Lincolnite

Oh joy, Lincoln's Downtown bike lanes are staying as they are. The bike lanes are a reasonable idea in theory, but boy oh boy do I dislike how they've worked out in practice. For the most part they just don't feel like they belong. I suspect that's because they were painted onto existing streets, rather than the road surface, traffic signals, and so on being built with the bike lanes in mind. The result is a product that's close, but imperfect enough to feel uncomfortable. It's sort of the uncanny valley of traffic theory. Personally my favorite bit of Downtown lane goofiness is outside the Zoo Bar at 14th and P. From west to east you've got: parking; car lane; bike lane; car lane; bus lane. That doesn't sound so bad, but in practice you'll see all kinds of zaniness. For example, folks who pull out of parking stalls often want to turn east onto P Street, so they back out of their spots at odd angles and work their way (illegally) across 14th to get to P. Or they don't want to pull into the nearest driving lane because it becomes left turn only on the other side of P Street so again, they wiggle across 14th so that they can go straight. Drivers in the left lane realize they don't want to turn left at Q Street so they cross the bike lane to the right lane. Drivers in the right lane realize they do want to turn left so they cross to the left lane. Or right lane drivers want to turn right onto P Street, but they get confused because what appears to be a right turn lane is actually a bus only lane. Some drivers use the bus lane as a right turn lane, others don't. The result is near-miss after near-miss as the legal and illegal drivers duke it out. And the buses ... they sometimes pull into the bus lane (blocking cars behind them who thought it was a right turn lane), sometimes they don't, and sometimes they fake out nearby drivers by pretending to do one or the other only to change their mind at the last second. When the buses are ready to proceed, they have to cross all lanes to get to the left so that they can turn onto Q Street. And in the middle of all that? A poor little bike lane that itself is occasionally used by cars. (Notice the white van illegally straddling the bike lane while waiting at the red light; and the white car illegally using the bus lane to turn right onto P Street.) The one thing Downtown Lincoln's bike lanes do have going for them is confusion. Normally driver confusion is a bad thing, but on the plus side it does force drivers to pay attention. Well, in theory anyway. If drivers are confused about where they should be and where they should go, one hopes they'll look around and see that bicyclist they're about to run over in the next lane. In practice, confusion doesn't seem to slow down drivers as much as you might hope. So what's the ultimate problem? Is it lane layout, like my gut tells me? The traffic engineers say it's good enough, so why does my gut disagree? Perhaps it's a matter of driver education. If that's the case, Lincoln's drivers have had years to figure it out. What's taking them so long? Maybe it's a signage problem. In any event, we're going to have to keep dealing with many of these issues. Here's hoping somebody figures it all out.

As a life-long southsider I was never very familiar with that wooded patch of land north of Superior between 33rd and 48th Streets with the "No Trespassing" signs. I knew Lincoln Trap & Skeet operated back there, but that's all. As it turns out, apparently those trees belong to Boosalis Park and the area is one big mess. How it got that way is an odd story involving a hog farmer, a woman known as Bloody Mary, and the passage of many years. Fortunately the Lincoln Trap & Skeet folks may save the City oodles of clean-up costs if the City Council decides to grant the club a lease to use the land. In exchange, club members would clean up the property. That sounds like a fair deal. The downside, I suppose, is that the now-wooded area would likely be far less wooded by the time the club is done cleaning up. It's hard to shoot through trees, after all. Some folks will no doubt complain about the loss of "natural" space within the city. Although they have a bit of a point, Boosalis Park is no Wilderness Park. If it's going to be human usable it needs a cleanup eventually. I don't see Parks & Rec finding cleanup money in its budget any time soon. I wonder if there are any Lincoln Trap & Skeet members among the readers of Lincolnite. If so, my lone piece of advice is to wear thick gloves and heavy boots during the cleanup. Who knows what lurks in them thar woods.

The Blood Bank is running dry. Got some blood to spare? Go make an appointment online or call 1-877-486-9414.

All you folks who've been itching for better taxi options in Lincoln are probably giddy over news that three Omaha-based cab companies have submitted applications to service Lincoln. Indeed this is good news, but let's not get too excited just yet. For one thing, there's exactly zero chance that four separate cab companies can be successful in Lincoln at the same time. The economics of it don't make sense. Don't be surprised if one or more of the newcomers doesn't even finish the application process. Entering a new market is a risk. Entering a new market at the exact same time as two other competitors is insane. Methinks we're going to witness a game of chicken. Will anybody blink? Or will all three new companies be stubborn and go ahead and start serving Lincoln, only for one or more of them to bow out later? Also remember that Lincoln's service provider can protest the applications, dragging them into a lengthy legal process. That's what happened back in 2006 when OMALiNK tried to enter the Lincoln market. At that time, would-be competitors used a number of lame arguments for keeping OMALiNK out. They all boil down to simple protectionism: existing companies want the Public Service Commission to protect them at the expense of newcomers and, arguably, consumers. For as many complaints as there are about cab service in Lincoln, it boggles my mind that the current provider, Servant, hasn't increased service availability. There are two possibilities. One is that Servant is run by incompetent baboons who wouldn't recognize an opportunity to grow their business if it stared them in the face. The other is that the opportunity for expansion in Lincoln isn't as lucrative as a group of intoxicated frat boys would like to believe. As with most things I suspect the truth lies somewhere between those two extremes. A year from now we'll have a better feel for the answer.

