Categories
life Local

Connect the (U)DOTs

Two big red flags went up for me this morning when I read UDOT picks Corridor link. First, UDOT is not communicating very well. Second, the media coverage is allowing some misinformation to result from gaps in the story they get from UDOT.

Flag 1: I heard from C.O.S.T., the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Daily Herald, and a citizens group in South Lehi that UDOT had arrived at 2100 North as their preferred alternative. The problem here is that I did not hear from the UDOT mailing list on the Mountain View Corridor that I am subscribed to. Worse than that, the UDOT website still says that they have not identified a preferred alignment in Utah County. I’m sure this is more neglect than malice, but it erodes whatever trust that citizens may have who have an interest in the project. If subscribing to the project email list at UDOT does not get citizens in the loop for news as major as selecting a preferred alternative of the project it is hard to believe that UDOT is trying to work with citizens. It looks like they’re working without citizens.

Flag 2: Two of the three news articles (Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune) mention that Lehi city and groups like C.O.S.T. have proposed an alternative plan that would include a freeway at 4800 North, but then we start to have a breakdown. Both references list the alternative as a freeway at 4800 North and two arterial roads. That leaves the impression that this plan is very similar to the Arterials option that UDOT rejected. There are some similarities, but one major difference is that the Lehi City proposal has “arterials” that are significantly smaller than the arterials that UDOT had proposed. The UDOT arterials are 7 lanes each – about the same size as a freeway. The second gap in the media coverage is that the coverage of the impact of the different alternatives shows that 2100 North is the best alternative, but it does not include any impact of the Lehi City proposal for comparison.

The “arterials” in the Lehi City proposal will be called “boulevards”. This will help clarify what plan we are talking about and it is the name that Lehi city uses in their plan. These two boulevards can be built much cheaper than the UDOT arterials and without destroying any homes. They can be built faster and for less money than the UDOT arterials and start their positive impact on the traffic earlier. They would also be slower roads which makes less impact on the community while allowing for the smaller boulevards to carry approximately the same amount of traffic as the larger arterials.

The boulevards would also augment commercial development in the area where the arterials would impede that development. Lehi would benefit from more revenue from the commercial development, but further benefit comes from local jobs which would reduce the need for commuting. More people would have the chance to have a job close to home rather than needing to commute to Salt Lake or Provo/Orem.

The freeway connection that Lehi City has proposed at 4800 North would be about half as long as the 2100 North freeway from UDOT and would not impact any homes or destroy commercially valuable zones. So while the 2100 North option is probably the best one that UDOT has proposed, it does not appear to be the best option that has been suggested.

I don’t think that UDOT can safely make a decision until they address the Lehi City plan (which UDOT helped to develop before they started the Mountain View Corridor) side by side with their alternatives. I don’t think they are really doing themselves or the public any favors by only sharing half the information and ignoring a better option than the one they are pushing.

Categories
General

What Makes a Good Candidate

I have begun to think about what attributes a good candidate should have. It started with the thought which has long prevented me from seriously considering running for public office, which is that I am not flashy. People do not pick me out of a crowd for any reason unless they know me. That made me wonder how I would try to appeal to people if I were running for office. The answer seems blindingly obvious now, I would let people get to know me, and try to get to know them. That would mean meeting with people in small groups where we could interact personally.

At first I thought this would rule out a large campaign. While those campaigns are known for the advertisements and flyers and speeches to crowds of thousands, I think that a candidate with a good organization could focus his time on meeting individuals while his organization took care of the advertisements and arranging the speeches to large audiences. In fact I think that the candidate would be better able to inspire the kind of grassroots campaign that everyone talks about if they focus their energy on inspiring individuals by letting people get to know them and feel connected and committed to them.

The more I think about it, I realize that the people that make the worst officials (in my experience) are those who lose touch with the people they are supposed to represent. In some cases they never really knew and understood their constituencies in the first place.

Does anyone want to add their thoughts on the subject?

