08.07.18 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes August 7,2018 conventions for transportation planning in its singular use of Vehicular Level of Service to drive the base design of the thoroughfare plan. When utilized alone Vehicular Level of Service results in plans like that in the TMP for ever-expanding roadways in a chase to eliminate congestion -to the tune of billions of dollars. But as we have seen across the US,and as research shows,this approach only generates more trips and congestion and idling and ozone-aka the phenomenon of induced demand -while setting compact land use and multimodal efforts up for failure. So we are presented with a future of sprawling, ringed roads that circumnavigate the city to speed cars thru and around the core as quickly as possible. Compared to the Comp Plan Preferred Scenario, compact,connected land use patterns that encourage lower-cost active transportation and healthier lifestyles have been swapped for an expensive future of car-dependent sprawl. Evaluated against economic goals to foster a diverse,vibrant, local marketplace,traffic that would draw people out of their cars to support downtown businesses and experiences has been traded for bypasses that eliminate revenue-generating trips. And when stacked against the many environmental goals set by this city, including protection of our unique bioregions- not only the San Marcos River watershed, but also the Edwards Plateau,the Blackland Prairies- as well as climate action plans,the proposed thoroughfare plan forgoes smart growth for fragmented,degraded landscapes,and status-quo carbon escalation. With this thoroughfare plan,sustainable land use goals and multimodal efforts are set up to fail because they have been eclipsed by the futile quest to minimize vehicular delay and congestion during the initial design.Tacking shared paths on afterwards like hanging dice misses the point. She encourages Council to reject the plan's conclusion that an even more sprawling car-centric future is inevitable. Remove the web of ringed roads on both the east and west sides of the city; improve upon the preferred scenario-don't make it worse; incorporate data-based sustainable performance measures to accompany or replace Vehicular LOS. As data shows,what you don't count,doesn't count. And don't kick the can five years down the road. Instead,do better for this City al San Marcos Page 10