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Plenty has been written about Chicago’s disastrous parking meter deal, so I need not go into how the asking price was almost criminally low, how the aldermen were railroaded into endorsing the deal without even knowing its terms, how our new parking overlords are raking in more than a million dollars a week.

Instead, I have something to share that I noticed a few weeks ago.  To me, it illustrates in microcosmic form the parking meter deal as a whole: its purpose is poorly conceived, its ramifications are unclear, and ultimately it screws the citizens of Chicago.

It is an example of some typical signage, from the 2100 block of West Division Street.

The problem with these two signs lies with their arrows.

On the bottom sign, denoting the edge of a daytime loading zone, the arrow tells us in which direction the zone extends from this point.  This is the purpose with which motorists are familiar, having seen it many times at the edges of no parking zones and the like.

The arrow on the recently added top sign, however, tells us in which direction the nearest pay box may be found.

Because the two arrows appear on the same signpost, it is not unreasonable to infer that they have similar meanings.  Indeed, the arrows are not merely similar in appearance, they are identical.  The “pay box, thataway” arrow is the same size and shape as the “zone starts here, goes thataway” arrow.  Therefore these signs, in combination, could easily lead motorists to believe that the pay zone extends to the left, and that once the loading zone expires at 6PM the free-but-very-short-term parking spots to the right become free-and-stay-as-long-as-you-want.  (Or, at least until 8AM the next morning.)

I’m not being overly sensitive about this, or over-thinking it.  I noticed this signage in the first place when I overheard a group of women, having just parked their car in the loading zone after 6PM, debating this exact question.  They had come to the erroneous conclusion, and were about to walk off and get their evening underway.  Fortunately, before some random stranger (that is, I) could accost them and politely set them straight, one of the women noticed other, marginally less-obfuscating, signs on the block and convinced them to return and pay the fee.

The women seemed new to the neighbourhood, unfamiliar with their environs.  They probably were there for their first time to try out one of the trendy Division Street restaurants they’d read about in Chicago magazine or some such.  Lucky for them, one of their party was paying enough attention that they didn’t finish their Big City meal to find that it cost them upwards of $75 more than they had expected.

By the way, the icing on this cupcake is the fact that the pay box sign is pointing the wrong way.  The next available pay box in that direction — if in fact there is one — is at least two and a half blocks away, past the windswept open wasteland of St. Mary’s Hospital and Roberto Clemente High School, and across busy, seven-lane-wide Western Avenue.

It’s time for some simple arithmetic…

Amount of budget cuts announced by the mayor this week, in wage freezes and unpaid furloughs for nonunion city workers: $44 Million. [source: Chicago Tribune, 20 Oct 2009]

Amount the city will admit to having spent on the 2016 Olympics bid, despite independent estimates that go much higher: $50 Million. [source: New York Times, 8 Apr 2009]

Hmm. Those numbers not sufficiently coincidental for you? How about these…

Amount of the city’s FY2010 budget deficit: $550 Million. [source: Chicago Sun-Times, 15 Oct 2009]

Amount the city’s tax increment financing districts diverted in property taxes in 2007, the most recent figure available: $555 Million. [source: Chicago Reader, 6 Nov 2008]

Can anyone tell me what two plus two equals? Anyone?

I went looking for a particular book the other day, and started in my usual place: Amazon.com. Turns out the book is long out of print and somewhat uncommon, but of course Amazon had several used copies to offer, from various bookstores throughout the country.  Since I wasn’t looking for a pristine, mint copy, just one in decent shape, I spotted one that fell into the sweet spot of price and condition: “Very good” at $39.95.

Then I noticed that the bookseller, coincidentally, is an actual bricks-and-mortar shop here in town that I have frequented many times in past years.  Occasionally I’d pass by it and think, that place is great, I should stop in again sometime.  So when I saw the name in the Amazon list I figured, what the heck: I’ll stop in and buy it direct, get the book sooner and save the shipping cost.  And I’ll have an excuse to browse an interesting place and support a locally owned business.

The result: disappointment.

This afternoon when I walked in, there was a spirited conversation going on at the front counter between the proprietor and a customer, which sounded to me more like bickering than dickering.  They had clearly been at it for a while, and almost certainly this was far from their first time.  It wasn’t exactly ugly, just strained, and it cast an odd pall over the place. Meanwhile, as I looked around I had a sense that the place had changed.

This shop has long had a reputation as being almost impossibly cluttered, but this was usually considered to be part of its charm.  In the past when I’ve shopped there I would find interesting books jumping off the shelves at me (fortunately, only figuratively).  This time, however, it was as if everything had reached a state of calcification, as if even if I’d spotted a book I really wanted I would have been unable to remove it from the shelf as it would be fused with all the books surrounding it.

Then again, maybe that impression was just a side effect of the vibe at the front counter.  In either case, I grew impatient for the bothersome customer to finally leave so that I could ask the proprietor about my quarry.

