News & Notes

Sidewalk Rage: Mental Illness or ‘Altruistic Punishment?’ [Time Magazine | Healthland]

While it sounds like an oxymoron, altruistic punishment is basically how social norms get enforced. So when you expel a huffy “Excuse me!” to the rude sidewalk clogger in front of you who has stopped midstride to check his BlackBerry, you’re trying to discourage behavior that endangers other members of the society. It’s called “altruistic” punishment, because your efforts to protect civility come at personal cost with little chance of personal benefit: you are far more likely to get an obscene gesture or even a punch in the mouth than a thank you.

Nonprofit group wins funds for Olney Village rehab project [The Providence Journal]

Olneyville Housing Corporation has received key financing assistance from Rhode Island Housing that will permit the nonprofit organization to move forward with its Olney Village project.

The $10-million development project will turn 11 foreclosed properties and a large vacant lot in the Providence neighborhood into 39 affordable apartments, plus spaces for two organizations: the food pantry formerly located at St. Teresa’s Church and the Manton Avenue Project, a youth arts and theater program.

DPS to up presence in Jewelry District [Brown Daily Herald]

The Department of Public Safety will increase its presence in the Jewelry District later this year with a substation and six additional officers to accommodate the new Medical Education Building. The building will open July 15 at 222 Richmond St.

The additional police presence will cost about $400,000 and raise the total number of sworn DPS police officers from 30 to 36. The substation will be housed in a building currently undergoing renovation on the corner of Elm and Eddy streets, on the same block as the Med Ed Building.

Stuck in the Land of Missed Opportunity [The TransportPolitic]

The development of Rosemont, just adjacent to Chicago O’Hare Airport, is indicative of the missed development opportunities that too often plague America’s transit systems.

While in theory the town’s cornucopia of hotels are close to the CTA’s Blue Line rapid transit corridor, they are isolated from it perceptually. So is a major convention center, a movie theater, and a performance hall. Walking from the station situated in the median of the Kennedy Expressway (I-190) to the main strip of hotels requires passing under highway and rail viaducts and then along the thin pedestrian way that borders the featureless, six-lane arterial known as River Road. Normal people, apparently, are supposed to drive, park their cars, and then use the area’s skybridge system to get around. Forget the sidewalks.

A template for what we need to be sure not to do at the T.F. Green train station.

Automobile poverty – Part 1 [New Urban Network]

A substantial number of Americans will soon be forced to live in poverty conditions because they live in sprawl, and this number will expand as fuel costs continue to rise even more. Here’s why:

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