fixing Oakland's infrastructure
Aug. 28th, 2014 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittySomeone asked a fair question: Oakland's infrastructure is crumbling. What could the future Mayor of Oakland do to fix it?
I was expensively trained at taxpayer expense to answer these kinds of questions. So here are my answers, probably worth less than what you already paid for them.
1) Make users pay their fair share.
Extensive damage to roads is caused by heavy vehicles, particularly trucks. Certain users, but especially the Port of Oakland, cause a lot of road damage. The challenge for the City is to collect the toll and spend the money wisely, resisting the temptation to waste what seems like a lot of money on other unrelated projects. The roads are a necessity, not a profit stream -- the profit is taken out in better traffic flows, more attractive places to park and shop and spend money, and safer streets, rather than robbing from the maintenance budget to pay for the fad program of the week.
The Mayor can put a spotlight on the greatest problems and represent the City's interests at the state and even national levels The media can be leveraged as well - the San Jose Mercury News has "Mr. Roadshow" who shines a light on traffic issues in the South Bay, and the San Francisco Chronicle will occasionally post snippets about the worst pothole in That Other City and how many days it has not yet been fixed for.
2) Hold infrastructure owners accountable for the services they provide to Oakland residents.
Most of the city's infrastructure is NOT controlled by the City of Oakland. In some cases this is due to the revenue streams -- CalTrans maintains the freeways, so CalTrans makes the repair decisions. In other cases this is a matter of control: East Bay MUD is one agency where Oakland residents pay the bill but MUD does whatever it wants.
The city has enormous regulatory authority which can be used to make sure that the operators of infrastructure keep their agreements with customers and pay their fair share to Oakland for the costs that the City incurs.
3) Assure safety of infrastructure repair crews.
One of the characteristics of a "denied area" is that basic public services no longer function, or do so at a reduced level. It is obvious and should be axiomatic that no such areas should exist in the United States. However, they do -- and Oakland is among the cities in which some of its residents are denied basic public services.
I have seen service tickets cleared as "Unsafe area: crew left" or "shots fired nearby, cancel." No provider is going to order its crews into harm's way without police escort. However police are often too busy to handle what to them is a low-priority service call and to the utility crew, the difference between working on something that will only be vandalized next week, or working in a nicer setting on a job that will be done once and finished.
As most utility operations are during the day, it should be easy to staff a dedicated police patrol focused on the protection of utility crews -- with priority dispatching, officers familiar with the particular industry's needs as well as typical crimes committed, and swift and decisive consequences for vandals and thugs caught in the act of damaging the city.
A special word on copper theft. Prosecute companies that knowingly buy stolen copper. Jailing managers at metal recycling companies prevents more burglary than arresting burglars!
4) Lighting
The importance of proper lighting to the safety of a home, a neighborhood, a community and even an entire city cannot be over-stated. Criminals prefer to operate in the dark. Traffic accidents, particularly deadly vehicle-versus-pedestrian types, increase. People are afraid to go out, which means they shop less and stay home more.
The city should aggressively pursue a lighting program that assures appropriate lighting for "hot spots" (where crimes frequently occur), intersections (especially where pedestrians cross busy streets), public facilities even where those facilities are not directly controlled by the city, public parks and other open spaces, and especially schools and libraries.
In Oakland, criminals sometimes shoot out street lights. These crimes must be aggressively prosecuted. Armored street light lens are available and gunfire detection systems can dispatch police to reported gunfire. Broken street lights must be found, reported and repaired -- and additional police coverage for the area to cover the interim are another way to reduce crime and keep people safe. Portable lighting systems can also be deployed as needed.
One approach is to equip code enforcement with light meters and send them out at night to do assessments. If necessary, this could be augmented by community groups -- a smartphone with GPS and a light meter is all that is required to survey an area, and a database tracking this could be easily created and maintained.
"Take back the night" can be literal, not just figurative.
5) Seeking Local Control
Any big city should be constantly looking for ways to assert control over its own infrastructure. This can be through taxation, regulation, political influence and the other tools of bureaucratic political power. But best of all is when a city can directly own its destiny -- its own energy company and its own water systems chief among them. Detroit stands as a signal example of what can happen when a city loses control of its own essential infrastructure -- water shut off to thousands of residents even though the Mayor publicly objects.
"Easy wins" include solar power for key public facilities, expanding the use of recycled water, using VOIP (phone over Internet) instead of subsidizing the phone company unnecessarily, and City-wide wireless networks owned and controlled by the City rather than becoming the property of third parties (or worse, for profit entities whose goals may conflict with the City's).
The city of San Francisco controls its own water and some of its power. The city of San Jose is militant about controlling its streets and highways. Alameda takes a very active interest in its tunnel and bridges. The city of Santa Clara owns its own power utility and is a haven for data centers who need more reliability than PG&E can deliver.
Oakland controls one of the best airports in America -- but foggy SFO gets much of the business, particularly overseas arrivals who are so critical to tourism. OAK could serve as the linchpin for an economic powerhouse in Oakland, if the neighboring airport areas can be hospitable rather than hostile to airport-facing businesses.
