Some of the other projects may also be boondoggles for all I know,
but at least all the ones to widen roads right to the north edge
of the county and thus drive development all the way into
agricultural and forest areas are gone.
Here’s the list:
Continue reading →
There are many jobs in this.
The
Five Points redevelopment
is an example of what she’s talking about.
It’s a lot better than building more sprawl:
safer, less expensive, more jobs, less energy cost, more energy independence,
better health, and more community.
Georgia Tech Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones spole January 2010 at TEDxAtlanta,
Retrofitting suburbia
In the last 50 years, we’ve been building the suburbs with a lot of
unintended consequences. And I’m going to talk about some of those
consequences and just present a whole bunch of really interesting projects
that I think give us tremendous reasons to be really optimistic that
the big design and development project of the next 50 years is going
to be retrofitting suburbia. So whether it’s redeveloping dying malls
or re-inhabiting dead big-box stores or reconstructing wetlands out
of parking lots, I think the fact is, the growing number of empty and
under-performing, especially, retail sites throughout suburbia gives
us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least-sustainable
landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places. And
in the process, what that allows us to do is to redirect a lot more of
our growth back into existing communities that could use a boost, and
have the infrastructure in place, instead of continuing to tear down
trees and to tear up the green space out at the edges.
The five‐year Short Term Work Plan (STWP) for the 2030 Greater Lowndes
County Comprehensive Plan is due for an update later this year. The
STWP is a key implementation tool that reflects the activities and
strategies to support the Comprehensive Plan goals, which the City
of Valdosta has undertaken for the past five years (2007‐2011). It
also sets future activities and strategies for the next five years
(2012‐2017). A ‘report of accomplishments’ that identifies the
current status of each activity in the current STWP must be submitted
to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. A local public hearing
must be held and a local resolution passed in order to adopt a the STWP
update. Please check our website at
www.valdostacity.com/planning
for news and meeting schedules related to the STWP update.
Many T-SPLOST projects submitted by Lowndes County would make traffic safety
worse.
More from Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones of Georgia Tech:
Even Buford Highway, she says, could be transformed with medians,
trees and buildings set closer to the road. Changes that are known
to slow traffic. But outside of the ivory tower, change does not come
easily. Or quickly.
Last year Georgia spent more than two billion dollars on transportation,
but only a tiny fraction, less than 1 percent, went specifically to
pedestrian safety.
And what Lowndes County has sent in for T-SPLOST funding includes:
The first Lowndes County Lunch and Learn was Thursday, 11 August, 2011.
Paige Dukes, County Clerk and Public Information Officer, presented.
“I work in everyone’s business, just a little bit.”
Commissioner Joyce Evans made a brief viridian green appearance.
Gretchen Quarterman videoed for LAKE.
I think that’s Jody making the loud paper crackling noises.
I hear Paige is sending her slides for posting on the LAKE web pages.
Looks to me like they could use some more attendees.
They’re going to the trouble to do this; y’all come and help them out!
LCC Lunch and Learn 11 August 2011
Lunch and Learn, Lowndes County Staff (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 11 August 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
Traffic on Old Pine will be regulated by the amount of people who
use the highway;
traffic on Bemiss since you and I moved out there forty years ago.
…
I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.
That’s right, traffic and traffic safety are considered not pertinent
to building subdivisions, according to the Chairman of the Lowndes County
Commission, and the actions of the Commissioners and staff.
The developer gets to consider only their one property and
the neighbors get to deal with all the effects on all the related roads.
Privatization of profits and socialization of problems
such as traffic accidents.
Does that seem right to you?
If not, it’s going to go on until more people argue and
debate.
In fact, many of Lowndes County’s T-SPLOST tax request would make the problem worse.
See
next post.
Maybe people are starting to notice that far more people die in traffic
accidents in the U.S.A. than in foreign wars.
The projects submitted by Lowndes County for
TSPLOST funding
would make this problem even worse,
except the bus system, which wouldn’t require road widening.
In recent years a little noticed shift has been transforming suburbia:
the home of the middle class has become the home of the working poor. As
a result, roadways that were built for the car are now used by a growing
population that can’t afford to drive. The consequences can be deadly.
According to a recent report, by two national transportation groups,
about 43 thousand pedestrians were killed in the U.S. in the last decade;
“the equivalent of a jumbo jet going down roughly every month.”
Of course, the problem didn’t start with an increase in pedestrians.
Continue reading →