# FHWA Reauthorization Support

**Scan of External Communications -- Week 8**

This week's scan of 24 stakeholder websites focused on highway users,
industry associations, and transportation research groups. Listed below
are the two organizations that had recent content related to SAFETEA-LU
and its environmental and planning provisions.

Following the list are several articles and an opinion piece located
through our database searches:

-   "Panel discusses impact of transportation bill on N.J. at Rutgers,"
    University Wire- The Daily Targum, Oct. 14, 2005.

-   "Getting to the roots of obesity: why surroundings may matter,"
    Seattle Times, October 19, 2005.

-   "Sprawl & Crawl - Get off the bus?" (re: Safe Routes to School),
    Washington (DC) Examiner, October 18, 2005.

-   "Driving the money down," American City & County, Oct. 1, 2005.

-   "Decatur challengers say zoning, traffic, gentrification are
    issues," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct. 20, 2005.

-   "Udall articulates case for keeping NEPA," Editorial in The New
    Mexican, Aug. 4, 2005.

**American Bus Association**

[http://www.buses.org/government%5Faffairs/SAFETEA%5FLU/Summary%5Fof%5FVictories/](http://www.buses.org/government_affairs/SAFETEA_LU/Summary_of_Victories/)

> The site contains a listing of ABA's legislative priorities in
> SAFETEA-LU including charter rules, transit competition, private
> enterprise participation, funding levels, and safety issues.

**American Council of Engineering Companies**

<http://www.acec.org/advocacy/final_bill_summary_acec.pdf>

> This brief document summarizes the provisions of SAFETEA-LU of most
> interest to ACEC members, including environmental streamlining
> provisions.

**Panel discusses impact of transportation bill on N.J. at Rutgers**

By Malissa Pansa-ad

University Wire

Friday, October 14, 2005

Late in the summer, Congress passed the largest transportation bill in
the nation\'s history. How the \$286.4 billion bill will impact New
Jersey was the subject of a half-day conference Wednesday that involved
many of the state\'s transportation experts.

The bill helps fund the multiyear Route 18 expansion project. Speakers
for the state included Jack Lettiere, commissioner of the state
Department of Transportation, and Arthur Guzzetti, director of policy
and advocacy at the American Public Transit Association. Congressman
William J. Pascrell Jr. delivered the keynote address.

\"I think this legislation is the single most important legislation to
come through for New Jersey,\" Pascrell said during the event, which was
held at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

Under the act, approved by President George W. Bush on Aug. 10, funding
worth \$244.1 billion is guaranteed for constructing and developing
highways, ensuring highway safety and improving and providing more
public transportation for New Jersey.

\"\[This legislation\] is very critical, very important, very
significant to the lifeline of this state,\" Pascrell said.

Over the next few years, the transportation package plans to tackle
projects such as safe routes to school, improved highway safety and
transportation planning, among others. Sidewalks will be created so that
children can walk to school.

\"\$612 million over five years will go to sidewalks and traffic
lights,\" Pascrell said. \"We can make it safer and enhance children
safety around schools.\" \"We encourage children to walk to school, but
they don\'t because the streets and sidewalks are not safe,\" Lettiere
said. \"It doesn\'t make sense to me.\"

Another \$1 billion has been set aside for bicycle paths, streetscaping
and other quality-of-life issues. \"\[We want to make\] our towns more
attractive to the communities,\" Pascrell said.

In 2004, about 42,000 deaths occurred on the nation\'s highways. As part
of the Highway Safety Improvement Program, the act plans on adding more
signs, lights and barriers to the highways.

\"Don\'t make excuses for things that could save lives because you
don\'t think they\'ll make a difference,\" Lettiere said. \"It\'s going
to take money to do this. We have to make transportation a priority in
this country.\"

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act
(SAFETEA-LU) also plans on expanding mass transit by adding more rails
to the railways and buses to the system, and formally renaming it
\"public transportation.\" Another added focus includes increasing
security for mass transit in lieu of the London and Madrid, Spain,
attack, and the recent threats of the New York City subways.

Mort Downey, former deputy secretary to the federal DOT; Emil Frankel,
former assistant secretary to the federal DOT; and Anne Canby, president
of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, addressed the federal
perspective on act.

