This strikes me as perpetuating the "one way" that urban development has followed for decades: the car culture.
I've been going around telling people that the point of the stimulus is to spend money to get it out into the economy. Well, why Mercer Street? Won't other non-defense spending also create work? How about these items that are supposed to be city priorities:
- Pedestrian safety
- Housing and support services for the hardcore homeless
- School district funding
- Finish the sidewalk grid!
- Duwamish Superfund cleanup
- Fast, convenient and pervasive transit
And how about this need that no one ever talks about: preparing the infrastructure that will support the 1.6 million additional residents expected to move to the Puget Sound region between now and 2040. Do you think the current wastewater treatment system can handle all the additional inputs? Wouldn't our power grid benefit from rooftop solar and wind farms?
The problem for Seattle is that the federal stimulus is only going to shovel-ready projects. That is, projects that were already in advanced planning and only lacked the funding to proceed.
Obviously, Seattle didn't plan.
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