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HomeMy WebLinkAbout9/17/2024 Item Public Comment, Schmidt Richard Schmidt < To:E-mail Council Website Cc:Nelson, Brian Subject:Agenda comment: How much ADA malfeasance is Council willing to tolerate? Attachments:Council broadmurray ramona nelson response.pdf; Village Crossing request letter pdf.pdf This message is from an External Source. Use caution when deciding to open attachments, click links, or respond. Dear Council, Attached is a letter in pdf format (file name begins with "Council") and a second pdf which is the attachment referred to in the letter. This material raises substantial questions about the city's playing fast and loose with the Americans With Disabilities Act. A solution apparently requires your involvement since staff has shined on my reasoned and reasonable approaches to them for more than a year. I believe the city is playing with legal fire with its current attitudes and actions on the ADA. How about fixing this? That's the right, ethical, moral and legal thing to do. Richard Schmidt 1 September 15, 2024 Re: Reply to Brian Nelson’s note on ADA issues at Broad/Murray and Ramona/Village, and request for Council action. Dear Council, I wish to thank Brian Nelson for his forthrightness in sending me his response to you regarding my Anholm bikeway ADA violation concerns since he states, in writing, what a lot of us have suspected staff is saying to Council and doesn’t attempt to hide that fact. With the casual rationalizations staff is using to dismiss ADA concerns like mine now out in the open, it is possible to respond with confidence of being on point. For more than a year I have tried to get staff to fix some of the worst ADA public right of way problems the Anholm bikeway created. I’ve done this in a spirit of good will – urging the city to fix problems it has created quietly – and made clear I thought this could and should be capable of a quiet resolution using authorized project change-order funds. However, the city has not responded in kind, instead shining me on and then – since early this year -- ignoring me altogether. Meanwhile, the problems continue, to the detriment and unsafety of the frail and disabled who’ve seen previously robust accommodations diminished and eliminated (this refers to Ramona issues). First, just a reminder of what the Americans With Disabilities Act is – a civil rights law extending rights of social inclusivity to one of our most misunderstood and despised minorities, the disabled. My concern here is exclusively with what are called “reasonable accommodations” for disability in the public right of way. These are governed by various ADA design guideline documents which provide both rules and sample accommodations for differing situations. This stuff isn’t rocket science; it’s application of common sense and decency to create safe and comfortable accommodations that enable and promote mobility of the disabled. Unfortunately, on that last count, the city has failed, and continues to fail, despite its loud proclamations to the contrary. Why some 34 years after ADA passage, and another decade before that with similar rules, has the city not long since made all its curbs disability compliant? So, to Brian’s letter. There are two specific spots he addresses: Broad/Murray and Ramona at the Village. 1. Broad/Murray. This intersection lacked ADA ramps. As part of the Anholm project, it was to be made accessible, something long overdue since this is arguably the most senior-dense small neighborhood in the city, and the tall curbs at Murray are an acknowledged problem for many pedestrians. Council approved a plan for a raised intersection proposed by staff, which would have been a nifty solution were it not this is a drainage low spot that floods. This scheme could have been done, by reworking the locations of storm drain openings. Instead, after Council approved the raised intersection at a public hearing, staff came up with a cockamamie scheme for routing the frail, disabled pedestrians, those who can’t manage the extraordinarily high curbs on the east side of Broad, those with wheeled appliances and chairs/scooters IN THE STREET FOR ABOUT 130 FEET – a distance greater than the width of Foothill at Broad. There have turned out to be numerous ADA problems due to this, among them these: • In justification, Brian writes: “A 4-foot accessible pedestrian route is delineated along the asphalt shoulder of Broad Street to connect each curb ramp.” Problems: it’s not 4’ throughout, and some of it violates the required minimum ADA design width of 3’. Much of it violates the maximum ADA design cross slope. This is a wet route since users must walk through storm water rushing to storm drains within the pathway, and wet routes violate ADA guidelines for accessible routes. Finally, it’s just insane to ask your physically challenged citizens to deal with the flow of storm water around their feet on a sloping surface leading to dangerous storm inlets. People shouldn’t be consigned to walking the gutter. This isn’t reasonable accommodation for the disabled, it’s a stunt to pretend the law’s intent is being followed when it’s not. • As to why this was done instead of a conventional crossing of Murray (i.e., conventional being two short approx. 19-foot hops to the median’s safety), Brian cites drainage issues at the corner, to which water drains from both directions on Broad, Serrano, San Luis Mountain, Meinecke, Murray and Benton, not to mention the city sewer which frequently overflows. This is Broad/Murray one dry season afternoon when the city sewer (note the upwelling from the manhole to right of parked suv) filled the intersection with so much poop water the 5 storm inlets couldn’t carry it off and the streets flooded. We need more stormwater inlets at this corner. With bikeway modifications to sidewalks due to “ADA improvements” sidewalks on both sides of Broad would have filled with poop water. I wonder what this summer flood would have left behind on those sidewalks when the surge receded? In specific, Brian cites the location at this intersection of 5 stormwater inlets which carry storm water to Old Garden Creek. There’s only one storm drain on the west side of Broad, but four on the east side, two of which are at the Murray corner, the other two a short distance away on Broad. In explaining this Brian makes two statements that merit factual push-back. • “Each inlet drains directly down into a triple barrel culvert (three 72-inch pipes) that passes directly below the Broad/Murray intersection,” and “Due to the area topography, the culverts and the inlets have to remain in the same location to maintain historic drainage patterns. Unfortunately, these inlets are right at the corner where curb ramps are preferred.” As a matter of fact, only one of the 5 stormwater inlets “drains directly down” into the underground culvert, the one near 108 Broad, which was added after the 1973 flood. The others, including the two that conflicted with a potential conventional ADA crossing at Murray, connect via horizontal pipes to the culvert. (I believe this can be verified visually by Council by walking the culvert, which I have done many times.) Since they’re transmitting water horizontally, not vertically, the entry location to those pipes can certainly be moved enough to accommodate a proper ADA crossing. And, in fact, during my 52 years of living near this corner, I have seen some of them moved around, verifying that this is possible. So these excuses for doing the wrong ADA thing instead of the right thing are weak. A slight fix of the current stormwater inlet locations on the northeast and southeast corners would make possible a continuous straight-ahead pedestrian route on Broad, which I think is preferable safety-wise to the “up Murray a bit” location Brian suggests may happen someday. The northeast corner inlet will have to be moved several feet up Murray to make space for this, and since its purpose is to catch water from Murray, that could make for a dryer pedestrian crossing. The southeast corner inlet is already tweaked so much towards Broad that it would be simple to move it all the way to Broad; however, in the interests of a dryer crossing it should also probably be relocated several feet up Murray. • One further thing mentioned by Brian is noteworthy. “This [existing] design is not intended to be a final solution, rather this is an interim option. . .” Really? In all my discussions with city staff the notion this is a temporary “solution” has never been mentioned before. If that’s the true intent, it was a very expensive move on someone’s part, and strikes me as fiscally careless. Why not do things this expensive right the first time? • Unmentioned by Brian is the mess the city has created on the west side of Broad at Murray, where the entire sidewalk has been lowered below street level to gutter level, and floods, fills with slippery mud and debris, and remains flooded and slippery for days after even a moderate storm. And when the sewer overflows, that means pedestrians are walking in poop. This is not a valid ADA accommodation and it’s awful to ALL pedestrians. There is, literally, because of this no longer any way to walk 1.5 blocks from my house to the grocery in wet weather without getting wet feet and risking a fall on the mud. Nice way to treat all the rest of us to build a bike lane for a few. West side of Broad at Murray. The city chose a site-inappropriate “ramp” design that depresses the entire sidewalk to gutter level, resulting in sidewalk flooding and debris and mud accumulation. There’s no way to get around this mess. This photo is a day after a storm. The flooding continues for days as water runs off San Luis Mountain and along the gutter. How does this faulty design help make a pleasant pedestrian experience (one of the Anholm project’s big talking points) and how does it in any way help the disabled? This same faulty design was used at 5 places in this immediate stretch of Broad and also at the Village/Ramona crossing. 2. Ramona crossing at the Village. This is a far more important matter than Broad/ Murray. What the city has done, in an underhanded and secretive manner no less, is a disgrace. For about 30 years the city provided a safe sidewalk-level dry-footed raised crossing for the couple of hundred old folks at the Village plus all the rest of us in the neighborhood. Safe. Effective. ADA compliant (except for some minor fixable details due to changes in ADA design guidelines). And then, with no public discussion and no notice, the city simply removed it and degraded the safe ADA crossing to something else entirely. When I figured out what was about to happen in the spring of 2023, I tried to cajole staff to do the right thing, and they basically told me to get lost. So I wrote a long well-documented letter about the change to Derek Johnson and Matt Horn and implored them not to remove the raised safety crossing. It was removed the day my letter reached them. (This letter is attached, and COUNCIL NEED TO READ IT.) Since that time I have made effort after effort to get the raised safety crossing restored – to no effect. NO CITY COUNCIL HAS EVER APPROVED REMOVING THE RAISED SAFETY CROSSING. Your Council approved construction drawings that explicitly stated the crossing would be rebuilt. The Council that approved the project design approved this: “Existing raised crossing” to remain, according to plan Council adopted at a public hearing. When staff subsequently decides it wants to eliminate a safe crossing that had been an important community feature for 3 decades, shouldn’t there at least be some public revelation, discussion and notice? Maybe even a follow-up public hearing to review proposed changes? As it was, the public was blind-sided and had no say. The problems I foresaw when I wrote my letter to Derek and Matt have largely come to pass (thankfully no fatalities yet). Safety and amenity are reduced. Seniors are reduced to wheeling through mud and water to cross the street. There’s no longer any place for the out of breath to rest. The ADA requires that the city, in undertaking any project, improve disability accommodations. At Ramona/Village, the city of SLO has done the opposite – it has diminished accommodation. I’ll not belabor this further -- it’s detailed in my letter – but just take a look at this, a scene I’ve observed many times. The day after a moderate rain, this chap is trying to figure out how to cross Ramona where previously there had been an ADA compliant raised crossing that avoided mud, wet feet, and stepping up and down, all of which are troublesome and dangerous for balance-challenged oldsters. Note there’s no way he can activate the flashers (activator on post near camera) without going through mud. Any of you ever tried to use a walker on a slick surface like this? Ultimately he decided to step down over the curb just outside the crosswalk, as if there were no