[Vision2020] Quality of Life or Why is a 3rd Street arterial
abadidea
Richard Schmidt
44schmidt at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 15 10:57:45 PDT 2005
Wayne,
You are throwing out concepts here that will be beyond comprehension by the Moscow City Council . They took their pants down to get the development on the south side of Joseph Street annexed and approved and ignored citizens input about traffic etc. Linda made a big issue out of saying in a council meeting that "there would only be 2 exits on Joseph Street:. That was a whole great big load of bull shit! They are putting a traffic circle/roundabout at the junction of Joseph and Shoshone St. and are allowing 2 more exits from the development. They get on the council and become pawns of developers and to hell with the residents. When I lived there I hated to have to go from Shoshone St. to the west side of town because it was a pain in the ass.
They didn't listen to the citizens concerns about additional traffic before the annexation approval so now they need to put a bridge on 3rd street as traffic from the majority of the houses east of Mountain View are now using 6th St. west where they stop at Blaine then go to Hayes, turn right, go to 3rd, turn left then a straight shot (excluding pedestrian crosswalks) ;-)) to the Westside businesses. Before we left Moscow they had 6th street all marked up where they were going to "patch the heck out of it". I'm sure they still have a rough piece of street. Why don't they fix it right? They allowing parking on major arterials which are too narrow to allow parking. That is why I quit using 6th street as sometimes it is difficult to pass with cars parked on the side of the street. There are probably 20 homes that will be affected on 3rd street from a new bridge but the bridge will help probably 300 homes east of Mt. View.
Your suggestion of streets mentioned being 4 lane is an excellent one. Joseph street should have been 4 lane out past the new development but that would have taken a few feet of land from the developer and the council bows very deeply to developers. They made an extra lane by the school's property on Joseph street and should have done the same further out. They can't even spell P-L-A-N-N-I-N-G A-H-E-A-D.
Who came up with the phrase "funneling cars through the bridge on 3rd street"? Funneling? Sounds like desperation.
Dick Schmidt
----- Original Message -----
From: Art Deco
To: Vision 2020
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Quality of Life or Why is a 3rd Street arterial abadidea
Linda, et al,
I agree with your reasons and opinions in this matter (below). It should be emphasized that safety problems are egregiously large. Having a major arterial running along side of a sidewalkless, unfenced park, running by Moscow High School, running within 1/4 block of Lena Whitmore Elementary School, and through a neighborhood where many, many young students walk to several schools and many residents walk to several places strikes me as a very perilous, uncaring way to solve a problem.
I do not live in Moscow so my opinions will have little or no effect on the decision makers, the city council.
However, we shop and do other business in Moscow. While we have until now tried to spend most of our money locally even though we pay a premium to do this, this matter and other P & Z matters is causing us to re-evaluate our purchasing policies. Remarks made by various city public officials/public figures forwarded to us indicate these officials/figures believe that those outside of the city should not express their opinions or have them considered, and these same officials/figures feel that many of those inside the city have opinions that are not worth hearing or considering. It is like the City of Moscow is saying: "We don't care where you take your business, we are going to do it our way!"
In my professional opinion as a consulting systems engineer of many years training and practice, that the root of the Third Street proposal issue is the lack of intelligent, unfettered by special interests, community based planning.
It has been clear for many years that the city is expanding eastward and northward. A lot of money was spent on upgrading Mountain View. A little intelligence would have dictated that it should have be four lane instead of two, that a mile or so of Joseph should be four-lane, that the Troy Highway from east of the cemetery to Washington should be four-lane, that eventually a stoplight needs to be placed at Mountain View and the Troy Highway, that some safe egress/exit on Highway 95 for those living in the expanding north part of the city needs to be provided beside the accident prone intersection at Pintail Lane, and that perhaps North Polk needs to be four-lane and paved to connect to Highway 95 at Foothill Road.
The NSA, alternative high school, etc. zoning fiasco is part of the same problem. In my opinion the planning/zoning/building function of the City of Moscow has been horrible, if not corrupt, for a long time. There has been little or no enforcement despite obvious violations. Developers are given red-carpet service and their violations are either ignored or ways found to circumvent the enforcement of such. Between seriously inept personnel, rampant 'good old boy/girlism', and gutless elected/appointed officials afraid to rock the boat and/or incur the displeasure of developers, Moscow is now facing several planning and zoning problems for which there is but very difficult, unsatisfactory to most, expensive solutions.
If I were a Moscow resident, I would be seriously lobbying public officials to clean up this mess and quickly; if they were not willing to do so, then I would spend time and energy to find replacements for them.
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda Pall" <lpall at moscow.com>
To: "J Ford" <privatejf32 at hotmail.com>; <citizenament at moscow.com>; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 6:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Quality of Life or Why is a 3rd Street arterial abad idea
> Dear Aaron, J. Ford and Visionaries,
>
> What follows is probably more than you want to read but covers most of the
> points about this project. Others are looking at interesting community based
> alternatives that use the intersection for pedestrians, bikes, wheel chairs
> and kids, among other things. I'll let them talk about that.
