Agree totally including your reference to NM Medicaid shortfall. The ludicrous thing about this whole project is that the planners/politicos/contractors aren't even pretending great numbers of additional people will use art since it's only moving all the auto traffic off Central to Lead and Coal (and Lomas and Constitution and Menaul, etc.). Real Duke City residents will just have to get around this mess-in-the-making and Central,especially from Broadway to San Pedro will be ever more abandoned. ABQ is not a bus city.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.
Like Susan I also at first thought this ART was ok. I was not too concerned with it. But when I began to hear other comments and looked into it deeper I began to see many problems like parking, trees uprooted, safety for pedestrians crossing to the median and the fact that buses are outmoded technology (diesel or electric). There is also the huge problem of not all the stakeholders are considered in the plan at all.
The plan is clearly centered on using public money (transit) for the benefit of the private sector businesses along Central (profits) and mostly in Nob Hill. This is what I call the single stakeholder theory. Besides, economically it is very problematic that spending money this way will stimulate the private sector. Just what makes private profit grow is a many sided and complex event and certainly not one solved with a bus based transit plan.
The main supporters of this theory are the politicians who desire to look good by spending public money to subsidize in one way or another the private sector. For instance they have not been talking about improving the quality of life in the Central Ave. corridor with say community center, housing and day care and social services for the low income population of the city. It is easy to see the class and biased nature inside this plan.
What I began to be concerned about is the missing discussion of what happens to all the families with homes living in public communities along the routes that will be impacted by moving a large amount of the traffic from Central onto Coal/Lead and other auxiliary streets. I am one of those and went through this with the Lead/Coal reconstruction.
It stands out that there is like a whole chapter on this missing from the plan. It was just assumed that there would be positive impacts there too but in fact it is just the opposite: a big negative impact. Not all the stakeholders impacted by this ART are aware and involved. With all the debate over stimulating private sector profits on Central there has been a silence on what happens to the residential, public communities and homes of individual families that will see negative impacts, mainly property value losses, among others.
I would like to see a viable and workable ART system but this one is seriously flawed and needs to be stopped now before we waste a lot of money and the complications bring legal expeensives. Plus, I am aghast to read today that possibly many New Mexicans are facing severe health care access with Medicaid (and probably Medicare) cuts. To hear talk of the large amount of money this ART involves for the benefit of the private sector as if there were no social fabric to be considered of our public and common lives and community makes this ART seem like an obscene idea in addition to its other problems. It has come at the wrong time and plan, imo.
Bob
As I understand it, the dedicated bus lane will have a rumble strip only, so that cars can still go around drivers that are parallel parking, as they do now. The rumble strip will also allow emergency vehicles to use the bus lane if necessary. Keep in mind that buses will be running at about 7 minute intervals which amounts to about 10 buses an hour in the bus lanes (that is way less than the traffic I have on my residential street!), thus the possibility of being hit by a bus when passing a parking car or crossing Central is not great.
The reason there will not be bike lanes on Central is because there is not enough room to widen sidewalks, keep the parking, and include bike lanes. Also, Copper and Silver run parallel to Central and are both "bike boulevards" - which means bikes share the road with cars. There are also new bike lanes on Lead/Coal. The bike lanes on Copper were included to let car drivers know that Copper is meant to be a route for bikers, the city told us when the bike lanes were painted in that cars would still be allowed to park on Copper - because the parking is so important to the small business owners - I agree. I bike down Copper/Campus often and have not experienced any issues with traffic.
Just for the record - when the city conducted the first study to determine if a BRT could work on Central, the plan was to replace the landscaped medians with one bi-directional bus lane with one station in Nob Hill. The NHNA opposed the plan because we wanted to keep the trees and medians, thinking that it would be impossible for pedestrians to cross Central with five lanes of traffic and no median. We sent out multiple notices on this list-serv and many neighbors sent letters to oppose removing the medians and trees and ask that the buses merge into the regular traffic thru Nob Hill (mixed flow in BRT lingo). According to the ART planners that was not possible because the Federal funding has a requirement for a "dedicated bus lane". Thus they recommended the bus lane with rumble strip so that the bus lanes would be "dedicated" but still usable to other traffic.
After the retail expert (Gibbs) was hired by Councilor Garduno last year, Nob Hill Main Street requested that the sidewalks be widened and planted with more trees instead of retaining the medians, at a public outreach at MVCC in Nob Hill (also posted on this list-serv) in March 2015 the attendees voted in favor of wider sidewalks, because they thought it would be better for the businesses - that is how the current plan evolved.
Although I was opposed to the BRT in the beginning, after the City Council voted unanimously to support it last year with little fanfare from the public, opposition no longer seemed to be a viable option and the NHNA did its best to obtain a plan that would be helpful to businesses in the future, including wider, tree lined sidewalks, calmer traffic, better maintenance, safer bus stations, and construction mitigation assistance.