accommodation at all. I’ve seen this sort of thing play out repeatedly. What a disgrace for the city to have done this, then refuse to fix it. Brian’s defense of the “necessity” for disobeying what Councils had approved and for diminishing existing ADA accommodations cites drainage and “horizontal and topographical site constraints that made it infeasible to maintain the prior crossing configuration. . .” Whatever that means. Brian and I have discussed this in detail, and I believe he’s over-thinking it and not trying to solve the essential ADA “design problem.” It’s clear the raised crossing is not “impossible.” The raised crossing was there for decades and there were no drainage, horizontal or topographical constraints. The Council- approved design showed bikes going over the speed table on which the crossing was located, and I suspect staff’s desire to change THAT, and not what Brian says, is why we got what we got: somebody decided bikes shouldn’t have to go over the speed table. So punish the elderly, whom everyone knows the millennial council members behind this project despised, to toss one to an able-bodied minority. 3. Conclusion. I have concluded that staff from city manager down has zero interest in trying to solve the Ramona/Village problem, and don’t know what to think about the intent to some day alter the Broad/Murray problem. So I want to ask Council, what is a citizen who calls something like this to staff’s attention and then gets stonewalled to think about the city’s good will? What does it say about the city’s caring for its vulnerable citizens? And how does the city think something like this will look if the citizen gets frustrated and turns to public arenas of discussion and remedies involving authorities higher than the city? Do you not see this is exactly how city reputations for decency get muddied, how higher authorities can step in and order the city to do things far beyond the original request? As it is, the city has so frustrated me I’ve become curious how it’s doing with ADA stuff in general, and every place I look I see serious problems. A few examples: • The city bragging it installed 40+ new ADA curb cuts with the bikeway when more than half weren’t new but replacements for functional existing cuts, thus hardly making a dent in the 31 curb cuts missing altogether on Anholm’s bike-route streets. • A city that doesn’t know how many ADA curb cuts it has and how many intersections that need them don’t have them. • A city that puts out a map of downtown disability parking spots that fails to tell which are wheelchair accessible; and misrepresents actual wheelchair accessible spots by showing availability in lots marked no-public-parking. • A city that puts together a costly “gateless parking” scheme in one of its garages that blatantly violates ADA guidelines without, apparently, ever having considered that matter when contemplating the change. (Is thinking through ADA implications of a municipal physical project not routine practice?) When I communicated my concern about this to appropriate staff (twice!), I got no response. When it was announced the costly gateless scheme would be terminated, I inquired if disability issues had caused that, and was told no, it was other considerations. By the way, the previous attendant-based payment system was disability accommodating. • Insufficient disability-compliant parking in public garages. • A terrible lack of ADA compliant wheelchair accessible downtown parking. • No wheelchair accessible parking proximate to major institutions, like the public library. • For icing on the cake, the frequent hyperbolic silliness of what the city says and claims which shows the city’s true attitude and lack of understanding, as, for example an item on your mop-up agenda tonight: eliminating the requirement that seats on the construction appeals board designated for disabled persons are actually filled by disabled people but can instead be filled by “designers” and others who are not disabled, which the city’s propaganda department assures us “ensures representation for the physically disabled community” on this board. Indeed. Less is more. And I assure you, what I’ve listed above barely scratches the surface of the city’s public right of way disability sins. So my question to Council: When the city’s on a course that violates a major federal civil rights law, namely the ADA, do you just go along with staff’s tolerance of that, or do you step up and order them to do better? Sincerely, Richard Schmidt Attachment: Letter to Derek Johnson and Matt Horn, June 23, 2023 June 21, 2023 To Matt Horn, Public Works Director Derek Johnson, City Manager City of San Luis Obispo This is an emphatic request that the City not remove the raised crosswalk mid-block on Ramona that links The Village senior housing complex with the neighborhood shopping center as part of its Anholm bikeway project. I am confident that after reading this letter thoughtfully, the City will realize removing the raised crossing is a mistaken move, and that keeping and enhancing it is not only the right thing to do for pedestrian safety and to preserve the robust existing level of ADA accommodations but also the only decent thing to do. Why this request at this time? As the City is well aware, throughout the public Anholm bikeway process I have advocated for the needs of the neighborhood’s old, frail and disabled, which throughout the process the City has ignored, mis-stated, minimized, and even dismissed as unworthy concerns. In specific, one of my concerns has been that the City is actually diminishing accommodations for that demographic when the thrust of the law is clear that the City must improve and increase accommodations when undertaking any public project. So I’ve been watching the construction with interest, with my accommodation concerns front and center. Once the sidewalk construction barriers on Broad and Ramona came down, I went to have a look, and was astonished to see, on the south side of Ramona at the raised crosswalk, that the entire public sidewalk had been depressed to gutter level. The first thing that came to mind was “what a bad design, that sidewalk’s going to flood every time it rains.” I also noted the bulbout on that side of Ramona had been ripped out. There was only one “why?” for these changes that made sense: the City planned to remove the decades-old raised crosswalk, eliminate the bulbout that extended the sidewalk through the parking lane to the raised