The improvements to Post and College Streets are underway and soon the State will be transferring the roads back to the City. This means that the streets will be returning to their original use as residential streets. There is some confusion as to how that will happen. The current plan is to make both streets the same as other residential streets in the neighborhood like Oak Street, Myra Street and Dellwood Avenue. Some residents do oppose this plan and are seeking to restrict parking to one side of the street.
With the controversy brewing, it is imperative that you contact Mayor Peyton, your City Council member (Michael Corrigan or Reggie Fullwood), the City's Chief of Engineering, John Pappas and the Director of Public Works, Alan Mosley, P.E. to let them know your views.
Here is the flyer for the upcoming Town Meeting that acordon mentions in his comment. Please attend.
The location of the meeting is still Robert E Lee High School but the room has changed from the cafeteria to the auditorium.
3 comments:
There is no confusion. RAP intitated a significant parking design change without public knowledge or input. The residents who attended the formal public hearing on 4/29/06, approved by general consensus, the ALT-1 design plan. That plan was to convert the two streets back to two-way operation, no other operational changes, parking was to remain on one-side or the other. Just like it is now. This ill-advised change is in direct conflict with the FDOT recommendations and traffic safety engineering standards, RAP cited in a letter dated May 07, 2004, that this change was in accordance with Post and College resident wishes. Fact is, according to the FDOT hearing transcript, only 2 residents expressed a desire for parking on both sides, and FDOT repeated at least 3 times why this was not possible or practical. Additionally, the letter drafted by the RAP Transportation chair, references a discussion held 1 day prior to that public hearing, to convince the City to change the parking design, before it was even presented to the public. Why didn't the RAP board bring up this issue at the formal public hearing, so that the attending residents could be informed and make comment? Answer: It would have put RAP at loggerheads with the State. These are public streets.The general public, especially the residents of College and Post Street, have an absolute right to be made aware of a proposal by any neighborhood organization regarding public property. The streets are just to narrow. Emergency response times can be severely impacted. The traffic studies show clearly that even with the conversion, Post Street will see a rise in daily traffic volume (6100-8500), College, a decrease (1100-1400). Both roadways will, with the conversion, experience a degraded level of service until at least the completion of the I95-I10 interchange in 2011. Also,Myra, Forbes,and Dellwood do not have city buses running on them or significant commercial truck traffic. There are presently no plans to remove the bus line. I share your concern with the speeding, we all do. Something does need to be done. But speeding is an enforcement issue, not a traffic engineering issue.
A resident sponsored "Town Hall Meeting" will be held on May, 10, 2006, 7-9 pm @ Robert E. Lee High School regarding the Post/ College Street issues. We welcome all residents of Post and College to attend and express your views. We have extended an open invitation to many State and City officals , as well as the local media. It remains our hope that many will attend
I have been watching this board since I made the original post to the site. Many of you who know me know I live on College Street very close to Mr. Brackett and Mr. Cordon. Even though I do not share their views on this subject I support their right to be heard. As the "blog master" for RAP I have tried to make sure that all the news from Riverside Avondale be reported as fairly as possible. I have included Mr. Cordon's original flyer in the post. When I first spoke with Mr. Brackett, I asked him his opinion on the issue and before telling him my thoughts or knowing that he was working with Mr. Cordon, I suggested he contact him.
Here's what I do have a problem with. It appears from the posts on this site that the two sides are very passionate about what they believe and want for the streets. And while this is fine, it does look to be heading down a dark and nasty path. What I would hope happens, is that we can remain friends and neighbors and agree to disagree on this one issue. I am sure that there will always be issues to disagree on but on of the things I liked so much about this neighborhood was that is was a neighborhood. People generally talked to each other and were concerned for one another. I just hope that the passion of this issue does not destroy this.
One final point. If anyone does have a news point that they would like to see covered, send it my way. As this is just a volunteer position, it may take some time but I'll do my best to get it up.
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