[Vision2020] Let's vote on the Third Street bridge

[Moscow Cares]

Courtesy of today’s (May 9, 2018) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with thanks to Dale Graden.

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Letter: Let's vote on the Third Street bridge

As I stood listening to some great music at the Renaissance Fair, I lamented what the future will look like after the "multimodal bridge" is completed: more cars creeping along Third Street trying to get past the crowds.

Cars and their roadways have destroyed villages, towns and cities across this great land for over a century. The car industry and related corporations - oil, rubber, airplanes, advertising, etc. - have succeeded in marginalizing or suffocating effective bicycle routes, urban mass transport and train systems.

Some nations are addressing this plague. The Scandinavian countries have forged alternative mass transport (bike paths and roads, non-polluting buses, trains, subways). Using advanced technology, city governments charge a fee for every car entry into their big cities. Budgets are transparent. Committees who make transport decisions have no personal financial stake in the outcome. Imagine that: a strategic vision for the 21st century not based on cars.

Our community has an opportunity to plan strategically for the future. Building a bridge over Paradise Creek on Third Street that allows drivers to travel east to west a couple of minutes more quickly is a bad plan. Even if the bridge is "multimodal," cars will take up most of the space and be in close proximity to vulnerable pedestrians and bikers. Indeed, it appears that there are insufficient funds to assure auto traffic mitigation over the proposed bridge (narrower lanes, raised crosswalks, etc).

Many cynics doubt that our "democracy" is functioning. I would like to believe it is, at least at the grassroots, like in this beautiful town of Moscow. How about allowing a popular vote - multimodal that includes cars or pedestrian-bike only - to decide the future of the Third Street Bridge?

Dale Graden
Moscow

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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