My Wheels are Turning

Monday’s Quote

Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots.”

– Peter Senge, Pattern of Behavior

It’s a complex world and our choices have consequences beyond the immediate. I’m trying to see those patterns in our community. Frequently on this website, we discuss the problems of today without always fully realizing that those problems were yesterday’s solutions; at least, for someone.

Today those ‘someones‘ are all of us. Neighbors. Our actions are driving status quo as well as change; nothing stands still. Is what’s to come in the future what we intend? For example, we may fully intend to calm traffic along Division St., but our actions (unnecessary driving), preferences (NIMBY, speeding), perceptions (cut-through traffic is bad) may be getting in the way of present solutions and creating future problems.

Participating in and watching several community meetings lately has me slightly worried about the ability for Traverse City to improve its use of public space, in particularly improving our worst streets. Too often, we enter discussions with our position made-up, our perspective set, our preferences un-bendable and our assumptions solidified. I’m often guilty of it myself. What brings me around is stepping back and throwing out The Answer, and letting a solution present itself.

Answers aren’t acquired & collected, but heard, explored and implemented with open minds.

An introspective rant (of sorts)

• 無爲 wúwéi or “non-doing.” Add an extra 爲 wéi and you get wéiwúwéi “action without action”, which is action that is spontaneous and effortless. •

Lately, I’ve been tangled up with outcomes and at the same time, feeling a need to detach from them. For example, trusting that the city and MDOT will carry out improvements for accessibility & calming in the 2011 Division St. maintenance project. There is some positive movement, and a lot of non-movement. Those with the power to do something often seem the least motivated, and I’m not even referring to the roundabout option; a few extra crosswalks painted will be difficult.

On a path, off a path

I believe we choose a path and direction, then we walk it. We go forward creating our vision while concentrating on the fundamental structure beneath our feet. Is that structure rewarding? Is it resilient? Does it support my intentions? The path actually disappears and with it the destination. I never really get anywhere; I’m already there.

What does this have to do with MyWHaT?

Nothing. Everything. Despite being a public service for local ideas, perspectives and, dare I say, news, it has been for the most part a personal BLOG, disguised as it is. For seven months I’ve explored concepts and current thinking related to public spaces and transportation. I’ve also dived into city planning through my role on the parks and recreation commission, a transportation committee and various other enterprises. A lot of that activity has been reflected on this BLOG. To what end? Any achievements? I’m just not sure. Are there achievements to be achieved?

An end indeed

I’m not exposing anything new on MyWHaT or at the governmental center. People have put up the ‘good fight’ against uninspired planning, obnoxious traffic and hand-tied bureaucrats for years. In particular since the 1950′s when the car culture rose to its current dominance, there has been opposition offering a different, human centered perspective to designing neighborhoods and cities. Occasionally, there have even been victories, but the overall trend has been a dominant culture of motorized vehicles über all. This is true globally, as well as locally. I see nothing changing that imprint.

Still, that’s no reason not to continue the work to ameliorate a problem street (Division, Eighth..), an under-served park (Clancy, Sunset…) and a vague master-plan (TC’s). All are valuable projects in need of attention, however, the short-term often takes over and it’s the long-term structure that I’m truly interested in unraveling. To not drive myself mad, I need to let go and laugh at it all. To practice ‘non-doing’.

This reminds me of an article a mentor shared with me, as way of advice, when I started this endeavor. A Serious Talk About Humor in the Office by non-other than John Cleese, is a speech targeted at a group of serious people, trying to get ‘stuff’ done. He makes the case that there’s a need to be serious, but not solemn, rigid & stressed. In part, he explains:

“The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned mode that we find ourselves in so much of the time.”

Slow change, accelerated

Despite the odds against significant change in how we design our public spaces, I feel better about the MyWHaT endeavor. Why not feel better? When I look within (myself, my family, the tribe, the community), I do see positive change. 

爲無爲 wéiwúwéi. My impact is minimal and everything remains possible.

