Eva Young wrote:
Terrell Brown has hit upon a hot button of mine.
At 12:16 PM 1/12/2004, Terrell Brown wrote:
[TB] Wrong! Streets designed for moving traffic. The NIMBYism one finds in many neighborhood has the idea that their neighborhood is a gated community and should not be entered by anyone not living there or an invited guest.
Streets in Eden Prairie have a logic that approximates your average deer path. Steets in Minneapolis generally follow a grid that provides multiple routes for getting from point A to point B. Anyone who has driven from Lund's to Loring Park knows that Hennepin Avenue or Lyndale are the least efficient routes. Hennepin and Lyndale are also not the only routes which the city has designated as "snow emergency routes" giving them priority plowing when Minneapolis has its occaisional winter storm.
The idea that I should not pass through a particular area, even if it is along the shortest/quickest route from A to B represents a type of elitism that goes against the idea of community. Last I checked, my car was licensed to operate on the streets, not some streets.
Thanks Terrell - you put this well. Unfortunately, there are some council members who seem to want the Eden Prairie Street Design.
Several examples of this NIMBYism going wild:
And I see the Head-In-Sand-ism and I'm-The-Most-Important-Driver-ism has gone wild, too.
Yes, they are public streets, and your driver's license allows you the PRIVILEGE of operating a motor vehicle on public streets. Nobody is talking about making it illegal for you to drive on streets where you don't live. Get a grip.
The idea is that there is no reason we (the public) should make it EASIER for selfish commuters to terrorize our neighborhoods by driving through them -- no doubt breaking the speed limit, exceding noise ordinances and running stop signs, as the vast majority of drivers do -- but rather that those local streets be designed for the comfort and convenience of the people who live and work on them. You can still drive on them all you want, but don't complain about how slow they are, how narrow they are, how they hold you up.
This has nothing -- zero, zilch, nada -- to do with NIMBY. Traffic belongs where streets have been designed and designated for that traffic. Traffic should not be cutting through neighborhoods -- yours, mine, others -- because some drivers think they are so important that they shouldn't have to wait for stop lights on the main arterial county road, or be stuck in traffic on the overloaded freeway.
I agree that many of Eden Prairie's roads make no sense -- and they are in fact counterproductive to both their residents and others. There may well be some bad designs that were intended to be traffic calming in Minneapolis -- I already stated I don't like most speed bumps, for example. But the idea of traffic calming is completely valid. This city has a variety of types of streets -- from narrow, dead-end lanes, to 6- or 8-lane arterials which have Hennepin County highway designations (and for which the county pays a good deal of money), to Interstate freeways (for which the federal government pays most of the cost). Appropriate structure for appropriate use is the simple concept here, and qualify of life and health of community are significant outcomes of doing it right. It's Brown's attitude that smacks of elitism: "I'm so important [elite], I should be assisted by government in diminishing others' quality of life so that I can save 9 seconds on my commute." Sorry, no.
I know what I'm talking about. I've been there on both sides of the fence, and I've studied traffic-related issues for more than 25 years. I was part of the problem; now I've reformed.
Transportation infrastructure and traffic patterns need to be as close to stable as we can make them. Then when people invest time or money in living, visiting, patronizing or traveling someplace, their investments won't be often ruined by short-sighted public planning, or self-centered private enterprise. For example, if one decides the most important thing on their list of qualities of where to live is that it be on a quiet, lightly traveled street, then when they buy a home on such a street, who has the right to then ruin that investment for them and their neighbors by abruptly and without good cause, turning that street into a busy, noisy thorough-fare? Likewise the businesswoman who starts a store on a busy street with good access for customers -- who has the right to abruptly and capriciously reroute traffic so that it cannot easily get to her store? Or, on a bigger scale, suppose a large number of stores and businesses and developers invest millions into building up along a major transportation route only to have it evaporate? This last case is a perfect counter-example as to why rail transit is good: one can be fairly sure that the rail line is not going to disappear over night. Bus lines can be moved on a whim. Rail lines tend to endure for generations, and this is a good thing. Citizens across an entire metro area get to know the area along the rail line as the place for "connectivity" to the rail line. They learn and remember and accept that along the rail line there are businesses and people who want to be there to take advantage of the transportation, and who willingly tolerate the noise or other drawbacks. People can then choose throughout their lives to gravitate towards or avoid such "stable" infrastructure. It's cheaper. People are happier. The economics are better.
You're just lucky I don't own a big noisy truck -- or maybe I'd drive past both of your residences at all hours of the night every week.
Chris Johnson Fulton
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