Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

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Common Council tonight: Slouch toward mediocrity or reach for excellence?

"That ribbon of highway..." In a residential area.

The Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 at the monumental Franklin Law Enforcement Center.

Some background:

On February 27th, the Wisconsin DOT sent a memo to Franklin outlining new deadlines for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus fund applications.

There were no emergency meetings of committees and boards of which I'm aware. (The Economic Development Commission, in fact, canceled our 2/23/09 meeting for reasons to which I'm not privy).

On March 2nd, one of the city's construction consultants, R.A. Smith, sent an email to Franklin's city engineers:

John & Ron,

On behalf of the Village of Greendale, we would like to know if the City of Franklin has interest in pursuing Round 2 stimulus funding for the S. 51st St. project both municipalities discussed last year?

We have attached a map of the segment and the WDOT round 2 stimulus letter for your review.

Please let us know your thoughts on the project very soon due to the tight funding application timeframes.

That was all we needed, apparently. On March 10th the Board of Public Works recommended pursuing the project. It does not specify a four-lane urban highway, but that is the only cross-section available at this point - - reason enough to be concerned.

So the list of possible stimulus funded projects now reads like this:

a) W. Puetz Road (S. Street to St. Martins Road)
b) S.  Street (Puetz Road to Drexel Avenue)
c) S. 51st Street (North of Rawson Avenue to College Avenue in Greendale)
d) Additional Project

That's it.

Did I miss the brainstorming session that came up with these projects? Or, do we determine projects based on the recommendation of contractors who can bill us for the project they suggest?

We are on the cusp of another missed opportunity to rise above mediocrity and more "entropy made visible."

Franklin's streets and roads  - both the pavement AND the network - are in desperate need of rehabilitation

Excellent planning?

The city of Franklin almost flamboyantly thumbs its nose at the idea of traveling from place to place without a vehicle. Residential roads are built wide and curvilinear for maximum speed - kids and bikes be damned.

Nearby is still far away.

There are neighborhoods close enough to Franklin High School to be illuminated by the sports field's lights - yet the residents of those houses have no way to walk or bike to the high school! Is it any wonder that so many vehicles are on the road at the beginning and end of school days? That's an embarrassment.

When did this become acceptable?

Pleasant View Elementary remains accessible by a single thin road with not so much as a shoulder to retreat to if you should attempt to walk or bike to the school. Another embarrassment.

In fact, the County Sheriff has determined that all of Franklin School District is in an unusually hazardous transportation area. Therefor, all students in the district are entitled to bus transportation.

Subdivisions that get to hear the trucks loading and unloading at the Sendik's on 51st and Rawson have no access to it via foot or bicycle, which would make their proximity a pretty spectacular amenity.

And that's all right with us? We're not going to bother to address any of that with stimulus funds?

Franklin seems content to ignore opportunities to increase connectivity. I have a list of almost 600 Wisconsin bicycle and pedestrian projects funded or co-funded by the federal government from 1993 to 2007. FRANKLIN DOES NOT APPEAR ON THE LIST AT ALL.

Not. Even. Once.

What happened to Complete Streets?

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding should not be used to expand a system of roads that do not provide safe travel for people who are walking or bicycling. Too many Franklin streets are designed to be wide and fast, without sufficient sidewalks, crosswalks or bicycle lanes. We, in fact, CREATE traffic with huge roads and no alternative.

Little or no consideration has been given for the safety of older people, children, or people with disabilities. These incomplete streets are dangerous and create barriers for people to get to jobs, school, the doctor, and fully participate in civic life.

Basically, Franklin's system of ever-widening collector streets without regard to interior grid roads - a blatant concession to subdivision developers - does nothing but concentrate and increase traffic, create noise, and make it impossible to travel from place to place without firing up an internal combustion engine.

This is not an environment that encourages businesses to move in and take root. It is not an environment friendly to commercial enterprises that benefit from the ability to linger (book store, coffee shops, etc.).

So, tonight, the Common Council will vote on a hastily thrown-together package of road projects - - unless they dare to rise above and call for further discussion IMMEDIATELY to better maximize the opportunity presented by stimulus funds.

And I mean meetings that start TOMORROW and incorporate input from various interested parties and persons who have expertise beyond TRAFFIC ENGINEERING.

Ah, "traffic engineering." Evidently, the pure basis for all growth in Franklin.

