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Moscow State University at night
Moscow State University’s (MSU) main building, located at Sparrow Hills south of Moscow river, offers an exciting view both at day and night-time. Constructed from 1949 to 1953, it kept the record of being the tallest building in Europe until the 1980ies. And it is still the tallest higher education facility on the globe. A five minutes walk on the extensive camous northbound will bring you to the famous viewing plattform that yields you are glimpse of the truth behind the saying that Moscow never sleeps.
Yet an updated metro plan sticker in all the cities metro carriages (pictured above). Four new station on the yellow line in Moscow’s north-east recently were put into operation. Besides extending the yellow line the four new station interconnect with the light blue line, the violet line and the dark green line.
Parts of the new track simultaneously realize the first chunk of the second belt line that is currently under construction across Moscow.
In public services terms accessibility of public transport increased, yet again.
Moscow’s annual swimming championships on the long course (50m) have been taking place from March 13-16, at CK Olympisky, the former Olympic pool next to Metro station Prospekt mira. Demonstrating strong performance in the competition will yield sportmen and women a ticket for the Moscow team within the Russian national team. Day 3 in the competition (today, March 15) saw the heats for 50m butterfly (men), 100m free (men), 200 free (women), and 200 backstroke (women), as well as some finals. Another highlight were the heats for the 200m breast (men): Current European record holder Anton Chupkov (Антон Чупков) won his heat in the 200m breast with an exciting 2m:11s – this is not far for his 2:09.96 at the FINA championship in Budapest last year (2017) – and this was just in the heats!
The championships have been demonstrating that Moscow’s swimmers are well prepared for upcoming national and international events. On the 100 free distance there were 17 heats today, the best time in the heats was a 0:49.55, I recognized plenty of 0:52 and 0:53, nobody finished with more than 0:58.
Anton Chupkov’s race also demonstrated what makes the difference between good and excellent performance: his four 50m split times were 0:30, 0:33, 0:33, and 0:30 (according to my own time recording). With the first 50m being the fastest due to starting dive, Anton kept a constant pace during his 2nd and 3rd 50m and in the finish. I counted 12 strokes on this second 50m, 14 on the third 50m and 18 strokes during finish.
So get ready for the Russian championships in April – see you at CK Olympiskiy.
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5 months winter, and still counting
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Proactivity v muddling-through
In a post from in October last year (2017) I praised Paris city government’s plans to ban diesel-engine cars from entering the Paris capital. But in a blog post yesterday, 6 months later, in Feb 2018, I argue that imposing diesel bans to combat polluted air in German cities is neither a novel idea nor an effective one.
Why do I appreciate an identical measure in one context (Paris) while I seemingly over critical in another (Munich, Cologne, and Stuttgart)?
Paris city government acted proactively. It tried to find an acceptable solution to a severe ecological and public health issue.
Germany’s federal government simply ignored the same problem for years. Despite EU regulations it took judges to induce any policy actions.
So the difference is between Proactivity and muddling through. I appreciate the former behavior why I disguise the latter one.
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Vote where it suits you most
On March 18, presidential elections will take place in Russia.
Today, I saw a poster sticker in the metro. It reads (own translation): „Vote where it is convenient for you! Application takes less than 5 minutes.
If on March 18 you will not be around your residential adress, or you are not registered at all, cast you vote at any voting station that is convenient to you.
To do so, pick the voting station of your choice a fill the required application form. This will take less than 5 minutes.
Filled application forms can be submitted until March, 12 at:
1. the website gosuslugi.ru
2. At any office of МФЦ.“
(Own translation). My comment: Opting for any polling station across the country one week before voting day is a nice example of the merits of e-government.
Features picture: Volkswagen Passat Variant syncro. Source: Volkswagen Media Services.
The German federal administrative court today ruled that municipalities in Germany may impose bans on diesel-powered cars to combat polluted air.
City bans on diesel-engine cars – is this a public sector innovation?
In a public management context an innovation is a novel and useful idea. The novel and useful idea has to be new to the organization adopting it. People outside the organization may consider the novel idea as an imitation in case they implemented the same idea long ago. True – innovation at times is synonymous with imitation. Anyways, as long as the idea has the potential to serve community well, innovative behavior is a good thing.
