Category Archives: Safety

Communities, not Cul de sacs

Update: Trees make streets safer and Fixing a perfect storm of bad planning and design.

Eric M. Weiss writes in the Washington Post on 22 March 2009 about In Va., Vision of Suburbia at a Crossroads: Targeting Cul-de-Sacs, Rules Now Require Through Streets in New Subdivisions

The state has decided that all new subdivisions must have through streets linking them with neighboring subdivisions, schools and shopping areas. State officials say the new regulations will improve safety and accessibility and save money: No more single entrances and exits onto clogged secondary roads. Quicker responses by emergency vehicles. Lower road maintenance costs for governments.
Banning cul-de-sacs was one of the New York Times Magazine’s 9th Annual Year in Ideas, because it’s safer and less expensive: Continue reading →

Biomass Town Hall Part 2

This is part 2 about the July 8th town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.

First let’s hear George Rhynes explain that it’s never too late to reregulate our minds:

Here I’ve selected videos of local County Commission candidates: Continue reading →

Results of lack of education

Juarez, Mexico, is farther down the road of emphasizing law and order over education and jobs, as Melissa del Bosque reports in the Texas Observer abo ut Mexico’s Lost Generations:
When Juarez’s (soon to be outgoing) Mayor Jose Reyes-Ferriz visited Austin last April something he said stuck with me.

He told the audience that a failure to invest in schools and other public infrastructure had led to the lawlessness in his city. Instead of schools and daycare centers, city leadership only invested in maquila parks and roads. Children were left on the streets to fend for themselves as their parents worked in the maquila factories for meager wages.

Mexican president Calderon, previously consumed by the drug war, finally noticed and did something:
“More than 5,000 residents have received job-training grants or temporary work sprucing up parks and sidewalks and planting trees. Officials added thousands of families to a government insurance program and handed out 6,000 scholarships in a city where few students were receiving such help.”

“It’s not enough to analyze it only in terms of public safety. You have serious gaps in the social and economic [areas] that have to be closed,” said Antonio Vivanco, a Calderon advisor overseeing the development effort.

Todos somos Juarez (We Are All Juarez).

-jsq

Biomass Town Hall, 8 July 2010

On July 8th there was a town Hall meeting about the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta.

Pastor Angela Manning of New Life Ministries sums up why she called this Town Hall meeting:

Speakers included: Continue reading →

Foxborough Anti-McDonalds Banner

The VDT writes about Foxborough two days in a row:
Several dozen residents of the Foxborough subdivision came to the Lowndes County Commission meeting Tuesday to again express their dismay at the possibility of having a McDonald’s fast food restaurant located by the neighborhood’s entrance.

Resident Pete Candelaria said he has been living in Foxborough for six years and was speaking on behalf of the residents.

Candelario (I believe that’s the actual spelling of his name) provided a list of suggestions to the Commission, which Chairman Paulk addressed, including: Continue reading →

VDT on Foxborough v. McDonalds

It looks like the strategy I recommended to the Foxborough opponents to McDonalds worked: go to the County Commission work session and you may get in the newspaper. Kay Harris writes in the VDT about Issues with development, Neighborhood upset about commercial encroachment:
According to Vince Schneider, the spokesman for the residents, the majority of the neighborhood is opposed to the possibility of a McDonald’s restaurant openin g there. The property is currently listed with Lowndes County as owned by First State Bank, but the county engineer, Mike Fletcher, confirmed Monday at the Lo wndes County Board of Commissioners work session that he has received a plat fo r the proposed development.

Schneider appeared before commissioners at the work session to request they rec onsider the commercial zoning in the area.

Many of the residents only found out aboout the proposed McDonalds from a cryptic mention by Kay Harris in the VDT a few weeks ago. Naturally, the VDT ends the current story on a note of finality: Continue reading →

Good Meeting, Foxborough vs. McDonalds

Vince Schneider of Foxborough Avenue sums up the sense of a well-attended meeting (7PM Thursday July 8 2010) at which residents said they don’t want a McDonalds at the entrance to the Foxborough neighborhood. Vince will be speaking at the County Commission meeting Tuesday at 5:30 PM July 13, and also at the work session Monday at 8:30AM July 12.

See you there.

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Foxborough vs. McDonalds

I spent a few hours walking around Foxborough Ave. and Amberley Trail this afternoon, just south of North Valdosta Road. Did you know there’s a McDonalds proposed for Foxborough Ave., with a second entrance off of Old US 41? I didn’t until this afternoon.

The only mention of this project I can find in the VDT is this cryptic note by Kay Harris in her June 27, 2010 Business This Week:

The McDonalds project on N. Valdosta Road next to the Foxborough entrance should be finalized soon….

Neighbors immediately to the south of the project say that:

This property has not yet closed. Projected closing is the first week of August. Corporate McDonalds says construction will begin in October.
They also tell me this will be a 24 hour a day 7 day a week fast food restaurant. Numerous residents mentioned safety concerns about the added traffic on the Foxborough Ave. entrance to the subdivision, and about pulling people off of I-75 into their neighborhood.

They’re holding a neighborhood meeting about it tomorrow (Thursday 8 July): Continue reading →

Nix on biomass plant in Traverse City, Michigan

Looking farther afield in Cadillac, Michigan than schools and realtors, there are some people who aren’t completely pleased with the local biomass plant:
Complaints are more frequent along Mary Street, a short stretch a few hundred yards south of the plant. Residents there deal with more intense noise and odors.

Craig Walworth’s home is among the closest to the plant. He walked up to his Jeep — a vehicle he cleaned the day before — and dragged his finger through a layer of film on the hood.

“Every morning, you have that to look forward to,” he said. “I clean my screens three times a year during the summer because they clog up.”

Nonetheless he didn’t say it affected his property values. However, that’s not the only issue.

Meanwhile, about an hour north on the edge of Lake Michigan, in Traverse City local activism caused cancellation of a proposed biomass plant: Continue reading →

Wellhead Protection Overlay, TXT-2010-01 2010 ULDC

Lowndes County Commission 8 June 2010 This is about exclusion zones around wells, and maybe about restrictions on putting new wells next to pollution sources such as cotton fields.

At their 8 June 2010 regular meeting, the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners, at the recommendation of County Planner Jason Davenport, tabled revisions to the Uniform Land Development Code (ULDC) about wellhead protection. Such protections are a new requirment by the Georgia EPD, and it’s taking a while to figure out what is appropriate for the ten wells operated by the county and the 140 private community wells, many of which have trust indentures with the county that require the county to take them over if their current operators do not supply enough water, or of good enough quality.

Picture by John S.Quarterman, video by Gretchen K. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, 8 June 2010.

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