Rob Smith and a “fatberg” | screengrab from “Below the Waste Line” via Edible Geography
FATBERGS
“A nice working environment” is not how most would describe a city sewer system, but to Rob Smith, “head flusher” at Thames Water, traversing the bowels of London has its upsides. Smith and his team of 39 flushers are responsible for unclogging sewer tunnels of “fatbergs”– congealed deposits of cooking oil and flushed waste that look as disgusting as they sound. Fatbergs are typically formed of restaurant grease, used condoms, baby wipes and after a bad rain, dead rats. They collect in floating masses to stop up sewer waterways, leading to water pollution. As “Below the Waste Line,” a video by the Guardian, and a post on Edible Geography reveal, an intimate look at subterranean infrastructure reveals a waste-based map of our unsavory disposal practices (Leicester Square for example is a trouble zone for dumped oil from fast food restaurants) and the daily olfactory patterns of the urban population (morning showers are a particularly pungent time).
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Canal Street | Photo by Flickr user YoHandy
CANAL STREET MAKEOVER
To say Canal street is hectic is an understatement, and fortunately the New York Metropolitan Transportation Committee has taken note. In a report released last Thursday the NYMTC recommends widening sidewalks to make the famously bustling street more pedestrian friendly. The report also calls for curb extensions, a redesigned intersection at Canal and Bowery, and crackdown on parking placards to reduce car congestion. The DOT says they will use recommendations from the study in their own plans for the street, funded with World Trade Center relief aid dollars. For more analysis on the report check out Streetsblog’s take.
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ASTOR PLACE MAKEOVER
East Village hubs Astor Place and Cooper Square are also slated for a makeover, as plans for a pedestrian plaza project that were previously sidelined by the economic downturn are now underway. WXY Architecture and landscape architects Quennell Rothschild and Partners, along with the Department of Design and Construction, envision reconfigured streets that make room for new parks, benches, trees and plantings, and added traffic islands, bringing more greenery and usable public space to the highly trafficked triangle.
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Chuck Close taxi top | via ShowMedia
ART CAB
Happy Holidays from John Amato. The president of Show Media, a company that sells ads on NYC taxis, is devoting 500 ad spots to feature art by Chuck Close and Kehinde Wiley. This is the second year self-proclaimed art lover Amato has done this. Last year, work by Yoko Ono and Alex Katz traveled the city streets. Now if only someone would donate video installations to replace TaxiTV inside the cabs…
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OBAMA’S URBAN POLICY
Jarett Murphy at City Limits checks in on the progress of the Obama administration’s urban policies, hoping that the White House Office of Urban Affairs will pick up the pace on policy implementation as the President enters the second half of his term. Murphy cites the collaboration between federal agencies, like the Sustainable Cities Initiative led by HUD, the DOT and the EPA, as evidence that urban policy is slowly aligning with the demands of today’s metro growth and getting out of bureaucratic mire, but says the administration needs to follow up on planning with tangible projects to win favor and funding.
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NEW YEAR, NEW TRANSIT
The TransportPolitic reports on widespread commitment to public transportation in US and Canadian cities for 2011, saying that five new light rail lines slated to open over the next year, along with over a dozen other transportation projects that will break ground, “represent a continent-wide public sector commitment to the extension of transit offerings.” In New York, construction will continue on both commuter and metro rails, with LIRR access at Grand Central planned for 2016 and the much discussed 2nd Ave subway line to open in 2017.
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