, they rank seventh in total years of life lost.

Other Western nations have been making far faster progress on reducing traffic fatalities than the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control sounded the alarm last year, reporting that between 2000 and 2013, traffic deaths per capita in the U.S. dropped at just under half the rate of 19 peer nations. Our death rate per capital is roughly double that of Canada and France ...

At Strong Towns: Three reasons drivers should be celebrating and championing bike lanes.

Every time you see one of these ...

 ... think instead of this:

The word "sharrow" is a synonym for abject capitulation. It's a white flag flown by cowardly public officials, of which New Albany unfortunately enjoys an annual bumper crop.

A sharrow enables planners to pretend they're protecting cyclists, while actually doing absolutely nothing except praying drivers might occasionally share the road.

Maybe HWC's engineering guru Jim Rice can tell us more:

(insert gurgling sounds about immutable INDOT regulations) 

Are drivers a privileged class, Jim?

The Constitution fails to mention it, but then again, it says nothing about robber baron capitalism, either.

Now say hello to Rachel, who'll try yet again to penetrate your thick car-centric skull.

Why Drivers Should Support Bike Lanes, by Rachel Quednau (Strong Towns)

 ... In the last month, I’ve gotten back on my bike after several months of infrequent riding. Every trip reminds me how perilous this mode of transportation is when coupled with fast-moving vehicle traffic.

But every trip also reminds me how practical and affordable bike riding is. Each minute on my bike is a minute I’m not using up gas and incurring wear-and-tear on our family’s car. Each time I lock my bike at a new destination, I’ve saved myself $1.75 in bus fare. Each pump of the pedal is time spent in practical exercise, not at a gym that costs me $40 a month to utilize.

More significantly, every time I ride my bike, I’m saving my city money by riding a lightweight vehicle that doesn’t damage the road and rack up maintenance costs for which my local government has likely not budgeted.

What I’ve realized, as someone who both bikes and drives, is that drivers benefit a ton from bike lanes; they just might not realize it. The average driver’s reaction to a bike lane being installed in their neighborhood or along their commuting route is anger that precious road space has been taken away from cars and given over to bikes.

Here are three reasons drivers should, instead, be celebrating and championing bike lanes ...

Read these two essays written by Erica Rucker.

Erica Rucker and I are acquaintances, mostly through social media. To me, Erica is one of Louisville metro's finest writers -- and the next time she ducks a tough issue will be the first. 

Allow me to draw attention to two of Erica's recent essays. Pertaining to the restaurant ejection of Sarah Huckabee Sanders ...

Trouble the Water: To shame or to shun

To act in the conscience of the public good, for the citizens of the country and the values we claim to hold dear, is what it means to be civil. So any calls for civility need to be met with this refrain, We are already being civil.

 ... and Greg Fischer's signature gutlessness.

Those of us residing in New Albany, observing the personality cult nurtured by mayoral mediocrity Jeff Gahan, wonder if Gahan ever will get around to considering the needs of real people, as opposed to bright shiny (and expensive) objects.

As such, there is special relevance in Erica's pithy assessment of Fischer's political cowardice over the issue of sanctuary.

Of course, Fischer remains Gahan's idol, and it's easy to see why. As in Gahan's shambolic commitment to human rights -- but just for so long as he can create a symbolic commission sans actual content -- both mayors believe in words alone, followed by crickets chirping. 

Amazingly, the gestures-alone brigade hangs on every non-action.

MAYOR MILQUETOAST THINKS “SANCTUARY” IS JUST A POLITICAL TERM

I believe that Fischer does get it. He just doesn’t give a damn and refuses to do anything that might mean loosening his necktie and rolling up his sleeves to protect vulnerable people in our community. He wants to claim Sanctuary is just a term because he doesn’t want to have skin in the game.

Sanctuary is” just a political term” like “vote” is just a term. It has action at its root. Fischer doesn’t want to take any real or bold action.

Fischer expects Louisvillians to come to his aid at the ballot box this fall and my gut says that because his opponent is Republican Angela Leet, he feels that he’s already won in Liberal Louisville.

That's why it will be time for a change in the 3rd council district in 2019. Leadership ... not lapdog.

One more thing: the News and Tribune will continue to underachieve until Publisher Milquetoast grasps the necessity of incorporating a voice like Erica's among its columnists.

Tom M(m)ay have to lose one of his many slots, though.

In New Albany, Jeff Gahan still is "cowering before the demands of drivers," but "more and more cities are deciding to wrest control of their streets back from the tyranny of the automobile."

Thanks, B.

