More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring
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Anonymous
Are you familiar with University Boulevard? |
Anonymous
So they shouldn't solicit input from people who this will impact most? That's the kind of top down governing I've come to expect from this county. |
Anonymous
Complete Streets is actually a terrible concept. I've never seen a Complete Street of any real size that works. Its all soundbite and no substance. Only two things work: 1. Separating unlike transportation modes as much as possible, and limiting their interactions. 2. Make everyone share the same space at the speed of the most vulnerable road user. #1 is why things like the beltway work better than University, and why Metro Rail beats Metro Bus and why the North East Corridor trains actually work, but Amtrak is never on time elsewhere. Its also why people bike more on trails than on busy roads. #2 is what you get in a woonerf or in some of those developments without sidewalks. Its also the logic behind "20 is plenty" The problem with the University area is that it was built in a suburban "fish bone" design, which funnels almost all traffic onto University. You can't fix that design problem with the solutions presented. Either leave it alone, or do a bigger project to redesign the entire corridor. |
Anonymous
They literally are soliciting input. The whole ostensible point of this thread is tell people about meetings where they are soliciting input. |
Anonymous
Alternatively, do what you can to make things better, recognizing that it won't be perfect, but also recognizing that "less bad" is an improvement over "bad." University Boulevard right now is terrible for everyone. There's no reason we should have to accept that, especially not when there are plenty of ways to improve it. |
Anonymous
A lot of University Blvd is already "the ghetto." |
Anonymous
They're checking off a box before they plow ahead with their plan they came up with in Cities:Skylines. |
Anonymous
It sounds like you're not complaining about failure to solicit input. You're complaining about anticipated failure to get your way. |
Anonymous
I'm complaining about their failure to actually listen to input. Soliciting and listening are two different things. These neighborhoods work fine as is. Don't disrupt the lives of middle class families for your urban dystopian fantasies |
Anonymous
NP. Some people will be for this (I am and this is where I live) and some people will be against it. You not getting your way isn't the same as "not listening to input." |
Anonymous
I’m not sure that people object to transportation changes just the zoning changes. |
Anonymous
Suppose they actually listen to your input, but they still don't do what you want? Or is it only "actually listening to" if they do what you want? I always think it's weird when people describe duplexes or apartments as dystopian fantasies, but I find it especially weird in the context of University Boulevard. It sounds to me like you're afraid of change, and I'm sorry for that. |
Anonymous
Anyone that has paid attention knows that this was pre decided and they have been laying the groundwork for years. Even the way that these items are studied and approved are compartmentalized so that you never see the big picture, and that keeps residents from aggregating their power. “Oh, that’s university, not near me…” The YIMBY cult is worse than Scientology. At least the Scientologists mostly keep to themselves. |
Anonymous
It’s not “on University,” that might make a little bit of sense. It’s 500 feet into the neighborhoods which could be several streets. I’d be pretty angry if I was in that zone and also angry about the schools and all of the cars parked everywhere. Oh, I forgot, they will all take the new magic bus everywhere. |
Anonymous
You are ignoring the real-world trade offs that are involved in something like vision zero. Traffic deaths will never be zero unless we reduce the speed limits to 15 mph everywhere. There are very serious and negative consequences to reducing the speed limits substantially. For example, my doctors office that is now 30 around minutes away will take me around 1 hour and 30 minutes to get to if we lower the speed limit to 15mph. Multiply increases in transportation time across all of the county residents and the amount of time wasted will be astronomical. MOCO only has 39 traffic deaths per year on average. Applying the average demographics of MOCO residents indicates the the each of these people that die in a car accident are losing about 341,871 hours of their life. So any policy that waste more than this amount of other peoples time each year for every death prevented in car accidents is not a smart policy decision. Increasing the average daily driving time by 6 minutes a day for even 10,000 county residents wastes more hours than of peoples time than the hours of life gained by a single person who does not die in a car accident. I am supportive of policies that reduce traffic deaths given that a sufficient cost-benefit analysis is conducted. But it is foolish to pretend that any of these policies provide a free lunch. There are tradeoffs with pursuing policies and the vision zero proponents are largely ignoring this. |