More highway stupidity

Kevin and Gary have the details:

Never mind the opposition of the city's Economic and Workforce Development department - who know this won't bring economic development. Never mind the opposition of the city's Transportation Department, who know that this will do nothing to improve travel time, and do much to create hazardous conditions for pedestrians, including mass transit users.

Never mind the kids that will be hurt or killed trying to cross a 6-lane intersection. Never mind the kids that become obese because their parents, wisely, won't let them walk to school across a highway.

Never mind the people that won't buy and refurbish old/abandoned housing in the Golden Belt / Morning Glory historic district or Cleveland-Holloway because when they ask a realtor where the nearest park and school are, the realtor will say "across Alston Avenue."

Never mind the houses and business that will be destroyed. Never mind the loss of the neighborhood grocery store that the owner says he would invest $30,000 in tomorrow if he knew he wasn't going to be kicked out.

Never mind that East Durham is already on the upswing - with new businesses and new/renovated housing, with people excited to explore a neighborhood they didn't know, and longtime residents excited to see new businesses, people, and housing. Never mind that this is happening because investment in a human-scale landscape is already occurring - by the public and private sector - without Alston Avenue being turned into a freeway.

From the first point I saw this design, I advocated for a compromise design solution. Perhaps that was a mistake - perhaps I should have just advocated to kill this project from the start, before it, and neighborhoods, could become pawns in a local game of who-brung-the-money.

For the councilmembers who will endorse this project - I hope that this highway is your legacy. That every kid who can't cross the street without fearing for their life, every bicyclist run off the road, every speeding vehicle that runs off the road across a sidewalk on Alston Avenue reminds people that you voted for this boondoggle to feed your own political ambition. Thanks for showing that the politician's invocation of the oft-lamented destruction of neighborhoods by the Durham Freeway is absolute pandering b.s. - that, given the same choices, you would make the same exact mistake for the exact same reasons.

Gas is approaching 4 bucks a gallon. Anyone with vision can see that within two generations, maybe less, the one person/one car paradigm is going to be deader than 35 mm film cameras. Widening Alston Ave. according to this design locks that entire section of Durham into the 1980s for the next 50 years or more. There are very good proposals out there to turn this into the streetscape of the future, instead of the barren highway to yesterday. Too bad our elected officials are too blind to see it and too chickenshit to implement it.