A bridge too far?

I see that 75% of the people in our local paper's poll favor a second bridge to relieve the congestion on the lone bridge leading into downtown. As someone who has to drive across the bridge to get to and from work every day as well as several times each week in fulfillment of my wonderful job, I am quite interested in this issue.

I wonder, however, if the way the question is framed has affected the outcome. For example, what is the problem we are trying to solve? The question is framed in terms of a specific solution, not in terms of the problem, a common failure in polling techniques and therefore in the doubtful value of their results. The problem, it seems to me, is how to get more people into and out of downtown Dells efficiently and safely. To ask the question in terms of another bridge assumes that the problem is how to get more gasoline-fueled vehicles into and out of the Dells. Do we actually want to do that?

Do we want more cars circling endlessly looking for a place to park, adding to the congestion along Broadway? Do we want to build more parking lots, sacrificing our limited green space to do it? Do we want to add more exhaust fumes to the air? Do we want to build a full-time bridge to handle heavy traffic for three months of the year?

Perhaps we need to consider the problem in terms of moving people into and out of town. An inexpensive, attractive people-mover that ferried people from outlying lots and resorts into town along one of the existing traffic lanes could become a fun part of a trip to the Dells. Years ago when I was in San Antonio, the city ran free and frequent trolleys around much of the downtown area. It was a distinctive and enjoyable part of the visit and kept some cars off the crowded streets. If Texas, with its love affair with the oil companies and private vehicles can do this, why not the Dells? (I grew up in Texas and know whereof I speak.)

Surely there is a way to address our need that will not cost us millions of dollars in construction, disrupt traffic over and along the river while being completed and risk permanently damaging the environment and the natural beauty that have brought people to the area for a century and a half.

H.H. Bennett figured out how to take stop-action photographs here. The famous shot of his son leaping the gap at Stand Rock has become practically a logo for the Dells. Surely someone today can figure out how to deal with this problem. There has to be a way to make this leap of imagination.