Division St - tonight at the Hagerty Center from 5 to 7 pm there will be an open house to look at re-design options for Division St. http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/division.pdf
City budget – this coming Monday night @ 7 pm the city commission will be discussing what to spend your tax dollars on (and how we can save you $) this year. Look for more discussion of this topic here in a couple days.
Waterfront – next week there will be two public sessions on the waterfront project. They’ll be at 108 E. Front St (below the City Opera House) on March 24 from noon to 7 pm and on March 25 from 5:30 to 8 pm. http://www.ci.traverse-city.mi.us/departments/planning/BayfrontDesign.pdf
Hope to see you at one or more of these events!
3 comments
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March 19, 2010 at 8:55 am
Bob Otwell
I like Carol and appreciate her long time bike advocacy. I disagree with her comments above regarding bike lanes and sharing the road. We are still advocating with Senator Levin’s office and FHWA to give the city a little flexibility with respect to 8th Street. The design of 8th Street has not changed, there has been no compromise. The 3 lane section from Rose to Garfield in my opinion is not wide enough to safely share with a large volume of fast moving auto traffic. Moving the curbs a few feet from Garfield to Michigan, and near Rose, and leaving the middle section two lanes, would provide a safer, more friendly street and take down only two small trees. Many more trees could be planted.
With respect to Front Street, I would like to see bike lanes from Railroad to Madison, not sharrows. MDOT’s on street bike facility consultant has recommended this as there is sufficient space. Bike lanes provide many benefits to the community in addition to a designated space for bikes. The bike lanes downtown should be improved, both in terms of the arrows and the bike lane line placement.
I think sharrows will have a place in our city, although our city engineer reports they are not currently allowed under the MUTCD. Washington Street between Boardman and Cass might be a good place to try Sharrows.
March 18, 2010 at 2:35 pm
R. Mervau
Is Division street headed to a design/traffic crash? The recent “charet” staged by the City of TC was filled with so many questions. Yet not many really surfaced or were presented. Why is a consultant with experience primarily in Southern Florida, the reingning expert on our transportation and individual traffic needs in this area? It was quite obvious that an agenda to bring people and their vehicles to a crawl for some better good of the world is the looping theme here.
While I agree Division Street has it’s foibles, it is a thurough-fare for all traffic moving north and south on the city’s edge, to and fro Leelanau County and other places. Unless a well designed by-pass or ‘alternative’ route magically asppears in the next two months to flow destination-specific traffic to Suttons Bay, Northport, Leland and other parts of the greater western Traverse City/Leelanau area; then TC is headed for a messy and traffic choking redesign of Division Street and other main pass thru roads if this new “urban-kumbiya” agenda is radically pushed.
There have been many local alternative designs put forth recently from those that have “live here and use it every day” experience.
Those practical designs do not have “traffic circles” being put in the middle of Divsion Street to slow the big bad local “car cannons” and money throwing visiotrs. One such design brings a wider sense of green space to the bordering neighborhoods as it adjusts the lanes more westerly on the same ground. this gives a mopre friendly feel to entering the city and gets traffic positioned for the coming rout altering interchanges of 7th Street, Front Street and the Parkway.
At the same time, pedestrian tunnels at these locations make for a seamless and safe passage across the area. Yes folks tunnels, they are lot easier and cost effective to construct than you think. Also 3 to 4 more tunnels would be installed under Grandview Parkway. they are pre-casat set in place coverd and on your way you go. Ask any road builder that done them, it’snot hard at all, just takes hte motivation to do it.
Since this whole thing came about a year ago, in the form
March 17, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Carol Danly
Although I don’t see a recent 8th Street update, if the Record-Eagle follow-up article was correct, structural changes to the stimulus-supported plan cannot be changed to accommodate bike lanes. Sharrows (spelling???) will be painted in the traffic lanes instead.
As far as I am concerned, that would be my preference–sharing the road.
I’d like to see downtown bicycle lanes replaced by sharrows. Downtown lanes put cyclists at risk of being “doored” by drivers exiting their vehicles. And, unless this has been corrected, arrows painted within the lanes are not appropriately placed.
I do appreciate the City’s attempt to make downtown more bicycle friendly. It’s just that there’s room for improvement.