Keep the following excerpt from the book SUBURBAN NATION in mind at tonight's meeting when engineers cite "traffic analysis" and "throughput forecasting":

Those who are skeptical of the need for a fundamental reconsideration of transportation planning should take note of something we experienced a few years ago. In a large working session on the design of Playa Vista, an urban infill project in Los Angeles, the traffic engineer was presenting a report of current and projected congestion around the development. From our seat by the window, we had an unobstructed rush-hour view of a street he had diagnosed as highly congested and in need of widening. Why, then, was traffic flowing smoothly, with hardly any stacking at the traffic light? When we asked, the traffic engineer offered an answer that should be recorded permanently in the annals of the profession: "The computer model that we use does not necessarily bear any relationship to reality."

So, let us hope they spare us their "projected traffic" studies. (More on concepts like INDUCED TRAFFIC and LATENT DEMAND in later postings.)

More to come ...

See also: 7 Most Ridiculous New Roads Being Built with Stimulus Funds

Weekend Viewing: James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia | Video on TED.com

Few say it better.

James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia | Video on TED.com.

No Surprise - Protest expected against expanding 51st Street - www.franklinnow.com

Anyone living close to 51st Street - and, due to Franklin's sprawled out non-planned growth, that's a substantial amount of people - cannot be pleased at the prospect of a street widening into their backyards; they'll be at Tuesday's Common Council meeting in force. Ironically, the meeting will be that massive object lesson in misguided sprawl, the Franklin Law Enforcement Center. (These sorts of meetings are the only events that come anywhere close to filling the stadium-like parking available there, so bring your camera to mark the occasion.)

I'm told that there will be people there who object to the idea of indiscriminate widening who do NOT live near 51st, which is much more persuasive as it removes the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) factor.

The item as it appears on the agenda is rather broad: "Submittal of road reconstruction projects for second stage of Federal Stimulus Funding." This is the time, however, to make it known that Franklin needs its current broken (i.e. disconnected, hostile-to-nonvehicles) road network FIXED and OVERHAULED before doing something so short-sighted as ruining another section of the city with an urban throughway.

Deadline for Stage 2 Stimulus applications is December 2009 - - plenty of time to do this right rather than repeat our previous mistakes.

Protest expected against expanding 51st Street - www.franklinnow.com.

Franklin's 51st Street stimulus issue gets national forum: We're being watched

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Community leaders and activists nation-wide will be following the progress of Franklin's stimulus application process and its consequences via the StreetsBlog Network.

In other words: If we screw this up, we screw this up for all to see.

Our situation has resonance across the country; the very real danger of sprawl-as-usual projects being rammed through with stimulus funds has to be confronted early in the process. The Surface Transportation program and many other federal programs are already available and being used by some savvy communities to create complete streets. Road infrastructure projects that help create complete streets through new construction or retrofit - - both being the sorts of projects that employ many engineers and laborers, one of the primary goals of the stimulus program - - should be a high priority for stimulus-funded work.

Our story is already spreading - see also The Infrastructuralist: New Bill in Congress Would Improve America's Streets, Neighborhoods.  (From the story: The Complete Streets Act of 2009 was introduced on Wednesday by Doris Matsui (D - CA) in the House of Representatives as HR 1443 and was scheduled to be introduced yesterday in the Senate by Tom Harkin (D-IA). The bills would require states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations to adopt Complete Streets policies to ensure that future federally-funded road projects take into account the needs of everyone using the corridor.)

Ongoing ...

UPDATED - Franklin's default setting: Bikes and pedestrians be damned - Go big, go wide, go fast

(UPDATE at bottom of post)

What I'm about to describe here sounds almost like a parody of suburb street-development-by-plumbers, but this is what's on the table tonight at the Board of Public Works Meeting:

*LETTER FOR GREENDALE RELATIVE TO A JOINT APPLICATION FOR S. 51ST STREET – RAWSON AVENUE TO COLLEGE AVENUE FOR STIMULUS PROGRAM

In its convoluted way, I'm told that this item refers to the desire of Franklin and Greendale to use stimulus funds to widen the section of 51st street between Rawson and College (straddling Franklin and Greendale) to FOUR LANES.

Yes, you read that right.

Once again, the "answer" for a poorly street-planned community is to take another of the plat-level streets to gargantuan, pedestrian-killing width; a residential area roadway designed to freeway standards. Another place-killing notch in the Franklin landscape that will make this community that much more vehicle-centric - a drive-thru non-place with no appeal.

But. gosh, you can sure whiz right through.

Just what local business needs, huh? Cars WHIZZING by rather than a walkable environment that encourages lingering - and spending, and returning.

