Enter Change St, a super-simple cartoon streetscape. Scroll down, and your cheerful digital avatar takes a walk, past street trees, bike racks, a speed bump, and a block party. For each one, hover your cursor to see a few useful links about each improvement, including where to get started. With this project, we’re experimenting with unconventional ways to display useful info.

change.st is also a development experiment – we’re taking advantage of modern browsers’ recent adoption of Scalable Vector Graphics to render highly interactive scenes.  Fast Javascript engines make it possible to project from 3-dimensional space to the screen in the browser on the fly. We’re creating and positioning scene elements on the fly – as you scroll down the page, each item in the scene gets repositioned in 3D space relative to the world around it, and projected into 2D.  We then use jQuery to place the items where they should be on screen.

This was a quick Friday project, so bear these warnings in mind: so far, the links are NYC-specific and the info is sparse. Change St is best experienced in Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Definitely not a great experience on mobile browsers either.

We’re curious to hear how you might use Change St. After walking down the whole street, you’ll find a short survey. Want to see more street furniture? Location-specific graphics? A wiki? And feel free to pitch in on the software development side too — you can find Change St on github, and our public tracker here.

Over the next couple of months we will be asking the city to answer the basic question: which street is more beautiful?  We hope to generate a large database of crowdsourced data on preferences for streets throughout the city.  The choices have been randomly generated across the city.  This dataset will then be available for coders and designers at our summer hackathon to visualize and interpret using other available datasets in the region.  We are very excited about this because it will help us test an interface that could be used in the future on specific planning and civic engagement processes here in the region and across the country.

We’re excited too. We launched Beautiful Streets for Philly back in February. As I write this, 102,982 pairs have been evaluated, producing a fascinating dataset. For Denver, you can optionally tell the app where you’re based, which gives an even richer picture of how preferences might vary between different places. Or not – let’s find out!.

Prepping the project for Denver has given us a chance to write some documentation and tidy up the configuration process. Check out the project on github. Maybe there are some Beautiful Streets near you?

How have you liked OpenPlans so far?
It’s been great. It’s nice to work in an environment where there are a bunch of self-motivated people working on cool things. It feels like everyone is here because they want to be. It’s inspiring.

What projects were your working on prior to OpenPlans?
Before OpenPlans, I was working with the National Weather Service doing weather-related research and development.  My background is in meteorology, but the longer I worked there, the more I got into software, data, and design.  For a few years, I was working on software that the NWS uses to verify and improve their weather forecasts and numeric models. After that, I got more into the data and dissemination side of things. My main project was called iNWS.  It was a system that allowed people to register and receive customized weather alerts via SMS, email and web based geographic location.

Was this one of the NWS’s first forays into communicating directly with people versus communicating with larger disseminators like news outlets and such?
It was. It was a challenge is a few technical ways, but mostly a huge political and cultural challenge. It was a fun project for all those reasons.

Do you see it being similar to the cultural changes that might have to occur at the MTA for Bus Time?
The MTA’s customer has always been the transit rider and they know that. They do a lot in terms of marketing, outreach, and education and they view Bus Time as a project that will greatly improve the rider experience. On top of that, they are really into open source and open standards. They want to get other developers and organizations to get involved in extending the service.  Pretty cool for a huge organization like the MTA.

When you were you studying meteorology – did you envision that you would end up developing apps and user experience things?
No, not really. We had to write computer programs, but always with the goal of solving some weather problem. It wasn’t until I was working at the NWS that I really got interested in apps and design.  It wasn’t long before I wasn’t all that interested in the meteorology side of things. I just wanted to make cool software.

What are your areas of expertise now on the software side of things?
I feel really comfortable working with databases and server-side frameworks and code. Most of my work has been with Java and PHP. I can help out with front end code and design, and I’m working really hard to get better at that. I have a lot of experience working with geographic, multi-dimensional data, so I guess that’s another strength of mine.

