While I think the discussion of roundabouts is important in itself, I think that it masks the real, more pressing issue regarding the Lake Street lane vote.
While we discuss expensive, long-term road-building options, the City Council will decide about an expensive plan which ignores the huge public health, environmental, social, economic, geopolitical and resource-use issues related to our urban infrastructure. Our continued expansion of petroleum use and auto-based transportation infrastructure (move ever more cars through the very limited space of urban neighborhoods) does the following: -- makes more sick every year -- asthma, cancer, obesity, depression and anxiety are all made far worse by incrfeased auto traffic..... -- makes us socially more isolated each year, as walking and biking are made more difficult..... -- makes us more dependant on big-box, big-parking lot economics which are in turn dependant upon ever-increasing supplies of petroleum (for at least the next thirty years) in a world of diminishing petroleum resources... -- makes us more dependant on war for the gas we need to move those cars -- perhaps if we calculated the amount of innocent blood shed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Columbia, and Venezuela (for example) as well as our own military costs in dollars and blood, we would be more honest each time we fill up at the gas station....? -- makes us more vulnerable to terroristic and economic "blowback" from our violent war to maintain a grip on global oil resources... -- makes the debt our children will carry for an absurdly obsolete urban transportation system even greater, limiting their ability to create better options... -- makes the amount of petroleum energy left to power crucial efforts to create a better energy and transportation infrastructure shrink, and so even more expensive and frought with geopolitical and economic "blowback".... -- and we are shaping our local culture and politics dangerously around a fascist model -- see "Now" with Bill Moyers on PBS this Monday or visit the "Now" website to see how corrupt petrochemical corporations buy the people who are supposed to be the champions of "we the people" at all levels of government.... I appreciate the idea of roundabouts, but come on, folks, wake up! I feel like our political leadership and citizenry are sleepwalking through life regarding these issues -- perhaps they are too frightening to mention, and so are taboo? The bottom line is this: we will create an urban infrastructure which promotes peace and justice or violence and injustice. No matter what happens in national or international pseudo-elections, "we the people" of Minneapolis have this opportunity to work for peace and justice right here, right now. Let's open our eyes, folks. These decisions are about whether or not we are willing to live for peace and justice, not about moving more cars from point A to point B along any given street. I urge list members to do some serious research regarding these issues. I urge local media to do the research as well. Do a google of "peak oil" just to get started...information and analysis abound on the internet, in published books and essays, and every once in a while in the news media. Of course, the local spin doctors (Smith Parker, and all) continue to try to sell us a pig in a poke (Would you like lipstink on that pig, ma'am or sir?") but we will only see thte ugly results after years of budget cuts and alterations resulting in a project without any attempt to disguise the Lake Street change for what it is -- an obsolete subsidy of obsolete transportation industry, doing great violence on a local and global level. -- pedaling for peace and justice from Kingfield -- Gary Hoover Allen Graetz wrote, in part: >>>>> Overall, I would like to see them incorporated into the city. It would have to be a commitment over a long period of time though given the change in the right-a-ways that would be needed. <<<<< 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
