HomeMy WebLinkAbout5/7/2024 Item Public Comment, Schmidt
From:Richard Schmidt <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda Public Comment: Decorated "sustainable" streets
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Dear Council,
This week's Anholm bikeway improvements have involved a lot of fancy (fanciful?) pavement striping. So we have a stripe
along the outside of the concrete barriers. Then at each endpoint of the barriers we have fancy striping indicating I'm not
sure what -- looks like shark's noses extending out from the barriers towards the driveway crossings. Lots and lots of
these. Where there are no concrete barriers, there are still more stripes -- longitudinal and crosswise. It's quite a display.
The striping is so fancy that it can't be applied by a vehicle running down the street but must be hand applied by humans
pushing an applicator device -- a minimum three person foot crew.
Thanks to the striping we've now discovered that the concrete barriers shown in adopted plans the length of the Broad
Street section are not to be (one of many significant changes from council-approved plans). Only two short sections have
barriers, the rest is striped bike lanes. Probably just as well.
The stripes aren't paint, they're thermoplastic. This is a thick material made of petroleum products (boo, hiss, carbon miss)
that are laid down, then heated with a hand-held petrol-powered flame-thrower (boo, hiss, carbon miss), then cooled by
being sprayed with cold water -- thus the three man crew. As they work on foot from one end of the block to the other
there's a huge truck with engine running parked someplace (boo, hiss, carbon miss).
When the plastic has worn down or crumbled, which it does in just a few years, what remains is ground off the pavement,
pulverized into tiny plastic particles which end up in the air or washed into the creek. The city alleges all the ground off
plastic is collected and taken to Cold Canyon, where it will contaminate the environment forever since plastic doesn't
break down. Well, that story's a sort of; I've watched the grinding, with cars driving through the stuff stirring it up and
putting it into the wind prior to a crew's eventually coming by with a broom and dust pan or shovel to pick up some of the
remaining residue, which is what goes to the landfill. Of course, all the stuff that sloughs off during years of street use
goes straight into the environment.
Now plastic, as we're learning, is an evil environmental player. Forget the much-publicized gyres -- what terrifies even
more are the breakdown products. Plastic doesn't go away, it just breaks down to smaller and smaller pieces.
Microplastics getting into living organisms has been a concern for some time, but now we're learning that even smaller
particles, nanoplastics, have become resident in everything from single cell aquatic organisms to our own bodies; that
they can cross the highly protective human blood/brain barrier and end up even in human brains. (Nanoplastics have
been found in the brains of persons with Parkinson's!) The danger is not just from effects of the particles themselves, but
also from the fact the particles adhere to and carry with them a range of other biotoxics.
So why is our city engaging in a completely unnecessary activity like spreading profligate quantities of plastic on our
streets and helping to poison the earth and its inhabitants? I asked and was told because plastic lasts longer than paint. I
asked if any environmental analysis of the relative carbon impacts of less frequent plastic versus more frequent paint
application had been done, and was told no, the city doesn't do that. So even such straightforward carbon analysis of city
operations, in a city that alleges it's carbon smart, isn't happening. (I did a larger inquiry about carbon analysis of public
works projects in general, and was told that routinely none's done -- only if a project involves CEQA. So the city repaved a
quarter of its streets in 2022-23 with no comparative carbon analysis of various means and methods of doing such work.
And on the bike projects, the profligate use of concrete -- concrete being the carbon bete noir of building materials -- went
unexamined. A city so ignorant and inept at examining its own huge operational carbon releases has no right to concern
itself with domestic gas cooking stoves. As I have said so many times, this city flat out doesn't know how to think about
carbon, nor does it understand carbon mitigation, but instead has latched onto a narrow way of thinking propagated by a
powerful set of interests. OK, I've digressed from plastics, but the lack of thoughtfulness applies to both carbon and
plastic.)
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It's not just street striping that involves profligate spreading of plastics on streets. For example, those ridiculous huge
"Green Way" markings on streets are thermoplastic. They clutter the pavement and serve zero purpose other than as feel
good chest-thumping propaganda. And that's apparently good enough reason to thoughtlessly poison the earth and its
inhabitants.
Also this week we learned that the latest iteration of utility box graffiti is to use stick on plastic sheeting rather than paint to
deface that street furniture. I asked the public art folks whether they thought it appropriate to be adding more
environmental impact from plastic and was told there's no city policy against it! So, folks, there you have it. We the
Almighty City can destroy the earth so long as there's no policy against it. Apparently being thoughtful and learning how to
do good don't matter. Just policy.
Anyway, my title "sustainable streets" from above:
• In current hands, our streets are environmentally a lot less sustainable than they could be.
• Also, all the stuff now being applied to them will be very costly to maintain, and isn't economically sustainable either.
You can do better. You need to do better.
Richard Schmidt
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