Over the course of 24 months, state and federal legislators debated and
reformed the key issues regarding SAFETEA-LU. \"There is great value in
this bill, and there was a tremendous focus on the money,\" Frankel
said. \"The important thing is to look hard. We need to stimulate a lot
of debate and discussion.\"

Near the end of 2009, New Jersey should see more transportation options
available to its citizens. \"In the big picture, we need more travel
options,\" Guzzetti said. \"Too many communities are designed for people
to travel by car. This bill, however, will be hugely beneficial for NJ
Transit \-- road, rail and bus.\" The panel was sponsored by the Alan M.
Voorhees Transportation Center at

Rutgers University.

Copyright (c) 2005 (C) 2005 Daily Targum via U-WIRE

**Getting to the roots of obesity: why surroundings may matter**

<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002569789_obesity19m.html>

October 19, 2005

By Cara Solomon

Seattle Times reporter

There Colin Rehm stood, on a commercial strip in Auburn, an area with
the highest rate of obesity in King County. He had mapped it in his
research, but it was another thing entirely to see this fast-food frenzy
in person.

More than a dozen chain restaurants stretched out for a mile, from
Denny\'s to Dairy Queen to Domino\'s. A discount grocer sold trays of
cookies and packets of pastries for a dollar.

\"I\'ve never seen such good deals for unhealthy food,\" said Rehm, of
the University of Washington\'s Exploratory Center for Obesity Research.

Across King County, researchers such as Rehm are studying everything
from the clusters of fast-food restaurants to the number of run-down
sidewalks, trying to explain high rates of obesity. And the Exploratory
Center is right in the thick of it, one of only two federally funded
programs in the country that are looking at how economics and the
environment affect obesity.

King County\'s obesity rate has more than doubled in the past two
decades, reaching about 18 percent of the population last year. Genetics
alone can\'t explain it, public health officials say. And urging better
individual behavior hasn\'t worked. So many experts are focusing now on
access --- both to healthy foods and to exercise --- and what can be
done to improve it.

Public Health-Seattle & King County has spent the past year working with
academics and architects, city planners and transportation experts as
part of a new Overweight Prevention Initiative. Their focus is on policy
change, from bringing healthy options into the workplace to expanding
hours for exercise at local schools. The county Board of Health is set
to vote Friday on whether to support the initiative\'s plan.

\"There\'s not going to be any one answer,\" said Shelley Curtis, a
nutrition outreach and food policy manager for the Children\'s Alliance,
a statewide child advocacy group. \"The forces that we need to reckon
with are powerful and difficult to change.\"

More than half of King County residents are considered either overweight
or obese. A new survey by Public Health has found the highest obesity
rates are in South King County.

About 28 percent of Auburn residents are considered obese, and 26
percent of Federal Way residents fit that description. South King County
also has higher rates of chronic conditions that can come from obesity,
such as diabetes and heart disease.

\"It\'s hard to understand the enormity of what\'s coming down the
pike,\" said Dr. Ben Danielson, medical director of the Odessa Brown
Children\'s Clinic in the Central Area. \"It\'s not going to be solved
with some education and a few trainings.\"

Apples or frozen pizza?

Angela Davis knows all about healthy food. Her problem is getting it.

She can\'t find the money sometimes for fresh produce or lean meat. Not
when she\'s living on disability benefits. Not if she wants to pay the
rent.

\"It\'s frustrating,\" said Davis, 42, whose 13-year-old daughter is
obese. \"I feel my children deserve to have what the rest of society is
having.\"

Obesity affects people of all income levels, but poor people face more
hurdles in trying to stay healthy, said Adam Drewnowski, director of the
Exploratory Center.

For starters, healthy food costs more. The price of produce has
skyrocketed in the past two decades, according to a study by the Rand
Corporation. At the same time, the price of sweets and soft drinks has
stayed about the same.

Junk food is just a better deal, packing more calories per dollar than
most healthy food, Drewnowski has found.

\"You\'ve got five dollars for dinner,\" he said. \"Are you going to buy
fresh apples or frozen pizza?\"

Only the federal government can address food prices, by offering
subsidies for fruit and vegetables, for example, or using the food-stamp
system to give incentives to buy better food, the researchers say.

