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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-07-21 Public Comment - D. Kaveney - TrainsFrom:Dan Kaveney To:Terry Cunningham Cc:Agenda Subject:Re: Trains and traffic in turbulent times: N Rouse. Date:Thursday, October 7, 2021 1:55:28 PM Dear Terry, Thanks so much for writing back and for taking the time to look in to the whole thing. I think the news that below-gradecrossings are problematic heightens my concerns more than anything else. If we can’t get a good crossing at Rouse, where abridge above the highway bridge above the railroad seems unlikely at best, then there’s not much point in building crossingsat the other two intersections since Rouse carries the vast majority of the trafic affected by the trains. Further, some of theneighbors have been in touch with MDOT who says they have neither the resources nor any interest in working on theserailroad crossings. I think we can rest assured that no remediation of the railroad crossings on Rouse, Griffin, or Wallace/L isin our near or medium term future. I’ve been thinking and talking to others about this a lot since my concern was first animated by a presentation I saw by HomeBase Partners about their, frankly, execrable ideas for the parcel of land at the intersection Story Mill and Rouse (“CanyonGate”). While I hope that proposal will be nixed quickly (for many reasons that will probably be the subject of another letter) so that it can be replaced with a more thoughtful and appropriate alternative, this problem where train and auto traffic on Rouse/Griffin/Wallace jeapordize both public safety and reasonable access to the homes north of the tracks and to Bridger Canyon will remain with us as the population in the area continues to increase. This is an unusual and particularly difficult situation for two main reasons: 1) The problems are intermittant and therefore hard to measure. One could drive out to this part of town and be forgiven for thinking all the people writing to you and to the Chronicle about this problem are nuts because the road often functions very well and obviously below capacity. However, it periodically suffers from very severe traffic problems when trains cross (I’ve already included some examples in earlier correspondence) and on winter weekends and powder days the road sometimes descends into absolute gridlock that prevents anyone from getting in and/or out of the area. This situation can’t be allowed to get any worse than it is now, and I fear that it already will once the Bridger View subdivision on the SW corner of Rouse and Story Mill gets built and the new Law and Justice Center opens. How can one figure out if more building will create too much traffic if the existing approved building hasn’t been finished yet, especially given the intermittancy of the problem? I think it’s obviously impossible, and figuring this out is critical before engaging in any new building in the area. 2) IF WE GET IT WRONG IT CAN’T BE FIXED. This is what concerns me the most. Despite the city’s best efforts to figure out traffic needs before the fact, it does seem as though we often find ourselves building a new road because the old one just can’t handle the traffic any more. This means that the traffic problem came first, and was followed by a road infrastructure expansion. That scenario will not work north of the tracks on Rouse because THE PINCHPOINTS AT THE TRACKS CANNOT BE EXPANDED OR IMPROVED. Any failure in the road will therefore be permanent. We need to be extremely conservative about building out here for that reason. I don’t think any new building should be allowed until the Bridger View subdivision is completed, the Law and Justice Center is opened and a traffic study can be completed a couple years later. There is, after all, no hurry to build on what little empty land is left in the area — the city has an obligation to take the time needed to do it properly, and without behaving recklessly. Developers won’t like that, but that can’t be our main concern. The community plan, which I have read in its entirety, is very big on the ideas that we need to balance the needs of existing residents with new residents, and that doing what we can to maintain the quality of life in Bozeman is critical. Any further building out here in the near term will fail in those objectives by heavily prioritizing the desires of developers over the needs of existing residents and neighborhoods. I’m encouraging you to hold the line on this, and push the balance back toward the interests of existing residents and neighborhoods and away from those of the deveopers. We do need more housing, but we existing residents have no obligation to diminish our quality of life so this new housing can be built. In fact, the opposite is true. DEVELOPERS have an obligation to figure out a way to make money on new development WITHOUT diminishing the quality of life for the rest of us. If they can’t fulfill that obligation, then we can view it as "the market" telling us that new development simply isn’t desirable at that