What will you be working on here at OP?
Some back end stuff, but not completely. It’s one of the reasons I’m happy to be here.  I’m getting the chance to branch out and work on front end stuff too.  So far, our development has really beed driven by features we need in the web app as Bus Time is rolled out all over NYC.  So, as we’ve been improving the web page, I’ve been adding service-level features to the server. The most recent was an autocomplete service that the web users when a user starts searching for a bus route.  Performance was the number one concern since the thing will be called every time someone touches a key on their keyboard or phone.

What do you wish to accomplish over the next year here?
Over the next year, I’m excited to see Bus Time get rolled out across the entire city.  I think there is quite a bit of work to accomplish that, so I’m guessing that will take most of my time. There will be surprises along the way.  Problems that we don’t know about now, but will have to fix as they come along.

There’s always suprises.
It’s just the nature of a project like that. Other than that, I plan on soaking up as much knowledge as I can from the awesome people at and around OpenPlans.  I think it will be a great opportunity to learn a lot and collaborate on some exciting, non-Bus Time projects.

How do you keep yourself busy outside of work?
Lately, I feel like I just work on logistics for settling into my apartment, but once that’s all done, I’m looking forward to getting back to biking, playing music and exploring the art and music of NYC.  I have a lot to see here.

Which other places have you lived in?
I was raised in LA and then the Denver area.  During college I moved from Colorado to Bozeman, Montana and then to Salt Lake City. I spent the last 10 years in SLC.

You’ve made it back to a ocean shoreline.
Wait, there’s an ocean here?
Its somewhere under all the asphalt…

Any nicknames that you’ve picked up over the years?
I’ve never had a nickname.

No way…
I swear, I know, weird.

We’re gonna have to get the OP private eye to research this…
That would be fun to see what they come up with.

Say an interesting fact about yourself and your favorite color?
I can combine these… Favorite color is green, but it’s ironic because (this is my interesting fact) I’m actually red-green colorblind.

So you can’t see green or do you confuse the two?
After a lifetime of being color blind, I rarely think about or notice colors because I don’t trust myself with them.  I can see colors, including green, but at times they look very neutral.  Its very hard to distinguish one color from another.

You are an asset to everyone here who may be doing user testing!
And a poor person to choose the colors in a design [we have other people to do that].

Click through for a full album of rooftop balloon mapping pics

We went up and above and made use of our building’s untapped air rights with a Public Laboratory Balloon Mapping Kit.  Liz Barry, Leif Percifield, and Jason Eppnik of Public Lab along with our friends at Vizzuality set up shop on our deck and together we assembled and launched the helium balloon and camera rig.  We got it as high as 100′ up from our roof.   The rig snapped some great aerial pics of of our roof deck and the immediate surroundings of Chinatown and Soho.  Check out the pics, straight from the balloon.

Balloon mapping allows anyone to get aerial photos up to 500′ above the ground.  The Public Laboratory is your de facto source for info on the tools, the regulations and best practices for you to do your own balloon mapping.  Sign up on Public Laboratory to follow their progress: http://publiclaboratory.org/user/register

From view from Howard and Centre St

1 Gelb Luftballon

You’re all invited to the Streetsblog & Streetfilms Happy Hour!

Join the Streetsblog and Streetfilms team at Red Lantern, Brooklyn’s premiere cafe bike shop, for an evening of fun and films. Celebrate the growing livable streets movement and meet the stars of the My NYC Biking Story Streetfilms. Drink specials courtesy of Red Lantern.

Wednesday, May 9th 8:00-10:00PM

Red Lantern 345 Myrtle Ave. (between Adelphi & Carlton)
Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY $5-$10 suggested donation 21+ Please RSVP here.

See you there!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s space shuttle Enterprise!

Friday morning, OpenPlans-ers gathered on the roof to watch Enterprise riding piggyback up the Hudson.

