• If Republicans got their way and public space was privatized…  Timeshare Backyard is the terrifying model for the future of privatized open space.  Bought to you by the Participation Agency, a project only the Ron Swansons of the world could love.
• Playing SimCity for Real:  When disasters strike When disaster modeling and citywide systems integration was new, the defense industry developed software to predict urban phenomena.  ”In the 60′s, mayors appealed to the best and brightest to apply themselves to the urban crisis. And what was in it for RAND? An opportunity to diversify beyond their Air Force contracts.”  And what was in it for the citizens? “RAND began building models they thought could predict fire patterns in New York, used to justify closing fire stations in the poorest sections of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Harlem, a decision that would ultimately displace 600,000 people as their neighborhoods burned”
• While the Debt Ceiling debate was unpleasant, the Times created a great diagram to plot readers’ comments showing where on the  two fences they sat.  The Drudge Report’s glue-on macaroni and magic marker version was unable to be scanned in time for press time of this post.
• ioby.org declares Streetfilms’ own Clarence Eckerson to be NYC’s Brawniest Man.  (you can’t spell Popeye without OPEnPlans)

“I just ride with a camera in my hand, riding my bike. I don’t have the time or the money for someone to do a perfect dolly shot….I started lifting weights back in the mid-90s, so I could ride and hold a camera steady.”

• Designer Erik Spiekermann’s diagram-that-incorporates-geography of the London Underground raises the question – when is a map really a diagram masquerading as a map?   Why does truth in geography weigh that heavily in discussions of transit map design? And is it a genuine criticism to point out that a transit map doesn’t perfectly reflect geography?
• ULTra‘s new people mover system debuts at London’s Heathrow Airport. This modern people mover is moving about 800 people a day and other places are considering them.  Similar people movers have been in place in Detroit, and West Virginia.   Is the urban people mover a transportation model that can get its grounding and be successful at places other than airports and universities?
• An insight on use of social media to promote blog posts by our own Chris Abraham. “Using Social Media in Our Blogs”
• Teenagers – get your field trip permission slips signed, we’ll host you if you write some apps that utilize open government data.
• Even NYC’s dollhouse real estate market is tough, according to Brownstone Dollhouse
• The Wearable OysterCard vs. The Wearable MetroCard (who wins?)
• Finally, the Apple Way vs. The Google Way, as depicted by the New York Times

As summer winds down, student interns are wrapping up projects and getting ready to head back to class. To celebrate the spirit of summer research, OpenPlans hosted an informal forum for interns to present — and be non-competitively judged.

After each presentation, the crowd voted with signs – including Thorough, Funny, Brilliant, Interesting, Beautiful, Engaging, Original, Relevant, Inspiring, and Cool. A highly-scientific process determined the majority sentiment for each one.

If summer vacation is all you ever wanted, take a look at the great topics below, and think again! Thanks to interns and summer fellows from Local Projects, Regional Plan Association, Transportation Alternatives, Tri-State Transportation Campaign, ioby.org and the NYC Dept of City Planning.

David shares his story here: How Open Government Technology Transforms the Way We Travel via whitehouse.org

OpenRTMS collects data from  sensors hooked to individual’s Android smart-phone to collect one of a variety of data points across an environment.  A variety of sensor modules (light, temperature, humidity, air particulate, humidity, vibration, sudden movement et al.) can be monitored by OpenRTMS software.  Users can use modules from the sensor library, or develop their own using the Arduino platform. Once in the cloud, users can manage this data via a web interface. The platform compiles data from these various points, aggregates it and visually displays it.

But what can it be used for? The sensors can be deployed in the urban environment to detect civic issues – potholes (vibration sensor), poorly designed and congested streets(noise sensors to gauge honking), crowded bike lanes (sudden movement sensors) – some our OpenPlansers’ ideas. Of course it could be used for non-urban issues (as they do exist) – tracking the effects of hydrofracking, sensing body temperatures across the surface of the body, or exact humidity across a wide area.  Its a limitless and exciting platform – we’re really thankful for Mike for coming out and sharing it with us – check it out yourself!

Who speaks at OpenBag? Just about anyone who is engaged in transportation, programming, mapping, diagramming, public space and urban issues and is taking the creative steps to push their respective field forward.  Or just anyone who is doing something we think is interesting – being that we’re all nerds here, it tends to be tech, planning or transit related.
Got something interesting you want to share?  Drop us an inquiry.

Nickname to differentiate you from the other Daves we know:
Call me “David-I-Drink-the-Livable-Streets-Kool-Aid Dubovsky”.

Why not stay in the traditional private sector?
OpenPlans always seemed like a really cool, cutting edge place. When I saw the OpenGeo opportunity it all clicked – I’ll switch school to part time and leverage my past experience in software to work in the industry I want to be in (i.e. the reason I went to school in the first place was to switch industries).

