Design Review Committee disapproves replacement "Sign"
Preserve Jazz Festival announces sabbatical for 2015
UPDATE: The plan and its name – The Red Rock Ridge & Valley Trail System – was announced this evening – along with a website that allows you to see the entire plan.
The photo you’re looking at off to your left probably doesn’t mean a lot to you right now. But it may mean something to you a little later on, especially if you feel like dreaming…
It’s safe to assume that this evening (Tuesday) a large crowd will be gathered in the Steiner Auditorium at the Birmingham Museum of Art. They’ll be there to witness the unveiling of the Freshwater Land Trust’s “Our One Mile” plan. They’ll also be among the first to learn the name of the system – the result of a contest held at the end of last year. The level of excitement filling the space will undoubtedly be insane.
Well, this is where I bring up one more thing to keep in your mind as we get started – the under-construction Greenwood Park. Folks that normally travel along I-20/59 westbound that have wondered why all those bulldozers have been active just after you pass Tallapoosa St., here’s your reminder. This new green space could be viewed as a trail head for the 26-mile Village Creek Greenway, a project viewed by many as an integral part of the Our One Mile initiative.
You’re starting to connect the dots, aren’t you? These first two have been brought up before, courtesy of the Norwood Plan developed by Auburn University’s Urban Studio back in 2006.
The park would connect with the greenway, which could hypothetically have another touch point along Vanderbilt Road. That connection would just happen to be about ¼ of a mile from the easternmost edge of Norwood Blvd – and be right about where that photo I told you to pay attention to at the beginning of this piece was taken.
Assuming there’s access to the greenway at Vanderbilt, it’d only be a little over ½ a mile along the creek to get to the edge of Greenwood Park that touches Coosa Street. I’m not even focusing on the fact that this could potentially bring a whole new group of users over to Patton Park on the other side of the Interstate.
What does all of this mean?
It means more once you include the recent donation by Red Diamond – their former headquarters on Vanderbilt Road (valued at approximately $2 million in an online listing) to the Birmingham YMCA.
The distance from the edge of Norwood Blvd. to 1701 Vanderbilt Road is approximately half a mile. If you’re running, this means you’re probably no more than 5-7 minutes away.
It could be the jump start needed to encourage potential investors to take a look at the section of Norwood referred to by some in the neighborhood as “the bottoms” as an option for renovation projects. It’s safe to say there would be several young professionals that aren’t looking for a mortgage but instead for an inexpensive place that’s relatively close to downtown and some of those intangible quality of life benefits.
It might also lead to some changes in traffic flow in the area surrounding all of these things – changes that could influence whether or not we see significant development along 12th Avenue North, particularly the eastern end of the street. The western edge may already see some influence from a entertainment district that will soon go from dream to reality in the coming months.
It’s just an example of what happens when the dreams of a community are thought through and given the potential to be realized. It’s all out there – including pieces like Ruffner Mountain, Red Mountain Park, and the (soon-to-be-added-onto) Shades Creek Greenway. Now it’s simply time to see if folks want to connect those dots all the way.
Many of these thoughts about the northside are assuming that the YMCA decides that it can move ahead and make the additional improvements to their newest piece of property – suddenly the largest of the properties held by the organization. It also depends on how empowered and motivated the citizens of metro Birmingham get to make this greenway plan presented this evening a reality.
That last sentence is probably the most important one. As Wendy Jackson said in this morning’s Birmingham News piece by Thomas Spencer,
The days of people waiting for someone to take the lead need to end soon. As former UAB president Dr. Joseph Volker once stated, “We would do Birmingham a great disservice if we dreamed too-little dreams.”
This greenway – and many projects like it currently in the pipeline – are probably what Volker may have been thinking of as he spoke. It’s now up to the general public to lead the leaders to the city they want, rather than have a disjointed one given to them instead.
Maybe coming out to the event tonight’s a good first step.
André Natta is the stationmaster of bhamterminal.com.
Will Mercy be shown to Cooper Green?
It was coincidental was I was starting to think about what to write about the then pending vote about the future of Cooper Green Mercy Hospital. This is because both of my parents are retired registered nurses having served at two of New York City’s busiest public hospitals. (My mother worked at historic Harlem Hospital in their NICU for nearly two decades while Dad logged 30+ years of weekday evenings in Lincoln Hospital’s triage unit.)
As a result, you grow up hearing about babies born addicted to crack and seeing them about the size of your 10-year old hand. You realize your father doesn’t talk about work that much since, when he started, it wasn’t SoBro but the South Bronx before its transformation started.
They both asked the same question – What will happen to the patients?
It’s apparently a question that former Birmingham mayor Larry Langford pondered correctly back in 2009 – and one that seems to have not been thought through just yet. It’s a question many of us here in Jefferson County are wondering right now. It’s one without an answer – at least not one publicly shared as of yet. It doesn’t look like there’s been a plan introduced to anyone to explain how discontinuing inpatient care at the county hospital will be handled. It’s something you’d think would have already been shared before such a recommendation would be made. It was back on the August 28 agenda for the Jefferson County Commission though and it passed, 3-2.
There are other questions that needed to be answered before looking at the number of beds occupied – something else both of my parents immediately asked about since they both suggested it was an unfair number to use for such decisions – and making such a rash decision.
Can the inpatient services be absorbed by other area hospitals? There seems to be an assumption this can be done, though it doesn’t seem as though the other hospitals were talked to about it. There’s no doubt that some will look at UAB, University Hospital and its various other locations and its continuing expansion and renovation as a logical replacement though it’s a lot harder than you’d think. While there is a working relationship currently between the two entities, it is one grounded in education and not necessarily in management or operations.
Does this put the inpatient beds back in play? Barely mentioned in all of this is the fact that removing inpatient care from the list of services provided by Cooper Green could technically put those beds back into play. It could turn it into a much larger battle over who gets the right to expand and provide additional services to the community. This may include a digital hospital down along Highway 280 or, thinking outside the proverbial box, a new facility that may want to locate near a completed I-22 as people start to consider moving over there to “escape the city.” Before folks start saying it’s a business community push to see this happen, the August 10 statement from the Birmingham Business Alliance (PDF), paints a different picture and echoed requests to see a plan in place before this vote as well.
How will these patients get to and from their inpatient care? Quality transportation options, including mass transit, have been long talked about in this community without any sustained progress being made. We probably need to learn more about when or whether the long vacant executive director position at BJCTA will be filled (it still hasn’t been publicly listed) before we get a straight answer here. This type of conversation needs to be broad in reach and already happening before that person arrives. This becomes more significant since even if other facilities become options, the current hub and spoke bus system in place makes it much harder for some to access health care without a car.
We seem to have placed the cart before the horse with Tuesday morning’s vote. If there is any good news though, we now have a hard date set for these questions to be answered – December 1. If we haven’t dealt with them by then, we need to start thinking about how we truly prepare for progress to be made in metro Birmingham (maybe even in the hands of new caretakers come 2014).
André Natta is The Terminal’s stationmaster.
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Posted in Commentary, health
Tagged Cooper Green, healthcare, hospital, Jefferson County, options