Tag: planning

Categories
life technology

Online Event Planning


Image by: Christian Scholz

I learned a lesson over the weekend regarding using Facebook as an event planning platform. I stopped actively using Facebook early this year so I’m only vaguely familiar with the event planning tools that the site offers but from what I’ve heard and seen they’re very functional for most event planning needs. The caveat that became glaringly obvious over the weekend is that when planning an event on Facebook it is easy but unsafe to assume that those you might want to participate in the event are using Facebook at least enough to be aware of the event. That means paying careful attention to whether they are responding to the event invitation or event related postings or else, more effectively, you should reach out with event details in some was that is more targeted than just adding it to your Facebook.

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Categories
Local politics State

My Utah Lake Perspective

I obviously ruffled the feathers of one commenter when I wrote a post in support of a bridge over Utah Lake. He argues that those who want a lake bridge hate the lake and that we should instead be working to restore the lake to its natural beauty. I argue that building a bridge and restoring the lake are nearly independent issues and to that end I decided to share my position on what we should do to restore the lake.

First, I think that Utah Lake would be a great natural resource for the county and the state if it were restored. In its present condition it is little more than a big puddle interrupting our transportation and growth.

There are currently efforts to rid the lake of the carp that were introduced to the lake a century ago. I believe that is a crucial step to improving the beauty of the lake and I think the Department of Wildlife Resources should take every possible step to make that happen – some suggestions they could consider include offering a bounty to fishermen for every carp caught (and kept), making it illegal to release carp (like they have with burbot), or even trying to host a tournament for carp fishing as Texas has done. I’m not sure what the effects on other animals and plants of the ecosystem would be if they try poisoning the carp (as has been suggested).

When the carp have been contained we should be able to reintroduce cutthroat trout and nurse the June sucker populations back to sustainable levels. This would both improve the beauty of the lake, and increase the opportunities for tourism and recreational use of this natural resource.

None of this depends, or is hindered, by a lake bridge as far as I can see. Some have even argued that a lake bridge could be a toll road and that the tolls could be used to fund other lake improvements. The only conjunction I can see between the two issues is that the specific placement of a bridge might influence the recreational activities available on the lake.

Categories
culture technology

Progression of Transit

Hopefully the idea of growing into light rail does not come as a real surprise to anyone.

{Darrell Cook}, executive director of Mountainland Association of Governments, said if the dedicated bus system linking Utah Valley University, Brigham Young University and Provo’s East Bay works as expected, the system could, in time, be replaced by a light-rail system.

There would seem to be a natural progression for public transit that city planners could prepare for that would allow for public transit to be tailored to the current needs of a community with a defined growth potential as ridership needs increase over time. With advanced planning it should be relatively painless to meet expanding needs by starting early without investing prematurely in expensive systems.

The transition from BRT to light-rail is a last step along one line of progression, but I think there may be two progressions available. There is the regional transportation which starts with simple bus service and graduates to more complex bus service (with BRT and dedicated bus lanes etc.) before converting dedicated bus lanes into light rail – assuming that the growth and ridership supports each successive transition. Then there is the longer range transportation between metropolitan areas which starts with shuttles or express buses and eventually graduates to commuter rail or even high-speed rail. There may even be a step between the express/shuttle phase and the commuter rail phase that can be filled with DMU’s.

If early development incorporated the possibilities of future transit options then it might be easier and less costly to build and maintain transit commensurate with population.

Categories
Local politics

Advocating a Utah Lake Bridge

One of the things that is good about Editorial boards is that when they are right about something they usually do a good job of defining and defending their position and they have the power of the press at their disposal. (One of the problems is that they have all those advantages when they are wrong too.) A great example of that is the Daily Herald Editors putting the issue of a bridge over Utah Lake in perspective.

Local pressure groups are lining up to fight even thinking about the possibility of a bridge across Utah Lake. They might as well protest the heat of a Utah Valley summer. It’s inevitable that some kind of passage will be forged over the lake in coming years, and the most productive course would be to find the best feasible alternative that will serve the widest number of people.

When my close interest in the transportation issues of Utah County began, the idea of a lake bridge seemed like a distant possibility – something that might happen in 20 or 30 years if at all. Years of living there and following the issues easily have me convinced that the question of if a bridge should be built is short-sighted, the only real questions to answer are where, when, and how to do the job right.