Nonetheless, the county is trying to make healthy food more available in
local neighborhoods. A nutrition task force has come up with a slew of
ideas, from offering more vouchers for farmers\' markets to providing
more produce to local food banks.

Researchers are also looking at the so-called \"food environment\" in
King County. Rehm, for example, has been mapping fast-food restaurants,
convenience stores and grocery stores. The theory is that in low-income
neighborhoods it\'s easier to buy unhealthy food than to seek out
healthy alternatives.

That theory, along with so many others, has yet to be proven. Obesity is
a complicated epidemic, experts say, with roots in everything from
education to motivation. Living first in the Central Area, and now in
South Seattle, Davis said she sometimes has struggled to find a low-cost
grocery store. Even when she finds one, she said, it\'s tough to afford
the fruits and vegetables there.

Now that her son has gone to college, she has lost eligibility for food
stamps, making the problem worse, she said.

\"I end up not paying a lot of my bills, to make sure that my kids have
what they\'re supposed to be eating,\" said Davis, a student at Seattle
University.

Her daughter\'s health depends on that sacrifice. The girl is under a
doctor\'s care now and enrolled in a fitness program through The Austin
Foundation, which helps get young people involved in fitness. Davis is a
parent representative with the foundation.

But without healthy food, the plan will fall flat.

**Make it walkable**

Play outside for an hour. Walk around the block a few times. Do
something small every day, Dr. Odette Sueda tells her patients ---
anything to help you lose weight.

Up to a half of Sueda\'s patients at the Columbia Public Health Center
in South Seattle are obese. Some of them can\'t afford bus fare to a
community center, she said, let alone sports equipment. Outdoor exercise
is sometimes the only option they have, Sueda said. But when she
suggests it, parents sometimes resist. They talk about hypodermic
needles in the grass, or parking lots with broken glass, or strangers
roaming around, looking like a threat.

Inside the center on a recent morning, the walls were warm with color.
Children had written the word \"healthy\" on the bulletin board, in many
different languages, from Spanish to Somali. But there were two bullet
holes in the front window, Sueda said, fresh from the previous weekend.

The county\'s anti-obesity initiative is attempting to deal with fears
of crime by recommending longer hours for schools and community centers
so residents can exercise indoors. It\'s also trying to expand a \"Safe
Routes to School\" program, a partnership with the police department to
get more kids walking.

A local pedestrian group called Feet First has been working on \"walking
audits\" with residents in Seattle and South King County, documenting
everything from faded crosswalks to missing sidewalks, then taking that
information to city officials. Their work has already inspired
Seattle\'s Department of Transportation to move some neighborhoods to
the top of lists for improvements.

It\'s all part of a new focus on \"walkability.\" Most people will
simply not set aside a half hour, three times a week for exercise, the
researchers say. So it\'s crucial that the streets themselves encourage
activity, in their appearance and their design.

A recent King County study found that people will walk around their
neighborhoods more if sidewalks and streets are connected, and shops and
parks are located nearby. Some of the older city neighborhoods, such as
Capitol Hill, already fit that description --- and the obesity rate
there is the lowest in the county, at 7 percent.

\"If you create environments where it\'s easier to choose the healthy
option, people will choose the healthy option,\" said Dr. Jim Krieger,
of Public Health.

The Seattle Housing Authority has adopted that concept, turning some of
its housing projects into national models for active living.

In the Delridge neighborhood, the old High Point project is a sprawling
community of beaten-down barracks. The wide streets encourage speeding
cars. The sidewalks are broken. Crime has been a serious concern. But
block by block, the project is being transformed into mixed-income
housing. New houses are painted in reds and greens and yellows, with
windows and porches that look out on shared lawn where children play.
Streets are narrow, sidewalks are wide, and landscaping serves as a
buffer between them.

There are plenty of new amenities within walking distance, including a
library and a public health center. And the city is trying to lure a
large grocery store there soon.

It\'s all just good, healthy design, said Tom Phillips, the project
director. It\'s not so much a step forward, he says, but a step back ---
to a time when communities were not built around the car.

