Here's my latest shot in the dark. My testimony before the Board of
Estimates (city's version of the Ways & Means Committee) is appended
below.
Apparently it is somewhat scandalous for average citizens to testify
before the BOE; one alder said that she had never seen it done in her
5 years of experience. Oh well, what do I know? Anyway, this is where
many of the basic decisions are made as to how your tax dollars will
be spent. The commission is made up of a few select alders and the
mayor. The room was packed, but not with average citizens. It was
packed with department heads and their minions. They were there to
defend their budgetary turf. Of course, Engineering had big fancy
maps of all the sprawlways they wanted to expand. It was kind of
convenient that I had a nice illustration to point to. But big fancy
maps have their own powerful allure (quoth the geographer....).
From the questioning at the end, I am left wondering whether the
fiscal implications of the city's roadbuilding spree are understood
(with the exception of the Alder from the 12th, Rhodes-Conway). This
is another reason we need more people going forward to testify about
this stuff. One person with 3 minutes to speak simply doesn't stand a
chance against the armies of bureaucrats who get paid 40 hours a week
to promote their paving schemes.
-Mike
************************************************
Michael Barrett's testimony before the Board of Estimates, 09/11/07
I come bearing suggestions that come out of 4 years of experience on
the Urban Design Commission. I also come at these suggestions from
the perspective of an urban geographer, a transit, pedestrian and
bicycle advocate, and a neighborhood council representative. I speak
entirely on my own behalf.
The city continues to develop in a way that is entirely contrary to
the Smart Growth Principles set out in our recently adopted
Comprehensive Plan. Not following the Comp Plan is a mistake at best,
illegal at worst. In any case, the ongoing highway sprawl orientation
of our land & transportation planning is very, very expensive.
Big highways, lined by huge right-of-way setbacks continue to be the
order of the day. Two lane country roads are rapidly being converted
into four lane highways. Country corners are rapidly being turned
into interchanges. All this results in the sort of ugly single-use
sprawl development that can be found in any average Midwestern city.
Yet the people of Madison have demanded better, over & over again
through the election of representatives who favor better land use &
transportation planning. The broad-based participation in our
comprehensive planning processes should also say something about the
commitment of our citizenry to a better way of building a city.
The Urban Design Commission has struggled mightily with these
landscapes-designed-by-engineer. Unfortunately, the roads are so wide
and the setbacks so extreme that even the most creative architectural
minds can't overcome the poor layout.
These big roads cost big bucks. The rights of way and mandated
set-backs they are lined by cost even bigger bucks. Land costs money.
More land, reserved for ever bigger roads costs us dearly.
But the biggest cost is in the way these sorts of road designs
militate against good urbanism. We can't replicate the coolness of
Atwood Avenue, the desireableness of Monroe St. or the eclecticness
of Park St. with these car-oriented designs. The new roads being
built out there are all about speed. When you build for speed you
build against the pedestrian, the bicycle and transit. When you build
against those modes of getting around you automatically get suburban
sterility. Anyone who does try to walk out there instantaneously gets
the message: they are out of place.
As for economic growth these highway landscapes are good for only big
national chains and hyper-segregated housing. There is no room for
mixed use anything. In short, big highways are not about building our
local economy, they are about making national chains more profitable.
And did I mention that building in an anti-pedestrian manner is
costly? It is. However, there are all sorts of ways to minimize the
costs of these roads dramatically. First, there needs to be an
increased emphasis on the pedestrian through scaled-down
streetscapes. Look to our older neighborhoods for examples. These
neighborhoods emphasize access over speed. Cars are still absolutely
provided access, but the scale of the place emphasizes slower speeds
and neighborhood-serving retail very near to the lot-line. If the
roads and rights-of-way are narrowed toward more urban streetscapes,
the city could easily cut its landholding costs in half, and its road
building costs by 2/3. Better yet we would reduce the
hyper-segregation by economic class and land uses and along with it
all of the urban ills that go along with highway-oriented land use
planning.
I would suggest that this body step up and reduce all road expansion
project line items by 1/2. That would be a good start. It would also
decrease the pressure on the Operating Budget because, as we all
know, the debt service on these roads and over-wide rights-of-way
always ends up being put on the Operating Budget. This squeezes
transit, health & human services and all the good stuff that makes
Madison's quality of life unique.
***********************************************
Somehow, I spit it all out in 3 mins.
At the end Ald. Rhodes-Conway asked some well informed questions at
to where to start (the old chicken & egg question: Which came first,
bad land use, or bad transportation planning?). I re-emphasized that
it is a build it and they will come situation. Over & over again the
UDC was presented with bad site designs that followed the
transportation layout that the adjacent land owners were faced with.
The developers felt that they had no choice but to build to highway
sprawl standards, because, well, their land sat along a big, fast
highway. You build to the speed of your customers' eyeballs. Thus, we
need to start planning, from the outset, for better urban standards.
That means looking to our older neighborhoods for models of efficient
roadways that calm traffic, and allow a streetscape that embraces the
street, up near the lot line and no right-of-way reservation for
future expansion.
I also emphasized that there needs to be benchmarks of accountability
placed upon all of the planners & engineers, and that those
benchmarks should emphasize increasing walking, biking and transit
use while de-emphasizing the automobile. There also needs to be
independent peer review of their designs to ensure
bike/walk/transit-oriented design.
She asked which specific roads I was talking about. My response: Old
Sauk, Mid Towne, Cottage Grove Rd., Buckeye, Lien roads and other
roads the city controls that are slated for expansion.
She also asked about the issue of road maintenance items in the
budget. I responded that my emphasis here was not about maintenance
of existing roads. That in fact, we should emphasize a "fix it first"
policy. The budgetary issue I am addressing is about the supersizing
of new roads.
Ald. Brewer tried to suggest that I was suggesting replicating the
the neighborhoods on the Southwest side and that by extension I was
proposing more crime. I re-iterated that I was suggesting something
more akin to *his* neighborhoods surrounding Park St. (or Monroe, or
Atwood, etc.) not the cul-de-sac land of the SW side. I added that
there is virtually *no* neighborhood serving retail on the SW side
and that the roads are huge--generally 40'+. [Contrast that with our
older hoods with 18-32' streets. I should have also pointed up that
many of those SW side hoods don't even have sidewalks!]
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