A response I receive a lot when I introduce MyWHaT to new acquaintances and we begin to discuss the issues, is that change takes time. They say things like, “Traverse City is ‘moving forward’” and “slow change is often better.” Philosophically, I agree. In human terms, in a human time-frame, I disagree. On the ground, day-to-day, it’s a questionable rationalizing of the status-quo based in a belief that there is a natural progress to something better. In the short-term things can get worse without intentional designs. Intent that takes energy. The 8th Street Kerfuffle was instructive in teaching me that what we do today is what we will have for 30 years, so we bets do it right today.

This doesn’t mean that we need to focus on cataclysmic events and run-around looking for the sexiest idea to carry out today. There is value in slowness; its glacial character is comforting & introspective. The entrepreneurial thinker and author, Seth Godin recently wrote about the power of slow change. The glacial shift of culture compared to the big events that get our attention. He writes:

Cultural shifts create long-term evolutionary changes. Cultural shifts, changes in habits, technologies that slowly obsolete a product or a system are the ones that change our lives. Watch for shifts in systems and processes and expectations. That’s what makes change, not big events. Don’t worry about what happened yesterday (or five minutes ago). Focus on what happened ten years ago and think about what you can do that will make a huge impact in six months.

It’s the Daoist approach to civic engagement. I underlined a section for a reason. Although there’s real value in slow change, there’s no reason to embrace the incremental as a cover for not making bold moves today. Yes, things take time. But sometimes, it’s the build up of pressure over decades that suddenly releases and the glacier gives. At that point, we best be ready because in the time-frame of humans, nature, the broad definition that includes human culture, can move very quickly.

Change is and has been occurring even if we don’t realize it. Are we watching where we place our feet?

NOTE: The author claims no ability in the art of Taoism, apart from a brief study of way-finding on the sacred mountain of Wudang with a Daoist sage carrying a pineapple. 

Monday’s Rant

The planning commission last week approved the 2011 street projects & confirmed that they were ‘consistent‘ with the master plan (Agenda/Packet PDF). None of the projects are proposing expansive changes, but Barlow St. & Kelly St. will each get a sidewalk, on one lucky, selective side each.

Why not do something special on Barlow St. N.? The intersection at Washington St., a heavily trafficked bike and walking route, is an excellent place to experiment with rain garden bulb-outs, like those found in Portland, OR. It not only would lessen impact on our stormwater system, bulb-outs both reduce vehicle speeds & reduce crossing distances for pedestrians. Photos: Top Gary L Howe/Bottom: Portland BES.

Elsewhere, Elmwood Ave. will likely be narrowed, have an entrance change & get a sidewalk where there isn’t one between Wayne St. and Bay St. Other streets will have tweaks. Nothing to be mad about; most of it fine. Nothing great.

The city, and I mean this here in terms of citizenry, just isn’t ready for leading edge traffic calming measures, like those presented by Ian Lockwood. I could be wrong, as none were proposed for 2011 and next year may be different, but the complaints by neighbors on Elmwood Ave. about the installation of a sidewalk from Wayne St. to Bay St. was revealing. There is a lack of public willingness to pull back and take broad, long-term views of city projects; to see the network beyond our own front lawns. It’s not everyone who feels this way, but the naysayers do show-up at a lot of meetings.

The YIMBYS tend not to show-up (hint).

Why sidewalks

The public right-of-ways are dominated by our desire to drive cars. Fine, I get it; drive on. However, a non-motorized network is just as important, arguably more important, than the motorized network.

Improvements like sidewalks, in a car dominated world, add value to our neighborhoods and do so beyond basic mobility. Home values increase with sidewalks, and, more importantly, chances for positive social interaction increase. When we value infrastructure for cars over everything else, those chances decrease.

Preserve or improve?

N. Barlow: 36 feet of right-of-way & still no sidewalk planned for 2011. Photo; Gary L Howe

Planning commission chair, Fred Wilmeth our role is to preserve the character of these neighborhoods as they exists now.” At first, it sounded fine but really it’s only half of the equation.

