Re: [Mpls] It's not traffic, that matters, it's access

[GarySimmbo]

In a message dated 11/27/02 12:22:25 PM Central Standard Time, GarySimmbo writes:

I think Lisa McDonald really summed up the essence of this issue in terms of urban planning. 

The I35W Access/Excess project is premised on obsolete models of urban development.  These models will cause us to spend huge amounts of tax money for more pavement, which will destroy the growing communities of  South Minneapolis and eventually require us to spend huge amounts of money to try to undo the damage done by the "I35W Access" expansion project.

Economic development is an entirely different thing from moving more cars through our neighborhoods.  Urban economic development is about nurturing many diverse, walkable, bikable, livable urban villages along with the cleanest and most comprehensive public transportation systems we can. Urban economic development is about reducing our need to use cars.  Notice that I did not say that we are trying to eliminate cars, but rather to reduce the need to use them.

I read recently that Seattle is now planning to extend the monorail system in order to help alleviate congestion.  The monorail was originally part of the World's Fair held there many years ago.  It was a symbol of future urban transportation.

However, since I lived there in the 60's, Seattle has become known as "the LA of the Pacific Northwest" -- overbuilt freeways which have predictably brought terribly ugly big-box developments.  Wonderful PNW landscapes and cityscapes have been destroyed, and traffic congestion and pollution have increased.

Like Atlanta and so many other cities, Seattle is now trying to undo the damage of the short-sighted "roads, roads, and more roads" development of the last 40 years.

We in Minneapolis need to learn from the urban development experiences of the last 50 years. To do less is to waste our increasingly scarce tax dollars now and for many years to come.

- Gary Hoover
King Field