crosswalk, and instead take the hundreds of seniors from The Village across at street level, thus eliminating a proven and successful elevated safety crossing. Since doing this had NEVER been mentioned during the public Anholm process, this very notion flummoxed me, so I asked the City, and was told that yes, the raised crosswalk and bulbout were being removed. Not only did the public have no way of knowing this was being contemplated, since it was never mentioned in public presentations and was not shown in publicly-available project drawings, in subsequent investigation I discovered the City Council had never approved this removal - - but I’m getting ahead of my story, we’ll get to that in due course. So, that is why this matter is only coming into public concern at this time – there was no way to recognize it as an issue before now, before seeing actual “construction facts on the ground.” My request is not a big one, and it’s consistent with what the public understood and what the City Council approved. The City has the wherewithal to fulfill it without further ado. Background. In the mid-20th century, a large student housing complex called Tropicana Village was built at Broad/Ramona. By the late 70s, this type of dorm-like living was out of favor with students, and occupancy dropped. The owners started renting one building to seniors instead of students. Popularity grew, and after remodeling and upgrading one building, then a second building, and adding a third building, The Village grew into our city’s pre-eminent senior housing complex, with both independent and assisted living. Need then arose for a safe mid-block crossing on Ramona to link seniors to the shopping center. After a Village resident offered funding, the City obliged with a raised crosswalk with pedestrian-activated blinking pavement lights. This was a huge safety improvement, becoming so much safer and less stressful than the corner crossing at Broad/Ramona that the entire neighborhood uses it as the preferred crossing. The raised crossing has been there for decades and is a valued and familiar piece of neighborhood safety infrastructure. It boggles the mind that the City should think it ok to just rip it out without full public discussion. So, the crossing was paid for privately, as a gift to the public and the City. Unfortunately, the City hasn’t responded over time with gratitude or appreciation, let alone with respect for the donor, but let the crossing run down. After some years, the flashing lights worked on and off, finally more off than on, and then sat inoperable and unrepaired for years, with a City sign affixed to the activating devices stating fixing the flashers would happen by a date years in the past. Despite the non- functioning flashers, however, crossing users did have one really big thing going in their favor: the raised crossing was a speed table that forced cars to slow, whether lights blinked or not. That slowed speed made the crossing itself inherently safe. In other words, slowed vehicular speeds at the point of crossing were self-enforcing, making the crossing safe, lights or no lights. Had the crossing not forced reduced speed, i.e., if the crossing had been at grade level instead of elevated, it would have offered no safety. Please remember this fact, because such built-in redundant safety insurance for the crossing is missing from what the City plans to do. What the City says about why the raised crossing is being removed. Once learning of the City’s intent to remove the speed table crosswalk, I asked why, and was told 1. “there were geometric constraints that made it infeasible to include the speed table and bulbouts in a configuration that would drain,” 2. “the previous speed table would have needed to be reconstructed regardless to remove the old in- road lighting system,” [Note “previous” actually meant “present,” signifying that in the City’s mind the existing table had already been demoted to the past tense of history.] 3. “based on observations and speed data, the shape of the old table wasn’t very effective.” So let’s look at these three reasons. First, drainage. One would think our large talented well-paid engineering staff could solve that problem. I have observed the existing raised crossing to be free of significant drainage problems, and it has offered pedestrians a dry route across the watery street in wet weather. On the north side of Ramona one can see the conduit that carries gutter water under the bulbout. So why is providing drainage for a raised crossing, something that’s been accomplished for decades, now “infeasible?” Then there’s the “need” to reconstruct the table to remove the old lighting system. Why? The old non-functioning lights are embedded in the pavement and have been so for years, causing no harm. Why is the lights’ “removal” suddenly so essential as to be used as a reason for total removal of the safe pedestrian crossing? Ah, remember this question as you read on, for removal and replacement of the speed table is exactly what we were told we’d be getting. Finally, there’s the assertion “the old table wasn’t very effective.” This is not explained, but flies in the face of the simple fact the “old table” has been highly effective at performing its singular purpose, i.e., to slow traffic to a safe speed at the point of the pedestrian crossing. How does the City plan to make this crossing “safe” without a raised speed table beneath it? Here’s what I’ve been told are the four components planned to make a “safe” crossing: 1. A speed table on Ramona west of Palomar. (This location is a long block distant, and uphill, from the crossing.) 2. A “chicane” at the crossing. 3. A mid-block pavement-level crosswalk painted on the street. 