April 5th could be a day in Broadway Corridor infamy. Residents contend Mayor and Council wants to approve the Broadway Corridor 30% design plan apparently against their will. City transportation and the RTA seem to be in neighborhood quicksand. The upcoming vote is a key milestone for final acquisitions of historic business and residential properties slated for full or partial removal. Local residents and neighborhood leaders see the widening as a damaging vanilla colored 6-lane widening between Eulid and Country Club. The Broadway Coalition, a citizens group representing surrounding neighborhoods asks that you attend the crossroads event on April 5th, 5:30PM, @ Mayor & Council chambers, 255 W. Alameda. A public plan display preceding the vote is a week earlier on March 29th, 5:30PM, 450 S. Tucson Boulevard. More here: Broadway Improvements
A meeting of 25 neighborhood leaders was hosted by the resident based Broadway Coalition at the Ward 6 office on March 21st. The meeting was intended to mobilize city wide support to turn down the 30% plan, ahead of M&C’s vote. The coalition says the Broadway needs to be done right or not at all; that the improvement wastes 76 million dollars of tax money. It damages local businesses and historic context along the Sunshine Mile. Please view the Broadway Coalition Website
Speaking as a 37 year core area resident and urban design professional, I agree with most of the Broadway Coalition’s contentions which are voiced from an interest in protecting the future of local businesses and neighborhoods. Moving forward with another bland widening damages the Sunshine Mile. It ravages business and diminishes quality of life. It displays vague committment to a sustainable transit future beyond sound bites. View this document to understant the Misleading Traffic Analysis.
The RTA’s plans damage local business and neighborhoods. This happens because it will scrape away much of the identity of the Sunshine Mile for the widening; removing many old structures and history. Futhermore, it is based on contested traffic counts and does not demonstrate a model for sustainable transportation. It values an increase in private motor vehicles over the health of immediately adjacent neighborhoods. Moreover, the Citizens Task Force (CTF) is stated by some of its members to be unhappy with the results of their own work because the RTA’s 30% “design” does not respresent the intent of the CTF, hense that of the citizens they represent. It demonstrates an urgent need to revise the whole process of public input; particularily, the fundamental model of a CTF.
The CTF is a body of appointed representative citizens that by right, assures local residents a voice in large impacting civic projects that require public process and representation. Public process in the case of the Sunshine Mile should have assured appropriate weight in planning decisions that impact the future of surrounding neighborhoods. These neighborhoods, however, feel differently about the 30% design plan. Read Rincon Heights Resolution. A better plan assures a future for a community. It builds vitality and revenue by attracting a desire to live and invest along the boundaries of the Broadway Corridor. It preserves a quality of life and historic assets. Because the RTA’s 30% design plan does not adequately assure these things, citizens are saying no to something they feel will remove their voice and continue downward trends in home occupancy and local business ventures.
See also veteran journalist, Tim Vanderpools summary about how many see Broadway Corridor project in: Crisis of Confidence: City Transportation Staff Called Out on Double-Dealing, Tucson Weekly’s Daily Dispatch.
This was supposed to be context sensitive design. The orientation should be, in fact, to make it better, instead of just trying not to harm it too much. We don’t enhance and area by demolishing it. You can call a dog a horse a hundred times, but the dog is still a dog. According to the Institute of Traffic Engineers, “the conventional design process prioritizes vehicular mobility and access using functional classification, design speed, traffic volume, and vehicular level of service as the determinants of design criteria – an approach with limited sensitivity to the surrounding context. Applying the principles of Context Sensitive Solutions in thoroughfare design identifies new opportunities to integrate thoroughfares into their surroundings and supports (emphasis added) the activities of the adjacent land uses…. While capacity and vehicular level of service play a role in selecting design criteria, they are only two of the many (again, emphasis added) factors considered in design of urban thoroughfares. In urban areas, traffic capacity may be subjugated to economic development or historical preservation.”
The aggressive re-design, eliminating much more of the north side businesses and homes will not only destabilize neighborhoods, leading to all sorts of unintended and currently unrecognized harmful consequences, but it will erode the area’s business district. South side merchants know that losing a critical mass of customer attractions will harm business, perhaps irreparably so.
Thank you Mark. In my mind the Citizens Task Force (CTF) model failed the Broadway Corridor. I am not sure where it has worked well. Tucson needs to reinvent this process model with an important component added: A CTF should not move forward where a certain gravity of damage to businesses and neighborhoods is expected and is not addressed.