>
> This is a rough summery of why this is a bad idea for the community as a
> whole and does not achieve the results it proposes for traffic efficiency.
> Take a look: this is not a NIMBY issue. This shouldn't happen to anybody's
> backyard.
>
> All the best and stay tuned to the meeting schedule,
> Linda Pall
> Moscow City Council
>
> What's wrong with a Third Street Bridge and a Third Street arterial?
>
> I hope J. Ford and others who may have tuned into the PW/F meeting Monday
> afternoon saw and heard my statement that this plan is a stunningly bad idea
> and should go no further. Unfortunately, I was in the minority. What was
> salvaged was a comprehensive public City Council workshop where the proposal
> can be explained and discussed one more time in public with ample time for
> public involvement AND A DECISION ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT TO CONITNUE
> DISCUSSING THE PROJECT.
>
> I do not believe it is valuable to pursue a project if it is not in the
> interest of the community at large. Citizens should not have to mobilize for
> meetings if the project is fundamentally flawed and should be taken off the
> table. Next Monday, the Council will determine when this workshop will be. I
> hope it can occur sometime in mid to late October. I hope we can urge the
> whole Council to abandon this project and focus on improving the
> intersection at D and Mountainview and access from Sixth, White, and State
> Highway 8 to Mountainview.
>
> The proposal from the Engineering Department at the request of Mayor
> Comstock to the Transportation Commission is to place a bridge across
> Paradise Creek and extend Third Street to meet a new Third Street east of
> Mountainview Road and carry this traffic, as an arterial from eastern Moscow
> through downtown to western Moscow, Pullman and beyond.
>
> The exact design of the bridge and the exact design of the roadway and
> adjacent area is not clear. Some have said that only parking will have to be
> removed in only some areas. Others have said parking would certainly have to
> be removed and parts of the City's right of way used for sidewalks where
> they do not exist and additional public space for vehicles and pedestrians,
> primarily between Hayes and the creek on Third Street. Presently, Third
> Street is classified as a neighborhood collector that functions to bring
> traffic from or through a neighborhood to arterials.
>
> Here are the major flaws as I see them:
>
> LESS SAFE: The proposal wouold have arterial traffic going by one of Moscow'
> s few protected elementary schools, destroying its walkability for children.
> The addition of arterial traffic would make getting to East City Park much
> more difficult and for those whose balls or frisbees go into the road, the
> fetching process will be more dangerous. Older and disabled residents will
> find the street more challenging for crossing and general use.
>
> LIKELY LOSS OF TREES AND PLANTINGS: along Third from Washington to Hayes
> some of the most marvelous maples find their home on what is one of Moscow's
> premier tree-lined streets. At the SE corner of Third and Hayes, the
> Mason-Cornwall House, on the National register of Historic Places derives
> part of its charm and sense of place from the tall conifers on the north
> side, close to or in the right of way. All of these resources are at risk
> with arterial designation, through environmental degradation or the
> necessity now or in the relatively near future for widening because of
> traffic pressures.
>
> LOSS OF PARKING: East of Hayes, the Third and Hayes apartment building, the
> Elysian Apartments and some residences depend upon on-street parking for
> their residences and certainly for their guests. Any proposal that involves
> parking removal will negatively affect these residents. Parking actually
> operates as a traffic calming device, making drivers slow down. Ironically,
> its removal would make the street even faster and less safe. If it is not
> removed, the value of efficient through traffic movement, as an arterial
> ought to have, is greatly reduced.
>
> NOT BEST PRACTICES IN STREET DESIGN: The proposal does not take advantage of
> context sensitive street design, which would have generated streets that
> meet neighborhood needs as well as community wide needs with the interests
> of more than cars and trucks in mind.
>
> ARTERIALS SHOULD NOT BE PLACED TWO BLOCKS FROM ONE ANOTHER: It makes no
> sense and less engineering design sense to place an arterial through an
> established neighborhood, two blocks away from one and four blocks from
> another (6th and D Streets).
>
> OPERATION PERFORMANCE IS NOT GAINED FROM THE BRIDGE: If the idea is to make
> better, faster, easier circulation east west in Moscow, the bridge fails
> this goals also. The average time difference going from a stop at Third and
> Hayes AROUND along Hayes to Sixth, left on Sixth, and left on Mountainview
> to the Third and Mountainview is 55 seconds longer than going directly to
> the barrier from Hayes along Third, gaining 55 seconds while creating havoc
> for the Lena Whitmore neighborhood.
>
> LITTLE CITIZEN PARTICIPATION: While the transportation Commission had this
> on their agenda several times from March through June, it was not widely
> advertised and even some City Council members did not know about the
> proposal until it was a recommendation from the Commission. This is not
> acceptable for a project with such impact.
