[Vision2020] re: Third Street Bridge

[Donovan Arnold]

Mr. Ivie,

Thank you for you email. I appreciate all the work and
research you have put into this subject. It is so
obvious that this bridge construction will hinder the
community that I am now certain the city will go ahead
and build it.

My family has lived within three blocks of East City
Park for more than 6o years. So it is important to me
that the residential area maintain the quality that it
has by keeping high speed traffic from crossing
through the middle of the neighborhood.

What upsets me about the city communication is that
only the home owners, not the apartment dwellers with
lots of children also, were formally notified about
this proposal. 

Donovan J Arnold

--- Tom Ivie <the_ivies3 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The City is in the planning
> stages of a proposal that will be going before City
> Council for approval in the near future.  A proposal
> to bridge Third Street so that it will connect to
> Mountain View Rd. has already passed through the
> Transportation Commission and is now in Public Works
> Finance (tentively Sept. 12th). This proposal
> includes removing the on-street
> parking that currently exists on Third St. from
> Hayes
> to the other side of Blaine St. heading east. 
> Connecting 3rd St. to Mountain View Rd. would
> significantly increase traffic on the street and
> create the portion between Hayes and Mountain View
> as
> a main arterial. It would prove to function as a
> main
> connection to downtown and straight on to Pullman.
> 
> The idea of a thoroughfare is to control through
> traffic in residential areas and promote public
> safety
> by designating an arterial network to help channel
> extraneous traffic around neighborhoods. Connecting
> 3rd St. to Mountain View does just the opposite of
> this because the area East of Hayes Street was not
> designed to handle congestion. The street narrows
> before Blaine, going west, and remains narrow until
> Hayes.  This creates a bottle neck which is
> exacerbated by the fact that there is on-street
> parking on the south side of the street between
> Blaine
> and Hayes.  However, the on-street parking is
> essential because of the density of housing in the
> area and the proximity to East City Park and Lena
> Whitmore elementary school.  The single family
> houses
> that are east of Hayes sit closer to the street than
> those west of Hayes.  Also, the apartments that are
> between Cleveland and Hayes sit close to the street
> (the apartments west of Blaine are extremely close
> to
> the street) and do not appear to present the
> opportunity to widen the street (The current front
> yard requirement for R3 and R4 is 20ft).
> 
> The quality of life in residential neighborhoods can
> be significantly affected by traffic issues. Any
> significant increase in traffic would degrade the
> environment for pedestrians, bicyclists, and nearby
> residents.
> 
> Traffic issues affect Lena Whitmore Elementary
> School
> children.  Not only between 8:00 and 8:30 am and
> 2:50
> to 3:30 pm is there plenty of traffic on Blaine
> which
> slows traffic on 3rd St., but children often cross
> Third Street later in the day and on the weekends as
> Lena Whitmore is also used and maintained as a park.
> 
> Increased traffic will only create more unsafe
> conditions for walking children or those riding
> their
> bikes, scooters, skates, and skateboards. There is a
> general lack of crosswalks because this is an
> residential area.  There is also a limited amount of
> sidewalks because this is an older neighborhood. 
> Not
> usually a problem in low traffic areas, but with a
> significant increase in traffic, it would be a
> tremendous problem.  Crosswalks join sidewalks at
> corners.  What does the child (or family) do that
> lives on the block without a sidewalk?  Take their
> chance crossing the street to get to the side with
> the
> sidewalk?  A national study released in October 2000
> shows that two-thirds of drivers speed through
> school
> zones, despite safety measures such as crosswalks,
> flashing signs and crossing guards.  In addition to
> Lena Whitmore, the Jr. High is also affected.  Many
> students cross Third Street at Cleveland on their
> way
> to and from school.
> 
> Sixth Street and D Street are already designated as
> arterials.  Whereas, Third Street is currently
> designated as a collector.  It is bad engineering
> practice to try to designate an arterial two streets
> away from one arterial (E/W) 6th street and
> four-five
> streets away from another (D Street).  Streets
> should
> be for people, not just car funnels to outer
> destinations. 
> 
> The book titled Planning for Street Connectivity
> which
> was published in 2003 by the American Planning
> Association states, “it's really not necessary to
> force open every subdivision in order to improve
> community-wide connectivity. It would be
> counter-productive (not to say, poor planning) to
> insist on a rigid connectivity principle applicable
> to
> every block. The key is to create strategically
> located links that benefit broad cross-sections of
> the
> community....”
> 
> The firm of Robert Peccia & Associates did a report
> for the Helena Transportation Coordinating Committee
> in 2004.  This Civil Engineering firm does projects
> all over the United States.  The report stated that
> a
> collector street differs from an arterial in that
> collector roadways may traverse residential
> neighborhoods.  The city of Helena defines collector
> routes as carrying between 2,000 and 5,000 vehicles
> per day.  Whereas, they define an arterial as
> typically carrying more than 15,000 vehicles per
> day. 
> They go on to state that "Long, continuous
> collectors
> will encourage through traffic, essentially turning
> them into arterials.  This, in turn, results in the
> undesirable interface of local streets with
> arterials,
> causing safety problems and increased costs of
> construction and maintenance.
> 
> Moscow’s Comprehensive Plan – Section 10
> (Transportation) talks about the extension of 3rd
> Street to Mountain View.  However, by its adoption
> of
> the Comprehensive Plan, the Council is aware that
> “It’s desirability as a traffic corridor is
> limited
by
> narrow widths in the section east of Hayes
> Street
and
> by a lack of parking for a two-block portion.”  The
> Plan goes on to state that 3rd Street is not ideal
> for
> heavy traffic.  Section 10 (Transportation), as it
> relates to 3rd St., appears to be in conflict with
> Section 4 (Central Business District).  “The flow of
> traffic through the downtown area between eastern
> residential areas and the university and other
> destinations on the west side of town creates a
> problem of access to the central business district. 
> Third and Sixth Streets carry a majority of the
> east-west traffic in the city, in addition to
> providing major access to the central business
> district.  Distribution of a portion of Third and
> Sixth Streets’ traffic to other streets is needed to
> eliminate congestion on these streets and to
> facilitate access to the central business district.”
> 
> 
> Many in Moscow feel that this proposal will hurt the
> accessibility of programs in East City Park.  Events
> that occur at East City Park draw many who find it
> convenient to park their vehicles along Third
> Street. 
> For many events, we have personally seen vehicles
> parked clear down to the Cleveland intersection of
> East Third.  As the City would experience an
> overwhelming increase of traffic on Third St. would
> they choose to eliminate more parking West of Hayes?
> 
> What would that do to further the parking problem
> during East City Park events? 
> 
> Moscow is fortunate to have preserved many of its
> historic resources and to have documentation for
> them.
>  As you are aware, Moscow has 17 individual
> structures
> and 1 district of 116 structures on the National
> Register of Historic Places.  One of these
> structures
> is the Mason Cornwall Residence at 308 S. Hayes, a
> corner property that is also situated on Third
> Street.
> 
> Furthermore, the increased traffic on Third Street
> between Hayes and Mountain View will unnecessarily
> burden the adjacent property owners and residents,
> creating a traffic funnel that will simply degrade
> the
> adjacent neighborhood. 
> 
> Unlike the intersections of Mountain View to Sixth
> and
> D Streets, the Third Street intersection has houses
> on
> it.  These houses, especially the ones closest to
> Mountain View, will experience great difficulty in
> exiting their driveways.  Furthermore, the two
> houses
> 
=== message truncated ===>
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