Tag: traffic

Bike Commuters Coast Through Winter Weather

  • Winter cyclists in Ottawa brave the weather on their daily commutes. (Photo © Richard Guy Briggs)

By the first snowfall, most of us have long ago put our bicycles away. But in every city, there are a few die-hard souls who keep pedaling all winter long. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly offers a profile of the winter cyclist:

Transcript

By the first snowfall, most of us have long ago put our bicycles away. But in every city, there are
a few diehard souls who keep pedaling all winter long. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly offers a profile of the winter cyclist:


I remember the first time I saw a winter cyclist in Ottawa. It was during a snowstorm and I had
just moved to the capital city of Canada. I looked out my window to see a guy on a bike plowing
through a snow drift. He had one glove on the handlebars – and the other carrying a three foot
long art portfolio. It was outrageous. But even more surprising – Ottawa is full of these people.


We’re talking a good four months of frigid temperatures here. And there are bicycles on the road
every single day. I wanted to know what could possibly motivate someone to hop on a bike when
the temperature is well below freezing.


To find an answer, I went to see Juergen Weichart. He’s a 37 year old father. A website
developer. And an avid winter cyclist.


“Okay, ready honey, why don’t you bring me your snowpants now?”


It’s 8:30 on a Monday morning and Weichart is preparing for his first ride of the day, transporting
his daughter to daycare.


Weichart is a rare breed – not only does he climb on a bike in the middle of winter – he drags his
kid along too. Unfortunately, guests are also invited. Next thing I know, I’m trying to fit a bike
helmet over my ski cap.


“It definitely fits different, right? What you can do is actually pull out these things.”


Weichart says you should dress in layers that are easy to remove. Once you start pedaling, and
sweating, the biggest challenge is often to stay cool and dry.


Today, it’s just below freezing, so Weichart throws on a long sleeved t-shirt, a fleece vest, and a
windbreaker with vents under the armpits. He hustles his daughter into a snowsuit and we’re out
the door.


As soon as we reach the driveway, Weichart is smiling.


He eagerly brushes the snow off his bicycle.


“It just brightens my day. It’s so sunny and beautiful and fresh out here and you get a little bit of
exercise, a little bit of warmth in your body and I realize if I don’t drive for a day or two, I realize
afterwards I’ve been typically crabby if I don’t get my morning ride.”


“Okay, so all the bikes look in good shape!”


Weichart covers his daughter with blankets in a trailer that he pulls behind his bicycle. Then he
and I hop on our bikes, inching them towards the top of the driveway, which is covered with ice.


“Probably the most dangerous spot right here on this whole ride is that patch down at the bottom
of the driveway. This up here has all been in shade, it’s been wet and now it’s frozen. Once we
get out on the main road, we’re going to have dry pavement.


“Here we go!”


We slowly make our way over the frozen tire tracks. It reminds me of cross country skiing or
skating. Weichart tells me to steer and brake, but preferably not at the same time.


(squeak of tires-road)


It’s actually pretty easy. And on the street, the conditions range from packed snow to dry
pavement. Weichart sticks to the bare road – even if that means taking over the lane. By law,
cyclists here have the right to do that. And the city actually encourages it – to make sure that
drivers see people on bikes.


But between the cars and the weather, it’s not surprising that most people assume winter cycling
is dangerous. Researcher Lisa Routhier decided to take a closer look at that assumption. She
recently earned a degree in environmental studies from Carleton University in Ottawa. While
there, Routhier surveyed 60 winter cyclists and 62 people who don’t ride in the winter. She
calculated the number of riders with the number of collisions and found no increase in cllisions
during the winter months. And generally, Routhier found the people on the bikes aren’t really
worried.


“One of the questions I asked was do you feel safe when you’re riding your bike in the winter and
82 percent responded they feel safe all or most of the time when they’re on their bike. And what I
found and what many people will notice is that many days during the winter, the roads are
actually bare and dry curb to curb. There’s no difference from summer cycling conditions.”


But what distinguishes many winter cyclists from the rest of us is experience. Routhier says these
are people who are used to commuting, regardless of the traffic or the weather. Juergen Weichart
fits that description. He says he’ll always choose his bicycle over the car. For a number of
reasons: It’s a way to exercise. It saves money on gas. And it’s better for the environment. But
mostly, he says he just loves being outside.