Categories
technology

Transit Options in Less Populous Areas

One of the problems that I have been thinking about with the growth taking place in Utah County is the balance that we need to strike between addressing the current needs and preparing for future needs, all with current resources. I am a vocal proponent of getting good transit here now and in the future, but how do you justify running light rail out to Cedar Fort when there are so few people living in Cedar Valley right now. Thankfully I was introduced to DMU’s which narrow the gap between no transit and transit that can’t be justified without large populations. DMU’s are being considered as a way to connect people outside the most populous areas of the Wasatch Front to the Frontrunner system that is being built to serve the main population bases north and south of Salt Lake City.

Essentially a DMU (diesel multiple-unit) is a single-unit self propelled vehicle that runs on rails. If the rails are compatible with light rail or commuter rail systems (and I’d like to find out if this is the case) they could be used as an introductory transit option in areas where the population is not yet dense enough to support the larger systems – especially in areas like the north and west parts of Utah County where we know that the population will become large enough to support a transit system like Salt Lake County already has. They can also be used to connect the further outlying areas with the main transit systems that serve the larger population centers.

Categories
culture life

Commercial Zones

I was pleased to see my view on city planning represented in yesterdays Transportation Watch. That view being the need to make space for commercial areas in order to lessen the need for commuting – that is the number one way to reduce traffic in the long term. That article also mentioned a good example of such planning in the land that is being developed by Kennecott. They call it the “poster child for doing it right.” Today I found an article on the groundbreaking of the first commercial areas in the Kennecott development.

The thing that really interests me about this is that it is a rare thing when an existing city has the chance to implement this kind of strategic planning after the city has been well established. Luckily, I think that Lehi has that opportunity. Especially in conjunction with Saratoga Springs, we have enough land still undeveloped, and enough land which is ready for some revitalization, that we can still make a pretty god mix of commercial with our residential within Lehi specifically and the northwest part of Utah County in general. The key will be to start planning and acting now before this already small window of opportunity closes due to haphazard development.

Categories
life

Potential Candidate

I think I would make a great elected official. That is, I think I have the qualities that I would like to see in candidates and elected officials at all levels of government. I’m intelligent and interested in learning a wide variety of new things, I care about our government and society, and I like to find solutions that are good now and beneficial to future society.

One of my core perspectives when I discuss issues was perfectly stated by Jason Black while I was talking to him yesterday – I always have the underlying question in all my thinking, "what can we do about this from where we are?" One answer to that with regard to political issues is to get involved. Laura and I have talked about this for some time and concluded that we want to do that.

I have decided to actively explore my options with regard to running for public office at some time in the future. That is a nice vague announcement. Initially it means that I will continue to share my ideas about current issues of the day in hopes that I can get a sense for what ideas resonate with other people. I have been asked before if I would consider running for office. (I have asked others the same question about their willingness to run.)

I will be looking to figure out whether local people are interested in the areas of local politics that I am concerned with. I will want to know if people in my state are concerned about the same issues that concern me on the state level and if the like my perspective on those problems. I will want to discover if, by some chance, my perspectives on our national political issues resonate with a wider audience.

So let me know what you think about my ideas and the issues that I cover. Am I right, or wrong? Are the issues I consider relevant, or superfluous? Do I deserve votes based on those ideas?

Keep in mind, on the local level that more is happening on the state and national levels at any given time. Unless I start to hone in on local issues I will likely have more to say about things at those larger levels. This is not meant to reflect greater interest in those levels of government – only to acknowledge that they provide more fodder for commentary.

Categories
Local

Regional Transportation Plans

Yesterday on Radio West the show was discussing the 2030 Transportation Plan. The 2030 transportation plan is focused on the Salt Lake Valley, but it includes the Mountain View Corridor and the Mountainland Association of Governments has a plan with a similar scope. I listened to the program with interest as many callers expressed concerns similar to mine that too much reliance on roads brings more congestion in the longterm.

One concern the planners had with putting in transit options is that they are inefficient where there is significant open space between residential areas. Considering that these plans are focused on transportation through areas that are sparsely populated right now, that sounds like a valid concern. In response to that, Marc Heileson from the Sierra Club made two compelling observations: that people cannot choose to use transit if it is not available; and that a good transit system is more than just a transit option.

A good transit system makes it easy to get between places that you need to go so that the advantages of a car are not significant when compared to the transit system. Mr. Heileson also noted that transit systems are less sensitive to changes in volume of use than roads are. Based on discussions with some of my family members who live north of Salt Lake and are affected by the changes in the transit system that are being implemented there I feel safe in concluding that it is easier to plan a good transit system in advance than it is to build or modify a transit system in established areas.