Jeff Speck devised a plan for downtown street grid reform. It was emasculated by Deaf Gahan's anointed and indemnified cleaver-wielding assassins at HWC Engineering. Gahan declared victory and moved to the next opportunity to bundle campaign finance.

In New Albany and Florida, bicyclists and pedestrians remain at risk when planners refuse the change car-centric nature of the street grid.

Jeff Gahan's de-Specked two-way street reversion led HWC Engineering to tack on bike and pedestrian infrastructure without changing the car-centric nature of the state's transportation planning.

Actually, almost all the biking infrastructure suggested by Speck was removed amid gleeful cheering by the irresolute likes of CM Greg Phipps (has he ever actually been on a bicycle?), but the analogy holds.

The two-way street grid project has not been transformative because Gahan didn't allow it to be ...

There's plenty of cowering and cowardice in New Albany. Maybe -- just maybe -- in 2019 we can start the process of changing the retrograde default into a paradigm that looks forward.

#FireGahan2019

Cars Are Ruining Our Cities, by Justin Gillis and Hal Harvey (New York Times)

(Mr. Gillis is working on a book about climate change. Mr. Harvey is the chief executive of the research firm Energy Innovation.)

SAN FRANCISCO — We might be living through a new age of miracles. Last month, Los Angeles decided against adding lanes to a freeway, an unexpected move in a city that has mistakenly thought for years that more lanes mean fewer traffic jams.

Shortly before that, Germany’s highest court ruled that diesel cars could be banned from city centers to clean up the air. Mind you, Germany is the land where diesel technology was invented ...

 ... As we write these words, we can sense the bile rising in some drivers. Americans have such a sense of entitlement about cars that any attempt to limit them can provoke a fight, as New York has discovered.

Yet the truth is that people who drive into a crowded city are imposing costs on others. They include not just reduced mobility for everyone and degraded public space, but serious health costs ...

The bottom line?

The bottom line is that the decision to turn our public streets so completely over to the automobile, as sensible as it might have seemed decades ago, nearly wrecked the quality of life in our cities.

No victory laps -- yet. Reverting NA's downtown street grid to two-way traffic is just the beginning.

Previously: Grid Control, Vol. 23: City's fuddy-duddies losing their minds as the debut for a two-way Spring Street is pegged at August 29.

No victory laps ... so much to do ... but kindly allow a rant of sorts, as posted this morning at Fb.

---

Lots of us have spent the better part of 15 years mustering abundant evidence in favor of reverting one-way streets to two-way traffic. We've cited stats and studies, and pointed to positive experiences in America and across the planet.

Time and again, we've asked opponents to show us some tangible proof for the impending catastrophe of two-way streets, and have listened as the crickets chirp in response.

Yes, you're entitled to your own opinion, though not your own facts -- and to be perfectly honest, after a decade and a half, we're bored to effing tears with your opinions.

We've done OUR jobs, and miracle of miracles, the city has produced a plan in response. It doesn't go far enough toward the ideal of pistol-whipping auto-centrism, but it's the end of the beginning, and humans (as opposed to their vehicles) have nudged back into the picture.

If two-way streets are "turning back the clock," as some suggest, then at long last I can say: "Give me that old time religion."

Just remember that if you hate two-way streets, blame the mayor and vote against him -- and if you love them, thank the grassroots activists who kept pushing in the face of NA ruling caste incomprehension. There is much work yet to be done, but this time I hope it doesn't take 15 years.

Following is an excerpt from ON THE AVENUES: Yellow lines and what comes due (September 19, 2013).

---

Dear New Albany politicians in the executive and legislative branches of government,

Hi. You know this whole two-way street conversion thing we’ve been talking about since the House of Bread was still open? Well, here’s the way it needs to work.

Do it.

Now.

You owe us.

That’s right: You owe us.

In fact, it’s all quite easy to understand, so let me help you out.

Just take every one of those “no-brainer,” “quality of life,” and “economic development” arguments made by those in favor of $20 million worth of new city parks, and grasp that these exact same arguments apply just as strongly to two-way streets, traffic calming and complete streets – at least insofar as the new cadre of independent business owners are concerned.

Remember us?

We’re the ones who actually have been investing downtown.

Then add the needs and interests of present and future inhabitants in those neighborhoods making up the city’s historic core. They’re not feeling arterial – no, not at all.

While you’re at it, take the case for Main Street’s makeover (you can keep the excessive expense, but that’s another story), and understand that the Main Street rationale (i.e., we all need nice things) applies to Elm, Market and Spring Streets, too – as much, and probably more so, because unlike Main Street, those other neighborhoods still hang in the balance. The NSP was nice … but it was mostly federal stimulus money, wasn’t it?