“One day I was riding not that long ago and there was a whole flock of birds on a lawn. There
must have been 200 little black birds sitting on a lawn and as I drove by on my bike, one of them
took flight and then the whole flock took flight and as I drove by, they flew right over top of my
bike and over my head and I thought wow, I could hear their wings beating, I could hear every
little feather going past me and the wind rushing and I thought, that’s amazing. You’re never
going to experience it that way in a car.”


(sound of riding)


After an uneventful ride, Weichart drops his daughter off at daycare. Even on a frigidly cold day,
he’ll choose the longer, scenic route to the office. Today is no exception.


(bell)


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

Speedy Ferry to Ease Chicago Bottleneck?

The nation’s first high-speed ferry will soon carry passengers and cars across Lake Michigan between Muskegon and Milwaukee. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

The nation’s first high-speed ferry will soon carry passengers
and cars across Lake Michigan between Muskegon and Milwaukee. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


It took six hours to cross Lake Michigan in 1970, the last year a
passenger and auto ferry linked Muskegon and Milwaukee. The new ferry,
the Lake Express, will make the trip in about a third of the time. The
catamaran features a lightweight aluminum construction and four engines
with a combined 12,000 horsepower. Developer David Lubar says the biggest
customers are likely to be vacationing families and people who want to
bypass the Chicago commute.


“People are highly frustrated driving through Chicago, you don’t know if it’s going to take a half
hour or two hours.”


Lake Express is currently under construction and has a launch date of June
1st, 2004.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

State Attempts to Stop Foreign Trash Imports

States have tried for years to limit the number of out-of-state trash haulers heading to their landfills. They’ve tried to ban shipment from crossing their borders. They’ve tried to make other states jump through bureaucratic hoops. But courts have repeatedly struck down those attempts. Now, a state is trying to stop trash from being imported from outside the country. But neighbors living close to a massive dump near Detroit say they’re not hopeful the effort will make their lives any better. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

States have tried for years to limit the number of out-of-state trash haulers heading to their landfills. They’ve tried to ban shipments from crossing their borders. They’ve tried to make other states jump through bureaucratic hoops. But courts have repeatedly struck down those attempts. Now, a state is trying to stop trash from being imported from outside the country. But neighbors living close to a massive dump near Detroit say they’re not hopeful the effort will
make their lives any better. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


The road to Dave Swisher’s home leads to a towering brown mound that grows taller every year. Trucks queue up well before sunrise. They wait their turn to inch up the side of the mound. They’ll each
contribute their few inches – of garbage, and human waste in the form of a grayish sludge. Swisher says he’s not sure which is worse: the stench drifting down from the dump, the dust that coats his car and home, or the constant stream of truck traffic.


“I’ve had times where I go to get out of my driveway, and I sit for trucks…I can’t even get out! They shouldn’t even be running that early. I leave at 5:30, 20 of six in the morning. Sometimes I can’t even get out of my own driveway for the trucks.”


Since the beginning of this year, many more trucks are barrelling past his home toward the landfill. Many of them are from Canada. The city of Toronto is now sending all its garbage – in 140 trucks a day – to this dump in southeast Michigan. And Swisher says a look at the license plates on other
trucks tells him where the rest of the trash is coming from.


“You’ve got some from Ohio, I think some from Illinois, an outside of that, I’m not sure how many states there are. But I know those three. And it just seems to be getting worse.”


Many people in the region share Swisher’s frustration. A report from the Congressional Research Service shows that the nation’s top ten trash importers include six Great Lakes states. Brooke Beal oversees solid waste issues for Chicago’s northern suburbs. He says there’s a reason
so much trash is coming to the Midwest.


“Here, most of the waste comes from the east coast. I mean, the east coast saw landfill capacity that we saw in the 80’s and 90’s shrinking back in the 70’s. They’ve been shipping their waste farther and farther west. I mean they started going to New Jersey, now they’ve moved to Virginia and Ohio, and they’re starting to move into Indiana. Because that’s where the landfills are – the
country, we’ll call it, because land costs are cheaper.


