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March 7, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Henry Morgenstein
It is absolutely wonderful to hear so many people rallying around the concept of “traffic calming” — and yet I know, as a car driver I know, that those words are almost a red rag to a bull. I’m in a car (we are all except the most dedicated bicycle riders, in cars at some point) and I see arrayed against me an arsenal of restrictive signs: slow down, stop, children playing. Suddenly, and for no seemingly good reason, the road I am on narrows, or zig zaggs, or there is a bulge in the sidewalk.
It is almost an obstacle course, a perverse maze, a restriction on my freedom, and as a car driver I hate it. It goes against the grain.
However, I do believe the ultimate aim is, in cities, to slow cars down. We need to make the car driver feel it is his choice to slow down. He/she made the decision. There is no outside force. Common sense, the visual landscape, the very feel of the road makes him want to slow down.
I am going to quote long passages from the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, because the book says it best. A man called “Monderman had been called to rework a village…[he] did not have the budget for traffic-calming infrastructure. At a loss he merely suggested that the road simply be made more ‘villagelike.’ If the road looked more like a village road and less like the highways leading out of town, people would act accordingly….’I thought this must go wrong. There were no flowerpots, no chicanes. It was just a simple road in a village, nothing more.’ A month after the project was finished Monderman took a radar gun and measured the speed of cars passing through the village….the speed had dropped so much that he could not get a reading. ’The gun only functioned at thirty kilometers per hour,’ he recalled.”
“What had happened? Monderman, in essence, had created confusion by blending the car, bike, and pedestrian realms. What had been a wide road with clearly marked delineations was suddenly something more complex.”
I am on page 192 of Vanderbilt’s book and I could continue to quote the rest of the page and half of the following page. For instance, “ there is…a quite low curb….we have a feeling we belong to one another, when you isolate people from each other by a high curb, ’this is my space, this is mine,’ drivers drive faster. When you have a feeling that at this moment a child could drop in front of my car, you slow down.’”
“’psychological traffic calming.’ Rather than hit people over the head with speed bumps they would resent and signs they would ignore, better results could be achieved if drivers were not actually aware that they were slowing down, or why. ’Mental speed bumps.’ is the delightful phrase used by David Engwicht….Engwicht argues that intrigue and uncertainty — the things that active cities are filled with — are the best remedies for traffic problems. Put a child’s bike on the side of the road instead of a speed bump; hang a weird sculpture instead of a speed limit sign.”
“’That experience changed my whole idea about how to change behavior,’ Monderman told me [Tom Vanderbilt]. ’It proved that when you used the context of the village as a source of information, people are absolutely willing to change their behavior.”
“woonerven — the word translates roughly into ’living yards’ — began to spring up in European cities in the early 1970s….suggesting that it was people who lived in cities and that cars were merely guests. Neighborhood streets were merely ‘rooms’, to be driven through, at no higher than walking speeds of 5 to 10 miles per hour, with drivers being mindful of the furniture and décor….Even today woonerven plans seem radical, with children’s sandboxes sitting cheek-by-jowl to the street and trees planted in the middle of traffic.”
I have quoted extensively from the book because I cannot begin to say it as well as the book says it. The idea is still highly radical: do away with signs, make the car a guest, slow drivers down through psychological speed bumps, not physical speed bumps. But the greatest beauty of this scheme is that it costs very-very little money. Yes, there must be some road narrowing, some planting of trees in the middle of the street — but the essence is to make the whole setting so complex, so much like a real village — with bicycles & children & trees and dogs and everything else that makes a village vibrant — that car drivers must be pleasantly alert: look at all the activity around you. You are only one part of a complex equation, and you must slow down, navigate this complex really, pleasant, village landscape.
Enjoy it all, don’t speed through it as if it were just one more piece of the highway.
February 21, 2011 at 10:50 am
Phill Orth
West Bay Waterfront patience
I worked for over 30 years to help continue progress on a open and public waterfront in the city. I was able to see everything from the Open Space Purchase, the C & O Waterfront property puchase, the Stiffler property acquisition and what I was most proud of the removal of the power plant and the development of a updated and expanded marina. While I can appreciate the desire to make improvements along the water let’s not lose site of the fact that public projects take a long time. This is to allow the community plenty of time to think about and respond to plans put forward and to allow time to finance the costs in a responsible and prudent manner. Let’s be patient in our efforts to implement future phases of our waterfront development. Good things that are meant to last for generations take time to accomplish.