Sure, preserve the link to historical place, but I see the role of the planning commission to be advocating for continual improvements that allow Traverse City to become a remarkable city. Keep the character, while improving the public space. We didn’t hit a crescendo in the 1950′s and set on a course of ‘preserving‘ it. It’s a process and part of a city’s resilience is the ability to improve on its strengths and adopt new ideas where needed. We need to get beyond debating about sidewalks.

We’re blessed with an advantageous framework, better than most cities, and we’re entering a period where little T.C. can, with a dose of innovation and inexpensive design measures, be a place that attracts young, vibrant people. We may pull off the impossible and at once be a small, rural community while still expressing some of the advantages of denser, more urban centers.

Side note

It’s good news to have the State of Michigan join 13 other states in signing into law complete streets legislation. It’s not a perfect law, but it goes a long way in advancing what to many is common sense: building streets for more than one single use. If we are to view street projects as investments, than it’d be best that we start making more sound, long-term investments that build the city that we want. It’s my understanding that most of the city residents want a city made for people, not cars. We need to speak-up if that is going to happen.

After you look through the street projects for 2011 (PDF) email city planner Russ Soyring in support and with your own ideas. As the city manager said, “the sooner the better.” The projects were passed by the planning commission and they will be engineered and designed this fall. The sooner you get your comments into the city, the more likely they will be heard.  email: rsoyring@ci.traverse-city.mi.us

• Are you ready to move beyond sidewalks?
• What ideas do you support or have?

Movie Reviews

As viewed from behind the handlebars

Will You Marry Us

Tom Vanderbilt, writing for his Slate column, recently bemoaned the poor portrayal of the car-less in film. The piece, titled “Dude, Where’s Your Car?‘ highlights a list of films, that is much longer than expected that take advantage of the stereotype that not owning a car is for the misfits, degenerates, losers, pedophiles, drunks, the socially flawed.

The romantic adventure scene.

Vanderbilt focuses on Hollywood films. Thankfully, these are films that Michael Moore & the Traverse City Film Festival tend to treat with suspect. Festival goers are spared most of the formulaic films that seem ripe to use base cultural stereotypes for a laugh or flawed-character development.

In the case of Will you marry us, set in a small town in Switzerland, the main character Rahel Hubli (Marie Leuenberger) utilizes a bicycle for basic transportation exactly how it’s intended: as a mobility tool. It’s a non-issue. The bike scenes are used for transitioning and showing-off the quaint Swiss town where she lives. When used for a lighthearted moment between Rahel and Ben Hofer (Dominique Jann), it isn’t overplayed. Again, the bike is just a transportation tool. One of many modes that the film exhibits, including extensive walking.

The small Swiss city appears to be a perfect setting for active transportation. It’s dense, streets are narrow and there are plenty of segregated bike paths where needed. Parking for cars is almost non-existent. It’s a cities-for-people activist’s dream where bikes have on-street parking at the front door of businesses and homes; car use is limited in the city center. In fact, most streets are more woonerf than anything else, with walkers, bikers and motorists all sharing the same space with priority to the slowest.

The romantic comedy unfolds as predictably as any other romantic comedy, and the city is a mere backdrop. Still, it’s a model backdrop for dreamers.

Auto*Mate

One of the critical-mass rides in Prague

This is in stark contrast to the scene in Prague, where the film Auto*Mate takes place. Instead of a quaint Swiss city, this documentary delivers a vivid, street level perspective on the dominance of the automobile in one of the world’s historical cities. It also happens to be a leading example of how the automobile dominates public space, infrastructure policy, culture, economics, the environment.

Auto*Mate introduces us to a movement pushing back. In 2003 the film’s creator Martin Mareček and others started to organize to protect their neighborhoods. They combined street antics  as well as direct participation in city government to gain respect, space and commitment for non-motorized  & public transportation. The ride is enjoyable. The film is personal, humorous and playful.

