I don't expect you, DP, to be on board with this, but if you look at studies of boulevarding freeways across the United States, the great boon of all those transformations was that they opened up lots of land for redevelopment, and were very quickly redeveloped, and, in fact, have become some of the most desirable land.
When I look at these plans, I see a definite effort to stack the deck against opening up land for development. I guess they figure they can offer all these plans for parks [[renderings of motorways with lots and lots of parks is an old highway planner trick dating back to the 1940s; when you see parks, think parking lots instead). Like a parent trying to trick a child, they offer five options they want and one they don't, hoping the public will go for all those trees and parks and "vegetative slopes" [[which may or may not appear).
What's missing from this analysis -- and embedded in your reaction, DP -- is this central point: Transportation plans ARE development plans. The amount of land used, the mode chosen, the amount of land made available for development, the throughput, the amount of pollution, the ease in crossing -- all of these play a central role in what will be built there. To pretend otherwise while simply computing cars per minute and dressing it up with trees and grasses and bike lanes nobody's asking for -- well, that's how we got where we are, yes?
Bookmarks