BIKE: Curb Island Meeting @ Gullett

[Mike Dahmus]

further clarification from me:

Patrick Goetz wrote:

> Lane Wimberley wrote:
>
>>
>> I was a little surprised not to see many bike folks there (at least,
>> that I know), but there were still ample cyclists expressing opinions.
>>
>
> I wanted to be there, but was too sick to get out of bed.  I suspected 
> some kind of voodoo curse, but it sounds like the neighbors hate the 
> bike crashers as much as most cyclists do.  It's kind of comforting, 
> actually, that bad design sometimes is just bad design, regardless of 
> what interest group you're coming from.

I wasn't sick, but I wouldn't have come anyways. The perversion of this 
street by the idea that consensus and compromise was a substitute for 
hard decisions between competing interests makes me sick; and there's 
literally nothing helpful I could have added at this point other than a 
hearty "I told you so".

Oops, I guess I'm doing that now. ;+)


> I think this is because, in reality, and for most practical purposes, 
> the road is really just as wide as it ever was.  In the brief amount 
> of time that I've spent on SCB since the reconstruct, virtually every 
> vehicle I observed spent at least some time with its outer wheels over 
> the shoulder marker.  Some motorists in larger vehicles appeared to 
> prefer driving right down the center of the shoulder marker.  If 
> there's no car or curb extension at that location, there's nothing to 
> prevent this driving behavior.  Traffic circles would have been 
> considerably more effective in slowing down traffic and would have 
> made SCB intersections a lot safer.

Agreed 10,000 percent.

> This statement disturbs me, because it's far from the truth.  The UTC 
> held a SCB public hearing attended by literally hundreds of Allandale 
> residents and bicyclists.  Out of more than 200 people present, there 
> were fewer than FIVE (5!) who were opposed to removal of any parking 
> on SCB.  This hardly constitutes anything approaching neighborhood 
> consensus.  Most residents were interested in seeing traffic calming 
> measures implemented in order to help discourage Mopac bypass traffic 
> and to slow down automobile traffic and quite a few residents 
> expressed an interest in getting sidewalks.  Even fewer speakers were 
> opposed to car-free bike lanes.  What emerged from this meeting was 
> that the vast majority of neighbors (>90% present) would gladly give 
> up some on-street parking in order to gain traffic calming.  
> Consequently the original neighborhood plan which you must remember.

Well, remember that the original neighborhood plan was just a prettier 
version of Eric's parking on one-side plan. It wasn't some sort of great 
leap; they were at that time still operating in the same game we were - 
i.e. that car-free bike lanes were non-negotiable.

The rules changed later, of course.

>> There was a lengthy question and answer session.  The majority of the
>> neighbors who spoke were vociferously averse to the design as it
>> exists now, particularly to the curb extensions.  The exchange was
>> quite unruly at times, and frankly rude
>
>
> AFAIK, the only SCB meeting which wasn't unruly and rude was the UTC 
> public hearing I mentioned earlier.  There something to be said for an 
> organized format in which speakers sign up to speak for 3 minutes to a 
> bunch of Olympians sitting on a dais.

Agreed. Also, holding this meeting and the last few in the neighborhood 
probably didn't help refute the nearly universally held idea among those 
people that they own the street.

> Well, I'm on the UTC and I was shocked to see the bike crashers going 
> up.  Last we left this issue, Public Works was adamantly opposed to 
> the Gandy Plan, in no small part because it didn't meet ASHTO 
> standards, and we were told that there were no funds available to do 
> anything other than stripe.  Perhaps this should be a lesson for all 
> of us about letting a small group of neighbors convince city council 
> to completely go against the recomendations of staff.

>
> This really doesn't make sense to me.  The neighborhood plan was the 
> consensus plan, approved by neighbors and bicyclists.  The problem 
> with it was Public Works deemed it unsafe and there was no money 
> available to implement this plan.  Well, Public Works must have 
> considered the Gandy Plan even LESS safe than the neighborhood plan, 
> and apparently money magically became available after the neighborhood 
> plan was abandoned.

Well, you missed a step here. Yes, the Gandy plan was rejected -- if by 
"the Gandy plan" you mean "10-4-6". The plan we have now wasn't rejected 
by city staff outright - they DID say that they wouldn't sign on to 
calling the improved shoulder a "bike lane", which is an extension of 
the reason they rejected the "10-4-6" plan.

>> Some of the people who spoke last night even mentioned that perhaps a
>> better solution would be to remove at least some of the on-street
>> parking.  <sigh> Where were these people during the past five years
>> while this design was being negotiated?
>>
>
> Lane, these people WERE there.  AT EVERY MEETING before the process 
> was spirited away by city council into some kind of Gandy fantasy 
> land. These were the people who supported the *NEIGHBORHOOD* plan 
> which would have eliminated 50% of the on-street parking!  The real 
> question is how did this happen and how can we prevent it from 
> happening again?  What negotiation?  Who was involved in this 
> negotation?  The 3 neighborhood zealots who were opposed to losing any 
> on-street parking, a overpaid consultant, and a couple of anti-bike 
> lane helmet loonies thrown in for good measure?  I really would like 
> to know who was involved in the negotion, because it clearly wasn't 
> most cyclists, the neighbors, or the UTC.

Jackie Goodman. Period.

Seriously.

She allowed the process to go off into consensus-land, at which point it 
was doomed, because there simply is no way to compromise 
both-sides-parking AND car-free-bike-lanes.

Her hand-picked neighborhood people dominated the second round of the 
process, with a token bicyclist in for good measure, and that's why 
we're where we are today.

Simply put: The City Council's job is not to tell people to compromise. 
A chimp with a tape recorder could do that. Their job should be to make 
decisions when choices must be made between competing interests, whether 
it's about zoning/infill/NIMBY, or parking-vs-bike-lanes.

Their abrogation of responsibility here is primarily to blame - although 
I also blame the rest of the UTC for their vote for providing at least 
some apparent cover for the consensus-compromise-plan.


> A few properly placed traffic circles and a complete removal of all 
> striping save for the center lane (and of course dynamiting the curb 
> extensions) would probably result in the tearful, undying gratitude of 
> 99.3145% of all stakeholders, at this point.  

As long as we're ready to abandon the child and other novice cyclist 
users of the corridor, sure. Otherwise, car-free bike lanes are still 
called for - there's no way traffic circles are going to reduce speed 
and volume enough for those users to function in shared lanes.

- MD