Cocoposts

Cringeworthy Infrastructure

Top news in town for days is this damn road closure - Paseo del Norte.  Actually, the news is only about the traffic - not about the water or the line or even the road.   Traffic as news.  I knew I wasn't going to like reading Sean Olson's Albuquerque Journal story with the headline:  Officials See Paseo Closure as Wake-Up Call.   

Don't expect a new bridge to the West Side anytime soon, but officials do have a few ideas on how to prevent massive traffic jams in the future.

Uh-oh. I hate it when they get a few ideas - suspicious of the motives of officials who act surprised when major infrastructure fails.  More often those aware of the big picture will wonder at how well stuff works half the time.     When the unexpected happens it isn't entirely unexpected.  It either confirms or informs what they knew already. 

Like we knew Paseo del Norte would never "solve the traffic problem" - even with all lanes fully functional.  The old adage is something like, you can't build your way out of traffic congestion.  This was clear from the beginning.  We build roads anyway and they fail.  Traffic backs up. Stuff falls apart. 

Then someone makes pronouncements to appease those stuck in traffic.  Suddenly, something must be done.  Wait for it...   

The closure of Paseo del Norte from Saturday through Monday highlighted the need for something to be done about crosstown traffic, especially when a major road is shut down, said Don Leonard, Mid-Region Council of Governments chairman.

 

"Hopefully, this awakened us to the fact that this isn't the first time and it won't be the last time" for street closures, Leonard said.

Armijo said two more river crossings are needed— one in southern Albuquerque and one in the northern part of the city.

LOL.  

Debate This

The masthead from Chantal again on Duke City Fix. 

Tidd for Tat

Here's my post on Duke City Fix today wherein I opine about tax increment financing in Bernalillo County for SunCal. 

Shorter version of coco's post:

In the circus it isn't called cat-herding.  It's called lion taming .   

SunCal Pie

So SunCal is ready for questions about the Tax Increment Development Districts they want.   Answers are likely to frame  just how smart SunCal and their growth can be. 

From the Albuquerque Journal's Dan McKay comes a clear explanation of TIDD's and announcement that SunCal has opened an "information center" in the downtown Hyatt.  That's only a little ironic.  Where else are they going to provide information about SunCal?  Interstate 40 at 118th Street?

The heart of the matter:

Opponents say the districts could shortchange the rest of the city by allowing tax revenue to be diverted. Businesses and economic activity, for example, could move from the older parts of town into the tax districts, leaving local governments with less tax revenue.

Supporters, on the other hand, say the districts help promote "smart growth, mixed-use communities" rather than typical sprawl. They say the developer is reimbursed only after the cost of municipal services in the area is met.

OK, I get it.  Smart growth sprawl, rather than typical sprawl.

Prepare for some talk about pies.  (Mmmmm pie.)  Pie-talk frequently accompanies talk of the economy and I've heard it several times about TIDD's.  It says we must make the pie "grow bigger." 

Who grows pies?   A baking analogy for land development is a strange choice for a supporter.  You can't mix an old pie in with the new ingredients.  And raw land on the fringe is only one ingredient, like flour.   Water is in the mix along with a whole lot of other things too, including energy for baking.  Sprawl leaves a lot of half-baked pies laying around in the form of underutilized and funked-up property. 

I prefer a circus analogy.  (Always.)  Equating new land development on the Westside with economic development is a magic act or confidence game played behind the tent.

    "This is an open process, a public process," said Will Steadman, president of SunCal's New Mexico division. "There are a lot of folks with questions."

::Step right up!::

(photo + edit 1/4/08 pie by Flying Star, not SunCal)

Real Estate Proctology

The Albuquerque Journal's Sean Olsen raises the obvious question again about conflict of interest in Albuquerque' sprawl development.  That's a broad sticky-wicket through which our elected officials apparently carve a very narrow path.

Cummins said his development already has water service and major road access through Paseo del Volcan.  "There is absolutely nothing of benefit that the TIDD brings to us," he said.  (...)

Within this old Alibi story from 2004 is an interesting line. 