**Sprawl & Crawl - Get off the bus?**

<http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/10/18/columns/sprawl_and_crawl/---00sprawl18.txt>

Steve Eldridge

Washington (DC) Examiner

October 18, 2005

I never told my kids that I walked five miles to school each day, in the
snow, uphill (both ways), but even still, back in the day,
schoolchildren WERE healthier. That\'s because many of them did walk to
school. We can get into a whole discussion here about safety and
development patterns and how that\'s made it necessary for kids be
driven to school in either buses or their parents\' cars, but the bottom
line is that not too many of them walk. In the District, fewer than 15
percent of the city\'s schoolchildren walk to school. Thirty years ago,
the majority of them did.

Is it any wonder that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
says that 16 percent of school-age children are obese or simply
overweight? Thirty years ago (back when the majority of schoolchildren
in the District walked to school) that number was just 4 percent.

This is what makes the Safe Routes to School program so important. The
District will receive \$5 million over five years from the feds to make
the walk or bike ride to school safer for city children. The funds will
be used to build new sidewalks and curb ramps, improve and add
crosswalks, install traffic-calming measures, increase safety education
and enhance police enforcement. In addition, the city will conduct an
intensive pilot program to promote safer walking and cycling at schools
in each ward.

Of course drivers, whether they live in the city or not, play a role
here too. The city will promote obeying the speed limit; stopping for or
yielding to pedestrians in the crosswalk, especially when turning;
obeying traffic signals; not drinking and driving; and always looking
out for pedestrians and cyclists. Pretty basic rules of the road, but
even more vital when there are children on or around those roads.

**Driving the money down**

By Susan DeGrane

American City & County

Saturday, October 1, 2005

With roads and bridges crumbling all over the nation, earmarking federal
funds for projects such as the \$230 million \"bridge to nowhere\" in
rural Alaska makes little sense. Also questionable is dedicating
\$800,000 toward a plan to enclose a 1.5-mile-long, 300-foot-wide
stretch of the Eisenhower Expressway just outside Chicago. The project,
which aims to add park space in Oak Park, Ill., may never happen because
the final tab for its construction threatens to run more than \$150
million. So, the \$800,000 in federal money likely will not be used
there or anywhere.

Providing money for such impractical projects is what Alaska Congressman
Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee, did with passage of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible,
Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU)
signed into law in August. The federal highway transportation bill,
which reauthorized the Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st
Century (TEA-21), serves as a

continuation of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of
1991.

The original legislation assigned states more flexibility in determining
solutions to their transportation needs. But while third generation
SAFETEA-LU boasts the nation\'s largest transportation package - \$286.4
billion for federal highway, transit and safety programs through 2009 -
county engineers involved with maintaining transportation networks
insist

that the legislation may not preserve the same flexibility.

\"It\'s bigger, larger by over 38 percent,\" says Anthony Giancola,
executive director of the Washington-based National Association of
County Engineers. \"Does that mean local government can expect to get 38
percent more funds in its distribution formula?\" Giancola says that is
not likely, and, worse, the money going toward earmarked projects is
subtracted from state allocations. Lawmakers who nab federal funds for
their home turfs may feel proud in serving their constituencies, but,
unfortunately, such projects undermine the decision-making authority of
local and state governments and sap funding for other, more necessary
projects.

SAFETEA-LU contains nearly 6,400 special projects totaling \$24
billion - about nine percent of the total guaranteed funding - according
to the New York-based Tri-State Transportation Campaign, an alliance of
public interest, transit advocacy, planning and environmental
organizations in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut metropolitan
region. New York State

received the second highest number of special projects, with 494
totaling \$990 million. While the projects may serve the state\'s urban
areas with road upgrades and rail and mass transit projects, in other
areas of the state, bridges and roads will suffer because of a lack of
attention.

New York State will apply 90 percent of its federal funding to 15
percent of its roads. The roads are mostly federal ones in urban areas,
according to Tim Von Neida, commissioner of public works for Chemung
County, N.Y. Counties - which maintain the remaining 85 percent of the
state\'s roads - will receive only 10 percent of the federal funding.

In Chemung County, where some roads are more than 100 years old and many
bridges need repair, SAFETEA-LU does not hold a great deal of promise.
\"We understand that there should be a shared cost with other
transportation needs,\" Von Neida says, \"but we need more of those
federal funds designed for local roads. The present system makes us
compete for the money. We are not getting our fair share.\"

Money rolls down hill

The Federal Highway Administration acts as a steward in dispensing
federal transportation funds to states, based on population density,
traffic and road mileage. Individual states then have their own formulas
for allocating money to county and local governments.