Auto*Mate is also sobering and realistic. At one point, Mareček admits there needs to be a point where the idealists are able to turn it over to the experts. With a politicized infrastructure policy and a culture so myopically tied to prioritizing for the motor vehicle, it is difficult for an activist to let go; to trust. Yet, they persist and they become more refined in their actions. At one point, Auto*Mate organizers address the city government, set up like a parliament, to counter the economics of a major new road project. They are smart, informed and, more importantly, involved.

In the opening, he introduces the audience to both film and movement, a monologue worth citing:

I lived in downtown Prague, in the ‘heart of Europe.’ In Prague, ‘the mother of cities,’ as well as ‘the city of cars’… according to statistics, one of the most handicapped cities in Europe. Six years ago, I met my neighbor in the hallway. He was moving: ‘Well, we’re off, we can’t take this anymore.’ I replied: ‘Yeah, I understand, it’s the cars, isn’t it? That noise, that smell…’ The neighbor smiled, puzzled: ‘Not really, it’s more that there’s nowhere to park.’ Is that story absurd? Is that neighbor autistic? No. I think that most of us city folks are this automatic… We’re all in it… Automatically we swear, automatically we drive. Slowly but surely, our game ends with our own auto-mate. Can anything be done about that? I realized that to make a film is not enough. It will only turn into another short essay automatically saying the well-known, addressing the usual receivers. Another submission into the Intellectual Aquarium. Therefore, I’d slowly turn from a film director into a civilian activist, an artistic radical, a political lobbyist. A multi-layered organism, Auto*Mate, was conceived.”

The result is a historical perspective of a very current movement in the Czech capital. It could be almost any city in the world.

This includes Traverse City, with its historical precedence of wide streets, sprawl, self-centered development and a feisty allegiance to the car. In size and scale, Traverse City has more in common with the city in Will you marry us? In practice, we may have a lot more in common with the activists in Prague who have to beg, borrow and steal for even an ounce of respect from city officials who celebrate expensive new freeways through, around and under the ancient city. Admittedly, it’s on a different scale, but the arguments are the same.

As Vanderbilt describes, too often our perception of the carfree and the car-less reflects more of the typical Hollywood portrayal. It’s as if those of use who prefer to walk, bike or bus are doing so out of some social fault, like too many DUI’s. Both of these films portray a different side. One that educates to the car-dominated-mind how completely normal a car-less city can look and operate; another that accurately portrays the informed, empathetic and community orientated character of the staunchest of active-transportation advocates.

Did you see either film, what’d you think?

___

Auto*Mate, the movement, has it’s own website at www.auto-mat.cz (use Google translator to access).

Monday Rant continued…

My Monday rant about the new Old Town parking deck is still fresh thanks to continued discussion about the subject online and on the street. I’m still not ready to celebrate it’s lovely design, permeable pavers, solar paneled roof, high-efficiency lighting and it’s 5 bike racks. Even if it is to be the first parking deck to be “LEED” certified; that is to be expected. As Mayor Chris Bzdok pointed out at Monday’s grand opening, we could have built a C+ structure, but we built an A+ one. Great. Now let’s get on to some serious work.

Which direction are we going? Will we get to the point where 'Bikes Belong' is not an after-thought and is actually what our infrastructure communicates. (photo Gary L Howe).

Less  Vision, More Plan

Contrary to what some might think, I actually do attempt to research portions of my rants. I’ve talked to the DDA** about these issues and I’m trying hard to understand their position. It’s not like they are antithesis to active transportation like walking, biking, or opposed to a better busing system. In fact, they want to support them. They share the vision. They just never really get to it or allocate time and energy in developing it. No one at the DDA or amongst city staff is taking a strong lead in providing an equal opportunity transportation network. It’s not enough to always have active transportation as an after-thought. Once you commit to the idea that providing for non-automobile traffic is a low-priority, that it is something to be dealt with incrementally, then it will likely remain in that inferior position.

It doesn’t matter how many times you say, “one more deck, and then we can start addressing those issues.” There is always another ‘deck’, even if it’s not another deck.