Cummins has said he will not vote on any plans that would directly affect the value of his property. But, bureaucratically speaking, to get any closer to the deal, he'd have to be the county commission's staff proctologist. (...)

Auntie Climatic

With a Big Duh I greet how the Albuquerque Journal finally notices the obvious ties that Marty Chavez has to Westland. 

So do a lot of people. 

Relative to the pending  TIDDs issue for SunCal - it's rather pointless to bring it up now.  TIDDs won't go to the City.  Marty isn't a player now.   Because all of those so-called greenfields are in the County, not the City. 

And no one pays attention to the County.   It inspires collective somnolescence in the few who recognize it as a government at all. 

It's those eight damn sheep on the county seal.  Their wool feels cozy over my eyes.  Counting them makes ... me ... sleepy... zzzzzz.  I could sleep right through Tuesday's meeting.   

Greenfields and Marty Chavez

Mayor Marty vetos the TIDD amendments that would have restricted the use of tax increment financing.   Tosses away his responsibility and spins it as city-county cooperation.   1st and 10, Developers.   

Marty throws the ball to the Board of County Commissioners - who'll hide it where no one but Geraldine Amato can find it.  Soon will emerge multiple agreements in a  flurry of many-dead-tree- paperwork that no one will want to read before Christmas.  Hurry before the Legislature tries to block Pandora.    

Carter Bundy on Heath Haussamen presented all the reasoning on why Mayor Marty Chavez should not do what he did before he did it.  He is damning greenfields.   Greenwashing that developer touchdown will be playing on astroturf.   

Rural Government?

The Albuquerque Tribune cover story last night was about South Valley residents considering incorporation as a solution to urban encroachment.  Good luck with that. 

The same sprawl we can imagine the city of Albuquerque feeding on like a greedy animal, happens everywhere.   Every local government eats that beast or wishes they could.   Any new municipality is going to long for that first rush of gross receipts taxes from new construction - the warm blood of the building industry.  Local governments feast as the shopping centers and  ranchitos blossom.  Only later, as those fade into suburban corpses, do they become a  burden - draining away funds for maintenance and service.  But that's a future mayorcouncillegislature's  problem.  So the solution is allowing more development to get more gross receipts taxes - a ridiculous cycle that some call  "economic development". 

Sprawl doesn't much care which jurisdiction it is in.  Making the city out to be the bad guy is an old trick that distracts us from the reality of what is being built in the county.  The differences are negligible.   The "raw" land is considered a magnificent holding zone for the urbanization machine and controlling that machine isn't even within the power of local government - but especially multiple local governments.   

Return Perspective

The moon looks full and the cat looks fat.  The City administration looks lame, Eclipse Aviation never was gonna happen and the GOP presidential campaign is a freak show.  Nothing like travel to improve perspective.   

When I got back, there were feathers all over the house.  The cat had set up a future meal with "catch and release" of a sparrow and the bird was up in a skylight.  It had been there for a few days judging by the bird poop on the sofa.  After catching him I narrowly avoided smooshing him in the fall off the ladder.  Bruising took my mind off the jetlag.  This English graffiti was on an Italian wall in Perugia.   I've been made.   

The moon is giving Big Dog better light for his fence-line excavation project.  I thought he might  forget about it after being in dog jail for a week, but no.  The ground is hard so the going is difficult but that appears to strengthen his resolve. 

There is a new puppy in the hood and the other side of the fence is apparently not close enough and he must be with puppy - having decided old Yellow is too grumpy for playtime.  So he whittles away at the wall searching for weak spots in the perimeter - my North Valley equivalent of Perugia's 4th Century travertine walls - the chain link fence.

The engineering adaptation to his assaults consists of piling broken cinder blocks up against the base of the aging fence - bowing it outward and giving my yard that special white trash touch that neighbors adore.  Along with my dog. 

Election Over

And Thank Goodness.

This parade float entry is children of Ammanford Wales in 1958 dressed as various Albuquerque and Bernalillo County elected officials of the future.  Either that or fairy tale characters.  Hard to tell which.  But I think I'm related to the witch.