Making Cities ‘Livable’

Is your neighborhood livable? The U.S. Department of Transportation says it wants to create livable communities, but doesn’t exactly define the phrase. Though in a USDOT report, livable is probably a technical term, with a different definition than laypeople might assume. The Infrastructurist is on the case, though, and has this:

Always ready to shed light on vague transportation language, Secretary Ray LaHood came forward to clarify the term as follows: “Livability,” he said, “means being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get in your car.”

So what we’re talking about here is car-less (or “extreme car-light”) living in dense urban neighborhoods. Which, given the gradual movement towards urban environments, isn’t a pipe dream. But it does present a pretty drastic change to millions of Americans who have come to associate “freedom” and a high quality of life with suburban communities, cul-de-sacs, and above all, cars. As for how the administration plans to achieve this urban-based vision of “livability,” the Plan states the DOT will:

• Establish an office within the Office of the Secretary to promote coordination of livability and sustainability in Federal infrastructure policy;
• Give communities the tools and technical assistance they need so that they can develop the capacity to assess their transportation systems, plan for needed improvements, and integrate transportation and other community needs;
• Work through the Partnership for Sustainable Communities to develop broad, universal performance measures that can be used to track livability across the Nation as well as performance measures that capture local circumstances; and
• Advocate for more robust State and local planning efforts, create incentives for investments that demonstrate the greatest enhancement of community livability based on performance measures, and focus transportation spending in a way that supports and capitalizes on other infrastructure investment, both public and private.

All of which seems like a fancy way of saying, “We need more public transportation, but we’re not entirely sure how to build it.”

Is your community livable? Do you want it to be?

Shrinking Downtown

In case you missed it, the TARC trolleys will be free this summer. Fares were first imposed on the trolleys in 2004, and TARC executive director Barry Barker says ridership dropped as a result.

Various downtown businesses and development organizations have come together to sponsor the trolleys through the summer, in a deal Barker says is mutually beneficial. The goal, he says, is to shrink downtown; to make it easier for pedestrians to go from the Brown to the Belvedere to the Slugger Museum to Slugger Field. Barker hopes the trolleys will tie together businesses along the routes, and the businesses putting up the money to sponsor the trolleys probably share that hope.

If the plan works in the short term, Barker says TARC and the other partners in the pilot program will try to secure more sponsorships to keep the trolleys free.

But what about the buses? I asked Barker last week whether sponsorships could be the key to TARC’s future. The cash-strapped authority has little option but to reduce service when budgets get tight, and Barker seems eager to find a solution. He told me small governments across the country have to find new ways to fund public transportation–fares and occupational taxes aren’t cutting it. He said he would be happy to have a conversation with anyone who would like to sponsor TARC, but right now, sponsorships will only cover the trolleys.

The GOP Unity Rally

Kentucky Public Radio’s Tony McVeigh attended Saturday’s Republican unity rally with Rand Paul, Trey Grayson and Mitch McConnell. You can read his report on WFPL.

Stutzman To Run For Souder’s Seat

Indiana State Senator–and Tea Party favorite–Marlin Stutzman will run for Mark Souder‘s seat in the U.S. House.

Souder resigned after admitting to having an affair with a staff member. Stutzman lost the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate to Dan Coats earlier this month.

NPR’s Ken Rudin has more on the situation, the likelihood of a special election and other possible candidates.

Dispatches From Haiti: Postscript

This post comes to us from WFPK’s Mark Bacon. For more on his trip, visit his website.

I’m back in the States. And it seems surreal. The trip was one of the most rewarding I have ever taken. The contrast between the haves of the U.S. and the have-nots of Haiti is obvious. What may not be is the attitude. Here, one hears so much griping and complaining about “stuff.” We have so much, and instead of making us happy, it seems to make us insecure. How to keep it? And at what price? Seems at any cost, mostly. Our pledge and currency state “In God We Trust,” but it’s the stuff we love. Haiti? Faith is all people seem to have and hold. At times, it gets absurd: Jesus Loves You Restaurant and Bar caught my eye one day. And tap-taps have many references to Christ and scripture. But they are happier in many ways. Hearing them sing at church literally raises the hair on the back of your neck, and lifts the foundation off the ground.

These memories flooded my consciousness on the trip home. Plus, hot water on plane? When I went without for almost a week. Not to mention power, and no mosquitoes or rats to worry about. Debarked at National to a lonely reception. Read none. My girlfriend was taking off for Chicago the next day, and another friend who said they’d meet me, didn’t. So much for a heroes welcome. Heroes are hard to find? I took Metro to my friends’ home, and folks were eyeballing me. Or maybe smelled me. I was ripe. Looked kinda rough, too. A hot shower was my parade. And it was great.

