Master Plan, Disaster Plan!

New draft documents are available for Thursday's meeting via the Town’s Master Planning web pages (http://goo.gl/WdJnhK). The Visions and Goals document left me wondering how they came up with the content, how useful or not some statements are, and how well each represents residents. To produce valid results, a published, vetted process is needed, with testing to validate the results. Instead, public events are conducted like team building workshops where the element of surprise is used. Why not lay out the entire Master Plan process for public view and evaluate whether the process can lead to accurate and meaningful results?

Where is the testing process? Who is putting together goals without first finding the level of support for each component by polling? What protocols are being used to put together goals? Kids in school need to show the work used to answer math or science problems, where is the work supporting claimed goals?

For example, the top goal of transportation is: “Enhance mobility and increase safety by maximizing transit, bicycle, and pedestrian access and other alternative modes of transportation.” That is an amalgam of many goals, each with varying levels of support. Breaking it down, there is “enhance mobility”, “increase safety”, maximizing public transit, maximizing bicycle transit, maximizing pedestrian access, and maximizing other alternative modes of transportation (whatever they are). The first two goals are well supported. The other part of the amalgam needs to be broken up by mode of transportation and level of support, from accommodation to maximization. All goal components need to be supported by a majority of residents otherwise the plan doesn't represent what residents want. Collect polling data on each component, and then put together majority supported components.

What does “Preserve the “streetcar suburb” character of Arlington’s residential neighborhoods” mean exactly? Don't change east Arlington? Keep Mass Ave wide? Is it easy for everyone to understand and decide if proposed actions are aligned with the goal?

What does the goal “Manage the supply of parking in commercial areas in order to support Arlington businesses” tell us to do? Put parking meters throughout business districts? Does it mean to we should keep parking restriction signs and parking enforcement officers? The goal seems worthless to list because it’s already a present condition and the statement doesn't give future direction which a majority agrees on.

Will there be a random poll of adult residents, asking if they agree or disagree with each goal? Will it be on the annual Vision-2020 survey of voters? How representative of town demographic distribution (age, race, gender, income etc.) are current participants? Is there an open comment tracking system for following up on document comments? Initial product from the Master Planning process is a sign that the project is headed for failure and without testing and validation.