51st street badly needs shoulders and a walking/bike lane - that will require widening as well, but nothing so extreme as the four-lane variety and a much better, forward-looking use for stimulus funds. 51st does not need more vehicle lanes, and it does not need a faster speed limit.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

51st Street has always been a mess. Every morning I see an older gentleman struggling to walk his small dog on the shoulder of the road, and another more elderly gentleman has to cross the road to get his mail and seems enormously grateful (and a bit surprised) when I stop and wave him across.

Many years ago, the operators of the quarry vowed to build a walking path around the quarry itself (creating a pedestrian/bike path that could get you from Drexel to Rawson), which would provide a logical connection between subdivisions south of Rawson and emerging businesses there (now including Sendik's, CVS, Andy's, and, someday, Fountains of Franklin). Instead, the city agreed to let them augment the already-funded Oak Leaf Trail, which is wonderful for persons who use it to bike or walk for the sake of biking and walking - - but the trail doesn't go anywhere! Pretty trail, no utility.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

If it seems like we just worked on the Rawson-51st street area, it's because we did; the picture above was taken not even two years ago. That smooth, just-poured pavement, one supposes, will be torn up.

Also in line to be torn up: St. Paul's Church, bringing nearly to completion the stage-by-stage character-stripping of Franklin, Wisconsin. The web-captured photo below doesn't do the structure justice, of course; it's especially beautiful when you walk by on a summer night when the front doors are open, showing a peek of the candle-lit grandeur inside.

Say goodbye.

More to come. Because, while this ridiculous freeway through town may be a fait accompli, I'm not nearly done.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

UPDATE: A bit of good news, perhaps: A conversation with Franklin's Mayor Thomas Taylor reveals that he personally in not in favor of a four-lane widening.

It appears that one of the city of Franklin's consultants, R.A. Smith National, Inc., initiated the conversation regarding application for stimulus funds via email (Download R.A. Smith RE- Stimulus 51st street). And, as luck would have it, GREENDALE is also a client of R.A. Smith; no sin in drumming up some work, and I think we'll see this pattern across the country.

A call to R.A. Smith reveals that, as far as they know, there is no plan currently drawn up - -  save for a four-lane plan submitted some time ago by Franklin, most likely as an "ultimate expression" of the road as monster urban street. This is the "default" measure that must be avoided.

Do I believe the 4-lane option would/will be the only plan forwarded if not for some timely intercession? ABSOLUTELY.

A memo from Wisconsin State Department of Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi (Download Wis DOT Stimulus Memo) regarding "Second Stage Solicitation for Local Transportation Recovery Projects" indicates that plans submitted by Dec. 1st of this year are now considered "shovel-ready"; the previous short time-envelope proved too daunting for most local projects.

From the memo:

In this first stage of the application process, the department received many local project applications. These were reviewed to determine whether they met the federal eligibility standards - but remember; we were working with eligibility standards established before the Recovery Act was final. Project eligibility was limited to the extent that the projects could be ready for bidding and construction in the very short timeframe initially set. Unfortunately, a very limited number of the project applications qualified. Local governments that submitted projects that did meet eligibility requirements will be notified shortly.

Fortunately, the final version of the Recovery Act set more reasonable timelines for local transportation projects and there is an additional opportunity for local governments to seek federal funding for local projects that meet all eligibility criteria. am writing today to lay out the process and the schedule local governments can use to submit transportation projects in the next application stage. We are committed to working closely with local governments to identify federally eligible projects and maximize the use of Recovery Act funds in Wisconsin.

In total, the Recovery Act will provide about $529 million to Wisconsin for state and local highway and bridge projects. We have determined that about 30% of this total, or about $158 million, could be made available for local roads and bridges, if sufficient eligible projects are identified and can be ready for construction. Of this total, the legislation specifies that about $38.7 million be used within the Milwaukee urbanized area and about $9.7 million be used within the Madison urbanized area. Virtually all of the remainder, or about million, is available for use throughout the rest of the state.

So now the challenge is clear: In order to pursue the forward-thinking and economically-rewarding plan of utilizing stimulus funds for creating pedestrian and bike utility and safety rather than "business as usual" rote street-widening, it's vital to get involved in the process early, as I plan to do.

On a purely economic level, we need streets that feed our businesses while making “park once, multiple stops” possible (a virtual unknown concept here). That’s what attracts investment and creates local character; that's why I will introduce an agenda item for the next Economic Development Commission meeting that seeks to make clear that "go big, go wide, go fast" is not the answer on 51st Street.

There's a better way, and we have time to explore alternatives that will serve both communities much more effectively than another four-lane monster street.

