Closing time for Albany?

Albany has taken a few big hits recently: the closing of the two independent movie houses, a bike shop that served the downtown community (and beyond) and, most impactful, the impending shutdown of the College of St. Rose.
There is hope that both theaters will reopen under new management, and we’ll have to wait and see what business, if any, takes the place of the Downtube Bike Shop.
What will happen with the College will take longer to settle, and no doubt will have a huge impact on the whole City, which will have some say on the matter. I fear that the major decision maker will be the bond holders, about whose expectations I know nothing.
If I ran the circus, I’d first look at the many campus buildings that once were occupied single and muti-family homes, and I’d see if it were practical to restore them to that use. The larger classroom buildings could serve programs run by other area colleges, or might be suited to some other use. The important thing is to get people back in the neighborhood before more local businesses close and the area becomes abandoned. It’s a nice, vital neighborhood now, one that Albany cannot afford to lose. Getting it done may require more imagination and creativity than I’ve got, but it must be done as soon as possible.

Rail station/downtown transit improvement?

I’ve written on this blog (back in 2016) and often to CDTA about the need for better service between downtown Albany and the Rensselaer Rail Station. My preference is for improvements to the regular bus lines that serve the station. However, CDTA recently announced it will be taking a different approach, an on-demand service between the station and downtown points of interest (most, if not all, of which are served by existing bus lines). The two big differences I see between this approach and improving existing bus lines – both negatives, in my view – are the need to download an app, create an account and request a ride, even if you’re only going to use the service once, and the cost, $3.00, double the per-cost trip of the regular bus. The photos on the CDTA web site show the service provided by a van, which presumably can pick up passengers right at the station entrance, a plus over the existing buses, which are too heavy to enter the station parking and entrance area, which also serves as the roof of the garage.
While I hope this service is successful and provides an option for some who have relied on more expensive ride shares and taxis, I still think using existing equipment, with schedules fine tuned to match more closely with the train schedule, would be the better option. The cost per trip would be half, and passengers could use the service without having to plan in advance, especially if tickets, maps and schedules were available in the train station. A covered walkway to the bus stop would make the walk to the stops on East Street less onerous, especially in bad weather. And any increase in revenues from the increased ridership could be invested back into those routes, creating a positive feedback loop that would benefit all riders, not just those going to and from the station.

Moving responsibly

After about 20 years in the same abode, I’ve decided to move. During those 20 years, I’ve accumulated a lot of things I no longer use. Given how much need there is in our area, and given our already overflowing landfills, I’m determined to find good homes for as many as possible of the things I don’t intend to take with me.

One might think it would be easy to give things away (most of what I have is of limited monetary value but high utility, and I am happy to give such things away to anyone who can use them). Fortunately, I’ve started early. A few resources have been useful. For small things that I can transport myself, I’ve found that the Olive Branch Thrift Shop at the Third Reformed Church in Albany will take a wide variety of items and get them to people who really need them. For items that I’d prefer someone pick up, the Nextdoor site reaches local people who are more likely to be able to pick up items than people from other areas. It’s free to post on the site. Keep in mind, though, that many people who express interest in an item never follow through, and I strongly recommend adhering to a first come, first served policy and advising anyone who shows interest of that fact. Although it will have taken about a month, I have given away almost all the furniture I do not want to move with me, and I expect it all to be gone before I move.

For towels and sheets, in addition to the thrift shop, Mowhawk Hudson Humane Society in Menands will gratefully accept whatever you have, except for fitted sheets containing elastic, which can harm the animals.

Bins for used clothing and shoes are located throughout our area, usually in the parking lots of churches, and are available 24 hours each day for donations.

A little effort and time will provide a lot of satisfaction. Although it’s not as easy as calling (and paying for) a junk removal service, you’ll know you’ve helped some good people and organizations and helped keep what otherwise likely would become solid waste out of our overflowing landfills.

If you know of any place that will accept donations of household goods, in particular any that will pick up unwanted furniture in used but serviceable condition, please leave a comment. Thanks.

