Don’t accommodate sprawl

Regarding any purchase of land by the city of Santa Fe to enable the Richards Avenue extension, please consider: The U.S. is littered with cities that cleaved vibrant neighborhoods with arterial traffic for the sake of providing “convenience” to those passing through or who live in suburbs created by speculators. Santa Fe is a city that uniquely appreciates its convivial lifestyle. We have actually codified neighborhood participation in land-use planning to ensure special places remain special. In the case of the Richards Avenue extension, the people have spoken.

The imposition of a major arterial through established neighborhoods to accommodate sprawl goes against everything we stand for. Santa Fe can avoid the decay triggered by unconscious severing of vital connections with the impervious barriers of vehicular mobbing, common to places from Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles. We should instead turn to places like Portland, Ore., or the Mainline in Philadelphia, where development has been designed to create nodes of density linked by public transit; each supporting its own commercial center. Our suburbs should be banding together to attain the critical mass necessary to accomplish this. We should not be paving the way for developers to override the special ambiance of our life-long neighbors by paving their way through town.

Steve Shaw Santa Fe