Ann’s Diggin’ in the Dirt blog has the details:
Greenway Forum to be Held November 22 – it’s at 6:00 p.m. at the Grand.
To NA Confidential, the central Greenway question as the project pertains to New Albany is not that of access to it through the floodwall in the downtown district.
Rather, it’s the far more fundamental question of why automobile traffic must be accommodated at all.
We strongly feel that the plan for the Greenway should be revised (and the price tag considerably reduced) by removing automotive traffic from as much of the route as possible.
For the Greenway to connect with New Albany requires its passage over the creek that runs through Al Goodman’s Loop Island Wetlands. The existing superstructure of an old railroad trestle appears to be capable of refitting for the purpose of pedestrians and bicycles, but Greenway plans call for the construction of a multi-million dollar bridge.
It’s not only senseless, but it compromises the conceptual basis of the recreational Greenway to slash through an environmental area for the sake of the internal combustion engine – and those of us who appreciate the Loop Island Wetlands, and who exercise by walking or riding bicycles, need to make this known.
To be sure, the Greenway’s movers and shakers previously have complained of public detachment when it comes to meetings and forums. This apathy will have to be reversed, and Tuesday’s forum is as fine a place as any to start the process of making the Greenway make sense.
Write your opinions here, and bring them with you on Tuesday.
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3 comments:
My opinion, ped path only on the Greenway Project.
No vehicles period.
Well here we go again. Proof that government involvement can ruin a good idea. I would love to see this as a ped/bikeway too.
However, I'm not the only person who pays taxes and since tax money is where the bulk of funds are coming from, the people who'd like to see cars have access through the area get to weigh in as well.
The other aspect to this is that people in charge of projects like this, where they spend other people's tax money, get blinded by the fact that they can get huge sums of money from the government and so the project increases in scope and cost and they feel so powerful and important.
Is there any way to get this back to a private project? Perhaps the first step is to refuse federal funds, aren't they tacked on to the transportation bill? Which is really out of line, because this is really a recreational project anyway.
Or perhaps there are other places in this area to focus on where ped/bikeways can be built through a privately funded organization dedicated to the purpose you describe?
The thing that may be a little sticky on the pedway/roadway issue is that since the Greenway was originally enacted by Congress, it might jeopardize the funding to nix the roadway.
We don't know that for sure, but someone with the Army Corp brought it up, so it bears investigating. But I believe the general consensus among New Albany's powers that be is that if a roadway must be built, it doesn't have to be opened to vehicles.
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