The second half of the 20th Century was filled with poor urban planning decisions all over the United States which ended up being detrimental to our collective quality of life. One of the major contributors to this bad planning is the notion of a road in the shape of a loop or circle. A circuitous route is not efficient in getting from point A to point B. Beltways, loops, by-passes, etc. are all ploys to develop more land in inefficient ways-- creating more congestion, traffic, and disorganized sprawl. The justification that "other cities have this" is not acceptable and is not a rational justification to alter the local landscape this way. New Braunfels does not need to follow bad examples done in Houston or Los Angeles or we will suffer unneeded decreases in quality of life.
6 comments:
And Phoenix!
Is New Braunfels trying to get a NASCAR event to come to town? Why in the world would they want a loop like this? Is anyhone really going to just drive around the city? Is this supposed to be a by-pass? Do businesses want people to by-pass our town? I went to the meeting, and none of the people could answer why a loop or a circle. It is just a dumb idea. I am so glad to see that other people agree.
Phoenix travel is not so bad considering its size. Outoside of the highways, the city was laid out in a true grid with wide six lane roads every mile. In many desert cities, there are many options to travel, but they almost always include 90 degree travel paterns which does make the trip longer. The hill country cannot be laid out in a grid due to topography.
A loop does not normally bypass traffic, but it handles local traffic in travels within and out of the community. It also allows for growth to happen in a manner that take maximum advantage of roads built near it. If all the growth occurs along Walnut and County Line, Then we will soon see a blogsite complaining about the lack of a "loop" to help with the congestion created by people driving towards IH35.
Again, Urban planning is volatile amongst Urban Planners themselves. While many top planners disagree about what "smart planning" is, true progressive planners understand that their cooperative efforts in progress means finding a way to influence the planning versus opposing all progress to stand on their own model of progress without being flexible.
OK - I couldn't let it go. I used to be a Senior Planner in Maricopa County (Phoenix metro area) and the transportation network is a mess. While some municipalities have made strides in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and transit, I really disagree with the idea that Phoenix would be a good peer city for New Braunfels, or any city for that matter. It might be a good place to look and learn from their mistakes, but more importantly, a holistic look at planning on a regional level along with regional and local transportation planning before decisions are made about corridor placement.
Again, I disagree with your assessment of the state of the discipline of transportation planning. I feel this plan is a detriment to planning, forward and innovative thinking and just a bad idea. I don't think the City got their money's worth out of this study - and that is probably due to the poorly articulated goals and narrow scope given to the consultants.
Let's go back to the drawing board, with all that we know, learn more about smart growth/planning and COME UP WITH SOMETHING BETTER for everyone.
It seems like the supporters of the plan are grasping at straws in backing this plan. It is a bad plan with little support. As a resident of this community this is frustrating.
PS Lets stay on topic.
When you look at livable cities, places like Portland, Boulder and Minneapolis invariably come up, in spite of some pretty strong negatives, such as weather. Minneapolis has a loop, sort of, but Portland and Boulder don't and both are a lot larger than NB. This is all about certain people cashing in on real estate as it always is in Texas.
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