And so I did.  He thought for a long moment, querying the catalogue in his head, and replied, “Ah, yes… I know the book.  I believe I have that for sale online.”

I nodded, agreeing.

He gestured none-too-vaguely at a massive pile to his right, giving me the sense that, even though their spines were not facing him, he knew exactly which anonymous book in that stack we were discussing.  “I believe I had that listed for $100.  It’s been up there for a while.”

I asked, “Was that on Amazon?”

“Yeah,” he said, brightly.  “Did you see it?”

I nodded again and said “I noticed it was you selling it and figured since I’m in the neighbourhood, I’d just stop in.”

“Did you happen to see what it was listed for?”

I pondered for a moment, not so much trying to remember what the price had been but debating whether I should try to lowball him.  I decided to play it straight.  “About $40.”

“Oh,” he said.  Then he went into some digression about how he might have lowered the price once or twice, because it wasn’t moving, and something about how his prices on Amazon are 20% lower because he has to pay their commission — which maybe I misunderstood, because that makes absolutely no sense.  Then he said, “Can you call me tomorrow?  I need to check on the listing first.”  He started to jot down a reminder to himself on the notepad on the counter.

“Well…” I hemmed slowly, “I’m going to be kind of tied up tomorrow…” My uncertainty was meant to give him the chance to change his mind, to decide that he was willing to sell me that book, and to take the few minutes needed to locate it.

I guess he didn’t hear me.  “Yeah, call me tomorrow, I’ll let you know.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said, and left.  Which really meant: not a chance.

The way I see it is this.  He tried to take me to the cleaners for a hundred bucks, for a book that I just don’t need all that badly.  I offered him forty, a more than fair price that he passed on — even though if I’d pulled out my mobile phone and punched up Amazon in its browser and ordered the book from him through that, I would have paid a few bucks more for shipping — but a considerably smaller portion of that same forty bucks would have made it into his pocket.

I guess he wasn’t really interested in the $40 cash I was ready to plunk onto his cluttered countertop.

No matter.  After checking out another used book store in the area (where I found a couple of very interesting items), I came home and ordered the book from Amazon.  My book is on its way… from a shop in Oregon.  And I won’t be back in that cluttered bookshop again — not so long as its proprietor has no interest in actually selling books.

Each spring, dozens of sailboats — pleasure crafts all — make their way from their winter homes in the boat yards of the Chicago River’s South Branch, motoring up the river to Lake Michigan en route to their summer berths.  Along the way, they must pass under the city’s many movable bridges, and since the boats have tall masts, it’s necessary for the bridges to lift to allow the boats to pass.

Once upon a time, the bridges opened constantly.  The main stem of the Chicago River was the city’s principal port, and lake boats and cargo ships would enter through the Chicago Lock at the mouth of the river to moor alongside the many warehouses and freight yards that lined the banks.  Federal law mandates that shipping traffic has the right-of-way over street traffic, so the bridges had to open for any vessel that needed to pass, resulting in several opens an hour.  (Even today, bridges along the Calumet River on the south side of the city operate almost as frequently.)

Nowadays, the port has moved away from downtown, the warehouses and freight yards replaced with upscale apartment complexes and enormous skyscrapers.  The only river traffic that requires a bridge lift are those sailboats, so to minimize street-level disruption they are relegated to a limited number of transit windows: one run per day on (most, but not all) Wednesdays and Saturdays from late April through June; the return trip happens between September and early November.  It’s a stressful, madcap event for boaters, zipping from one city block to the next only to wait for the next bridge to lift, while a dozen or more other boats jockey for position as if there’s any chance that they’ll make it to the lake more than a few seconds ahead of their fellow travellers.

Here’s my point: I will contend that it would actually be less disruptive of street traffic if the bridges were to open more often.

Today at lunch I watched the flotilla pass under the bridge at Lake Shore Drive, known officially as the Link Bridge and colloquially as the FDR Bridge, for the President who attended its dedication in 1937.  This magnificent art deco double-decked double bascule trunnion bridge was considered to be the longest and widest bridge of its type in the world at the time of its completion.

Traffic stopped, the warning gates closed, both spans opened, and the dozen or so sailboats scooted through.  The spans closed.  The warning gates opened, briefly, then closed again.  One span opened slightly, closed again.  The traffic waited.

And waited.  and waited.

I suspect the cause was something I’ve seen with these bridge lifts several times in the past: the locking mechanism between the two spans fails to engage properly.  Without the two spans latched together, they can’t allow traffic to cross the bridge.  Sometimes opening and closing a span again is enough to trigger the latch; sometimes a CDOT worker has to give it the hairy eyeball.  Usually a couple of tries is enough to get it to work.

