Jim Roy goes on the offensive in letter in today's Daily News. I disagree with his assessment. I don't think the council is nitpicking. As I said previously, I think this parking plan is flawed. I'm not sure a flawed parking plan is better than no parking plan.
I also wish we could divorce paid parking from paying for a waterfront park. I know that was the plan at one time, but the monies are needed elsewhere...schools and yes, sidewalks (or maybe we should call it infrastructure.)
Heck, we're talking about shutting of a good percentage of lights in the town to save money but we're going to shovel money into a new park?
Anyway, good to see Jim's writings again. I miss The Liberator.
2 comments:
Tom,
Just as we separate the paid parking from the waterfront park I think we should separate the lighting plan from simply a cost-cutting effort. Turning lights off is a waste reduction measure. There was no design in the placement or degree of lumination in the current scenario which results in large amounts of waste. To me, it’s the equivalent to realizing there’s an open window in the house during the dead of winter and simply closing it. I know that there is much trepidation in the community that “turning off streetlights” will result in a dark gloomy city, but we are better than that. I envision a city that is illuminated responsibly and with little to no waste. Efficiencies that allow for some extra spending cash... A park maybe!
Thanks for your post,
Joe
Joe,
That's a fair point. Far as I can tell turning off the lights has been presented as a cost-cutting move with fringe benefits. Perhaps that's just the way it was positioned, reported or just interpreted by me.
Count me among the trepeditious (??). I do a fair bit of walking about town at night (seems like the only time I'm free to get a bit of excercise) and I'm a bit worried about the proposal.
I'm not as concerned about crime or things like that, just pure illumination.
Our sidewalks are dangerous enough in the daytime. I don't even try using them at night so I end up sharing the streets with cars so I like to be illuminated.
But I'm open to the idea. (I do recall someone promising that hearings would be held at night so we could see the impact of the shut offs. I hope that's still the case.)
Thanks for reading,
Tom
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