Seriously Now

The serious people in Traverse City need to start taking improved walking, biking and busing facilities seriously, today. No more snickering every-time someone mentions the need for bike lanes, sidewalks and bike racks. These facilities can’t be kicked to the curb as afterthoughts for the next 20 years and expect someone like myself, who is trying to lessen my impact on the city and neighborhoods by walking, biking and busing as a first choice, not to be a little offended that they celebrate spending what will be $25 million +/- in 12 years to park cars.

Bryan Crough, community development director.

They set a goal to build parking decks and stopped short of developing a comprehensive plan that someone like myself could see clearly in the built infrastructure that says, “ah, this is how it fits into the the overall scheme.“

When is Bryan Crough, or whomever is guiding the purse strings, going to stand up and say something like:

“Now is the time. I don’t know how we do it, but do it we will. By 2015 we will increase mode share to downtown by 20% and by 2030 it will be 30/30/30 *. Our city is too special to continue to let cars dictate our planning.”

* 30/30/30 in 2030 = 30% walk/bike, 30% transit/car-pool, 30% SOV (single occupant vehicle), give or take a few percentage points.

** DDA=Downtown Development Authority

A passing thought

I was dreaming about a getting a cargo bike. A dutch model. Then I had this thought.

What if 100 or 200 of us chose to ride these front bucket bicycles in Traverse City. That’d be enough for us to be seen everywhere. I suspect, we’d occasionally be considered a nuisance.

We’d take up more space on the road. We’d take more space parking.

Where would we park? On the sidewalk? In the street? In a parking deck slot?

There would be many people outright annoyed; they would even tell us so. I can hear it now, “real nice. Do you have to block people from getting somewhere? Do you have to take up so much space? Park over there! Get off the street! Get off the sidewalk!“

Then, they’d get back into their sport utility vehicle, empty except for a bag of milk, bread and packaged cookies.

They’d drive away. Oblivious.

Reclaim the streets, beginning with your own.

Monday Rant (+1)

Doubling-up on a post today…first a short P-Deck rant and below that, thoughts about Ian Lockwood’s visit to talk roundabouts.

City opens new party hall for 522 cars

At 10:30-am, the city will have a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate another temple of worship to the parked car. Once open, the The Old Town parking deck will host daily services M-F, with smaller observances held over the weekends.

I have an inner conflict with our p-decks. I actually like p-decks as a curiosity & have purposefully parked at the top of them for the chance to drive through them. It’s exciting to see the innards of a structure so open. Besides the novelty, they are also touted as a smart growth tool to increase density by replacing surface lots, which isn’t a bad thing. However, as they are operated in Traverse City, our P-Decks continue to encourage/accept/support/enable an over-reliance on single occupant automobile commuting. It’s been about expanding parking while capturing/spending TIF money downtown, meanwhile citizens have to beg for a sidewalk on a street like Barlow (FYI, that project has now been indefinitely postponed).

Construction progress photo, July 2, 2010 (by CWS)

It’s all fine-and-well that the Old Town P-Deck is LEED certified, is embraced as saving the city from a Hagerty Insurance move and promises a gold nugget to every city resident…but really, big whoopee.

Is there a phrase about a pig & lipstick that I could use?

Parking in Traverse City remains an under-valued commodity. Street parking remains so cheap that there is little incentive to use our parking decks, let alone pay the meter, and, from my napkin calculations, the $370 annual permit for a single space in the parking deck covers about 25-35% of the construction & maintenance cost of that single space per year. If the spaces are empty, the costs remain. We are subsidizing the parking of cars with the current structure & system. We do so while also increasing the opportunity for more car traffic on our limited street network and increasing the need for major, ugly, inhospitable intersections on the corners of our city.

Ahh, this is a rant for another day…ribbon cutting ceremonies are for looking ahead to a brighter future. I just wish that we could find a quarter of the amount the city is about to allocate for the next sexy DDA project, the West Front P-Deck, to build, fix or maintain a sidewalk without a fight. Perhaps if we charged adequate amounts for parking, we could use the proceeds to invest in our neighborhoods and build some infrastructure that moves us away from being a city that gathers to celebrate temples for cars.

