[SustainableTompkins] Density & Biking in Ithaca

[George Frantz]

On Friday Andy Goodell <goodella at hartwick.edu> wrote:
    If my choices were between making Ithaca more dense or making car-free roads on a weekly basis, I would go with the latter...  
   
  ...Short of everyone renting out their space to more people or subdividing their land to allow for more density, how do you envision increasing density being any better? 
Andy,
   
  I think I answered your question in the "Density & Crime, etc." response.
   
  The bottom line is that we are simply too sprawled out to make anything other than the single-occupancy automobile the choice for the vast majority of people, in Ithaca, Tompkins County and anywhere else.  
   
  Economically it takes a density of 8,000 or more persons per square mile to generate the traffic to sustain a reasonable level of public transit.  Overall the average population density of the city of Ithaca, excluding the suburban and rural fringes, is only about 5,500 persons per square mile.  
   
  Light rail transit requires population densities of between 20,000 and 25,000 persons per square mile to be economically feasible, even with heavy federal subsidies.
   
  Densifying our cities, regardless of the fear and loathing it may engender, is critical to re-creating our society as a more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable society.
   
  As far as making car-free streets and roads in Ithaca, unfortunately I can't even get the city to fix potholes that are dangerous for bikers, much less get anything more ambitious, including even simple bike lanes painted on streets.  Moreover, in the ten years since they adopted a plan I wrote to develop 21 miles of bike-ped paths, the Town of Ithaca has built one 0.75 mile segment, and that only last year.
   
  The problem here, as it is everywhere, is that politicians really don't give a damn about where we need to go or about any good ideas on how to get there.  They only react to constituencies, and there is no real constitiuency for a bicycle-friendly community here in Enlightened City, USA.  
   
  Ergo, nothing happens.
   
  George Frantz

_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ 

RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
SustainableTompkins at lists.mutualaid.org
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org



       
---------------------------------
Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.