To recapitulate the events, I start at the beginning:

The trip from the airport in Haiti with the soundtrack of incessant sound of the car horns on the street—Haitian stop lights. Mangoes falling on our roof during the night.

Loading 90 – 50 lb. boxes of ready made meals that were packaged at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield, VA, by “Stop Hunger Now.” Dividing our group into teams for the purposes of preparing care packages for each of the students. Working conditions akin to a sauna. Frequent water breaks.

A trip to the metal workers village where we spent about an hour shopping. Some came away with some great pieces of art. Walking around the area and looking at how people live was eye-opening; cook, sleep, work, wash, etc., all in the same room.

The weather being hot and humid is an understatement. Sweating like never before. Nights: hot, no air movement, and little sleep, if any.

The Village of Hope School and a church service. The children sing like I have never heard. Beautiful, soulful. After church we drove to a historic sugarcane plantation where there is now a restaurant. Then, Odney Jean, the driver, took us the to the areas more heavily damaged by the earthquake. Eye-opening. Sorrow and joy mixed on the teeming streets.

The daily challenge of extremely hot and humid days. Starting another day at The Village of Hope School, distributing care packages to all the classes—about 640 packages. Experienced eating in the school’s lunchroom and a typical Haitian meal of beans and rice with fish sauce. For many of these kids, this may be the only meal they eat all day. The day ended with a parade in honor of flag day. The day continued with an emotional experience visiting the Little Children of Jesus Home for the Disabled at their new facility. All of these kids have profound physical and/or mental disabilities, but they are full of love and joy.

Final day trip to paint at The Village of Hope, and a visit to a girl’s orphanage where the church collapsed in January from the quake, and a new sanctuary was being built. Haitian construction: mixing concrete by hand, 5/8″ or less riebar rods. Hot. Exhausting. Evening debriefing. No sleep. A final drive to the airport past large refugee camps and then, the surreal part.

Home. In God We Trust. Really? Not stuff?

Visualizing Bike Routes

In our report on Bike To Work Day, we quoted Bike Louisville’s Scott Render who said last year’s Bike To Work Day drew riders from across the city, with a majority riders rode from near-urban neighborhoods to downtown offices.

From Metro Government via Broken Sidewalk

Broken Sidewalk has last year’s map of the routes people biked, and while it looks like most routes do in fact lead downtown, suburbanites didn’t slouch. A number of riders from outside 264 pedaled to suburban and urban offices. A few of these routes are fairly long, and it seems like anyone navigating roads meant mostly for cars would benefit from improved bike lanes and a map of those lanes. Both of which are in the works.

McConnell Had Worst Week, Says Post

The Washington Post says Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had the worst week in politics this week.

Why?

McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky, watched helplessly as his hand-picked candidate to replace retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R) was walloped Tuesday by ophthalmologist Rand Paul, whose campaign was premised on running against the establishment politics that McConnell lives and breathes. Paul’s victory amounted to a direct rebuke of McConnell’s status as the godfather of Kentucky politics and showed that even the most powerful Republican in the Senate can’t stop the onrush of the “tea partiers.”

As if that wasn’t indignity enough, McConnell had to grin and bear it as Paul caused a media firestorm by inexplicably relitigating the tenets of the Civil Rights Act — the very sort of comment that had led people such as McConnell to back the other guy in the primary.

DNC Also Hits Rand Paul

The Democratic National Committee has released a web video hitting Rand Paul on his recent comments about the Civil Rights Act.

(via)

Rasmussen Gives Paul 25 Point Lead Against Conway

Rasmussen Reports is sometimes criticized for skewing toward the right with their polls, but this is the first Senate general election poll I’ve seen.

Rand Paul – 59%

Jack Conway – 34%

Other – 4%

Undecided – 3%

Abramson On Supporting Fischer

From WFPL news:

As he promised to do, Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson is supporting the Democratic nominee in the mayor’s race.

Abramson did not endorse in the primary, but now that Greg Fischer has won his party’s nomination, the mayor says he’s been meeting with the candidate to prepare for the general election.

“Talking about some of the substantive issues facing the upcoming budget, as an example, and we’ll work with him as time goes by to ensure he is as successful as possible and able to win in November,” he says.

In a statement, Fischer’s Republican opponent Hal Heiner said, “It’s not surprising Greg needs help in this campaign and further proves a Fischer Administration will be a continuation government;  a continuation of policies that led to scathing audit reports and a decade of job loss.”

At least three independent candidates are also in the race.