[Vision2020] Third Street & sprawl

[Jack Porter]

Not only would the bridge be bad for the neighborhood, it's based on a 
flawed concept of building our way out of traffic problems.  This is 
addressed in the second half of my guest column from Friday's Daily News 
under the caption "Another unintended consequence of sprawl," which I'm 
pasting below:


Friends of neighborhood schools and walkable communities now have another 
cause for concern.  The Moscow Transportation Commission has voted to 
recommend a bridge over Paradise Creek to connect East Third Street to 
Mountain View Road.  I hope other citizens will join me in opposing this 
misguided plan.

Like other roads to hell, this one is paved with good intentions.  Moscow's 
east-west arterials are narrow and crowded.  Connecting Third to Mountain 
View would open up another route.  The street already dead-ends on both 
sides of the creek, so a bridge might make this the cheapest arterial money 
can buy.  All those current and future residents east of Mountain View 
would have a new straight shot to downtown and on to the Palouse Mall, 
Wal-Mart, and WSU.

Unfortunately, the traffic planners' fixation on moving cars from Point A 
to Point B has caused them to undervalue the neighborhood between those 
points.  The quality of life in that area includes the ability to walk 
safely and conveniently to Lena Whitmore Elementary School, East City Park, 
Moscow High School, the City Library, the 1912 Center, and Russell 
Elementary School.  Third Street is also a key bike route from downtown for 
older commuters like me.

A major increase in traffic on Third would degrade this wonderful 
residential area and put children at risk.  Why should we harm an 
established neighborhood for the convenience of drivers who choose to live 
elsewhere?

Even from a traffic standpoint, it seems problematic to channel more cars 
to the corner of Third and Washington, which is already one of Moscow's 
most dysfunctional intersections.

As Moscow citizens begin the "New Cities" exercise in thinking about our 
future, it would be good to recognize how much of our past planning has 
been based on the assumption of cheap and convenient car travel.  That 
assumption will grow less tenable as fossil fuels become more scarce and 
costly, both in dollars and in pollution, global warming, and dependence on 
foreign supplies.

But there has been another fundamental flaw in our transportation 
planning.  It turns out that building more and wider highways doesn't 
really cure traffic congestion.  Better highways promote more highway 
use.  If we build them, people will drive on them.

A lot of our driving is really discretionary.  Highway improvements 
encourage people to shop and recreate farther away from home and to live 
farther away from work.  Then, as shopping malls, schools, and homes get 
built farther from the city center, more driving becomes (or comes to seem) 
necessary.  It is futile to imagine that we can build our way out of 
traffic congestion, because people will increase their highway use until 
the new highways are again congested.

Moscow should be working to make foot and bicycle travel more safe and 
attractive, and to make public transportation more available and 
convenient.  Almost every dollar spent on "improving" car travel is likely 
to run counter to those goals, and it's unlikely to produce lasting 
improvements for car travel either.

The neighborhood surrounding East Third Street is the kind of place 
enlightened planners around the country are trying to re-create, after 
learning the unintended consequences of suburban sprawl.  It would be crazy 
for us to go the opposite direction by punching an arterial through the 
middle of this wonderful, walkable neighborhood.

For further reading I suggest Suburban Nation by Andres Duany, Elizabeth 
Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, The Geography of Nowhere and other works by 
James Howard Kunstler, and the website of the Congress for the New 
Urbanism, <newurbanism.org>.

Jack R. Porter
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