One day back in May, I was working on a column about alternatives to the Alabama Department of Transportation’s ill-conceived and detrimental plan to rebuild and expand Interstate 20/59 through downtown Birmingham. Most specifically, I was referencing a study completed last year by the Boston-based consulting firm Goody Clancy that presented alternatives to the ALDOT plan — and, in so many words, endorsed the collective view held by opponents of the plan, that the possibility of moving the interstate represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform downtown Birmingham and the long-neglected neighborhoods that currently lie to its north.
Even more specifically, I wondered why the organization that commissioned the study by Goody Clancy had not done more to trumpet the results since it was completed more than a year ago. According to its website, REV Birmingham “revitalizes places and energizes business to create vibrancy in the City of Birmingham,” with a primary focus on downtown.
The study that REV commissioned — at the behest of Mayor William Bell — cited case studies demonstrating the economic and social benefits of rerouting interstates away from downtown areas. In addition, an internal City Hall study conducted at the mayor’s direction last year indicated that tearing down 20/59 and creating a street-level boulevard along its former path would open approximately 13 acres of prime downtown property for redevelopment; removing the physical and psychological barrier of the interstate also would create opportunities to fuel new and sustainable growth in the Norwood, Fountain Heights and North Birmingham neighborhoods.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I would categorize such benefits as things that just might “revitalize” and “energize” and “create vibrancy” in the city of Birmingham, if those terms mean what I take them to mean. I’d also think that the idea of getting rid of 20/59 and transforming downtown would appeal to an organization that says its aims to “generate positive results for partners, enhance tax revenue, generate and sustain jobs, increase tourism and positively influence perceptions” of Birmingham.
Regardless, it seemed eminently reasonable to ask REV for some comments on a column about 20/59. So I did. I asked several questions of Atticus Rominger, who is REV’s chief public and investor relations officer, the most pertinent of which could, if necessary, have been answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” That was, does REV have an official position on the ALDOT plan and the future of I-20/59?
Here, I will make a confession: I knew the answer to that question before I asked it. Two years ago, I interviewed REV CEO David Fleming for a cover story on 20/59. While expressing a personal preference for an alternative to the ALDOT plan, Fleming stressed that REV’s board of directors had not taken a position on the matter, and that the organization’s official stance, “since ALDOT says [an alternative solution] can’t happen,” was to “work with ALDOT and all other stakeholders to come up with the best solution.”
“If I could wave a magic wand, that entire section of interstate would be moved to the north,” Fleming told me. He added that the “benefit to the city and state would be far greater in that scenario than in what’s being proposed.”
As I said, that was two years ago. Having in the interim heard no word of the REV board’s adoption of a position on 20/59 — I don’t think I’m being either unduly critical nor dismissive of any substantive accomplishment on their part if I share my impression that talking about REV seems to be what REV does best — I assumed that nothing had changed in the past 24 months. In other words, I assumed that REV’s position of taking no position — let alone meaningful action — on a potentially transformational issue affecting downtown Birmingham and the community at large was exactly the same as it was 24 months ago.
I took it for granted that the status quo had remained intact even as growing numbers of individuals, organizations and businesses in Birmingham have come to oppose the ALDOT plan, or at least to appeal for making needed repairs on the interstate through downtown while delaying any expansion until the alternative with the greatest public benefit can be determined. I took it for granted even as the study commissioned by REV provided ample ground on which to construct an argument for joining those calling for an alternative to the ALDOT plan. I took it for granted even as ALDOT continued its efforts to outlast, divide and marginalize the opposition, up to and including packing a federally mandated public comment meeting in Fountain Heights with employees of the roadbuilders and landowners who benefit from their financial relationship with ALDOT.
There are times when I’d lots rather be wrong than right. But on this particular occasion, my expectations were fulfilled. This was confirmed approximately nine hours after I posed what I thought was a simple question — Does REV have a position on 20/59? — when Rominger replied with an emailed statement that he attributed to Fleming.
“REV’s Board of Directors has not adopted an official position on I-20/59,” the statement said. “Now that it appears ALDOT is set on rebuilding 20/59 in the City Center, REV is, along with the City and stakeholders adjacent to 20/59, encouraging ALDOT to create a design that maximizes placemaking [sic] and connectivity.”
Leaving aside the last part of that statement, which is practically meaningless — and, given REV’s apparent lack of willingness to question ALDOT’s decisions, perhaps completely so — it is all but a word-for-word repetition of what Fleming told me in 2013, just as the 20/59 issue was heating up in earnest. And it took them nine hours to come up with it.
Be that as it may — and here again, maybe it’s just me — but I find it discouraging that the REV board has not been roused to action by the spirited public discussion that has arisen around this critical community issue — even if it’s just to assert that they have better things to do.
Which brings us to the windup. I didn’t start out to be quite so rough on REV, but rather to hold up REV’s lack of leadership on the 20/59 issue as an example of what has always held Birmingham back — and what will, if we don’t change it, prevent us from capitalizing fully on our current momentum to achieve far-reaching and sustainable growth and progress.
What will change that? For one thing, people and organizations who can articulate a shared vision for Birmingham and who are willing to use their resources, talents and influence to bring that vision to reality. People and organizations whose actions live up to their rhetoric, whose commitment to progress goes beyond the allocation of credit, and whose leaders are willing to stand and be counted when the future of the community is at stake.
People who can answer a “yes” or “no” question in less than nine hours. Especially when it involves a critical community issue, and perhaps most especially when the answer hasn’t changed in two years — and the world has.