Green Development? Not in My (Liberal) Backyard

[didymus]

NY Times:

Green Development? Not in My (Liberal) Backyard

Park Slope, Brooklyn. Cape Cod, Mass. Berkeley, Calif. Three famously progressive places, right? The yin to the Tea Party yang. But just try putting a bike lane or some wind turbines in their lines of sight. And the karma can get very different. Last week, two groups of New Yorkers who live “on or near” Prospect Park West, a prestigious address in Park Slope, filed a suit1 against the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to remove a nine-month-old bike lane2 that has commandeered a lane previously used by cars.

In Massachusetts, the formidable opponents of Cape Wind3, a proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, include members of the Kennedy family, whose compound looks out over the body of water. In Berkeley last year, the objections of store owners and residents forced the city to shelve plans for a full bus rapid transit system (B.R.T.)4, a form of green mass transit in which lanes that formerly served cars are blocked off and usurped by high-capacity buses that resemble above-ground subways.
Critics in New York contend the new Prospect Park bike lane is badly designed, endangering pedestrians and snarling traffic. Cape Wind opponents argue the turbines will defile a pristine body of water. And in Berkeley, store owners worried that reduced traffic flow and parking could hurt their business.

But some supporters of high-profile green projects like these say the problem is just plain old Nimbyism — the opposition by residents to a local development of the sort that they otherwise tend to support.
“It’s really pretty innocuous — it’s a bike lane, for goodness’ sake — their resistance has been incredibly frustrating,” said Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy5 in Manhattan and an expert on sustainable transport. He lives in Brooklyn and uses the Prospect Park West bike lane to get around.

Geez, Louise – the Times exposing liberal hypocrisy, the supermoon, 2012 coming up

 

[Roselle]

We have something similar occurring in the University town I live in for half the year. Students want a power creating windmill installed to provide electricity for some of the school. There has even been a small protest up a main street for this to be created. As can be imagined the town is pretty liberal in thought. I’d guess most residents work for the state, being university employees.

Well, the windmill is to be installed in what is considered the more left leaning part of town, of an already liberal city. And those living near the proposed sight are unhappy. Complaints are it’s to tall, will make noise, chop up birds, etc. Talk is they will sue if this goes through. The good news for them I suppose, is during these hard economic times, funds are difficult to find. Last time I read, not enough government money was available to purchase the windmill. Hope supporters find private money if this is to be built.

 

[Robert_Bay]

Commentary, not a news article.