There is a certain amount of risk involved in any new development and I honestly do not know if the ART will be great for Nob Hill, but I am not convinced that it will be bad for us either, as the business district has been in decline for several years now and the rest of Central Avenue is worse off than we are. In any case, I do not think it would be realistic or wise to expect the City Council to turn around and reject the Federal funding at this point. Also, if the funding is approved based on the plan that was submitted, then changing it substantially is not really feasible as grant funding typically has to be spent as stated in the application.
FYI - the ART is part of a larger plan to turn Nob Hill into a "Main Street Transit Corridor". All of that is now being laid out in the new city/county ABC-to -Z Comprehensive Plan that will be going before City Council in a couple of months - don't wait until it is too late to give your opinion on that plan. The deadline is March 11:
https://www.cabq.gov/council/projects/current-projects/abc-z
Susan
re
Are bicycle lanes being considered?-as it is, Copper has a "bike lane", but car & trash can parking is allowed, so most of the time we are pushed out into the lane. Monte Vista is wide enough for both, so it is much safer. I worry about traffic being pushed off into the side roads where kids (and adults) skateboard and bike, and people even walk in the streets because the sidewalks are pretty worthless (narrow, phone poles in the middle, driveway cut-outs etc.).
Thanks for the input.
Where on Monte Vista is this being considered?
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Strozier
Sent: Mar 4, 2016 2:05 PM
To: Dan Spanogle
Cc: ronhalbgewachs , ""
Subject: Re: [Neighbors] ART
The City is planning to do back in (or nose out) angled parking on Silver and looking at it as an option for Monte Vista.
Jim Strozier, AICP
Consensus Planning, Inc.
I don't know if it is too late to make alterations to the parking plan...
It seems to me that a helpful parking solution would be to change it to 'back-in only angle in' parking.
I've seen this in other cities and it works great.
1. It doesn't take much more road space.
2. It's easier to back into an angled space with traffic than to parallel park.
3. It's safer for drivers to get in and out of their cars.
4. Nob Hill would get more parking spaces.
5. It's easier to merge back into traffic when leaving the parking space.
Just a quick thought.
On Thursday, March 3, 2016, ronhalbgewachs via Neighbors_nobhill-nm <
neighbors_nobhill-nm@mailman.swcp.com> wrote:
The single lane of traffic Cliff refers to will be a mixture of automobiles and "local" city buses. Yes, it will be bumper to bumper and I bet really hard to accomplish parallel parking.
-----Original Message-----
From: Cliff Loucks via Neighbors_nobhill-nm
Sent: Mar 2, 2016 8:30 PM
To: ""
Subject: Re: [Neighbors] ART
Yes, the parallel parking is remaining. But I’m confused about how functional it will be. I say given this that I picture lots of bumper to bumper traffic in the single lane available for cars here in the heart of Nob Hill. I could certainly be wrong about that.
I’ve also been curious how the two lane traffic sections surrounding Nob Hill will smoothly transition into the single lane here in our neighborhood. After watching the traffic simulations on the ART website, what appears to happen is the outside traffic lanes becomes a Right Turn Only lane. Then I start picturing lots of unsuspecting motorists suddenly trying to merge into the thru lane.
I am not against the ART project, I’m merely suffering some confusion about the real life functionality of some aspects of it.
Please and Thank You,
—-Cliff
I believe that the existing on-street parking is also being maintained in Nob Hill.
Jim Strozier, AICP
Consensus Planning, Inc.
( 505.764.9801
P SAVE PAPER - Only print this e-mail if necessary
Robert - as I understand it, there is a traffic analysis for the ART that provides an estimate of how much traffic could potentially be displaced onto all traffic arteries that parallel Central, rather than a plan to directly divert traffic onto Lead/Coal.
Also, the current design plan will remove the medians and replace the same number of trees along the sidewalks and the parallel parking along Central will remain intact.
As I recall the early discussions in 2014 there was no open talk of shifting the traffic off Central to Lead/Coal.
That was kept on the back burner and most people focused at the time on Central traffic. Now we know the full scope of what is planned with this ART. Is it necessary to destroy the communities along Lead/Coal to make a few bucks on Central?
Greg is right - I know of at least 3 public outreach events held by the NHNA in Nob Hill about the BRT/ART. One at Yanni's in 2013, two at MVCC in 2014 and 2015. In addition, Bruce Rizzeri with ABQ attended a NHNA Board meeting to take comment and answer questions. All of these meetings were either advertised over this list-serv or published in our agendas. Also, two articles about the ART and where to give input were published in two editions our NHNA Newsletter that is hand delivered to every household and business in Nob Hill.
I don't have a problem with people being opposed to the ART, but there is quite lot of invalid and unsubstantiated information being passed around over this list-serv and Nextdoor by the opposition. Whatever your position, you should be well-informed by both sides of the issue. Here is a link that may help you do that....
--
Dan
•This message was drafted and sent from my iPhone. Please excuse any errors in spelling and grammar.
Dan Spanogle
SW Property Pros, Inc
Owner / Qualifying Broker
Mobile 505-453-5999
Office 505-750-4555
eFax 888-511-7149
www.swpropertypros.com
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