Last week, Alex and I went to the Alternative Transportation Festival at the Southside Works. We saw representatives from GASP, BikePGH and the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT). PAT was there to highlight their new Hybrid Gillig Busses, and they sent the director of the West Mifflin garage, Dennis Parish, to share the story. Alex and I spoke to Dennis for quite awhile at the festival and he, probably sensing our interest, invited us back to the garage for a tour! We, of course, took him up on the offer.

We found Dennis’ office after entering a side door (we didn’t know where to go in!), and Dennis was really gracious to drop his work, grab a two-way radio, and walk with us around the facility. We saw the scheduling area, the “pick” (bid) board, the break room, the dispatch desk, the holding area for busses, the bus wash, the maintenance facilities (paint shop, body shop, engine shop, A/C shop) and the parking lot outside.

He highlighted some of PAT’s environmental initiatives, including recycling bus wash water, using rainwater (in part) for the bus wash, and recycling oil and other engine fluids. They also, more expectedly, save money and “recycle” by retreading tires, re-milling brake drums (a maximum of 8 times), and rebuilding many of the bus’ engine components (most of this work is done at the PAT facility in Manchester, however). Dennis runs a tight ship, and everything is rather neat inside the building, though dirty with grease and oil.

Dennis has a great relationship with his employees–they all wave to him, and him to them. He said his policy was to pretty much leave people alone to do their work. That implies a lot of confidence and respect for him by his employees, and vice-versa.

Believe it or not, the bus garage is pretty empty during the day–many of his workers come in at night to clean the busses, he said. Maintenance is done during the day, but the facility is in operation almost 24 hours a day. Some operators, he said, even end up sleeping at the garage! Dennis said his scheduling rule of thumb was “to have my people here when the busses are here–no sense in paying them to sit around waiting for a bus”. Can’t argue with that.

Alex and I were both amazed at the level of autonomy Dennis reported–he has his own budget, orders his own supplies/parts, and is responsible for having enough busses to cover his routes. If they are short, he “asks the foreman to fix more busses”. No borrowing from other garages!

We couldn’t take pictures without the approval of media relations, which we didn’t seek (yet), so no pictures to share on this one, and it’s hard to remember all the things we saw and spoke about–Dennis was really kind in sharing his time and extensive knowledge with us, and we both appreciate his generosity. For a governmental organization, PAT is really great–they seem really community-focused, responsive and they appear to be making a genuine effort to serve their constituents. Next time you complain about the fair increases, remember this: it really costs PAT ~$13 dollars for your $2.25 ride!

Yesterday, Alex and I stopped by the “safety parade” in Munhall, PA. What *is* the safety parade, you ask? The safety parade is an event to promote the neighborhood’s block watch program. There were appearances from the Steel Valley Marching Band, a Lutheran after-school ministry group, the police, the EMS and the volunteer fire department. There were roughly 40 people there, and everybody looked like they were having a good time.

Since Munhall is such a small community, local businesses pitched in and donated cups, iced tea, lemonade, goodie bags for the kids and even pizza. Whether the block watch program gains more participants through the parade, I’m not sure, but either way, I think everybody had a good time, and the event can’t hurt in framing the police force as a friend as opposed to a foe in the eyes of residents.

Today, I got a glimpse of what the webopticon is really about, besides being my blog. So today, I got an E-mail from my old supervisor at SSI Services. As you may or may not know, I worked on the Knowledge Center project, a system to coordinate emergency responders, when I was there.

Anyway, so today I get an E-mail telling me that the “City of Pittsburgh” (nothing more specific) “noticed” me when I was taking pictures of the water main break last week. They then contacted SSI to “ask what our relationship was”.

The reason that this is so interesting to me is that I never gave my name out–nor did I really talk to anybody at the scene. They either recognized me from my time at SSI when I went to client meetings (the “client” including some of the same emergency responders who were at the water main break), or, more likely, they used Google to look for information on the water main break.

They then likely found my photos on Flickr and noticed themselves, or remembered me being there. Finding my Flickr photos, they got my name, Googled that, found my resume, and then saw that I worked at SSI (phew!). They then must have called SSI to ask what was going on.

What’s also interesting is that my photo of the PEMA/DHS guy at the scene has 10 more views than any other photo of the incident. Was it him who found the photos on Flickr? I’ll never know, but it’s interesting how Google has turned the Internet into a true panopticon (”webopticon”). Viewers can remain anonymous and get a glimpse into my life, to such a level that they can piece together my movements on a given day, and even my past work/jobs. I guess divulging that information is *my* choice, and I’m not trying to explicitly hide, either. There have also been other examples of Google panopticon-ness.