On the Stroad, Ferguson and the predictability of auto-oriented decline.

And what is a stroad?

A STROAD is a street/road hybrid and, besides being a very dangerous environment (yes, it is ridiculously dangerous to mix high speed highway geometric design with pedestrians, bikers and turning traffic), they are enormously expensive to build and, ultimately, financially unproductive.

Now, on to Ferguson, Missouri. As the author observes, he cannot comment on the racial aspect, but can offer a few ideas about how we Americans so enjoy designing for decline.

Stroad Nation, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

We can’t over-simplify the dynamics of all that has happened in Ferguson, but it’s obvious that our platform for building places is creating dynamics primed for social upheaval. The auto-oriented development pattern is a huge financial experiment with massive social, cultural and political ramifications. It is time to start building strong towns ...

... What I see with Ferguson is a suburb deep into the decline phase of the Suburban Ponzi Scheme. The housing styles suggest predominantly 1950’s and 1960’s development. We’re past the first cycle of new (low debt and low taxes), through the second cycle of stagnation (holding on with debt and slowly increasing taxes) and now into predictable decline. There isn’t the community wealth to fix all this stuff -- and there never was -- so it is all slowly falling apart.

Decline isn’t a result of poverty. The converse is actually true: poverty is the result of decline.

Uncertain Slate Run improvements merely a symptom of the street grid malaise.

I walked home from work today, east on Spring Street against traffic.

Three times I came to an intersection with a vehicle traveling southbound. Not one time out of the three did the driver so much look right (west) before rolling forward -- twice slowly, once without stopping at the stop sign.

How may times must this point be made?

One way streets are a tremendous impediment to walker safety.

And yet by almost all reputable indices, walking is what we need to encourage in order to make good on the downtown revitalization we've achieved to date. Everyone involved with city government claims to grasp this ... and we can do nothing save reach for the low-hanging fruit on Main Street (read: state money).

Meanwhile, just a bit further from downtown, but still inside the beltway, we're playing political games with the Slate Run corridor. Read the comments below, and ask yourself this question: Apart from our cars, how the hell are we going to get to $19 million worth of new parks?

One more: Wouldn't it be better if we could use or legs or our bicycles to get to these facilities?

And to conclude: But if the city's street grid was navigable by residents on foot or riding, and not in their cars, wouldn't it make the whole city a recreational facility?

The state of Slate Run Road; Residents vocal about project, but status of Slate Run improvements uncertain, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

A SAFETY ISSUE

Around this time each year, hundreds of children begin their classes at Slate Run Elementary School.

Kate Caufield and her husband hoped their children would be able to walk to Slate Run Elementary when they moved to a street near the school.

But after realizing sidewalks are scarce along Slate Run Road, they quickly changed their plans.

“I can hear the kids playing on the playground at recess from my house, but I have no way to get [my children] there except to drive them,” Caufield said.

Webb raised her children in her house off Slate Run Road, and they also attended Slate Run Elementary.

“Of course I could never let them walk to school,” she said.

An avid jogger, Caufield finds herself driving to adjoining neighborhoods in order to find sidewalks where she can safely run.

“You’re kind of at the mercy of people letting you run through their yards” on Slate Run Road, she said.

Amerson’s wife also regularly walks for exercise, and like Caufield, she drives to another neighborhood where there are sidewalks to use.

Caufield has run in the street a few times, and said some motorists on Slate Run Road expressed their displeasure with having a pedestrian in the street.

“It’s frustrating and it’s dangerous,” she said.

Pedestrians and cyclists have little safe haven along Slate Run without using private properties or diving into a ditch when a car speeds by, residents said.

However, the safety concerns aren’t just limited to pedestrian use. Webb said she regularly sees vehicles speeding up and down the road, as she estimated some of the cars, trucks and motorcycles were traveling 50 to 60 mph, well above the 30 mph speed limit.

Whether it’s more stop signs, speed bumps or even a roundabout, Benedetti said more traffic-calming measures need to be added on the road.

The administration has projects planned to improve Main Street, Mount Tabor Road and another segment of Grant Line Road.

Amerson conceded he doesn’t know the traffic count for Slate Run Road, and can’t insist that a project for the street would be more important than upgrading other thoroughfares in the city.

But he added that Slate Run is a busy road that needs attention, and he credited Benedetti for raising the issue before the redevelopment commission last month.

“I would just hope the Slate Run Road project would not go to the back of the agenda,” Amerson said.

New Albany kiddie athletics: More money than balls.

It's only a matter of time until the News and 'Bune's Chris Morris gratefully defers to his county elder political heroes on this issue, so let's instead look at the story as reported by Grace Schneider of the Courier-Journal.

New Albany mayor, Little League at odds over location of new ballpark complex

New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan and the leaders of the New Albany Little League are locked in a battle over competing plans to build a new youth baseball and softball complex.

Both the city and New Albany Little League officials have released statements saying they intend to build ballfield complexes — and each is criticizing the other’s plans.

NAC co-editor Jeff Gillenwater's thoughts at Facebook mirror my own.

All the backdoor scheming to move New Albany Little League out of New Albany reflects very poorly on county government, the Little League, the new Floyd County Parks Board, and the Horseshoe Foundation. It represents some of the ugliest politics I've seen in Floyd County, every Little League parent stereotype proven true ... people who use the terms "Little League" and "economic driver" interchangeably should be banned from activities involving children.

But the issues go deeper. In a city noted for its chaotic, poorly plotted and frankly archaic street grid, one that reduces humans choosing not to travel by automobile to a degraded status as second-class citizens, the Redevelopment Commission has indicated that up to $19 million might be bonded for aquatics, soccer and Little League ball fields.

Owing to the comprehensive absence of transportation infrastructure not exclusively dependent on private cars, all of these recreation facilities, if built, will require even more auto-centric infrastructure to use than we have now ... and what we have now needs to be drastically altered.

All this money for sports, and just two years ago, didn't the departing England administration insists that the million bucks or so needed to facilitate downtown street conversions simply couldn't be found?

It becomes increasingly evident that prioritization has been removed from the gene pool of the city's political culture.

What's missing isn't money. It's balls ... and I'm not talking about the kind you fungo, either.

Doom and gloom beneath the rotted kitchen formica as city, county agree to demolish the North Annex.

Actually, they didn't agree -- yet, but it's looking like a done deal. I'd much rather save the Annex and demolish Wal-Mart; after all, the 800-zillion pound gorilla's ten years probably is approaching, signalling a move to Edwardsville or Birdseye.

New Albany hopes to develop pool at Community Park; Floyd County to keep sports center in agreement reached Tuesday, by Daniel Suddeath (That 'Bama Show)

New Albany will be responsible for the costs of building, maintaining and operating the aquatic center if it comes to fruition. An important side note to the agreement is that the city and county would jointly split the costs to demolish any structures on the property necessary to construct the aquatic center.

Demolition could include the North Annex building, which has been vacant since the Floyd County Youth Shelter and solid waste office moved to the Pine View Government Center.

A plan and statement released by the city and county Tuesday didn’t include exact details for demolitions or construction of the aquatic center. The plan did specify the division of parks equipment and property.

There's an interesting addendum within Grace Schneider's C-J coverage:

 ... The deal also calls for the city to “provide support of the county’s proposed public plaza concept near the aquatic center on the existing annex property at Sam Peden.

Obviously, we can kiss the Annex goodbye. Too bad that somewhere, tacked on the pool and baseball field bonds, there isn't a spare million or so not otherwise allotted for maintenance of Bob Caesar's driveway up Silver Hills that we might use to complete a few streets.