Members of Extinction Rebellion Twin Cities with banners that say Declare a Climate Emergency and Environmental Justice at the St. Paul City Council’s hearing on its Climate Action and Resilience Plan. Photo by the author.
This is the context, and we all know it:
• Climate change is real and already causing devastating effects
• Climate change is primarily caused by CO2
• Transportation accounts for the largest part of Minnesota’s CO2 increase
• We need to act now
Given that, let’s say you have a street (well, more accurately, a county road) in Saint Paul. It’s due for a complete rebuild, with a 100-year-old water main and the sewers being replaced to current standards. At the same time, it will have bike facilities of some type added because it’s the only through-street in the area, adjacent to a major academic institution with a lot of bike traffic, and on the Saint Paul Bike Plan.
There’s concern about not increasing the traffic speed on the street by widening it more than absolutely necessary, not making it wider for pedestrians to cross, keeping as many of the existing trees as possible, and not adding any more pavement than absolutely necessary.
So what should go if something has to, given all of those priorities?
It seems pretty clear to me: parking of privately owned vehicles along the street.
But removing the existing parking spots — even just some of them — will inconvenience the few single-family homeowners along the county road, even though 99% of them have off-street parking, and may mean the non-residents who park in those spots will shift to other nearby streets, inconveniencing the residents there, who are mostly in SFHs.
A long-time realtor starts making noises about the SFHs turning over to rentals and sending letters to legislators, city council members, and county commissioners. SFH-owners complain about not being able to get deliveries, have contractors come to their houses, or requiring their visitors to walk a block or two. A locally prominent person is mentioned as having moved out of Saint Paul because taxes are too high!
And here we are once again in NIMBY-land when we know:
• Climate change is real and already causing devastating effects
• Climate change is primarily caused by CO2
• Transportation accounts for the largest part of Minnesota’s CO2 increase
• We need to act now
How does this keep happening? Obviously, I am writing this because I don’t have a solution, except to keep pointing out those four key realities over again. I know I’m not the only one with this frustration, so maybe I’m just trying to create a space for venting. Have you seen projects progress (or regress) this way in your neighborhood? Have you been able to do anything to prevent or stall this NIMBY spiral?