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I spent a couple of hours last week wading through the City’s recently released Resilient Houston, a plan, which, according to its authors, “provides a framework for collective action for every Houstonian; our diverse neighborhoods and watersheds; City departments; and local, regional, and global partners . . . to protect Houston against future disasters—from hurricanes to extreme heat waves—and chronic stresses such as aging infrastructure, poor air quality, and flooding.”
There are some good ideas in the report, like planting a lot more trees and trying to get buildings out of the floodway. Although I’m not sure we really needed a year-long study that cost God-knows-what to know that planting more trees and not building in the floodway are good ideas.
It also sets a lot of completely unrealistic goals with no concrete ideas on how to accomplish the goals. For example, we will apparently have no more car-crash fatalities or serious injuries by 2030. Most of which are safely far enough in the future that everyone will have forgotten about them when they are not met.
There are also some truly idiotic ideas. My favorite is to spend $5,000,000 on local artists to “create resilience awareness projects across the city.” Can you imagine what a boondoggle that would be? BTW, it would take the annual property taxes of about 500 average Houston homeowners to pay that bill!
Mostly the study is a bunch of new-urbanist nonsense that if we would all just give up our cars, start riding the light rail or biking to work, and move into a 1,000 square-foot multi-story apartment, the City would become a metropolitan utopia. I was a little surprised there was no recommendation that everyone start wearing Birkenstocks.
The report never mentions the City’s structural deficit. The word “pension” does not appear in the report, even though that remains the City largest ongoing fiscal issue. It only has one oblique reference to the City’s financial challenges saying, “We will need to develop new funding and financing tools that enhance our current funding.” Of course, that is code that we are going to come up with some creative ways to tax you more.
There are many references to the City’s aging and inadequate infrastructure, but not even the vaguest hint about how to address that issue, what the priorities should be, or how to finance the new projects. All in all, this will be another study that will become a dust collector on some shelf at City Hall. Too bad the City didn’t spend the money on actually fixing something, like maybe some potholes.
I read some of the plan, too. It is full of unrealistic goals, and a lot of plans to train residents to do it yourself.
I don’t know why the blog is so against bicycling. I have always thought it so absurd that people need a car to get to work, and work for money to get the car to take them to work. I have been riding a bicycle to work regularly for the past few years, about 8.5 miles each way, a daily total of 16-18 miles. The bike is as fast as driving, and faster than the bus.
While I realize that not everyone is able to ride, some need to carry a lot of tools or whatnot to work, others because of health/fitness concerns, it is a viable means of transportation. One reason why people say that they don’t do more commuting by bicycle or walking is that there is not a safe way to do it.
The cyclists (those Spandex warriors with their $5000 carbon bikes) are annoying on the trails, as are the people who are riding with their hands in the air dancing. The bike lanes along the streets are rather useless, too narrow, littered with debris, and the like.
For the record, I don’t wear Birkenstocks, don’t like them whatsoever.