place and/or time and that no building should proceed until it is. It may be that some parcels will never be able to be built on. If so, that’s ok. Also, I’d like to point out that you didn’t hear anything from me when the Bridger View subdivision was approved, when the Law and Justice Center was approved, or during the recent annexation of a county property off Rouse into the City. I’m not against building/development, but I am against BAD development. Bad development asks the neighbors to accept a diminished existence in order to accomodate it. We count on you, the City Commission, to put a stop to that sort of thing. Thank you again for your service to the community, and thanks for reading. Dan Kaveney Bozeman, MT On Oct 4, 2021, at 9:49 AM, Terry Cunningham <TCunningham@BOZEMAN.NET> wrote: Dan: I apologize for the tardy reply. I was waiting to hear back from the public works department about the issue of railroad crossings. Two of the potential ways of dealing with railroad crossing congestion are to construct below- grade or elevated crossings. Below grade crossings are tricky due to high groundwater and (in the case of Wallace) possible soil issues, so building elevated crossings are likely a more actionable solution. I have also read and understood your concerns about the balance and timing of development and infrastructure improvements. With each potential development application, we are required to study the impact of the development on the delivery of city services as well as the impact on traffic, pedestrian safety, etc. - and I ca assure you that I will study these issues carefully anytime we have a development application come before the commission. Thank you again for reaching out. Terry Cunningham - City Commissioner City of Bozeman | 121 North Rouse Avenue | P.O. Box 1230 | Bozeman, MT 59771 P: 406.595-3295 | E: Tcunningham@bozeman.net | W: www.bozeman.net From: Dan Kaveney <dan.kaveney@gmail.com> Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 3:19 PM To: Terry Cunningham <TCunningham@BOZEMAN.NET> Subject: Trains and traffic in turbulent times: N Rouse. CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Commissioner Cunningham, Thank you for all your service to the community. I virtually attended the meeting where you considered the Bridger Meadows proposed preliminary plat, and I was very impressed with your thoughtful comments and approach. You have a tough job and I appreciate your willingness to take it on. I’m writing to call your attention to a developing problem that merits expeditious consideration and action: the deteriorating traffic situation on North Rouse Avenue between Peach St and Birdie Lane. I travel this road frequently because I live on Boylan Rd and it’s the only main artery that leads to the downtown area. Unfortunately, the many improvements instituted over the past couple years have been insufficient to accommodate the increases in traffic during that same period. This, combined with the frequent railroad crossings on Griffin, Rouse, and L Street have delivered us a situation where the road frequently fails to achieve the performance needed for basic public safety and transportation. Trains cross Rouse many times every day, usually (in my experience – I haven’t sat there and timed it) blocking the road for about 5 minutes, but sometimes for about 15 minutes. A passing train typically blocks the L Street, Rouse Ave, and Griffin Dr crossings simultaneously, leaving the part of town north of the tracks entirely isolated until the train has departed. Historically this didn’t cause much trouble, but increases to traffic volume in recent years mean that it now presents a very significant transportation, health, and safety problem that somehow needs to be addressed. Train backups can stop/snarl traffic for more than 30 minutes at a busy part of the day. Traffic backups extend west on Oak St, west on Griffin Dr, and in both directions on Wallace/L Street as well. Please consider some examples: On about Wednesday, August 25th a train blocked all three crossings for 6 minutes at 230 pm as I was headed north on Rouse. This is a fairly quiet time in the middleof a workday. I happened to be in a spot where I could see the traffic backed up allthe way to Bridger Center Dr. When I finally made my way up to Peach St the traffic stillhadn’t cleared and was backed up to a spot just north of the Rouse/Peach intersection. The traffic jam ran for 1.2 miles.On Wednesday, September 1 at about 1 pm a train blocked all the crossings for 9minutes while I was headed South on Rouse. Traffic backed up past Peach (I couldn’t see how far) and still reached to the intersection of Rouse and Birdie Drive by the time I made my way there. Again, a quiet time in the middle of a workday,backing up traffic for about 1.5 miles. On Monday, September 6 at about 8:30 pm (really slow traffic time) a train blocked all three crossings for 16 minutes with significant traffic backups in all directions (Icouldn’t see how far in the dark).The road has a couple of times in recent winters deteriorated to