Freeing the Airwaves

As some of you may know, I have spent a lot of time in my other career working on technology policy.  That's why I really enjoyed "Google Public Policy Blog: Time to "Free the Airwaves." America has fallen behind other countries in deploying broadband and we need to do everythign we can to catch up and pass our competitors.  creating better utilization for Whitespaces might play a part in that process.   Whitespaces, or the distances between transmitted frequencies, represent one of the lats unoccupied spaces in the radio spectrum - increasingly crowded and expensive real estate doled out by the FCC.  In recent years, the FCC has made some smart decisions and left open pieces of frequency so that innovative open services can be provided.  Cordless telephones and Wi-fi connections were the result of that smart policy.

Now, we have a chance to do it again.  Recently, I read another study about software programmable radios, that is radios that can listen for open frequencies and then transmit on those frequencies on the fly.  Whitespaces, or the distances between transmitted frequencies could be best utilized as a test bed for this technology.  One company, headed up by Vanu Bose, has donesome great work commercializing this technology.  I hope you will take a minute to sign the petition to the FCC asking them to open up whotespaces for these and other innovative purposes.

CART’s on the right track

I thought this blog post was great - grassroots working to move forward an important project. It seems everybody has rails (and trails) on their mind in the past couple of weeks. I posted this blog note about conversion of the old rail bed to a walking trail, something for which I have heard scores of support from constituents all across town. A properly implemented trail system makes a lot of sense. l I like the idea of creating transportation alternatives - as I believe that diversified mass transportation has inherent environmental and other benefits. And as town officials, we are doing what we can to make it happen. I’ve reached out to the company and to others to get a sense of where things stand and heard similar things to what David had. I have heard from many of my colleagues on the Town Board that they want this to happen as well. I will make this promise - the same one I made during the campaign - that this will get done.

Support for the walking/biking trail is not unanimous. I recently received an email from a constituent in Glenmont (who actually commented on the last posting) who said that he was more interested in setting up a light rail system from Bethlehem to Albany on the former rail bed. The constituent doubted that many commuters would make use of the walking and bike trail.

Having a light rail system in that area was an idea I have kicked around for a while a few years back, but one for which I had not heard a lot of support. Despite this, it was an idea I talked to CDTA about when I met with them a few months back. CDTA was more interested in Bus Rapid Transit - which given their current infrastructure (mostly buses) and need for flexibility that reflects growth patterns (which can change) makes good sense as a transitional technology. So, there are different ideas. The Times Union posted a story on light rail today (with a bit nebulous 1 billion dollar price tag) — see that here.

Understand, I think the walking and biking trail is the best use for the former rail bed and its what I am pursuing. Nevertheless, I’d love to hear from other constituents about their thoughts on the matter - please post below or email me at mark@markhennessey.com. And thanks to everyone who worked on gathering signatures and signing petitions. You are doing great and important work keeping this topic on the front burner.