Chicago’s northern suburbs generate about 300-thousand tons of trash each year. Beale says all that trash is shipped across the border to Wisconsin. He says that’s because it’s closer and cheaper to export it than to ship it to downstate Illinois. Wisconsin tried years ago to block the trash coming from Chicago. But like similar attempts by
other states, the courts blocked the effort.


Trash, the courts say, is an item of commerce – just like steel
and cars and grain. And only Congress can regulate commerce.


Now, Michigan is hoping to succeed where other states have failed. Legislation would prohibit certain items from state landfills – including beer and soda bottles, and yard waste. States that want to
send their trash to Michigan would have to prove that they filter out those items.


Christopher Peters is a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University. He says the
legislation might not stand up to a legal challenge by the waste industry.


“I think a court is going to say that that is discriminatory legislation. Because it makes it more
expensive, essentially, artificially more expensive for someone to bring waste in from out of state
than for someone to dispose of waste that comes from inside the state.”


It’s not clear how Michigan’s plan would affect the steady traffic of Toronto’s trash coming into
the state. The city already diverts from its waste stream most of the items Michigan wants to prohibit.
And lawyers for the waste industry are already promising a court fight.


Meanwhile, in Dave Swisher’s neighborhood, the trucks are still rumbling past his house. He says
even if Michigan passes a new set of laws, he doesn’t have much hope that the legislation would help him
or his neighbors.


“It’s a dead issue. Nothing’s going to make it any better, nothing’s going to stop it, nothing’s going to ease it up. It’s just
going to get worse.”


Swisher says legislation isn’t going to make the landfill go away. And he says unless he’s willing
to sell his house for far less than he thinks it’s worth, he’s likely to be stuck here, too.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Transportation or Trees? A Highway Runs Through It

If you compare a ten-year-old map of any urban city in North America with a recent one, you’ll notice that almost all of our major cities are getting bigger. That means more suburbs, more cars, and according to traditional ways of thinking, the need for more roads. But is road building the solution? Or is it part of the problem? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner takes us to a place where the debate has been going on for half a century. As she reports, not everybody agrees that the debate is settled:

Transcript

If you compare a ten year old map of any urban city in North America with a recent one,
you’ll notice that almost all of our major cities are getting bigger. That means more
suburbs, more cars, and according to traditional ways of thinking, the need for more roads.
But is road building the solution? Or is it part of the problem? Victoria Fenner takes us to
a place where the debate has been going on for half a century. As she reports, not everybody
agrees that the debate is settled:


On this sunny morning, a hawk sits in watch high atop a power line in the Red Hill Valley in
Hamilton. It gazes down over the valley – 1600 acres in the middle of this gritty industrial
steel town on the western tip of Lake Ontario. And soon, if the current city council has its
way, the hawk will be looking down on an expressway.


This is a story that happens over and over again in communities throughout North America.
This expressway plan in Hamilton has been on and off again for fifty years. It has polarized
the community, and with a municipal election happening soon, decision day for the valley is
looming. If a pro-expressway council is elected, it will go ahead.


Don McLean is with the Friends of Red Hill Valley, an organization that has been mobilizing
opposition to the freeway plan since 1991. He explains why he doesn’t want the expressway.


“The Red Hill Valley is potentially the largest urban park in Canada, and the expressway proposal
comes right down the middle of it, takes down twenty five percent of its forest and so on. There is
a large creek running through it that drains half the urban area of Hamilton. It has twenty four
species of fish that have been recorded since 1995. It’s quite an interesting place because it’s
completely surrounded, really, by urban area.”


But other people say there are also good arguments why the freeway should be built. Larry
Dianni is running for mayor and is building his whole campaign around this single issue. He
says he sees no other options, especially since parts of the freeway have already been built.


“This has been a project that has been fifty plus years in the making, and of course people have
now turned it around to say this is a fifty year old solution to current problems. Wrong. This is an
overdue solution to problems that manifested themselves fifty-four years ago, and by virtue of
ignoring them, the problems have gotten worse.”


The problems Larry Dianni is referring to are all about economic growth. His arguments for
the expressway are not a lot different from other cities across North America. He says as
more people and businesses move into the area, the road is necessary to accommodate
increasing traffic.


But Don McLean says this is outmoded thinking.


