City leaps to fix hazard

This updates my report Monday on the ugly post in the uptown sidewalk, mentioned in yesterday’s blog posting about some pedestrian hazards I encountered uptown.

I just got e-mail from Tamara Blue, customer service manager of Charlotte Department of Transportation: “I wanted to let you know the post is being cut down as I type this. We very much appreciate you letting us know about this trip hazard. Unfortunately, we can’t be everywhere at all times and knowing citizens like you will let us know when there is a problem is a tremendous help.”

Kudos to the city for solving a small but dangerous pedestrian hazard. Now if only they can figure out how to inspire folks to shovel their sidewalks after it snows, and to rake off the leaf piles …

EPA video spotlights Charlotte, Dilworth

New video posted on the EPA’s Web site lauds the city’s Urban Street Design Guidelines and the East Boulevard Road Diet, which illustrates the city’s transportation design goals. Check it out. Mayor Anthony Foxx, ex-Mayor Pat McCrory, council member Susan Burgess, ex-council member and current city department head Patrick Mumford and others talk about how great the Urban Street Design Guidelines are.

It stems from the city’s National Award for Smart Growth Achievement, announced in December, in the “Policies and Regulations” category for the USDG.

Yet the developers’ lobby, the local Real Estate and Building Industry Coalition, as well as influential, long-time real estate magnate John Crosland Jr., are still urging the city to dial back – or un-adopt, or never actually codify into ordinances, or otherwise eviscerate – those same USDG. They don’t like the requirements for modestly shorter blocks, or the width of the planting strips (wide enough so street trees will survive) or the general policy to build more streets and sidewalks in new developments. It’ll add cost, they say. And yep, it will.

But what’s the cost of congestion? What’s the cost of not being able to ride a bicycle or walk anywhere? What’s the cost of street trees that die? What’s the cost of having to retrofit streets and build sidewalks into already built neighborhoods – at taxpayer expense. The costs exist. It’s just a question of where you inject them into the growth process: at the start, or later on and spread among a wider group of payers, i.e. us taxpayers.