Denying public access to crash data, did state agency prioritize fear of litigation over public safety?

Map of bicycle and pedestrian accidents
in Providence, R.I., 2009-17, from
Providence Great Streets Master Plan (2020)

Rhode Island authorities appear to have denied public access to road safety data for no reason better than protecting the state from litigation.

For The Providence Journal, Amy Russo reported in June (subscription) on a dispute between the nonprofit advocacy group Providence Streets Coalition (PSC) and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT). According to the story, RIDOT denied a PSC request under state public records law for access to crash data.

To justify the denial, RIDOT pointed to federal law and state court precedent allowing denial of a public record request when a litigant seeks to support a negligence claim against the government, Russo reported. But there is no litigation related to the PSC request.

The relevant rule seems to be of the kind known to some freedom of information acts (FOIAs) that seeks to keep the FOIA process apart from discovery in litigation. Such provisions are not necessarily hostile to public access, but ensure that FOIAs don't undermine civil procedure. Usually a litigant in discovery has better access to relevant government-defendant records than a public-record requester has because FOIA exemptions from access don't apply. Sensitive information that might be FOIA-exempt can be subject to a protective order under the rules of civil procedure, but still must be disclosed.

It rather turns the rule on its head, then, for RIDOT to resist disclosure when there is no alternative track in discovery for the requester to demand access. If that's indeed what happened, then RIDOT is almost certainly overreaching. The state has ample protection from lawsuits in sovereign immunity. Typically, states cannot be sued merely for failure to act affirmatively to ensure public safety, nor for exercising discretion to prioritize public safety relative to finite resources.

Rather, a litigant must show that officials were bound to follow a specific legal standard and negligently failed to do so. If that's what's going on, then lawsuits are precisely the appropriate mechanism for injured persons to see their interests vindicated and the state held accountable.

Whatever RIDOT's motive, withholding vital safety data from the public is plainly at cross-purposes with public interest. Russo's story observed that other states, "including Texas, Colorado, Florida, California, and Massachusetts," make crash data public. She interviewed Eric Jackson, head of the Connecticut Transportation Institute and Transportation Safety Research Center at the University of Connecticut, which partnered with the Connecticut Department of Transportation to build a public crash database in 2010.

Connecticut did worry that "attorneys and ambulance chasers are going to come after us and basically say you have the data that's showing you where crashes are occurring," Jackson said. But "[s]o far, ... that hasn't come to fruition."

And Jackson pointed out what should be obvious: If the problem is road safety, then secreting data is hardly the answer.

The PSC-RIDOT matter won't come to court, Russo wrote, because PSC obtained the data it wanted from the City of Providence.

The story is Amy Russo, A Providence Organization Wanted Crash Data To Make Streets Safer. RIDOT Said It's Private, Providence J. (June 26, 2023) (subscription).

Follow the dollar, name politicians in train disaster

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) blocked rail safety measures.
Medill DC via Flickr CC BY 2.0

Government "tried" to regulate rail, but industry "resisted" and "won."

That's what I heard tonight in a news break on National Public Radio about the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment disaster.

As if public safety regulation were a football match. Government just couldn't stop that offensive drive late in the second half.

No.

Blame industry, sure.  There's plenty blame to go around. But profits ahead of people? You can't be surprised. That's American industry's MO. And, to be fair, as long as no one gets hurt, we applaud.

Rather, save a big helping of blame for government. The same government now in Ohio trumpeting how Norfolk Southern will be held accountable.

Buck passed.

Government wasn't defeated in some contest with industry on the gridiron. Government failed. The people who are the government lacked the will to do the right thing, or worse, chose to do wrong.

Lee Fang for The Intercept dug into how the U.S. Senate, namely Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), blocked industry safety regulations eight years ago.

Follow the dollar.  Thune turns up, too, as a top-five recipient of rail lobbying dollars in 2021-22. Here's that list from Open Secrets:

• Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), $107,343
• Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), $85,548
• Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), $72,900
• Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), $69,550
• Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), $61,015

I think I know where we should send the contaminated soil from Ohio.

Nonprofit, nonpartisan Open Secrets has plenty of data. Check it out. If your congresspersons are on Big Rail's donee roster, don't send them back to Washington to try again.

