Responses to the New Visions Workbook in 1996 highlighted the very real obstacles
and challenges facing the region in attempting to achieve the vision. These responses are summarized in Figure 1. They present a realistic perspective on the
vision. While the vision represented
where the region would like to be in the year 2021,
it is clear that few in the region were naive about the difficulty of getting
there.
Figure 1: Challenges to the Vision
(Cited
in public responses to the New Visions Workbook question, "What do you
believe are the greatest challenges facing the Capital District in
accomplishing the vision?")
û
The large number of autonomous political units.
û
Adequate funding to accomplish our vision in a
reasonable time frame.
û Fragmented planning and zoning control -- competition among localities for investment without an overall regional plan.
û
Finding the money for investing in options that are
alternatives to automobiles.
û
Recognizing how essential pedestrian access and safety
is to the region.
û
Linking suburbia with sidewalks.
û
Retrofitting mixed-use development into suburbia.
û
Controlling/ managing sprawl.
û
The inability of local and state officials to elevate
our transportation problems to a national level to ensure funding.
û
Coordinating local land use decisions with regional
goals.
û
Getting the proper public/ private financing to solve
transportation problems.
û
Developing common goals that permit the best use of our
resources.
û
Unless the U.S. Constitution is changed in the opposite
direction than it is being pushed in, development will occur where the property
owners want it.
û
Rapid public transit.
û
Land use patterns that discourage long commutes.
û
Reversal of suburban sprawl.
û
Creating vibrant cities.
û
Revitalizing urban areas, parking problems, lack of
funding, lip service to ideals but money flows only to highways.
û
Convincing people that conversing with neighbors is
better than conversing with TV or computers.
û
Selling it to the many entities involved.
û
Competition among municipalities for jobs and
development.
û
The declining economy of our area will make it difficult
to place a high priority on many elements of this "vision".
û
This vision will conflict with many local interests when
actual implementation is tried.
û
Achieving cooperation among the various government
organizations in the Capital District.
û
Formless sprawl is still the standard urban development
practice.
û
Inertia.
û
City budgets and suburban prejudice.
û
Probably the biggest challenge will to be to get people
to believe that such can be done.
û
Political balkanization and resistance to regionalize.
û
Dwindling economic resources and increasing public
infrastructure costs.
û
Free market forces that dictate mode choice.
û
Poor regional and local land use controls.
û
A non-visionary parochial attitude that focuses on
entrenchment.
û
Getting new industry in the area.
û
Affordable senior citizen housing.
û
Providing mobility and accessible transit service for an
increasingly aging population as spread out as it is.
û
A transit system quicker than SOVs.
û
Developing many walkable and bikeable communities.
û
Suburban land use and zoning laws and practices and
opposition to trying anything new.
û
Conserving the older cities from gradual decay due to
their disproportionate social burdens like crime and school systems underfunded
for their task.
û
Unresolved social and economic conditions -- many poor
people feeling like strangers in their own country -- could affect the region
more by than all the transportation investments that are or are not made.
û
Parochial attitudes and partisan politics.
û
Getting the region to think like a region -- the BIG
one.
û
Realtors walking away from in filling.
û
Many special interest groups, politics, and just plain
reality.
û
Control over driveways and curb cuts.
û
Downtown parking situation.
û
Increasing traffic congestion -- i.e. Northway.
û
Lack of mass transportation and/ or the public's lack of
interest in mass transit.
û
Turf wars between cities, towns, counties and villages.
û
Workplace accessibility via walking or biking.
û
Creating a state tax structure that is competitive.
û
Building or rebuilding the neighborhood.
û
Finding the money to accomplish the projects without
raising the taxes that drive the people out.
û
Preservation of
open space -- rural areas, villages, etc.
û
Reconciling and balancing the seemingly contradictory
need for more efficient infrastructure to accommodate the anticipated growth in
the Capital District and minimizing impacts on the environment.
û
The old social and political cultures of the area; i.e.
I live in Troy and I don't like city xyz.
û
Too many people only able to live paycheck to paycheck
to survive and not thinking about long-range goals.
û
Reining in land developers and getting them to conform
to any plan which benefits the general welfare of the community, if it results
in less profit for them.
û
Ensuring that small, local governments reflect this
vision NOW.
û
Consensus building among different levels of government
upon a shared set of goals.
û
Cooperation on a regional basis to get things done.
û
Reducing material and energy consumption.
û
Emphasis on quality of life, rather than economic.
û
The winter weather is a large obstacle to bike and
pedestrian actions.
û
Translating the regional vision into implementable
policies.
û
The need for the backing of all the mayors, the
Governor, and other prominent New York State politicians if "newer
suburban development is to occur in the interior of the region, rather than at
its fringes".