4. Existing blinking lights. So, let’s look at these one by one. The speed table on Ramona west of Palomar is great for slowing traffic a block away from the pedestrian crossing, but offers zero safety at the distant crosswalk. From that speed table traffic headed east towards the pedestrian crossing is going downhill and will gain considerable speed. At the crossing there will no longer be any automatic structural speed control such as the raised crosswalk offers. For westbound Ramona traffic, from Broad, there will be no structural speed reduction at all. Clearly removal of the raised pedestrian crossing means speeds at the on-grade crossing will increase. The “natural” speed without the speed table on this section was 35 mph or higher, and that’s one reason why the speed table was installed in the first place. With north-side parking removed for a seldom-used bike lane (i.e., visually vacant street space), the street will lose the visual friction of parked cars which narrows the apparent width of the street; thus we can expect speeds to increase just because of that. The City could compensate by having speed bumps a hundred feet or so on either side of the crosswalk, but why bother when a raised crosswalk would be even better for reducing speed at the crucial point – the point of crossing? What the City refers to as a “chicane” is in this case little more than a gentle southerly deflection of the center line between east and west bound vehicle lanes. The deflection is so slight as to make any assertion this will slow traffic at the crossing highly questionable. Furthermore, this “chicane” creates new safety issues that do not currently exist – see below. A question, apparently unexamined by the City, is whether this location is even appropriate for a chicane. The literature I find suggests chicanes are most appropriate on low volume, low speed residential streets, not on well-trafficked commercial stretches carrying 18-wheelers and transit buses like this block of Ramona. As for a mid-block at-grade crosswalk painted on the street, the safety problems of this approach are notorious; some literature even suggests unmarked crossings are safer. The flashing lights may or may not function, and when they don’t, this crossing without built-in speed control will be positively dangerous for seniors and the disabled. Examination of what the City’s giving us at this crossing. So, to sum up, instead of keeping a proven-safe raised pedestrian crossing with bulbouts on both ends that’s stood the test of time, we are now going to get an inferior grade-level crossing with flashing white lights that may function. Note, the flashing lights are a holdover from the existing crossing, not an addition. Here are some additional safety concerns with the City’s plan: 1. Depressed sidewalk on south side of Ramona. The City has come up with an idiosyncratic scheme which depresses the entire sidewalk to gutter level (which is below street pavement level), forcing all pedestrians – whether continuing on Ramona or crossing to the shopping center – to step down into and through this concrete ditch. This scheme is how one gets to a street-level crosswalk absent sidewalk-level bulbouts and a raised crossing. 2. Drainage. “Unable,” it claims, to solve drainage with bulbouts, the City has come up with this drainage solution: get rid of the south-side bulbout, run drainage down the south-side gutter and into the depressed sidewalk’s concrete ditch where all pedestrians are forced to walk. In other words, to deliberately flood the sidewalk with filthy debris-and-oil-laden gutter water. So, not only will all pedestrians get wet feet, likely covered with muck, the city is creating a long-lasting wet, slick, dangerous mess ripe for causing injury, especially to senior residents of the Village. This is not at all hypothetical: our little 0.2 inch rainfall of June 6 was sufficient to prove this flooding is a problem. The morning after our early June 0.2” rainfall, the brand new concrete ditch clearly had flooded from that tiny amount of rain, and debris had accumulated in the ditch. What will it be like come winter? When it’s rainy, pedestrians will get wet feet and be subject to slip and falls. But that’s only part of the problem. The concrete ditch sidewalk will fill with debris and mud, which will remain an issue all year long, giving us slippery conditions when wet and skid-and-fall conditions all year long. How is doing this to pedestrians a way to provide the City’s claimed Anholm project goal of a safe “low stress” pedestrian experience? And how does it pass any ADA test? This City corner ramp is a mild version of what the concrete ditch on Ramona at the Village will be like come winter. How can the City claim such a muddy mess, through which all pedestrians must trudge, is safe or ADA-compliant? Yet the city has just built 6 “ADA crossings” to this poor design, the one on Ramona and 5 more on Broad, and all 6 flooded in the 0.2” June rainfall, and most are already full of wind-blown debris. This is thoughtless design. The longstanding sidewalk-to- bulbout-to-raised-crossing at the Village totally avoids this problem. 3. Chicane. Why the City contends this chicane at a crosswalk is safe is something the City has refused to discuss openly. I’d note, however, that among all the mid-block crossing safety measures mentioned by experts like those at the Federal Highway Administration, a chicane at a crosswalk is not one of them. It seems to me a chicane, by its nature, distracts a driver’s attention to other things, like steering the vehicle, at the very moment we want that attention focused on pedestrians at a pedestrian crossing. This chicane strikes me as a most dangerous thing for this location. Here’s how it works. Eastbound Ramona traffic is diverted all the way to the sidewalk curb, with the alignment of the curved diversion pointed right at the place on the sidewalk where seniors, the disabled, and other pedestrians will wait to cross the street. I’ll say that again: vehicles are pointed right at people. I see no way that is safe. Further, for a considerable distance vehicles will be right next to the sidewalk. Vehicles on this block range from e-bikes to 18-wheelers. The City says the point of the Anholm project is to provide a pleasant low stress pedestrian experience. That goal doesn’t fit with having large moving vehicles inches from pedestrians. It would seem those who advocate such an unsafe arrangement are unaware of what life in an aging or disabled body is like. Here’s my nightmare vision of what this revamped crossing leads to. An elderly woman, who’s balance isn’t what it used to be and whose walking is shaky, approaches the crossing, steps into the concrete ditch full of wet gunk, slips and falls forward, directly into the traffic lane, since that lane is immediately next to the sidewalk, just as a vehicle that has no intention of stopping approaches. This is not far-fetched. It’s exactly what the City is setting up with its changes to this crossing. In saying this chicane is a “proven traffic calming” device, the City overlooks that parked cars – which the chicane will remove -- are a really good traffic calming device with the additional merit of shielding sidewalk