From today's state journal:
"Cieslewicz, who wants to address the problem by encouraging commuters to
live Downtown and ride a streetcar to work or to the store...."
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=130755
walkable/bikeable schools are one part of the big picture of encouraging
alt. transporatation use. What's been bothering me with the whole nooo!
don't consolidate the schools! discussion on this listserv and elsewhere is
the limited (if any) conversation about the population that lives downtown.
There was an article a couple months ago about the few, intrepid and brave
people who are raising small children downtown (why do they have to be
characterized as brave for doing that?), but did anyone look into why the
population downtown is so kid-little?
Downtown is expensive.
Downtown doesn't have enough green space (or clean green space) for kids.
Is there enough (of number _and_ type) job diversity for people to work
downtown, so that they'd want to move there?
Downtown isn't all that pedestrian friendly (ok, maybe that's why having
kids downtown is seen as brave).
Downtown is filled with a lot of boutique stores. It's a destination for
tourists. Are there enough stores in bike/walking distance that sell basic
goods, reasonably priced?
I'm sure there are many other perspectives about how to encourage less
driving. But I don't think we can talk about schools without talking about
the school population and how/why/if that's changing, and figuring out what
we can do about that.
speaking of green space... if anyone's interested in helping out in Period
Park (at the corner of Pinckney and Gorham--you may've seen the pink tulips
after cresting the hill on Gorham past James Madison park), let me know!
-Monica H.
p.s. to the BTA folks--is there a BTA position about the streetcars?
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