Americans chase dream of air passenger rights, while EU consumer protection reaches age of majority

Boarding a flight in Ilorin, Nigeria, in December 2022.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

A Savory Tort Investigation

The Christmastime Southwest meltdown has prompted tongue wagging in Congress over a "Passenger Bill of Rights" to redress the radical imbalance of market power that has left Americans at the mercy of an oligopolist airline industry for decades.

Don't get your hopes up. In the United States, airlines have been playing cat and mouse with regulators since the mail took to the air in the 1920s. And the cat has never been enthusiastic about the chase. 

Passenger protection from exploitative practices in the airline industry has been a congressional dog whistle since overbooking became a business model in the 1960s. Ralph Nader took on the issue, along with so many others, in the 1970s. We've swung back and forth between transparent pricing and the piling on of surprise fees enough times to make you use your sick bag. Over the years, more passenger bills of rights have died in Congress than we have airlines. Well, that's a low bar, but you take my point.

As in all things when corporatocracy clashes with simple equity in the marketplace, the European Union is doing a better job than the United States to level the playing field. The crown jewel of more robust European consumer protection is Regulation 261/2004, which has been on the job for almost twenty years. When flights are delayed or canceled, EU 261 requires compensation to customers in cold, hard cash.

The circumstances that lead to an EU 261 payout are well circumscribed. But when it happens, an airline feels the pinch. The regulation pertains upon delay or cancellation, EU guidance explains (bold in original), when:

• the flight is within the EU and is operated either by an EU or a non-EU airline;
• the flight arrives in the EU from outside the EU and is operated by an EU airline; or
• the flight departs from the EU to a non-EU country operated by an EU or a non-EU airline.

Here is the compensation schedule, per passenger:

• Type 1: €250 for a delay of two-plus hours, or €125 if re-routed to arrive fewer than four hours late, for flights of 1,500 kilometers or less.
• Type 2: €400 for a delay of three-plus hours, or €200 if re-routed to arrive fewer than four hours late, for intra-EU flights of more than 1,500 kilometers and for all other flights between 1,500 and 3,000 kilometers.
• Type 3: €600 for a delay of four-plus hours, or €300 if re-routed to arrive fewer than four hours late, for all other flights.

There need be no compensation when the delay can be attributed to a cause extrinsic to the carrier, such as weather. A passenger's receipt of compensation, including non-monetary assistance, pursuant to the law of a non-EU country precludes an EU claim.

Cash compensation is a welcome recognition that airline passengers suffer real costs when flights are delayed or cancelled—more than what is covered by a meal voucher or even, when necessary, an overnight stay. Ours is now a world of nonrefundable reservations for hotels, cars, and tours. Travel insurance is becoming a must, and yet another expense. Vacation time meanwhile is increasingly scarce, especially for Americans.

Meaningful compensation incentivizes airlines to work smarter. For example, scheduling departures too tightly, failing to anticipate mechanical needs, or simply de-prioritizing the correction of problems all become decisions with bottom-line consequences.

The outer jurisdictional limits of EU 261 are not spelled out on the face of the regulation, but European regulators and courts largely have construed silence expansively. EU 261 claims are not limited to EU citizens and airlines, as long as an EU country can exercise jurisdiction. EU 261 has an exception for "extraordinary circumstances," but courts have construed the exception narrowly, excluding technical problems. Court rulings in the late 2010s led to the application of EU 261 to U.S. carriers operating international connections to and from the EU.

At the same time, compliance has been a mixed bag. The fuzziness at the margins of EU 261 application, along with the reality that not all domestic authorities have been prepared to invest fully in enforcement, has afforded airlines room to fudge fulfillment of their obligations.

In the event of a maloccurrence, airlines are obliged to make passengers aware of their EU 261 rights, and passengers file claims with the airlines, not with regulators. The airlines can be less or more forthcoming with notifications and the ease with which consumers can file claims. There are reports, moreover, of airlines simply not paying what's owed. As a result, a cottage industry has arisen of intermediary companies that facilitate consumer claims in exchange for significant contingency fees.