people from the dangers of proximate moving vehicles. I think this chicane is highly dangerous for both sidewalk-using and street-crossing pedestrians. This chicane is not going to significantly lower speed, and it may perversely increase it as it presents to some drivers a speed challenge. Relatively high speed traffic inches from pedestrians isn’t safe. I’ve posed questions about this to the City searching for some reassurance these matters have been considered: for example, “What evidence is there that the chicane, which redirects the flow of traffic all the way to the sidewalk edge on the south side of Ramona, with that traffic pointed directly at pedestrians waiting to cross (or just passing by), be safe for pedestrians?” and “Why would the chicane, given the description above, be as safe as bulbouts with protective parking on both sides?” The City’s answer (to both those questions): “A chicane is a proven safety countermeasure.” Which isn’t an answer. It’s a dismissal of valid safety concerns. A brush-off. 4. What we’re losing. To repeat again: we have had bulbouts at both sides of the street connecting to a raised speed-table crossing for decades. The bulbouts allow pedestrians to approach the crossing while remaining protected from traffic by parked cars, and shorten the crossing distance (i.e., exposure to being struck) by more than one-third. The crossing is at sidewalk level, meaning there is no stepping down and up to cross, which makes crossing safer for balance-challenged and foot-clumsy seniors, and no need to get wet feet from having to walk in gutter water. The raised crossing improves driver awareness of a pedestrian’s presence, which improves safety. The crosswalk itself is a speed bump that assures vehicles slow when approaching it, which improves crossing safety and reduces the likelihood of pedestrians being struck. This crossing is inherently safe because of its physical configuration. All of this is being taken away. That’s what we’re losing. What we’re being given in return is inferior safety-wise, and inferior ADA-wise. My question is: Why is the City adamantly doing this to its vulnerable senior and disabled residents? Don’t we merit the best safety crossing possible? Death by Crosswalk In collisions between vehicles and pedestrians, the pedestrian is the loser. Serious injury or outright death are the result. And, because of increasingly poor driving habits plus the death-machine front designs that have become popular for trucks and SUVs, pedestrian deaths due to vehicle strikes are on the increase. In fact, they are on a huge increase. Since 2009, USA pedestrian death by vehicle has risen 80% and accounts for nearly one fifth of all vehicle-related deaths. And the increase continues, up an astounding 18% just from early 2019 to 2022. A principal determinant of injury and death to pedestrians in crosswalks is vehicle speed at the crosswalk. As speed increases, so does the likelihood of serious outcomes – and even small increases in speed produce large increases in death and serious injury. This a subject of frequent journalistic comment. For example, the Los Angeles Times recently stated “A pedestrian hit by a vehicle traveling around 20 mph has a 90% chance of survival; at 40 mph, 50%, and at speeds above 50 mph, the survival rate is 25%.” Variants on that accounting abound. The Times went on to say these are “old” numbers (2011) predating heavier electric vehicles and “the proliferation of SUVs and pickups that are taller, heavier and more deadly to pedestrians,” suggesting current numbers might be even worse as vehicle design has become a mechanism for producing more deaths at lower speeds. A study by the AAA has more nuance. It found “the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches • 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, • 25% at 23 mph, • 50% at 31 mph, • 75% at 39 mph, and • 90% at 46 mph.” [bullet points added] The AAA then looked at death rates and concluded “The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches • 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, • 25% at 32 mph, • 50% at 42 mph, • 75% at 50 mph, and • 90% at 58 mph.” Note the AAA’s use of the word “average” in those risks. The numbers are “average” because they do not account for differences in outcomes by age. And that’s an issue at this crossing. “Risks vary significantly by age,” AAA states. “For example, the average risk of severe injury or death for a 70-year old pedestrian struck by a car traveling at 25 mph is similar to the risk for a 30-year- old pedestrian struck at 35 mph.” Go back and read again that last sentence about the much greater harm done to 70 year olds than to younger people by being struck at comparable speeds, and let it soak in. And for whom was the Village crosswalk created? For 70+ year olds. One must also point out the above numbers refer to immediate outcomes, which for oldsters is only a small part of the picture. Old people are fragile, and like fine China must be handled with care lest they crack and break. Once they break, they often can’t mend. Many an oldster has “survived” an injury only to see it start a downward cascading spiral that leads to the grave after some period of time. “Survivors” thus may have lives ruined and cut short and not be counted as what they should be, accident fatalities. Until you’ve experienced this with loved ones, as I have, you might just not get it. The Merits of Speed Table Crosswalks Standing on Ramona just west of Palomar and looking towards the Village crossing, one can watch vehicles go downhill towards it and see brake lights come on, and the vehicles slowly float over the speed table at a low speed necessitated by the “speed bump” configuration of the crossing. This device to slow cars at the crossing is “always on,” never subject to mechanical or electrical failure. It is self-enforcing hardwired safety. Indeed, that’s the whole point of raised crosswalks and why experts regard them as the safest form of crosswalk, especially for mid-block crosswalks, which are generally among the most dangerous. Pedestrian safety is greatly improved and is the primary bottom line why a raised crosswalk is the best crossing for this mid-block location. So let’s talk briefly about why raised crosswalks are superior crosswalks, especially for the Village crossing’s location. This discussion must begin with a physical description of a raised crosswalk’s unique features. • A raised crosswalk is a speed