absolute non- functionality on snowy days when Bridger Bowl traffic brought it to a standstill for a very long time (I didn’t time it) with standstill traffic extending well toward Lammeon Rouse -- effectively preventing local residents from accessing their homes. The situation is worsening with time. Please remember that this is BEFORE the new Law and Justice Center and the new subdivision at the corner of Story Mill and Bridger Canyon Dr have been made operational/built, and both of these things, when completed, will create a great deal of additional traffic in the area. This will obviously be inconvenient for local residents, but it’s also becoming a significant safety hazard. What if someone needs an ambulance or a house catches on fire while a train is crossing? One can easily imagine situations where train-crossing traffic backups cause significant delays to emergency vehicles putting lives and property in danger, and where traffic backups make it impossible for emergency personnel to access the new Law and Justice Center. My greatest concern centers around the fact that two new major subdivisions will soon be proposed for the area – one at the old Stockyards and another on the NE side of the intersection of Story Mill Rd and Bridger Canyon Dr. The latter proposed development (which should not go forward, but that’s a letter for another day) is envisioned as a very high density Cannery District sort of thing that would produce tremendous amounts of additional traffic. If these are built without train infrastructure improvements the situation will become absolutely untenable and very dangerous for local residents. It is imperative to get all needed infrastructure improvements in place BEFORE any new subdivisions in the area are even considered by the city. I’m no civil engineer, but the only infrastructure improvement that seems even remotely adequate to address the problem would be a tunnel under that whole mess at Rouse AND a tunnel or bridge to deal with the crossing at Griffin. If it is impossible or impractical to do both of those things, then no new subdivision approvals should be issued in the area on the grounds that the road system is simply inadequate to the increased volume any such construction would bring with it. The fundamental issue at play here is the preservation of the quality of life current Bozeman residents enjoy (whether they arrived here 30 years or 30 minutes ago). No, it isn’t as good as it was 5 or 10 years ago, but we do still enjoy a high quality of life here in Bozeman, and as a community we have no obligation to accept further declines in the quality of our lives in order to accommodate developers’ interests in building houses for new residents from other places. A number of houses have recently been sold in my neighborhood as existing residents continue to flee from our untethered growth, and all of those houses have been purchased by people moving from other states. Building more houses won’t solve our affordable housing problem. It will simply create a larger conduit for the practically inexhaustible supply of new residents who will inevitably transform Bozeman into one of those places they are trying to escape, inadvertently destroying the lives of existing Bozeman residents in the process. One needs only to look at Denver, Boise, and Salt Lake City to see this reality. They tried to build their way out of this same problem and buried themselves in the process. If we take that same approach we won’t be any more successful than they were. As one of my elected officials, I am encouraging you to do everything you can to hold the line on our existing quality of life. Your first responsibility is to existing Bozeman residents, and I don’t think we should willingly accept any further decline in our quality of life at all – we’ve accepted too much already. A good start would be to make sure all needed infrastructure, such as road improvements and new sources of water, are in place BEFORE any new construction begins. Diminishing the performance of Rouse by allowing more building than it can handle is a good example of a place to draw the line; it diminishes the quality of life for existing residents and therefore should not be allowed to proceed. I imagine you get a lot of email, but if you can find the time I’d very much appreciate learning what you think of all this either by email (dan.kaveney@gmail.com), phone (406.581.4362), or over a cup of coffee. Thanks again for all your work on behalf of the community. I hope to hear from you soon. Dan -- ** Dan Kaveney City of Bozeman emails are subject to the Right to Know provisions of Montana’s Constitution (Art. II, Sect. 9) and may be considered a “public record” pursuant to Title 2, Chpt. 6, Montana Code Annotated. As such, this email, its sender and receiver, and the contents may be available for public disclosure and will be retained pursuant to the City’s record retention policies. Emails that contain confidential information such as information related to individual privacy may be protected from disclosure under law.