“Stringer Explains His “Philosophy of Public Engagement” on Street Designs - Streetsblog Capitol Hill” plus 1 more |
| Stringer Explains His “Philosophy of Public Engagement” on Street Designs - Streetsblog Capitol Hill Posted:  Upper West Side leaders presenting their recommendations to tweak the Columbus Avenue bike lane. Photo: Noah Kazis Since Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has promised to take his approach to street redesigns, first put into place by the Columbus Avenue working group, borough-wide, Streetsblog decided to check in with him to see just what this process would look like. The details are still being worked out. Stringer wasn't yet sure, for example, whether future working groups would limit their surveys to businesses along the same side of the street as the bike lane, as was done on Columbus, or branch out to groups like residents or pedestrians visiting the area. Stringer did say he'd like to bring working groups in from the very beginning of the process rather than solely using them to troubleshoot already implemented redesigns. Stringer argued this would ultimately enhance the transformation of the city's streets, not slow it down. On Columbus Avenue, he said, only two of the businesses surveyed said they were opposed to the new protected bike lane. "There's a real opportunity here to tone down some of the rhetoric and get things done," said Stringer. "Having dialogue and even disagreements with communities about street design in the short run may be a big pain for the bureaucrats, but in the long run it's going to mean a lot to evolving the street design of the city." Stringer called the DOT's current approach too domineering. "The DOT philosophy has been it's either my way or the highway," he said. "It's a system that has been too top-down, too in your face." When pressed on the fact that the Columbus Avenue bike lane had been the subject of public discussion since 2008 and community board debate since 2009, Stringer walked back his comments somewhat. "I think that the Columbus Avenue bike lane process has from the beginning been really positive," he said. Stringer said that the Columbus Avenue process was better than others because of the shared outlook of the community and DOT. "They put DOT in a more comfortable position, because at the end of the day the goals were the same," he argued. Even so, said Stringer, "there wasn't always transparency." He said that DOT wanted to keep the results of the working group's survey private, for example. "If you think for a second that they've been collaborating with people around the city, that's just not true." With the exception of the first segment on Ninth Avenue, however, the city's new protected bike lanes have all received community board votes in favor. In the cases of Columbus Avenue, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, and Prospect Park West, the agency was responding to community-based campaigns for safer streets. Stringer believes the process went awry, for example, with the way pedestrian refuge islands were built along Columbus — DOT added most of them after the community board vote, once new funding became available to do so. "The islands are terrific," said Stringer, who agreed that they had been popular at the community board when a smaller number were proposed. But, he said, the community shouldn't have found out about the extra islands only after they had been installed. "You tell people what's going on," he said. "If it's good news, I don't see why you wouldn't want to tell people." Not doing so, he argued, feeds "a public perception that you're not transparent or forthcoming, real or imagined." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Philosophy Lite: The company of the committed - Victoria Advocate Posted: By Raymond Smith In 1972, Vance Packard published an insightful book on the cultural changes taking place in our country because of the increasing mobility of the American workforce. The book was titled, "A Nation of Strangers," and it addressed the increasing isolation people felt as they moved around the country and as farm families moved to the cities. Of particular concern to Packard was the loss of community and also social disintegration that was taking place as people in a new area without family or friends tended to do things they wouldn't do at home. They were rootless and less socialized. Today, people are still isolated from one another because we are more self-sufficient; we have air conditioning and television, which tends to keep us indoors - we have all the entertainment we need. But people still need people. The original idea of church was to provide a fellowship of the committed. Gene Getz in his book, "Building Up One Another," describes the elements of interaction that are commanded in the New Testament. Foremost, of course, was the injunction to love one another; then to pray for one another, to bear one another's burdens; to exhort, admonish, edify and strengthen one another; to care for and serve one another, and so on. Such give-and-take between Christians is vital in building up a body of believers that will be effective in carrying out our Lord's work. We lack the power of the early church because we have become self-sufficient and do not seem to need each other. Alcoholics Anonymous is an organization that demonstrates the need that addicts have in order to help them conquer a problem they could not handle themselves. Born out of a need to help and encourage one another, it has had a great success, but not the point that other similar organizations have sprung up, like Neurotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, just to name a few. AA's success is due in large part to two main emphases: The strength that fellow addicts can give to a friend who desperately needs it, and the power that addicts can draw from belief in a supreme being - however they may understand him. Elton Trueblood's book, "The Company of the Committed" (1961), addresses the same issue. He sees the church as a workshop, not a dormitory. He feels the only way the church can reclaim its original effectiveness is to get back to the basics of evangelism, re-prioritize our lives and work more closely together. The church should be one large "accountability group" where each inspires the other, helps one another, exhorts one another, provokes one another to love and do good works (Hebrew 10:24) and encourages one another. He sees the pastor and the laity on pretty much equal terms. It appears we may have lost our first love as Paul exhorted the church at Ephesus. "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." Raymond F. Smith is a deacon at Fellowship Bible Church in Victoria and President of Strong Families of Victoria. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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