Posted to bikies on behalf of Mike Neuman. --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:08:51 -0500 Subject: Comments on Madison Comprehensive Plan
My name is Michael T. Neuman and I am a long-time resident of Madison (since 1968) who cares deeply about the future of Madison, its natural resources, and the people who live here. I was pleased to review the Draft Comprehensive 20-year Plan for Madison's future and I plan to attend tomorrow's meeting at Sequoia Branch Library. The topics of the plan I chose to focus my review on were transportation pollution and the problems of continuing and increasing poverty in Madison, as both of these will have a tremendous impact on the quality of life in Madison for all people. Regarding transportation, I believe there is too way too much personal motor vehicle travel in Madison. Much of this problem is caused by single occupancy motor vehicle commuting by people living in areas outside the boundaries of the City of Madison. This is clearly evident in the diagrams provided in the plan so I need not provide the details here. I will say that as a Madison resident for the last 35 years, the amount of incoming traffic in the morning and outgoing in the late afternoon, going to suburban communities and rural areas around Madison each day, has greatly degraded the quality my living in Madison, as it has degraded air quality, increased noise levels and traffic congestion, made Madison's streets and crosswalks less safe for walking and bicycling, and degraded the urban landscape by increasing the amount of pavement in thoroughfares and parking lots. I don't see where the Draft Comprehensive Plan for Madison pays nearly enough attention to this problem as exists now, nor to the fact that it will inevitably worsen in time if the City and its neighboring jurisdictions fail to address it in Madison's Comprehensive Plan. The city must and not wait for others outside the city to address this problem after the Comprehensive Plan has been completed. Dane County's response to the problem of excessive automobile driving in the region has been virtually non-existent. As a result, every year the quality of Madison's air continues to decline, as a function of suburban and rural residential growth in the Madison area, which inherently causes more vehicle miles traveled to be travel in the Madison area each year. For example, according to Wisconsin Department of Transportation figures, the number of vehicle miles traveled in Dane County has increased at a rate 3 times that of the growth in population in the last 15 years. The problems of degrading air quality in the Madison area must be attacked not just with stop gap measures at the last minute when weather factors exacerbate the problem; rather, what is needed are longer term strategies to reduce motor vehicle air emissions in Madison and the surrounding counties, not just by encouraging fuel efficiencies of vehicles but just as importantly by reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled per day. http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2005:06:13:426008:FRONT The problem of excessive motor fuel burning on highways impacts residents located in areas immediately adjacent to the highways the most. A study report released by the Sierra Club last fall "Highway Health Hazards: How highways and roads cause health problems in our communities - and what you can do about it" - details many of the known health hazards for people who live near heavily traveled highways. The study reports on numerous scientific study in published medical journals that disclose substantial evidence linking heavy motor vehicle traffic with a wide range of human health ailments, especially in children and adults more sensitive to air pollutants. The evidence includes higher hospitalization rates for asthmatics living near busy roads, an increased prevalence of childhood leukemia and other forms of cancer, and a higher incidence of heart attacks and strokes in populations that live near heavily traveled roads. http://www.sierraclub.org/hhh/HHHFinalReport6-28-04.pdf Air pollution is especially threatening to young people, because a child is more active and with greater activity there's more air intake and more exposure. The highest incidence of asthma cases is found among low-income and African-American toddlers, according to a recent report by the Harvard Medical School: "Inside the Greenhouse: The Impacts of CO2 and Climate Change on Public Health in the Inner City". The Harvard Medical School study confirms that serious public health risks are created when children and adults are exposed to even moderate levels of urban air pollution, especially when that exposure takes place during warm temperatures, a condition likely to occur with increasing frequency as global warming continues. http://www.resultsforamerica.org/calendar/files/042904childhoodasthmaGWreleaseFINAL.pdf Furthermore, a recent study by New York's Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health concludes that babies in the womb are more sensitive than their mothers to pollutants from motor vehicle tailpipes, power plant smokestacks, second-hand smoke and other combustion sources, underscoring the importance of reducing those pollution sources in the environment. Published in the scientific journal "Environmental Health Perspectives" (V. 110, 10), the study examined the effect of prenatal exposure to combustion residual pollutants called "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" (PAHs). PAHs, such as benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), are widespread air contaminants released by transportation vehicles, power generation, and other combustion sources. The study found that, despite the protection provided the fetus by the placenta during fetal development, DNA damage in newborns (from PAHs) was still as high as the level of DNA damage in the mothers. http://www.ccceh.org/news-events/CCCEH%20PRESS%20RELEASE%20(Jun23).htm Emissions from the automobiles and other motorized transportation sources in the U.S. is also the largest source of anthropogenic (human-caused) carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, exceeding even the emission volumes released by the U.S. industrial sector of the U.S.. Global warming is something that will impact virtually all communities, Madison included. Most of the impacts will be negative, and the life conditions of many communities and rural areas throughout Wisconsin could be significantly impaired. Rising globally averaged temperatures will exacerbate local air quality problems even more, making the need for reductions in vehicle miles traveled in a community even greater. The only prudent transportation funding policy that remains, therefore, is to find ways to reduce automobile driving through transportation demand reduction measures. I was pleased to see the Mayor Dave Cieslewicz endorsed the "U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement" in Seattle last month, which says cities must play a leading role in confronting global warming. Global warming is now well documented to be in progress, and it's projected affects on cities throughout the world are severe. Europe recorded an unprecedented heat wave in August 2003 which killed 15,000 people in Paris, France. In 1995, a heat wave that hit Chicago and Milwaukee was found to be responsible for nearly 900 deaths. Populations living in cities are more at risk from excessive heat conditions because of what's known as a "heat island effect", caused by large areas of pavement and concrete buildings which hold the heat more during the day (than green plants), and release the stored heat during the night, making for warmer nights as well. In conclusion, the City should develop a proposal to address the problem of excessive motor vehicle driving in and around Madison now and not put this need off even longer by deferring it to other local and state planning processes. The city should then take that proposal to county and state governmental officials and demand that they, too, cooperate in development of a more environmentally sustainable transportation system for the Madison area and vicinity. I would like to add that, in the process of my reviewing the State Highway Plan 2020 a few years back, I developed a transportation demand reduction proposal and submitted it to the state that would improved environmental sustainability in all of Wisconsin by reducing automobile vehicle miles travel, in lieu of more costly new road building and highway capacity expansion. The plan I proposed offered annual governmental rebates (paid for out of the state's transportation fund) to people who choose to drive significantly fewer miles than average (or not drive at all) during the year, and thereby put less burden on the highway system and on Madison's air quality. Provided the rebates are substantial enough to be effective in reducing driving levels in Madison, this program might also greatly help people and families living poverty in Madison - most of whom cannot afford to drive now - for it would give them extra income at the end of a year in the program, provided they continued to drive less, or not at all. I invite you to review my "drive-less for dollars" rebate plan for its possible use in controlling the unsustainable levels of motor vehicle travel growth in the Madison area and helping Madison area residents who are most in need of extra income. FINAL DRAFT: FINANCIAL INCENTIVES FOR REDUCING HIGHWAY TRAVEL AND ENERGY DEMANDS IN WISCONSIN http://danenet.danenet.org/bcp/vmr.pdf Michael Neuman 4334 Waite Circle Madison, WI 53711 _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