As an American citizen traveling to, from, and through the EU, I’ve made some EU 261 claims in recent years, since the regulation expanded to reach foreign flight legs. I tested different options to make my claims, and I promised to share some outcomes.

No-Coverage Cases

It’s first important to articulate unfortunately ever more common passenger experiences that are not covered by EU 261—and, needless to say, precipitate no consumer protection in U.S. law.

My fellow Lagos-bound passengers and I wait in Paris.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

CLAIM DENIED by Air France: EU transit.  In December 2022, I traveled from Boston, Massachusetts, to Lagos, Nigeria, via New York and Paris.  Because of a mechanical problem, after several hours’ delay, the connection from Paris to Lagos was canceled and rescheduled for the following day.  My booking was with Delta; KLM owned the itinerary; and the canceled connection was operated by Air France. EU 261 charges the operator with responsibility. Air France provided a €15 meal voucher and overnight accommodation, including a shuttle after quite a long wait. Such intermediate compensations do not preclude EU 261 awards.

Air France denied the type-3 compensation claim I filed directly with the airline. An Air France agent wrote:

I am really sorry to have to inform you that the EU Regulation 261/2004 does not apply when flight departs from a point outside the EU or EEA and travels to a final destination outside EU or EEA, via a connection in an airport in the EU or EEA.

Since your flight departs from Boston and arrives in Lagos via New York and Paris, we regret our inability to accede to your request for compensation on this occasion.

To be clear, every leg of this journey was a different "flight," with its own flight number; this was not a continuation "flight." My itinerary originated and terminated outside the EU. At the same time, Air France's interpretation of "flight" in EU 261 seems consistent with my other claim experiences. I suppose Air France was obliged to pay compensation to passengers who originated in Paris; I don’t know. I was not given any particular notice of EU 261 rights; maybe passengers originating in Paris were.

NO CLAIM against Air France: Advance cancellation. In November 2022, I traveled from Boston, Massachusetts, to Kraków, Poland, via Amsterdam.  I booked through Egencia; Air France owned the itinerary; KLM operated the connection to Kraków.

A month after my purchase, but still a month before the departure, KLM canceled the connection to Kraków. KLM rebooked me on another flight, lengthening my layover by five hours and putting me late into Kraków. Air France offered a full refund, in the alternative, but refused to book me on another carrier that would arrive earlier into Kraków.

Patriotic illumination aboard an Air France flight.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The problem here was that I had paid more for a morning arrival in Kraków, because I had to work there that day. I could have booked for the midday or later arrival with another carrier for less money at the time I purchased, had I wanted to. I chose the SkyTeam Alliance specifically for the early arrival. In the month since the purchase, the alternatives had risen exorbitantly in price as international itineraries. I could still buy a replacement connection to Kraków for midday arrival from another carrier, but Air France also refused to release me from the KLM connection. If I failed to appear for the KLM connection, Air France would cancel my ticket home.  I had no choice but to accept the change and miss most of my work day.

KLM claimed that it canceled the morning connection—a month in advance—because of a "mechanical problem." Apparently, no regulation requires an airline to tell the truth. I rather believe that KLM canceled the flight because SkyTeam's multiple flights to Kraków were undersold.

I could not make an EU 261 claim, because airlines are permitted to make whatever changes they please more than seven days before departure. This is a big gap in consumer protection, because passengers have no ability to rebook with another carrier so close to the departure date.

I did complain to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), because it is impermissible, even under U.S. regulations, for a carrier to cancel a flight merely because it's undersold. Unfortunately, this rule is rarely enforced, because it's so easy for a carrier to point to another reason for the cancellation. KLM continued to claim mechanical failure, never explaining how that hurdle could not be overcome with a month's advance notice.

DOT took no action, but entered my complaint in its "industry monitoring system." I suppose this is the same system through which, a mere 16 years after Southwest began A-B-C boarding, it seems finally to have dawned on federal regulators that maybe children should not be forced to sit next to strangers. That would have been a nice policy change to have had when my daughter was growing up.

NO CLAIM against Turkish Airlines: Airport change.  This is an older matter, but I’m throwing it in here because it's a variation on the problem of advance cancellation that might well happen to other people in today's tight market. 