February 22, 2011 at 8:01 am
chrisbzdok
Thank you Phill – it’s nice to get your perspective on here. best wishes, Chris
August 17, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Mary Kitchener
Oh please! the grand vision… sorry, whata minute or two…I’m, laughing uncontrolably! The big social engineering peice of bunk that cost a million dollars or more! NO one has yet to see thier beautiful world report. Where is it? What a waste of money. Yet again another socially engineered project brought to you by Michigan Land Use Institute. Just a bunch of grant writers that keep their machine well oiled and people in nice salaries. Yet when you attend one of their “communtiy” classes or even get farming (lol that was funny) they have no clue or outcome plan.
Just like the Grand Vision. Could have hired some local folks to tell us we all are wrong in the way we live! The bridge across the Boradman river should have been done years ago. I am a true environmentalist, yet I still drive across bridges and read papers and burn fire wood. It’s so disgusting the fight over this bridge that would be extremely well engineered and envirtonmentally designed, then to look dowqn the road and se the wastful and neglectful eye sore of the TCLP Cass Road Dam. Power could have been generated there, up-keep should have been on-going.
Then you have the same people that want the dams taken out and the beauty of the area preserved and no Hammond/Harmond bridge, as the same that have brought you the wasteland they created along miles of the Boardman River. With millions down the drain over the years in study after study by the sponsors of the Grand Vision and the continuously wasteful TCTALUS; the best thing they could do is go pound sand. It seems to have the same value.
August 16, 2010 at 9:59 am
M'Lynn Hartwell
Please join us at the Tuesday August 17 at the Michigan Works office on Garfield at 10am.
It appears MDOT, the County Road Commission, and Tim Lodge (the Traverse City Engineer who created a great deal of controversy over the 8th street project failure) now want to edit the final recommendations from the paid consultants to re-include the Hartman-Hammond Bridge in the Grand Vision regional plan. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that the Hartman-Hammond bridge is an ill conceived concept that will not respond adequately to the transportation needs of this region. Undermining consultant recommendations and public option and allowing a handful of special interests to place this bridge option back in the Grand Vision regional plan is not acceptable.
Also, the final report to the Grand Vision regional plan must include the full and complete cost / benefit analysis for all of the suggestions that actually may help address changing transportation needs in our region.
Please urge them to leave the consultants report intact as reported, and include the complete cost / benefit analysis report as part of the Grand Vision plan.
August 16, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Bill Palladino
Just to be clear… this is the regular monthly meeting of TC TALUS. (Traverse City Transportation and Land Use Study group). It was the ground-breaking consensus driven work of this group that created the Grand Vision in the first place. It is in fact their job to review, make comments, recommendations, and changes as necessary to all consultant reports from that project. They were the conveners of the Grand Vision, and are still the fiduciary for all funds associated with the original Hartmann-Hammond Bridge fund.
While I applaud you in raising the issue, I’m pretty sure you’re picking the wrong battle with the wrong people at the wrong time. It would be a waste of time to have a large group of irate citizens show up to the TC TALUS meeting. The issue at hand tomorrow appears to be softening the language for the sake of clarity. There is no indication that TC TALUS will be attempting to “re-include” a bridge project. A simple email to the chair, (Evan Smith) and a phone call to MLUI confirmed this for me. And I won’t surprise or offend anyone on TC TALUS by telling you that these are the most mundane and boring of meetings! So come prepared to be underwhelmed.
Go ahead and send some people to the meeting. That is a good thing. But please, learn the facts first, and short of that learn the facts second while at the meeting. Please don’t jump to knee-jerk conclusions. It serves no-one.
We need watchdogs, and I truly appreciate you playing that role. However, there are greater battles yet to come which will truly be worth your time. Let’s save our energy for those, and be more strategic about what we’re after.
Thanks,
Bill
June 13, 2010 at 12:59 am
Franklin street
I was wondering about the city owned property at Franklin Street near the old train station. It’s been a large open plot for as long as I can remember. I was wondering if the city could rent out garden plots to people in the summer.