Unnecessary regulation

One need only consider the recent failures in the banking and railroad industries, and the need for costly government intervention to remediate them, to realize that government regulation of these industries is far from unnecessary, but rather is essential to prevent the types of abuses that have led, are now leading, and that will lead to similar failures in the future. The highly-paid, pillar of the community leaders of the regulated industries need only act responsibly to shake off the yoke of government oppression. This, regrettably, they have shown an inability to do from at least the time of Sinclair’s The Jungle to today. I haven’t heard much lately from the Republicans who were instrumental in weakening the banking and railroad safety regulations that facilitated the irresponsible actions that led to these recent disasters. I say to the executives and their political enablers: if you want freedom, show a modicum of responsibility and regard for something other than the bottom line. I’m not holding my breath; in the meantime, as a potential victim, I for one would welcome more regulation and less freedom for those who consistently show they are incapable of handling their freedom responsibly.

iMessage/SMS solution

An excellent example of Apple’s “walled garden” approach is its iMessage software, which is the default messaging application on its phones. For communications between Apple devices, it sends encrypted messages through its own servers that appear to the recipients in blue bubbles. Communications from Android devices are displayed in green bubbles and are handled as old-style, unencrypted SMS and MMS messages (“texts”). Google has urged Apple to support its own more secure and Apple-like message protocol, RCS. Apple has refused the invitation, hoping that those on both sides of the operating system divide will go with iMessage (and its supported devices) to avoid a second class messaging experience.
Many people will do so, to avoid “green bubble” stigma or the real, but probably not terribly significant, vulnerability of unencrypted text messages. If you are thinking of getting an iPhone as a solution to this problem, may I suggest a free alternative to an expensive new iPhone?
The free alternative is WhatsApp, a product of Meta (nee Facebook) that has an interface similar to iMessage and is widely used throughout the world (where Apple does not have the dominance it does in the US). Messages are encrypted, it can be used on laptops and tablets. It handles audio and video calls, as well as text messages. All you have to do is persuade your Apple owning friends to download it and use it when communicating with their non-Apple owning friends.
I do not like Apple’s “doesn’t play with others” attitude, but I respect its success in getting people (many of whom are children subject to anti-green bubble peer pressure) to pay $800 for a phone worth $600, when their reasonable needs probably could be met with a phone costing $200 (like the one I’ve been using without any problems for three years).

Underappreciated urban danger

Last summer, while my car was parked unoccupied on a downtown Albany street, it was struck by a falling National Grid utility pole, which caused enough damage for my insurance company to declare it a total loss. Since then, whenever I’ve gone out, I’ve looked up at poles around me, many of which, like the one that fell on my car, are capped with heavy metal oil-filled transformers. A surprising number appear to me to be tilting at dangerous angles, and I recently saw one of those “leaners” undergoing emergency stabilization before it struck a house in the vicinity of the Rensselaer Rail Station.

Decades ago, when I lived in the area in which my vehicle was struck, our neighborhood association formed a task force, “Project MOLE” (Move our Lines Earthward) to have electric and cable lines buried; it met with no success, the utility claiming the cost of submerging its infrastructure would be prohibitive. It would, no doubt, be expensive, but so was what the utility had to pay me for my car and so are the costs of constant repairs, not to mention the costs (often borne by the utility’s customers, not the utility) of power failures that occur almost as often as the increasingly inclement weather we experience in these climate unstable times. Perhaps it’s time to reassess the cost/benefit scenario; if necessary, the government might subsidize burial of utilities to improve safety and reliability.

The unsightly, leaning and potentially unsafe utility poles are but one example of our built on the cheap public infrastructure in this area. The lack of sidewalks (even after road reconstruction, such as that of Third Avenue Extension, which presumably triggered invocation of the Complete Streets Act), let alone curbing, on our streets prevents children from walking to school, even if they live well within a safe distance. Potholes and debris in our streets endanger cyclists, who often must dart erratically into traffic to avoid them. After extended periods of rain, which occur more and more frequently, clogged drains and inadequate sewers cause regular flooding of our major thoroughfares.

It is hard to believe that our taxes and utility rates are not adequate to support a safer, healthier public infrastructure; it is not hard to believe that those monies are not properly directed at meeting that goal. It’s time to demand more of our elected officials and for them, in turn, to require more of utilities.

