At 03:00 PM 2/20/2007, John Coleman wrote:
For a couple of years there has been on-again off-again discussion of putting in table tops in the Isthmus Path cross streets to slow traffic and to give cyclists a smoother crossing of the streets. Unfortunately now that there is a rebuild of Livingston St. the city staff are not proposing to do so. Please contact the regulars at the city to get them to do the right thing here. The email discussion below would suggest that if city staff were really taking cycling seriously they could incorporate a table top [speed table] in Livingston St.
I attended the BPW meeting and spoke last night. Here's a summary of what took place relevant to Livingston St: there will not be a speed table at that location, but significant (other) improvements were suggested by city staff, so please read through before reacting/responding.
Before the item came up on the agenda, I met with Judy Olson (alder for the district), Larry Nelson (City Engineer) and Jim Wolfe (and engineer in City Engineering who drew the current plans). Larry and Jim explained, using drawings that I'm not even going to attempt to describe in writing) the technical challenges that the existing grade (and proximity to the RR tracks) present to creating the speed table that John Coleman, Mike Rewey, I and others have suggested there. Unfortunately, I am convinced that the existing grades make a speed table at that location nearly infeasible without significantly more reconstruction of the street (actually, existing curb/gutter/sidewalks further south) than is planned or budgeted for. However, Larry graciously offered to continue working with me and other advocates to try to find a solution that meets the objectives of eliminating/mitigating the jarring crossing of Livingston St along the Bike path, and also further traffic calming the motor vehicle (and bike) traffic along Livingston St near the Bike path. Kudos to Larry for agreeing to continue looking for solutions to our objectives, and to Judy for facilitating the discussion.
Livingston St came up on the agenda, Rob Phillips, with Christy Bachmann's help, did an excellent job of explaining the situation, the objectives, and the challenges, and passed out comments emailed by John Coleman, who could not attend the public hearing. I spoke in favor of the item before BPW, with the understanding that city staff would continue to work with path and street users to find solutions. Judy made a similar comment (though I won't try to quote her - I'll leave that to the minutes). The BPW voted to go forward with the proposal with a recommendation to city staff to continue to work with path users to find solutions to our objectives (I don't actually remember whether the vote was to refer it to Council, some other body, or approve it, but that was the gist).
After the meeting, I spoke with Rob, who took a suggestion Larry Nelson had made before the discussion, and elaborated on it with some other ideas that I think will make some very positive changes to the Livingston St crossing. They include making the approaches of the path to Livingston St longer (so that the grade from path to street can be shallower), bringing the elevation of the sidewalks down to meet the (now lower) elevation of the path at the intersection of the path and the sidewalks, flattening out the gutter pans (or something to that effect), and, the change that I think will make the most difference, pouring concrete all the way across the street in line with the path, so that path itself is (as I understand it) concrete from sidewalk to sidewalk, or at least from curb to curb. This (especially the last bit) will create not only a smoother surface to ride on, but a visual representation to drivers on Livingston that there is a path there, and that it intersects the street.
Kudos to Rob, Christy, Jim and the rest of city engineering staff for coming up with some really good ideas that will, I believe, greatly improve conditions on the ground, both by smoothing out the path and slowing down traffic (both car and bike traffic) on Livingston St. And I'm looking forward to working with city staff on the possibility of creating speed tables at other low volume street crossings of the path through the East Rail corridor.
The Livingston St project is scheduled to start May 29, and I'm looking forward to seeing the suggested improvements take shape.
Chuck Strawser Interim Administrative Director Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.bfw.org _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
