to present or not to present? that is the question i’m asking myself.

TransportationCamp NYC returns to Brooklyn once again in October. I attended three straight transpocamps from 2016 through 2018 – and presented in two of those; 2017 was decking over highways, and 2018 was removing some highways entirely – both for environmental justice reasons with emphasis on The Bronx, my hometown.

Since that time, I devoted several years to NYTIP – my attempt at crafting a cohesive transport improvement plan for the NY metro area. Since publishing my initial series of posts in 2019, however, the project has languished in development hell and dormancy – it has gone through many revisions and yet I haven’t had the motivation to bring v1.0.0 of my “enhanced NYC subway” – to say nothing of the rest of NYTIP – across the finish line.

Needless to say, a lot has happened since I last attended transpocamp in 2018. 2018 was the year I left NYC for suburbia, and save for hitting the greenways and visiting friends and fam, I haven’t really looked back. Long gone are the days where I called highways “asthmaways” – pretty cringe, looking back – and tweeted #DeleteTheHighways, because I got rid of my socials some time ago. Doing so allowed me to refocus and reprioritize some things (like cycling – over 1,400 miles and counting this year!) – and given the results, unplugging has been a net positive for me. That said, I do miss some of the cats I once followed/friended.

Anyhow, I’ve debated what – if anything – I should bring to the table for this year’s transpocamp. Maybe dust off NYTIP? Come up with something new, perhaps? Or maybe just check out the vibe – but knowing me, I might not just sit back. We’ll see.

Maybe I’ll see some familiar faces, maybe I won’t. Either way, should be fun. TranspoCamp is what we make of it, after all – is it not?