(Important considerations in how we prioritize our transportation funding. Will we continue to worship and subsidize the almighty car, or begin to re-prioritize more sensible modes of transportation? – promoted by eli_beckerman)
“The automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city. Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable; moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic.”
~James Marston Fitch, New York Times, 1 May 1960
We have written about the “friction of distance”, explaining why travel was more challenging-and communities therefore more compact-in the time before humans discovered the enormous energy sequestered in ancient carbon sinks. Alas, those sinks are not infinite so we must contemplate the return of the friction of distance to the level of the pre-oil days. Fortunately, humans can look to past experiences to reduce the height of the learning curve.
One of the ways this can happen is by investing development and redevelopment effort and dollars in existing population centers while discouraging the same in outlying areas. Another way is by transforming transportation networks from their current car-centric-ness to alternative modes, especially human-powered and mass transit. While alternative transportation becomes more feasible as people and destinations are concentrated, we need not wait for the latter before planning the former. In fact, it is imperative that this planning begin immediately. The choice we face is between a lifestyle change enforced by shortage or one designed to respond to the emerging reality.
“Walkable, bikeable neighborhoods” is an often-repeated theme in conversations about the Amherst that people profess to want. It is referenced throughout the town’s master plan, including in the key directions summary: “Create connected, walkable centers and neighborhoods”; “Maintain and repair roads, sidewalks, bike paths, and bike lanes consistent with established plans”; “Incorporate bike lanes, sidewalks, and/or multi-use paths into existing public ways”. Implied in these words is a desire for policy changes that reinforce the kind of behavior that will be necessary in the transition to a post carbon society while at least making less convenient more destructive behaviors.
Likely to come before Town Meeting within the next year, a $4.5 million bond package has been proposed to enable the town to “catch up” on repairing deteriorating roads that simply cannot be covered in the annual half-million-dollar Chapter 90 allotment from state gas tax receipts. Unfortunately, the details of the package describe only road repair so far-but why not undertake a “Complete Streets” project and upgrade sidewalks, bike lanes, and bus routes at the same time? Complete streets are those accessible and safe for all kinds of users, not just automobile drivers. Rather than focusing on road repair, the town should use the package as one step in the transformation of Amherst’s transportation.
Such a project would include construction or repair of sidewalks along all major pedestrian routes and all routes within walk-to-school zones, according to priorities identified by the Public Works Committee over many years. Bicycle lanes would be included in the designs of all arterial and connector roads being repaved, and bus pulloffs and bus shelters would be built where currently only bus stops exist and in other locations as recommended by the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee. If we’re serious about cultivating village centers, we ought to invest our transportation dollars in appropriate infrastructure for North Amherst, Pomeroy Village, and Atkins Corner, including bike shelters and pedestrian connections to surrounding residential areas.
While our roads do need repair, note that asphalt is a petroleum product that facilitates the combustion of other petroleum products and thus road repair without complete streets enhancement is a double whammy on the peak oil slope. These other aspects of the town’s transportation infrastructure deserve attention, and the amount requested should be redistributed or increased to adequately cover them. The town can take this opportunity to begin implementing master plan objectives, adding a relatively small amount to the annual debt service compared with that projected for road-building and applying some grease to the friction of distance. Please contact the Amherst Select Board and tell them you want complete streets.
Former Public Works Committee chair Rob Crowner, Steve Randall, and Larry Ely are members of the Pioneer Valley Relocalization Project.
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OK, well, he weighed in back in 1973, and I’m going to republish his visionary Energy and Equity serial from Le Monde. Check out the first installment, The Energy Crisis.
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Build a green majority in town meeting. Until gas prices skyrocket or state policy shifts funding priorities, there will not be objective constraints on those making policy. They can act on assumptions differing from the ones you outline without having to answer for the long term effects.
The fact that the policy discussion in Amherst takes “walkable, bikeable, neighborhoods” with any seriousness is a huge leap over a great many communities in Massachusetts. It seems at least imaginable that a coalition of ecologically minded academics and professionals, agrarians, socialists, Greens, youth activists, etc could build power, vision, and organization in Amherst strong enough to enact a re-localization agenda.