Another thought that was briefly covered in the program was the idea that transportation planning could help to shape growth and traffic patterns, and not just react to the existing and projected patterns.

Virtually absent from the discussion is the fact that transportation plans can react to poorly planned development, but they cannot truly overcome that development. Transit alone is not enough in order to have the high quality living conditions in a growing region like ours. Equally important, if not more so, is the planning for commercial and industrial development. This is important so that cities have a commercial tax base and also so that residents have employment options without being forced into long commutes. This is one area where Lehi, and the northern end of Utah County in general have not traditionally done very well. Based on the plans I have seen from the city of Lehi I am hopeful that this situation will be remedied in the coming years.

I was planning to give a detailed breakdown of the Mountainland Association of Governments’ regional transportation plan, but I think this post is too long already so I’ll save that for another day.

Categories
culture

Buying Local

There is nothing completely new in the premise of Scott’s Buying Local Saves? I’m fairly sure that I have heard stories almost exactly like this one:

. . . Kelly Cobb’s effort to make a suit of clothes using only resources available within a 100-mile radius of Philadelphia. ‘The suit took a team of 20 artisans [eighteen] months to produce — 500 man-hours of work in total.’

That should serve as conclusive evidence that you can prove almost anything with the right setup. Scott does a good job of illuminating some of the reasons that cause these kinds of results and calls into question the theory behind local-only shopping. The thing that held my interest is that I have preferences towards that kind of behavior, for some similar reasons to what he discusses.

There is a major difference though – I do not favor local products and services strictly for some moral good, and I don’t favor them in all cases. I think I would call my purchasing habits a pragmatic approach to buying local. I favor getting my hair cut at the local barbershop because I see no reason to pay my money to Great Clips or any other chain. I am especially pleased by the fact that the local barbershop is no more expensive, and I like the haircuts better than the chain stores. I also shop at the local grocery store rather than Walmart. I know some people who think Walmart is evil, but my reasons are much more mundane. I like the fact that the local grocer is not open on Sundays – I like to support businesses that don’t live in the 24/7 world of business. I also like the fact that the local grocery store is only one third the distance from my house as the nearest chain grocery store.

What it really comes down to is the fact that I have tried to divorce myself from the idea that saving a penny is always worth the cost. I save more in time, energy, and fuel by shopping local than I spend extra because their merchandise is 3 cents more expensive per item than Walmart. My favorite result of this new mindset is the freedom to look at things from more than just a checkbook perspective. It’s quite liberating.

Categories
General

Community Activism

I have been involved with a citizens group which is initially acting out of concern over some of the proposals for the Mountain View Corridor. We have met with representatives of UDOT to voice our concerns and today we received the report that they are now more seriously investigating/considering the options which we viewed more favorably for the project – namely the northern freeway alignments. We know that our job is not finished, but it is nice to see that we can have an impact when we get together.

I have previously mentioned this group, and I briefly had a poll on this site where the group could choose an official name. That is still ongoing, but I would like to talk a little more about the group as an example of how democracy and activism should work. First of all, it is local. Activism on a national level has its place, but too often issues which should be managed locally are getting shoved onto a larger stage. Second, the purpose of the group is not a single issue – such as the road we are discussing right now. Our purpose is to help create the best community that we can. Having a goal that is too narrow tends to create short-lived groups, or else the groups are prone to make poor choices that forward their view at the cost of a greater benefit that can be achieved. We hope that by actively considering the long-term good of our community and by proactively working with those who make decisions that affect us we will be able to avoid making choices that are good in the short term but which we will have to correct or reverse later.

This initial impact on the road gives us hope that we can be an influence for good now and in the future.

Categories
life meta

Citizenship

I am very interested in being an active participant in my community. Currently I am participating with a community group which has yet to name itsself. Members of the group should be getting an email soon from our group leader inviting them to come to my site and vote in the poll on my sidebar in an effort to chose a name for ourselves. I will continue to give some updates on the group activities here, although more details will be available when our group gets a name and a website (pending).