“There are good studies now in the U.S., and this has been understood in Europe for a long time,
that building more roads mainly results in generating more traffic. It does not address congestion
issues, it actually increases them because it encourages more driving and it encourages people to
move further and further away from their destinations.”


Don McLean’s position is one shared by the Sierra Club of Canada. The Sierra Club
recently published a major report called “Sprawl Hurts Us All.” Janet Pelley, the report’s
author, has heard the full range of the debate on both sides of the border. She is an
environmental journalist who recently moved to Canada from the U.S.


“The fact that you see on both sides of the border that there are these battles over freeways that
have been going on for fifty years just shows it’s an outmoded way of thinking, that the
government hasn’t caught up with the new smart growth initiatives and the new ways people are
looking at cities.”


The bottom line, Janet Pelley says, is we’re too dependent on motorized traffic. She says we
have to find ways of reducing our dependency on our cars.


“If you’re assuming people have to have cars, then you’re going to be sucked into that whole “car
junkie” habit of “we have to have more freeways to get people to move around. It’s really key
how you build your city. If you build your city for pedestrians and for public transit then you don’t
have to worry about the car traffic.”


It’s a story that is repeated over and over again as communities such as Hamilton try to
balance economic growth with environmental responsibility. In Hamilton, it’s still not a
foregone conclusion whether or not the freeway will proceed. November’s municipal
election is shaping up to be a single issue campaign, with pro-expressway and anti-
expressway candidates staking their political future on the issue. Whether or not this will
settle the matter is another question. With many sides to this story, this is an issue that
many communities will be wrestling with for a long time to come.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

Related Links

Bike Commuters Coast Through Winter Weather

  • Winter cyclists in Ottawa brave the weather on their daily commutes. (Photo © Richard Guy Briggs)

By the first snowfall, most of us have long ago put our bicycles away. But in every city, there are a few die-hard souls who keep pedaling all winter long. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly offers a profile of the winter cyclist:

Transcript

By the first snowfall, most of us have long ago put our bicycles away. But in every city, there are
a few diehard souls who keep pedaling all winter long. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly offers a profile of the winter cyclist:


I remember the first time I saw a winter cyclist in Ottawa. It was during a snowstorm and I had
just moved to the capital city of Canada. I looked out my window to see a guy on a bike plowing
through a snow drift. He had one glove on the handlebars – and the other carrying a three-foot-long art portfolio. It was outrageous. But even more surprising – Ottawa is full of these people.


We’re talking a good four months of frigid temperatures here. And there are bicycles on the road
every single day. I wanted to know what could possibly motivate someone to hop on a bike when
the temperature is well below freezing.


To find an answer, I went to see Juergen Weichert. He’s a 37-year-old father. A website
developer. And an avid winter cyclist.


“Okay, ready honey, why don’t you bring me your snowpants now?”


It’s 8:30 on a Monday morning and Weichert is preparing for his first ride of the day, transporting
his four-year-old daughter to daycare.


Weichert is a rare breed – not only does he climb on a bike in the middle of winter – he drags his
kid along too. Unfortunately, guests are also invited. Next thing I know, I’m trying to fit a bike
helmet over my ski cap.


“It definitely fits different, right? What you can do is actually pull out these things.”


Weichert says you should dress in layers that are easy to remove. Once you start pedaling, and
sweating, the biggest challenge is often to stay cool and dry.


Today, it’s just below freezing, so Weichert throws on a long sleeved t-shirt, a fleece vest, and a
windbreaker with vents under the armpits. He hustles his daughter into a snowsuit and we’re out
the door.


As soon as we reach the driveway, Weichert is smiling.


He eagerly brushes the snow off his bicycle.


“It just brightens my day. It’s so sunny and beautiful and fresh out here and you get a little bit of
exercise, a little bit of warmth in your body, gets
the system going, and I realize if I don’t drive for a day or two, I realize
afterwards I’ve been typically crabby if I don’t get my morning ride.”


“Let’s hop in!”


Weichert covers his daughter with blankets in a trailer that he pulls behind his bicycle. Then he
and I hop on our bikes, inching them towards the top of the driveway, which is covered with ice.


