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Here is one of many county roads in Rochester which fails to account for pedestrians, cyclists, businesses, transit users, the young, the old, or the disabled.

Since it is an election year and I haven’t decided to not run for office, I am going to be posting some of the feedback that I get that makes me smile.  I will not share names unless I have permission, and I certainly won’t when the writer is critical of other council members.  Even though in this case the criticism is fair and well deserved.  The decision does beg the question that if Bruce Snyder is not willing to pay for maintaining existing infrastructure is he still going to ask for more new infrastructure?  It is frustrating when I have the best excuse to cower but do not, yet others lose their backbone.

Hi Michael:

Excellent job at the meeting and thank you for your leadership and work you did with the 2nd St. owners. They clearly have challenges to face with these large assessments but it was also clear that you made them understand this was a situation that the city had to face for the good of the community. Some may be driven from their properties. Sad, but that often comes with development. Too bad so few understand who the losers are or speak for them when our open land gets developed. It would have been quite a sharp contrast last night had the Kwik Trip tree variance hearing been held.

I decided not to speak since I really didn’t have any skin in the game and it became clear this was a hearing about the assessment, not the design. I could not have added anything of substance to move the debate. I applaud you Mark, Randy and Sandra for taking a courageous stand – quite striking in contrast to the two who voted no yet offered no other ideas. Particularly telling was Ed’s commentary, praising you and your work, yet voting no. A real coward, recognizes what is right but chooses not to take a stand. Shameful. At least Bruce just sat there like the toad that he is – true to form and honestly an idiot.

Aside from your courageous championship of this issue, my favorite part of the night was the Rabbi from Chabad-Lubavitch. (Do you know his name? I missed it.) I have decided to make a contribution out of respect for his good natured and sincere “objection”. I feel somewhat responsible for his plight being one of those with the “good idea”. In my own small way I would like to support his faith that God will provide.

XXXXX

This is still 20 minutes, but I cut 75% of the hearing out.

In short, myself and Randy Staver didn’t feel the variance met the legal standard.  Ed Hruska, Bruce Snyder, and Dennis Hanson, have never supported this.  Mark Bilderback and Sandra Means were willing to go along with the variance. Compromise passed 7-0 so we all suck equally.

Northwest Investments (Kwik Trip) will plant fewer trees, leave West Circle Drive treeless, donate trees to RNeighborwoods.  The variance request also removed power from the city forester, but we were able to restore that.

Edit, I see some video is missing so I will try to fix that.

Edit 2, Should be fixed.

Here is a link to an article that mentions a technology that we may use in urban areas.

Urban Trees

Those benefits, including reduced energy costs and better storm-water control, have been shown to march in lockstep with the size of trees.

“We tell municipalities that trees are as much a part of their infrastructure as the gas line, the sidewalk and the light pole,” says Mr. James, who is based in Vancouver. “And as such they belong not just to the arborist, but to the roads engineer, the streets engineer and the storm-water engineer.”

DeepRoot was founded in the United States in the 1970s with one product, a root barrier system that forces roots to grow down, not out, lessening the possibility of tree roots buckling pavement and sidewalks.

Over time, working with American landscape architect James Urban, the company developed the Silva Cell, a system designed to help nurture big trees in urban environments based on research that shows larger trees provide exponentially greater benefits than smaller ones. A 2010 report for the City of Toronto, for example, found a tree that’s 75 centimetres in diameter intercepts 10 times more air pollution, stores up to 90 times more carbon and contributes up to 100 times more leaf area to the city’s canopy than a 15-centimetre tree.

To often traffic engineers place a value on expedited automobile transport over everything else.  Is this wise, efficient, or fiscally responsible?  I don’t think so.  Here is a great article written by the former mayor of Milwaukee in Atlantic Cities. Read the rest of this entry »

Having lived near a roundabout for 6 years, I have become a huge fan of them.  In general they are safer, more efficient, calm traffic, and more aesthetically pleasing.  They are also very good at dealing with intersections where not everything is perfectly aligned at 90 degrees (Highway 14 and Marion Road is a great example). As a taxpayer, I love that operating costs are much lower than a signalized intersection. There is a large roundabout planned for US 63 and 75th street North.

One down side is that roundabouts can be intimidating for cyclists especially if they have multiple lanes or higher design speeds.

Here is the proposed language for administrative fines for failure to clear sidewalks within 24 hours of the end of a snow event. These fines would be in addition to paying the full cost of a private company removing the snow. Read the rest of this entry »

40% of Minnesotans don’t drive yet some people still won’t clear their sidewalks despite requirements to do so.

Among those that I represent is a blind man that uses pedestrian facilities to get to work.

At a committee meeting today we discussed some snow emergency pilot programs aimed at better and more efficiently clearing streets.  I took it upon myself to also introduce a plan to address sidewalk clearing.  Last year I called on public works to clear sidewalks many times and they just didn’t have the resources to get it done.  Here is the new plan that I proposed.

1. City negotiates rates for clearing uncleared sidewalks with approved private companies (probably per foot or similar).  The understanding is that the sidewalk must be cleared within 24 hours of receiving a complaint.  (The city policy is that the walk must be cleared withing 24 hours of the end of a snow event.)
2. The contractor must take and provide a time stamped picture to document the uncleared walk.
3. The property owner is charged the full amount of the cost of clearing the walkway + $60 administrative fine for each occurrence.

The cost + fines angle should force those that are repeatedly negligent to just hire someone to do it, as it will be cheaper.  Previously we just charged a flat amount which often was less than the cost of removal.

No one spoke against this at the committee meeting so I hope this passes next Monday.

Mitzi Baker has done alot of nice work in the area of active living in Olmsted County.  Here is some information on public investments in active living.  Basically this is just another reason why safe non-motorized connections in my community are vital. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is how you design an intersection with absolutely no consideration for pedestrians.  Bill Bruins sent me this photo.  This is the area on North Broadway that I refer to as death triangle for its awful bike and pedestrian design.  Here you can see that there are situations where someone with a disability could not reach the crossing button.  There are similar boneheaded intersection layouts at many intersections along West Circle Drive as well.