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