“Probably the most dangerous spot right here on this whole ride is that patch down at the bottom
of the driveway. This up here has all been in shade, it’s been wet and now it’s frozen. Once we
get out on the main road, we’re going to have dry pavement.”


“Here we go!”


We slowly make our way over the frozen tire tracks. It reminds me of cross country skiing or
skating. Weichert tells me to steer and brake, but preferably not at the same time.


(squeak of tires on road)


It’s actually pretty easy. And on the street, the conditions range from packed snow to dry
pavement. Weichert sticks to the bare road – even if that means taking over the lane. By law,
cyclists here have the right to do that. And the city actually encourages it – to make sure that
drivers see people on bikes.


But between the cars and the weather, it’s not surprising that most people assume that winter cycling
is dangerous. Researcher Lisa Routhier decided to take a closer look at that assumption. She
recently earned a degree in environmental studies from Carleton University in Ottawa. Routhier surveyed 60 winter cyclists and 62 people who don’t ride in the winter. She
calculated the number of riders with the number of collisions and found no increase in collisions
during the winter months. And generally, Routhier found the people on the bikes aren’t really
worried.


“One of the questions I asked was do you feel safe when you’re riding your bike in the winter and
82 percent responded that they feel safe all or most of the time when they’re on their bike. And what I
found and what many people will notice is that on many days during the winter, the roads are
actually bare and dry curb to curb. There’s no difference from summer cycling conditions.”


But what distinguishes many winter cyclists from the rest of us is experience. Routhier says these
are people who are used to commuting, regardless of the traffic or the weather. Juergen Weichert
fits that description. He says he’ll always choose his bicycle over the car. For a number of
reasons: It’s a way to exercise. It saves money on gas. And it’s better for the environment. But
mostly, he says he just loves being outside.


“One day I was riding not that long ago… there
must have been 200 little blackbirds sitting on a lawn and as I drove by on my bike, one of them
took flight and then the whole flock took flight and as I drove by, they flew right over the top of my
bike and over my head and I thought ‘wow,’ I could hear their wings beating, I could hear every
little feather going past me and the wind rushing and I thought, that’s amazing. You’re never
going to experience it that way in a car.”


(sound of riding)


We have an uneventful ride, and Weichert drops his daughter off at daycare. Even on a frigidly cold day,
he’ll choose the longer, scenic route to the office. Today is no exception.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Chretien Plan Calls for Transport Changes

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien recently outlined a new long-term political agenda. It includes a proposal for major changes to transportation that would affect traffic bottlenecks at crossing points like the Ambassador Bridge. The Bridge is the biggest trading corridor between Canada and the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

The government of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien recently outlined a new long-
term political agenda. It includes a proposal for major changes to transportation that
would affect traffic bottlenecks at crossing points like the Ambassador Bridge. The
Bridge is the biggest trading corridor between Canada and the U.S. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


Prime Minister Jean Chretien calls it part of his Kyoto plan, which is intended to reduce
traffic congestion on the main highway link along the north shore of Lake Ontario all the
way to the U.S. border for almost 24 hours a day that highway looks more like a moving
warehouse as goods travel by truck north and south of the border.


But the emissions from thousands of trucks each day are creating smog from Toronto to
Buffalo to Detroit.


Chretien’s plan is to shift more truck traffic to rail and water.


Ken Ogilvie of the environmental organization, Pollution Probe, says it’s a positive step
but it needs more government incentives similar to those in the U.S.


“What the United States is ahead of us on and should and could do a lot more is on the
policy side of tying some of this funding to make sure there is improved rail and transit
systems.”


Ogilvie says further study would be needed to determine whether the plan would simply
shift environmental problems to the Great Lakes and to rail infrastructure on both sides of
the border.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk in Toronto.

GROUPS RALLY FOR ‘CAR FREE DAYS’

Cities around the world are taking part in a special celebration this month…promoting the idea of life without automobiles. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more on what’s known as “World Car Free Days”:

Transcript

Cities around the world are taking part in a special celebration this
Month, promoting the idea of life without automobiles. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more on what’s known as World
Car-Free Days:


Alternative transportation advocates environmentalists and bicycle
enthusiasts are pulling together over the next couple of weeks to get
more people thinking about the benefits of life without cars.