Some State Senators are in a huff because KVC requested extra funds -- to the tune of $1.8 million -- or it was going to put in its 90 days notice as one of Nebraska's lead child welfare providers. Sen. Bob Krist says that's extortion. I say his ire is misdirected. What Krist calls extortion I call a bribe from HHS to keep the Department out of the deepest pile of poo it has ever been in. After all, although KVC has done a lot of things wrong in the child welfare reform debacle, it's not like they were given a great foundation to work from. Frankly, I'm shocked they've stayed around as long as they have. It won't surprise me in the least if they don't survive through the end of 2012, whether because they leave on their own or because the Unicameral gives them the boot. Buried at the bottom of the World-Herald's version of this story is a bit about how HHS actually started working on a change to how KVC is paid "a year ago", yet HHS head Kerry Winterer doesn't know why no changes have been made. Could swifter action on HHS's part have prevented this? Could it have prevented some of the hiccups experienced in 2011? Considering how quickly HHS is moving to enact changes now -- they want a new system in place by the end of January -- one has to assume the answer to those questions is yes. It's hard to believe how Kerry Winterer still has a job. And don't get me started on Governor Dave Heineman, who ultimately is the primary driving force behind all of this yet who has managed to escape almost all accountability. The timing of this announcement is horrible for HHS. They already had an uphill battle to try to convince the Unicameral to butt out and leave Families Matter alone. This may be the 1.8 million straws that broke the camel's back.

You can tell a lot about a politician by observing how they distort reality to fit their agenda. To be honest, we all are guilty of it to a certain degree. But most of us only affect ourselves and our families when we do it. Elected officials affect all of us. Consider Senator Bill Avery and his proposal to tax pop (LB 753). In Sen. Avery's curious version of reality "there is no logical reason to define soft drinks as food", thus it oughtn't enjoy the sales tax exemption enjoyed by carrots, ground beef, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It's not a matter of liquids versus solids, either. Milk, milk substitutes, and 100% fruit or vegetable juice are not considered soft drinks. (It's not clear if a product like V8 Fusion meets the bill's criteria. The bill describes "one hundred percent vegetable or fruit juice" [emphasis added], whereas V8 Fusion is vegetable and fruit juice. The programmer side of me sees a big problem there.) Contrary to Avery's assertion, there is a perfectly logical reason to define soft drinks as food. Simply: it's something humans eat. Well, we drink it, but that's a distinction without a difference. What Sen. Avery actually means to say is that soft drinks are, in his view, "bad", and their use should therefore be punished. He wants a sin tax, in other words. We're surrounded by sin taxes in one form or another so it's not like this is something new. I'm not a fan of them. To the extent that they recoup actual costs associated with "harm" caused by the product or activity they aren't inherently awful. But far too often sin taxes are used for purposes akin to social engineering. Punishing people for what they choose to consume is not my cup of tea. (Tea, by the way, would be subject to taxation under the bill. Even sugar-free products that are nothing more than water and tea.) Sin taxes also tend to have a disproportionate impact on the poor without providing them with any relief. Avery's bill is no exception. I understand Sen. Avery's desire to "do something" about obesity, but his "there oughtta be a law!" approach is misguided. Soft drink taxes have been tried in many places, and yet they haven't been shown to be successful. Why copy a failed approach? Beyond adding $11 million to State expenditures each year, a soft drink tax will accomplish virtually nothing.

...run outside naked:

The man ... told officers he woke up without clothing on, ran outside because he was excited to be alive and was shouting because he was happy

I can't figure out White or Wheat, the sandwich shop near Russ's on 70th and Van Dorn. For one thing, I've never directly run across anybody who has been there. Yet when I ask people about it, many have told me that "a friend" or family member loves it. White or Wheat has never had a proper sign, instead settling for a hodgepodge of window decorations and temporary signs that I would think would embarrass the landlord and its neighbors. And just yesterday as I passed on my way to Oso I noticed that the storefront featured both an "Open" sign and a "For Lease" sign. You don't see those two together very often. Do any of you know anything about White or Wheat? Have you eaten there?

This has nothing to do with Lincoln, but bear with me. Over the past couple weeks we've been reading Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret to our boys. It's absolutely fascinating. I haven't been so into a children's book since ... well, probably since I was a kid. The story itself is fantastic, but there's much more to the book than that. For one thing, the book is written in a very non-traditional style, a sort of quasi-graphic novel approach that combines the written word with beautiful pencil drawings. The story introduced me to Georges Melies, a pioneer in early cinema with whom I was previously unfamiliar. And then there are automata which, as it turns out, are capable of far more advanced things than I ever imagined. In an all-too-uncommon twist, the movie Hugo is an excellent translation of the book to the screen. Whodathunk director Martin Scorsese of all people could pull it off? Our boys love both the book and the movie. I enjoyed both so much that I will most certainly purchase the movie when it comes out, and I've ordered the hard cover (the copy we read was from the library). Check out both if you can.