Couple of things
- This whole park-and-ride lot thing is a fiasco. Like many of the residents, I just don't see how feasible or likely it is that it will be extensively used. Most of the park-and-ride lots I encounter elsewhere in the state sit mostly empty, and I don't think this would be best use of land. Nor do I think any of the proposed locations are good sites (the Willowwood Shopping Center? Really?) for this type of venture. I know it's money that is specifically earmarked for something, and that we have to use it or it will disappear, but if it's for something that the community doesn't necessarily want or think will be adequately used, why waste federal money on something which will dramatically impact our environment?
- This is a darn fine editorial by the Athens Banner-Herald. Primarily because it points out the fact that, rather than honestly work to sell his ideological vision of educational vouchers for the state, Sen. Eric Johnson has couched his beliefs in a bill for special needs students with some clever slight-of-hand. But, as the editorial points out, if you consider the competing House bill, then private schools lose some of their autonomy in making decisions by being forced to accept additional requirements to get the voucher money. The Senate bill, however, doesn't take into consideration the fact that many private schools simply don't offer the necessary programs to assist special needs students.
- It's staggering to me how many editors missed the point of this story of President Bush decrying CEO salaries. The whole story is maddening. Buried in bottom paragraphs is the fact that Bush concedes that the gap between the rich and poor has been steadily growing and that economic disparity has soared under his presidency. So here he reveals a problem that the rest of the country has pretty much known, acknowledges it occurred under his watch (and largely due to his policies), hypocritically berates CEOS for benefitting and then proposes absolutely nothing.
- This poor guy's columns get more and more unusual to me. Let's put aside the fact that the reason Iran is taking an interest in Iraq is not to kill Americans, but to exert influence in that country since we, you know, took out their biggest rival a few years back. But it doesn't seem to be a rational strategy for success to publicallly humiliate the Iraqi government we're desperately trying to keep from going under.
- People ... it's January 2007. If this was, say, November of this year, you might have a point. But waiting a mere 10 days to get a more detailed New Media approach isn't that big of a deal.
- Who knew? Apparently Sonny Perdue is a potential GOP vice-presidential candidate. Wow.
- Liberal icon Molly Ivins passed away yesterday. She was a rare breed, and her candid and witty writing will be sorely missed.
- This is a darn fine editorial by the Athens Banner-Herald. Primarily because it points out the fact that, rather than honestly work to sell his ideological vision of educational vouchers for the state, Sen. Eric Johnson has couched his beliefs in a bill for special needs students with some clever slight-of-hand. But, as the editorial points out, if you consider the competing House bill, then private schools lose some of their autonomy in making decisions by being forced to accept additional requirements to get the voucher money. The Senate bill, however, doesn't take into consideration the fact that many private schools simply don't offer the necessary programs to assist special needs students.
- It's staggering to me how many editors missed the point of this story of President Bush decrying CEO salaries. The whole story is maddening. Buried in bottom paragraphs is the fact that Bush concedes that the gap between the rich and poor has been steadily growing and that economic disparity has soared under his presidency. So here he reveals a problem that the rest of the country has pretty much known, acknowledges it occurred under his watch (and largely due to his policies), hypocritically berates CEOS for benefitting and then proposes absolutely nothing.
- This poor guy's columns get more and more unusual to me. Let's put aside the fact that the reason Iran is taking an interest in Iraq is not to kill Americans, but to exert influence in that country since we, you know, took out their biggest rival a few years back. But it doesn't seem to be a rational strategy for success to publicallly humiliate the Iraqi government we're desperately trying to keep from going under.
- People ... it's January 2007. If this was, say, November of this year, you might have a point. But waiting a mere 10 days to get a more detailed New Media approach isn't that big of a deal.
- Who knew? Apparently Sonny Perdue is a potential GOP vice-presidential candidate. Wow.
- Liberal icon Molly Ivins passed away yesterday. She was a rare breed, and her candid and witty writing will be sorely missed.
posted by Jmac at 8:16 AM
10 Comments:
RE: park-and-ride
Well, I support the concept though the devil is in the details. I must confess I'm a bit surprised by your negative stance. This kind of transportation infrastructure represents long-term thinking. Without accusing you of being one of the vast majority of Americans who tend to think that "long-term" means anthing from 6 months to 5 years, I will say that our collective short-term thinking, common to societies that are long past serious want, dooms too many great ideas as "not workable" since the best results are further down the road from something like "next Tuesday". It's an afflication of affluence, I'm afraid.
