MyWHaT

West Boardman Lake Avenue still seems inevitable and a divisive idea. Today The Business News’ daily blast, The  Ticker reported on the future meetings on April 25th (City Commission study session), May 3rd (planning commission) and May 9th (CC regular meeting). The latter is where the City Commission will vote on the property purchases. The article also offered a brief on some of the remaining concerns.

If the comments are accurate, the City Commission will likely vote down the purchase of Copy Central on 8th Street and then move forward with studying the remaining options with the Avenue. It needs to be noted, the only concept that required the Copy Central property was the very well received roundabout intersection presented at the last input session. However, also at the last input session was a strong voice for needing to see proof that the road is needed.

It appears to remain an assumption by the supporters of the BLA project that the BLA will relieve motorized traffic off of Cass St. and Union St. There has been no proof of this, it’s an assumption. It may be right, it may be wrong. We just don’t know.

To their credit, Mayor Bzdok and the City Commission are still asking questions regarding the impact. As reported in The Ticker, some of those questions are:

• How would the new road affect north-south traffic and east-west traffic across town?
• How would it impact Eighth Street traffic?
• Would the new road merely invite more traffic?

I’d add, the impact on 14th St. and a discussion about how much of a reduction is wanted on Cass St.? 14th is already one of our worse streets and an earlier goal was expressed by supporters for Cass St. traffic to be reduced to 3,000 VPD. What if the road only takes the VPD down to 10,000? Is that a success? Also, there is an impact on other residents, the Old Town Condo residents being the primary ones, but also potentially residents on Lake Ave. (one of the design options) and the hundreds of residents who use this corridor for non-motorized East West accessibility–I saw no road designs at the input sessions that alleviated this concern.

Inevitably with the construction of the W. Boardman Lake Ave. will be a severe reduction of quality of life for residents at the Old Town Condominiums (left). Many of whom have backyards a few meters away from the road's edge.

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I’m afraid a road is being designed while the debate is still hanging in the air to the need. The City needs to realize, if they move forward with the road plan, which is their choice and prerogative, they will still require public input during the entire design process. The risk of creating another Division St. is simply too looming.

See you at the future meetings.

(Further reading: A search of MyWHaT for posts that mention West Boardman Lake Ave.)

EXTRA: Also, tonight’s City Commission meeting will likely result in a vote on the citizen led traffic calming program, a contract for the removal of the Brownbridge dam, and implementation of the police workload analysis that promises to save the City a good chunk of change over the next several years. The mayor has introductions to those items at the Plan for TC website.

Well Put

We definitely know more about good habitats for mountain gorillas, Siberian tigers, or panda bears than we do know about a good urban habitat for Homo sapiens.”

~ Jan Gehl, architect and urban designer interviewed on The Dirt.

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Gehl’s book, “Cities for People“, has been on my reading list for a while and the complete interview on The Dirt just moved it up the queue it to the shopping cart.

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He is on to something, similar to Randolph Hester. Both ask questions like the ones below.

What does it mean to be a human interacting with other humans in  finite and valuable spaces?

What do we need to thrive in our ecological habitats….our neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities? 

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