Streetsblog and Streetfilms have launched their spring pledge drive with a goal is to raise $30,000 by June 1.  Give to Streetsblog, give to Streefilms, or give to ‘em both.  Your giving ensures that your online voice for livable, safe and complete streets stays heard within the public conversation. Thanks to previous support from readers:

• Streetsblog has produced in-depth coverage of NYPD’s traffic fatality investigations, exposing the shoddy underpinnings of the department’s victim-blaming crash reports. Your gift will help us sustain this reporting and hold elected officials to their promises to get NYPD to reform its ways.
• Streetfilms produced the highly acclaimed and groundbreaking Moving Beyond the Automobile series, which had nearly 150,000 views.  This year we’d like to continue to break new ground in the transportation debate by making three new chapters in the Fixing the Great Mistake series. One of the films will focus directly on the drawbacks of the effect of surface parking on a city and the damage it does.
• Streetsblog and Streetfilms will be able to cover what promises to be the biggest livable streets story of the year: 10,000 bikes at 600 stations will be on the streets in July. We will report on the preparation, launch, and day-to-day use of North America’s largest public bike system. Don’t let Andrea Peyser get the last word.

Anyone who contributes $50 or more to Streetsblog NYC or Streetfilms by June 1 will be eligible to win one of these handsome new Schwinns courtesy of Ride Brooklyn bike shop.

Donate at leat $50 and be entered to win this Schwinn Jenny 7 or Schwinn Willy 7

You can also enter the drawing by signing up to make a recurring monthly gift of just $4 or more — think of it as a subscription to the fine reporting and commentary you read on Streetsblog.   But wait, there’s more: give by April 30 and be also be eligible to win a one-year subscription to Yes! magazine.

Your support keeps Streetsblog and Streetfilms going. Please give and contribute to the high impact reporting and films that Streetsblog and Streetfilms produce.

Venn diagrams, maps, and historical anecdotes abound, its a great and entertaining read for those needing to talk up open source efforts and adoption within their agencies or companies.

The report emerges from a series of workshops and conversations convened by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute in 2010 and 2011. Participants included professional and citizen planners who practice scenario planning, academics researching scenario planning, and experts who develop tools to support scenario planning. OpenPlans has been engaged in those conversations and is  proud to be part of the report writing team.

Opening Access to Scenario Planning Tools examines the current state of scenario planning, the promise of scenario planning tools to help us prepare for the future, the challenges to expanding their use, and their potential to open access to the planning process. It makes specific recommendations to advance the use of scenarios and scenario planning tools, including development of an online platform to facilitate collaboration, capacity building, and open source activities among scenario tool developers, urban planners, and other tools users.

What is scenario planning? To ensure community support for decisions about development and other land-related policies — and public investments — broader and more effective civic engagement is needed. Scenario planning uses inputs such as density, mixed-use development, and transportation nodes, together with population estimates, to predict and visualize different outcomes.

To accompany the report, the Lincoln Institute created a website to host the current and future conversations around scenario planning,  ScenarioPlanningTools.org. Over time, the site will include links to resources and a gathering point for future collaborations.

So how do we increase access to scenario planning tools?

The report recommends the following actions – get involved in bringing these to reality!

•   Creating an online platform to foster collaboration in the development and application of scenario planning tools.

•   Developing a curriculum on scenario planning for the next generation of professional and citizen planners.

•   Establishing a model process for conducting scenario planning and show how it can be used with existing community planning processes.

•   Illustrating different uses of scenario planning tools in various stages of the planning process to facilitate increased use of scenario planning.

•   Establishing data standards to improve information sharing, starting with development and place types for land use patterns.

•   Creating a model collaborative project to demonstrate the potential for integrated tools, models, and modules.

•   Advancing new concepts of anticipatory governance by using foresight and anticipation to address uncertainty and future challenges.

The other team members include  leaders in the burgeoning field of visioning and visualization and public participation:

• C.J. Gabbe, an urban planner with Fregonese Associates, Inc.
• Jason Lally, director of the Decision Lab at PlaceMatters
• Robert Matthews, project director for the Decision Commons initiative
• Ray Quay, research professional at the Decision Center for a Desert City

The Scenario Planning Tools team will be at the 2012 APA Conference in Los Angeles, April 14-17, 2012.  Meetup with them on Saturday, April 14 5:30-7pm.  More event info can be found here.