I can’t answer my question “Can Oak Ridge adapt to the world of the future?”
Obviously, I hope the answer is “yes,” but I know there will be unanticipated challenges. (Life is like that.)
I do know that our city was largely built around the needs of American society in the middle decades of the 20th century. In particular, most of our street system was built around the private automobile as the primary means of transportation. I’m glad that we don’t have the incredibly narrow streets of older towns that were built when horses, donkeys, and human feet were the main means of transportation. However, I wonder how well Oak Ridge’s layout will adapt to a future in which people are trying to reduce their reliance on the private car — perhaps due to the scarcity of liquid transportation fuel or the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Karl’s observations on drive-up windows designed for SUVs (to the exclusion of sedans) suggest that design for the automobile may be more profoundly embedded than I imagine — if the Oak Ridge Starbuck’s is designed so that a person must drive an energy-inefficient SUV or a pickup truck to be able to conveniently buy coffee from the drive-up window, are we thinking clearly enough about the significant challenges of future adaptation?
At this special time of the year, I can only imagine the feelings of the family of Ashley Paine. My heart goes out to them…
Ashley’s tragic death in early November focused attention on the safety of our children when they travel back and forth to school.
City Council cannot tell the school system how to operate its busing program, but all of us have a right to an opinion on the subject. Some people are saying that every child should be able to ride the bus, regardless of where they live. I don’t share that view. I think it’s healthy (both physically and economically) to encourage kids to walk, if (and only if) they have a safe walking route to school (something that not all of our kids have right now).
When the schools cut out busing for kids within a mile, I was disappointed that the schools did not tailor the bus zones so that kids would not need to cross dangerous streets and intersections. Further, it was clear to me from the walking-zone street lists that they had been developed without much ground-truthing (for example, Mona Lane — which was eliminated several years ago — was listed as a walking street for Linden School, and my house was apparently eligible for bus service to Linden because we are a mile from the school by street, although the walking distance is much less than that because there’s a sidewalk-only back entrance to Linden from Montclair Road). That indicated to me that the lists were made by an automated process, and no responsible adult had investigated the situation from a kid’s perspective to make sure the new plan was reasonable.
I’m relieved that elementary school kids now have (limited) bus access (although I’ve told Dr. Bailey that it was silly to place a bus stop on Montclair Road at the back entrance to Linden) and that kids in the “garden apartments” (Rolling Hills apartments) area can now ride the bus to Robertsville, so they won’t have to cross Oak Ridge Turnpike. These changes address the most hazardous situations in which children were being asked to walk. I’m also relieved that there is now a “school zone” speed limit on Illinois Avenue near Robertsville Road, but that intersection is still a treacherous one (as Trina has frequently pointed out). If there are particular issues in other areas, I hope that parents are telling school officials about them.
However, instead of protecting kids by putting them in buses, my personal long-term vision for the city includes making it walkable and bikeable — for our kids and for all of us.
By coincidence a few days before this accident I noticed announcements of other Tennessee communities’ receiving grants for “Safe Routes to School” measures, and I inquired if Oak Ridge had applied. (We had not done so. These grants are available to municipalities, schools, PTAs, etc. City and school system staff say there will be an application this year.)
In skimming online information about the “Safe Routes to School” initiative, I was chagrined to see that several of the “what’s wrong with this picture” situations could have been illustrated by photos in Oak Ridge (for example, photo on the right, which was captioned “Elementary school children should not have to walk across wide, complex intersections like these for their school commute” on the Tools to Reduce Crossing Distances for Pedestrians page.) See What’s Wrong With This Picture for more photos that could be from Oak Ridge, such as cars parked on the sidewalk and bushes overgrowing the sidewalk. The bottom line is that there are many opportunities for improvement here in Oak Ridge!
Regardless of physical infrastructure challenges, the Safe Routes to School folks recommend education as the primary ingredient of a Safe Routes to School program (see http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/guide/education/index.cfm). In the aftermath of Ashley’s accident, I think that our schools should be taking near-term measures to help our kids learn to be safer pedestrians, both to reduce the possibility of future tragedies and to help restore kids’ feelings of self-confidence and personal well-being that have doubtless been undermined by this incident. I know that the “safety city” activities have been successful here (however, I don’t know if they are still happening) in teaching kindergarteners the basics of pedestrian safety, but kids need to learn to deal with increasingly more complex situations as they get older and become more independent, and our schools no longer have programs like the safety patrol that instilled safe behavior in so many of us when we were kids. I am pleased to hear that the Police Dept. school resource officer is helping to conduct school assemblies and other programs to coach kids on safe pedestrian behavior (it seems to me this should include what might be called “defensive walking” and “defensive biking”).
Another Safe Routes to School recommendation is to map “safe routes” for kids. A “good example” on the Safe Routes to School websites tells that “The city of Phoenix, Arizona, works with parents and schools to create Safest Routes to School Maps. The maps are used to show parents and students the recommended walking routes and crossing locations for students living within the walking attendance boundary. The maps help city officials identify priorities for sidewalk repair. If the missing sidewalk has been included in a walking path on the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) walking plan, the city builds the missing segments. Through this process, several miles of missing sidewalk segments have been built.” I would like to see Oak Ridgers create “safest route to school” maps to help parents and kids, inject some reality into the school system’s walk zone lists, and help identify and prioritize needed improvements to sidewalks and intersections, at the same time that we start to implement the many additional excellent suggestions that are being compiled by residents and city officials.