I was expensively trained at taxpayer expense to answer these kinds of questions. So here are my answers, probably worth less than what you already paid for them.
1) Make users pay their fair share.
Extensive damage to roads is caused by heavy vehicles, particularly trucks. Certain users, but especially the Port of Oakland, cause a lot of road damage. The challenge for the City is to collect the toll and spend the money wisely, resisting the temptation to waste what seems like a lot of money on other unrelated projects. The roads are a necessity, not a profit stream -- the profit is taken out in better traffic flows, more attractive places to park and shop and spend money, and safer streets, rather than robbing from the maintenance budget to pay for the fad program of the week.
The Mayor can put a spotlight on the greatest problems and represent the City's interests at the state and even national levels The media can be leveraged as well - the San Jose Mercury News has "Mr. Roadshow" who shines a light on traffic issues in the South Bay, and the San Francisco Chronicle will occasionally post snippets about the worst pothole in That Other City and how many days it has not yet been fixed for.
2) Hold infrastructure owners accountable for the services they provide to Oakland residents.
Most of the city's infrastructure is NOT controlled by the City of Oakland. In some cases this is due to the revenue streams -- CalTrans maintains the freeways, so CalTrans makes the repair decisions. In other cases this is a matter of control: East Bay MUD is one agency where Oakland residents pay the bill but MUD does whatever it wants.
The city has enormous regulatory authority which can be used to make sure that the operators of infrastructure keep their agreements with customers and pay their fair share to Oakland for the costs that the City incurs.
3) Assure safety of infrastructure repair crews.
One of the characteristics of a "denied area" is that basic public services no longer function, or do so at a reduced level. It is obvious and should be axiomatic that no such areas should exist in the United States. However, they do -- and Oakland is among the cities in which some of its residents are denied basic public services.
I have seen service tickets cleared as "Unsafe area: crew left" or "shots fired nearby, cancel." No provider is going to order its crews into harm's way without police escort. However police are often too busy to handle what to them is a low-priority service call and to the utility crew, the difference between working on something that will only be vandalized next week, or working in a nicer setting on a job that will be done once and finished.
As most utility operations are during the day, it should be easy to staff a dedicated police patrol focused on the protection of utility crews -- with priority dispatching, officers familiar with the particular industry's needs as well as typical crimes committed, and swift and decisive consequences for vandals and thugs caught in the act of damaging the city.
A special word on copper theft. Prosecute companies that knowingly buy stolen copper. Jailing managers at metal recycling companies prevents more burglary than arresting burglars!
4) Lighting
The importance of proper lighting to the safety of a home, a neighborhood, a community and even an entire city cannot be over-stated. Criminals prefer to operate in the dark. Traffic accidents, particularly deadly vehicle-versus-pedestrian types, increase. People are afraid to go out, which means they shop less and stay home more.
The city should aggressively pursue a lighting program that assures appropriate lighting for "hot spots" (where crimes frequently occur), intersections (especially where pedestrians cross busy streets), public facilities even where those facilities are not directly controlled by the city, public parks and other open spaces, and especially schools and libraries.
In Oakland, criminals sometimes shoot out street lights. These crimes must be aggressively prosecuted. Armored street light lens are available and gunfire detection systems can dispatch police to reported gunfire. Broken street lights must be found, reported and repaired -- and additional police coverage for the area to cover the interim are another way to reduce crime and keep people safe. Portable lighting systems can also be deployed as needed.
One approach is to equip code enforcement with light meters and send them out at night to do assessments. If necessary, this could be augmented by community groups -- a smartphone with GPS and a light meter is all that is required to survey an area, and a database tracking this could be easily created and maintained.
"Take back the night" can be literal, not just figurative.
5) Seeking Local Control
Any big city should be constantly looking for ways to assert control over its own infrastructure. This can be through taxation, regulation, political influence and the other tools of bureaucratic political power. But best of all is when a city can directly own its destiny -- its own energy company and its own water systems chief among them. Detroit stands as a signal example of what can happen when a city loses control of its own essential infrastructure -- water shut off to thousands of residents even though the Mayor publicly objects.
"Easy wins" include solar power for key public facilities, expanding the use of recycled water, using VOIP (phone over Internet) instead of subsidizing the phone company unnecessarily, and City-wide wireless networks owned and controlled by the City rather than becoming the property of third parties (or worse, for profit entities whose goals may conflict with the City's).
The city of San Francisco controls its own water and some of its power. The city of San Jose is militant about controlling its streets and highways. Alameda takes a very active interest in its tunnel and bridges. The city of Santa Clara owns its own power utility and is a haven for data centers who need more reliability than PG&E can deliver.
Oakland controls one of the best airports in America -- but foggy SFO gets much of the business, particularly overseas arrivals who are so critical to tourism. OAK could serve as the linchpin for an economic powerhouse in Oakland, if the neighboring airport areas can be hospitable rather than hostile to airport-facing businesses.
