The Daily Parker

Here we go:

• Sam the Dog is missing after being launched into the stratosphere; an English primary school is sad.
• You really can have too much grit.
• Chicagoist is trying to find the best beer brewed in Chicago.
• The American Public Transportation Association has decided that public transit agencies can be friends with Lyft and Uber.
• Via Bruce Schneier, what does the game Werewolf tell us about security?
• The Ricketts family bought Brixen Ivy last month, so they now own 10 of 16 Wrigley rooftops. Bastards.
• What is The Hum?

It's also a nice day outside, so Parker will probably get two hours of walks in.

I've been running around all day and only have a couple of minutes to list some things I've read on my phone while running around. All day.

• New Zealand voted 56-44 to keep its existing flag. But the 44% suggests there will be another flag referendum in a few years.
• Chicago 9th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale wants to kill your ride-share service. Because why deregulate taxis when you can over-regulate cars?
• Chicago lost its fight to renegotiate public employee pension payments, so I expect my property taxes are going up again.
• We also have a very large hole that will very soon have a very large dirt mound around it. Verily.
• One of my local El stations may get a park under it.
• That Donald Trump hates powerful women isn't news. Josh Marshall thinks about what that means when he's up against Hillary Clinton this fall.
• Trump is worse than, but in the same mold as, four early presidents.
• Nation writer Joshua Holland thinks about what ISIS' motives really are.

There were a few other things in there, but these were the ones I paid most attention to.

I drove to a vendor site today because Google Maps told me it would take 18 minutes. (It took 21.) Then I drove around in expanding circles for almost 45 minutes trying to find a parking space, which I finally did almost a kilometer away.

I really hate finding out after the fact that the slower form of transportation would have been faster.

In between four rehearsals and two performances this week (Monday through Sunday), I'm taking tonight off. So while I have a minute or two between helping new developers understand some old code, I'm jotting down this list of things that looked particularly appealing when they came up on RSS feeds:

• Citylab explores cities that use numbers for both streets and avenues. They also wonder why America hates roundabouts.
• New Republic reassures Republicans that it's OK to burn down their own party, and reassures David Brooks that he's not crazy.
• Writing for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg examines the Obama Doctrine.
• Josh Marshall calls bullshit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

OK, the new devs are testing something...and more on that later.

The Chicago Transit Authority has concluded a deal worth up to $1.4 bn for 850 new rail cars:

The CTA’s board Wednesday approved the largest single purchase of rapid transit cars in Chicago history, giving the contract to a Chinese rail manufacturer that has promised to build a final assembly plant on the city’s Far South Side.

CTA officials said riders will see several major improvements when the prototype 7000-series cars arrive in late 2019. There will be full-width on-board LED screens capable of giving both of automated time and stop information, and real-time transit information in the event of delays or reroutes.

When the 7000-series cars are delivered in 2024, CTA will have the newest fleet of rapid transit cars in the nation, according to Bonds. He said the average age of a CTA ‘L’ car will be 13 years. By comparison, Boston has an average fleet age of 27 years, Washington, D.C. averages 25 years, New York averages 22 years and San Francisco averages 18 years.

The first prototypes should roll onto CTA tracks in October 2019.

A medium-length list this time:

• A Megabus exploded outside Chicago yesterday, but that shouldn't scare you away from intercity buses.
• Let's not forget that Antonin Scalia tried to take the country backwards, and was an intellectual phony on top of it.
• BBC Radio 4 has just released a new adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, featuring James McAvoy and Natalie Dormer.
• While Flint, Mich., has bad things in its municipal water supply, Chicago's isn't much better.
• California tax offices have had to adapt to taking in large amounts of (herbal-scented) cash, because Federal banking regulations make it nearly impossible for marijuana sellers to open bank accounts.
• Paul Krugman is not shilling for Hilary Clinton, so stop accusing him of corruption. We Democrats are better than that.
• The Chicago Transit Authority has floated a plan to buy $2-3 billion in new rail cars, but there's a little more to the deal than meets the eye.
• Mad Magazine's Al Jaffee made Jewish humor mainstream.

And this brings me to lunch.

Politico has a long-form article describing Evanston's efforts to rid its downtown of cars:

With stops for Chicago Transit Authority buses and its “L” rail line, Metra suburban rail’s Union Pacific North line and the Pace suburban bus, Evanston always had great transit bones. For much of its history it had also been a relatively prosperous North Shore city, its growth initially spurred by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, as Chicagoans fled its chaotic density, and in the 20^th century, its share of once-famous industrial names, from Rust-Oleum Corp. to Shure, the audio products company, to Bell & Howell, then best known for its film cameras and projectors.

The answer to the suburb’s economic woes, as it turned out, lay in embracing Lerner’s theory that “city is not the problem, city is solution.” Beginning in 1986, a new plan for Evanston embraced the idea of a “24/7” downtown, pouring resources into increasing the density of its downtown—a density that also meant decreasing residents’ reliance on automobiles. As a compact city, Evanston couldn’t compete with the vast sprawling parking spots of the Old Orchard Mall. It had to build a different sort of appeal.

Evanston’s approach mixed investments in mass transit—including building a new downtown transportation center—and relaxing its zoning restrictions along two designated corridors, Main and Central Streets, to permit increased residential density. “Nobody wanted a 20-story building in their downtown,” recalls Aiello-Fantus, the former assistant city manager. “There was this perception that we’re just a little town and having something 20 stories changes that character.”

I'm glad Evanston's planning is getting national press. I love the place, which is why I lived there for many years (and may do again). For many years before then, my mom lived along the Main Street corridor mentioned in the article—and then moved up to Central Street later on. And, of course, I was just there a couple weeks ago.

Interesting aside: 116 years ago today, the village of Austin ceased to exist as it was absorbed into the City of Chicago by legislative fiat. The city might have swallowed Evanston as well. How Evanston avoided that is a story in itself.