 On Point Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes his On Point column most weekdays. He is also an author and freelance writer. Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com. |
Carroll: Burying Speer
Noticing that hikers and bikers are the only people who enjoy Cherry Creek through an important stretch of downtown, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper had a brainstorm: Why not move Speer Boulevard so that it no longer straddles Cherry Creek?
Better yet, why not bury it, too, or at least put it below grade? As the mayor told the Rocky Mountain News editorial board Monday, it’s possible that the sale of development rights along the creek could even pay for the re-location.
This fledgling idea had hardly taken wing, however, before a columnist at The Denver Post loaded her birdshot.
“The key to connecting Auraria — isolated from downtown by speeding, eight-lane traffic — is to celebrate the street that’s there,” wrote Susan Barnes- Gelt. “Strategies include reducing the number or width of lanes, widening sidewalks, adding tree canopies and street furniture, enhancing pedestrian intersections and creating adjacencies that engage the public. .. . Improving connections and access begins with recognizing Speer Boulevard as, first and foremost, a public place. This street is more than a linear space designed to move vehicles and goods. Speer Boulevard must be viewed as integral to the civic realm . . . Let us come to praise Speer — not to bury it.”
Since I’m not fluent in New Urban-speak, I have no idea what a lot of that jargon means. But I think the gist is this: If we just strangle traffic, plant more trees and think lovely thoughts, Speer Boulevard can become whatever we want it to be.
Somehow I doubt it. If you’re standing in front of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, for example, there’s a multi-lane road between you and Cherry Creek. Like it or not, that means the park-like expanse of greenery extending from the center will never be a popular destination, as it would be if it were connected to the creek.
Don’t be put off, mayor. Your idea may never fly, but it’s at least worth a closer look.
Absence of nuance
In the debate over health-care reform, nuance is usually the first casualty.
“Since Sept. 11, 2001, approximately 14 million Americans have died,” declared law professor Paul Campos in his July 10 Rocky column. “Some of these people,” he added melodramatically, “died agonizing deaths on emergency room floors because they didn't have health insurance.”
Not so, retorted Mark Griffith in a Speakout rebuttal. “Can Campos name a few persons who died this way? No, because it is nonsense!”
Griffith is surely correct that most ER docs have not abandoned the Hippocratic oath. But every advanced health-care system does have its trade-offs. Campos might have nailed his point if he’d been content to argue that the uninsured occasionally die because they fail to seek treatment in time.
Of course, even the vaunted French system that now seems to be the model of choice among advocates of government-guaranteed health care boasts far-from-perfect outcomes. As in every national system, for example, the French ration treatment (although not as clumsily as the British and Canadians).
Meanwhile, the much maligned U.S. system seems to have superior outcomes for cancer patients, pushes new, lifesaving drugs to market faster than its European counterparts and, as the Manhattan Institute’s Paul Howard pointed out in a recent column in The Washington Post, boasts an unmatched “commitment to the treatment of patients with rare diseases.”
Unfortunately, such nuances will be absent in next year’s political debate over health-care reform, when the rhetoric will all be black and white — when it isn’t simply an angry shade of red.
Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv @RockyMountainNews.com.
Prof. Campos has become an enthusiastic and irresponsible demagogue of all things to the left side of the political spectrum. I wouldn't mind - free speech and all that - except that I (and all Colorado taxpayers) are paying his salary as a CU Law Professor. Thus, I subsidize his pedestal from which he launches his unsubstantiated vitriol. As a CU law graduate, I am embarrassed. As a taxpayer, I am outraged!
Posted by CC on July 18, 2007 09:16 AMYour commentary states: the much maligned U.S. system seems to have superior outcomes for cancer patients, pushes new, lifesaving drugs to market faster than its European counterparts and, as the Manhattan Institute’s Paul Howard pointed out in a recent column in The Washington Post, boasts an unmatched “commitment to the treatment of patients with rare diseases.”
Yet nearly 50 milliion uinsured have no access to those services and, as shown in Michale Moore's "Sicko", the insured are denied access at a truly alarming rate. You may try including a bit more nuance next time.
just a different kind of rationing
Posted by Carroll's a shlub on July 18, 2007 12:38 PMAnd we all know of the irreproachable veracity of Michael Moore.
Posted by CC on July 18, 2007 01:31 PMInteresting that every hospital I have worked in posts that all patients will be seen and not released until stabilized. I believe it is due to something silly called federal law.
So exactly what access to services are these 50 million uninsured seeking...sex change and facelifts?
Posted by Zorander on July 21, 2007 10:07 AM