C’ville Traffic Lights Getting Synched

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 26, 2006 in Transportation. 7 Comments

After I asked what the funny antennae on the traffic lights are here on cvillenews.com, Mayor Brown broke the news that traffic would be getting synchronized. In Monday’s Daily Progress, John Yellig explained the plan for lights to get synchronized across the city, and it sounds pretty impressive.

Right now West Main is synched up, but soon Emmet and Preston will likewise be synched up. Three employees will sit in the city’s Intelligent Transportation System Center on Fourth Street, watching traffic on closed-circuit TVs, and adjust the lights in real time during peak traffic hours. Later in the four-phase, $2M project, all 69 traffic signals in the city will be wired into the ITS. Councilor Kevin Lynch wants to see the buses wired into the system, giving them priority at traffic lights.

I, for one, welcome our new traffic overlords.

New C-Ville Weekly Website

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 26, 2006 in Meta News. 13 Comments

For the first time ever, C-Ville Weekly has redone their website. Their site was an eyeball-taxing white-on-black with URLs that changed, making it tough to link to articles. Now they have a pretty website with permalinks (albeit using URLs of Death) and what looks like more content from each week’s issue. They even plan to maintain their existing archives, rather than starting over now. Mysteriously, there’s no RSS feed, but with the site powered by a content management system, additions like that should be easy. Many improvements, no steps backwards—what’s not to like?

Capshaw Buying Jefferson Theater

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 26, 2006 in Business and Development. Closed

DMB manager / real estate mogul Coran Capshaw has made a deal to buy the Jefferson Theater from Hook editor Hawes Spencer, John Yellig reports in today’s Progress. Hawes bought the nearly century-old building back in 1992, running it as a two-screen second-run theater, renting out the upper stories as apartments, and renting out the two storefronts as retail. The space has an amazing history, Houdini and the Three Stooges being two of its most famous vaudeville shows. Hawes says that Coran intends to continue doing basically the same thing with it, only probably making money on it.

Back from the Flu

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 26, 2006 in Site News. Closed

I’ve been in bed with the flu / sinus infection / pink eye for over a week now, but now that I’m able to sit up straight, I’ll get all caught up on the news for your discussion pleasure. Sorry for the delay.

Council Candidates Guide

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 23, 2006 in Politics. 2 Comments

Still not sure of who the three City Council candidates are, or what differentiates them from one another? See John Yellig’s handy candidate guide in today’s Progress.

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