Coming up with practical suggestions to address the area's transportation dilemma proved as difficult for the residents of the Braddock District as it has been for the state and local governments on a larger scale.
At the final meeting of Supervisor Sharon Bulova's (D-Braddock) community dialogue on transportation and land use, getting all the ideas into a workable list wasn't easy.
"This is the crescendo of all our work," Bulova said at the beginning of the final meeting, on Wednesday, May 14. Draft recommendations were brought to the table and voted on. After nine meetings in a process that began last winter, members of the group came with notes and ideas aimed at developing transportation solutions. Through the weeks, attendees split into groups, each focusing on a separate cause. The three groups were land use and transportation planning, funding and legislative. Each had a list, and the idea was to refine the suggestions. Jeff Stoll was on the planning committee.
"We had a multitude of ideas," he said.
That proved to be the case with all the groups, which were required to submit the top four suggestions that were to be voted on. Some of the suggestions were combined with others, but funding was the bottom line, Bob Griendling said.
"How many of us would consider some kind of tax increase to better the transportation problems?" asked Griendling.
Griendling's question was premature, but it hit at the heart of the issue — funding. Bulova's community dialogue started with the premise of "What now?" after the tax referendum was defeated in November. One suggestion from the planning people was to "continue adequate, high-quality maintenance of transportation infrastructure."
Bulova, as moderator, put things in plain language.
“In other words, make sure we take care of what we got before moving on," she said.
BULOVA initially came up with a rough draft, which she submitted to members of the various groups for review. The draft version for land use and transportation planning included suggestions to improve the planning process for both transportation and land use; sponsor regional community planning sessions and charrettes; put a higher priority on mass transit; increase road capacity with road and bridge connections; and utilize mixed development with transit-friendly communities.
The funding group started with the suggestion of an annual county transportation progress report. The next three ideas were to maximize, to a practical extent, mechanisms that do not involve taxes, increase money from the county’s general fund and make air-quality issues weigh higher in funding decisions. Additional suggestions involved an increased taxing authority, including cigarettes, hotel and restaurant taxes, and increasing taxes with increased sales taxes, gas tax and truck fees.
Bulova questioned the money from the county fund. More money in one place means cuts in other places.
The legislative group wanted to give greater taxing and spending authority to local elected officials, increase the gas tax, and enact zoning ordinance standards that support infrastructure and developers’ proffers. Additional measures they suggested included local control over land use and more high-occupancy toll lanes.
"Remember, these recommendations are going to be presented to a number of bodies," Bulova said.
Bulova will further refine the list before presenting it at the June 16 Board of Supervisors meeting. On June 25, at her town meeting, Bulova plans to invite some of the community dialogue participants to take part, presenting the list to other members of the Braddock District.
It took months of work, juggling a number of different opinions, but Bulova looked at the positives to approaching the transportation subject this way.
"This is a lot of very good work what the group did," Bulova said. "I don't agree with all the recommendations, finally there was a lot of compromising. I was impressed most of our votes were unanimous or nearly unanimous."