Editorials

Commentary: Traffic is the problem

Details

By Gary P. Custer

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

Hits: 387

The back parking lot was a shortcut for people going to and from the party store next door. For most of the day it was filled with large trucks delivering booze and snacks to the party store and people consuming booze and snacks they bought at the party store.

When you opened the back door you were always at risk from speeding cars, abusive drunks and aggressive panhandlers looking for the cost of a bottle of cheap wine or malt liquor at the party store. Daily trash cleanups were futile. The noise from car radios made it almost impossible to work in our office — even with the doors closed.

Late at night it was first-come, first-served for retailers and wholesalers of illegal pharmaceuticals and personal services and their customers.

To take back control we built a fence to close the shortcut and define the space we were willing to defend.

As we saw it, we were being responsible citizens by trying to eliminate some of the problems on the property we controlled that were also adversely affecting people who lived nearby.

Others did not see it that way.

The party store owner hired an attorney to send the normal threat-laden letter outlining numerous dire consequences that would occur if the fence was not immediately torn down. The street people thought their rights to enjoy a few bottles of malt liquor with their friends and urinate in the bushes were being denied. A few neighborhood residents were upset because they were "inconvenienced" by having to walk a few extra steps around the building to get to the party store.

The fence did not eliminate all of the problems, it just reduced some of the most serious.

But after several years of vandalism, party store customers created a pedestrian shortcut to the beer cooler and their favorite place to meet and urinate by pulling down part of the fence.

We built a better fence which helped, but we are still having problems. There are still drunks and drug dealers around, but they have to do their business in view of neighborhood residents with cameras who are happy to help them get a ride downtown in a car with flashing lights on top.

Anyone suspected of dealing drugs within view of the building results in an automatic call to our friendly neighborhood cops — as a couple of teenage street entrepreneurs found out a few days ago.

Our experiences in trying to improve one small part of a neighborhood are similar to those of groups trying to improve entire neighborhoods.

The viability of any residential neighborhood depends on it being a place in which people want to live. Although the requirements might vary, most people would include safe, clean and quiet on their lists.

Therefore, for anyone trying to maintain the quality of life in their neighborhood, the goal is to maintain the conditions which make it a desirable place for people to live in and eliminate the conditions which make it undesirable.

The most important factor is the volume of automobile traffic within the neighborhood.

Automobiles produce noise, air pollution and traffic hazards. People in cars produce a variety of other adverse effects on the quality of life in neighborhoods.

The more automobiles in a neighborhood, the more problems created for the neighborhood. The more problems in a neighborhood, the less likely people are going to be willing to solve any neighborhood problem. They simply move when their tolerance level is reached and are replaced by people with a lower tolerance level.

Obviously, the first goal of any program to maintain and improve the quality of life in a neighborhood should be to reduce unnecessary traffic in a neighborhood, the traffic which does not begin or end at a point within a neighborhood, but which merely passes through. If this basic task can be accomplished, the major source of many neighborhood problems will be eliminated and allow residents to focus on the rest with a chance of success.

As we found in our attempts to improve our small plot and the Central Park Neighborhood Association is finding in its attempts to improve its neighborhood, there will be a small, but vocal opposition to any change in traffic patterns.

For example, transients will oppose the changes because they feel they will be inconvenienced by the elimination of their accustomed shortcut — even when it is faster to go around than through the neighborhood.

Neighborhood businessmen will oppose the changes because they profit from the increased traffic which adversely affects the neighborhood. And some neighborhood residents will oppose the changes because they do not understand the issues involved.

Yet residents can not solve neighborhood problems if the do no deal with the problem of excessive neighborhood traffic first.

—GPC

• < Prev
• Next >