Events celebrating the idea will be held throughout North America this
week. Some cities, like Chicago, are expected to have critical mass
bike rides where hundreds of bicyclists will purposely slow car traffic
on major streets by riding in unison. About a thousand riders took
part in Chicago’s last such event in late August. Other events in the
Great Lakes region are scheduled to take place in Madison, Wisconsin
and Hamilton, Ontario.


This week also marks the 10th anniversary of the first ever critical
mass ride…held in San Francisco in 1992.


Street parties, public gift exchanges and theatre performances are also
planned for locations around the United States and the rest of the
world.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jerome Vaughn.

Cities Tackle Regional Planning Puzzle

In the mid-1960’s, the federal government started requiring metropolitan areas to come up with regional plans in order to get government grants for everything from highways to housing. That forced officials from large cities and from the suburbs to sit down at the same table (in many cases for the first time) and think about what was best for the entire region; not just their own town. From this effort, sprang the regional planning movement, but things aren’t always easy, and certainly don’t always go ‘according to plan.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one region’s attempt to plan for growth:

There are four major regional planning orgnizations in the Chicago metro area:

Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission
Chicago Area Transportation Study
Chicago Metropolis 2020
Metropolitan Planning Council

Transcript

In the
mid-1960’s, the federal government started requiring metropolitan areas to come up with regional plans in order to get government grants for everything from highways to housing. That forced officials from large cities and from the suburbs to sit down at the same table — in many cases for the first time — and think about what was best for the entire region, not just their own town. From this effort, sprang the regional planning movement. But things aren’t always easy and certainly don’t always go ‘according to plan.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one region’s attempt to plan for growth:

If you were to gather around the coffee pot in the morning at just about any place of business in just about any suburb of just about any big city, the topic of conversation would probably not be the weather, or last night’s big game, or even politics. Nope. More than likely it would be about how long it took to get to work. Lots of people drive an hour, ninety minutes, or even longer to make the commute. So, why not move closer, you might ask. The answer could very well be “Can’t afford it.”

Housing costs in many suburbs are so high that the people who teach the kids, fight the fires, and fix the cars in the nice suburbs have to live in other less affluent communities where housing is cheaper. That’s because city officials in many suburbs encourage the building of expensive houses on big lots because it means a better tax base. But that also means many workers need to hop in their cars to get to work in those fancy suburbs.

Of course, when thousands of cars line up bumper to bumper to make the commute, you get traffic congestion.

“If you think it’s bad now, just wait. It’s gonna get worse.”

That’s Frank Beale. He’s the Executive Director of a group named Chicago Metropolis 2020. Metropolis 2020 put together a plan that looked at the Chicago area’s growth patterns and came up with some pretty dire forecasts. According to the study, if the Chicago region conducts business as usual, by the year 2030 there will be a 75-percent increase in auto miles traveled for work, shopping, and normal everyday trips. The time it takes to drive to work will be up 27-percent. And only about seven-and-a-half percent of housing units will be within walking distance of mass transit.

Beale says there’s seems to be a disconnect between local governments’ decisions to encourage big, expensive houses and the resulting need for more roads and additional lanes of traffic to handle all the commuters.

“More equitable
distribution of affordable housing and the employment centers would diminish the demand on the transportation systems. We seem to always only talk about roads. But, we only need roads because of how we’ve configured the land in the region.” Beyond the travel concerns, business as usual — according to the Metropolis 2020 study — means another 383 square miles of farmland will become subdivisions and strip malls in less than 30 years.

Organizations such as Metropolis 2020 are working together to try to educate and persuade the Chicago region’s 275 suburban mayors that the decisions they make will have an effect on the whole region.

Larry Christmas was once one of those mayors. He’s also spent his career running or working for regional planning agencies. He says as a mayor, it’s hard to think about the larger region when you are working to bring good growth to your town. It’s especially hard when regional planners want you to give up local control of land-use for the betterment of the larger region.

“And that’s something the communities don’t want to give up lightly even if there’s a regional argument that the collective local decisions may add up to bad regional development patterns.”

So, those looking at the big picture have their work cut out for them. The regional planners spend a lot of time at meetings with local officials, putting together roundtables to explain plans and trying to schedule meetings between antagonists.