Not this time.  By my reckoning, the LSD crossing was blocked, on both levels and in both directions, for well over thirty minutes, more than three times the expected delay.  The red markers on the Chicago Congestion Map extended past the Oak Street curve to the north — basically back to the last convenient exit, where traffic could detour onto southbound Michigan Avenue — and all the way to Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park to the south.

Meanwhile, the sailboats motored another quarter mile and entered the Chicago Harbor Lock; the inner gate closed; the chamber level rose; the outer gate opened; and the sailboats passed through the lock and into Lake Michigan.

In fact, after that a tour boat came in from the lake and passed all the way through the lock before traffic began to move across the bridge!

In other words, in the time it took for the bridge to complete one open/close cycle, the lock performed four gate moves and two controlled water flows.

The Chicago Lock operates around the clock, year-round, and cycles dozens of times a day.  It’s partly underwater, for God’s sake… and yes, it requires quite a lot of maintenance.  But it works.

Another case in point is the Wabash Avenue bridge.  For the past several months they have been working on the new pedestrian riverwalk that will run beneath this bridge.  Each day from 9:30 AM to around 3:30 PM, the bridge is lifted so that the cranes and cement trucks can do their work without risk of striking the truss overhead.  And each day when the work is through, they lower the bridge and it closes without issue.  The lift is a routine part of the workers’ day.

Most of the bridges, though, open far less frequently.  In fact, many of the city’s movable bridges have been demolished and replaced (North Avenue being the most recent example) or semi-permanently bolted shut, such as the historic Cortland Street bridge (which happens to be the first fixed-trunnion bascule bridge built in the United States).  And those that do move only do so a few dozen times a year.  With that level of infrequency, it’s unreasonable to expect CDOT bridge workers to develop any familiarity with the bridges and their inner workings, much less their quirks.

The result: worker surprise when the bridge fails to operate as expected, and slow response due to not knowing precisely what the problem might be, even if the exact same problem occurred the last time the bridge was raised.  And untold hundreds of motorists delayed or detoured to meander their way through an already-congested downtown to find an alternate route across the river.

I know, I know — the level and kind of river traffic today is insufficient to justify full-time bridge tenders, and any staffing level less than that requires a limited and preset schedule of lifts.  I simply think it’s unfortunate that this reduction allows the CDOT to defer maintenance and shifts the economic and logistical burden away from the CDOT and onto the shoulders of every downtown driver and pedestrian.

(One year later, a follow-up.)

I have to call bullshit on this.

Here’s the deal.  Michael Phelps is no hero.  He’s an excellent swimmer, that’s all.  He gave a record-setting performance at the Beijing Olympics… in swimming.  That does not make him a great American, a great scholar, nor even necessarily a great person.  As far as I can tell, he’s good at just one thing: swimming.  Of course, he’s very, very good at that.

Beyond that, who knows.  I won’t get into the rumours about his personality or attitude outside the pool.  I’ve never met the man.  But it’s pretty clear that aside from his natatorial prowess he’s simply your typical twenty-something male, and as such he likes to party sometimes.

Okay, so given what he potentially has to lose — untold millions in endorsement contracts — it was stupid of him to put himself in a situation where he could be photographed doing something compromising by someone untrustworthy who’d sell him out for a few thousand bucks.

Finally — finally! — we have someone prominent, successful, and (ahem) white, a real Champion of America, who did not apologise for smoking pot.  Who did not make vague imprecations about drug problems or rehab.  Who, as far as all the quotes imply, only apologised for “behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgement.”  In other words, he’s sorry for allowing that jerk to take his picture.

But here’s where I call bullshit.  Amid all the discussion in the press — one dominated by calls, from a wide range of political factions, to reconsider the United States’ failed drug policy with regard to marijuana — comes a new report: “Could smoking pot raise testicular cancer risk?”

Are you fucking kidding me?  Are the powers that be — the DEA, Big Pharma, and Big Tobacco — so desperate as that?  This study, trotted out yesterday in the journal Cancer, hot on the heels of the Phelps controversy, is tentative, preliminary, and inconclusive.  The researches think they see a correlation between chronic pot use and testicular cancer, but the CNN article at least fails to compare the risk factor with that of having an undescended testicle, which is far greater.

In fact, one co-author — way down at the bottom of the CNN article, long after the photo of that lumpy blunt has engrained the thought of a similarly lumpy and blackened nutsack in the reader’s mind — says, “The bottom line is that I would not start warning my marijuana smokers that they are going to get testicular cancer.  I don’t think there’s enough here to go forward with that message, at least not yet.”

So even the CNN article calls bullshit on itself!  But all it takes is that fucking question mark in the headline to obviate any need for results that back the hypothesis.

In short, we have: a famous athlete, whom some (not I) would call a national hero, who allegedly smokes pot; a sudden surge of people publicly questioning whether that’s such a bad thing; and, as a result, a quickie response that all but says, “if you smoke pot, your nuts will rot.”