You see, you owe us a modern street grid, because so far, most of the heavy lifting in the historic core has been on someone else’s dime, whether from local investors, state highway pay-outs or Obama funds. 

Now, with this much needed two-way street conversion and other related measures to enhance New Albany’s prospects, it’s time at last for you to go all in and show us that you really get it, and that River Ridge envy shall not be the dominant economic development motif hereabouts.

Just remember: You owe us.

Pay us all back, all at once. Give us a street grid that facilitates revitalization, not one that actively hampers it.

Hell, if you buy the paint, we might even roll a few kegs out some afternoon and paint the stripes for you.

If you decline to act – well, we might just paint the stripes ourselves, anyway. A little civil disobedience never harmed anyone.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. We're watching.

Roger

Whether it's the local or the national Democratic Party, cluelessness prevails.

The current count is three.

For weeks, I've been asking Floyd County Democratic Party members to set me straight (privately or publicly) and try to explain why an eroding entity with no coherent platform and no apparent purpose, save for acting as garbage detail and all-purpose apologist for a mayor who seldom emits anything even remotely democratic while pursuing an ever more ludicrous cult of personality, continues to double down on the same losing bets.

Specifically, why re-enthrone Adam Dickey as chairman? In terms of results, doesn't Dickey make Tom Crean look like the second coming of John Wooden?

Three Democrats have accepted the challenge, and each has offered a variant on the same exculpatory theme: Times are tough, and Dickey is the only one who'll do the work, and he busts his ass to get it done.

But if your dysfunctional contraption is losing elections, hemorrhaging support, failing to develop young talent and facing oblivion in the next round of municipal elections, then exactly to what end is this hard work being done?

It's more of the same buffed and polished corporate propaganda daintily draping a rotting carcass, isn't it?

Look, if you're going to maintain status as a boy wonder, then at least one of two conditions must apply -- that you're a boy, although simple chronology eventually overtakes the feverish air brushing, and that you're in some way wondrous.

Hmm.

Zero for two, which hereabouts is grounds to serve as chairman for life. Verily, 2019 can't come soon enough.

KING: The Democratic Party seems to have no earthly idea why it is so damn unpopular, by Shaun King (New York Daily News)

 ... The Democratic Party is deeply unpopular – period. It’s a fact. Don’t look away. Don’t call me a Bernie Bro. It’s a problem that must be seriously addressed. Not a day goes by when I don’t have people reach out to me and ask if it would be worth it to start a credible alternative to what the Democrats are offering. Most people, I believe, would also be open to a brand new way of business for the Democratic Party, but core leaders seem hell bent on doing the same old crap.

When good people who are frustrated with the Democratic Party express their genuine concerns, I see them being told to shut up and unify. “Now is not the time for public complaints,” they are told. “We must all work together.”

But what this apparently means to the people who are calling for unity is getting behind the corporate, suit and tie, lobbyist-driven agenda of the establishment. But let me break it to you – the establishment has almost no grassroots momentum. Virtually every progressive grassroots movement in America right now is fueled by people outside of the Democratic Party establishment and this is a huge reason why the party is so outrageously unpopular.

Huge grassroots movements, made up of millions and millions of people, are fueling the fight for a $15 minimum wage, fighting back against fossil fuels and the Dakota Access Pipeline, fighting to end fracking, fighting to remove lobbyist money from politics, fighting to end senseless wars and international violence, fighting for universal healthcare, fighting for the legalization of marijuana, fighting for free college tuition, fighting against systems of mass incarceration, and so much more.

But mainstream Democrats aren’t really a central part of any of those battles, and, to be clear, each of those issues have deep networks, energized volunteers, and serious donors, but corporate Democrats virtually ignore them ...

For my GOP followers: "One-Way to Kill Your Downtown Retail."

Occasionally when I'm explaining the numerous positive outcomes of two-way streets, someone will say, "But Roger, if one-way streets are bad for the downtown business district, how does it explain the success of revitalization downtown?"

The way I see it is this:

How much further along toward revitalization would we be if one-way streets weren't working against our efforts, 24/7/365?

ONE-WAY TO KILL YOUR DOWNTOWN RETAIL, by Jason Schaeffer (Strong Towns)

We talk a lot at Strong Towns about how a street designed around automobiles with little regard for people has an assortment of negative consequences. One of them is economic vitality. Particularly for store fronts in downtowns with a stroad running past them.