In November 2020, I was to travel from Boston, Massachusetts, to Khartoum, Sudan, via Istanbul, on Turkish Airlines.  Within a week of departure, Turkish canceled my Boston flight and rebooked me on a departure from New York JFK. That’s not an easy or costless transit, from my home to JFK: a four- to five-hour drive each way, or a slow train with multiple transfers. Turkish refused any compensation, offering only complete cancellation as an alternative, and that only when I asked.

This was not an EU 261 matter, because there was no point of contact with Europe.  If the same thing happened, though, with a transit in Europe, EU 261 would not have applied, at least according to the reasoning of Air France in the above-described claim denial. If Turkish made such a change for an EU-bound flight, I hope that EU 261 would apply. I wonder what would happen if Turkish changed the airport, but not the flight number; that's not a delay or a cancellation.

I'll never find out, because I now exclude Turkish Airlines from my fare searches. I suggest you do the same.

Coverage Cases

CLAIM SETTLED with SATA Air Açores: Delayed flight within EU. In July 2022, I traveled within Portugal, from Lisbon to Terceira Island, on SATA Air Açores. Because of a mechanical failure, my 4:15 p.m. departure was delayed to 9:55 p.m. SATA gave me a €10 food voucher. I incurred some additional expense having to get a nighttime transfer on the island, and I lost some daylight leisure time.

My SATA rights notice.

Lisbon to Terceira maps out at 1,555 kilometers, so just over the threshold for a type-2 claim. When I received the voucher at the airport, the agent also gave me a well copied notice of rights in paper. The notice was in Portuguese with no translation.  In Portuguese, the notice accurately described the three types of EU 261 events, but conspicuously omitted any numerical amounts of compensation. In late July, I filed a €400 claim directly with SATA via email.

In September, SATA responded via email with a counteroffer: €300. I accepted. SATA sent me a form to provide my banking information for a wire transfer. I did so, but SATA wrote subsequently to say that it couldn't get the transfer to go through—foreign payers often struggle to align their parameters with U.S. bank data—and that it would send a check. In November, I received a paper check in the mail for US$322.

I accepted the SATA offer because I thought it was more than fair, even though I was entitled to €400 under EU 261. SATA implicitly acknowledged as much by offering more than €250. But my roundtrip ticket with SATA had cost me only €255. And I didn't feel there was any misfeasance on SATA's part. There was no indication that the mechanical failure could have been anticipated; airport agents acted quickly and efficiently to reschedule; and SATA tasked the flight to another plane the same day, if later. Overall, I remained happy with SATA service, despite my lost time. I don't know what SATA would have done had I refused the offer and insisted on €400.

CLAIM PAID by American Airlines: Delayed flight in United States. Also in July 2022, I traveled from Lisbon, Portugal, to Boston, Massachusetts, via Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I booked on Egencia, and American Airlines operated all flights. The connection from Philadelphia to Boston was delayed more than three hours, but less than four.

Had American Airlines not made such a mess of this delay, I probably would not have thought to apply for EU 261 compensation. This was the kind of straightforward poor customer service that, sadly, Americans have simply come to expect. The delay seemed to have resulted from the unavailability of crew. Passengers actually boarded the plane, and then we were ordered to deboard and return to the terminal. Gate agents offered conflicting explanations. They seemed to be arguing with each other. The tension was contagious, and information was scarce. Space around the gate was overcrowded. The scene was chaotic, ugly, and frustrating.

It's not immediately apparent that EU 261 applies. The flight was a domestic connection; there were passengers on board with no passports. This was the inverse of the Air France claim-denial situation I described above. My point of origin in the EU was dispositive, even when the problem arose on a domestic connection in the United States. My American citizenship was immaterial. The relevant facts under EU 261 were that my itinerary started in the EU, and I arrived more than three hours late to my final destination.

Even insofar as EU 261 applied, I wasn't sure what type of claim mine was. The overall travel distance, the "flight," defined by itinerary, was more than 5,000 kilometers. But the "flight," defined by a leg with unique flight number, from Philadelphia to Boston was less than 500 kilometers. 