One of the partners of Metropolis 2020 is the Metropolitan Planning Council. Executive Director Mary Sue Barrett says sitting down with those different interests and getting them to consider the reasons for bending a little here and there to adhere to a regional plan can pay off.

“To put it in practical terms, if you can get an environmentalist and a homebuilder and a mayor to agree on something, you can probably go get it done. And that’s what we try to do.”

And the regional planners try to get the mayors to listen on topics ranging from fair and equitable housing, to public transportation, and even taxing systems that sometimes encourage bad development with tax breaks.

But given the kind of expansive sprawl that continues to plague the Chicago metropolitan area, there’s still one question you have to ask of people such as Frank Beale with Chicago Metropolis 2020. That is: who’s listening?

“Well, the general assembly, the legislators are listening, the Mayor, the 275 suburban mayors are listening. They don’t always agree, but they’re listening.”

And as long as they keep listening, the people looking for better regional planning will keep trying to persuade the cities in the suburbs there’s a better way.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

A Cure for Sprawl

Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary:

Transcript

Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary.


Urban sprawl is alive and well in Grand Rapids, my hometown. The term refers to the insidious way that webs of suburbs, manufacturing plants, etc., are expanding in unplanned, ever-widening circles around our city. Such sprawl results in longer commutes, pollution, and the loss of undeveloped land. The American Farmland Trust reports that 70% of the country’s prime farmland is now in the path of rapid development. On the list of 30 of the most sprawling cities in the entire United States, Grand Rapids, which has experienced a 48% increase in its urban area between 1990 and 1996, ranks right in the middle, behind such hyper-growth communities as Las Vegas, Austin, and Tucson, but well ahead of Cleveland, Chicago, and Portland in our rate of sprawl increase.


This Land-use change has rarely been done in a responsible fashion. Some sprawl apologists say what we’ve ended up with is that’s the American Dream, and any problems are easy to fix. They say there’s plenty of land left in America. They say congestion would go away if we just build more roads. But sprawl matters. Pollsters say it’s the most important issue in the Country.


Distress about urban sprawl arises from many factors: loss of open space, traffic congestion, economic segregation, a lack of affordable housing, and a lost sense of community. According to Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam, the longer people spend in traffic, the less likely they are to be involved in their community and family.


To solve these problems, it takes a combination of land conservation and real free market economics, which can actually provide smaller lots for those who want them. However, many communities try to maintain what they believe are high property values by allowing only large-lot homes to be built. This effectively excludes several types of households, including singles, some empty nesters, single-parents, and the elderly, along with lower-income people. And the favored “middle-class family” with kids, today represents just 25% of new homebuyers. Only 11% of U.S. households are “traditional” families with children and just one wage earner. One size no longer fits us all.


Here’s what we need now.


We need smaller houses in walkable clusters, town homes in real “towns,” lofts in vital urban neighborhoods, and affordable housing just about anywhere. The development of compact communities that offer urban amenities and street life will show that the market actually supports more density and more housing diversity—not less. But we’re not building communities like those; communities that can help reduce many symptoms of sprawl, including traffic. Instead, we’re just building new roads. But for every 10% increase in new freeway miles, a 9% increase in traffic is generated within 5 years as sprawl continues. You just can’t build your way out of gridlock. More importantly, today we can no longer afford to keep building new freeways. The key is building more walkable communities. All this depends on promoting different land-use patterns, and not just building new roads.


Property rights advocates argue against regional planning, or any planning for that matter. They say that people should have a right to develop their properties as they please. As a historic preservationist, I have heard that for years. But what if one person’s development decision adversely impacts another’s property, or the whole neighborhood, or the whole region? What if certain choices require more public tax dollars to pay for infrastructure and services than others? At the regional level, it is public dollars that enable development on private property. Without highways, roads, sewers, water systems, and public services, development cannot occur. Therefore, we must use the tool of government spending appropriately – and seek out and implement the most cost-effective public investments which creatively and positively support growth, but discourage sprawl. My name is John Logie, I’m the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

&Quot;Higher"-Speed Rail Study Unveiled

States in the Midwest are looking at a plan to link cities with faster passenger rail. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports…the plan would cost billions of dollars, but its backers say it will better serve mid-sized cities.