For Release Saturday, December 5, 2008
Citiwire.net
Two years ago, Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) President John Norquist approached the lectern to address the Texas Transportation Commission upon the invitation of the late Commission Chairman Ric Williamson, an avowed road warrier. Knowing that the transportation commission, the overseers of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), had just embarked on one of the largest road building efforts in recent American history, Norquist said, “Mr. Chairman, I’m not against your big road running between your cities–but I am here to talk about how TxDOT can begin to support local communities, neighborhoods and economic development.”
Williamson and his colleagues were intrigued, but several of them continued to peek at their Blackberrys.
Norquist then started his famous “Highways to Boulevards” powerpoint presentation. When he showed the transformation of a portion of downtown Seoul, South Korea from a scarred aging corridor with an elevated highway into a modern walkable economic development marvel–a reinvented boulevard lined with new buildings and a linear park running down its middle–the commissioners stopped and stared. Norquist had touched a nerve. America has been building roads without any regard to what surrounds them, and it has to look at examples across the Pacific to understand how we have been losing ground here at home. Read More