In the meantime, be ready to continue to fight like hell for basics of city service, like crosswalks, bike lanes, sidewalks and bus stops. Despite being less costly transportation solutions, these facilities remain a struggle….uhg.

I’m looking for local parking gurus…the p-deck Kool-Aid offered so far isn’t working.

__

Traffic calming and roundabout discussions

A bicyclist navigates a roundabout Olympia, Washington. Notice the ramps for bicyclists. Photo: Dan Burden•www.pedbikeimages.org.

A more productive event today is transportation engineer Ian Lockwood’s forum. He specializes in traffic calming measures, in particular handling corridors like Division St. that have high traffic flow while running through context sensitive areas like our own Division St., Grandview Parkway or even 8th Street.

Lockwood was here this past spring to lead a public charrette for rethinking Division St. & one for Grandview. After balancing all the diverse set of community needs, he proposed a series of roundabouts as the main option to ameliorate the four areas of concern: safety, accessibility, context and quality.

The community is asking for a corridor that provides for a diverse set of mobility options, that is safe, convenient and has a sense of place. Many argue that as the entrance to our city, Division St. needs to communicate loudly, “Greetings! Welcome to Traverse City where we value neighborhoods. Show some freaking respect and slow down and share the damn road.”

Or, something like that.

Lockwood isn’t here to talk about Division St. He is here to provide insight to traffic calming, including, but not limited to, roundabouts.  The main event, which will also include a presentation by MDOT, is this evening from 4:30-6pm at the Hagerty Center and before the city commission at  7-pm at the government center.

Engineered Roundabout at Grandview & Division St.

MyWHaT has dedicated a lot of time to roundabouts since the spring, and this author still maintains that for Division St., it is an elegant compromise. A series of roundabouts could go a long way in improving the conditions of the corridor. Roundabouts are also a major development out of the Bayfront Planning Initiative, despite consistently being played down as a distant option by city staff they are a way to Put the Park back into the Parkway. There are a number of other locations where roundabouts would improve conditions.

The resources are available for everyone to reach an informed consent on roundabouts and MyWHaT has a growing list of resources on roundabouts to help, including the well populated map of Michigan roundabouts. Going on a road trip? Check the map and see if you can include a roundabout experience.

It’s posted at the resource page, but this cheesy government PSA from Carmel, Indiana is a useful introduction to roundabouts. It also answers why this Midwestern town has embraced them to the count of over 50.

Monday Rant

I’m on my way to the Up North Studio this morning to talk with Dave Barrons about transportation and it’s relation to community resilience. The former weatherman has a new show called Outside In that has evolved into a series of discussions on different topics as they relate to community resilience.

Community resilience helps explain and measure how systems surrounding issues like agriculture, energy and transportation communicate the ability of a community to respond to adverse situations with the least amount of disturbance. Resilience theory is an entire academic field, best articulated by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, who introduce the concept as: Resilience is the capacity to deal with change and continue to develop.

Some systems are more resilient than others

From my understanding, which involves some last-minute prepping this morning, the more resilient a community is, then the more livable, vibrant and healthy a community it will be. The shocks of life are absorbed and day-to-day life is spent in a better balance of needs and desires. As far as a transportation system, it doesn’t seem wise for a resilient community to depend on an expensive, dirty, 100% imported resource to fuel 95% of its mobility needs. That type of system neglects primary elements of resilience: diversity and variability.

That’s why many of us, even if we aren’t aware of it, are articulating for the tools that offer more transportation choices for more people. We also want the most intrusive and community altering forms of transportation to be discouraged.

Our collective dependency syndrome

Of course, the BIG problem is that our social and economic systems are over-dependent on oil and the automobile. We are many years away from breaking that dependency; I personally want to take it one-step further. I don’t believe hybrids and super-fuels are necessarily the answer to a better life. They have a role, for certain, as the destruction of eco-systems in the name of extracting oil needs to end and we need a transition. Is dependency on lithium for batteries just another addiction?