table that meets the adjacent curbs, and has a full-width crosswalk contained within the flat portion of the table, often 10- to 15-feet wide. It combines the vehicle- slowing benefits of a speed bump/hump/table with better pedestrian accessibility and enhanced visibility of pedestrians using the crossing. • A raised crosswalk extends the sidewalk across the road and brings motor vehicles up to pedestrian level, rather than the opposite vehicle/pedestrian relationship of an at-grade crosswalk. In other words, it physically preferences pedestrians, giving them visible priority over motor vehicles. An at- grade crossing, on the other hand, disadvantages pedestrians, placing them as small subsidiary foreign objects in a field that belongs to vehicles. • A raised crosswalk allows pedestrians to cross at grade with the sidewalk, without having to step down and up, and without having to negotiate curb cuts, which because of design, weather, debris collection, or poor maintenance may be hazardous to the pedestrian. This feature of a raised crosswalk enhances access for people with ambulatory disabilities by providing them a level crossing. It improves disability accessibility by allowing a pedestrian to cross at a nearly constant grade without the need to negotiate curb cuts. Because of these features pedestrian safety is greatly improved and is the primary bottom line why a raised crosswalk is the best crossing for this location. Here are some safety benefits of raised crosswalks. • Vehicular strikes are vastly reduced: “Raised crosswalks can reduce pedestrian crashes by 45%.” (Federal Highway Administration) • A raised crosswalk, by its visual preferencing of pedestrians, makes a pedestrian more prominent in the driver’s field of vision; thus it improves the visibility of pedestrians to drivers and reduces the likelihood of a pedestrian’s being struck. • The speed table component of a raised crosswalk compels drivers to slow to speeds no higher than the street’s design speed. Thus it has traffic calming impacts beyond its immediate benefits to pedestrians. • Raised crossings provide many additional safety benefits for pedestrians with physical mobility and visibility limitations, benefits that an at-grade crossing lacks. Pedestrians do not have to navigate vertical transitions on raised crossings, and raised crossings are less likely than at-grade crossings to collect water or debris within the crossing area. They also do not have the gutter-level low spots we find at the start and end of a crosswalk, and that reduces the amount of accumulated water/mud/debris that pedestrians have to walk through or around. • For all these safety reasons raised crosswalks are particularly appropriate for crossings frequented by children, seniors and the disabled. The benefits of raised crosswalks are tangible and proven – indeed, we have decades worth of proof at the crossing in discussion – while the alleged benefits of the City’s preferred replacement are nebulous to non-existent, and will clearly make a less safe, less ADA-accommodating, less pleasant crossing for all users, but particularly for the young, aged and disabled. The Bench Part of the disability accommodation at the Village crossing has been a sitting bench where the weary, sore or out of breath can pause mid-way on their journey to replenish what they need to continue. Like the crossing itself, the bench was a donation from someone who cared and understood its need. The heavily-used bench sat at the south edge of the sidewalk but created no foot traffic obstacle since with the bulbout the continuous sidewalk surface at that point was about 12 feet wide. It was in the shade, so it was cool and restful even on sunny warm days. It was shielded from vehicular traffic by a row of parked cars that continued right to the crossing, and by the fact moving vehicles were a minimum 10 feet away. It was, in other words, pleasant and safe and provided ADA accommodation for its users. Its long-standing location, however, is now in the concrete ditch that has replaced the sidewalk. So the City says it will place the bench a few feet eastward at a new location on the sidewalk. There are many problems with this move, including these: • The new location is in the hot sun most of the day. • Instead of being shielded and protected from traffic, sitters will be immediately adjacent to it because the City proposes to push that traffic to the curb. The toes of sitters will be within 2 to 3 feet of the wheels of 18-wheelers and transit buses. This is unsafe, unpleasant, and certainly inconsistent with the low stress pedestrian experience the City insists it’s providing. • The sidewalk is 6 feet wide, so it’s too narrow for the bench, the users’ legs and feet, plus the minimum 36” clear passage required by all ADA accommodation guidelines (ADAAG, SAD, etc.). Add a walker to that – a walker must be in front of an autonomous user to aid in sitting and standing – and the sidewalk’s width is filled. So what are other users, even other disabled users, to do to get past this obstacle? Step into the street? That’s a non-starter since it means stepping directly into vehicle traffic. The City has thus taken an existing beautiful and kind disability accommodation that works and degraded it into a dysfunctional unsafe mess that violates ADA accommodation standards. The bench needs proper and good placement to maximize safety, comfort and utility. And to do that requires redesign. How Did the City Communicate These Village Crossing Changes? The City’s two-way communication with affected residents has been non-existent to substandard throughout the Anholm process. Thus, there has never been, so far as I am able to ascertain, public discussion indicating the City planned to remove the raised Village crossing. It has certainly not come up in public hearings before Planning Commission and City Council. Nor do I recall seeing it called out in staff reports. So, knowing the public at large had not received this information, I was curious whether the most immediately and deeply affected public, i.e., The Village, was consulted. So I asked: “What consultation with the Village was there regarding changes to this crossing.” The City’s response: “This configuration was included in the plans presented and approved by the Active Transportation Committee and the City Council during regular public meetings that were advertised as well as mailers sent directly to properties within the project area notifying