State allocation formulas dramatically affect how equitably roads are
maintained throughout individual states, along with other factors such
as channels of cooperation among local governments, county and state
departments of transportation, and state constitutional protections of
transportation funding. Because New York\'s constitution does not
protect transportation funding, highway funds have at times been placed
in a general fund and dispensed for other mandated purposes such as
public safety and public welfare programs.

Other states have constitutional protections for transportation funding,
although that has not always been the case for at least one state. In
1996, for instance, Michigan amended its formula to protect funding for
local roads, bridges and safety, with 75 percent going to state roads
and 25

percent guaranteed for maintaining local roads. \"We have assurances
that as funds are added, the locals will be able to share in those
additional funds,\" says John Niemela, executive director of the County
Road Association of Michigan.

But the 75/25 split in favor of state-maintained roads makes little
sense when considering that more than 75 percent of Michigan\'s 120,000
miles of roads are local, he says. Even so, federal lawmakers assigned 3
percent of SAFETEA-LU\'s earmarked projects to Michigan, and local
agencies within the state seem to have fared better this time around,
Niemela says.

The result of designated projects can be good or bad, he says. While
more money goes into the roads with earmarked projects, spending
flexibility is lost for other much-needed projects. \"If Congress
selects a project, it\'s seen as pork barrel, and it\'s unfortunate
because some are really needed, but I still think most engineers would
prefer to see the funds in the pot and distributed according to
\[state\] formula,\" Niemela says.

Minnesota\'s formula assigns 62 percent of funding to the state, 29
percent to counties and 9 percent to municipalities. \"It\'s fair in the
way it\'s distributed,\" says Colleen Landkamer, commissioner for Blue
Earth County and president-elect of the Washington-based National
Association of Counties.

The regional approach

How fairly remaining non-earmarked funds are distributed still depends
more than anything on involvement at the county and local level. Using
regional Area Transportation Partnerships (ATPs) to gain broader input
for project ranking and selection, Minnesota is among only a handful of
states that responded to the original Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency

Act\'s directive to give states more flexibility by decentralizing its
decision making. The state\'s ATP members include representatives from
the state Department of Transportation, a regional development
commission, counties, cities with more than 5,000 residents, and a
regional transit

authority. \"The ATPs have been a real positive thing, by bringing state
and local people together with DOT and staff and others who make
decisions for the area,\" Landkamer says.

Among other factors that help assure fair distribution of federal
transportation funds at the state and local level are the training and
political clout of county engineers. Engineers with solid credentials
and strong political support fare best in working with state departments
of

transportation, regional planning agencies and other groups such as the
ATPs that assign priority to projects.

Most states require county engineers, who are often appointed by local
lawmakers, to be licensed as professional engineers. Ohio, however,
positions its county engineers to hold more sway. The state requires
them to maintain dual licenses as professional engineers and surveyors,
and they

must campaign and be elected for the position of county engineer.

\"While most of them do not like being politicians, they like the
latitude that comes with decision making,\" says Glenn Sprowls,
executive director of the Columbus, Ohio-based County Engineers
Association of Ohio. \"We\'re the best model structure in the country,\"
because distribution of funds is more equitable throughout the state.

Still, Ohio - like most other states - actually needs five to six times
what it receives to maintain its roads and bridges, Sprowls says. The
lack of resources has caused the state to close almost 2,000 bridges.
Many roads have detoured or become dead ends as a result.

Donor and recipient states

Federal transportation funds are generated primarily from federal fuel
taxes. States with ports and densely populated urban areas generally see
far more traffic than others, so they generate more federal fuel tax
dollars. In some cases, for every dollar the states pay in federal
taxes, they may receive only 88 cents in federal highway funding. The
balance from so-called \"donor\" states goes to help \"recipient\"
states that cannot generate enough fuel tax dollars to cover their
needs. California and Michigan are donor states because their outward
flow of federal gas taxes exceeds federal transportation funds flowing
in.

In many cases, the recipient states are sparsely populated with minimal
traffic, as is Alaska. In other cases, a recipient state, such as New
York, may be highly populated and generate a large amount of federal
dollars, but an aging infrastructure or other needs may outstrip the
state\'s revenue from federal gas taxes.