At some point, we're going to be wishing that we had this kind of infrastructure and the opportunity to begin it is here and now. It has been several years (only the most recent several years!) since I've heard any professional transportation planners try to make the case that we can continue to pave our way out of congestion. (Never mind the health and environmental concerns for now - we're talking transportation infrastructure for the moment.) Mass transit of various kinds - local and regional - is something that most of the civilized world recognizes as sensible and convenient and down-right necessary given that it's just plain stupid to waste valuable land resources for parking automobiles. Trying to accomodate an insatiable need for private automobiles as a primary transportation mode is a lose-lose proposition - especially in urban areas.
Now, what of the actual plans for this park-and-ride for which we have received funding which we must use or lose? I haven't been involved in any of the discussions or plans but I know that I'd like to see a few things from it:
1) a pervious (sp?) surface so that it doesn't contribute to our growing stormwater run-off problems;
2) a phased approach so that we acquire the land needed for the full project but only develop a portion of that land in the immediate future and hold the rest for future expansion;
3) some small retail spaces for convenience items and food (to be leased to the private sector, of course)
4) some small but welcoming public space - like an indoor/sheltered waiting area
5) bicycle lockers
6) adequate motorcycle/scooter parking
7) connectivity to rail-to-trails and other bike lanes/paths
8) world-class pedestrian access!
There are probably lots of other good ideas...
As far as the east-side residents' concerns, I can sympathize a little bit but, you've got to build it somewhere where there is a need and the east-side can be demonstrated as ONE (note, not the ONLY ONE) area where the need is quite obvious.
Finally, if and when, UGA finally makes it less attractive to have so many cars on campus then we should see ridership soar. As long as UGA keeps building more parking on campus, they are really working against the park-and-ride concept.
Also, if private carriers, like ARMC, St. Mary's, the chicken plants, Athens Tech, etc. would run their own shuttles to the park-and-ride for their employees then usage would dramatically improve.
This is just a good idea (that could go bad if handled poorly) and the time to build it is now! Actually, I should say the time to build the FIRST one is now - we'll need more in the future.
Think long-term or, we probably won't have one...
I didn't think you were accusing me of not thinking long-term, and you know me well enough to appreciate that wasn't the case in this scenario. In fact, I share your concerns regarding this 'afflication of affluence' and the inability for folks to think what's best for our community 10 years down road rather than 10 minutes.
Regarding park-and-ride, I have issues with this specific instance, and some general questions about the long-term viability of that proposal. Again, as you know, I'm all for developing a comprehensive system of alternative transportation. My concern is with how viable something like a park-and-ride might be down the road. To date, the concept hasn't had much success in a variety of communities across the state.
However, most of the park-and-rides don't have the eight proposals you laid out. If you could incorporate those elements, as well as perhaps a connectivity to a mass transportation outlet, than I'd be more open to it.
The problem I have with this particular one is that, even though it technically isn't, it feels often hurried. As a result, I have a fear we're going to stick this thing either in a place where it can do little good or in a portion of town where folks will oppose it.
Concerning UGA, I just don't see it being in their long-term plans to develop park-and-ride lots. Possibly for their employees and faculty, but for students, with the addition of dorm space on campus, it's understandable to see why they will add on-campus parking. In doing so, it just makes sense to offer a portion of that space to employees and faculty, thus exacerbating the situation rather than alleviating it.
Re: the gap b/w richest and poorest,
I don't think this is really the problem. Saying so is a Marxist ploy. Commie.
Seriously, it is the condition of the worst off in terms of "real" wealth (their quality of life, etc.) that matters, and not how much distance there might be between their level and the people at the top. Just to be silly to illustrate the point, if we all made 100k a year (in current spending power), what does it matter how much Bill Gates makes?
I don't mean that there isn't a problem with poverty in this country. The worst off our too bad off, and we should care about that. But the problem isn't the "gap", it's simply how bad off the worst off are.
