Council votes on roundabout TONIGHT

Regardless of being pro- or anti- roundabout, I think it is incorrect to say that there is anything close to a consensus in the community on this project.

I’ve encountered passionate people strongly for and against the roundabout, and people willing to accept alternatives as long as that alternative is not inaction. It’s okay that there isn’t consensus; that’s why we have a representative government in which to debate these topics.

City Council should have a real debate on this issue.

And it doesn’t help that the Councilman is out there saying the only people that are educated on this issue are against it. That is total BS. He’s just trying to hoodwink the other council people into voting no.

This got sent out from Council.

“Due to erroneous information that the Dept. of Public Works gave to Council’s Land Use Committee, the Ordinance concerning the Roundabout was continued by the Committee and will NOT be heard this evening during the council meeting.”

Perhaps Richard could provide a copy of the alleged release unless he is trying to get people to NOT show up. Talk about one-sided.

Phil…..I copy and pasted exactly what I got in my email. So don’t even try to start something with me.

From what I’ve seen around there lately, Northside folks can’t even handle 4-way stop. A roundabout will absolutely blow their minds.

I received the same notice that Richard did on the Bellevue Yahoo group, from a liason to the city council. I don’t know the whether it was misinformation or not, but that is the email that was sent.

I am pretty disappointed that Chris Hilbert talked the talk about trying to help the roundabout succeed (part of why my husband and I voted for him), and as far as I can tell he’s done nothing but try to stop it.

My impression from the election talk was that Chris Hilbert at least had an open mind about the roundabout, that he hadn’t made any decision, he was waiting for more information. I may have been mistaken in my impression.

My biggest fear is that if the roundabout plan does not move forward, the default will be to leave the intersection as-is. I’d be much happier if I could see a concrete counterproposal. That intersection is dangerous, especially for all the pedestrians and strollers crossing from Hill Monument.

James, I mispoke — “help” is too strong a word. I suppose he gave the impression that he was willing to look for a solution and wasn’t just going to step on it and keep continuing his motion to stop it.

I would like to hear from the “vast majority” of informed people who feel this roundabout is a bad idea. I can’t say that I’m 100% convinced the roundabout is the best thing, but I haven’t seen any better solutions and, like others have said, it’s better than the current situation.

Kat, I too would like to know the reasoning behind the opposition. I have emailed Councilman Hilbert for some answers on that. While I do not know their reasons, I am guessing that many people opposed to this are making the perfect the enemy of the good here. Sure, there may be a slightly better design or some additional measures that could slow traffic even more, but at what cost? VDOT will pay for this and it will significantly improve the safety of the intersection. Other measures could be installed later to reduce traffic or speeds on Laburnum, which is what I think most people are concerned about. Seems like were making a big mistake if we completely turn this down.

GOOD EVENING, PLEASE POST – PLEASE SHARE WITH RESIDENTS THAT DO NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS:

From: Hilbert, Chris A. – Council Member
Sent: Tue 6/23/2009 6:51 PM
To: Townes, Lisa F. – City Council Liaison
Cc:
Subject: ROUNDABOUT-Please post to the community web groups

Third District residents and fellow Northsiders,

Passions are indeed running extremely high on this roundabout issue. But I would ask that we step back a moment and see how we arrived at this point. Ask yourself, why would I take on an issue which quite frankly, I could have taken a pass. The Planning Commission had approved the roundabout. It is interesting to note that the lone no vote was cast by the Planning Commission member who lived closest to this intersection (a 3rd district resident) ! The Planning Commission had the final say unless council intervened. I took the extraordinary move of introducing an ordinance to prohibit this roundabout, because, I have this crazy notion that the residents of our district who had legitimate questions deserved answers from the government to which they pay their hard-earned tax dollar. I could have taken the easy route, but I stood up and demanded answers. The answers, as you will see below, were unsatisfactory. Others have said that we should give this roundabout a chance, we can always undo it. I think we can do better: why not get it right the first time ?

Some folks are complaining about the $70,000 already spent which may not be reimbursed by the state. Is their argument that we should spend $300,000 of the states’ money on a flawed plan to save the city $70,000 ?. I think that we are all state taxpayers as well, aren’t we ? The number was $50,000 last year. The Acting CAO asked me why city personnel would continue to spend money on a project that was pending before council. I think that is an excellent question !

Please allow me to state the issues that I have with the proposed roundabout:

1) All examples of roundabouts presented to the community had significant traffic calming before the intersections. My requests to have this issue addressed were rebuffed, with statements that VDOT would not allow such measures. Then when DPW personnel got in front of the Land Use committee of council, they changed their story. Subsequently they changed it back. Avon, CO, cited in the community presentations, instituted traffic calming measures such as blinking lights and raised sidewalks, features that our traffic engineering department say VDOT will not approve. Further, bicyclists in Avon are advised for their own safety to use the sidewalk when coming through the intersection. Finally, the speed limit at the Avon, CO roundabouts is 15 MPH. Our intersection has a 35 MPH speed limit.

2) The complete lack of an education plan. There is essentially NO plan to educate the public on how to navigate a roundabout. After a dual lane roundabout was installed in Avon, IN, (different from the Colorado city cited above) the traffic accidents were up to 4 a month ! To give some perspective, the Hermitage/Laburnum intersection has 19 accidents per year. Admittedly, these accidents were not serious injury causing accidents, but I think you get my point. Avon, IN has experienced so many accidents/violations at their two lane roundabout that it has started imposing fines of $170 ! Education of the public should not be an afterthought.

3) All studies cited about this roundabout design were based either: a)
designs from Australia b) 9 years old or c) located in Avon, CO. There were NO official traffic studies done on this intersection and the roundabout was the only alternative considered.

4) According to their own estimates, DPW admits that the people in the 1600 block of Laburnum Ave. will have approximately 10 seconds to back out of their driveway during rush hour due to the removal of traffic lights. These houses do not have alleys. I suppose that they could park on the street but given the 10 second window, are they to get into their vehicle via the passenger side ? I don’t accept this as adequate and suspect that no one who faced a similar situation would think it satisfactory.

5) Roundabouts work best when the traffic flow is somewhat even and the Laburnum/Hermitage flow is 55/45 respectively, was the information given at the public presentations. However when given the actual traffic count, I found it was actually 67 to 33 (or 2 to 1–no where near even).

6) No answers were forthcoming regarding the possibility of large trucks to remain in their lane and possibly “crowding out” other vehicles inside the roundabout.

7) Numerous times the Dept of Public Works wrote or said that the city would lose this grant from the state if it weren’t used within a certain time frame. They have now admitted to Acting CAO Chris Beschler that this was untrue.

8) While I would love to leave traffic matters to the “experts,” as you can see from the above, it is difficult to rely upon the information that was given to the community when a little research has shown their information to be, at best, misleading.

Mr. Beschler has offered to host a meeting with VDOT and city personnel to explore alternatives to a roundabout. Mr. Beschler is someone who is very objective. His willingness to seek alternatives to the proposed roundabout would seem to add credibility to my concerns.

Believe me, no one wants this to be resolved more than me. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you and what we should expect from our government. I think that we got less than we deserved: a thorough analysis of how we could make this intersection safer at a reasonable cost.

Chris Hilbert