Stop, Drop and Roll

15 August 2008 | Alameda Community Development Forum, Tranpsortation | John Knox White

Last week, I mentioned the Fernside Traffic Calming meeting. In the end, the Two Way Left Turn Lanes (TWLTL) were rejected by staff and the community, which is a good thing for the streets that sit between High and Fernside.

The community opted for a plan that in the end will result in very little benefit in achieving the initial goals of the plan. Wider bike lanes.

In the beginning there were two roads. And it was good. Over time, automobiles began to inhabit the space, travelling at higher speeds that than the community they run through would like. Some residents of Fernside asked Public Works via petition, to look at redcuing both the amount of traffic on Fernside and the vehicle speeds.

Currently High St. and Fernside Blvd both carry over 12,000 cars a day. So there is no place to move cars off of Fernside and onto High Street. Staff came to the second ad third community meetings explaning that as “Major” streets, the designation our General Plan gives Arterials, both Fernside and High are expected to carry through traffic, and therefore reducing traffic volumes by shifting traffic is not a goal the city can pursue.

Speed however, is. There were discussions about lane widths, bulbouts, speed signs, medians, round abouts, etc. Ok, the discussion didn’t really talk about roundabouts too much, other than staff saying that because they would have to make them ig enough to accommodate the high speeds and trucks that aren’t suppose to be on Fernside, they might have to eat into the Public ROW of the corners.

Bulbouts take up parking and if they are planted, the neighborhood would have to take care of them, which Public Works doen’t trust will happen and so they are only willing to proposed a Maintenance Assessment district for a street that wants plantings. Somehow, City’s like Seattle and others manage to have neighborhoods and blocks just agree to take care of plantings (If they want them, they have to ask), but in Alameda, it’s all going to fall apart and become a mess.

Anyway, the residents at this meeting (I’m going to guess about 30-35, ½ from Fernside and ½ from the side streets) didn’t want to take on planting, and really wanted to spend as little public money on the project (which miraculously lined up with many of the Fernside residents who were in attendance and didn’t want to consider the loss of parking in front of their homes. Something that is their call to make, I’m just saying that the ‘saving public money” thing seemed to stem from a deeper concern, “loss of parking in front of my house”). So the bulbouts we’re thrown over the side, and in this case, I think the design warranted the tossing. The bulbouts as designed would not really have created the effect that they were intended to have.

So in the end, the majority recommended a plan which widens the bike lanes from 6-8 feet, widens the parking lanes from 8-9 feet and reduces the traffic lane from 16-13 feet.

Oh, and a couple of speed signs. AND all the work will be done as a part of an upcoming (possibly Summer 2009) road resurfacing project, which means there is very little incidental cost (they have to retripe anyway).

So here’s the thing. These lanes on Fernside will be wider than CalTrans standards for freeway lanes. Which is one of the big factors in how fast people travel. Which means that in the end, nothings going to change on Fernside.

What should have happened? Anyone’s guess, but I would have looked into 8 foot parking lanes, 7 foot bike lanes, a striped 5 foot buffer and 10 foot travel lanes. And I would have explored bulbouts that brought the bike lanes out to the roadlane at intersections so that the bulbouts actually narrowed the field of vision. But that’s me. It isn’t my street. I kept my mouth shut most of the meeting, and stayed out of the voting, once the TWLTL’s were off the table.