Customer service

I recently bought two lawn tickets for a Tanglewood performance on line. The web site advised I could purchase the tickets as a guest, and I proceeded to select them. Only after reaching the payment page was I advised that the purchase of two $30 lawn tickets would be subject to an additional $13 service fee, but I went ahead with it anyway. When I attempted to access my tickets after receiving an e-mail confirmation with instructions, I was presented with a log in page for the account I didn’t have and was implicitly told I would not need. Fortunately, after the waste of some time, I was able to figure out how to establish an account and access the tickets, but I certainly don’t feel I received anywhere near $13 worth of service.

I had an even worse time buying tickets for Belmont Park a while back. I was unable to get any response from the NYRA ticket office. At least the NYRA web site provided a link to Ticketmaster, through which I was able to purchase the tickets and which charged a relatively reasonable service fee. I’ll see if things go any more smoothly when I make my first trip to Saratoga this summer.

I understand that the loosening (at least for now) of Covid restrictions has created a large demand for experiences such as concerts and sporting events. Those putting on such events have not hesitated to raise their ticket prices to recoup their restriction-based losses. But I also think that an “experience” begins with the purchase of the tickets, and a bad experience at that stage can poison the well and make what follows less enjoyable. I am sure I will experience a great concert at Tanglewood; if not, I’m not likely to give them a second chance, though I was a regular in the past when buying tickets was easy and the cost reasonable.

Closing doors

A recent column in the Washington Post – one that required some courage to write and publish, given that it was critical of Amazon, whose CEO owns the paper in which the column appeared – pointed out yet another way in which the doors to upward mobility and improved quality of life for all that public institutions historically have opened are closing, one at a time.

The outrage here is that Amazon, in its role as publisher of books and other media, is refusing to sell many of its books and audiobooks to public libraries, despite that fact that libraries often pay far more for materials in electronic form than for their analogue counterparts.  Few institutions are associated as closely with upward mobility than libraries, but this closing of access is of a piece with things like the elimination of free tuition at most public universities (and the more recent increases in such tuitions to stratospheric heights), free access to public parks and government programs to provide easier access to things like home ownership.  While Amazon invokes the interests of authors as a rationale for its policy, the authors, through their association, claim they want their books in libraries in all formats.  And this policy is especially harmful during the pandemic, when physical access to libraries and their analogue materials is difficult or impossible.

I understand that Amazon is not a charitable institution, and that it owes its shareholders a duty to maximize revenues and profit.  But surely it could make money selling materials in electronic formats to libraries – just not as much as if it could privatize the lending of such materials and charge a fee.  Not surprisingly, though, the unreasonableness of its position is prompting consideration of legislative responses, which could be worse for Amazon than merely following the present policies of other major publishers.

Another corporate decision that impacts the quality of urban life in our region was reported recently in an excellent Times Union column:  the closing of the Walgreen’s on South Pearl Street in the heart of Albany’s downtown. No doubt, downtown Albany is in many ways a challenging environment for retail businesses, but it also presents several unique factors that should be helpful, including the lack, at least for now, of a direct competitor in the immediate area and the immobility of its customer base, who are either largely carless (the residents) or immobile (those who drive in for work from elsewhere but have to park for the day).  Given the negative consequences of closing a store that provides necessary services in such an area – including the bad publicity and the possibility of attracting government action (as Chris Churchill points out in the TU column, the store had been a Rite Aid but became a Walgreen’s after a government-approved merger) – it is incomprehensible to me that the powers that be at Walgreen’s couldn’t have come up with a plan to keep this store running at break even or better.  I suspect that, because this store presented challenges different from its usual suburban stores, it didn’t even try.  Since Walgreen’s did not respond to the TU’s numerous requests for comments, we’ll never know.

The removal of the only pharmacy in one of our area’s largest urban neighborhoods, and the unavailability of many desired books for loan by all our area’s public libraries, have lessened the quality of life for everyone, but especially of those who cannot afford the more costly alternatives.  The next time you’re tempted to blame the poor for their fate, remember the opportunities you once had that they now do not.

Uniting the divisions in the country

The President’s dismal failure to meaningfully address the COVID-19 infection rate and deaths was bad enough. After all his legal challenges, which he had a right to pursue until it became clear they were frivolous and repetitive, failed, including challenges addressed to officials who declared they supported him and judges he had appointed, Trump fomented a mob attack on the Capitol by those he convinced he had won the election.

The mob is the tip of an iceberg consisting of tens of millions of people who, absent proof to support their conclusion, believe that the election was “stolen” from Trump, the true winner. This large group has other beliefs, most also diametrically opposed to those of the actual winners of the election.

