Awhile back (before the project even got off the ground), I wrote about the Lead and Coal reconstruction project. This project which is costing $26 million is designed to decrease auto speeds on the roads in favor of bike paths.
Something I didn’t anticipate happening with this project is that it would kill area businesses, but according to the Albuquerque Journal, at least two businesses in the area have closed their doors and others are teetering on the edge resulting on this petition.
Worse, Councilor Rey Garduño is pushing for Zuni (which feeds into Lead and Coal) to be put on a similar, bike friendly “road diet.” Garduño is not known for his business-friendly policy stances, so it is no surprise that he doesn’t seem to be considering the ramifications such a major construction project might have on area businesses. Of course, the rest of us should be wondering if further shutting down one of the City’s best-moving East-West road corridors is a good idea and whether limited taxpayer money should be wasted on such projects.
Ah yes…the old put the roads on a diet, add paths, art, flowers, rainbows, culture, patina, flavor, texture and warm and fuzzy tickles in everyone’s tummies, plan, and its consequences. This may have started a trend.
As a matter of fact, “Da Mayor” of Roswell will see Albuquerque’s bet on Lead and Coal and raise it with a plan to increase local area gross receipts taxes, in and ethnically diverse way of course, in order to fund similarly backwards leading projects that will cost millions (at least that’s the guess, because while the city has already contracted the PR/planning group to spin this nonsense, they claim to have no idea what the total projected cost might be…add giggles and looks of shock, as if the question of cost were some kind of dirty joke).
The “Master” plan would add decorative medians, narrow the street lanes and slow down an estimated 20,000 vehicles per day along the city’s “Main Street”, while buying up old buildings (perhaps an old friend’s old building, or two) to convert them into public restrooms and public art centers, which generate public costs…gotta love the timing.
We have to assume that there will be a public cost to staff these converted buildings (more old friends?), maintain them (just guessing…employment or contracts for even more old friends), and funnel whatever’s left over to a few more corrupt pigs (oops…I meant to say “old friends”) at the trough for years and years to come…all on the local tax payer’s diversified dime. At least that’s what it sounds like after you sift through ¾ of the touchy feely garbage that this stooge, and his marry minions, tend to sugar coat every overreaching proclamation and sponsored ordinance with.
Ah yes…we can not only slow down Main Street traffic, and provide the incentive to convoy around the city altogether, via the truck bypass route, but we can raise the future costs for potential vendors to do business in the area, and, abscond away with more and more of our citizen’s purchasing power and disposable income to boot…yes we can, yes we can, yes we can…
Ah yes…I’m feeling warmer and fuzzier already.
Ditto to everything Louis Friend says!!!!! I did not vote for “Da Mayor” of Albuquerque to turn this city into Copenhagen or any other European style “utopia”. You see where it got them. People are struggling to keep their heads above water in this economy and the politicians and bureaucrats who caused this mess in the first place by gross overspending don’t get it. They just keep on spending without regard to how much disposable income you have left to spend for your own priorities. They seem to think they can kill businesses and raise taxes indefinitely without impacting the prosperity of the citizens. They cannot; and todays economy is proof of that. New Mexico has a terrible reputation for being unfriendly to business. I wonder if this could be one of the reasons we are such a poor state.
We have bike lanes/trails all over this city some of which I have never seen a bicycle on and many others are rarely used. The automobile traffic is severely impaired by the lane restrictions imposed by bicycle lanes whether they are used or not. By the way, I have never seen a bicycle carrying goods that were bought in a store of any kind. Shopping is done with a motor vehicle. Yet we are restricting auto traffic to the point that autos cannot be used for shopping in favor of bicycle lanes. If we are going to be “business friendly” does it make sense to eliminate or inconvenience motor vehicle traffic and access? Does it make sense to require shoppers to park blocks away from the shops? No, of course it doesn’t and if you do that people will not shop there.
When are we going to come to the realization that we are in hock up to our eyeballs and so are our grandchildren? It is time the politicians stopped claiming first right to the earnings of businesses and the citizens and do what is required to keep our city safe and functioning and stop with the “occupy utopia” plan.
Come on Mr. Mayor take a breath and give us a break. Better yet give us a TAX BREAK!
I believe the Lead and Coal debacle was a hold-over from the previous mayor. Unfortunate that Berry did not step in to stop it. The Zuni thing would be Mayor Berry’s, however.
Motorists need to realize that public roads don’t belong just to them, they belong to every body. So you have to learn to share them with cyclists, pedestrians, public transit vehicles & etc.
Yeah…those roads were built for a reason, guy!
Freakin motorists…and those train tracks are for cyclists and pedestrians too…bunch of engineer jerks.
This isn’t about sharing or not sharing roads. It is about re-designing roads in a way that reduces overall mobility. There was nothing wrong with Lead and Coal prior to the current road destruction. They may be great after this project is complete, but the businesses that leave won’t be coming back.
Hey Andrew, to validate cyclists claim to ownership of the public roads how about we require license plates for bicycles that includes a hefty tax to create and maintain bicycle lanes? It seams to me you folks are getting a free pass at the expense of the people you seem to think don’t deserve to use the roads they paid for.
Fred,
Your suggestion to Andrew brings added meaning to the term “free-rider”.
Unfortunately, “Da Mayor” would probably agree with the idea, and/or try to take it a step further by requiring pedestrians to apply and pay for a license to walk around the city freely as well. They would probably suggest that pedestrians should have to wear florescent orange vests, with the license tag number on both the front and the back sides, while walking around and migrating up and down the middle of the streets and freeways…”you see, it’s for their own safety.”
However, Andrew could care less about bicyclists and pedestrians. Overweight, entitlement, parasitic types don’t ride bikes…but they would like for everyone else to have to ride and pay for their trains to operate, at a loss. Although, I’m guessing that he would be the first mind numb zombie to cry foul if someone else wasn’t paying for their ability to do so.
It’s interesting that Sociopaths have no ability to see anything other than what’s directly in front of their face. Projecting the consequences of their decisions and actions, as well as understanding the meaning of a well crafted metaphor, is simply beyond their capacity and comprehension. However, crying, whaaaaaa, whaaaaa, whaaa, with great big crocodile tears is not beyond their capacity. They can turn that on and off, con-vincingly, like a light switch.
We’re going to have to keep an eye out for the “Bicycle and Pedestrian Diversification, Protection, Safety and Revenue Enhancement Appropriation Ordinance” in the future…if sounds too stupid to be true, then it probably is…or will become, true.