Meanwhile, the question of the week "What's an important issue that's being ignored in Elk Grove," was answered by resident Tami Ross: "Traffic...I've lived here for over thirty years and the traffic has gotten so bad. And I don't have an answer for it. I hate all the stop lights, too."
So on one page we've got a city praising itself for having spent so much money building roads while the citizens are bitching about the lack of roads.
That a city defines two highway interchanges as its most important "sites of historical significance" or "prominent identifying features of a landscape" is completely ridiculous, yet, not at all unexpected for Elk Grove. We've not built anything worth a shit in the past thirty years. The city hall?
Just another strip commercial building in just another single use zoned parcel totally removed from the citizenry, accessible solely via motor vehicle. Are you gonna take the bus there to a council meeting or file a permit, slick? Styrofoam muntins, blank featureless windows, a pointless sweeping cupola -- this is 'prominence?' Could it possibly last fifty years, let alone a hundred?
Unlikely.
And while Tami doesn't have an answer for this city's horrible, awful, agonizing, wrist-slitting traffic, neither does the city. No matter how much money our city council throws at road widening, interchange redesigning and traffic lighting, they fail to understand that expanding the capacity of our roadway has never and will never "solve" the issue of traffic. The question isn't how much traffic relief we will get from road expansion; the question has always been "How many lanes of congestion do you want?" No city in the U.S. has ever, ever "solved" traffic through more road building. Ever. That Elk Grove thinks it can demonstrates its lack of foresight and its misunderstanding of what makes a city livable. Has building more freeways and interchanges in Los Angeles or Austin solved their traffic problems?
And while Tami bitches about all the stoplights, if she's anything like every single one of my neighbors (and statistically she is), the number of utilitarian trips she's ever taken on foot, on bike, or by bus is clear: zero. Yet it goes well beyond this oft heard stupid call for just "bike and walk more" we hear over and over from TV ads, local politicians and newsprint, because the way we laid out Elk Grove demands multiple car ownership along with their mandatory use for every facet of living, from buying a ballet leotard to donating blood. Single use zoning forces all the residents over here, with all the retail over there, with all the jobs over...well, nowhere near Elk Grove proper. The only people walking anywhere are walking their dogs, which in any event would be banned inside our "public landmarks" comprised chiefly of gas stations, Asian foot massage & table shower parlors and big box stores.
Suppose Tami goes "green," and buys herself one of those snazzy new hybrid vehicles with the solar panel on top, or one of those snazzy new all-electric vehicles that are going to save our world -- do you suppose this, in any way, will reduce the burden on the roadway? Will this, in any way, reduce the need for petroleum based asphalt, coal based steel rebar, and CO2 releasing cement to meet her and everyone else's expectations for "roads available to at all times" and "free from other users" (read: traffic)? No! Being stuck in Elk Grovian traffic in a hybrid or in a Hummer is just the same, slick. Just the same.
Tami And-I-don't-have-an-answer-for-it Ross falls in line with virtually every other Elk Grovian -- all of them suffering from mass delusion -- each thinking that traffic ought to be eased through the reduction in other peoples' use of the roadways or through increased square acreage of asphalt...both of which are patently absurd for their failures to address the real problems of traffic.
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