Under the circumstances, I expected that if I made a claim, American would deny it. After all, I might notionally be entitled to make a claim under European law, but where would I enforce? The U.S. DOT barely enforces U.S. regulations; it's not likely to expend resources to enforce foreign law. The relevant EU jurisdiction was Portugal. But would I, a non-European, have standing before a Portuguese regulatory authority? 

With so much uncertainty, I was inclined to let the matter drop. But over the next couple of days, I became angry again that American never reached out with any kind of apology for its mess. What the heck, I thought. At least filing a 261 claim would let me vent.

At the same time, because I seriously doubted that I would see a dime, I decided to try using an intermediary. After reading some reviews, I chose AirHelp, a 10-year-old startup from Berlin that is now global. AirHelp promises to make the claims process easy, and it did. In late July, I uploaded my documents and provided a short description of what happened. I got to vent.

AirHelp kept me apprised of my claim status. It sent me an email saying it had determined that I had a valid claim for €300. That seems right, using the itinerary as the measuring stick to reach type 3, and acknowledging that the delay in the end was under four hours. AirHelp said that it would make that demand of American Airlines. Thereafter, AirHelp periodically let me know that it was still waiting to hear back.

To my surprise, in mid-November, AirHelp told me that American had agreed to pay €300. AirHelp sent me an invoice showing that it was deducting its 35% contingency fee of €105. AirHelp sent me a check for the difference in U.S. dollars, $201.38. The fee was hefty, but maybe not bad for a claim I never thought would be honored.

✈     ✈     ✈

In sum, EU 261 is a powerful accountability tool, even if, 18 years on, it leaves some wide gaps in consumer protection. Americans should have at least as good a mechanism at their disposal. Our airlines meanwhile are fighting against accountability, trotting out the usual "be careful what you ask for" warning that our mere expectation of market equity will make air travel unaffordable. Seems to me that if American consumers are going to lose either way, misery loves company.

Sponsored in the present U.S. Congress by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the "Passenger Bill of Rights" now pending as S. 178 calls for a ticket refund and re-routing, even on another carrier, for delays of one to four hours, and, additionally, $1,350 cash compensation for delays of more than four hours.

I'm sure the check's in the mail.

Proposed Biden rule would try again to compel airline pricing transparency; it worked out so well last time

President Biden has his own plane.

(U.S. Mission photo by Eric Bridiers CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr)

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has proposed a rule to refresh pricing transparency in the airline industry.

According to a DOT press release: "Under the proposed rule, airlines and travel search websites would have to disclose upfront—the first time an airfare is displayed—any fees charged to sit with your child, for changing or cancelling your flight, and for checked or carry-on baggage." 

For me, the new rule can't happen soon enough. At the same time, I'm doubtful we'll see much change in the opacity of the airfare market.

I'm a libertarian. But in America, libertarianism is too often confused with a radically absolutist version of laissez-faire capitalism. Libertarianism rather is about the virtues of a free market. And free markets depend on conditions that don't naturally tend to exist in the real world, including a free flow of information between buyer and seller—that is, transparency. Free markets require regulation to ensure that they remain free.

The airline industry, especially since it moved to online sales, is case in point. In the online marketplace, customers are attracted by low upfront prices. Airlines found that sales improved when the upfront price was lowered by moving some of the fare, especially bag-check costs, to add-on fees later in the purchase transaction. Southwest famously resisted bag-check fees and has capitalized on its exceptionalism, though not without costs. 

In the usual purchase transaction, the low upfront price is too attractive to resist. And competitors' add-ons are not always apparent until the customer has sunken too much time and money into the booking to look back. Indeed, Delta does not even allow customers to prepay bag check, so fliers are not confronted with the bag-check add-on until the day of departure.

Dollars are not the only costs that airlines can conceal from customers doing online price comparison. Inconvenient routing with multiple and lengthy layovers can cost fliers time and money down the line. Early morning and late night flight departures and arrivals can significantly increase airport transfer costs, besides risking personal security and inducing exhaustion. Seat availability can be limited, making flying literally painful for someone six-foot-five or weak of bladder. 

