Westword
May 21, 2009, Jared Jacang Maher

All in all, Blueprint America: Road to the Future, a PBS show about the future of transportation infrastructure that debuted last night (it can be viewed online by clicking here), was spot-on about the crisis our nation has built itself into by following policies that mandate automobile use and continuous urban sprawl. But the thing that left a slightly bad taste in my mouth about the program, previewed in a blog yesterday, was the way it used Denver as the primary example of backward-thinking, highway-based transportation planning in the U.S. without acknowledging the significant and groundbreaking strides this metro area has made in smart growth and mass-transit efforts. The latest installment in an ambitious series by New York-based PBS affiliate WNET, Road to the Future looks at the transportation choices made by three different cities: Denver, Portland and New York. Beginning with a history lesson on the rise of the automobile and the suburbs in the U.S., the show segues into one of the greatest symbols of cookie-cutter suburbia: Highlands Ranch, Colorado. The transportation infrastructure that has enabled this type of low-density development on the outskirts of the Denver metro area is the 470 beltway. The show does an excellent job of following efforts to complete the beltway through Jefferson County -- a blueprint laid out in Westword earlier this year. Included were interviews with former Governor Dick Lamm, Golden Mayor Jacob Smith and developer Charles McKay. The panning shots of endless rooftops undulating across the foothills provide a visual exclamation point to the simple fact that continuing this method of growth is getting us into more and more trouble both environmentally and economically. ...

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/05/pbs_documentary_blueprint_amer.php