| Professional & Family Life of Bob ANDREW: now in United Arab Emirates |
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Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 19 September 2001In addition to the grief and anger experienced right after the attack on September 11, there was also the problem of Georgetown grid-lock, due to all the workers evacuating from the city. Cell-phone circuits were overloaded, but the distributed nature of the Internet meant that people anywhere could still check out live information right from their office computer.New public-private partnership web-site TrafficLand.com
worked with VDOT to now provide, on a single web-page, current views of any six
VDOT highway video cameras. Internet users now have access to 64 cameras – 39
more than before - on Interstates 66, 95, 395 and 495. You can setup personal
profiles of your routes and have them available at a single click. This
is a time for Georgetown and city leaders to push for similar video web coverage
of e.g. Key Bridge, Whitehaven Parkway, Rock Creek Parkway. The optimum location
for these cameras are upon buildings that are privately owned, such as the Car
Barn, Georgetown Incinerator and Washington Harbor complex. It’s also time for DDOT to work with FHWA
accelerate its planned timetable for D.C. central traffic control room. This
would not only enable optimum, time-of-day synchronization of signals, but also
allow them to pre-empt signals for emergency/security vehicles along any route
they need it. Having video cameras mounted at key traffic locations in the city
would enable that to be done more safely. Just last month, some made issue of concerns
about “privacy” with red-light cameras – the court threw that out as bogus
(the camera doesn’t capture faces). Their major concern instead was the
per-ticket fee being earned by IMS, rather than a flat management fee. People in London have become
accustomed to public space cameras to help deter terrorism – we should
carefully consider using them in D.C. © Bob Andrew, Foxhall |
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