Joe Biden has declared that he wants to reunite the country, as he knows he must to get anything meaningful accomplished. How to do that, when the group you are trying to bring in refuses to accept objective reality, is a very difficult problem. The first step is to get that group to accept the same reality he’s working from. Counteracting the right wing media will not be easy, but dismissing the beliefs of this group out of hand does nothing but perpetuate the stalemate.

Although it’s a long shot, here’s what I would do if I were Biden: While I’d emphasize that examining the results of the November election is off the table, I’d acknowledge that, especially given the extensive and rapid changes made in many election procedures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be worthwhile to examine all aspects of our elections to determine what procedures and policies might be changed to best insure integrity of elections. I’d then appoint a blue-ribbon panel to come up with the recommendations, and he should do it quickly so a deadline could be set in time for Congress and state legislatures to consider any changes the panel recommends before the 2021 elections. The panel should be bi-partisan, and the “stop the steal” faction should be represented by a prominent, credible (to his or her constituents) person or persons.

Appointing such a panel would be a tangible expression of Biden’s pledge to be President for all citizens, whether they voted for him or not, and would signal that he is taking the concerns expressed about the integrity of the election seriously. And, no doubt, such a panel, if it pursues its mandate diligently, could come up with many recommendations that, if enacted into law, could objectively improve the election process.

Of course, to the extent that the opposing faction might doubt Biden’s bona fides, or might only care about voter suppression, not election integrity, such a gesture may be met with indifference or hostility. Nonetheless, I think it’s worth a try.

Another step Biden can take, and probably will, based on his past statements, is to concentrate on the few areas within his bailiwick on which it seems there is general agreement, at least in principle. Infrastructure would seem to me a good place to start, with its promise of jobs for the demographic that constitutes a large part of Trump’s base, and better roads, bridges and tunnels for the rest of us. If a guy thinks you are responsible for getting him a good job, he’s less likely to see you as the enemy.

Trump did a lot to foment this country’s divisions, suggesting that a leader bent on uniting us has a shot at reversing the damage he did. However, to the extent Trump exploited existing, deeply held beliefs — particularly those with no basis in fact — it’s going to take some work.

The President and Covid-19

I was disappointed twice today by the President and his campaign. Although such disappointment is not unusual, two things that happened today struck me as outrageous and deserving of condemnation here, notwithstanding that the President is ill and might otherwise deserve our sympathy and support.

The first disappointment came in an an interview by Chris Wallace of Fox News with Steve Cortes, a senior member of the Trump campaign. Wallace quite appropriately asked Cortes why he thought it was okay for the Trump family and the Chief of Staff to remove their masks during Tuesday’s debate, notwithstanding the rule that all audience members wear masks. After hemming and hawing about how the family were all recently tested for the virus (as were all the other audience members as a precondition of entry), Cortes finally stated that the family was entitled to exercise their choice on the mask wearing issue. Wallace pointed out that, because of the rule, they did not have that right, at which point Cortes pivoted to accusing Wallace of unfairly haranguing the President during the debate (a charge Wallace deftly dismissed by reciting the number of times Trump interrupted him and Vice President Biden).

What Wallace did not say to Cortes, and what I wish he had, was first to remind him that the campaigns of each candidate had agreed to those rules, lest the Fox audience be left with the impression that the debate commission had arbitrarily imposed them. Second, I wish he had asked Cortes why, even if the first family and Chief of Staff did have a choice in the matter, they would choose to visibly dismiss the health concerns of everyone else in the audience, since they had to know that many attended the debate in reliance on the agreement that everyone in the audience would be wearing masks. The only answer I can think of is that, regardless of their belief in the efficacy of masks, they really don’t care about other people. That’s pretty much been the message the administration has projected on the mask issue all along, at a cost of untold lives.

My second disappointment came when I saw a video of the President in a motorcade this afternoon, having gone out to cheer up supporters who were assembled outside the hospital. Even though he wore a mask, the idea of someone infected with the virus forcing Secret Service and other personnel into an enclosed vehicle with him bespeaks the same callousness that his family displayed in the debate. Why his earlier video shout out to the supporters was not enough is beyond me. And I would guess that his little foray outside the hospital was against medical advice and not helpful to his recovery, either.