Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. Charles L. Marohn, Jr.

       “We have anticipated that, and we are adding two more lanes to handle the additional cars.”

      That insight was not received in the way that I anticipated. There was an uncomfortable period of silence — the kind where the person expected to speak is too startled to do so. Her eyes widened and she stared at me, not blinking.

       “You are adding two more lanes?”

      “Yes.” I was nodding knowingly.

       “For cars?”

       “Yes. An additional two lanes will allow the street to meet the standard.”

I looked down at my feet. I wasn't sure how to react to this conversation. It was clear that the woman with whom I was speaking was upset, but certainly she didn't want traffic congestion in front of her home. I bet she'd be the first one calling City Hall if she was stuck in traffic every day at Level of Service F.

      I just needed to help her understand what was already so clear to me. Yes, she might have to give up some trees and a little bit of her front yard, but didn't she want things to be safe? Didn't she want the road to work for everyone? She spoke next.

       “Let me see if I understand. You are projecting a high volume of traffic where there is none today and then building a street to handle this traffic. Aren't you just encouraging more people to drive?”

       “No. We are anticipating a lot of growth and need to make this improvement to handle the growth.”

      While I'm an engineer, I'm really in the growth business. All of us who work for the city are in the growth business in one way or another. New growth is how we get the money we need to fix the streets, pay for police officers and fire fighters, keep the library open, and all of the other things that taxpayers say they want. Growth is how people get jobs. It's the unifying focus that we more or less all seem to agree on.

      The more growth that we can generate, the better off things are for everyone. Yes, there are some people who are anti-growth. They sometimes come to council meetings with a sentimental attachment to some old building, a concern over an environmental issue, or maybe expressing their concern with economic dislocation. There are generally a few speaking out against each project, but they usually aren't taken very seriously. What are we supposed to do? Stop growing? That would be a disaster.

       She asked, “Where is all of this growth happening?”

       “New growth is being created in the tax subsidy zone.”

       “Where is the tax subsidy zone?”

       “The tax subsidy zone is on the edge of town.”

In a recent planning process with the city, my colleagues and I identified many sites where infrastructure could be extended. These are places primed for growth, where public spending can be a catalyst for quick private investment. All of the major developers and business leaders were at these meetings, and they were enthusiastic for that kind of public support. That makes sense because they know what it takes to create growth.

      To their credit, the city leadership followed through. They took on a lot of debt to invest in additional capacity. They applied for economic development grants from the federal and state governments. They waived fees and other development charges, and they streamlined the approval processes. Even more proactively, they established some tax subsidy areas, a move that had paid off with an initial round of development proposals. It was all very exciting.

       “What kind of new growth is going to occur in the tax subsidy zone?”

       “On the edge of town, there is a proposal for a grocery store as well as a drive-through restaurant and a gas station.”

       “Okay. But I go to the neighborhood grocery store across the street, I eat at the restaurant up the block, and I don't drive much, so I don't need another gas station.”

      I had heard this kind of thing before, but what she referred to as a “grocery store” was just a small neighborhood grocery. You couldn't get much there, nothing like the big box store that my family bought groceries from, not to mention all of the families I knew.

      The same thing with the restaurant. I knew the family that owned it from way back. They didn't really invest in their own place and, economically, they were being left behind. It was obvious. The whole neighborhood had been officially listed as blighted. It had seen better days, for sure.

      Even so, if we were to get growth going out on the edge and get a good, high-capacity street running through here, there was a chance that someone would buy up these old buildings, tear them down, and build something new. That's about the only hope I saw for this neighborhood. The zoning codes wouldn't allow this old stuff to be rebuilt here again anyway. And for good reason.

       “Yes, we know. That is why we have planned for a pedestrian overpass on this block.”

       “What is a pedestrian overpass?”

       “It is a bridge that will allow you to get from one side of the street to the other safely.”

       “But I can walk across the street safely right now. My kids can walk across the street safely right now. Why will I need a pedestrian overpass?”

      I felt like the answer was obvious here and that, once again, she was almost deliberately trying not to understand. She had just told me that she wanted to cross the street. With all of the additional cars speeding through here, how did she think that was going to happen?

       “With four lanes for traffic, you will not be able to walk across the street without slowing down the cars. Slowing down the cars would not be safe.”

       “But I am not going to be able to haul my baby stroller up a pedestrian overpass every time I want to cross the street to buy milk. How does this benefit me?”

      I was out there working on a project being done for the greater good. All of the safety improvements, all of the new growth that would result, all of the jobs that were going to be created — including mine — were a benefit to the entire region.

      Here was one person asking how this benefited them. Did she not see the larger picture? Did she not care? Did she not recognize how selfish she sounded? It was clear to me that I needed to end this conversation.

       “You will benefit from the added tax base from the new growth.”

       “But the new growth is in a tax subsidy district. How much will they contribute to the tax base?”

      “Nothing today, but in 10 or 15 years, they will contribute a lot to the tax base.”

       “Why would we make an investment that will not start to pay back for 10 or 15 years? By then, the grocery store will be turned into a dollar store and there will be a new tax subsidy zone.”

There are always people against tax subsidies. Generally, I would be one of them, but I had been in the meetings with investors and developers. I knew that none of this investment was going to happen without the tax subsidies. And if this city didn't have new investment, more places would start to look like this blighted neighborhood.

       “If we do not provide the subsidies and invest in improving streets, the growth will not happen. Without growth, our city will die.”

       “But if I can't walk across the street to the grocery store, it will go out of business. If I can't walk up the street to go to the restaurant, it will go out of business. Nobody is going to want to buy my house with a highway outside my front door. Do you care that my neighborhood is dying?”

      It was precisely because her neighborhood was