OK, not to nominate myself for New Contrarian of the Month but, there are some of your contentions that I simply cannot accept:
1) park-and-ride lots have been largely failures - nope. I can't accept your anecdotal evidence as compelling. I can probably find at least one success for every failure you can cite but, I don't want to play that. Neither of us has the time for that.
2) this specific instance is somehow "bad" - what specific instance? we don't have a design or a location at this point so there really isn't a specific instance for us to joust over. All we currently have is a budget and a concept and I think we've established that we mostly agree on the concept and the budget doesn't require our agreement because it just is what it is.
We seem to sort of agree on the long-term view but, just to make my side a bit more clear: I'd say the jury is out for at least 10 years after this first whatever/wherever opens for business. I'm actually being overly generous with the 10-year mark; I'd be much more comfortable with giving it 20 years before declaring success or failure.
I must have been very unclear about the UGA part - I don't envision or even support or even suggest that UGA build park-n-ride lots. Rather, I was suggesting that UGA needs to stop building parking lots and/or decks of any and all kinds (for on campus activities). They need to figure out how to reduce the number of cars parked on campus rather than continue trying to accomodate them.
Think of this - what if they had decided to use the extremely rare and valuable land they now own for academic buildings rather than warehousing vehicles that don't really need to be on campus to begin with - I will exempt dorms if you like? Maybe they wouldn't have to take over Greek houses for their next major expansions if they had not squandered the land on parking.
Giving this just a bit more thought, I keep thinking about the world's truly great cities and how they handle transportation. One thing that keeps coming back to me - you don't need to own a car in about 90% of them. In fact, in lots of them, owning a car totally sucks! You can neither drive it nor park it so, it's just a damn nuisance for most of the citizenry. We're at least 20 years away from that point but, that brings me right back to my main point - 20 years out is how we should be thinking and planning.
Now, about that pesky location stuff...we definitely need to locate these things near places where people already live and/or on their way to where they want to go. As much as I think parking lots are quite stupid, I have not missed the irony that I'm advocating for a public parking lot that uses valuable land. *sigh*
I still don't know quite how to reconcile that one...
The Southern Region Poultry Genetics Laboratory on College Station sits largely unused, its buildings in disrepair. It's that open area across from Mark Twain Circle, with the white chicken coops, not the horse pastures. I do not know exactly how the University controls the land (whether it is leased to them or it is BoR's property), but it seems to me the location would be very workable as a park-n-ride lot, swallowing up much of the traffic on College Station (and possibly Lexington if there were more awareness) before it ever gets to the loop. Athens Transit already runs a morning bus along that route (Route 28). Barnett Shoals, Whitehall Rd, and Old Lexington pretty much all intersect at that area. The University could greatly benefit from having that be an off-campus location for tailgating during the football season (without using the intramural fields to the consternation of the students), and it would not be too much of an inconvenience (so I believe) to extend UGA's East Campus Express or the Orbit lines to that area or to dedicate a UGA bus following the same or a similar route as Athens Transit's Route 28. Also, International Drive already has a traffic light in place.
The land is already flat and prepared (so we don't have to cut down many trees and grade the land) and has some natural buffers to neighboring residents. Also, this location is further away from the river than the cloverleaf, as well as the wastewater treatment facility off Bailey Street (I can imagine all the park-n-riders complaining of the smell and opting to not use the lot because of that). Speaking of the Eastside residents, an increase in bussing to this area will (I'd like to think) reduce the need for automobiles to drive downtown, and thus further along the larger Eastside goal of creating a pedestrian friendly area. I think, though, this may be one of those ironic things, since the people living farther out will still have to drive through Eastside to get to the park-n-ride.
But it seems that UGA, for whatever reasons, still wants to hold onto that land. From the documents, I'm not sure what property "east of Riverbend Rd" is talked about, and if someone knows if that also included the SRPGL, I'd like to know. Anyway, just a thought that's been on my mind since I first heard about this idea.
And, Xon, in order to determine how "bad" something is, one needs something such as a standard of judgment, which necessarily involves a scaling or a measuring of degrees. I think you are right that one has to consider the conditions of the worst off, but I am not sure if there is anything such as an absolute measure or standard for determining "worst" without also holding to some measure or standard of "best". In other words, the gap is relevant if there is any sense of "worst".
