Ian Sacs

<div>There&#39;s a lot of babbling on in this blog about how streets are public space, that they are for people, and that they should be designed equitably for everyone.

<div> <div> <p> Just because our media-ravenous culture inundates us with more news than we can stomach doesn&#39;t mean we should give up on the long term prospects of the BP catastrophe.  As the poorly secured well beneath the exploded BP rig <em>Deepwater Horizon</em> continues its high-pressure torrent of not-yet-quantified-but-something-in-the-order-of-tens-to-hundreds-of-thousand-of-gallons-per-day of oil into the gorgeous waters of the Gulf of Mexico, we must not let the drone of time allow us lose sight of the result of horrendous and unforgivable destruction, weak industrial controls, and even weaker environmental morals.  We must also not ignore that efforts to “contain” the spill were devised simultaneously with an effort to spare the well. </p>

<p> The parking “epidemic” in Hoboken is so bad that no parking garage conceivable by man can contain our demand.  So this week, Hoboken ventures where no city has gone before; we are <a href="http://www.hobokennj.org/news/hoboken-and-hertz-launch-first-city-wide-car-sharing-service-in-america/">rolling out</a> the nation’s first city-wide on-street car-sharing program as a public-private partnership between Hoboken and Connect by Hertz. </p> <p> <img src="/files/u20603/Corner_Car_5_Minute_Walk_Map.jpg" width="503" height="539" />  <img src="/files/u20603/cornercars_sign.jpg" width="415" height="531" /> </p>

<p> With the brilliant help of graduates from Hoboken&#39;s <a href="http://www.stevens.edu/">Stevens Institute of Technology</a>, our local community shuttle bus (a.k.a. The Hop, formerly known as The Downtown Crosstown Shuttle) can now be viewed <a href="http://www.hobokennj.org/departments/transportation-parking/the-hop/">live on the city&#39;s website</a> as it cruises along narrow Hoboken city streets from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM (EST), Monday through Friday.  If you&#39;re not near the internet, try texting “crosstown” to 41411 to get a return text with the location of the bus&#39; whereabouts whenever it&#39;s running, then run down to the corner before you miss it! </p>

<p> When I inherited the Hoboken Parking Utility last year, it was hobbling along with all of the forward planning of a Friday night Rock-and-Bowl last call.  With no time to build a new budget from the bottom up, I was left to remold what I found into something a little less status-quo and a little more innovative.  In a scrutinizing political climate and tough economic conditions, the changes had to be both necessary and serve as an example of ways to reduce costs. </p>