No comprehensive plan to meet the growing transportation needs of Utah County can fail to include some route across the lake. Anyone who wants to delay or minimize a lake bridge had better approach their goal through community planning and business development in Cedar Valley. Only by lowering the overwhelming incentives to travel between that growing area and the established communities on the east side of the lake will allow for a more leisurely approach to designing the bridge that will still become necessary at some point in the future for economic and quality of life reasons.

One nice change in their rhetoric is that they no longer appear to lay the blame for this issue at the feet of Lehi City – like they did only 2 months ago.

Categories
Local politics State

Returning to the MVC

Things have been somewhat quiet on the MountainView Corridor issue until just before they released their Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). As soon as it was out I went to take a look at what the draft EIS said. For those who have been interested in the issue before there is nothing particularly surprising (from what I have seen so far – I’m not sure I’ll ever read all the pages in this 5 volume report).

I just wanted to put a link to the actual report in case anyone is interested in more than the newspaper analysis (actually there’s no analysis so far, just reports of the release) of what is in the draft EIS. I am encouraged by the statements within the EIS explaining the efforts of Lehi city to propose a better plan, and specifically the acknowledgment that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has not identified a preferred alternative and that UDOT and FHWA are considering the necessity of releasing a supplemental EIS once they have had a chance to more carefully study the 4800 N freeway alternative proposed by Lehi city.

I plan to use this public comment period to voice my position to UDOT, but also to encourage discussion of the issue here – I’d love to hear what others think about this plan.

Categories
Local politics

Reality Check

Last night I went to a UDOT open house for the East-West Connector project. This has been informally known as the 1000 South boulevard and was previously part of the Mountain View Corridor project before being broken out into a separate project. I suspect that the people working on this project for UDOT already know this, but they and the public need to recognize and reconcile themselves tot he fact that there is no alternative on this project which will satisfy everybody. Planning and building this road needs to move forward not by compromising to hurt as few feelings as possible, but by building whatever is best in the long-term interests of the area.

That’s easy for me to say since there is no way the road can be built in such a way that it will inconvenience me. It can be built badly to inconvenience everyone, but it cannot be built in such a way that it would inconvenience me particularly. No matter how well, or badly it is built there will be some people who it will inconvenience particularly – the only question is who, how many, and in what ways. Those who are in danger of having to relocate, or of living very close to the new road can do a great service to everybody if they will come with an attitude of “how can we make this the best for everybody,” rather than an attitude of “what will cause me the least inconvenience.”

On the other hand, those of us who will not be directly inconvenienced by this need to be understanding of the fact that this will have some immediate negative consequences on some people. We should take that into consideration when we select an alignment.

I heard someone who lives near some of that land that Lehi City had already preserved for this road who wished that the land owners in the area would refuse to sell so that the road could not be built. I’m sure she recognizes that not building the road is not a feasible option considering our current traffic situation. As a distant neighbor I need to recognize that her wish is normal and rather than telling her to pull her head out of the sand I should help advocate for anything that might make this new road better for her and her neighborhood.

One thing to advocate for, which won’t help her neighborhood now but will help other neighborhoods in the future, is a more comprehensive master plan for the city which will preserve transportation corridors earlier and be more strict in adhering to the master plan. Initially Lehi City had planned for this road to run at 700 South. The result is that 700 South is much wider than it needs to be for a 25 MPH road. If they had set the speed limit higher (40 or 45 MPH) people would not have placed houses right on the road and they would have been able to use the original route

Categories
politics technology

Transit Options in Less Populous Areas

One of the problems that I have been thinking about with the growth taking place in Utah County is the balance that we need to strike between addressing the current needs and preparing for future needs, all with current resources. I am a vocal proponent of getting good transit here now and in the future, but how do you justify running light rail out to Cedar Fort when there are so few people living in Cedar Valley right now. Thankfully I was introduced to DMU’s which narrow the gap between no transit and transit that can’t be justified without large populations. DMU’s are being considered as a way to connect people outside the most populous areas of the Wasatch Front to the Frontrunner system that is being built to serve the main population bases north and south of Salt Lake City.

Essentially a DMU (diesel multiple-unit) is a single-unit self propelled vehicle that runs on rails. If the rails are compatible with light rail or commuter rail systems (and I’d like to find out if this is the case) they could be used as an introductory transit option in areas where the population is not yet dense enough to support the larger systems – especially in areas like the north and west parts of Utah County where we know that the population will become large enough to support a transit system like Salt Lake County already has. They can also be used to connect the further outlying areas with the main transit systems that serve the larger population centers.

