Yes! Weekly’s Amy Kingsley has an interesting article on Heart of the Triad in this week’s issue. The article questions PART’s leadership in the project and reports that enviro-Rep. Pricey Harrison will not support HOT’s request for $1.5 million in funding because she’s “not really sure how doing more development is supposed to make the air cleaner.”
Harrison’s response baffles me. She says she’s worried about PART is overstepping it boundaries by getting into land development business, yet HOT is all about making the air cleaner with its “vision” of what the Guilford-Forsyth border should look like. But if you ask me, Harrison doesn’t see an environmental vision she doesn’t like.
PART director Brent McKinney says HOT will make the air cleaner because it will
combine Research Triangle Park-style economic development with residential construction.
“Most folks will tell you about the success of Research Triangle Park,” McKinney said. “But from a transportation point of view it’s a nightmare. Everyone who works there has to drive there.”
It is this connection between development and transportation that McKinney uses to justify PART’s involvement with the Heart of the Triad project. He said he doesn’t like the kind of development he’s seen happening in Colfax and off Sandy Ridge Road, mostly large houses that use well water and septic tanks.
OK, so what does that matter to Brent McKinney? It’s obvious: People with septic tanks don’t ride the train to work.
