{"id":1843,"date":"2011-12-15T09:02:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T15:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2011-12-15T09:02:04","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T15:02:04","slug":"and-the-paving-goes-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/and-the-paving-goes-on\/","title":{"rendered":"And the Paving Goes On…."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Just sent this to the Long Range Transportation Planning Committee:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dear Commissioners,<\/span><\/div>\n
I have reviewed in great detail\u00a0<\/span>Item 5.\u00a0Informational Presentation on the Preliminary Design of the CTH M Roadway Corridor (Prairie Hill Road to Cross Country Road)<\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
How can any of these highway expansion options be acceptable in light of the budget squeeze caused by all of the over-paving that has been approved by this commission?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The following article details the destruction your transportation planning has wrought upon our city’s finances:<\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
TheDailyPage.com: “Madison is paving itself into oblivion,” by\u00a0<\/span>Michael Barrett<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

http:\/\/www.thedailypage.com\/daily\/article.php?article=35022<\/wbr><\/wbr><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Don’t you think you’ve done quite enough to wreck our city’s finances as well as its livability?<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Cease all further paving expansion until:<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
a) the budget is back on track and,<\/span><\/div>\n
b) City Engineering is put on a road diet that allows expansion only in line with population growth starting from a 1990 baseline *minus* 10 % (to be Kyoto Protocol-compliant).\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
c) The entire city bureaucracy learns how to work together, synergistically, to promote a vibrant economy with a whole lot less driving and a whole heck of a lot less paving.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
I have heard from several commissioners here and on other commissions that you have no choice but to expand paving because all of the developments surrounding these roads are built to car-oriented standards.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Funny that. When I was on Urban Design Commission, we would routinely press the developers to rein in the car-orientation of the very developments surrounding the segments of CTH M in question. Their response? “While we support New Urbanist principles, we can’t apply them here because the city engineer has designed the roads so large as to make these principles unworkable. We have to design them for cars, not people.” The city’s planners would nod their heads and testify to reinforce car supremacy.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
UDC would sometimes even go so far as to nix some of these developments, but in most cases they would make it through, since many commissioners had sympathy for the bind the developers claimed they were in (or Plan Commission would override us, in the case of the rejected plans.) (Disclosure: I was thrown off of UDC for refusing to approve such anti-human landscapes.)<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
So then I discover, from conversations with individual commissioners on LRTPC, Plan Commission, Board of Public Works and PBMVC that you believe that you aren’t responsible, because–get this–the development surrounding these roadways is so car-oriented!<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
The developers say the highwaymen made them do it, the highwaymen say the developers made them do it, and everyone blames the planners. The planners blame everyone else. If you corner any one of these parties in this blame-game, they’ll then deflect further and blame the individuals on their respective commissions. The commissioners blame their staff, or the alder. Or the mayor. The alder blames the commissions. The mayor blames the alder.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
And the devil made you all do it.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
At some point, don’t you think you should brain up and take responsibility for your own conscience and just vote no?<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
After all, the nasty landscapes you are creating out there just keep sinking in value, thanks to their auto-centricity. No one wants to live in such ugly places. They suck. And they are not sustainable from any perspective–economic or ecologic. Meanwhile, places built with people in mind keep holding their value, and even increasing, through the worst economic downturn since the Depression.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
I see from the commission roster that many of you should know better. Are you asleep? Are you afraid? If so, it may be time to submit your resignation. These are times for bold leadership, not cowering before megalomaniacal engineers.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Your charge is to make this city better, not worse. But making it worse seems to be all that comes out of this committee and your home committees.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
A 558% 11-year growth rate for paving is obscene. End it.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Sincerely,<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Michael D. Barrett<\/span><\/div>\n
2137 Sommers Avenue<\/span><\/div>\n
Madison, WI 53704<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just sent this to the Long Range Transportation Planning Committee: Dear Commissioners, I have reviewed in great detail\u00a0Item 5.\u00a0Informational Presentation on the Preliminary Design of the CTH M Roadway Corridor (Prairie Hill Road to Cross Country Road). How can any of these highway expansion options be acceptable in light of the budget squeeze caused by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[760,9,5,20,12,8,439,452],"tags":[710,156,1069,1072,1067,1068,1071,304,1070,157],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-efficient-places","category-environment","category-greenwashers-greenwashing","category-madison-politics","category-places-that-suck","category-traffic-justice","category-urban-designplanninggeography","tag-bad-planning","tag-county-highway-m","tag-cowardice","tag-engineers","tag-kyoto-protocol","tag-long-range-transportation-planning-committee","tag-megalomania","tag-paving","tag-sleepiness","tag-sprawl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}