Categories
culture life politics

Commercial Zones

I was pleased to see my view on city planning represented in yesterdays Transportation Watch. That view being the need to make space for commercial areas in order to lessen the need for commuting – that is the number one way to reduce traffic in the long term. That article also mentioned a good example of such planning in the land that is being developed by Kennecott. They call it the “poster child for doing it right.” Today I found an article on the groundbreaking of the first commercial areas in the Kennecott development.

The thing that really interests me about this is that it is a rare thing when an existing city has the chance to implement this kind of strategic planning after the city has been well established. Luckily, I think that Lehi has that opportunity. Especially in conjunction with Saratoga Springs, we have enough land still undeveloped, and enough land which is ready for some revitalization, that we can still make a pretty god mix of commercial with our residential within Lehi specifically and the northwest part of Utah County in general. The key will be to start planning and acting now before this already small window of opportunity closes due to haphazard development.

Categories
culture technology

Looking to Europe

I do not look favorably on many of the traits common among many European countries (higher taxes to fund broader social programs, shorter workweeks, that kind of thing). However a brief mention of Europe in Transportation Watch reminded me that there is one area where we could learn from Europe. They have learned to make use of transit systems so much that many people have no need of cars. Admittedly their population density almost demands this, but our population density is not decreasing so we should be planning ahead.

California is looking at a high-speed rail line that would make lots of short-distance air travel obsolete between San Diego and Sacramento. Here in the States we love to fly everywhere. It’s so bad that Amtrack is almost useless because we are not willing to take the extra time to ride the train that is slightly cheaper. If California actually puts in the funding to build this high-speed rail line they will have a train that is cheaper than the planes and faster than airport security. If that could be done in a number of other travel corridors as well we would have fewer planes in the sky, less fuel being used, and faster travel through airports due to lower volumes of travelers when most air travel is for longer distances.

Similar benefits could be realized on a smaller scale by implementing good transit options in population centers so that we would not be so reliant on cars for all our local travel. At least on those we can look to some examples of good transit systems here in the States rather than wondering what the rest of the world knows that we have not figured out yet.

UPDATE 5/14/97: I stand corrected – as Hyrum points out, Amtrack is not slightly cheaper than the airlines on cross-country trips.

Categories
Local politics

Regional Transportation Plans

Yesterday on Radio West the show was discussing the 2030 Transportation Plan. The 2030 transportation plan is focused on the Salt Lake Valley, but it includes the Mountain View Corridor and the Mountainland Association of Governments has a plan with a similar scope. I listened to the program with interest as many callers expressed concerns similar to mine that too much reliance on roads brings more congestion in the longterm.

One concern the planners had with putting in transit options is that they are inefficient where there is significant open space between residential areas. Considering that these plans are focused on transportation through areas that are sparsely populated right now, that sounds like a valid concern. In response to that, Marc Heileson from the Sierra Club made two compelling observations: that people cannot choose to use transit if it is not available; and that a good transit system is more than just a transit option.

A good transit system makes it easy to get between places that you need to go so that the advantages of a car are not significant when compared to the transit system. Mr. Heileson also noted that transit systems are less sensitive to changes in volume of use than roads are. Based on discussions with some of my family members who live north of Salt Lake and are affected by the changes in the transit system that are being implemented there I feel safe in concluding that it is easier to plan a good transit system in advance than it is to build or modify a transit system in established areas.

Another thought that was briefly covered in the program was the idea that transportation planning could help to shape growth and traffic patterns, and not just react to the existing and projected patterns.

Virtually absent from the discussion is the fact that transportation plans can react to poorly planned development, but they cannot truly overcome that development. Transit alone is not enough in order to have the high quality living conditions in a growing region like ours. Equally important, if not more so, is the planning for commercial and industrial development. This is important so that cities have a commercial tax base and also so that residents have employment options without being forced into long commutes. This is one area where Lehi, and the northern end of Utah County in general have not traditionally done very well. Based on the plans I have seen from the city of Lehi I am hopeful that this situation will be remedied in the coming years.

I was planning to give a detailed breakdown of the Mountainland Association of Governments’ regional transportation plan, but I think this post is too long already so I’ll save that for another day.