While SAFETEA-LU does not level the playing field entirely, now donor
states will be getting a better deal through the new Equity Bonus
Program. Under TEA-21, California received 90.5 cents for every dollar
paid in taxes. Under the new legislation, it will receive 92 cents.
Likewise,

Michigan, in the next five years, will work up to 92.5 cents instead of
88 cents per dollar.

Even with those increases, some county engineers still complain that
their states have unique concerns and expenses not always addressed by
federal or even local funding formulas. For example, because of
potential earthquakes, California\'s bridges are required to maintain
additional flexibility, which requires the expenses of supplemental
engineering analysis and seismic retrofitting.

Meanwhile, Oregon\'s rural roads receive heavy use because of farming.
The state also supports a high percentage of untaxed federal land. \"The
National Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have several roads
in the system, but they don\'t pay taxes,\" says Jon Oshel, county road
program manager for the Salem, Ore.-based Association of Oregon
Counties.

For all the funding gaps that SAFETEA-LU cannot address, the legislation
still offers some new approaches to maintaining the nation\'s
transportation network. States are given increased flexibility in
tolling, managing congestion and financing infrastructure improvements.
Under the new Interstate System Construction Toll Pilot Program, states
can collect tolls to build interstate highways. The program is limited
to three projects nationwide, but several states may participate in a
continuous road project.

Safety program funded

According to Tony Kane, director of engineering and technical services
for the Washington-based American Association of State Highway &
Transportation Officials, surface transportation also will benefit from
a number of new programs. Among those is the High Risk Rural Roads
Safety program, which provides \$90 million a year to help states
improve dangerous two-lane roads in rural areas. The High Risk Rural
Roads Safety package also supports establishing safe pedestrian and
bicycle routes to schools, seatbelt enforcement and sobriety programs.
In addition, states will be required to track and annually publish the
top 5 percent of their roads with the highest numbers of fatalities.

The federal bridge program also has been altered to remove the old
35-percent maximum that states may spend on bridges, allowing them now
to spend whatever is necessary. \"This was a major addition to the
legislation,\" Kane says.

Several aspects of the transportation legislation, on the surface at
least, bode well for the environment and communities. A new
environmental review process will apply to highways, transit and
multimodal projects to give more state, local and tribal agencies a
formal role in the environmental approval process. The anticipated
result is that local parties will have more input in selecting projects
that better serve the needs of the region, says Bob Fogel, senior
legislative director for the Washington-based National Association of
Counties. The new environmental review process streamlines permitting as
well.

Also, mass transit received a 46-percent boost over the previous bill,
helping states with large urban centers and established mass transit
ridership such as Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, California and
Maryland. That is especially important for relieving road congestion and
curbing pollution, Kane says.

\"The biggest challenge for the country and for the population is to
make sure that public works infrastructure is adequately funded to meet
the needs \[of living\] in higher density areas,\" says Don LaBelle,
public works director for Alameda County, Calif. \"If you have
\[transportation\] systems that are not well funded, you will lose
opportunities and the better paying jobs.\"

While SAFETEA-LU may not cover every base, it takes states and local
governments beyond the limits of previous legislation. \"Like all
programs, not everybody gets back the same \[in federal funding\], but
it\'s still important that there\'s a little bit more \[money this time
around\],\" Fogel says.

Susan DeGrane is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

Copyright (c) 2005 Primedia Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights

reserved.

**Decatur challengers say zoning, traffic, gentrificaiton are issues**

**Candidates in City Commission race bring up topics**

<http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/1005/20decatur.html>

By KAREN HILL

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 10/20/05

Is Decatur growing too big, too fast?

Bob Pauley thinks so, and says that if he\'s elected to the City
Commission he\'ll ask for an immediate moratorium on new construction
until the city revises its zoning code and figures out how to improve
traffic safety.

Pauley\'s campaign platform is a startling development in a city whose
makeover from sleepy DeKalb County seat to poster child for \"new
urbanism\" has been widely lauded. But he said the growth of mixed-use
developments --- shops and restaurants topped with condos and apartments
--- hasn\'t been accompanied by adequate improvements in traffic safety
or police protection.

