Hey
Bobby H - My parents built a house (if you know our city that well) in which we moved into in 1969. It's location is on a bluff that is inbetween Union (how I miss our mud pit there) and Austin Bluffs. I was a year old when they moved in and Academy Blvd was just a dirt road. My mom drove four miles to get the mail.
But you have apparently failed to understand that a long term vision in Colorado Springs is difficult at best. We have a highly transient population because of our dependancy on the federal government here. As technology changes, also does our population (thinking of DOD contractors like Ratheon and other microwave tech companies that used to be here). Our population fluctuates very much with those companies as well as the military population.
To the best of my knowledge, Powers was not intended to be a highway like say, C-470 and E-470 in Denver but a means to augment the north/south traffic flow. Acquiring land, assuring landowners and homeowners that Powers will not be a super highway has always been a stumbling block in Colorado. By nature, most long-time residents of Colorado are very leary of government land-grabbing. Not to mention that there's a huge "not in my backyard" mentality here.
With that said, the City of Colorado Springs and El Paso County are pretty conservative when it comes to how they decide on the best way to handle growth...in my head it makes sense, perhaps not too much in pixels...I can't explain it well enough.
While I have been to many places in the US (New York, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Miami, L.A., New Orleans, etc...) nobody's highway and road system is perfect. I've heard that Portland, OR is pretty good but never been there...but I will tell you this (again) that if Colorado Springs and El Paso County with their "Mountain" Metropolitan Transit (Eh, we are on the plains you diggleberries, I still find the "Mountain" silly in their name) were to actually make it feasible for people to use it, the road situation here would not be as stressed.
I also think that in the west, sprawl is a huge problem. Cities that don't have multiple cities contained within it only create more problems with roads. I can't buy clothes unless I drive. I can't get a new appliance unless I drive. I can't do most anything unless I drive. That's where most western cities fail and it's not confined to Colorado Springs. Denver Metro, Ft. Collins, Pueblo, Grand Junction...are all examples of planning departments gone bonkers in the west. I am pretty sure the same is true for Salt Lake City, Boise, Helena, etc...
But one need not look too far to find that, okay it's a 17 or so hour drive, L.A. is where city planning has gone wrong. Even back in the early 80s I remember visiting there and what might take a 30 minute trip from my aunt's house to my grandmother's house in C Springs or Denver might take a good hour.
There is no "perfect" anywhere and it's easy to pinpoint the failures of any city in our nation. But I will stand behind the fact that C Springs has a fluid population, in the late 80s it took a huge hit from the "savings and loan scandal" and our city leaders are less than knowledgable...but that's not because they are dumb, it's because long-term planning here is difficult especially when you consider the varying mayors through our city's history and the unique nature of C Springs and its ties to the federal government. Then you compound that with the State and Feds and tax dollars, it's a mishmash of everything that can be wrong.
Seriously, if you are that passionate about our roads here, please contact our House Rep Doug Lamborn, our Senators, Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar as well as Mister Bill Ritter (our governor) to give the C Springs and other areas more funding for better roads and to help with some kind of planning.
It's not the City Counsil's fault that our population fluctuates as insanely as it does. IIRC, the Feds only gave C Springs and surrounding cities and townships a few years notice this one go around to find out that Ft. Carson will be adding almost 9,000 (I don't have the exact figures) personnel from an army base in Texas. This is a huge stress on Colorado Springs and its current infrastructure. 9,000 doesn't include family members, this is probably closer to 16,000 people. I'm not a statistician nor am I am geographer, nor am I am sociologist but that kind of influx really stresses any medium sized city. It might even stress Denver.
This is the kind of information people forget when it comes to Colorado Springs. I can't stress enough how strange our population changes and it might be an interesting study for those within geography, sociology and other areas that deal with population.
No we aren't perfect but seeing as you live in Oklahoma, perhaps you, as an outsider, can influence the public figures above to make some changes around our wonderful state.
I've said it before and I will say it again, if you aren't part of I-70, tax dollars don't matter in this state. I was saddened by Owens (our previous governor) as he is from C Springs and his lack of attention to our growing and weird population.
WOW, that was long. Sorry. Been one of those days where I just had to glurdge about something other than my goofy personal life in my blog.
Regardless, I may be moving out of C Springs next year but it's near and dear to my heart. Critical things aside, it really is a nice place to live.
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
Linear Mode