June 1, 2010 at 5:18 pm
larry lawrence
Mr. Mayor,
Just a question. Does the police chief report to you? Could you fire him if you so desired?
Larry Lawrence
June 1, 2010 at 9:55 pm
chrisbzdok
Larry, good question. The police chief does not report to me, he reports to the city manager, and the city manager reports to the city commission, of which I am a member. Thus it is up to the city commission to discuss and resolve issues on a policy level and then for the city manager to work with his department heads (which includes police chief, fire chief, engineer, public services, etc) to implement. That is what I hope we will accomplish on the issue at hand.
March 23, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Tyler Harris
Michael Moore is a hypocrite. If he would ask for money from the already broke taxpayers he claims to defend, I dont trust him. If anyone is capitalizing here, its him.
March 8, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Tim Werner
The snow is melting, but it will be back. To help make TC more “walkable,” the city should prioritize the sizewalks that get cleared after a snow event. How about designating certain sidewalks that feed to elementary schools as the top priority? I’ve heard that this was the case 30 years ago on Washington St. leading to Oak Park school.
Some of the sidewalks leading to Munson should probably also be at the top of the list.
March 8, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Rob Hite
I’m sure that is already the case but a phone call to the local public works dept. would probably get an answer for ya.
March 31, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Mary Jean McLin
Amen Tim, walkable means WALKABLE, not dodging ice moguls with my recyclables!
February 10, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Michelle Moore
The last couple of posts have drifted away from the topic at hand. Michael Moore’s ideas are good. I agree that there are things that can be done now that will be very beneficial for years to come.
I think the jobs ambassador is a great idea! We, as a community, should have input into what kind of companies we court. Let’s be wise and selective and not naively invite the equivalent of the big bad wolf into our midst, only to find that he has superior legal resources and can’t be made to go away.
We could be manufacturing something with local relevance and, yes, we should update and use the existing rail lines to share these products with the rest of the nation. How about manufacturing affordable electric cars and non-motorized transportation (bikes, like Michael suggested)?
Let’s improve our road planning, accommodating slow-moving vehicles and creating bike-lanes that grace nearly every throughway of the city. I also agree with Michael about Grandview Parkway…it bisects the prime public beach and open recreational area from downtown with ugly traffic congestion. How about making Grandview Parkway the trial run for a slow-moving-traffic-only road, i.e. electric cars, scooters etc.? Commuters coming into the city from the northwest would be encouraged to take public transportation or pull out their bikes once they’ve reached the city limit, effectively reducing traffic flow through the city. Those going from the Leelanau Peninsula to Elk Rapids or vice-versa would take South Airport. And, yes…free public transportation for students! What a great idea!
Public transportation could include more options than the current BATA buses. We could have more bike taxis. We could have golf carts…has anyone hitched a ride on a golf cart at Interlochen? We could even have a ZapVan shuttle!
We could manufacture the wind generators that we’ll be using in northern Michigan. I hope that I misunderstood the comment at the forum suggesting that the public isn’t interested in wind power in northern Michigan. I speak for many when I say; yes, we are. What many of us don’t want is biomass burning that creates pollution and depletes forests. Michigan has already made that mistake once, thus our relatively young forests. Let’s leave the wood-burning for the people with wood stoves and fireplaces. Another business idea…can we manufacture energy efficient wood stoves so that those who heat with wood can do so more efficiently?
As the availability of water becomes a larger issue in other parts of the nation and oil-consumptive transportation becomes more expensive, our population will inevitably grow. In the Great Lakes area, we are the caretakers of a large part of our nation’s fresh water for future generations. When courting businesses for our area, we don’t want to give our water away to corporate control.
We care about natural areas; functioning ecosystems where we can go out and feel a part of the larger circle of life. We can go outside and breathe fresh air, hike, canoe, hunt or swim. We want these aesthetic pleasures and lifestyle choices always to be available to us and our children. We don’t want to give incentives to companies that would pollute or deplete the resources that we value or that make useless items that will quickly end up in the landfill.
We care about where our food comes from and how it’s been grown and transported. We should make every effort to assure that our children have access to local, sustainable, nutritious food and have an inherent understanding of the value of such. This includes school-farm partnerships. It also includes the creation of affordable housing, which would stave off the sprawl that eats away at farmland and natural areas. Another thing that we can all do immediately is to support our local CSAs and farm markets, buy local at Oryana and encourage the larger grocery stores to carry more local products.
