Brian’s Utah Weblog

Parking and traffic aren’t as sexy as new malls or theaters, billion dollar bonds, intense rivalries between the founding institutions of the city, or a national campaign to impeach the president. Parking and traffic won’t make the headlines of national and local news stores about our mayor’s legacy in January. What parking and traffic are is the lifeblood of commerce and the texture of day to day life.

Our mayor has given us unprecedented leadership finding ways for citizens and businesses to get together in our downtown. Visionaries like Rocky aren’t known for focusing to get the details correct right down to the stripes painted on the street but we are lucky to have a mayor who does.

About ten years ago the nation’s urban planners took note of experiments in Pennsylvania with back-in angled street parking. There is considerable evidence that it reduces collisions and makes traffic smoother while allowing easier loading on occasions when large items go into the trunk. It’s not for every street and needs to be evaluated and tested at each location.

Environmental Advisor Lisa Romney brought up the subject with Rocky early in his first term and he had already heard of it and wanted to try a demonstration. This is a common pattern with Rocky; when you first hear of a new idea in the research some technical specialty in public affairs, Rocky has already read the paper and thought about the possibilities for Salt Lake City.  As soon as plans could be prepared there were streets being restriped. The first two I saw were on the blocks of 1000 East 900 South and 300 West 200 South. The ones at 300 West 200 South are still there. Love them or hate them that kind of support for innovation from the mayor is a rare treasure for any city.

That was just the beginning of new parking ideas in Salt Lake City. Soon there was a citywide token system and more ways for downtown businesses to get access to parking garages for customers. On street parking was expanded in parts of downtown, too. But the biggest change came in 2003.

Broadway (300 South) and 300 East were rearranged to cut out a lane of traffic and add a row of angled parking down the center of the streets. Not only did the city add hundreds of new on-street spaces but crosswalks were added and traffic was calmed both of which drive retail business in commercial corridors.

It was unprecedented. On-street parking is by far the most valuable kind downtown. It doesn’t require a garage or take up valuable real estate with empty lots or require a long walk to businesses. It does encourage pedestrians and calm traffic making streets safer. On-street parking is a treasure and Rocky conjured up a couple hundred spaces from thin air.

There was opposition. Skeptics including the city council and Rocky’s opponent for reelection worried about losing traffic lanes and building an unfamiliar street design. But Rocky saw that fewer traffic lanes would make the street more walkable and that on local downtown streets demand for parking is more pressing than demand for through lanes.
Walking and biking along Broadway is a delight now. The through traffic takes wide 400 South where it belongs and businesses have thousands more potential customers every day.

Today the new street design and pedestrian improvements are being set in concrete and the final effect is beautiful. More parking, better walking, better commerce, and better neighborhoods all came from attention to detail and the basics of making our city work.

Thanks, Rocky.

Before Rocky was mayor our city had fine parks. Liberty Park, my own neighborhood park, was a treasure but like many city facilities it was falling apart.

The Seven Canyons fountain was closed because it didn’t have a filtration system that met health standards for children to play in it. The Issac Chase Home was closed, the row of giant cottonwoods was facing disease and decay, the Chase mill building was vacant and falling apart, the bicycle path was potholed and crowded, the concession building was an old shack, and springs were fenced off. It was a nice park but it was decaying.

Rocky arrived determined to improve our parks and open space and embarked on a program of capital improvements. The Seven Canyons fountain runs filled with happy children all Summer. We have a new fancy concrete grade separated bike path and separate jogging path. There is a new concessions building and a restored Youth City program building. There is a new playground thanks to Utah’s Rotarians. The restored Chase Home is an expanded museum of Utah Folk Art. Fences have come down and water features are restored. The Tracy Aviary has expanded and updated exhibits and habitat.

Fairmont Park and Jordan Park have seen upgrades and additions, too, as have many smaller parks. Gilgal garden has been protected with a permanent easement.  We have an open space fund that will soon be adding parks in neighborhoods like mine. The North Salt Lake watershed property in the foothills is being preserved. And a giant makeover for Pioneer Park is getting started.

Best of all, we have an entirely new city park on Library Square downtown that hosts the Salt Lake City Arts Festival and plenty of space for concerts, parties, or reading out in the sun on sunny Summer afternoons. It is the last open space we’re likely to get downtown and Rocky had to fight hard to get the Council to preserve it instead of privatizing it for development.

Not all the advances are due to Rocky alone. The city council adopted new capital improvement goals in the budget, the Olympics and Rotarians contributed, and the people voted new bonding for zoo and aviary improvements. But Rocky has been the leader making urban outdoor life better in Salt Lake City and we all enjoy it.

Thanks, Rocky.

We Salt Lakers look forward to electing Ralph Becker to be our next mayor and we should look forward because Ralph’s vision and experience will help make Salt Lake the great Americans city it can be.

But let’s also remember the things we have to be thankful for. One of those things is the vision and courage of Rocky. Sure, it hasn’t always been easy and I’ve been disappointed a few times as any advocate will be but on very hard issues, Rocky has made our city a better place.

