Index of SPPS Budget Discussion http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/spps-posts.html _________________________________________ Mr. Holland either wasn't present for the 20-year battle to keep the freeway through the core of the city from being completed or he chooses to ignore the law vs. the reality. Perhaps both.
In any event, the 35E Parkway's speed limit was not the only criterion used to make it a parkway. The parkway was a compromise between the federal government and local/state officials determined to minimize the link's environmental impact on surrounding neighborhoods. It was to be just another ditch slicing up the center of a core city and the resulting air quality damage and sound pollution would have rendered both the West End and the bluffs unconscionably noisy and filthy. The parkway doesn't eliminate it, just minimizes it - even when car exceed the 45 MPH speed limit. The other major part of the compromise forced the road bed to be constructed to accommodate only cars and no trucks above a certain weight - certainly no 18-wheelers and the rolling hills replacing part of the scheduled ditch would be tree-lined and landscaped to minimize oxygen depletion in the face of carbon dioxide and monoxide emissions from rendering the air unbreathable. The speed was set to minimize noise, not accidents. Tires on concrete whine at incredibly high decibel rates, versus a reduced whine at lower speeds on asphalt. As it is, those of us living just above the roadbed can still hear the din of freeway-style traffic filling the air above it - and us. The settlement came as close to creating a parkway as could be done as a section of a freeway, but the public interest has hardly been entirely served. NO road in this section would have been best, but unrealistic given the national system's juggernaut. Fact is, only because huge chunks of very rich and politically powerful neighborhoods were to be detrimentally affected by the freeway was the power present to change its construction plan to minimize its impact. Most urban core neighborhoods experiencing freeway construction through their backyards lacked any power to see the problem and do something about it, and the ditches were dug, slicing whole communities (like Rondo in St. Paul) in two and wiping out millions of modest - not ghetto - homes belonging to predominantly ethnic minorities of one sort or another - usually Black folks. All of this to accommodate the corporate and commercial expediency of white power brokers. A different sort of "genocide." Keep the speed limit and keep the parkway. People may break the law, but they're all the same sort of suburbanites who battled to make it a ditch in the first place. When in Rome - or St. Paul... Andy Driscoll Crocus Hill (something of a beneficiary of the "parkway) ------ > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [StPaul] 35E PARKWAY...NOT > > > Okay, I'll take the bait. > > To call that stretch of the freeway a "PARKWAY" is laughable, you may as > well say snow is hot. You can legislate a speed limit, but drivers > decide the speed. People vote with their feet on this subject everyday, > their right feet. Reckless driving is one thing but I'm here to say > there's no shame in driving 55, even 60, on 35E. Let's call it civil > disobedience. The risk of a ticket is mathematically slight, and I > suspect no one since the first year of this stretch of freeway's > existence has ever been ticketed for driving 46 - 55 MPH, it's over 60 > when the risk kicks in. As for stricter, nay, pure enforcement of the > unnatural speed limit I say BRING IT ON...nothing could bring about more > quickly the demand to undo this chimera of a restriction. Lastly, I > hope those who take showy pride in obedience to every speed limit sign > (every? I doubt it) will heed the most practical road sign of all SLOW > TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT. > > Bill Holland > Mounds Park _____________________________________________ SPPS Budget Reduction Forum - Feb. 23-27 Co-Sponsored By NEAT: http://www.stpaulneat.org/ _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
