HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-07-16 Public Comment - S. Kirchnoff - Oak Street Pre-design SpecsDear Commissioners and Mayor Taylor:
I am writing about the pre-design specifications for Oak Street.
This is a difficult subject to testify on, since I am not a traffic engineer. However, during my
eight years in public service as an elected official I had many private conversations with traffic
engineers--public and private. Speaking in confidence, these engineers bemoaned the psuedo-
humility of members of the public who at city commission hearings would opine about street
design issues which were actually beyond their understanding. The engineers would tell a story
like this: " A citizen steps up to the podium and says, first thing: 'I am not a traffic engineer...' but
then goes on to criticize the work of genuine traffic engineers, assuming a knowledge equal to
ours.'" But of course, the citizen does not have the same knowledge that trained specialists do.
I am afraid that my comments today about Oak Street might cause city and private traffic
engineers who have worked diligently on the pre-designs for Oak to cynically dismiss me as just
another layperson pretending to knowledge he does not in fact possess. So be it.
In the March issue of the Ite Journal, an op-ed appears saying the same things in a general way
that I want to say specifically about the Oak Street pre-desgn specifications up for your
discussion tonight.
The piece, written by Bryon D. Jones, PE, AICP (a genuine traffic engineer) contains the
following thoughtful gems that I leave you to ponder over:
"...we as transportations professionals blindly apply [design manual standards] without
context...with the ....street dedicated to moving cars...sized due to level of service policies and
designed using standards and lane widths similar to ones for highways and freeways..."
"...we learned this [computer-modeled projections of future LOS demands and street expansion
in response] just induces more traffic..."
"For the past 40+ years, transportation professionals have focused on designing streets solely by
improving LOS for vehicles..."
"A person needs a lot of training and education to do this LOS work, which reduces its
transparency, accountability, and acces to the general public..."
And I could go on, but will not. By now you have figured out that I think Oak as envisioned in
the 300 pages of engineering pre-design work--really? 300 pages of PRE design!?-- is too big.
Too wide. Too huge. Too massive. Too threatening. Too highway-like. Too remote from context.
Too computer-designed. Too abstract. And the report itself is too impenetrable to a layperson.
The whole shebang is just flat-out Too Much. Period.
I will not bore you with my vision of a street section, because I think members of the public
(some of whom are engineers and therefore worth listening to) at the meeting tonight will
enlarge, deepen, and nuance my bald commentary. -----But! three lanes, 10' lanes, center grassy
median, bike lane, pedestrian refuges, roundabouts when feasible, regular tree plantings, and
such. These elements might help to tame the street, to make the street livable, to make it, simply
put, into a PLACE, as well as a conduit for conveying vehicles efficiently.
As always, I want to tell you that I appreciate your work. I wish you good judgment and a
generous spirit as you do your labor for our community. Thank you.
Steve Kirchhoff