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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-03-22 Public Comment - R. French - Re_ Response to 8_2_2022 Fowler CommentFrom:rblfr@aol.com To:Nicholas Ross Cc:bradfrencha1@gmail.com; Taylor Lonsdale; Dena Knutson; Dani Hess; Agenda Subject:Re: Response to 8/2/2022 Fowler Comment Date:Wednesday, August 3, 2022 6:48:51 PM 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. Thanks for getting back to me Mr. Ross but you are missing my point. I wasn’t suggesting in mycomment anything about divulging property owner info. I was expressing my frustration with the fact thatthe city has spent our money (taxpayer money) having already gone deep into a process of designing aroad on our land, without ever even telling us as property owners that the project is afoot, and thenimplying to the board and the public that acquisition of land from all the various land owners (presumablyincluding us) is a minor formality that is nearly taken care of. It seems to me the land acquisitions shouldbe the first step, before dollars are spent on design. In fact in our case it is by no means a foregoneconclusion that we are even looking to sell any of it. It feels a bit presumptuous of the city to me, and ifthe goal is to antagonize property owners this is surely the way to do it. Ok, maybe that's not fair. I don'tmean to be offensive; please forgive the unvarnished nature of my comments, but I would hope the citycan understand where I am coming from. It feels a bit cavalier of the city to put the cart so far before thehorse, that is spending to design a road without having land to build it on. If the exact outcome youdesigned for is not achieved then more money is spent on redesign. Another question is, if this becomes a commuter corridor as was alluded to in last night's meeting, whythen would not the far flung subdivisions from which the traffic will be coming, be the people who wouldpay for it? Why would the local property owners who have no use or want for this road be the onesexpected to pay for it? Admittedly I don't know the details of what the payback mechanism will be for thisroad so forgive me if I am making erroneous assumptions. But it seems that fairness would require thatcosts for it be born by the city as a whole as opposed to only those who front the new portion, given thatthe road is referred to as being needed for the city as a whole. Also I feel you omitted in your presentation the fact that, at least as pertains to the segment of yourproposed road along the edge of our property, the only way you could achieve what is being promised(saving the open ditch and the trees) is that the entirety of the roadway will either have to occur on the 50feet of ROW you already have west of the section line, or it would have to come completely inside andthrough our land (essentially consuming the entirety of our land) to remain entirely east of the ditch, and Ido not see the latter happening. Thanks again. Rob French On Tuesday, August 2, 2022, 2:14:35 PM MDT, Nicholas Ross <nross@bozeman.net> wrote: Mr. French, Good afternoon, my name is Nick Ross and I serve as the Director of Transportation and Engineering for the city of Bozeman. Cc’d to this email are our City Project Manager Taylor Lonsdale and Consultant Project Manager Dena Knutson. I just got done reading your thoughtful comment and wanted to reach out to begin a conversation. First off, allow me to apologize if you took offense to my response regarding right of way status. It was not at all intended to disrespect your family’s rights, in fact, the complete opposite. Out of respect for your privacy, we do not publicly discuss detailed information regarding property ownership and right of way negotiations. Our Transportation Board consists of volunteers from the community who are not trained and experienced in the details of project development, so while I certainly do not place blame on Ms. Roberts for asking the question I also did not believe it was prudent to expand in any greater detail. We’ve already been pressed by some opposed to the project to provide them with your personal information, with the explicit intent of lobbying you to hold out on acquisition. Whether you support or oppose the project, we would never put you and your family in such a position without first having your consent. I’m quite disappointed to hear our consultant has not reached out to have initial conversations with your family. They’ve explicitly been tasked with doing just that so you are aware of process and expectations moving forward, with the intent of heading off exactly this type of confusion. You’re correct, advancing planning (pre-design phase) to the point we have without right of way is a risk. However, you as a property owner deserve detailed information on location and disposition of street we intend to build. It is common on any transportation project, here and across the country, to advance design to a preliminary stage before completing right of way negotiations for just this reason. We would not want to acquire more of your property than is needed, nor would we want to end up with a final design that requires more than we acquired. On the other hand, I’m heartened to hear you’re a fan of Jacobs! Not only was “Death and Life” a seminal text in guiding the early part of my career, “Economy of Cities” and “Dark Age Ahead” are awfully prescient. As a proponent of Jacobs, I’m proud of the fact that our pre-design phase on Fowler took a master planned 5-lane arterial with 12’ lanes and right-sized it down to our staff recommendation, a 2- lane street with median turn pockets and 10’ lane width. While unfortunately common to projects I’ve led across the country, we’ve had to work diligently to dispel myths spread by those opposed to the project. Residents have rightly reached out concerned that we were going to “pave over Bozeman pond” (never even in the realm of possibility) and that we’ve already “rubber stamped” a 5-lane highway (the exact opposite of our staff recommendation). In addition to the smallest template and narrowest lanes possible, high-quality separated and protected bike and pedestrian infrastructure is planned as part of this complete street in order to form a connection where none currently exists. These features were not included in master planning and are a direct result of our improved project planning process. Logical connections to a fine-grained street grid like that which Jacobs lived in Greenwich Village allow for efficient mobility without buildout of unlivable streets such as what’s happened to 19th and what is threatening the future of Ferguson without a connection along Fowler. I’ve also extensively studied Induced Demand throughout my career, and am particularly proud of returning a “no-build” recommendation on the last highway expansion study I led as a consultant prior to joining the public sector. Induced Demand, however, is a phenomenon that’s been studied nearly exclusively at freeway scale. There’s little, if any, evidence of local street connections such as Fowler having an appreciable difference on volumes except to relieve adjacent streets experiencing more demand than natural paths of travel would convey. Freeway expansion “inducing” more vehicle trips primarily works by providing additional capacity for “latent demand”, trips that either aren’t being taken at all or by different modes (bike, transit) because of extremely excessive congestion. Not only do those conditions not exist in Bozeman, we unfortunately currently have a mode share that’s almost exclusively by vehicle in the west part of town. In an unfortunate irony, it wasn’t lost on us that more staff in attendance at the Advisory Board meeting traveled home by alternate transportation than those in attendance who outnumbered us tenfold. While I’m certainly sympathetic to the arguments at Advisory Board, I’m also privy to the comments made by those in favor of the project. People whose safety and quality of life is being directly impacted by lack of Fowler Connection. I do not have a viable technical or ethical justification for why those opposed to the project deserve greater rights than those impacted by the same issues the opposition is concerned about. At the staff level, we are tasked with what’s best for the city at large even when a vocal and organized opposition is in front of us. The most common flaw of transportation project development nation-wide is to create inequitable systems by listening to only those with the means and time to object. Trust me, it’s far from easy not to be moved by such passion! Thank you for your time, and I hope for this to be the first of as many conversations as are needed to provide you and your family with the information to make whatever decision is best for you. Take care, -NickNicholas Ross, P.E. | Director of Transportation and Engineering City of Bozeman C: 406-595-3437 O: 406-582-2315 nross@bozeman.net 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.