Quote:
Originally Posted by TakeFive
I keep intending to spend time on Strong Towns, known as a good urban site but never do.
Here's a parallel quote of road infrastructure extracted from a different post that shows the yin and yang or crux of the problem:
Point being neither the (far) right or left knows how to get anything done. Meanwhile costs have been increasing at an accelerating pace and for now Phoenix is left to repair existing streets in a city/metro that sprawls. Phoenix is by far the city with the most deferred maintenance. First rule of appealing to voter/taxpayers is to fix the damn potholes/roads.
In Phoenix sadly urbanism barely has a toehold and I've argued repeatedly for 'Green' and 'Complete' streets which is consistent with (needed) up-zoning. Perhaps by the next time the roads need repaving better sense will be in place.
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Strong Towns makes some good points. I saw its founder Chuck Marohn when he spoke in Phoenix last year and enjoyed his talk for the most part. Nevertheless, both Marohn and his staff get some things wrong and sometimes stubbornly repeat the same old arguments without understanding the nuances of different situations. Strong Towns has described Phoenix's light rail as a "shiny object. " That's a tired, silly, and thoroughly debunked argument usually associated with anti-urbanists. Sometimes, cities need to think big and invest in infrastructure. Not everything can be accomplished through the incremental approach Marohn advocates.
Can you please explain your comment "Phoenix is by far the city with the most deferred maintenance."? Perhaps that's true relative to some of its suburbs, but certainly not in comparison to the rest of the nation.
Also, in your both-sides-ism I see an unfortunate theme of the ends justifying the means. Even if city staff and the Stanton administration should have made street maintenance a higher priority, I don't see how that can be used to justify raiding funds intended for high-capacity transit.
It seems that during the leadership vacuum of the past year, some of the moderates on the council have tried to strike a bargain in which they raid funds intended for rail with the intent of creating a highly visible surge of street repairs. That surge would then mollify voters and convince them enough repairs are occurring and that no further defunding of rail is necessary. I hope they're right, but I'm skeptical. With DiCiccio, if you give an inch, he takes a mile (literally -- since we're talking about miles of streets here). The anti-rail forces have not been motivated to give up the fight by prior reallocations of funds. Instead, they've been emboldened. I can only hope the voters feel differently.