(Des Moines, IA, May 29, 2008) For two and a half hours residents of the Des Moines metropolitan area offered ideas for the future of central Iowa’s transportation network and expressed frustration at years of being ignored. Staff of the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (DMAMPO) were pleased with the turnout for a public meeting held at Roosevelt High School to gather input into the Horizon Year 2035 Long-Range Transportation Plan’s goals and objectives. In addition to reporters and DMAMPO staff there were about 40 people participating in the meeting. While most people were middle-aged, there were people in or approaching their 80′s and others under 30.
At one point in the meeting DMAMPO Executive Director Tom Kane felt a need to step in and address some of the concerns he had been hearing. He said that the DMAMPO should have tried to have some members of its executive committee attend the meeting to hear directly from the residents. He also acknowledged that the DMAMPO may need to expand their meeting locations. One man had expressed concern that the long-range plan was focused too much on the urban areas, ignoring the needs of unincorporated Polk County. I suggested a Saturday morning meeting at the Northside Library. (My suggestion was made because advocates for better academic performance by minority students had urged a similar time and location for one of the school district’s special forums.)
More than one person stated that she had been attending DMAMPO meetings for years but never seemed to be heard. I added a related opinion about attending meetings of the public transit authority, DART. Many people wanted to know who had the power to start looking at true transportation planning and called the DMAMPO’s plan a short-range step that merely reacts to existing conditions. The answer varied. Some people said local elected officials need to make decisions, particularly since the DMAMPO and the DART commissions are comprised mostly of those office holders. Other people thought the elected officials were part, and perhaps most, of the problem. Bob Mickle, who is a citizen member of the DMAMPO policy committee, said the power is with the citizens. He cited curb-side recycling as an example of a service that was started because the public demanded it.
One man kept returning to the theme of the DMAMPO using its position to refuse passing along any funds for transportation projects made necessary through new business or residential development funded with tax increment financing (TIF), tax abatements, or another type of public subsidy. Other people thought the DMAMPO needed to identify transportation needs based on input from a cross-representation of the public, not just from developers. This included deciding the best places for the various components of the transportation plan instead of building more roads because somebody built a new mall.
There were many specific suggestions made, from observing what similarly-situated communities have done to demanding communities have ordinances that promote multimodal transportation to questioning whether promoting the airport as part of the freight network will be practical in the future. In another context, one man suggested that the airport be considered as a multimodal point since the land is already owned by a public authority. This would include having buses and trains, as well as planes, using the airport as a destination.
Everybody at the meeting seemed to agree on the reality that transportation decisions are also decisions about land use, economic growth, business development, and quality of life. There was also consensus that it will take time for individuals’ attitudes and behaviors to adapt to a new transportation model.
M.R. Field writes about transportation issues for AroundDesMoines.com. 
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