Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The safety issue



This is where the whole safety/walking-trail/smart-growth argument breaks down. This is Marine Drive where it intersects with Westwind Road. It's where the WIOUWASH Trail will take you if you start off at, say, River Mill Road.

Notice the jogger. Notice the vehicles. Notice the lack of sidewalks.

Here is the sign that tells you where to go to pick up the trail if you are heading along Westwind back toward the city.



Yes, that is a truck terminal on Marine Drive. No, there are no sidewalks. (And, yes, parts of the trail here are outside the city limits, but according to the city's election map all of the areas pictured here are inside the city.)

If the idea is that low-traffic, low-density River Mill Road needs sidewalks to ensure the safety of people using a walking trail, then why aren't we in a rush to have sidewalks where trail users have to pass through an industrial area?

Some serious bikers prefer to use Algoma Boulevard, as opposed to the trail, because the surface is better and there is less congestion. It gets dicey in places, up close to 41, and sidewalks would be welcome there.



So as much as I would like to believe that the River Mill sidewalk issue is all about safety and walking trails and smart growth, the evidence is problematic.

Let's address those things (safety and walking trails and smart growth), but let's do it in a systematic and thoughtful way.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Sidewalk snapshots


I was out enjoying the weather on my bicycle the other day and came across some specimens of unfinished sidewalk business here in Oshkosh. For those of you who continue to believe that low-traffic, low-density River Mill Road needs to be the next priority for sidewalk construction and that the targeting of River Mill is based only on objective considerations, here are some points of reference. The top picture is the Lakeside Harbour Marina over on Campbell.

This next one is farther south on Campbell.



If you go north and head up Bauman, you can find more examples of missing sidewalks.



This is another marina without a sidewalk.



These are some relatively new houses on Bauman. If memory serves, there had to be a special act by the Common Council to allow these structures to go up since I think they needed some of the city right-of-way. But apparently the Council didn't see a need for sidewalks.



Here is place where the Council should really be upset. I mean the nerve of the property owner to ignore the sidewalk ordinance! The property owner: City of Oshkosh. (That's who owns the park on the left.)



In case you aren't familiar with this part of the city, here's a map.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Sidewalks Rule!!!

All journalists wonder what really matters to readers. If we knew for sure, we would know what to write about. We could focus our attention on the "sweet spot" of reader interest and glory in the knowledge that we were meeting the needs of the readers' right to know.

The usual candidates for what readers want to read about are things like sex, celebrity, glamor, sports, money, careers.

Who woulda figgered sidewalks? Not me, that's for sure. But here are the statistics for this site over the last four weeks.

(BTW, the date of the first post on sidewalks was May 10. It apparently took a couple of days for people to notice.)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

The future of news, part 52,407

Adrian Holovaty is quitting The Washington Post to set up a Web company "that focuses on making local news and information useful."

He just won a $1.1 million grant for a project "to create, test and release open-source software that links databases to allow citizens of a large city to learn (and act on) civic information about their neighborhood or block."

He said his goal is to "create an easy way to answer the question, ‘What’s happening around me?’”

Holovaty is a rare breed, a journalist by training who actually knows how to write computer code. His best known project is chicagocrime.org, but he has done several innovative projects for the Post as well.

By going open source, he is going against the grain of for profit publishers and depending on how easily transported his code turns out to be, he could end up doing a lot to energize the citizen media movement.

Back on the one-term track

Four years ago my father died after cancer cells had taken up residence in his brain, lung and prostate. A few months later, a favorite brother-in-law died after a particularly long and cruel battle with lung cancer.

The sad fact is that cancer is an all-too-common disease. Its ubiquity, however, also means that it is a widely used metaphor. Like it or not, it is part of everyday speech.

Now come Paul Esslinger and Tony Palmeri, outraged that someone has dared to use the c-metaphor in describing one of Paul's personality traits.

The outrage stems from Paul's personal experience with cancer, which has not only affected him but also his parents. (Paul and Tony are also upset that no one had picked up on or commented on the connection between the metaphor and Paul's medical condition.)