Pauley, 53, chief executive officer of an insurance company, is one of
two challengers to Decatur\'s newest city commissioners in the Nov. 8
election.

He wants the District 1 seat held by one-term incumbent Fred Boykin Jr.,
54, a bike shop owner, representing the city\'s north side. Robert Soens
Jr., 50, a building contractor, wants the District 2, south side seat
held for four years by Mary Alice Kemp, 71, a retiree.

Decatur\'s zoning ordinance was written in 1958 and substantially
updated in 1986, Assistant City Manager Hugh Saxon said. Daily counts
from the Georgia Department of Transportation, provided by Saxon, show
downtown traffic volume actually declined slightly from 1994 to 2004.

In that same 10 years, the city added 287 condominiums and apartments,
said Lyn Menne, Decatur\'s director of economic and neighborhood
development.

Pauley questioned the accuracy of the DOT traffic counts, saying it just
doesn\'t make sense that traffic would have decreased as residents and
visitors to Decatur\'s re-energized retail and restaurant scene have
flocked to downtown.

Menne said she believes the counts are accurate because even as small
retailers, restaurants and condos have opened in Decatur, larger offices
and banks moved out. An office building, she said, would be filled with
about six times the people --- and therefore, more cars --- than a
condominium complex.

Also lowering the traffic volume, Menne said: DeKalb County is moving
its auto-tag and tax office from downtown Decatur, the opening of a
shuttle between Decatur and Emory University, and road and sidewalk
improvements designed to lessen \"cut-through\" traffic between Atlanta
and outlying suburbs.

Pauley said a near-tragedy last year propelled him into the race. His
daughter, Sylena, then 9, was struck by a car as she tried to ride her
bike across the busy intersection of Clairmont Avenue and Commerce Drive
with a large group of people after watching Decatur High School\'s
homecoming parade. A car turned into the group, trapping the child under
its engine and destroying her helmet. She suffered abrasions.

\"What rankled me is we had talked about it with \[the last three
mayors\], how every time you tear down something \[to build denser
housing\], the streets are no wider, the lights are unsynchronized ---
however, we\'re encouraging people to ride bicycles, to walk,\" Pauley
said.

Long-term changes

Boykin, who ran for office on a pedestrian-friendly platform, counters
that some of the changes he has championed are just now taking shape.
They include sidewalk repairs, the selection of two Decatur schools in a
\"Safe Routes to School\" state pilot, the study of four \"gateway\"
intersections and the development of a long-term community
transportation plan.

\"Some of the changes we\'re doing right now won\'t really bear fruit
for a dozen years,\" such as initial engineering and infrastructure
changes designed to make it easier for Decatur residents to walk or ride
bikes instead of driving, Boykin said.

It\'s not enough, Boykin said, \"to build a sidewalk, but to make it
pleasant, put something at both ends that people want to walk to, link
things.\"

Especially important, Boykin said, is expanding the \"Safe Route to
Schools\" program for the city\'s youngest pedestrians.

\"If you make it safer for a child to get across the street, you make it
safer for the rest of the community because a child walks about as fast
as an elder adult,\" Boykin said.

Boykin questioned the wisdom of a development moratorium.

\"Those are very complex issues. There are a lot of people who \...
don\'t want to see anything happen, want to save every tree. There are
others who feel they have the right to sell to whoever wants to buy it,
and do everything they want. It\'s a balancing act \[and\] there are
rules you have to go by --- based on county, state and federal
government.\"

Boykin said he believed Decatur\'s downtown growth would slow naturally
because little land remains available.

First-term investment

In the south side race, Kemp notes that the city has invested four years
of training in her.

\"There\'s a big learning curve, with training in areas like municipal
law, zoning and planning, municipal finance. I know something now \...
I\'m retired, got plenty of energy. I almost feel like I ought to run
because the city has invested something in me,\" Kemp said.

Kemp said she would continue to focus on preserving and building more
\"life cycle\" and affordable housing such as housing of different sizes
that fit people\'s needs at different points in their lives, and housing
affordable to people earning less than the median family income in metro
Atlanta, \$59,313.

\"I just don\'t like that people who serve as police, firefighters
can\'t live among us,\" Kemp said.

Other issues of special concern to her, she said, include expanding
Decatur\'s green spaces and lowering taxes.