I’m also really concerned with the amount of public space that we give up for our car culture. Even with hybrids, solitary human transport pods continue to increase and they take up lots of space. It’s most evident when you pull up to Any Mall USA. What’s the first thing you notice? Parking capacity stretching for miles. Where else do we notice it, albeit seemingly burying it deep? Within our own neighborhood and community. We have our roads, which many falsely argue are for motorized use only. We also have our $10 million temples to the parked car and, in Michigan, about 3 parking spaces for every single car owned.

I’m reminded of this occupation of public space every time I see a pedestrian running across a street. Why do we feel compelled to run? Beyond the obvious reason to avoid getting hit, when we run, we surrender and we re-enforce the notion that streets are for cars.

That brings me back to another concept of resilient communities: local control and involvement. Reclaim the streets. Beginning with your own.

I’m out of time today and need to save some rant for the interview. Cutting it short…to be continued…

(Locally, The Neahtawanta Center hosts Barrons archived show and publishes other local articles and programs investigating resilience at www.ir.nrec.org. Full disclosure, I serve on the The Neahtawanta Center Board).

NOTE: This is not intended as a news report on the condition of the Open Space. This is a first reaction as someone who last week voiced concern about park usage by the Cherry Festival to provide parking.

Of issue this week, is that the film festival organizers are voicing strong concern about the condition of the Open Space post-Cherry Festival. To the extent that they are considering not utilizing the space for the free movies in this year’s festival. There’s a report on 7&4 that covers the basics (“Film Festival reacts to Cherry Festival effects“). My suspicion is that this will not be the only media coverage. Apparently earlier this spring the Traverse City Film Festival contributed $4000 worth of seed and collaborated with the Cherry Festival to ensure that the Open Space did have green grass for the two events in July. The images provided by Film Festival co-founder John Robert Williams do not reflect that it worked out so well.

An aerial view of the open space on July 13, 2010 (photo provided by JRWilliams)

Every year the impact of 10 days of continuous human traffic and all the service vehicles leaves a scar. Some years seem worse than others; with a little love (and water) the big green lawn returns. It’s seen as a trade off for bringing thousands of tourists into town.

What’s different, from my experience, is that this year it isn’t just matted down brown grass. There are real issues that show some very heavy impact and which lead me to question how the city handles park usage. The current issue between the two-festivals is one thing, but the long-term planning and protection of the parkland is something that additional stakeholders will continue to be concerned about.

Worn grass is one issue but the images depicting a scene that could have been taken from somewhere out in Hoosier Valley are particularly disturbing.

Personally, as a commissioner on the Traverse City parks and recreation, I didn’t realize the extent that oversight was needed in regards to prevention and remediation of environmental impact. When we advice the city commission to accept applications for park usage, there was an assumed understanding that proper planning and oversight of the impact existed. To be honest, I also believed there was more sensitivity on part of the Cherry Festival to the condition they left the park. The above image to me reflects poorly on the planning and oversight of the Cherry Festival organizers, but I’m just seeing these images now and look forward to further enlightenment on the issue.

A key question I have is if there is a need for a ramped-up impact prevention and remediation check-list to be implemented for future events, and if so, who is responsible for drafting it. It’s an urban park and wear-and-tear is to be expected. Still, where can we use better infrastructure, policy and planning to control and prevent needless impact. And, what level of impact is acceptable?

Have you been down to the Open Space or looked at the images?

What are your initial reactions?

What questions need to be asked and answered?

What’s the priority here?

It’s only for 10 days, yet it’s still reflective of community priorities that we turn a key piece of our most valable parkland into a parking lot during Cherry Festival.

This is particularly a sensitive place as it is the former location of the Smith-Barney building that the area citizens voted to purchase precisely to ‘open up’ the bayfront and allow the planning of a comprehensive park running the entire waterfront.

As the city is about to kick down some serious cash on improving the bayfront, let’s not continue to use it as one large parking lot. This portion of the bay is managed by the City of Traverse City and Charter Township of Garfield Recreational Authority.