April Fools’ Day - Part 2

Mexican Mural, Photo from The Guardian

As described in my last post, I use April Fools’ Day as an excuse to do a yearly summing up of the most whimsical and quirky urbanist stories I’ve stumbled across over the past year.  In the last post, I counted down from #24 to #19.  Today, I’ll continue downwards from #18 to #13.

#18 Why Buses Run in Packs – Almost anyone who has tried riding buses in a congested big city has experienced the frustration.  After a tediously long wait for a bus, several buses arrive in a pack.  This perverse phenomenon isn’t the product of a transit dispatcher with a warped sense of humor, but is the predictable result of the first bus traveling more slowly as it stops for long queues of waiting passengers, allowing the following buses, which have relatively few passengers to load, to catch up.

Even worse, the problem doesn’t self-correct, but spirals out of control with even a slight delay in the first bus.  It only takes one barely-missed signal or wheelchair loading for the first bus to encounter greater and greater delays until the following bus is on its rear bumper.

Graduate students at the University of California assembled a simple simulation to explain the cause of bus bunching.  Try playing with the model by clicking on the buses in the box to the left to delay one or the other.  It takes only a short delay to destabilize the system, with one bus soon catching up to the other.

One reason this simulation caught my attention is a personal coincidence.  Buses aren’t the only vehicles that tend to in packs.  The same phenomenon can be seen in elevator cars.  I first noted it as a freshman at Cal.  I was standing in the mathematics building, Evans Hall, watching the board showing the elevator car locations and chatting with another freshman about how the cars seemed to travel together.  (Growing up in a town that had few buses or elevators, I’d been deprived until arriving at Cal.)

Another student, of more advanced standing, overheard our conversation and gave us a quick introduction to the theory.  So my introduction to bunching came in 1971 in Evans Hall on the Cal campus.  Oddly, the model linked here was developed in McLaughlin Hall, also on the Cal campus.  Per Google Maps, the front doors of Evans and McLaughlin Halls are only 250 feet apart.  So in 45 years, I’m back within 250 feet of where I started.  I don’t mind.  Instead, I find myself reassured about the path of my life.

(One other coincidence.  Readers in the Bay Area may have seen the recent obituary for the last surviving founder of Save the Bay, the organization often described as having started the environmental movement.  Her name was Silvia McLaughlin.  She was the widow of Professor Donald McLaughlin after whom McLaughlin Hall was named.  More proof that the world can be surprisingly small.)

#17 Bad Architecture Runs Amuck – There can be architecture that doesn’t function well for its tenants or doesn’t fit well within its neighborhood.  And then there’s tacky architecture that transcends to another level.  Russian wannabe developer Vasily Klyukin specializes in the latter.

I hope he remains a wannabe developer.  I don’t think the world needs a skyscraper shaped like a cobra head or an unclothed woman’s leg extending through a curtain.  I find the proposed Lover Towers in London to be compelling, but that’s the only one.

#16 Giant Mexican Mural – Using a hillside of modest Mexican homes as a canvas, a team of German artists have created what they claim is the largest mural in Mexico.  It seems odd that they only claim the record for Mexico.  It’s hard to imagine where in the world a larger mural could be found.

#15 Dutch Street Chairs Shaped Like Tulips – They may be trite and they may not age well in the sun, but something tickles me about the Dutch street furniture shaped like tulips.  I don’t see a place for them in the North Bay, but I love them in Amsterdam, especially when they’re folded up.

I’m particularly intrigued that they spin on the support post.  One of the lessons from William H. Whyte is that people are more likely to occupy public spaces when they feel they can exert control over how they use the space.  Moveable chairs are the best way to give that control, but spinnable chairs may provide some of the same benefit.  I know that I like to position the sun correctly if I’m going to read.

#14 Big Brother is Watching and He Has Big Eyes – The artists responsible for the giant eyes around the Dutch town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch (seriously, that’s not a typo) claim they were going for a statement on interconnectedness, but I find something more Orwellian in the eyes.  Either way, it’s urban art that makes us talk. 

