Hey!, this is flattering.  Steven Colbert is using the core message I delivered regarding Rick Scott during Scott's election, against Mitt Romney.  You know, the Ripper thing.

See my post of October 10, 2010.

Note:  I'm not claiming angst, I think this is awesome!

Now, view the ad being used by Colbert today in his ad.

It's hard to tell what's going on between stories presented in the Tampa Tribune and the St. Pete Times.  I was reading the former and learned that Hillsborough County had banned Internet cafes.  This floored me enough to want to come here and rant.  What the hell is that all about? 

Through reading stories about this online it seems the issue is the gambling activity taking place within them, on computers that generally access the web.  It's some kind of problem down there, says someone, and in order to prevent them from taking hold in the county, Hillsborough commissioners simply waved a magic wand and banned Internet cafes outright.

I cannot believe under any circumstances that the larger, perfectly integral, service of such cafes is coming under attack because some "grey area" activity "might" be taking place in front of terminals that access the web.  Think about that.  It means that anyplace serving you an Internet connection, be it a public library or a McDonalds like the one from where I now sit, can be shut down the moment someone visits a gambling website or a lottery results page.

The St. Pete Times takes a little more precise slant in calling these places "Internet sweepstakes" cafes, but from what I can tell they are regular cafes where you might buy coffee and snuggle up to a good Google search.  If there were such a thing as an "Internet sweespstakes cafe" how would one distinguish between them and the "non-gambly" ones?

I don't know who applied what kind of pressure to get this ban to pass, but I smell fish on this one.  It's a horrific precedence from a body of people in a country that is always careful to go out of its way to spotlight capricious government crackdowns of Internet cafes in China.  I don't get it.

Anyone there know what's up?

I'm still keeping it real with some reality posts while longer-range ideas get sorted out.   I was serious in my previous post -- if you have any questions regarding a comparison between Tampa and New York City transit and general livability, ask away!  I should think that would be an interesting conversation.

Roosevelt Island Tramway Slideshow

If you follow Tampa Rail Tweets, you probably noticed a flurry of activity related to a recent trip my girlfriend and I took to Roosevelt Island.  This is a sliver of land between Queens and Manhattan that is quaint and somewhat idyllic.  We'd been hoping to simply hike the island for exercise's sake, but then, in time, I grew pretty excited about also riding the tram that connected the island to the Manhattan side.  We made it a priority last weekend and I've got plenty of pictures to show for it. 

Here's a complete slideshow of that jaunt which begins when we board the MTA bus here in Sunnyside, Queens, and disembark at the bus line's end which is exactly where the Manhattan tram terminus is.  You can literally hop off the bus from the edge of my street and then right onto the tram just 10 minutes later.  Nothing beats a dense transit-rich city like NYC. 

If you prefer you can view the slideshow images statically via the Picasa album.

Slideshow of our trip to Roosevelt Island, featuring the Roosevelt Island tram system

The Wikipedia entry on the tram system is pretty interesting.  It exists at all because the primary method of getting to and from the island, a trolley (the last operating in NY in fact) that actually stopped in the middle of the Queensboro Bridge so that passengers could transfer to and from an elevator connected to the island, closed in 1957.  This left a single and highly inconvenient bridge to Manhattan the only way to get to and fro.  When a series of transit options to solve the problem short of a one-day-to-be subway connection was considered, the tram won out.  Initially a temporary solution, it became so popular that it was "perma-tized".   There is a completely functional and high quality subway station serving the island now, but the tram is always filled as the preferred mode for thousands of people daily.   The stations on either side are clean and modern, and the ride itself so smooth you forget you're in a box being carted by overhead strings. 

With all the lightning storms and high winds during tropical storm season, trams may not make all that much sense in Tampa.  But then again, who would have thought they would work anywhere outside ski resorts or on the sides of sloped mountains let alone an urban mecca like New York City.

Happy Thanksgiving Tampa!  I am alive and well, meandering back and forth how to best populate this blog regularly post-rail setbacks, my detachment from Tampa, and a busier more demanding lifestyle.  What I want my loyal TR readers to know is that I plot and scheme every single day to bring this about and that this site is not forgotten.  There has never been a case when such driving determination has not paid off.  This static period will pass.

Meanwhile, remember that Tampa rail advocates, individual and agency, are making the most of the web there.  You have HART, TBARTA, and the most readied "official" equivalent of TR,  TampaBayOnTrack, all of which are making the most intelligent and passionate use of social media to keep the dream of urban rail transit alive and forceful. 

I for one can at least dot my presence with what I can in real-time.  While not necessarily related to the cause of bringing mass transit during the "great re-orientation" phase, I want to keep an open and ongoing dialogue with TR readers.  For example, I think I'll post some of my NYC rail and transit content.  You folks might get a kick out of it.

Ask me anything about NYC transit and how I think its dynamics might relate to Tampa. 

Rail Yard in Sunnyside Queens

Here's a shot of the Sunnyside rail yard in Queens.  I live in Sunnyside, but I have to travel way down to the Queensboro Bridge to enjoy this scene.  In this rail yard you can spot parked LIRR and Amtrak (including Acela) trains.