Hmm… A few days ago I noticed that the Knoxville News Sentinel had started including Oak Ridge obituaries under “Knox County” (not every day, but intermittently). Now I see that the News Sentinel delivered to our house today includes a “West Knox” section. Does the Knoxville newspaper want to annex Oak Ridge into Knox County?!?
(Truly, I assume this is just “stuff that happens” when a business is short-staffed around the holiday season, but the coincidence is interesting…)
As the local newspapers have reported, on December 17 Council voted 6-1 to renew the Ferguson Group lobbying contract (I was opposed) and 7-0 to renew the contract will Bill Nolan Associates.
There was little discussion of the matter at the meeting, but it appeared that other Council members’ votes on the Ferguson contract were influenced by the staff recommendations, by the amount of money that staff said Ferguson had helped bring in, and by the fact that experience with Ferguson was far for the city than the experience with the Baker-Donelson law firm had been earlier.
As I’ve said earlier, I continue to believe that the city could gain federal funds for local needs without the services of a lobbyist. Further, the fact that this firm is serving us better than Baker-Donelson does not mean that we need their service.
However, now that Ferguson Group is on board for another year, I look forward to working with them to further Oak Ridge’s interests.
The Council Intergovernmental Relations Committee will meet January 9th (4pm in the municipal building training room) to review and make recommendations on the city’s federal and state “agenda,” which the full Council will consider on January 28th. There’s time for citizen input. Equity for local contractor retirees (see this earlier blog post) is one of my highest federal priorities for the city, but there are plenty of other potential wish list items on both the federal and state level.
The headline in the Friday, November 30 Oak Ridger said Lobbyists earn 2-1 vote of confidence. The article about the City Council Intergovernmental Relations Committee meeting the day before said that I voted against the “rehiring” of “the city’s federal lobbyist, The Ferguson Group of Washington, D.C., and the city’s state lobbyist, Bill Nolan & Associates of Oak Ridge, for another year beginning in January 2008.” That article was erroneous; fortunately the News Sentinel and Oak Ridge Observer both reported the story accurately and the Oak Ridger ran a correction the following Monday.
Mayor Tom Beehan and Mayor Pro-Tem Jane Miller voted to keep both contracts, but I (the third member of the committee) voted for Nolan’s contract to lobby for the city in Nashville but against Ferguson’s contract for lobbying services in Washington, DC.
Both lobbyists have delivered value to the city over the years they have been under contract. With the Tennessee General Assembly, Bill Nolan has helped city officials identify legislative initiatives of interest or concern to the city; he’s helped Oak Ridge make its case for fair treatment under the Basic Education Program (BEP); and he has helped the city be effective in presenting its message on behalf of several other priorities. A couple of years back he carried the ball for the city in the unsuccessful effort to get approval to raise revenues by charging “tipping fees” for DOE disposal of radioactive waste in Bear Creek Valley.
Meanwhile, in Washington the Ferguson Group has helped the city secure earmarked appropriations for local projects, including (for example) funding for part of the Melton Lake Greenway in a previous session of Congress and $2 million [correction: $4 million] for “West End” water and wastewater infrastructure in the current session of Congress. According to city staff, Ferguson has not only helped with making Congressional contacts (the classic definition of “lobbying”), but has provided valuable assistance with assembling documentation in support of Oak Ridge’s funding requests.
Seeing the value the city has received, I’ve had mixed emotions about the lobbying contracts. As reported in one of the papers, I commented: “This is a luxury in a city that has an awful lot of needs.” I do believe that lobbying is a luxury for our city.
In committee, I supported the Nolan contract because I perceive that the legislative process in Nashville is pretty much opaque to outsiders, and Nolan’s firm provides unique value to the city in penetrating the legislative system. I think it is likely that Oak Ridge will need that expertise this year to defend our interests with respect to education funding (the BEP again). The rural areas and the big cities, both of which know how to exert political clout in the State Capitol, want bigger pieces of the BEP pie, and the handful of medium-sized cities like Oak Ridge that stretch in order to fund education are likely to be on the losing end if we are not well-supported in Nashville. I anticipate a similar need for support on some other issues, so I think it is worthwhile to continue this contract, at least for the time being.
As for the Ferguson contract, the Oak Ridger accurately reported that I said: “I see the value of what they do, but I do intend to oppose it. I hope to find a way to accomplish what they do without this expense.” The federal items on the city’s proposed wish list are mostly funding for the kinds of projects that every city would like to get federal funding for, and the funding that Oak Ridge ultimately receives will depend largely on the size of our Congressional districts’ “share” of the pot of money that Congress divvies up for earmark (”pork barrel”) projects. Currently, I don’t see the assistance of a lobbyist as substantially increasing our likelihood of obtaining federal funds or the total amount of funding we receive. The city isn’t currently using its DC representation to help address our special situation as a federal government town — if that were to change, my viewpoint might change.
The whole Council will vote on renewal of the lobbying contracts at our next meeting on Monday, December 17.
