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Safe Streets Connecticut: June 2024
“If we felt the pain of loss each time an ecosystem was destroyed, a species wiped out, or a child killed by war or starvation, we wouldn’t be able to continue living the way we do. It would tear us apart inside. The losses continue because they aren’t registered, they aren’t marked, they aren’t seen as important. By choosing to honor the pain of loss rather than discounting it, we break the spell that numbs us to the dismantling of our world.”
A Little Something (July 2024)
Here’s your curated Hartford event calendar for July 2024. What makes this list? Events that I would either attend or recommend to a good friend. What doesn’t? Nonsense that costs $100+ for concert tickets in a public park that is then shuttered to city residents; venues and/or event organizers that have proven disappointing and/or problematic.
Bust Your Balloons
“Plastic has become a symbol of our busy lives and our need to get a quick fix. In some ways it has enabled us to do everything at once, and that may make some aspects of life more efficient, but it certainly diminishes others in profound and lasting ways.” -Rebecca Prince-Ruiz and Joanna Atherfold Finn, in Plastic Free.
Excluding the Public from a Public Park
For the last two months, construction crews did a spectacular job of maintaining pedestrian access to Bushnell Park. They only closed off what was absolutely necessary, and all pathways were kept open, even when this required ramps to help people walk or roll over the giant pipes. It wasn’t pretty, but the park was probably still 95% or more accessible at any given time.
Quick Stops: Niantic Bay Boardwalk and Beaches
You can have sand between your toes – if that’s what you want – in less than a two-minute walk from a bus stop in Niantic. And if that public transit ride took awhile, you immediately pass Gumdrops & Lollipops (food and ice cream, bring cash), along with a water fountain and public restroom.
Capacity
“In order to invest in a new vision, and a new way of living, we have to believe in each other and our capacity to create something better. Our belief in human potential must outweigh our fear of human failure. Our imagination must be courageous.”. – Kelly Hayes & Mariame...
Quick Stops: A.W. Stanley Park
What you need to know before reading further is that this was not even my first visit to a park by way of a Park and Ride lot; to anyone who has read the greats, this is also not the most surprising way to access natural areas. What is unusual...
Safe Streets Connecticut: May 2024
Those who are paying only half attention might believe that the only pedestrian to have been killed this year was the police officer making a traffic stop for a potential seat belt violation on I-84 in Southington. It’s amazing how when a cop is involved, suddenly the local news has the capacity to cover a story from multiple angles and present the victim as being three-dimensional. Almost every other fatal pedestrian crash receives fleeting coverage, at best, which does little more than reprint the statement given to the media by police. I have to wonder how a change in news coverage — as in, reporters doing honest reporting — would impact our society’s tolerance for what we generally shrug off as collateral damage. What if we treated all traffic violence victims the way we treat police who are victims? What would it be like if every victim’s story was told, if each was treated like a hero instead of little more than a statistic?
Hartford Decides, Again
Despite my questions about this program — several winning projects have yet to materialize — I’m letting you know that it’s time again when you can vote for which Hartford Decides project gets funded. Each Hartford resident age 10 and up can vote for two projects.
Question
How, in a city that has become absolutely fixated with murals, have we not yet touched this long, blank, boring wall that is behind bus shelters and directly across the street from what is the oldest continuously-operating public art museum in the country?. Could we imagine something here that’s neither...
Sign to Be Kind
“What are you turning away from because you know it causes harm?. What are you turning toward because it aligns more strongly with your values and hopes for our future?”. – Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in Active Hope. Being kind and being nice are not the same, and it’s...
Drive Less CT Climate Challenge: Final Week!
The challenge ends on Friday, but people can still participate even if they are only just finding out about it now. Each week of it, I’ve been offering another reason to take part, and here’s why you might want to begin now: data. To be more specific, by...
Recklessness on New Park Avenue
When you spend enough time looking at crash data, you know when something looks off. It’s not that the location of the crash — 244 New Park Avenue — was particularly surprising. It’s a thoroughly lousy road, with faded bike lanes that were never respected from the moment they were painted. I’ve biked on it twice and won’t do it again until the whole thing has been substantially renovated. There are too many curb cuts (driveways) and too many lanes, with a too high speed limit.
Drive Less CT Climate Challenge: Week Five
This week’s reason for participating in the CTrides Drive Less CT Climate Challenge: opportunities to participate in feats of strength, or, as some call it, the Carry Shit Olympics. A story:. I’ve ordered trees from the Arbor Day Foundation in the past. They’re clear about the size and how...
Free Love, Free Joy
I don’t know who to credit for the artistic arrangement of free pallets beside unmown grass. Additionally, I want to tag this as “Sidewalk Scenes” except that there are no sidewalks on this portion of Pope Park Hwy #4 near Pope Park West. No, I won’t shut up about it until the sidewalks happen.
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Life in Hartford, Connecticut, and beyond. Exploration, wandering, transportation, transit, art, and environment.
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