Awareness of the gap is necessary to tell us who the worst off are, Charles, but it's not what tells us whether the worst off are unacceptably bad off.
So, if the standard of living is very high as a result of the bourgeois attempt to capture the trappings of life at the very highest levels of wealth, then is our judgment of what is or is not "acceptable" not influenced by that culture's habits and tastes? I am not understanding your disagreement here, since, as I see it, it is the society that determines at what economic level someone can enter into it. The very fact that you and I, with access to the technology holding up the internet, are having this conversation, given that we have this leisure time to do so, is indicative of the fact that we have more material possessions and economic liberties than others. Now, if the culture we lived in was among the Kombai of Irian Jaya, access to the internet would be completely useless and pointless, for either leisure or education or work. But, because the culture and society of the United States increasingly demands material access to the internet and technologically efficient (hyper-)communication (just add up all of the commercials you hear daily which either mention the internet or sell you wireless contraptions or just assume that your life includes having a home computer), a demand that is driven by the need to be comparable to the efficiencies afforded by wealth, those who are unable to keep up with the pace financially will fall behind and lose access to what is steadily becoming, for life in the United States, basic.
As you, a supporter of some capitalist notions, are fond of noting (or at least how I will rephrase the idea), the free market's habit of finding the best exchanges in its own design space pushes the level of efficiency towards more cost-effective designs. It so happens that Western capitalism has found that efficient means of exchange occur with more advanced methods of producing computing machines; we live on the side of the cultural world that seeks to have smaller, more powerful computers do our work to save our money so that we can benefit from the lifestyle these machines produce for us. The newest innovations are always very expensive but highly inefficient (early cell phones, the CD player in The Wedding Singer, large screen televisions, &tc), and it is the reflexive desire of the poorer to model the life of the wealthy which drives these object to become more efficient, cheaper, and more accessible.
But the problem is that all these new additions never go away, to where it becomes a necessity for basic living to have some means of mimicking or acting within the space created by these new inventions. In our own lifetimes, cell phones went from being purely science fiction to a must-have even for those who live in government-assisted housing. Look at the way cars, by becoming marketed and designed and produced for the 20th century's middle class, completely redefined the structures, physical and cultural and spiritual, of the United States. Its mythologies and narratives changed as whole neighborhoods lived and died this attraction to cars, to their ability to create freedoms where the new narrative preaches there was restriction and limitation and abandonment. Again, listen to all of the commercials that equate wireless communication and wireless internet as freedom and lack of restriction, as essential to "keeping up with today's global business."
The more that the gap grows, the more innovations and devices are needed to allow the poorer to model the lives of the wealthy. One of the lessons of The Devil Wears Prada is precisely that the extravagance of the wealthy determines what becomes fashionable for the poorer (think of Miranda explaining how the choices made at the highest levels of fashion trickle down to the department store racks, for example), to the extent that the poorer have to excel at ingenuity and resourcefulness to be able to compete, or just survive. But to be resourceful, one needs to have resources to be ingenious with. And the more that the gap produces new technologies and forms of life among the wealthy, the more the poorer have to find ways to make their lives more efficiently model those of the wealthy.
While you might argue that we are not discussing amenities but rather necessities (food, water, housing), things which we can quantify on the basis of the physical requirements of the human being, things what we can use as an absolute basis for determining survivability, I think such a measure fails to account for human existence as defining its quality of life by capacity to provide or enhance leisure. And, in the United States, that is a very different capacity than in other parts of the world.
You have my word: I will not vote Republican if Sonny Perdue is on the ticket.
I take votes wherever I can get 'em man.
Charles, if I understand your argument, you are saying, more or less, that the gap b/w richest and poorest is problematic in itself because of the kind of technology-driven society we have. In our (western/capitalist) society, the poor find it necessary to model their lives after the rich, and so the more stuff the rich get the more the poor have to get just to keep up at what we consider to be a "basic" standard of living. But this burden is one that the poor will not be able to keep up with forever, as eventually the gap will become too great and they won't be able to sufficiently model the wealthier lifestyle. So the gap itself is a problem for us, given that our poor have to mimick the people at the "top" in order to have what we consider to be a decent life. Is that it?
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