John, I haven't posted in a long time since I moved to W. St. Paul and soon will be moving to Inver Grove Hts. but I still keep very close contact to my old neighborhood. Your entire post is based upon your perception of reality and not the actual facts around the issue.
>>It appears that despite the neighborhoods dissatisfaction they are >>gonna cram the busway down our throats come hook or by crook. >>Divide and then Conquer seems to be the method that they have chosen >>to do in order to get this thing through. First you divide up the >>road, show that you can fit a middle lane without reducing parking >>and still allow a single lane of traffic to flow. Then you Conquer >>by saying LOOK IT WORKS!!! This couldn't be further from the truth. I was there when the conversations began. As many of you may remember, I owned a coffee shop in Dave Thune's building on W 7th St. until this past spring. This past January (after a post on this list) from Erik Hare about what he noticed happening on W 7th St. during a major snowstorm, I had conversations with both Mr. Thune and Betty Moran at the W 7th Federation. Essentially what Erik pointed out to us was that during a snowstorm, traffic on W7th defaults to its "natural" flow. He noted that traffic was made up of a 2 lane type street with a center lane mostly devoted to turning. Having been watching the traffic that day (as business was incredibly slow due to the storm) I was making the same observation. Addionally, I pointed out to Dave and Betty that one of the critical reasons for Steve and I deciding to close our shop was that traffic patterns made it amost impossible for someone to park on the opposite side of the street (downtown bound lane) in the mornings and find the safety to walk accross the street to our shop for their morning coffee. I recently traveled down the street again and noticed the DRAMATIC change in traffic that will encourage neighborhood appropriate traffic patterns to emerge and promote small business develpement from Jefferson to 35E. As another ward 2 resident put it, now your drive through a NEIGHBORHOOD, instead of DRIVING THROUGH a neighborhood. The formal request for this re-striping effort came directly from the West 7th Federation as a pilot program. There was absolutely no connection between this project and the (hopefully) dead bus-way project. Improvements like this in the neighborhood just might return me to the area that I so loved, but I have to admit, living in the *gasp* suburbs has spoiled me with convenience of being close to small businesses and chain retailors close to my home. Within blocks, I can stop at Best Buy, an independant coffee shop, a Hallmark Store, Chipolte, barber shop and BlockBuster - at almost any hour that my new busy schedule requires. I'm hoping to see the RiverBluff project, other housing projects and business developments continue to expand on the attractiveness of the W 7th neighborhood. But until that happens, I'm in the burbs. Paul Skrbec W. St. Paul (soon to be Inver Grove Hts - used to be W 7th) _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
