August 4: Nutter’s HUD dreams | Dumpster pool crackdown | Safer left turns

Michael Nutter is said to be one of the names under consideration for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development if Hillary Clinton becomes President, says Edward-Isaach Dovere. Nutter had been considered for the top job at HUD by President Obama too. “Nutter’s also discussed as a possibility [for HUD], because Clinton and her aides are thought to be interested in emphasizing cities and drawing on urban experience,” he writes. 

A couple days after L&I spokeswoman Karen Guss said people need to follow the formal permitting process when turning dumpsters into pop-up swimming pools, L&I has decided to crack down on the practice, Billy Penn reports. The main issue appears to be the use of fire hydrant water for recreational purposes. L&I is blacklisting the 2400 block of Cedar Street, host of last weekend’s dumpster party, from receiving block party permits.

Joe Cortwright at City Observatory recommends several policies he says would promote competitive ride-hailing markets, with more alternatives to Uber and Lyft. One idea, which isn’t in the ride-hailing bill pending in Harrisburg, is a data-sharing requirement. “Ride share operators make their money using a scarce and expensive public asset: streets. They should be required to provide information about the trips they take, the areas they serve, and the fares they charge so that the public can understand how ridesharing affects the community—for good and for ill.”

Pennsylvania ranks second in the nation for landfill trash per capita, reports Marielle Segarra, mainly because we import more trash than any other state.

New York City DOT is trying to make left turns safer in response to a new internal study finding that left-turning vehicles are responsible for a disproportionate number of pedestrian injuries, reports David Meyer. “In 2015, drivers turning left accounted for 30 percent of pedestrian and bicyclist injuries in New York City — three times the share caused by right turns, according to the DOT report.”