Antiplanner weighs in on the Department of Transportation’s TIGER II grants, which Greensboro missed out on for its $26 million downtown greenway:
Many of the planning grants sound so similar that they could all have been written by the same software. Phrases like “mixed-use redevelopment,” “access to jobs and open spaces,” and of course “multi-modal transportation” are repeated over and over.
Since these things are almost impossible to measure, it is clear that the funds were allocated based on intentions (or NewSpeak) rather than any real anticipated results. Meanwhile, projects that could seriously reduce congestion and that would be funded mainly by user fees, such as toll lanes in Atlanta, were rejected.
Greensboro should be proud that we’re not falling victim to government planners’ NewSpeak-GroupThink, eh? Somehow I don’t think that’s the case.
