And the rule everyone agrees on is, "MORE TRAFFIC IS BAD FOR NEIGHBORHOODS." So why would we subsidize traffic by adding more lanes and diminishing quality of life for neighbors and businesses who live on or near E. Washington? When are we developing Madison as a place To Live In as opposed to a place To Live Nearby?
Adding additional lanes of traffic on E. Washington Avenue could have far-reaching detrimental effects on much of our neighborhood. If you live or work within a block or two of E. Wash. you are already very familiar with how traffic affects qualities people look for in their businesses and how it affects housing values and occupancy characteristics. Where are the highest densities of starter homes/affordable housing in our neighborhood compared to the location of busy streets? Which houses are most likely to be rentals? Absentee landlord rentals? Poorly maintained? Rented with Section 8 vouchers? Group homes of some kind? Do people who rent, or qualify for subsidies or live on fixed incomes deserve to endure more traffic than others?
Will providing more lanes, more capacity and inevitably more traffic improve owner-occupancy rates? Did people who purchased more affordable houses on or near busier streets sign some contract with the city agreeing that they should put up with more traffic because they knew it was busy when they moved in? No and no would be the answer to both.
HereÕs the kicker. Increasing the capacity of E. Wash is like drilling a hole into the middle of a sponge so you can pour water in even faster. Widening E. Wash will not make more traffic go through faster as much as it will make it possible to fill up the whole Isthmus with cars more quickly.
The idea of diverting traffic is one that tempts many to send more cars down the E. Wash. pipeline. After all, the #2 transportation goal listed in our Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood Plan is to divert traffic from the Johnson-Gorham pair. The first problem with traffic diversion is that some people win and some lose. In fact, I would be one of the people who would benefit the most of all, since I live on Johnson where traffic from both of the one-ways goes in front of my house; 37,000 cars a day. The second problem, if you donÕt care about the first, is even worse and almost poetically ironic. Traffic diversion provides only a temporary reprieve. As the number of cars and commuters continues to increase much faster than population, the road will inevitably fill up again.
But guess what, there is another way to improve the problems that traffic brings. DonÕt invite more traffic. DonÕt build it so they will come. In fact, it would be best to actually decrease the vehicle-carrying capacity of roadways in our neighborhood.
Does that sound like an outrageous proposal to you; too unrealistic to even consider? If it were so important to increase traffic capacity through the Isthmus, why donÕt state legislators and staff leap at the opportunity to remove their lane of parking from around the Capitol and open up the inner ring so people can drive quickly from E. Wash to W. Wash again? Why donÕt we put a shoreline drive along the edge of Lake Mendota and Maple Bluff? Milwaukee has a shoreline drive. So does Chicago. We could be more like them if we really want to be. In fact, we donÕt do those things because the people who live there, and the whole community (including our neighborhood) would suffer a decrease in our quality of life. More traffic diminishes the very qualities that attract us to live and work here in the first place.
But, you may say, actually reducing capacity is crazy. No one will stand for that.
Older residents will remember when the most popular roads to drive in and out of town on the Isthmus included Rutledge from the Southeast and Sherman from the Northeast. We changed that. We reduced their capacities. More recent reductions in capacity have been smaller efforts in the City of Madison. Five new four-way stops along Mills Street to reduce traffic and improve neighborhood near St. MaryÕs and the University. A traffic circle on Kendall St. in University Heights. New speed humps on the road that runs along the Nakoma golf course. 15 MPH speed limits along and through parks in McFarland, Monona, and Maple Bluff. People acting according to their values with will and commitment determine where traffic can and cannot go, not cars. Just because there are more cars, and more commuters, does not mean that we should bow to their demands and prepare the way for them. There is no manifest traffic destiny.
One last thing. When the E. Wash consultants have so far proposed the "option" of a new lane on each side of the street, they have called it "Six Lanes with a Multi-Use Lane"; not Eight Lanes. They say it could just be used by buses or only during rush hour, that there could be parking there the rest of the time. (Well, when it comes to First St. to Blair St. -- only two hour parking, and not anywhere near intersections given the 35 MPH speed limit, and not over the Yahara River Bridge, and not near the rail crossings, and not in the designated long right turn lanes approaching the big signalized intersections and not at night from 9PM to 6 AM because all that already isnÕt allowed.) So, even though cars could drive down it, and they would have to widen the street a little more, and probably some trees would die given cutting off part of their root system and the winter-time salt spray, and that the multi-use lane would have stripes to separate it from the other lanes, -- they donÕt ever INTEND for it to be a 24 hour lane that would allow 24,000 more cars a day to travel on the edge of our neighborhood SO it wouldnÕt really be eight lanes.
And truthfully, I actually believe them to be sincere in their intentions, but really. Please. Get a grip. That is not an explanation I ever care to defend when the children of our neighborhood have grown up Š and moved away. Do you?
- Tim Olsen
Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood Assoc. President
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