2000 plan a priority

Soens said his experience as a contractor would be valuable in making
decisions about downtown development and infill housing.

He also said he believes that years of volunteer work have given him a
\"unique understanding\" of south Decatur, especially Oakhurst, the
city\'s southwest quadrant that is home to most of its African-American
residents. Many of them are retired from low-paying jobs and are
fighting a wave of gentrification to stay in their homes.

\"My No. 1 reason to run is to give a strong voice to the south side.
No. 2 is to work very hard at fulfilling the vision of the 2000
strategic plan\" governing city growth through 2010, Soens said.

Soens also said he wants to improve communication between the City
Commission and school board and address the city\'s storm drainage
issues.

Like Kemp, Soens said he wants to increase the amount of affordable
housing --- but that he would be more aggressive about it.

\"I\'d like to find some more creative ways to answer some of our
diverse housing issues, other than just being dependent on developers
and/or the Housing Authority,\" Soens said.

**Udall articulates case for keeping NEPA**

Editorial

THE NEW MEXICAN

August 4, 2005

[[http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/30881.html]{.underline}](http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/30881.html)

As part of their ongoing assault on Ma Nature, congressional Republicans
brought their road show to Rio Rancho this week. It featured weeping and
wailing, to the tune of a thousand violins, over the grave injustices to
the gas-and-oil industry committed in the name of NEPA --- the National
Environmental Policy Act.

That darn law, said the leader of a Capitol Hill task force, has led to
lawsuits, stalled economic-development projects and (gasp) cost
taxpayers money.

So, said Rep. Cathy McMorris of Washington, "The question before this
task force is can we do better for our economy and for our environment?"

No, it isn't , said Southern Arizona's Rep. Raúl Grijalva ; this effort
is a pretext for a broader attack on NEPA and other environmental laws.

His fellow Democrat, Rep. Tom Udall of Northern New Mexico, was on hand
to defend NEPA as a shield --- against a unwieldy federal bureaucracies,
forcing them to stop and listen to the advice of "on-the-ground, private
Americans."

That's the kind of statesmanlike reasoning and bipartisan appeal his
dad, former congressman and interior secretary Stewart Udall, and his
uncle, the late Rep. Morris Udall, used to advance the cause of
environmentalism back when boosterism flourished --- and many
environmentalists vented their frustration with eco-raids and the like.
It's encouraging to hear those elder voices echoed by our community's
congressman.

NEPA, he noted, "mandates only that federal agencies consider the
possibility that they might be wrong or too narrowly focused before they
charge ahead with plans that could have long-term, unintended
consequences ."

The Mountain West, he said, is the scene of all kinds of examples where
NEPA has worked to the benefit of the people who live and work in this
region.

He cited an Environmental Impact Statement, that bane of Republican
existence, completed by Los Alamos in 1999 --- a year before the Cerro
Grande Fire destroyed some of our atomic city.

The Department of Energy, which runs the town, hadn't contemplated the
danger of wildfire. But citizens who showed up at a NEPA-required
hearing weren't quite so blithe. As a result, the final EIS included a
scenario closely predicting what happened the following spring --- and
the severity of the fire's toll, bad as it was, was reduced.

All over the West, concerned citizens have spoken their minds about
industry's environmental impacts on their communities and surrounding
regions. Sometimes , they've been heard in time to avert disaster.

But before Republican Richard Nixon signed NEPA in 1970, community
concerns went largely ignored. Udall cited the case of the radioactive
tailings pile alongside the Colorado River near Moab, Utah --- a
leftover from the 1950s' uranium boom in that part of the Four Corners.

NEPA is riding to a belated rescue, proving influential in a Department
of Energy plan to move the tailings away from that river, the main
drinking supply for large parts of Arizona, Nevada, California, Baja
California and Sonora.

NEPA's greatest value, perhaps, lies in demanding a long, last look
before doing environmental damage that all too often can't be undone.

Frustrating as that might be for the drill-now , worry-later lobby
champing at the bit to pump finite supplies of petroleum into America's
SUVs and China's Buicks, it's a caution our country needs.

Sometimes it comes with bureaucratic silliness --- but it beats
pillaging for profit, and Republicans seeking to torpedo NEPA should
realize that many of their fellow Republicans share with Democrats a
concern for the environment.