christina speaks

Thanks to all the folks coming over from the City Paper! I hope you like what you’re finding here.

Last night, the boyf and I went to an event in the Pop City CityLive! series called “Getting There … From Here” about public transit in Pittsburgh. The speakers were Steve Bland, CEO of the Port Authority of Allegheny County; State Representative Chelsa Wagner, who serves on the transportation committee in the PA House, among other committees; and Sanjeev Shah, a consultant who works on public transit issues.

I must admit, I was not expecting much from Mr. Bland, he of the boring name and anti-union website, but I was pleasantly surprised. One thing I really liked was that he talked about making transit more accessible to people ‘on the ground,’ so to speak, like being able to download bus schedules to your cell phone, which would be teh awesome in my opinion. This morning I was, once again, pushing the limit of how long I could stay in bed and still make the bus, and I couldn’t remember when the bus was supposed to arrive at my stop. Was it 8:24? Or 8:10? When does the next bus come - is it every twenty minutes or every half hour? If I had had the bus schedule downloaded to my cell phone, which is also my alarm clock, I would have known and could definitely have snuggled with my cat a little longer. Someone in the audience also suggested the service they have in DC, which is that every bus stop has an ID number, and you can call this toll-free 800 number, enter the ID number, and know exactly how far away your bus is from your stop. I used that a few times when I lived in that swampy hellplace and (grudgingly) thought it was pretty cool.

Mr. Shah was interesting in a putting-things-into-context way, but can I just say how much I love Rep. Wagner? She was elected to the House in 2006 and was one of two women from the city of Pittsburgh EVER ELECTED TO THE STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Wow. Holy shit. Much ado is being made this year over it being Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary, and I must say, it’s a little sad that it took 248 years for my beloved yinzers to elect any women whatsoever to the State House. (Okay, I know it’s actually less than that, since Pittsburgh existed before the state legislature did, but still. The point stands.) Rep. Wagner told the audience, among many other things (like that her ultimate, far-into-the-future goal is for Pittsburgh’s public transit to be completely free - awesomeness) that she had to fight incredibly hard to get onto the transportation committee. In preparing all her reasons why she wanted to be on it, one of her political advisers happened to mention that no female Democrat had been on the committee in the last session, and she threw that fact in there as a last reason why she should be on it, and now half the time what she hears in that committee is, “Look, you told us there were no female Democrats on this committee, so we put you on it. Deal.” Charming.

Anyway, this is all a longwinded way of saying that the folks from CityLive and PopCity and other places as well have debuted an online project called CitiWiki to encourage citizens of Pittsburgh to collaborate and share ideas for how to improve the city. It’s not only focused on transportation - they are also welcoming ideas about education, immigration, and economic growth. It seems like it’s going to be really cool and hopefully influence people to start thinking creatively about how we can improve the region in innovative way. It reminds me a bit of my old website, the Blurgh, in that it’s something hopeful rather than mired in the politics and bureaucracy that so often defeat people who want to try to make a difference.

So, wonderful, imaginative, creative readers, let’s all head over there and make our ideas heard, shall we?

:: Jul.25.2008 :: Daily, Pittsburgh :: 1 Comment »

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