>
> NO TRUE COST CALCULATION OF THIS PROJECT: The project itself fails to look
> at the true costs of loss of neighborhood amenities, cost of amelioration of
> side effects to other agencies and individuals (more crossing guards for
> Lena Whitmore, driving children to school to avoid unsafe pedestrian routes,
> etc.), and dilution of home and property values as prized residential
> property in and around the East City Park area.
>
> Third Street has been an image of the town we value. It can continue to be a
> great street for the people of Moscow. All of Moscow is concerned about good
> traffic design. All of Moscow would like to see our growth add to, not take
> away from our quality of life. A bridge across Third Street and its
> accompanying arterial status is a stunningly bad idea if these values are
> important to us.
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "J Ford" <privatejf32 at hotmail.com>
> To: <citizenament at moscow.com>; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 1:34 PM
> Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Quality of Life
>
>
>> I watched channel 13's broadcast of the Public Works meeting in horror
> last
>> night as one member of the public after another came up and pleaded with
> the
>> City Council people and the City Staff NOT to put the bridge in or develop
>> Third anymore than it is now - my sence of horror came from the plastic
>> smile that was painted on Nancy's face and the total lack of empathy and
>> understanding these Coucil folks like John Kimberling have and the
> apparent
>> disinfranchisement that seems to be there but also growing from the
> majority
>> of the Council.
>>
>> It was bad enough that the City Council (full) was "happy with this plan"
> or
>> "could live with this development" or "can go along with this new
>> neighborhood" when the Council heard the Joseph Street plans even when one
>> homeowner after another spoke up as to what is happening NOW to their
>> property and what WILL happen if that development goes through. But now
>> this!
>>
>> What is it going to take to get the City Council to understand they are
>> supposed to be representing the CITIZENS of Moscow, not the City Council's
>> interests or the mayor's or the developers alone? How many more
> concessions
>> are we as tax paying, voters going to have to make all for the "sake of
>> development and growth"? There are three main streets that lead from the
>> west side of town to the east - and they are travelled far too fast by the
>> young fools who just have to show off how big a truck, loud a music
> system,
>> fast an engine they have. I am getting tired of trying to cross a street
>> and having to run because some fool won't take the time to let the
>> pedistrians to get all the way across. I am sick of the loud obnoxious
>> vulger music they insist we all HAVE to be in on and I don't feel like the
>> displacement of many long-time residents and/or their trees should be an
>> expected "give-me" that we have to fork over to the university/college
> kids
>> in this town.
>>
>> If you need to be somewhere by a specific time - leave on time or with
> time
>> to spear to make sure you get there when you need to.
>>
>> There is NOTHING that has to happen in 10 minutes that will be worse for
> you
>> if you take the extra 1-2 mintues by "gerbiling" via another route. If
>> anything, the bridge will only complicate the traffic mess we live with
> now
>> by - as one person put it - funnelling the cars/trucks through Third
> Street.
>>
>> And lets not forget the impact the bridge will have on Paradse Creek -
> just
>> how much "development" do you think that creek can take before it totally
>> stops functioning? I realize there are a lot of people who could care
> less
>> about a small creek, but really - those of us who do, will not let it go
> so
>> easily. It, our way of life, the residents immediately impacted by this
>> "development" will make it a long, hard fight to keep that area as is.
>>
>> J ;)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >From: "aaron ament" <citizenament at moscow.com>
>> >To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>> >Subject: [Vision2020] Quality of Life
>> >Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2005 09:11:42 -0700
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >Quality of Life
>> >
>> > The intention of the City of Moscow to connect Third Street to Mountain
>> >View, and thereby funnel traffic through a quiet neighborhood and on
>> >through the already congested center of our downtown should be a concern
> to
>> >us all. It is a "Quality of Life" issue.
>> > Only a small portion of our populace will be affected on a daily basis
> by
>> >the presence of the bridge. Supporters of this bridge maintain that a
>> >great number of residents of Moscow will benefit from the seeming ease in
>> >travel the bridge promises.
>> > If we allow ourselves to look past the obvious "Quality of Life" issue
>> >that confronts a few residents of our city then we fail to protect the
>> >"Quality of Life" for all who live in Moscow. If we allow the "Quality
> of
>> >Life" that brought and keeps us here to be taken from us one small piece
> at
>> >a time we will find someday that we have had our
>> >"Quality of Life" taken from us all.
>> >
>> >Aaron Ament
>>
>>
>> >_____________________________________________________
>> > List services made available by First Step Internet,
>> > serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>> > http://www.fsr.net
>> > mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> >¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
>> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>>
>> _____________________________________________________
>> List services made available by First Step Internet,
>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>> http://www.fsr.net
>> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>>
>>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> http://www.fsr.net
> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_____________________________________________________
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20050915/5e7b14ec/attachment-0001.htm
More information about the Vision2020
mailing list