Another Follow-up: the County Comprehensive Plan on-line Survey
2008 July 25
I just saw that the results of the on-line County Comprehensive Plan survey were posted. Since we encouraged you all to participate in a previous post, it’s nice to see the results and the tremendous increase in participation. According to the publication:
As part of the 1998 Comprehensive Plan update, a public survey was undertaken with 325 surveys distributed of which only 110 were returned. The total number of survey respondents in
2008 represents a increase of 10 times over 1998 totals with 1171 total respondents.
Figure 1 shows a map of survey respondents by their home zip code.
Figure 1: Survey Respondents by Home Zip code
You can see the whole report by clicking on the image above or HERE
~LizFrog~
Fascinating stuff. Although there’s some odd schizophrenia in the responses:
78% of respondents say they live in a “single-family detached house” (half of them 4+ bedrooms) , but respondents largely didn’t support planning new “conventional subdivision developments,” which, if I’m not mistaken, is where most of the county’s single-family detached homes currently are.
Likewise, in housing ,”plan for walkable/bikeable communities” was identified as the highest priority while, under transportation, “improve traffic flow on existing roads: includes widening and intersection improvements” was the top response.
It would be interesting to see how the responses broke down by zip code and/or housing type of the respondent.
Cityside: Agreed–the survey results are quite an interesting read. I do think that many of those responding–myself included–emphasized a “vision” that may not reflect some of the actual choices we made in the past.
But, I don’t see “plan for walkable/bikeable communities” as necessarily being at odds with “improve traffic flow on existing roads…” as top priorities. In completing the survey myself, I was thinking that I’d rather see priority given to making the most of existing roads and related infrastructure before putting in new road capacity. And that “planning for walkable, bikeable communities” expressed my desire to see new development trends that foster a decreased reliance on cars to go almost anywhere and do almost anything–including get to the workplace. (Gosh, I’d LOVE to be able to walk or bike to work–or even to pick up a carton of milk!) So, with time, more “walkable/bikeable communities”– near businesses/employment centers– would lead to fewer miles being driven and less pressure to build new roads to serve car-dependent, isolated subdivisions (so often the case today).