The idea of banning dirty cars from entering city centers is not novel to Germany. Imposing city bans on dirty cars is a practice that has been in operation since 2007. Since then local governments are allowed to establish so called “low emission zones”, in which heavy polluters are not allowed to enter.
Though not a novel idea can bans might be useful, nonetheless. It is questionable whether banning particular groups of cars from entering cities is a useful attempt to improve air-quality for community members.
Dirty air that badly damages the health is one of the most pressing problems induced by ever increasing individual motor car traffic. But it is not only problem. It is just one of the multiple problems that can be measured more easily than others. I consider individual combustion engine based car traffic simply being an outdated technology in modern and sustainable smart cities.
Modern public managers and elected decision makers will need to shift their attention of attempts of protecting an over-subsidized car industry to developing comprehensive and integrated public transportation systems.
Just two examples for such comprehensive and integrated public transportation systems:
The first one is Paris’ RER system which was set up in the 1970ies.
The second example can be found in contemporary Moscow.
In 2017 Moscow opened its new Central Circle (MCC), a railway transportation system encircling Moscow’s outer center. MCC is one element in the capital’s comprehensive transportation system, alongside the Second metro circle line (currently under construction), and the Diameter project, MCD.
In November 2017 Vladimir Putin approved plans announced by Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, for a new railway transportation network labeled MCD. MCD is planned to established five new routes from outer suburbs to Moscow; the lines will also link to the existing underground rapid system, the Metro, and Moscow Central Circle (MCC). The MCD project is another feature in Moscow’s attempt to create a modern comprehensive transportation system.
Here is an follow up to a prior post mentioning the new outer circle line in Moscow which is currently under construction.
The figure below depicts all of the outer metro circle’s 30 new stations (bold) and some major interchanging stations.
This is a quite spectacular, or less fancy, ambitious public infrastructure project, since most parts of it will be located below Moscow’s surface.
The outer circle is expected to provide access to an additional million of community members.
Berlin, Germany’s capital, currently runs a pilot project with a fleet of 25 e-buses. This is something we could classify as innovative behavior, since an innovation is a novel and useful idea, project or practice that is new to the organization adopting it, regardless of prior adaption in peer units. Good.
Berlin’s pilot project received bad media coverage, however. Not so good. Low operating distance, about 150 kilometres, issues with drive and control technology were among the main teething troubles. But, hey, these are teething troubles. Sandford Borins in his 2000 PAR article on innovation in the US civil service posited that
„the media’s interest in exposing public sector failings […] is yet another impediment to innovation“ (p. 500).
Borins, S. (2000). Loose Cannons and Rule Breakers, or Enterprising Leaders? Some Evidence About Innovative Public Managers. Public Administration Review, 60(6), 498-507.
The story about Berlin’s fleet nicely supports this notion. But the point I want to make is another one: namely that all the effort now being put into e-buses partly are reinventing the wheel. Why?
Moscow, Russia’s capital, and several other cities in Russia and Eastern Europe still use an alternative technique, was was once disposed as outdated – trolley coaches.
Trolley coaches maintain a continuous supply of energy from power supply lines that are installed throughout major routes in Moscow.
Governments pushing newly constructed autonomous e-buses, keeping energy stored with the vehicle, to reduce carbon dioxide emission are re-inventing the wheel! Though innovative behavior is a good thing, re-inventing something that has been in operation long enough to show results is inefficient.
True, several of the trolley-buses in Moscow were in a rather, say, retro shape. Frequent stops are annoying at time, but I am fan of the metro anyway, and in case you do not have a metro station down the street you will be happy about a serving bus line. But over the course of the last year, with the FIFA championship approaching, Moscow bought a significant amount of brand new trolley bus vehicles. So the technology has been developing over the last decades, because seemingly there are business companies and construction facilities that are producing these new vehicles.
Visitors of Moscow thus will be able to travel back to the future! My point here is that some technologies, that are no labeled as innovative, have been in operation long ago. The general message is that innovative behavior closely connects to organizational learning. Learning from peer abroad may spur innovation at some lower costs – and less bad media coverage.