It would be far more accurate to say that, on the Lake Street PAC, there are members, including Ken Avidor and Jeff Carlson, who have promoted an alternative vision to the auto-centric designs being campaign-managed by Smith-Parker and Hennepin County.
WM: That isn't quite accurate. Redoing Lake Street was in the talking stages as long ago as when Sharon Sayles Belton was on the Council. It was a good four years ago when the County started gearing up for the process. Ken Avidor and Jeff Carlson showed up sometime during this year, way too late to be in on the initial discussions. We are too far down the road to consider a different firm over Smith Parker and the engineering/architecture firm.
Also, we've already spent over $30 million buying and refitting the 29th St. corridor to accommodate bicyclists. (There are rumors of a future street car or bus or train or something, but that's a way down the road, so to speak.)
In fact, Ken, Jeff, and others have attempted to make the Lake Street repaving project something that will benefit the emerging Minneapolis that we value--a Minneapolis that is future focused, diverse, and small business friendly, one that doesn't invest heavily in a technology (the automobile) that is destructive and archaic.
WM: If that is indeed the case, then Messrs.. Avidor and Carlson are coming to the wrong meetings. The Lake St. PAC was formed to improve the commercial appeal of Lake St. The history of Lake St. tells you that. It's early history was in making street cars (Twin City Lines?), plows then tractors (Moline), and damper flappers (Honeywell). Even Sears was more catalog sales than retail. Lake St. moved into being THE place to go to buy a new or used car, get one's car fixed, and travel up and down the street showing off one's car. (Porky's to Porky's/Saturday night/ooga-ooga! and all that stuff). To say that a street is a commercial corridor is not to say that it must, therefore, be all retail.
Some of Person's opponents' methods obviously irritate him, and he has made his personal judgment to dismiss those folks ....
WM: It's fairly difficult not to dismiss folks who state their opinion by singing songs of their own devising at 8 o'clock in the morning. That "performance" told me that Carlson, at least, came to the PAC to clown. A proposed--and entirely risable--resolution to fire Smith Parker on Avidor's part told me he's there to clown as well. (We do not have the power to dismiss Smith Parker , that is the county's purview.)
Or are you really a backer of 12 lanes of pavement on Lake,
WM: Now there's a confusion in the making. Obviously, there cannot be 12 lanes of traffic on Lake St. So, did you say it to plant fears? or was it merely to exaggerate to the point of ludicrousness?
The limits dictated by the buildings on Lake St. tell us that even in the best of all possible worlds, Lake St. will not accommodate much more traffic. I thought I read, among the half-ton of materials produced by Smith Parker, engineers, architects, TAC committees, the county, the city, the bus company, and the neighborhoods that Lake St. is to expect a rise in the number of cars whether or not we fool with the present configuration.
Remember that some of us (not me thankfully) have at various points endured the bogus process of the Smith-Parker dominated PACs, a process that is often odious to us, in pursuit of our goal of a better Minneapolis.
WM: I think that's the alleged bogus process. Their are two truly odious factors, from my point of view, that this project has engendered: meetings at 8 o'clock in the morning and a forest-worth of paper to be read and understood. This project is and was from the git-go very limited and those limitations devolve from the fact that the buildings run right up to the presently narrow sidewalks. There is no way to actually widen the roadbed without taking down four or five miles of buildings. Because it is a commercial corridor and also a state road, it has built-in limitations to design dreams. The state wants 11ft. lanes, money to support any change is predicated on the fact that the street continue to carry as much traffic as it does at present AND accommodate projected increases in traffic. There really are very narrow parameters within which this project is happening. It could not and cannot accommodate the dreams of Mr. Avidor or Mr. Carlson or anyone else who is attempting to impose a radical dream on a truly mundane chore.
I also think that those who came in to change the way Minnesotans view automobiles with this strip of roadway are not furthering their cause a nickel's worth simply because this PAC was not designed to and therefore cannot accommodate those dreams. The dream itself requires some other type of vehicle in which to blossom.
WizardMarks, Central ________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy
Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
REMINDERS:
1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
