I went to a public meeting to discuss ways to reengineer a major street in Davis, CA (my home town). The stretch of the street in question has one of the highest accident rates in the city. It is designed for curb to curb automobile use and bicyclists and pedestrians use and cross it at their own risk. So, over 3 years ago our City Council decided to put this street on a diet. Not surprisingly, some people opposed the project (for a whole variety of reasons), but in the end the leaders of our city decided to go ahead and make it a street friendly to bikes and pedestrians while permitting cars to continue to traverse its length.
Despite this, at the public meeting held to focus on design of the “new” street, about a quarter of those in attendance came only to continue to voice their opposition. Not only did they waste the time of participants and the project consultants who came to discuss how to make the street a shared space for all modes of transportation, they also betrayed an inability to take a long view on what is needed to make our city healthier and safer. Their implicit long view is that tomorrow’s transportation will be a lot like today’s–dominated by cars typically containing only one person and contributing half or more of the pollutants that pollute our air contributing to asthma in our children and a variety of other respiratory problems (references available upon request). I am NOT talking about greenhouse gasses here but of course our cars emit them too. (Interestingly, while most of the enlightened and oh-so-progressive citizens of our community would never call themselves “climate change deniers”, functionally, that is exactly what they are.)
And, as synchronicity would have it, our city is also struggling mightily to come to terms with the need to provide ourselves with a more sustainable water supply, and one that does not damage the flora and fauna downstream. Again, opponents of a VERY costly project to assure compliance with water discharge laws while securing a more sustainable water supply fail to take a realistic long view. In this case the self-deception is not about human health and safety–as is the case for the “road diet”–but about how much we pay for our water now and whether or not what we pay reflects the true cost of mining, treating, delivering, retreating and discharging that water.
Our elected officials find themselves in a difficult situation. If they speak the truth about our need to change how we transport ourselves around town or about how much we really need to pay for the scarce resource that water is (and always has been here in Northern CA), they will be pilloried from all sides. The small government folks (I will not call them conservatives because they are NOT) will slam them for creating a nanny state in our town of 65,000 (especially on issues that would limit or change in any way their ability to hop in their cars and drive anywhere, any time, as fast as they like). The so-called progressives (I will not call them liberal OR progressive because they are NEITHER) will slam them for hurting the poor of our community with out of sight water bills. These folks will stay mostly quiet on the car issue but keep driving anyway, secure in the knowledge that they are doing their part by driving the latest hybrid.
And so, and this might sound too harsh, our leaders pander to the “future deniers” (I think that is what I will call them. After all, they deny the future by basically decreeing it MUST merely reflect the past–and the relatively recent past at that). Though some of our leaders clearly know better they can’t help but allow themselves to be brought into line by the future deniers. Sad.
As a result of this state of affairs I have decided I am launching my campaign for City Council and I make the following promises. The day I fail to fulfill them I will resign. No tricks. No caveats. Copy and keep this blog, it will be your evidence against my failure to fulfill my promises.
1. I promise to raise the issue of our need to reduce car travel at every city council meeting.
2. I promise to promote projects that will make it harder and costlier to drive. Among other things, I will work to make all parking on city streets “paid” parking by instituting metered parking in the downtown and require permits on all cars parked on city streets (each paying household will receive extra “temporary” parking permits for out of town guests).
3. I promise to make enforcement of parking laws a top priority of the police department.
4. I promise to seek passage of an ordinance banning drop off of kids by parents within a three block radius of each school (with ADA exceptions).
5. I promise to work with local state representatives to pass a state law giving local jurisdictions full control over speed limits they can post on their streets. Once the bill passes I will push for 15 MPH speed limits on all neighborhood and feeder streets and 25 MPH limits on all arterials.
6. I will work on an ordinance to forbid any student in the city from driving themselves to school within the city limits.
7. I will work to immediately raise water rates by a factor of 5. Realizing that the elasticities of demand for water are very low, I will seek to introduce extremely painful rate hikes to force residents to reduce consumption of this scarce resource.
8. I will appoint a panel of local residents to develop a process for reviewing requests from poorer citizens for relief from these draconian rate increases. The panel will then apply the process to hear cases 5 days per week for one year and will have the power to rule on individual cases on a first come first served basis. If a resident wants relief s/he will have to ask for it and provide financial evidence of need.
9. I will seek an ordinance to forbid watering of lawns and move to replace grass in public spaces with indigenous plants and drought resistant trees and bushes.
These are my promises (for now). I am going to develop a whole bunch more and would invite anyone who reads this to add their own for my consideration. They are all going to be extremely painful. They are all going to help make us healthier.
Make no mistake, I am not writing the foregoing with my tongue in my cheek. I am not engaging in sarcasm. I am asking for your support to make your life costlier and harder (in the short run). This is going to hurt for a little while but once the pain fades (a bit) we will be more fit and better prepared to walk into a future that will force even the hardest core “future deniers” to admit they were wrong in equating the future with the past.
Vote for me! You’re gonna regret it (for a while).
How’s that for a campaign slogan? But just think, if you vote for me and I win you will not experience any “buyer’s remorse”.
