We have free radio. Dare we have a free broad band internet for all?

 AM and FM radio is free. Since every student has to use broadband internet to access their lessons all throughout this great country, why isn't access to the internet free? .Just asking. BTW - check out this article: https://tinyurl.com/yxuovjdr

Why can't NYC be as clean as Chicago?

I'm back. It's been 7 years. I'm now retired. 

Time for me to note and state we in the great USA need a plan for our cities to be better at being clean. We in NYC, the largest city in the USA, should certainly be on the list for the cleanest cities in the world. You know who ranks above us - Chicago. Check it out: https://earthnworld.com/cleanest-cities-in-the-world/ 

I am taking a walk and what do I see a day after the hurricane and what do I see on a well used walkway along an avenue in lovely Brooklyn that blocked both sides.

 The bicyclists, the other walkers, and joggers continue along our merry way and what do we come across is that the state of the sidewalks are filled with the debris of twigs, branches, uncut grass. To clean up the streets, to cut the grass that edge the sidewalks. 

Sure would have helped if we had, even in the midst of a pandemic, small teams of teens, in PPE, actively engaged in both a community project that helps all within a neighborhood. By having this type of modified summer program, it helps with providing kinesthetic learning opportunity to supplement the minds of students about city planning and preservation.

 Who is supposed to fix this? Is it the homeowner? The tree was not on the homeowner's property.

Here's another issue - 

 What would it cost, at this time in August, to make sure adults of all sizes, in small groups, wearing masks, making areas safer and cleaner in neighbors? Wouldn't it support, at a cheaper rate, the energy, time to the overburdened sanitation department? Why must drivers hope that they are able to safely move down a street?

    

It sounds minor but it is a a reality that people trip over branches, twigs, leaves branches.


This debris bundles together as future hazards if there is a rainstorm to clear drainage area.

We need infrastructure, in the time of the pandemic. This pandemic will probably last over a two year time period, which is the time span of the Spanish Flue in 1918.  Not a pleasant thought at all. 

We need to keep thinking and planning. We need to provide opportunities for people to work even during this time period.  We as a people, need to think of ways to upkeep and upgrade ways to move forward and not just accept sloppy conditions.

We have people waiting on food lines, crossing all classes. If people are supposedly interested in 

Infrastructure now - let's start small, targeted, safely, and smartly. 

1 of 9 Bridges in Trouble

We now find out that 1 out of 9 bridges are in structural trouble. 
Check out the link here

Now can we move on a jobs bill to deal with addressing the infrastructure - like repairing the thousands of bridges throughout the United States. That's a big project that needs federal intervention.

The Answer - No

I was in evacuation zone A. I am very lucky. My family is all together. The damage to my property was minor.

Here's the larger question - can we now have a comprehensive jobs bill to attack the electrical grid?
Can we now have a comprehensive manner to deal with the fact that we live on a series of connected ISLANDS and therefore need a dike and dam system pretty much like the Netherlands. Are we going to use the lessons so that we can adapt them to our needs?
Are we now going to have serious, substantive, thoughtful conversations about repairing bridges, roads, and tunnels which were all compromised by the tidal surges from Hurricane Sandy?

Hurricane Sandy - Are we prepared?

Hurricane Sandy is traveling up the east coast. Congress needs to be held accountable that we as a nation have very outdated methods to prepare for natural occurrences (which are happening more frequently - but that is a whole different topic).

Some questions:
--> With the push for state's rights, do all states have equal access to protect their citizenry?
--> What is the condition of the electrical grid for the east coast? For the coastal areas?

Reworking of the Electrical Grid & Drain System- Now

The summer is proceeding along. Cooling centers are open. Cooling centers require water and electricity. In between heat advisory days, there are increased needs for air conditioning and clean water. What is needed is a comprehensive system to deal with increased demands by a population to be cool when it is very hot, and to deal drainage when there are severe thunderstorms, which ineveitably occur after a heatwave. What is also needed is an ability to more effectively repair and rework the electrical grid so that power is not lost stranding thousands of residents for weeks at a time so that they are without the basic necessities.

New Jersey residents suffer from both power outages and water from the storms overflowing the rivers, which then affect the homes of residents, which flood their basements, which affect the power supply. It's a vicious circle.

What's to be done so that we do not have a repeat of August 14, 2003 that affected New York City and a section of Canada? Can we now have a jobs bill approved by Congress that addresses hiring people skilled in addressing and improving and generating ideas to support the infrastructure of the United States?

Vaulting

Tonight on the 6 PM news, a channel 7 reporter indicated that 25% of the roads and bridges in New York are functionally obsolete. That means the roads and bridges were built during the 1940s before safety rules were put into place. There are sections of the road that promote unsafe conditions.

On the edge of roads that are part of the functionally obsolete, there are areas that promote "vaulting", a car hitting a high speed gets propelled over the guard rail. It's happened twice on the Bronx River Expressway.

12% of the bridges in New York State are structurally deficient. This mean the amount of pressure and usage the bridges experience from traffic flow could exacerbate the already poor conditions. Sure wish Congress had passed the Jobs Bill.

We have 2.5 million soldiers who are in various stages of returning back to the United States. Surely the knowledge they have gained from building in Iraq and Iran can be put to use here in the United States. Surely seeing yet another family go through the grief process is enough to spur those in Congress to either take another look at the Jobs Bill which would provide jobs to address the serious infrastructure issues in New York and in other states. Don't like the old Jobs Bill - propose one that involves fixing roads and bridges. Start simple - START editing the Jobs Bill. Then vote - for life - for the lives of those who are still here, for the lives of those who are just beginning, for the lives of those who are further down the road. Vote on a Jobs Bill which supports infrastructure because it is a vote for life.