Negotiating these options can be grueling for the consumer, and the market can seem ungoverned by logic. For me, it is not unusual to take days, at hours per day, sifting and testing the market to get the best deal on an air itinerary. In a recent search process, I found, not atypically, that I could fly from city A to city B to city C for less than it cost to fly from city A to city B, which was my actual destination, because direct service is more desirable. But buying the cheaper fare and leaving the airport at city B is called "skiplagging," or "hidden city ticketing," and airlines can be nasty about enforcing their prohibition on it.

On the one hand, I respect the airlines' free-market discretion to charge a higher price for a direct flight than for a less desired routing. On the other hand, there is a confounding absurdity to the idea that I would find myself at home in city B, yet be obligated to board a plane to carry on to someplace I don't want to go. Courts have been hostile to airlines' efforts to penalize skiplaggers financially. But they won't stop an airline from zeroing out a customer's frequent flier miles or even banning the flier from the line.

Like radar detector technologists with speeding enforcers, airlines have played cat and mouse with private and public regulators. Search engines have become more sophisticated in allowing customers to specify parameters, such as bag checks and connections. But the providers vary in options and their efficacy. Kayak tries to help with bag-check fees; Expedia not as much. And the mere act of online price comparison might introduce costs; despite industry denials, there is some evidence that consumers trigger price increases by repeating searches on Kayak and Google.

The search engines anyway can only sort data that the airlines provide, and they are not always forthcoming with details. Some airlines shun intermediary booking sites wholly. Airlines started gaming bag-check fees in 2008. Customer frustration finally precipitated disclosure regulation in 2011.

The regulation failed; bag-check fees are not easy to find. At Frontier and Spirit, the pricing is variable, so a shopper must enter data about a specific flight to get a number that allows price comparison. Meanwhile, bag-check fees have extended to an array of options. United is among airlines that now charge for a carry-on bag, and JetBlue charges for overhead bin space.

Add to the mix that JetBlue and Spirit announced their merger in 2022, even as JetBlue defends its partnership with behemoth American Airlines in litigation with the Justice Department (DOJ). Fewer carriers never results in improved transparency or lower prices for customers. Anti-competitive conglomeration is a natural market tendency, and healthy to a point, but it must be counterbalanced by thoughtful and vigorous antitrust regulation.

Even if DOJ is successful in the present antitrust litigation, the success will be a drop in the bucket of an industry that already is far too monopolized. The United States has nothing like the peanut airlines that blanket Europe. There are legitimate reasons for that deficiency, for example, our larger land mass. But there are plenty of illegitimate reasons, too, including monopoly by air carriers and monopoly in secondary markets, such as airports, baggage handling, and the transportation infrastructure that supports transfers.

The proposed rule announced by the Biden Administration is better than nothing, if it is promulgated intact. But the rule barely scratches the surface of what's needed to move the airline industry into a truly free market, in which consumers have a fighting chance. Extrapolating from past efforts to compel the disclosure of bag-check fees, it's safe to predict that the airlines already are one step ahead, and little will change for the consumer's experience.

A free market is a transparent market with manageable entry barriers. Consumers should be able to compare prices head to head for the same services. The internet should have facilitated the free market and leveled the playing field for buyers. Instead, weak regulation has let industry run amuck and obfuscate pricing. Absolutist laissez-faire capitalism is otherwise known as corporatocracy.

 —

Presently, I'm using two different modalities to try to pursue penalty fees from airlines for flight delays I experienced in the summer under European Union regulatory jurisdiction. When I have outcomes to report, I'll blog about it.

Chicago Transit Authority seeks to hire tort lawyers

The Chicago Transit Authority is looking for lawyers specifically to handle tort claims.

This job is unusually specific to tort work. Here is the position summary for "Senior Attorney," listing a salary of $95,544:

Under general supervision, performs a broad variety of legal duties in support of the Authority’s General Counsel. Works on the defense of personal injury lawsuits filed against the Authority, from minor to catastrophic injuries and subrogation and property damage defense and performs all litigation for assigned caseload.

And here is the position summary for "Associate Attorney," listing a salary of $83,372:

Under general supervision, functions as a junior level attorney responsible for litigating personal injury cases brought against the authority.  Works with senior attorneys on complex personal injury, subrogation, and property damage defense cases.

