This week I took my inaugural drive down 31st Street, which now connects Drexel and Rawson - - a few hundred feet from 27th Street, which does the same; brilliant. Other than its use as a back-way out for Northwestern Mutual's new parking ramp, the road is fairly useless at this point (it'll undoubtedly help once the YMCA gets built, though; the road will seem much less superfluous at that point).
And it's wiiiiide. On a positive note: sidewalks begin at the Northwestern Mutual entrance and run to Rawson.
(Click the picture below to go to a collection of 31st Street photos on Flickr)
Meanwhile, the very next north-south connection from Drexel to Rawson doesn't come for another mile west on 51st street, reinforcing Drexel's status as an overused collector road with no gridwork connections to tame traffic.
GoogleMaps is a bit out of date; 31st goes all the way through. But nothing else does.
Poor planning. And expensive; 31st street comes out of the city budget as part of the incentive package to Northwestern Mutual when they - - evidently - - hinted that they were getting offers from other cities as they were contemplating building their addition and might just vacate that big building.
Weird roads like 31st Street make this quote all the more relevant (and makes you almost sure that this guy has been to Franklin):
A city's internal transportation system - the layout of its streets and roads, the layout of streetcar systems and subways - determines the character of the city, how its citizens live and work. It has less to do with the direct engines of wealth creation. Build subways and people will live in dense neighborhoods and walk to corner stores; build broad suburban streets and they will live in subdivisions and drive to the Wal-Mart.
-Alex Marshall (How Cities Work)
Recently, Marshall asked the nonmusical question: Why Do Conservatives Become Socialists When It Comes To Highway Spending? at Governing.com.
(Via The Political Environment.)
See also this perspective on the question from the UK (hence the spelling): "Why are roads favoured by the right and trains by socialists?"
An excerpt:
What is it about roads that attracts the Right? Surely they must, by now, realise that the freedom afforded by the car is illusory, since, as usage rises, the extra societal costs of more people getting on to the road outweigh by far the benefits. And the simplistic view that roadbuilding is the answer has been widely discredited. There is a gaping intellectual gap in the Right's thinking which environmentalists and public transport supporters should be more adept at exploiting.
Tomah Journal - "Unsustainable exurban development exposed by mortgage meltdown"
I was led to this excellent article via The Political Environment blog:
From the Tomah Journal:
Posted at 07:46 AM in Bad Planning, Commentary, Current Affairs, Problems, Sustainable Communities Factoid, Traffic/Transportation, Wisdom | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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