How did you discover OpenPlans?
My connection to OpenPlans has always been through volunteering and following Transportation Alternatives and Streetsblog…

How do you envision your future with OpenPlans?
I’m looking forward to my position evolving over time. At the beginning I see myself helping in various roles: process development, some administrative duties, developing marketing collateral and event management. Over time I hope to make the processes replicable and repeatable for another staffer to step in while I transition to marketing at a business to business level and other business development responsibilities.

Gloomy yet Optimistic Facts!:
“Until last week my apartment housed our four bikes, but sadly I sold one.”
“I’m very intrigued by why things fail.”

Welcome aboard David!

Jason and his partners have devised and built the Astoria Scum Bridge, Spoiler Alert , Pro Pants 2KX, Take A Seat, Pixelator (among many others) – creative interventions and objects in the city’s public spaces.  In addition to his own projects he’s been a part of Improv Everywhere as a contributor and creator on projects such as High Five Escalator and Tourist Lane.

Jasons work is a pleasant reminder that interaction in pubic spaces and physical making is still the most effective way to reach people. Our public spaces and streets are theater and they’re our spaces; that with effort and creativity we can transform them for the better, temporarily and in some cases permanently.  And failing that, we can at least make our fellow citizens laugh.  Its the mission and driving force behind OpenPlans and the mission is expressed in an entirely different way than our software and journalism.

Keep up with what Jason has going on – it will probably pop up in your google reader or twitter feed sooner than later -  AdWars, a project to bring attention to the grey area that illegal advertising operates in in our public spaces and monetizes that space, and the Guerilla Works Progress Administrations.

Who speaks at OpenBag? Just about anyone who is engaged in transportation, mapping, diagramming, public space and urban issues and taking the creative steps to push their respective field forward and that shares in OpenPlans mission.  Or just anyone who is doing something we think is interesting – but we’re all nerds here, so it tends to be tech, planning or transit related.

• Patents and the patent trolls who abuse them. This American Life explores how intellectual property and patent law is stifling invents and being abused. When Patents Attack! NPR
• Will notoriously image-conscious San Franciscoans finally start taking mass transit if BMW designs the trains?  BMW DesignWorks USA to collaborate on interior of new BART cars Core 77
• The B63′s BusTime gets as many texts daily as a popular teenaged student (700 a day!) TransportationNation
• In the early part of the century, NYC tolled the Williamsburg Bridge- what would have happened if those tolls weren’t removed? 31 b-b-b-b-billion dollars would have happened….
• Developments in alt-people moving:
  • Slides
    • Skates
      • Channels
        • Poles

• Ubs vs. Googs:  Google shut down the Estimated Time of Arrival API due to inaccuracy. The Atlantic –  Meanwhile Uber’s pool of drivers and better API  gives quality real time and reliable ETA data Uberblog
• Neighbortree offers homeowners and HOAs a unique neutral platform for all residents to contribute in a social neighborhood based network social network a constructive manner.  Neighbortree.com
• And now for why we are all here, maps:

• The Connected States of America. good magazine This is what our state lines might look like if we drew them based on who actually talks with each other.
• Rebooting Massachusetts Massachusetts boundaries redrawn on administration, politics, natural resources and even its donut addiction.
• MyBlockNYC explore and interact with user-generated video that captures each unique, interesting and sometimes crazy moment around New York City’s 90,000 blocks  But our Jeff Maki did it before it was cool and mainstream
• The Hyperlocal Running Map a really pretty visualization of one man’s jogging paths through DC

• Proof that NYC is always changing, a photograph: “WaterTowers: What goes up/ must come down: A view from the OpenPlans kitchen” (alternatively named: “Watertower is dead, long live Watertower!”)

via EpicGraphics Something to chew on this weekend.

The 7 line extension to the Javits Center and the Hudson Yards development is New York City’s first new subway station in 2 decades. As the blades of the project’s tunnel boring machine plow onward into the west 30′s, the students interviewed, researched and explored a multitude of sources to answer the question – who decided to build this line? And how do major, expensive public works projects progress beyond the idea stage and into reality?  The 6 month long student investigation explored how investments in infrastructure come to move forward and others don’t.

The students were lead by CUP teaching artists Alexandra Woolsey Puffer and Jeff Maki (OpenPlans Transportation Project Lead). The newspaper features interviews from Mark Schiffman at MTA Capital Construction, Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development and Stephen Spinola of REBNY, among many others.

Check out pictures of the event and the newspaper at Who Decides Where the Subways Go?, or watch a short video of the students having a process-ion to review the steps of the subway extension process!

Fast-Tracked Parade from the Center for Urban Pedagogy on Vimeo.

