HomeMy WebLinkAbout7/19/2022 Item 7a, Schmidt (4)
Delgado, Adriana
From:Richard Schmidt <slobuild@yahoo.com>
Sent:Monday, July 18,
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda 7a photos
Attachments:anholm bid let photos.pdf
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Dear Council,
Attached is a collection of photos illustrating some of adverse impacts on Broad Street neighbors from this project.
Richard Schmidt
1
Item 7a, July 18, 2022
Dear Council,
Here are photos to show concerns regarding the superfluous Anholm bike project’s impacts on
North Broad.
1. On-street parking. The project will remove at least 30 parking spaces on the west side of
Broad between The Village (whose frontage is red-zoned due to fire department concerns) and
Mission Street. The “at least” is because it’s unclear how far into the Mission intersection
parking removal will continue; continuing into the intersection, instead of stopping at the
intersection, could add 3 or 4 more parking space removals.
The project will remove an indeterminate number of parking spaces on the east side of Broad.
Uncertainty is because staff has not been up front on this matter. I believe there should be no
need to remove any east side spaces.
Massive parking removal matters because the street is parked up with residents’ vehicles,
and removal of 30+ spaces will leave us with a serious neighborhood deficit.
Here are photos of resident parking, typical early morning school session intensity.
100 block Broad. All parking on right will be taken away. There are vehicles in front of silver SUV
– sorry, should have positioned camera to show them. What photo shows is no space on left
side to accommodate cars that can no longer park on right. This is a rotten thing for the city to
do to a neighborhood.
From Murray looking into 0-100 block Broad. Usually there are more vehicles on left – typically
parked tight to Village red curb. All parking removed on left, no place for displaced vehicles on
parked-up right. Note the two vehicles parked on right between corner and first driveway:
staff’s weird disability curb cut design at Murray will claim one, and possibly both, of those
spaces.
Many residences will suffer unique individual hardships. This little house, for example, has a
crappy short steep narrow driveway (my wide angle lens makes it look longer and less steep
than it is) but has always had a couple of off-the-pavement spaces down below. With the
project, access to those spaces will end. Backing out of this drive blind into a cycle lane is
patently unsafe, yet bike designers have left no other choice. Who benefits from this
maldesign? Not residents. Certainly not bicyclists.
2. Disability curb cuts at Murray. How many spaces do they remove from east side of Broad?
Could a better design result in zero removals? Note the curb cut plan at Murray is very weird
and unsafe (and uncomfortable as this area fills with water – often containing raw sewage --
when it rains) and has pedestrians walking in the street for more than 100 feet. What could
possibly go wrong?
Staff sprung this one on us, and we don’t have full information yet. But from the plans it
appears the intent is to have a curb cut a considerable distance to the right of the corner storm
drain, in the parking space area, thus eliminating the parking space. Why? It appears even the
weird plan staff proposes (with pedestrians walking in the street where drivers don’t expect
them to be for more than 100 feet) could be made to work entirely within the existing red
zone. Another option would be to make the curb cut just beyond the storm drain towards
Murray.
This is the north east corner of Broad Murray where plans show insertion of a curb cut to the
left of the parking sign, claiming at least one parking space. This appears completely
unnecessary as there are at least two alternative (and better) placements for the cut: 1, at the
photo’s extreme right between fire hydrant and stop sign, and 2, between the corner storm
drain and utility pole.
Council needs to be critical of this poor and dangerous pedestrian plan and make sure it can be
made to work for all.
3. Deliveries, remodels, new construction impacts. Here’s more graphic evidence of a problem
the city denies exists: the impact of mass parking removal on normal activities of neighborhood
commerce. In these photos, we focus only on construction-related delivery and craft trucks.
Today, four construction vehicles working at Taco Bell house gut and remodel (2 bedroom
house becoming 5 bedrooms plus ADU – go figure the parking impact of that!) All the spaces
shown occupied by constructors here will go away. I asked a contractor how the job would
work without on-street on-the-same-side parking, and he said “I have no idea. It will be a mess.
It’s crazy for them to do that.”
Then there are deliveries of bulky and heavy materials. This several weeks ago. Unloading, even
with forklift, took more than one hour. The truck occupies future bike lane. How does this
happen if road is even narrower? What’s the city’s alternative for such deliveries? As part of
your bike program will you supply flaggers to control traffic? Or what?
Or this, several months ago. Trusses for a carport, truck in parking lane that will disappear.
Since these were unloaded by manpower, problem of displacement of adjacent parking is even
greater than for unloading masonry with forklift.
So, dear council members, this is graphic evidence of some of the really crummy things you’ll be
doing to a neighborhood to install a superfluous, dangerous, silly piece of ideologically-
motivated bike-etecture that will become a fiasco that sets back the city’s bike program and
destroys the livability of a stable neighborhood.
Please don’t go there. Show you still care about neighborhood quality of life. Surely we can
accommodate bikes without destroying neighborhoods in the process.
Richard Schmidt