It’s all cyclical, if we do one right thing for the long term health of our community, we affect all of the other areas positively. Affordable housing = less sprawl = protection of farmland and natural areas. Affordable housing = less fuel-consumptive transportation and more support for slow-moving and non-motorized transportation = better air to breathe. Protection of farm land = less fuel-consumptive transportation and healthy minds and bodies. Protection of our water resources = sustainable food production and accessibility for future generations. Start with anything and it leads to the rest. Our community is a microcosm of the larger ecosystem of which it is part. Our central goal should be to ensure that it remains a functional one.
April 16, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Tim Maylone
You are invited to visit er-bam.net
This is a grass-roots citizens group building cooperation with local providers to build a strong wireless infrastructure (broadband) to create new economic opportunities.
February 9, 2010 at 9:25 am
Mark
Michael Moore’s ‘Greed’ Message Doesn’t Apply to His Film’s Financiers
Film incentives an accepted part of business plans
By Tom Gantert | Feb. 8, 2010
Michael Moore
Filmmaker Michael Moore
Photo source: Prognosic at commons.wikimedia.org
Months before the release of his movie “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Michael Moore publicly questioned the logic of giving a large corporation like Viacom Inc. taxpayer subsidies for filming in Michigan.
Yet the Flint native had a deal with a subsidiary of Viacom to finance “Capitalism: A Love Story,” and later, someone involved in the production applied for tax credits for filming part of the movie in Michigan.
Moore’s public criticism of capitalism and taxpayers’ bailing out rich Wall Street executives appear to conflict with his own business dealings involving his anti-capitalism movie.
For example, Moore served on a panel in July 2008 at the Traverse City Film Festival and questioned the logic of the Michigan Film Incentive program, which reimburses filmmakers for up to 42 percent of the costs associated with shooting in the state.
“These are large, multinational corporations — Viacom, GE, Rupert Murdoch — that own these studios. Why do they need our money, from Michigan, from our taxpayers, when we’re already broke here? I mean, they play one state against the other, and so they get all this free cash when they’re making billions already in profits. What’s the thinking behind that?” Moore asked.
Moore’s own Web site has a February 2009 story announcing that Paramount Vantage, a subsidiary of Viacom, and Overture Films co-financed “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Overture Films is a division of Liberty Capital, which is a 1-percent shareholder in Viacom, which posted a $463 million profit in the third quarter of 2009.
In one of the more popular scenes in the movie, Moore stands with a bag in front of a Wall Street bank and says, “We want our money back.”
Yet Moore’s image as a Robin Hood for the downtrodden has been tarnished since it was reported last week that his anti-capitalism movie may receive $1 million in tax credits, subsidized by Michigan taxpayers.
“How ironic that Mr. Moore should theatrically demand that taxpayers’ funds be returned from Wall Street banks, while Moore uses state government to reach into the taxpayers’ pockets,” said Michael LaFaive, the Mackinac Center Fiscal Policy Director. “He is no better than the fat cats he criticizes.”
Moore’s Web site has a story quoting the filmmaker’s prepared statement promoting the release of his movie.
“The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn’t have enough wealth. They wanted more — a lot more. So they systemically set about to fleece American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie.”
Eric Sherman, a film industry expert in Los Angeles, said film incentives have become an accepted part of business plans that movie makers pitch to studios.
“I don’t think he could have raised the money (for “Capitalism: A Love Story”) without commenting on tax incentives,” Sherman said. “And Michigan has been known to be one of the most favorable states to offer tax incentives.”
Moore’s publicist didn’t return an e-mail seeking comment. A spokesman for Paramount didn’t respond to a request for comment.
February 9, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Mark
Here’s the link, since you have not posted it all day. I guess things are just a little one sided on this web site.
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/12079
February 5, 2010 at 8:27 am
Not my Idiol
Michael Moore Urged to Withdraw Film Subsidy Application
By Tom Gantert | Feb. 4, 2010
Michael & Me
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/12058
A Republican state senator is calling out filmmaker Michael Moore for requesting $1 million in tax subsidies for his movie “Capitalism: A Love Story,” in which the filmmaker decried the government bailout of Wall Street executives.
State Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, is asking Moore to withdraw his application from the Michigan Film Office, which would reimburse up to 42 percent for costs associated with filming in the state. According to the Web site boxofficemojo.com, the film has generated $15.9 million in gross sales worldwide. It is unknown how much it cost Moore to make his most recent documentary. But in 2008, he told an audience the documentary “Slacker Uprising” cost $2 million to make. He gave that movie away for free on his Web site.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Kathy Hoekstra broke the story last week that Moore applied for the tax subsidy. The Michigan Film Office isn’t releasing how much money Moore would receive.
Cassis, who is chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said Moore shouldn’t be treated differently from any other filmmaker applying for the tax credits, but said his public criticisms of corporate welfare ring hollow if he asks for taxpayer dollars. Cassis said the Michigan Film Office told her Moore qualified for $1 million in tax credits.
Hoekstra’s report had Moore on video at the 2008 Traverse City Film Festival, where he asked: “Why do they need our money, from Michigan, from our taxpayers, when we’re already broke here? I mean, they play one state against another, and so they get all this free cash when they’re making billions already in profits. What’s the thinking behind that?”
“He got caught in his own rhetoric and double standards,” Cassis said. “He decried capitalism and big corporations getting government handouts, and he asked for a handout himself from all the taxpayers of Michigan. He presented himself as a defender of the poor and downtrodden, and government should not be supportive of corporate welfare, but he himself is taking money from taxpayers.
She continued, “Michael Moore, if you stand by your position in ‘Capitalism: A Love Story,’ then withdraw your application from the film office for refunds at the expense of and subsidized by Michigan taxpayers.”
Marc Prey, a Michigan filmmaker and a member of the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council, defended Moore’s application.
“If he applied for the tax credit, completed his film, filed his tax return and, thereafter, received a tax credit and/or refund of his unused tax credit, he was only doing what state law currently provides and encourages filmmakers to do,” Prey wrote in an e-mail. “In addition, I know for a fact that Mr. Moore relocated his production company to Michigan from New York while making “Capitalism: A Love Story.” As a result, this brought a number of full-time jobs to our state that did not previously exist. If the film incentive triggered this move, then that is exactly what it was intended to do.”
Moore has not responded to media attempts to get his comments.
Hoekstra said she made four attempts to reach Moore over a two-day period last week. Moore has also not responded to requests for comment from John Stossel of Fox News, as well as from The Detroit News and the Flint Journal.
“He put himself on the movie-making landscape by trying to get GM’s Roger Smith on the record,” Hoekstra said. “I find it ironic that he seems to be just as elusive as the subject of his breakthrough movie ‘Roger and Me.’”
Last year, Moore told The Michigan Messenger he was “under pressure from the studio to do this (apply for tax credits).” Yet the Flint native told an audience in 2008 he didn’t want a dime of the profits from the movie “Slacker Uprising,” which he gave away for free. Moore told reporters then that film industry experts warned him he was giving up as much as $40 million in gross sales.
Hoekstra is also looking to see if Moore applied for film credits in other states. She said Moore shot in half a dozen states. Hoekstra said Moore hasn’t applied in Washington, D.C., or Florida, and she is still looking at other states in which Moore filmed.
Moore also serves on the Michigan Film Office’s advisory board, but the film office has said the board has no impact on how films receive the tax rebate.
“As a member of the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council, I can tell you that we have an ethics policy that covers potential conflicts of interest involving our members, and we are very mindful of it,” Prey wrote. “As one might reasonably expect, members are not restricted from pursuing the same opportunities (i.e., tax credits, etc.) that are available to non-members; they are, however, prohibited from, among other things, using their position on the Council to gain an advantage that they would not otherwise have. As a result, if Mr. Moore applied for the tax credit, his application was reviewed using the same standards applicable to all applications, it was subsequently approved, and that approval was not influenced by his position on the Council, there should be no issue with it. In addition, I am confident that this was the case with respect to Mr. Moore’s application.”
February 3, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Jim
For those looking for affordable housing in TC, I would recommend checking out http://www.taar.com. Their are quite a few homes in TC listed between $70,000-$100,000.
February 3, 2010 at 11:34 am
Dan
Just make Michael Moore’s ideas into the city and county’s to do lists. Everything he says is on target and doable.