#13 – The Bridge Continues to Win Every Battle – Readers from past April Fools’ Day collections may recall the Durham, North Carolina railroad bridge with reduced clearance and an uncanny ability to entice truck drivers into its clutches. 

The bridge is still engaging in combat and prevailing in every tussle.  If you’re at work, you might want to turn down your volume before clicking on the link.  Your coworkers might be startled by the sound of rending metal.

Next time, I’ll continue the countdown.  We’re getting closer to the top.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

April Fool’s Day 2014

Urbanism doesn’t necessarily lend itself to practical jokes but, like most realms of human endeavor, it has the potential for quirkiness and whimsy.  That’s close enough for me to offer a quarterly urbanist celebration of April Fool’s Day.  Of course, this quarter I can celebrate the real April Fool’s Day.

In this post, I’ll look at an unusual approach to street lighting, the aromas of a city, the use of a bicycle motif to illuminate urban space, and a couple of non-traditional approaches to crosswalk painting.  I’ll conclude with another look at the infamous North Carolina bridge that continues to exact a stiff cost on unwary truckers.

Montreal Street Lighting: Trying to lighten the mood during the long winters in the northern latitudes, the Avenue du Mont-Royal in Montreal hosted a design competition for wintertime street lighting.  The winner was “Idee-O-rama”, a series of internally illuminated streetlights that look like speech bubbles.  The content provides humorous comments on winter in Montreal.  Come spring, the lights will be removed, but will return for the next two winters.

The Aroma of a City: Some may still complain that cities can sometimes be pungent.  But many 21st century cities, aided immeasurably by improved street design, sewer systems, and air quality standards, are far less odoriferous than the cities of centuries, or even decades, past.

To illustrate from where our noses have come and what olfactory improvements may yet be possible, SPUR, a San Francisco-based urbanism advocacy organization, is hosting an exhibit of urban aromas.  The curators are from the California College of the Arts.  Unfortunately, the exhibit is ending almost as I write this, which means that we missed our chance to smell “Paris 1735” and “New Jersey Turnpike”.

Urban Illumination: One element of urbanism is finding productive and interesting uses for space that would otherwise be wasted.  These imaginative uses serve two functions.  They increase the vitality of the city.  And they improve walkability by reducing uninteresting walks past underused or vacant land uses.

One of the greater drags on urban vitality is the space beneath elevated freeways.  It’s often a dark, dank space through which the occasional pedestrian can only scurry.  But a group in San Antonio is tackling the challenge, fabricating outsized light fixtures out of bicycle components and LEDs.  It’s not a complete solution to the use of land under freeways, but it’s an elegant step in the right direction.

Breaking the Mold on Crosswalks: San Francisco is the most recent city to consider rainbow crosswalks to celebrate its diversity.  Not everyone is happy with the idea, with some noting that the rainbow colors will soon be discolored by gum, trash, and foot traffic.  I concur with their concerns, but applaud the effort to use crosswalks as another element of the urban canvas, adding character to a city.

More to my taste is the work of Roadsworth, a 40-year-old Canadian who has been adding illegal whimsy to crosswalks for more than a decade.  His work is reminiscent of Banksy, the extraordinary graffiti artist who I described in my last quarterly summary of quirkiness.  But Roadsworth, although not without political content, is more content to remain within the realm of delight.

From crosswalks that become flights of geese to double yellow lines that swirl around and into sewer lids, he brings a creative eye to cities.  And the public approval of his work has allowed him to skirt the threat of jail time and heavy fines.

The Bridge is Still Winning: For April Fool’s Day a year ago, I introduced readers to a clearance-challenged bridge in Durham, North Carolina that made a habit of ripping off the roofs of vehicles whose drivers failed to note the multiple warning signs.  Durham Public Works tried the stem the tide of decapitation with new and brighter signage, but the respite in the carnage was short.  The videos are captivating.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)