Tag Archives: cul-de-sac

ULDC text amendments remove pines and pecans from protected trees @ LCC 2024-11-12

Update 2024-11-12: Videos: GLPC appointments, ULDC Amendments, 2 rezonings, Street Lighting, Beer and Wine, UPS, infrastructure acceptance, Regional Transit, Georgia Power, VSU, LMIG, Fire @ LCC Work 2024-11-12.

Thanks to Jason Davenport for sending a current draft of the ULDC text amendments for this evening’s Public Hearing at the Lowndes County Commission at 5:30 PM.

They are on the LAKE website in Word and PDF formats.

I’m not sure how the public is supposed to comment intelligently on these changes with about two hours to look at them, if they happen to look when I post this. The county has not posted any drafts of these text amendments.

[Pines and pecans no longer protected: ULDC Text Amendments @ LCC 2024-11-12]
Pines and pecans no longer protected: ULDC Text Amendments @ LCC 2024-11-12

The big change is:

5. Replace 4.07.07 (D) with:

4.07.07(D) All pine and pecan trees, even those over 24 inches dbh, are not considered protected trees.

Everyone understands that trees falling in Hurricane Helene (and Debby and Idalia) were a big problem.

But this seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Continue reading →

Transit-Oriented Development or Communities not Cul-de-Sacs

It’s not just VLCIA’s Community Assessment that argues for a public transportation system in Valdosta-Lowndes County. Getting people to work without requiring cars is an even bigger problem in larger metropolitan areas, but many of the issues are the same here.

Nancy Andrews and Audrey Choi wrote for Huffpo 20 Aug 2012, How Transit-Oriented Development Can Help Get America To Work,

To truly get America back to work, we have to focus on more than jobs, jobs, jobs. It is about integrating jobs, transportation, housing and community services in ways that work equally well for lower- and upper-income families.

Vibrant communities where residents can walk to shops, restaurants, grocery stores and community services; and where public transportation provides convenient connections between home and work can be built. Planning community development with public transportation as a central consideration — transit-oriented development or TOD — can spur economic growth, sometimes dramatically. But that approach has not been systematically applied to communities of all income levels.

For these reasons, it is important for government, public transit agencies, nonprofits, foundations and the private sector to come together so that thriving communities for families of all economic levels can be created.

It’s a safety issue, too. Far more Americans die in traffic accidents than in foreign wars, and widening roads farther out just makes the problem worse. Currently, Lowndes County says that’s not pertinent.

Maybe we should change that. What if we built communities, not cul-de-sacs?

-jsq

Communities, not Cul de sacs

Update: Trees make streets safer and Fixing a perfect storm of bad planning and design.

Eric M. Weiss writes in the Washington Post on 22 March 2009 about In Va., Vision of Suburbia at a Crossroads: Targeting Cul-de-Sacs, Rules Now Require Through Streets in New Subdivisions

The state has decided that all new subdivisions must have through streets linking them with neighboring subdivisions, schools and shopping areas. State officials say the new regulations will improve safety and accessibility and save money: No more single entrances and exits onto clogged secondary roads. Quicker responses by emergency vehicles. Lower road maintenance costs for governments.
Banning cul-de-sacs was one of the New York Times Magazine’s 9th Annual Year in Ideas, because it’s safer and less expensive: Continue reading →