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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-22-21 Public Comment- R. Kerin - SID 762 S. 6th AveFrom: Kellen Gamradt To: Richard Kerin; Katherine Maines Cc: prugh.lisa@gmail.com Subject: RE: 6th Avenue SID - City of Bozeman Date: Friday, January 22, 2021 11:28:50 AM Hi Rick, I’ve discussed your proposal for adding curb bulbs at the intersection of 6th and College with our transportation engineer. We agree with you that bulbs would create a benefit to pedestrians at this intersection; however, we feel that this would be an excessive amount of traffic calming for this project. Adding traffic calming is a great way to slow down traffic, but we need to weigh this benefit with the burden it places on our streets department. Placing obstacles in the street makes it harder for our crews perform routine maintenance and it also makes chip seal and mill overlay work more expensive. Our current plan includes a traffic circle at Koch and 6th and a traffic circle at Alderson and 6th , and a concrete median to barricade northbound traffic at Cleveland. I would also like to add a circle at Harrison and 6th ; however, I need to get our City Engineer’s blessing before finalizing this addition. I’ll take a close look at our specs to see what we can do to help mitigate damage from compaction. Thank you for your continued engagement. I’m excited to get the design completed and the project approved. City of Bozeman MT Kellen Gamradt, PE| Engineer II o: 406.582.2283 c: 406.579.9643 kgamradt@bozeman.net From: Richard Kerin <rick@kerinandassociates.com> Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2021 1:45 PM To: Kellen Gamradt <KGamradt@BOZEMAN.NET>; Katherine Maines <KMaines@BOZEMAN.NET> Cc: prugh.lisa@gmail.com Subject: 6th Avenue SID - City of Bozeman Katherine, Kellen – I want to address a couple of additional thoughts I had in connection with the design of improvements for 6th . Of course, like Lisa and some others I’ve lived in this neighborhood since 1982, so just over 40-years now. One of the driving routes and maneuvers I regularly make is traveling north and south on 6th and accessing either onto or off of College Street. So, I’m either traveling south on 6th to the College Street intersection and turning left or right (mostly making a right-hand turning movement) then proceeding west-bound on College. In the evenings I reverse th course and travel east-bound on College and turn north onto 6 at this same intersection. During the winter months, before morning light and evening darkness, pedestrians are inevitably crossing often when I’m moving through this intersection. Of course I’m fully aware of pedestrians traveling east and west on the sidewalks involved, so, I’m always on the lookout for walkers, bikers, skateboarders, runners, etc. Those not so familiar with pedestrian-vehicle encounters, here, are more prone to mishaps and conflicts. That said, I support curb bulbs on 6th Avenue on either side of College Street (not on College). In my professional opinion I think this is the best facilitate pedestrian crossing on 6th Ave. at this key entrance point to the 6th Avenue street corridor. The other issue I’d like to raise involves the use of large self-propelled vibratory compaction equipment that be extensively used to vibrate and compact pipe trench backfill material and of course the street’s native subgrade material and various layers of gravel sub and base-course material (pit run and crushed gravel) and lastly, the two layers of hot-mix asphalt. So, a lot of heavy vibrating equipment with be involved during the entire street corridor reconstruction process. Along with that will be principally shaking of foundations and old building materials, like plaster-lathe walls in homes. Lots of vibration will inevitably lead to damage to vulnerable homes up and down the street. I know this side effect to re-building streets in particularly, an old neighborhood like ours isn’t new news for you. I know I’m going to watching and photographing my homes and their foundations @ 609 and 716 in advance of the work and then reviewing them after construction. To minimize the effect of property damage perhaps you can put a condition in your bid docs that address this issue by minimizing the depth of the lifts of backfill material and gravel base course material to achieve optimum densities with less vibration. Just a thought. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and courtesy to include the neighbors thoughts and input into the design. We get one shot at doing this project the right way and to calm street traffic that travels 6th . That goes for those of us that live along it. Kellen, I thought you did a terrific job of presenting the other night. Congrats!! Rick Kerin, PE 609 & 716 South 6th Avenue