City Council Votes to Pursue Street Widenings

Dear Emeryville neighbors,

At Tuesday's meeting, the city council voted 3-2 (Atkin, Fricke voting against) to move forward with a plan to widen streets to accommodate more vehicle traffic. Bukowski, Davis, and Kassis took this action despite the city staff acknowledging that widening streets will cause more traffic, and may negatively affect pedestrian and bicycle access.

In September 2007, the city council held a special meeting to discuss how further development in Emeryville would affect traffic congestion. At this Sunday morning meeting, the traffic engineers recommended widening streets, among other things, to accommodate more traffic. (See below for a link to the report.)

Many of you who attended this Sunday morning meeting asked that the city not commit to widening streets until after alternative transportation options were explored. At that meeting, the city council unanimously and repeatedly supported holding off on street widenings until an outside consultant (Nelson\Nygaard) completed its Alternative Transportation Study of Emeryville. Here is a four-minute excerpt (2 clips) of the September, 2007 meeting:



At last Tuesday's meeting, Ken Bukowski, Nora Davis, and Dick Kassis broke the promise they made to the community last September.

The aforementioned Alternative Transportation Study has not yet been completed. The consultant, Nelson\Nygaard, was sidetracked by the city council's request to review the traffic engineers' street-widening proposals. Nelson\Nygaard's review strongly criticized the traffic engineers' proposals. (See below for a link to Nelson\Nygaard's Feb. 2008 memo.)

Nevertheless, the city council voted to move forward with the traffic engineers' proposals to widen streets, change the timing of signals, add dedicated left and right turn pockets, etc., all with the intention of maximizing the flow of vehicles in Emeryville.

Ruth Atkin aptly stated that improving vehicle access often comes at the expense of pedestrians and bicycles.

Please email the city council and ask the three in the majority (Ken Bukowski, Nora Davis, and Dick Kassis) to rescind their vote:

citycouncil@emeryville.org

Best,

John Fricke

LINKS:

The Big 4 Traffic Study (Sept., 2007)
http://www.ci.emeryville.ca.us/gov/pdf/agenda/study/091607.pdf

Nelson\Nygaard Memo (critique of Big 4 traffic study) (Feb., 2008):
http://www.johnfricke.com/NelsonNygaardReport-Revised04feb2008.pdf

City of Emeryville Staff Report (recommending street widenings) (Mar., 2008):
http://www.johnfricke.com/TrafficStudyStaffReport18mar2008.pdf

My previous email messages regarding traffic congestion:
http://www.johnfricke.com/12-22-05.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/02-22-06_2.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/05-26-07.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/09-11-07.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/01-31-08.html

My position papers on sustainable development and progressive parking policies:
http://www.johnfricke.com/development.html
http://www.johnfricke.com/parking.html

My art piece, It Won't Pencil, a critique of Emeryville's current development path, and its inevitable outcome:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JohnFricke01/ItWontPencil
http://www.johnfricke.com/ItWontPencil-text.pdf