The never ending story

Much like a DVD of “Bob the Builder” on repeat play in the back seat of a family minivan, it’s time for the annual replay of everyone’s favorite conceptual vision, The Future of 192.

The 192 visioning process has become a self-fulfilling fulfillment of self. For to create a vision, you must have a process. During the process, you must refine the vision. And it is a process to articulate the vision that has been processed once it has been envisioned. Planners plan, and consultants consult.

While we wait for the end credits on “Bob” to run through as the DVD begins another loop, let us commoners ask...

For as long as the current 192 vision has been floating around, it has focused on mass transit. An east-west bus corridor (ie reserved bus lane), connecting to a downtown commuter rail station to move people north and south. The city’s internal and external experts say this is a key feature of 192 development, and it’s still a large part of the latest vision review, mere weeks after the state said no to SunRail. So, local leaders, who is right...the planning professionals who champion mass transit, or the elected officials who voted it down? How did the vision of the Bronson park, including a bus stop, jibe with your discussion last year of where the local Lynx station might be located?

Another focus of the vision is on “clusters” or “stations” or whatever the conceptual word is. The idea being that the desired purpose of the clusterstation is to show what type of buildings are appropriate for that area of 192. As the professionals say, once they have established the standards, when someone wants to build a tall building or a short building, they’ll know where to put it along the corridor. But the chicken and egg process of envisioning the clusterstations continues, because, even if someone wanted to start a project today, the city still hasn’t established their clusterstation standards in year whatever this is in the project. And who would plan their four story building if there was a chance that they were going to be proposing it in the clusterstation that would turn out to allow two story buildings?

And, of course, there’s the money question. The question of “where will we get the money” comes up often in this discussion. But, truly, that is the man-on-the-street question...the question that someone asks when they’re shown a summary of this multiyear project and given five seconds for a response. The studied questions to be asked from those who have been involved with this project should be more along the lines of “if we implement this vision what will the return to the community be?” and after receiving that answer, “what are we willing to invest to achieve that return, and over how long of a time period?” as well as “if we do nothing, what is the impact?” and “what is the minimum action we must take to prevent further erosion of the corridor?” All of this assumes that you can quantify the costs and returns of a vision.

What the annual book report on the vision process tells us is that, in order for redevelopment of 192 to be successful, the area around the corridor needs much higher residential density, higher household incomes, and better transportation options. If it were only the 192 corridor that was suffering from these deficiencies, that would be enough of a challenge. On the other hand, when someone finishes the book and fixes those problems for this one area, those lessons can be applied to the rest of the local community as well. Maybe we’ll even name a road after the person who comes up with the successful strategy.

For the short term, perhaps local officials would accept this suggestion. Start the process by showing your commitment to making initial fixes to transportation along the corridor. Invest some staff time, but probably not a lot of money, in ‘syncing’ or ‘timing’ or ‘fixing’ the traffic lights along the corridor so that a vehicle moving through the corridor does not need to stop at every traffic light along the way. While traffic is being streamlined, complete the zoning regulations or design guides so that those who are penciling in their plans for when the market turns around can know what kind of buildings might be acceptable to the community. Perhaps even start working on that long-rumored commercial property minimum maintenance ordinance in the corridor.

In the meantime, we’ll see you at the next round of visioning meetings.