Back in 1999 when we first elected Mayor Rocky there was no light rail in Utah. Over ten years of effort starting with corridor and study money set aside by great Utah Congressman Wayne Owens culminated in our first line opening just after the election. When Rocky was sworn in TRAX had just opened and skeptics had not been won over by its spectacular success.

The Olympics were coming in 2002 and there was a chance we could get money to build another light rail line along 400 South to the University Of Utah and its Olympic village quickly. Local support would have to be strong and unequivocal.

Unfortunately our city council voted to oppose 400 South light rail. Our city was looking at less mobility, more congestion, and a long hard fight to get transit money years later than we needed it. We wouldn’t likely even have the 400 South line today in 2007 if the Council’s decision held.

Rocky swept onto the scene even before he was inaugurated to persuade the Council. He shared his vision of vibrant and exciting walkable neighborhoods growing around transit. He organized special meetings. He negotiated understandings between UTA, UDOT, and the city.

The Council voted unanimously to reverse itself and support our TRAX line at its last meeting of the year. The Wasatch Front Regional Council, Federal Transit Administration, and Clinton Administration followed and 400 South TRAX was built on an accelerated schedule in time for the Olympics.

Today the 400 South TRAX line is exceeding ridership projections and helped persuade the people of Utah to fund four new extensions with a billion dollar bond last November.

Thanks, Rocky.

I was at Washington Square Saturday having a picnic with my family while the peace rally was going on. There were a few hundred people making their voices heard including the Progressive Democrats and the Quakers. The Quakers set up a large memorial of empty shoes commemorating soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in Iraq. The Ron Paul campaign set up a booth and warned us that none of the leading Democratic candidates are promising to pull out of Iraq. Rocky closed the rally with his indictment of the president’s blundering and abuse of our nation and our troops in Iraq.

Our mayor gives a great speech. The out of town relatives only heard a minute of it but they were impressed.

Update:  Wasatch Watcher has video.

I saw this on my way through Salt Lake City today. The house on the right has two “I’m For 1” signs supporting the pirates trying to raid our public schools. On the left there is a hand made banner declaring “Impeach Bush And Cheney.” The ‘ch’ from ‘impeach’ and the ‘Ch’ from ‘Cheney’ are artfully shared.

I hope these neighbors are getting along.

Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) hedged his support for the bill (S. 1257) to add a fourth congressional seat to Utah even as it needed just three more votes yesterday.

Does anyone wonder why he would back away from Utah’s best interests at a critical time? Maybe it’s because he knows the proposed second district would be an uncomfortable place for its current occupant and he might start looking across the Capitol lawn. I’m pretty sure Bennett, who is up in 2010, isn’t ready yet to start practicing the phrase “Senator Jim Matheson.”

My baby cousin died today.

He was nineteen years old.

I last saw him at Thanksgiving dinner.  He seemed robust but a bit teenagerish. I knew he got in trouble sometimes but I thought he would find something good to do, something he cared about, eventually.  Being a teenager is hard.  Sometimes the consequences are just too awful.

When I was in junior high I would visit my aunt and uncle and my infant cousin in their ground floor apartment a few blocks from us.  He would giggle and cry and demand to be fed.

“I don’t think Senator Stevenson is going to cry, but if somebody can make him cry here today, more power to him.”

-Rep. Brad Last (R-Dixie)

There was a discussion of the value of class size reduction versus its cost in the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Several representatives from the Republican side suggested that class size reduction doesn’t lead to much improvement in education for typical students. Of course improvement in their rubric can be measured only by standardized test scores. I’m not surprised that the opponents of education funding managed to manufacture a study that reached that result but it doesn’t reflect the reality in classrooms.

It’s always good to be up here for committee meetings. The House and Senate floors are usually much less important, less interactive, and less interesting than committee meetings but they are open for business, too. Committee Schedules are online, as are agendas. Pick one you like and show up.

I went to my Community Council meeting tonight.  If you’re in Salt Lake City or the unincorporated county, you should really attend your local meeting (times and places under “Chairs and Boundaries”).   I heard about new parks, emergency preparedness, what the city council is doing, neighborhood celebrations, and volunteer opportunities.  There was direct access to elected officials and city employees.  It was a good time with nice people and fun topics.

I did hear a disturbing story from the police department.  This morning there were several calls about a carjacking downtown in broad daylight.  Our local community representative cop was in the area and observant enough to catch sight of the car and follow it.  She called for backup and chased the car across the city.  Meanwhile reports were saying the perp had used an AK-47 rifle in the carjacking which he still had.  Six cops made a guns-drawn arrest and no one was hurt.  The carjackers had drugs with them but the guns turned out to be realistic looking BB guns.

The car was registered to a nonexistent person and the owner never called in.  What had happened is that a drug dealer had carjacked another drug dealer with a “throw away” car that couldn’t be traced.  The drugs had belonged to the original dealer and the carjacker wanted them.

But with no owner to press charges and the drugs impossible to link to the carjacker, the only charges that are likely to stand up in court are red light running during the chase.  At least twenty hours of police work and a downtown chase and these drug dealers are going to get a slap on the wrist.