Both positions were posted July 22.

Poor development choices may bolster quality-of-life disparity on Tanzania's Msasani Peninsula

 Coco Beach, Msasani Peninsula, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-SA 4.0.

The short length of Coco Beach is the touristic gem of Tanzania's largest city, Dar es Salaam, which, for all its rugged charms, is not rich with touristic gems. Coco Beach sits on the eastern, Indian Ocean, coast of the ritzy Msasani Peninsula, just a few kilometers northwest of the CBD.

Msasani says a lot about wealth stratification in Africa. The worsening wealth gap is an issue that vexes me in the United States. But we've got nothing on many an African country. Where subsistence living is the norm, and social safety nets are nearly non-existent, the disparity between haves and have-nots gets closer at each end to all and nothing. And as on Msasani, the extremes are often abruptly juxtaposed. The peninsula is home to subsistence fishermen, and the polluted beaches of the slipway, in the west, and the luxury condominiums of posh Oyster Bay, in the east.

Luxury condo building on the road from Oyster Bay to Sea Cliff Village

I walked the peninsula from west to east and saw, in the span of just a few kilometers, ramshackle wood dwellings on potholed dirt trails without plumbing, in the west and center, and gated condo complexes with marble-esque, statued facades, in the east. While the former teemed with human life, the latter were eerily vacant, deserted of all but the occasional maintenance worker. I assume the condos are mostly second-home getaways and vacation rentals for the well-to-do in high season and on weekends. (I was reminded of the dark-windowed high rises that loom over Central Park West, New York.)

Qatar's is the most modest of the beachfront embassies.

At that, the most striking residences of the eastern Msasani are not luxury homes, but foreign embassies, including those of Qatar, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. (The U.S. embassy and others are in Oyster Bay, but in the interior.) They line the main coastal road that runs between Oyster Bay and Coco Beach, which runs on northward to swank Sea Cliff Village and the Yacht Club.

Present service structures on Coco Beach, astride road construction.

At present, it isn't easy to cross this road, because a massive construction project runs all along the length of Coco Beach. I had hoped that this construction would improve the beach for touristic use that might fuel economic development to benefit the peninsula's have-nots. What passes for services on the beachfront now are wood shacks of dubious hygiene, selling drinks and snacks that might prove hazardous to foreign GI tracts. One municipal toilet building has seen better days and is now inaccessible anyway because of the construction. Alas, no, a local on the beach informed me: The purpose of the construction is to convert the shoulderless, two-lane, asphalt coast road into a four-lane highway, because, he said, the embassies want better and more secure access.

Nearly completed end of beachfront highway entering the CBD.

Many an American city can today tell tales of costly woe for having built transportation and utility infrastructure along prime waterfront property. It's bad enough that embassies, with their high, secure walls, occupy this land on the peninsula to begin with. Their inefficient use of prime real estate, distant from the administrative offices of the CBD, and in the company of Tanzania's "one percent" and cloistered ex-pats, sounds an awakward echo of colonial elitism.  To boot, now, the embassies and luxury homes will soon be served by a four-lane road that will further limit public access from the peninsula to the already underdeveloped beachfront.

Tanzania in 1974 moved its capital de jure to central Dodoma, in an effort to broaden economic opportunity in the country beyond Dar es Salaam. Nevertheless, concentration of development in Dar is still a problem that plagues the country. A businessman in the northeastern town of Arusha told me there's mounting resentment there about rural taxes paying for big-city infrastructure. (Boston says hello, western Massachusetts.) Maybe foreign nations can help Tanzania take a step forward by transferring their embassies from walled beachfront luxury to central locations with better access to government, whether Dar or Dodoma, on condition that appropriate public development of the Msasani Peninsula be left in their wake.  After all, foreign diplomatic posting is supposed to be a hardship, and it's compensated accordingly.

The new highway runs in front of the historic Ocean Road Hospital, where a street sign bears a familiar name.

Social-science saucebox opines on bike-bridge closures

A reporter stopped me on a run last week to obtain my critical policy analysis of the bridge-replacement situation on the East Bay Bike Path.  Suffice to say, my testimony was breathless.


Watch at NBC 10 Providence.