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Wisconsin cities are planning for the past

It’s only coincidence that communities across Wisconsin are required to have their much vaunted comprehensive plans completed just about the time the last SUV rolls off the General Motors assembly line in Janesville.

But it’s no coincidence that our best efforts to peer into the crystal ball and map our future could end up just as ungainly a dinosaur as the Chevy Suburbans that made big money for GM in the era of $1.15 a gallon gasoline. That’s because we’re drafting plans for a future that promises us $4, $5 or $6 a gallon gasoline under parameters established by the state when gas was $1.15 a gallon.

By the time most communities even thought about comprehensive plans, gas was heading toward $2 a gallon and urban density was still the poor stepchild of development. It never got invited to the ball. At $6 a gallon, density might be the life of the party. But government is a dinosaur all its own, and a lot of time and effort has been invested in planning for a future of $2 a gallon gas.

Written only 10 years ago, the comprehensive planning law uses terminology that today is hopelessly outdated as a roadmap to the future. It tells us to plan for transportation and utilities but doesn’t say a word about climate change, energy conservation or sustainability.

As a result, we’re driving full speed ahead into the past, and our brakes are bad. Wisconsin communities approved marvelous developments that were well suited to $2 a gallon gasoline. But as the words “subprime mortgage” became unacceptable in polite company, miniature mansions for the masses still rose on our skylines.

The surest way to ease the pinch of high energy prices is to reduce energy consumption. Make the kids walk or bike to soccer practice. Pick up the phone instead of the car keys. Take a train or bus.

Around the country, transit saves 3.4 billion gallons of fuel each year, saves us 541 million hours that otherwise would be spent in traffic jams and cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 26 million tons.

According to USA Today, Americans drove 22 billion fewer miles from November through April than during the same period in 2006-07. We are doing it.

And it’s happening in a society that until yesterday was transit unfriendly. At $4 a gallon, it might be possible to get people out of their cars without prying their cold, dead hands off the steering wheels. At $6 a gallon, it’s a sure thing.

As communities across Wisconsin finalize their comprehensive plans, they must plan to do more with less energy. If they don’t, we’re going to have to settle for a lot less in terms of quality of life and economic growth.

Rich Eggleston is communications coordinator for the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities; rich@wiscities.org; Web site www.wiscities.org.