• We’re going to Arcade next week! “an interactive evening of games selected by Kill Screen and inspired by the exhibition Talk to Me. Guests can play games in a variety of spaces throughout the Museum and the Sculpture Garden, sponsored by Poprally”
• London, your diagrammatic maps aren’t looking so hot anymore. Map War! A fascinating comment thread debating whether London’s methods of displaying their transit systems is really the best. Talking of transit, your MetroCard is going away… and here’s a much better transit transfer than the one from the L to the 1-2-3 at 14th St
• Theory department: pt 1: Urban visionairies not getting it about transit. “Architects and urban visionaries play an incredibly important role in a leadership-hungry culture. They have to know a little bit about almost everything, which is hard to do. But for some reason, certain segments of the profession have decided that the basic math and geometry of transit isn’t one of those things, even when they present themselves as transit experts.” pt 2: Will America’s young and restless abandon cities for the suburbs, or does Joel Kotkin just not get it again?
• City of Memory is an online community map of personal stories and memories organized on a physical geographical map of New York City. It reminded us of Community Almanac.
• If the whole city is moving, does that technically make the city itself a form of transit? In more serious movement news, Mayor Bloomberg announced a new real time traffic management system to reduce congestion in midtown… but does it have its priorities straight? (Streetsblog shameless plug!)
• Can transit agencies learn from different private sector strategies of building and managing demand? And how can they drive (railroad?, straphang?) demand in the first place?
• And why do guys like this always become the face of alternative forms of transit? More music: Best Sprawl Songs: 1. The Pretenders – My City Was Gone 2. Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi‬ 3. Arcade Fire – Sprawl II

David sat down and enlightened us on where he came from, how he got here and where he plans to go:

What are you going to work on at OpenPlans?
I will serve as a primary resource for OpenTripPlanner (OTP), an international community-based effort to create an open-source platform for multimodal trip itinerary planning. OpenPlans has been a key participant in the project since its inception in 2009, and I will be working to guide development of new features and applications as well as coordinating our engagement with the growing community of developers and users that has emerged around the project.

The Emory's at MARTA's inaugral ride. David is the passenger in the stroller.

Tell us about yourself.
I got hooked on transit at an early age; my father was director of planning for MARTA, the transit system in my hometown of Atlanta, and I was a passenger (at 3 months of age) on the system’s inaugural train trip in June 1979. I later developed an interest in computers and received a CS degree from Brown in 2001, before returning home to study transportation planning at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining OpenPlans, I worked for five years at the Atlanta Regional Commission, where I worked on transit policy issues and initiated a regional open transit data initiative. Outside of work, I am active with a number of volunteer organizations focused on creating a more livable urban environment, including the Georgia Sierra Club, Citizens for Progressive Transit, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, and the Atlanta Streets Alive! project.

What is Five Points?
Five Points, named after the historical hub of the transit system in Atlanta, is an open-source trip planning package I wrote it as a personal side project in the mid 2000s to support the development of a multimodal trip planner for the city. The initial deployment, called A-Train, was launched in 2007 with the help of a local transit advocacy group, who funded the purchase of a dedicated server for the application, and it remains online today at www.atltransit.com.

How does Five Points relate to OpenTripPlanner?
When OpenTripPlanner was launched two years ago, Five Points was one of several existing open source projects around the country that helped form the basis for OTP, together with others such as GraphServer and OneBusAway. Since then, my efforts with Five Points have been focused on incorporating the relevant elements of that work into the main OTP project. The feature in OTP that provides a graphical elevation profile for bicycle trips, for instance, is based on code I originally wrote for Atlanta.

What are three of your goals for OpenTripPlanner in the coming year?
There are many exciting directions we can take OTP over the next year, but these are three of my top priorities:
1. Improving the overall user experience, including innovative approaches to the visualization of transit system maps and how users interact with them.
2. Expanding the scope of the project to support such applications as transit system analysis and policy research, as well as better integration with general-purpose geospatial software such as the OpenGeo suite.
3. Enhancing and strengthening the existing community of OTP developers, users, and other interested parties, with improved mechanisms for project coordination such as a streamlined web presence and more frequent real-time communication via phone and IRC.

How will your professional experience as planner help shape your work at OpenPlans?
A critical element of urban planning today is accommodating the needs and interests of a broad array of project partners and stakeholders. This was a particular challenge in Atlanta, a sprawling region with a largely decentralized decision making structure. In my previous job I supported the region’s transit policy and coordination committee, which brought together over 20 county and municipal governments, several regional and state-level transportation agencies, and about a dozen different transit providers ranging from single-route campus shuttles to large urban agencies like MARTA. I believe my experience in that environment can be applied to the context of growing open source software projects, which by their nature are relatively decentralized efforts with a diverse community of stakeholders.