I'm sorry that Paul has cancer, and I'm happy for him that his health appears now to be good.

But the truth is that the rules change when you venture into public life. If you were royalty, I suppose you could demand that certain words not be used in your presence.

But in a democracy, elected officials are there to serve the voters. As a servant of the people, you have to put up with what they say about you.

In a democracy, the people are the sovereigns. And so when an elected official uses terms like "conniption" and "hissy fits" to describe citizen concerns, then that official is well one the way to a one-term career in office.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Avoiding One-Termism

Some (otherwise) gentle readers of this blog have complained that I have been too harsh on first-term Council Member Tony Palmeri. It has been suggested that I am threatening him with political ruin over the issue of sidewalks on River Mill Road.

I would like to set the record straight.

First of all, it's a romantic notion but a bit of a stretch to think that an individual citizen, armed only with a keyboard and a shaky digital camera, has that much power.

Second of all, Tony and I actually agree on the substance of the issue. There SHOULD be sidewalks on River Mill Road. We disagree on timing, and on what I perceive as uncomely coziness among Council members.

Third of all, I had (and have) great hopes for Tony as an elected official. I appreciate the skeptical views he has expressed over the years about official decisions and decision making. Now that he is on the Council I hope that his energy and insights can be used to prod local government into being more responsive and more effective.

But having said something nice, I'm going to say something that may be perceived as particularly cruel because I am going to make a comparison that will likely sting.

My two words of warning are these: Meredith Scheuermann.

Meredith was elected to the Council because she said all the right things. She was going to be hard working and caring and able to bring her sharp-penciled business perspective to bear on the city's budget and operating issues.

Didn't happen. Her deeds did not match her words. She served one term.

Will the same fate befall Tony?

Well, here's what he had to say during the election campaign about the Common Council (in response to a question from the Northwestern's editorial board):

Community leadership requires working with citizens at the grassroots level to get their concerns addressed and needs met. Citizens in our community working on neighborhood improvement, poverty, housing, open government and other issues typically do not view our Common Council as part of the solution. Rather, the Council is seen as part of the problem because it is perceived as paying too much attention to favored special interests and not enough to the average citizen who pays the bills.


Whose concerns and needs are being addressed and met by fast-tracking sidewalks in the River Mill Road neighborhood? Whose interests are being advanced here? How is Tony demonstrating a concern for the "average citizen who pays the bills"?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It's abusive for elected officials to use their powers to settle personal grudges.

The Northwestern also asked Tony what "specific impact" his two-year term would bring. Here's what he said:

[C]itizens will know that there is at least one person on the Council demanding the highest standards of performance and accountability from all city officials.


I hope that turns out to be true.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Not in contention at Cannes

This is a little film clip I put together this afternoon in an effort to demonstrate that there are some places that need sidewalks before the River Mill Road neighborhood gets one.



It won't win any awards, but maybe it will help us get past the rhetoric.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

One-Term Tony

That's what they're calling newly elected Council Member Tony Palmeri over on River Mill Road after his performance at Tuesday's Council meeting. At that session Tony made the case for pushing ahead with sidewalks in the River Mill subdivision on the grounds that it's a safety issue and a way to make the city more "walkable," while perhaps evening the score by sticking it to the "wealthy."

We'll roll some tape here in a a minute, but first let me offer this full disclosure. I am one of those "wealthy" homeowners on River Mill Road. I have lived there for almost 10 years, and I've always thought it a little odd that we didn't have sidewalks. If the Council decides to impose sidewalks on the neighborhood, I won't oppose it, although I will question the motives and priorities of those who insist upon moving this extremely low traffic street ahead of major roads elsewhere in the city.