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You’re not only fortunate to live in a spot that’s thinking along these lines–and I take it that the thinking goes beyond your own advocacy group (saw a news item about some sidewalk work in one Amherst neighborhood intended to encourage kids to walk to school), but you’re indeed fortunate if in fact you have a downtown worth walking to. Our problem here in Stoughton is that we need good roads to get us OUTTA town. More than half our storefronts are boarded up; the rest are either junk shops, convenience stores, or insurance agents. Aside from the Army & Navy, I can honestly say that I haven’t set foot in a downtown business in over three years–and I live about two hundred yards from the town center.
Welcome to Stoughton. The pic says it all.
For better or worse, the two best things that happened to Stoughton were the development of a Target and an IKEA–both of which require cars (and both located near e-z on/off entrances to Route 24, far from any residences). We needed the revenue and the council cut good deals that worked out for everyone (yeah, that can happen, believe it or not). Unfortunately, this is the reality of too many towns across the state–and the country, if northeast and southwest PA are any indication. I wouldn’t set foot in a Wal-Mart for anything–but if one wanted to come to town, I’d be hard put to object. It’s classic sacrificing the long-term perfect for the short-term good. I don’t like it either.
But Patrick, there’s more to it than gas prices and state funding priorities (we need ot stop deamdnng that every iniative be state funded–and there are lotsa breaks for smallbusinesses and start-ups!). It’s not a simply a villianous “they” making policy “without having to answer”–in my part of the world, it’s WE–it’s the citizens demanding we extend tax breaks for jobs, for revenue.
And no businessperson in his or her right mind is going to open up in our downtown because there’s no parking.
We had a decent bar/restaurant going for a while about a half mile from downtown, on the highway (no sidewalks and a tricky walk through gas station lots etc)–closed up due to mismanagement (they decided to expand the franchise… into Harvard Square. Brilliant, no?). Been shut up for two years now. I got excited seeing that it was being refurbished recently. We also had a somewhat well-rated Chinese restaurant downtown. It was there for decades, I believe, and recently boarded up. The upshot? Rather than getting a NEW business in that bar location …the Chinese joint moved the half mile from downtown into that former restaurant space. Really disappointing. We got nothing new, and our downtown lost one small anchor.
Disappointing, but perfectly sensible. On the highway, they have visibility–and they have PARKING.
That’s the catch-22 for too many towns like ours.
I don’t know WHAT the solution is for towns like mine. I’m envious of yours, which, is I suppose, why we often drive (hmmm) out to Amherst and on up to Greenfield and Turner’s Fall and eventually Brattleboro and points north. Its feels like a different world, and without romanticizing it–I know Amherst is facing its own imminent budget shortfalls– it really is reassuring that there are places where active engaged citizens play a part in everything from electioneering to civic planning. I’m glad folks in Amherst are doing what they are–this sounds like a winnable plan, especially if there are bus-routes located close enough to each neighborhood to get folks to town.
But I can tell you (Patrick) that any serious bid for relocalization around my neck o’ the woods isn’t going to come from “a coalition of Greens and socialists and young activists.” Never mind that we don’t have any here anyway. In fact, they’re by and large exactly what we don’t need. What we need are folks capable of providing capital infusion, and capitalist entrepreneurs capable of running a business under the aforementioned conditions. We don’t need political theories or idealists–we need smart, seriously ballsy business people with cash-on-hand (and I don’t mean taxpayer monies).
Unfortunately, those people prefer building on the outskirts–and so would you, unless you wanted to lose your shirt.
If Greens and, uh, socialists plan to change anything, they need to start putting their money where their mouths are and actually START businesses. The capitalist businesspeople so often scorned work their asses off at shit-work and take real chances with their financial futures. Are we ready to do the same? Are you ready to risk foreclosure and bankruptcy?
It’s easy to praise Amherst and damn us, but we don’t have a slew of pricey (and less so) schools to help support our economy. We don’t have a tourist economy: “Brockton is for Lovers” isn’t going to ring anyone’s bells, unless they’re thinking in terms of the Foxy Lady. I live in that belt of towns where twelve mayors just sent a letter urging adoption of the House casino bill–for a reason. And not for any the “reasons” that make for political slogans but don’t address the realities on the ground:
NOT because they’re in the back pockets of lobbyists.
NOT because they’re overlooking the potential consequences.
NOT because they’re in thrall to Beacon Hill.
NOT because they’re all about business-as-usual.