and inviting them to said public meetings. The project plans were also available to view on the City’s website.” I guess that means the truthful response to my question is “None.” The veracity of the City response’s allegations about how to know the raised crossing was to be eliminated are addressed in part above, and will be further explored below. Should the Public Have Understood the Speed Table’s Elimination from Documents Included in Agenda Reports? It is unreasonable for the City to maintain that it has no affirmative responsibility to communicate its intent for changes to those affected by the changes, and that all responsibility for understanding such changes lies with the citizen who must over a multi-year period attend every meeting and read every document on the City’s website. I think we can cut through such persiflage and get right to the point in an otherwise pointless debate. The bid documents presented to the City Council for approval and bid-letting would be the final best place to determine if elimination of the raised crossing was indeed revealed clearly in an upright way. For a lay person, just looking through the huge plan document packet would be daunting. But the City claims that’s our obligation and that all was revealed there, so let’s take a look. In the plan drawing packet, the key page is C-3.6, which shows Ramona from the Mormon cut- through to Broad. Does C-3.6 clearly state the raised crossing is to go away? No, it does not. There is absolutely no indication here that the speed table is not to remain. That’s especially relevant since C-3.6 contains many callouts indicating things to go away, like “Remove existing in-road flasher cannisters and pole,” “Remove no stopping anytime and begin sign from existing punch post,” “Remove existing share the road sign . . .,” etc. But not a word about removing the speed table pedestrian crossing. While nothing indicates removal, there is on page C-3.6 wording indicating the raised crossing is to remain. A note on that page says: “Remove and reinstall speed table per city std. 7325.” “Speed table” is how the City refers to our raised crossing. Remove and Reinstall, or R and R, would not arouse angst among the citizenry, for it’s standard City practice to R and R things like this; for example, I’ve lost count of how many times the speed humps on my block of Broad have been R and R’ed. “Reinstall” is the key word: it means the speed table isn’t going away, it’s being renewed. “Remove and reinstall speed table per city std. 7325,” on the page where the only speed table within the project area is shown, is definitive in what the City communicated to us. The message is “the speed table will remain.” There is an odd note on C-3.6 saying to “See sheet C-4.5 for Ramona driveway.” “Ramona driveway?” What’s that? Turns out C-4.5 is an enlarged drawing of the pedestrian crossing, and again there is no indication here that the raised crossing is being eliminated. There is a note to “Sawcut and remove existing asphalt pavement” on both sides of the crosswalk, but that’s consistent with R and R, and there’s no mention at all of the speed table, let alone any indication of its permanent removal. Moreover, the instruction “Remove and reinstall speed table per city std. 7325” appears on this page. Given these facts, 1, the total lack of any statement indicating permanent removal of the raised crossing on the Ramona plan document together with 2, the definitive instruction to R and R the speed table, I believe leaves the City without a case that it was open and above board in communicating its intent to permanently remove the raised crossing. In fact, quite the opposite: we were told it would remain. Did the City Council Approve Removal of the Raised Crossing? The Council approved bid drawings C-3.6 and C-4.5, which are the plan drawings for this block of Ramona. Neither indicates any intent to permanently remove the raised speed table pedestrian crossing, and both contain the affirmative retention language “Remove and reinstall speed table per city std. 7325.” Given that, the Council’s action is clear: the speed table was to remain. Conclusion and Request In the above paragraphs I have laid out the case that we have had a strong safety regime at this crossing which also provides a robust set of ADA accommodations. And that what the City is doing degrades safety, amenity and ADA accommodations. Further that the City is creating dangerous conditions de novo where previously those conditions did not exist. In short, that what the City is doing is unkind, disrespectful to the elderly, frail and disabled, arguably even an abridgement of their civil rights under the ADA, and plain wrong-headed. Further, when we add in the fact there was no way even a studious follower of the Anholm developments like myself could have known the speed table was to be permanently removed, and that the City Council approved plan drawings which said the crossing would be R and R’ed, not removed, I think what I’m asking for is not only merited, but requires speedy assent. So, here goes. I’m asking that 1, the speed table crossing be rebuilt ASAP to provide sidewalk-level traverse for pedestrians with no curb cuts, no step up and down, and no mudholes, gutter flow or puddles pedestrians must walk through; 2, that a relaxing, comfortable and legal ADA solution be found for the bench; and 3, that traffic be pulled away from immediately against the southerly curb.1 How to do this? Change order. It’s a simple, quick process Council has authorized. Since the Council approved plan documents which state the speed table is to be rebuilt, not removed, a change order is an appropriate way to bring work into conformity with what the Council approved, and an excellent way to avoid a public to-do over this City betrayal of the old, infirm and disabled. I ask that you get back to me within two weeks (by July 7) with a “yea” or “nay” response. Why ask for a time limitation? Because I fear that without one this will drag on without any definitive response. Thank you. Richard Schmidt 1 There’s plenty of right of way width to accommodate these requests. I’d note that the proposed vehicular lanes are 4.2 feet wider at the crossing than elsewhere on the block; that the 8 foot bike lane could reasonably be reduced to 6 feet at the crossing; and that the city could “wiggle” sidewalks as it does at domestic driveways to get a bit more width. The City just needs to try harder to solve this design problem.