With explosive population growth, building and expanding transportation infrastructure, particularly regional transportation facilities, is a constant challenge. Cities typically want two types of roads: (1) the big road that brings everyone to their shops (and makes it hard for those shoppers to leave), increasing their tax base and (2) nice quiet cul-de-sacs for all of the residential homeowners. The commuters typically wants one type of road -- the road with no stop lights (and no accidents) that lets him/her travel quickly between work and home. The homeowner simply wants the nice quiet residential street with no through traffic (except his/her own). The shopper wants the convenience of easy access to shops that aren't too far away, while the homeowner doesn't want them too close with all the through traffic travelling past his/her house to get to the shops and back. The biggest concerns for homeowners are typically decreased property values, taking of property, safety, noise, visual impairment, other environmental factors.
The result? NIMBY. Not in my backyard.
Bedroom community celebrate their peaceful quality of life, while neighboring communities complain about the impacts of providing commercial and retail services. Residents become extremely concerned when their quiet lifestyle is distrupted by a regional roadway or railway that traverses the city, bisecting it into 2 or more pieces. For example, Lehi gets justifiably concerned with the proposal of Mt View Corridor running through the city since I-15 already provides a huge barrier separating east from west. Likewise, residents of Draper are also concerned with a proposed lightrail line that runs near their homes.
I've wondered how we can provide better regional transportation facilities without the localized impacts on residents. Periodically, when citizens complain about not wanting a road or rail running through their neighborhood I ask whether they would have the same concerns if the system were buried. I've yet to encounter a single person who didn't say that that sounded OK, if it were feasible. Meaning folks aren't concerned with commuters and others travelling through their cities as long as it doesn't create too much negative impact.
How do you get a road though without the various impacts? The concept of sunken, buried, and semi-buried roadways intrigued me (especially since roads are much more common than rails). I began researching how transportation facilities could be designed to reduce community impact. UDOT provided me with some information about semi-buried facilitied showing a freeway that was partially sunked with extended overpasses that provide cross streets as well as large park space. Could this be an environmentalist dream come true -- large tracks of open space and parkland hovering over those nasty roadways?
If we can do this with freeways, should we consider this concept for smaller regional thoroughfares? Perhaps popping a regional road under a residential road would be better than plowing through a neighborhood. It might be better than everyone wanting to close their roads to through traffic.
Let me know your thoughts. How would you reduce the impacts of regional transportation facilities, allowing residential communities to preserve the quality of life?
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