As local municipalities like Franklin rush to add lanes and asphalt with stimulus money rather than secure the crumbling infrastructure - i.e. take care of what we already have, it's worth a note about what "infrastructure" really is:

Spotlight Vol. 8, No. 4: What Lies Beneath: Meditations on a Word - Regional Plan Association:

I like the sentiments, once decoded. What I like to say is that infrastructure is "the things we do in common." That is, it is those tasks or function that we have opted to do collectively and cooperatively, rather than individually and competitively.

I find something moving in that. I think we progress as a society by defining infrastructure upward, by including more and more things in its rhetorical embrace.

Before the late 19th century, clean, safe water was a private good, to be obtained individually on the market. Then we built public water systems, and water became "infrastructure." Now, we debate whether we should have a national health care system. If we answer yes, then health care will become "infrastructure."

Before infrastructure made its appearance, a much handier and to me, more honest term was used: public works. Robert Moses, the famous and infamous czar of New York state infrastructure for a half century, titled his autobiography "Public Works: A Dangerous Trade."

The Last Shopping Mall? New Jersey Awaits Xanadu - TIME:

(It rises out of the tidal murk of the Meadowlands — the polluted northern–New Jersey wetlands on which the sports complex of the same name was built some 33 years ago — like a garish species from a monster movie. What is that swamp thing? It's a mishmash of big-box structures covered in aqua, blue and white tiles, with a little mustard yellow and brown thrown in to finish off the 1970s-nightmare look. Part of the complex, still under construction, is shaped like a ski jump, because what says industrial metropolitan America quite like a Nordic sport?

"Looks like bathroom tile from the 1970s," one astute commenter wrote on nj.com, a website that covers New Jersey news. "I expect to see David Cassidy every time I drive by that thing because it looks like the Partridge Family bus!" wrote another. Are the construction workers wearing bell-bottoms? The commenter continued, "My ex-husband flew in from Florida and said, 'That mall can be seen from space.' " (See pictures of the Mall of America.)

Read the rest here.

(Via Daily Sprawl)

detroit and how it got this way

(Via MarkMaynard.com.)

Shoppes at Wyndham Village Parking Lot - 03, originally uploaded by John Michlig.

Click for a series of photos depicting Mother Nature reasserting herself.

Meditations on "Infrastructure"

As local municipalities like Franklin rush to add lanes and asphalt with stimulus money rather than secure the crumbling infrastructure - i.e. take care of what we already have, it's worth a note about what "infrastructure" really is:

Spotlight Vol. 8, No. 4: What Lies Beneath: Meditations on a Word - Regional Plan Association:

I like the sentiments, once decoded. What I like to say is that infrastructure is "the things we do in common." That is, it is those tasks or function that we have opted to do collectively and cooperatively, rather than individually and competitively.

I find something moving in that. I think we progress as a society by defining infrastructure upward, by including more and more things in its rhetorical embrace.

Before the late 19th century, clean, safe water was a private good, to be obtained individually on the market. Then we built public water systems, and water became "infrastructure." Now, we debate whether we should have a national health care system. If we answer yes, then health care will become "infrastructure."

Before infrastructure made its appearance, a much handier and to me, more honest term was used: public works. Robert Moses, the famous and infamous czar of New York state infrastructure for a half century, titled his autobiography "Public Works: A Dangerous Trade."

The Last Shopping Mall? New Jersey Awaits Xanadu - TIME

The Last Shopping Mall? New Jersey Awaits Xanadu - TIME:

(It rises out of the tidal murk of the Meadowlands — the polluted northern–New Jersey wetlands on which the sports complex of the same name was built some 33 years ago — like a garish species from a monster movie. What is that swamp thing? It's a mishmash of big-box structures covered in aqua, blue and white tiles, with a little mustard yellow and brown thrown in to finish off the 1970s-nightmare look. Part of the complex, still under construction, is shaped like a ski jump, because what says industrial metropolitan America quite like a Nordic sport?

"Looks like bathroom tile from the 1970s," one astute commenter wrote on nj.com, a website that covers New Jersey news. "I expect to see David Cassidy every time I drive by that thing because it looks like the Partridge Family bus!" wrote another. Are the construction workers wearing bell-bottoms? The commenter continued, "My ex-husband flew in from Florida and said, 'That mall can be seen from space.' " (See pictures of the Mall of America.)

Read the rest here.

(Via Daily Sprawl)

Detroit and how it got that way

detroit and how it got this way

(Via MarkMaynard.com.)

"Uneven Pavement" indeed: Shoppes at Wyndham Village Parking Lot

Shoppes at Wyndham Village Parking Lot - 03, originally uploaded by John Michlig.

Click for a series of photos depicting Mother Nature reasserting herself.