Here's Tony's reasoning:



Here's what's wrong with Tony's reasoning:

1. It's true that there are some very large houses on River Mill Road, but the idea that we're all a bunch of fat cats is just plain wrong. More of us are employed by UW Oshkosh than by any other single employer, and there are more college professors in the neighborhood than any other occupational title. So unless Tony has gone over to the Republican side and decided that UW professors (including some who make less than he does) must by definition be "wealthy," he is wrong to refer to this issue as one that fits the haves vs. have-nots paradigm.

2. Sidewalks will not have any effect on the walkability of the neighborhood or of the city. On almost every day of the year, I walk (or bicycle) to work. My daughters walked (or bicycled) to their elementary and middle schools for years. People come from outside the neighborhood to walk on River Mill Road, which is laid out like the loop at the end of a lasso. They come because this low-density neighborhood is already highly walkable. There is hardly any traffic here, and the road is so wide that even when a car comes by there is plenty of room for all. And these River Mill walkers are not people who are on their way to the Wiouwash Trail. These are people who simply take a loop through the neighborhood.

3. This is not a smart growth issue, for the same reasons as explained in Point No. 2. Sidewalks on River Mill Road will not have an effect on how future development in or near the city will proceed. There isn't any developable land for several miles north of River Mill Road. The open land immediately adjacent to our neighborhood is already occupied--it's called a cemetery.

4. The fact that the Wiouwash Trail runs through the neighborhood is not particularly relevant. First of all it isn't necessary to access the trail from River Mill Road--lots of people cut through the cemetery to get there. Other people drive into the neighborhood and park their cars up and down River Mill Road to gain access to the trailhead. And so unless the Council is planning to demolish some houses to build a parking lot at the mouth of the trail, many trail users will still have to walk or ride their bicycles on at least a portion of River Mill Road to get to the trail. That's what they do now--and without incident. The largest group of people to travel the length of River Mill Road to get to the trail are track athletes from UW Oshkosh. They run in large packs, and I seriously doubt that they would use the sidewalk even if it were built.

Some more Tony Talk:



This snippet shows why Tony could be vulnerable in a future election. You have to wonder why he felt it was necessary to make a drive-by inspection of the neighborhood to justify his position. Oshkosh is a small town, and as I said many of the residents of River Mill Road are his university colleagues. If he wanted a feel for the neighborhood, he could have come by and/or talked to us.

But deciding that we need sidewalks after spending 30 or 40 seconds driving down our street doesn't suggest the depth of analysis or concern for citizens that I think a lot of us were expecting from Tony.

To be sure there are some real safety issues that the Council could address. One of the biggest problems is that more and more people walk their dogs on the trail without keeping them on a leash, violating both city and county ordinances. Dogs chase cyclists and joggers all the time--so much so that I more often ride my bike for recreational purposes on city streets, where it is safer. And if the Council really cares about making the city walkable, it would do a better job of making sure that sidewalks along city property (such as the Oshkosh Public Museum) are promptly shoveled and de-iced after a storm. (I won't go into the way city snow plows treat River Mill Road like a racetrack, spraying snow and slush ahead and around them as they speed through the neighborhood.)

When all is said and done, River Mill residents will go along with the sidewalks. But we will also be wondering why the Council decided this low-speed road through a low-density neighborhood needed to have sidewalks right away.

That's not really true. We already know that for all the posturing about safety and walkability and past Council votes, the real reason is political. The Palmeri-Esslinger-McHugh axis wants to flex some muscle. And for whatever reason, Mayor Tower and Council Member Bain are so far going along.

There's an easy solution here, but it remains to be seen whether it will be chosen.

The solution is to put River Mill Road on the list of streets to be upgraded with sidewalks, but fix the streets that really need it first. When our time comes, the residents of River Mill Road will pay for our sidewalks.

But if the Council insists upon "ordering in" the neighborhood for the current year, then a lot of us are going to be wondering about the motives and good sense of our Council members.

During the April elections, Council Members Palmeri and Bain picked up a good number of votes in Ward 2, and Mayor Tower easily bested Council Member Esslinger. Paul doesn't have anything to lose by pushing this proposal, but some others might.