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Last week the city made progress on a couple topics discussed here.  On Friday, the DDA agreed to spend up to $100,000 on the design and engineering of the waterfront projects that we hope will make the Parkway safer to cross, fix up the west end, and create a central park on the zoo property.  The Parks Commission http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/boards/parksandrec.pdf will be heading up the design and engineering project, with help from Jim Carruthers of the city commission, Mike Jackson of the DDA, and a planning commissioner who will be named January 6.  Their first meeting on this project will be Thursday, January 7 at 6:30 pm in the city county building.  Please write or attend the meeting and tell us what you think. 

Also, the city decided to go back to the county and request a discussion of how the city can get value for the money city taxpayers contribute to the GT Sheriff”s budget.  A good summary is in this Record Eagle story: http://www.record-eagle.com/archivesearch/local_story_351072203.html.

This week the city will be talking about topics including groundwater contamination at Front & Division St; west side parking; and public access TV.  Detailed info is at http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/agendas/packet20091221.pdf.  A summary is in the Record Eagle:  http://www.record-eagle.com/local/local_story_353005209.html.

This past week saw a lot of discussion on this site about streets and sidewalks, which we hope can continue.  (click here for recent comments: http://planfortc.com/2009/12/13/streets-police-energy-update-for-dec-13-20/comment-page-1/#comment-151). 

The gist is that the city is starting to put real money into our streets and sidewalks:  $1.2 million this year, including over $100,000 on sidewalks.  The city’s new infrastructure policy calls for a bias in favor of sidewalks and bike lanes.  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/Policy/InfrastructureStrategyPolicy.pdf.  In the future, we’ll be using a technique called “asset management” to maintain streets and sidewalks, but this year and next we’ll be focusing on the absolute worst condition streets.  There is a map of these at http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/agendas/packet20091214.pdf, on page 19 of the pdf.  A list of streets for next year and the year after is at pages 31-41 of the same pdf.

Last week I suggested some key questions remain.  Here are those questions, with some additional info:

a.  Should local street reconstruction include traffic calming measures ( http://www.trafficcalming.org/ ) to slow down cut-through traffic in the neighborhoods?  Even if it costs more?  Some feel the city made a promise to people in the neighborhoods that calming would be done when the streets were re-constructed.  20 years ago, the Residential Retention Task Force report identified traffic in neighborhoods as one of the top three issues affecting quality of life in the city.  Yet traffic calming is not part of the discussion as we embark on major streets work.  Shouldn’t it be?

b.  Is $1.2 million per year enough  to spend on streets and sidewalks?  A 2006 report found that we need to spend more than $26 million to meet our infrastructure needs in this city.  http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/departments/engineering/pr2006/tcpr2006.pdf.  The city has 78 miles of streets, and 40 miles of those are rated in poor condition.  (Gravel streets are not even included in the “poor” 40 miles.)  With $1.2 million, plus additional money from other sources, we will fix 1.9 miles of those streets in the next year.  That’s less than 5% of the poor streets.  And that does not count gravel streets, nor does it count those areas of the city without sidewalks.  Is this enough?  How much should we be spending?  How long should we plan to take to tackle these problems?

c.  The plan says we have a bias in favor of sidewalks and bike lanes but some of our key transportation corridors remain almost impossible to cross on foot or ride through on a bicycle.  For example, the city re-striped the far east end of 8th street saying it was a “pilot program” that we would seek input on.  Whatever happened to that?  8th St is one of the most important corridors – it borders, crosses, or touches six of our major residential neighborhoods (Oak Park, Boardman, Traverse Heights, Old Town, Central, and Kids Creek).  If 8th St is not important enough to make safe and useable for everyone, what street would be?  Should we favor sidewalks and bike lanes only when it is easy, when there are no trade-offs we have to make, or should pedestrians and cyclists be a real priority? 

This fall the city of Marquette re-built one of its major east-west corridors, Wright Street, as a complete street.  Read about it here:  http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/535479.html.  Wright Street is also a county highway.

Bill Paladino has a good photo essay about the city’s priorities when it comes to cars, bicycles, and pedestrians.  Read it here:  http://planfortc.com/2009/10/08/liveable/#comments

The city is in the process of making decisions on streets and sidewalks that we will have to live with for 20 years.  We need your feedback to make good decisions.  Let us know!