{"id":1803,"date":"2011-02-08T14:42:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T18:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billemory.com\/blog\/?p=1803"},"modified":"2014-04-30T12:45:28","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T16:45:28","slug":"what-is-the-city-but-the-people-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billemory.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/what-is-the-city-but-the-people-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the city but the people?–Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ouch,<\/p>\n

I walk a lot, When home I walk this section of road everyday. My neighbor Roy (pictured here<\/a>)
\n recalls driving his aunt Emma Amiss<\/a>‘ dairy cow from her house on Woolen Mills Road
\nto the pasture on the south side of the railroad tracks via this lane.
\nNowadays, this isn’t an easy or safe path because of traffic short-cutting<\/a>
\nthrough the neighborhood. Back then, Roy remembers the cow herding as challenging,
\nthis was a dog-trot, a rustic footpath with stones in the way.<\/p>\n

Tonight, the Charlottesville Planning Commission and City Council have a scheduled
\njoint public hearing on how to prioritize pedestrian facilities.
\nFrom an urban planning perspective there have long been guidelines to direct these City improvements, there are over fifty mentions of sidewalks in
\nCharlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan (a few are listed here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

So which pedestrians are blessed? We like pedestrians, but some more than others.
\nAnd when it’s a question of cars versus pedestrians, for whom do we provide? <\/p>\n

The street above, Franklin, is a neighborhood street, carrying around 1600 vehicles per day.
\nOf those vehicles, 74% are not local traffic, traffic arising from the neighborhoods on
\neither side of the railroad tracks, they are from elsewhere.
\nThey are piloted by Outlanders cutting through, using neighborhood streets to
\navoid the pesky street lights on the arterial streets and collector roads.<\/p>\n

If Franklin passed through nice neighborhoods it is likely that these issues
\n(pedestrian safety and cut-through) would have been addressed long ago.
\nWhat do I mean by nice neighborhoods? Neighborhoods with some money.
\nGlance at the street in the photo below, it is in the tourist section of town,
\nnot a CDBG neighborhood, lawyers carry briefcases instead of kids toting fishing poles.
\nThe street below was made one way. It has pedestrian provisions on both sides of the street.
\nNo danger of being run over by a potato-chip or a shit-hauling truck on that street.<\/p>\n

\"7th
\nWhen cities address capital improvement investment, where does the money go?
\nThere is an amazing map technology, GIS, that some localities employ.
\nWith the input of data, one could see the geographical correlation between say,
\nthe dollars spent on capital improvement in a region of the city and the financial
\nclout of residents in that part of the city.
\nAre our parks, pedestrian facilities and municipal improvements as accessible
\nto the poor as to the rich?<\/p>\n

\"find
\nThe process proposed for discussion tonight before our planning commissioners
\nand elected officials suggests creating a sidewalk list every five years.
\nRather than keeping a permanent list, in the sunlight of the Internet,
\na permanent list that records when projects were logged on and completed,
\na transitory list is proposed.
\nThankfully, there was deep thinking on the priorities for the first iteration of this process,
\nwhose needs are to be addressed, poor folks might git somewhere to walk.<\/p>\n

What I don’t like is the ephemeral nature of a five year list:<\/p>\n

Is there any way to remedy how to include additional citizen requests in a
\nsystematic way? One purpose in creating a new list is to limit it to the amount
\nthat can be built within a 5 year period (in lieu of the 1997 list of 99 projects) so
\nthat citizens can reasonably expect their next opportunity for adding new
\nprojects. Interested persons could submit a request at any time during the 5-year
\ntime frame, the submittal to be kept in a file, and all then evaluated once the next
\nreview cycle approaches.–staff memo<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Suppose the Franklin Street Walkers are amongst the chosen, and the sidewalk in their
\nneighborhoods is slated for construction in the next five years. Oops! but the
\nsidewalk doesn’t get built. What then? It will be reevaluated, possibly with new criteria,
\nwhen the next review cycle comes along? The scheduled project will be unscheduled
\nand possibly blessed once more?<\/p>\n

It’s a smart process, akin to a filing cabinet that every five years
\ntransmogrifies into an incinerator.<\/p>\n

Kicking the can down the road. We know how this game gets played. We beg, we plead, we excoriate. And sometimes, change happens.<\/p>\n