Reports indicate that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has offered recently reelected corrupt Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) old seat on the Ways And Means committee to Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL).  Thanks to Pelosi and Davis for helping to establish that there is one party in this nation where bribery is unacceptable.  Maybe New Orleans will follow the same policy someday.

I’m here at the joint Executive Appropriations Committee meeting of the Utah Legislature and the room is packed. I had to help move spare chairs into the room in order to get a seat.

The official guest roll indicates there are quite a lot of Wasatch Front Regional Council members and representatives and city officials as well as UDOT leaders looking for news and influence over the transit bond diversion process.

First order of business is approving revenue estimates from fiscal years 2007 and 2008.

Representatives of the Wasatch Front Regional Council are testifying to the committee on proposed weighted criteria for transportation processes. WFRC Executive Director Chuck Chapel is testifying while West Valley City Mayor Dennis Nordfelt and Draper Mayor Darrell Smith sit with him.

Chapel is discussing UDOT’s TIP process for ranking projects and USDOT’s ideas about similar processes. He claims the technical requirements of the law have been met by the process he is proposing.

There is a question before the committee on having the legislature update weightings of the criteria or amend the criteria themselves. Speaker Curtis sounds like he wants to change the standards. Chapel stands up for Salt Lake County and notes that the law specifies only WFRC can create a weighting and the legislature can approve or disapprove but not amend. Curtis is pressing him pretty hard and asks him why he hasn’t noted where other committee members’ suggestions might be illegal, but of course other committee members haven’t proposed illegal changes.

Curtis is still trying to get Chapel to agree that the committee can demand amendments to the criteria.

There is some discussion over differences between House and Senate procedure in the committee. “It’s going to be a long 45 days,” says one legislator.

Now it sounds like the WFRC is giving in to Speaker Greg Curtis on the process and influence of the committee under law. “I thought I knew how to read a statute but I didn’t.” The committee suggests that they will demand changes in the criteria now that they have browbeaten the WFRC representatives into accepting the possibility of changing them.

Curtis is trying to establish that WFRC will follow his demands and accept the committee’s reordering. He asks if the WFRC agrees with his new understanding of the process. “Is that your understanding?” “It is now,” answers the WFRC representative.

The changes proposed by the committee that approval will depend on are,

• rankings for each criteria be scaled
• rankings be relative to cost
• cost effectiveness be ranked matched to congestion relief

I’ll write about the practical effects of that after I understand them.

Looks like only Rep. McGee, Sen. Mayne, Sen. Hale, and Sen. Dmitrich opposed the attempt of the committee to manipulate the criteria. All but Dmitrich are from Salt Lake. It doesn’t look promising

Before the November election the Utah Legislature met in special session to authorize Salt Lake and Utah counties to issue transit bonds to build four new TRAX lines in Salt Lake and commuter rail in Utah County.

The bonds were a success; the people approved them overwhelmingly.

But the legislative leadership decided to put a dangerous time bomb into the new law. They required counties to divert 25% of the new revenue to corridor preservation and to establish a new process for deciding which projects would receive the funding. The new process is to establish a set of weighted criteria for projects based on common goals for transportation projects. So far no problem.

But the legislature’s Executive Appropriations committee has veto power over the set of criteria. Leaders are expected to try to shift Salt Lake County transit money to their favorite road projects around the state. By shifting the criteria they want to move our transit projects off the top of the list.

A little story from Texas today. We added one more congressman yesterday who has supported Utah’s interests on issues like nuclear testing and public lands conservation. But the way it happened has some partisan redistricting twists.

In 2002 Democrats hoped to replace San Antonio Congressman Henry Bonilla (R-TX) with candidate Henry Cuellar. We lost by a hair, 51%-47%.

In 2003 Tom DeLay used strong arm tactics (for which he has since been indicted) to persuade the Texas legislature to redraw congressional districts. One goal was to move Henry Cuellar and his hometown of Laredo into another San Antonio based district then represented by progressive Democratic Congressman Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX).

In 2004 Henry Cuellar challenged Representative Rodriguez in a primary and lost an even closer race. But then new boxes of previously unknown votes were ‘discovered’ in Laredo that pushed Cuellar into the lead by 203 votes. Rodriguez’s campaign lawyers missed the deadlines or misfiled the paperwork to challenge the suspicious votes.

Congressman Cuellar joined Congress in 2005, but Rodriguez filed to run again in the primary in 2006. With no Republican filing in the race, it was effectively the first general election of 2006. Cuellar won the primary by 13%, winning a strong victory in Laredo while Rodriguez won in San Antonio.

But in Summer of 2006 federal courts rules that the 2003 redistricting violated the Voting Rights Act by dividing Latino voters in an effort to deprive them of their voice in Henry Bonilla’s district. Now Henry Cuellar is in his own Laredo district and Rodriguez and Bonilla are together in a San Antonio based district. After the court decision there wasn’t time for a regular primary so the primary was held on November 7th and the general election was December 12th.

That meant Rodriguez was in both the first and last general election for Congress in 2006 and while he lost the first he won the second.

With the Rodriguez victory 55%-45% over Bonilla we have both Democrats Cuellar and Rodriguez in Congress, so the story has a happy ending.