We’re in the process of potentially investing $5 billion in our Birmingham region. With that kind of money at stake we need to take a pause and consider a more transformative option
Everett Dirksen, the Senate floor leader in the’50′s and 60′s was once quoted,We’re in the process of potentially investing $5 billion in our Birmingham region.As a member of the Transportation Citizens Committee to the Birmingham Regional Planning Commission , I recently voted against RPC’s proposed 2050 Regional Transportation Plan.
I don’t question ARC’s rosy cost benefit projections for the project—although some observers say the anemic development to date along come-lately I-22 should give us pause. I also accept that getting big trucks off downtown freeways would help with traffic safety and congestion. Still, in this day and time, I object to the beltway for three main reasons:
Finally, the beltway comes with a major opportunity cost: a reduced national capacity to slow and recover from climate disasters clearly growing in number and impact. There are and will be more critical needs for federal money, especially to fund climate mitigating strategies and to help restore stricken localities as heat, storms, drought, wildfires, and floods intensify.
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