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City Council fails first significant visioning test

On the same week that the Columbia City Council approved the choice of a consultant for the city’s visioning project, it took a vote that undermines the process.

The council moved ahead with plans to design the reconstruction of West Broadway from Garth Avenue to West Boulevard, and maybe put in an extra turn lane at three intersections because the stretch of two-lane traffic is already causing rush-hour jams.

But wait. At the last minute, the council, realizing it was putting the cart before the horse, tacked on a vague amendment that would require a concurrent traffic study, sort of like putting the cart alongside the horse.

During the same week that the Missouri Department of Transportation, the City of Columbia and Boone County launched a study of eastern Columbia’s transportation needs over the next two decades, the Columbia City Council gave the green light to a $4.7 million project without knowing western Columbia’s transportation needs. A four-lane road (Broadway) already connects downtown and the college campuses to the east, and another (Providence) connects them to the north and south.

On the same night that it delayed a project three years in the making that would place an office and residential complex with a much-needed grocery store in a low-income area at Garth Avenue and Sexton Road, the council hastily backed a plan proposed six months ago by residents of a well-off neighborhood.

Several council members warned that going ahead with the reconstruction of West Broadway with new sidewalks and a pedway on the north side could “preclude forever” the widening of that stretch of Broadway.

The East Columbia Environmental Impact Statement estimates that the city will continue to grow in population at a steady rate and could exceed 147,000 residents by 2025.

While much of that growth will happen in the west, council members argued that the residents along Broadway don’t want the road widened. Of course they don’t. But the City Council needs the vision to see beyond NIMBY arguments.

Broadway is among the city’s oldest passages and was originally part of the Old Trails Road linking Columbia with St. Louis and Kansas City. There is a reason for its name. In the early decades of the last century, property owners building those homes up the hill from downtown knew they were living on a main thoroughfare and left a huge expanse of front lawn. But using visioning with side blinders, the council bought arguments that widening Broadway would ruin the historic district.

Advocates of reconstruction brought up two red herrings during the debate.

While no historic structures would have to be torn down to widen Broadway, one speaker misleadingly showed slides of historic homes that were torn down in the past.

While the city has more than a decade to decide how to spend federal funding for pedways, and the pedway planning process is just getting started, speakers urged the City Council to act quickly now in order to take advantage of the program. Also, no one addressed the possibility of a pedway next to a widened Broadway.

As we have written here before, the city had the federal funds in hand in 1977 to widen this portion of West Broadway, build new sidewalks, replace the main water line and bury utilities. The council voted in favor of the project, but neighborhood activists were successful in getting the issue on the ballot and persuading voters to reject the plan. (One scare tactic used was to put fake city surveying markers up close to houses to make the widening appear more dramatic than it would have been.)

There is enormous growth happening now in the western part of Columbia, and the Wal-Mart Supercenter opening this fall at Broadway and Fairview is bound to increase traffic flow. The city also is talking about encouraging the growth of downtown, with taller buildings, more shops and more residents.

And it’s not just about shoppers and commuters; the rapid movement of emergency vehicles during rush hour is also at stake.

Perhaps there are other ideas out there better than widening Broadway to four lanes with turn pockets, such as making it three lanes, with the direction of one lane changing during the morning and evening commutes, or making part of Broadway one-way with parallel Ash Street going the other direction.

The point is that the City Council needs practice visioning and know the facts before acting.

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