Yesterday there was an article in my local paper, The Record, regarding plans to narrow Bearinger Road in Waterloo from four lanes to two. Curiously, this article appears only in the print edition of the paper, and does not appear on the website, keeping the notice of public meetings hidden from anyone who does not subscribe to the paper.
The logic given for the reduction is that the road carries only about 8,000 vehicles a day, which does not justify a four lane road. Never mind that it was only constructed as a four lane roadway a couple of years ago with even less traffic.
The city of Waterloo, profligate spenders of tax dollars, see no problem with the thought of ripping up a perfectly good existing roadto make it smaller. It’s not about efficieny you see; it’s a social experiment to slow traffic down.
Bearinger Road is one entrance to a one-third full Research and Technology Park, and it is one of only two routes (Columbia Street is the other) to the west side, Laurelwood, the new library/YMCA, and substantial new construction. But that is of no consequence to the brilliant planners, who typically plan for today with no thought of tomorrow. Any Waterloo resident could easily provide several examples of ridiculously poor city planning.
Near when I live, Davenport Road, another major artery, is up for the same four lane to two lane conversion, at a cost of over $4,000,000. All it needs is new asphalt. But the injection of federal stimulus funds leads to this kind of thing I suppose.
Waterloo often points to the fact that it won an Intelligent City award in 2007. As far as municipal planning and government goes, I’ve yet to see any proof of intelligence.
And I’m certainly unimpressed by this seeming attempt by The Record to contain such public information.