But because NO ONE ELSE has come forward with a plan that will employ as many people and garner the LOCAL revenues that casinos will. NO ONE ELSE is showing us the money. Casinos are but one example–malls, bix box retailers, office parks are all others. I don’t cotton to any of the above. But I’m still studying solutions. Which is OUR problem–Amherst has to deal with Amherst, Lexington with Lexington (must be nice…), Southie with Southie. What I ask is that until we’ve come up with one, or you all can can devise us one, that others don’t deprive of us life jackets and rowboats.
If the academic (good god)-agrarian-socialist-youth activist coalition has an alternative plan for putting the same number of people to work in the same time frame, or for revitalizing my downtown rather than relying on big-boxes in the exits, now would be a real good time to reveal it–because we haven’t seen it.
Walkable downtowns worth hanging out in are a wet dream of mine. Destination casinos will that will only take streams of people out of town in gas-chugging caravans to guzzle watered-down drinks and watch washed-up rock bands is my idea of neither a healthy community nor a good time.
But no one has shown us the alternative yet. And it has to go beyond tax breaks for small businesses, because they’re in playand it has to go beyond direct receipts, because we’re NOT socialists.,
So my (unhappy) solution to date? Let Amherst be Amherst–and let the South Shore be the South Shore. If Amherst wants to block the two proposed developments still, I think, on the table–the will of the people should prevail. But don’t damn us for immediately putting our bid in on those developments, or for crying out for casinos. Not only do we have different problems, but we are, in fact, a different culture. And I said, I love the Pioneer Valley–but I’m settling here for a reason. Because I do believe greenvalues are worth fghting for, even–or especially–in places like this. But it doesn’t help when we’re told that we can’t have what we need to ghet by in the meantime. I can’t run with that and get a hearing.
That said, you–and I–can help by proposing a workable, alternative plan every time we say no, or encourage our community leaders to say no. What the Amherst folks have been doing is well worth studying (though I haven’t seem some of Larry Shaffer’s points in regard to the anticipated ’12 budget crunch addressed by opponents of office park development), and folks around here would be all ears. But no Green slogans, no socialist banners, no young people camped out on our common.
Just a well-researched white paper, and the financing to back it up.
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What about “coalition of ecologically minded academics and professionals, agrarians, socialists, Greens, youth activists” sounds like its meant for anywhere besides Amherst? Its a college town! Those types are residents! And I know this because I have been up there and knocked on hundreds of doors and seen the frightening lack of anything not liberal. And “agrarian” is a euphemism for conservatives; the woodsmen, hunters, farmers, and other people who cherish the rustic who happen to live in Amherst.
I don’t know who you are addressing because I do not hold most of the opinions you are criticizing. Its like you are talking over me. I am not even much of “re-localization” person, my concerns over peak oil have not solidified into convictions that guide my politics. (My reference to gas prices and state funding is just pointing out simple policy constraints that town officials have. If there is no funding for bike lanes, well they won’t be made. If gas is cheap people will not have public concerns about the “friction of distance” and they will not demand “Complete Streets”.)
Here’s what I think of economic development: I think its insane that 1% of the population controls over half the wealth and garners a third of the income. They’re not smarter, more creative, or better in anyway that merits that kind of inequity. That 1% decides where there will and will not be economic development.
When I see towns giving tax breaks to large retailers or other huge companies, what I see is that 1% basically saying “Fuck you, you haven’t paid the ransom off”. When the jobs come, they do not pay enough. People rely on food stamps, housing assistance, and other public subsidies to get by on shit wages. They rely on credit. They get hustled into shit mortgages to have a taste of the American dream, and when the banks have sucked them dry with interest and charges, bam foreclosure.
And while they do this, the same bastards demand that what’s left of the of public sector be privatized and under private control. Create charters to pull money out of public schools, break their unions, and when the charters don’t work start talking about more privatization. Cut taxes to spur development, then a revenue shortfall, a cut to local aid, “hmm privatize to save money”. Make a joke out of any semblance of democracy or public consideration of any issue of importance.
If you want captains of industry to arrive you have to give them money (taxpayer money) before they even think about investing here. There’s plenty of quasi-fascist regimes overseas where they can put their money and make larger profits without having to worry about workers or the environment.
So yes tax the bastards. Tax them with taxes, by unionizing places with shit wages, by reversing privatization. Fund education, fund public transportation, fund healthcare, fund a safety net strong enough for regular people to take risks and create local businesses. Maybe we won’t have to spend so much on prisons and social workers if people know they are not a paycheck away from complete economic insecurity.