
{"id":9087,"date":"2010-02-18T11:19:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T19:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=9087"},"modified":"2010-02-18T11:19:05","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T19:19:05","slug":"not-my-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/02\/18\/not-my-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Not my vision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dave Cook<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nI am not writing for the people who walk fast along Bolin Creek, missing the black snake coiled in the sun.  I am writing for the woods themselves, the character of them. Encroachment has probably eradicated the four-toed salamander, but I write for other living treasures of this creek and forest residing in or along the creek: the colony of snowbells, moth mullein, wild comfrey, showy orchis, the madtom, the pike and the prothonotary warbler. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Suffice it to say it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an extreme waste of public money to make a pathway wheelchair accessible from Estes Drive all the way to the high school. Suffice it to say that the compaction of soil by heavy machinery creating a cement greenway, and the 10-foot wide impervious surface itself coursing several miles, will do nothing good for stormwater run-off. (I served on the board of adjustment for Chapel Hill for a number of years, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very good reason for keeping impervious surface out of a flood plain.) <\/p>\n<p>From early on, the collective vision of the Friends of Bolin Creek was to preserve the woods for their own sake, a <em>preserve<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201c that was the word we sought out and used. A woods within an urban environment \u00e2\u20ac\u201cthat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we talked about. What a treasure! That we might visit there, leaving as little impact as possible, so that the woods and creek could have their perpetuating effect for generations. We talked about walking, about passive recreation; we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk about the creek and its woods as a fast track for skateboards, roller-bladers and bikers. Some members didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even like that there were mountain bikers blasting past.  <\/p>\n<p>Bike lanes? Put them by the road where they belong.<\/p>\n<p>Wheelchair accessibility? Several smaller or shorter wheelchair accessible sections make more sense than several miles of it and would be better use of public money. <\/p>\n<p>There is always the tireless energy of the dollar, of convenience and another way to use concrete. One of the most difficult things for us to learn is that there are limitations. If nothing else, the economics of these times are teaching us that money and resources are not to be wasted. It might be an urbanist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vision \u00e2\u20ac\u201c streetlights to preserve the safety of bicycle commuters, or thinking of what new line can be drawn through the woods, to cut and belittle their intrinsic reason for being \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not mine. It was never ours when we talked about a preserve. <\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what inspired us when we suffered defeats in council meetings, sat through board meetings and attempted public outreach. Could others see the possibilities of the woods\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 subtle and benevolent presence, the trickle of the stream, the quiet light on the barks of trees, the possibilities of solitude inside the world busy all around us?<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately we go to these woods to allow their effect on us, to replenish our souls. A forest has a subtle effect, and there resides there a lost connection for us, what is at the origin of our imaginations, our emotions and our spiritual well-being, a subtle effect ultimately benevolent and nourishing.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dave Cook is a founding member of  Friends of Bolin Creek. He is author of <\/em> The Piedmont Almanac: A Guide to the Natural World, The Adventures of Crow-boy <em>and<\/em> Reservation Nation. <em>He now lives in Durham and is program director at the School House of Wonder.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Cook I am not writing for the people who walk fast along Bolin Creek, missing the black snake coiled in the sun. I am writing for the woods themselves, the character of them. Encroachment has probably eradicated the four-toed salamander, but I write for other living treasures of this creek and forest residing in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9087"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9088,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9087\/revisions\/9088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}