The City has applied for another large grant for improvements in the West Ward. Here's a quote from the Express Times Article, written by Ed Sieger:
"The city applied to the state Department of Community and Economic Development for a $250,000 Elm Street Residential Reinvestment Program. The city plans to use the grant for sidewalk and facade improvements and to purchase trees and benches for the West Ward.
The grant requires no local match, and Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley Inc. will administer the grant on the city's behalf."
To read the article in its entirety, which also covers an application for a preservation grant for the historic district downtown, here is the article below:Express Times Article on New Grant for Trees, Facades, Sidewalks and Benches in the WW
What do you think?
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4 comments:
grants grants and more grants. granted (pardon the pun) some benefit has been seen over the years (playground improvements, etc) but BIKE RACKS??? I am a cyclist myself and one thing I've never thought about was "hey, you know, what this city really needs is some bike racks!"
maybe I'm missing something (wouldn't be the first time) but there needs to be some better consultants hired, ones that don't just revert to 'feel-good' type spending (flower pots, bike racks, etc) and do something substantial.
that reminds me, I think I should go pick the weeds out of the neglected flower pot on the corner.
EHB,
My take on the bike rack issue is one that may get me labled as an "art" hater or a curmudgeon..take your pick. But my opinion is also shared by many locals (who shall remain nameless) also involved in Easton's art scene. They - as I - feel that the whole bike rack-as-art object scheme is nonsense. I won't put words in their mouths so here is what I think.
Easton's downtown does need more bike racks. Why? A number of reasons. We need to start generating alternative travel options for those who need choices about getting around. Bike racks are visible signs that the city is serious about providing terminal capacity (bike parking) for bikers.
We need to start creating synergistic relationships between the travel modes...biking, walking, bus transit and, with any luck, rail transit. You need interconnected systems that create community accesibility and not just personal mobility (cars). We must dignify and respect travel choices other than driving and that is done by providing reasonable facilites for all travel modes.
What I don't like about the artist bike racks is what you mention in your comments. Easton and many other places fall for the trendy band-aid approach: sculptural bike racks, planters that no one maintains, cheap or tacky banners that distract from the real problems on the ground. I would always rather have high architectural quality, well maintained buildings and clean streets first...Then each person deciding what kind of decoration they wish to present (plantings on porches, etc.) than have a series of city-imposed band-aids.
I can't help but think that any one-off, artist-designed bike rack has to cost more than standard models available from any landscape accessory catelogue. It may be putting money in the pockets of local artists, which is a good but highly limited method for relocalizing the economy, but the standard models probably offer more bike storage capacity per square foot and don't require people to figure out what they are looking at first or "what message" the artist was trying to make before using one.
I'd like Easton to concentrate on basic delivery of functional, usable devices for daily living. Have reasonable architectural quality standards - especially downtown. Let artists fill in the gaps on an ad hoc basis. I may be speaking of a Utopian state...if not in physical form then at least in the sense of civic pragmatism required.
DRL
I think you make a good point, EHB, which is that people will cheer for grants at first, but if they don't see meaningful improvements as a result, they tend to go, "yea, whoopdee do, another grant" when they hear about new funding rolling into local nonprofits.
new trees are great, but in the past couple years of neighborhood meetings that i've been at, and through comments on the blog, it seems that the main concerns on residents' minds are crime, blight, and garbage. a couple of the grants that were announced this summer will be used for rehabbing houses in the WW, a couple at a time. this hopefully will take care of some blight issues and help to start changing the look of the neighborhood for families driving through who might be considering buying here. as for this grant announcement, the most important part, to me, is the facade grants. this will help home-owners having a tough time to fix up porches, doors, paint, etc., which can have a big effect on how a block looks, especially if more than one home on a block gets the facade grant. as neighbors, we should get to know other neighbors on our blocks to encourage them to apply for facade grants so that our blocks will look better and better.
every well-cared-for house makes a difference, and your house is one of them. hopefully we will see the rehabs starting this summer, and then we can all get a little more excited when we hear about grants coming into the neighborhood.
as for the bike racks--i'm all for bike racks because they encourage people to get exercise, save on gas, and avoid over-crowded parking. but what i don't understand is the totally mismatched up-for-grabs artsy designs. they clash with each other, have no consistency, and seem to focus more on the artsiness than the practicality of inviting as many bikes to be able to park as possible. there's one by the bus stop that looks like it can only hold two bikes--what's the point of spending that money on a rack that can only hold two bikes?
a great example of a truly bike-friendly city is chicago, where the mayor is strongly pro-bike and has made sure that clear bike lanes are painted on all the streets, and that bike paths through parks are kept in good condition. he demands that drivers treat cyclists with respect, and this attitude trickles down from the top so as a result, chicago is a bike-friendly city. they have simple iron bike racks on almost every block downtown that maximize the number of bikes that can be parked, and so many people ride there, that sometimes and entire block of bike racks will be full. i pedaled around with my friend when i was there in september, and it was really impressive.
I've driven to center city Philadelphia many times by taking 611 the whole way. that takes you through some of the worst parts of the city, N Broad st. to me, murals and street art are a sure sign you're in a blighted community. artsy street sculptures just look crappy on a blighted street, and unused artsy bike racks are a waste of time.
bikes racks should be 'installed', not 'unveiled'.
facade grants are a good idea (although the existence of them needs to be advertised better). sidewalk trees are a good idea also (although, the people deciding who gets them are are a bit uninformed; I was told my sidewalk wasn't large enough for a tree).
I would like to see the streets in my neighborhood dug up and repairs correctly. some (around 8th and 9th and spring garden and bushkill) the crown on the street is a good foot above the sidewalk.
thats all for now, just doing some drive-by commenting.
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