Yeah! What does the Select Board think it's doing, telling Mr. Mooring how to install traffic cushions!

That's the Public Transportation Committee's job!

Well, until we get a Traffic Cushion Committee...

>>He should mandate that Select Board requests for information from staff go through him...

That’s obviously not practical. (Who writes this stuff anyway?) SBers and regular citizens alike need to request information from staff. The point is to not abuse the privilege of the office. There is a fine line between asking for information and directing the staff. In my observations of Select Board meetings, I have felt that that line is often crossed. I don’t know how best to prevent that.

Requesting public information from Town departments' staff is a citizen's right, but it refers to requesting (and paying a reasonable fee for) copies of existing public documents and existing reports.

If an individual SB member is requesting information because she/he has a task to perform assigned by the Select Board, then asking for information directly from staff could be appropriate, and the Town Manager would be aware of the situation.

One good reason for SB members to request information from staff as an entire board via Larry, rather than as individual members asking staff directly, is to allow staff to work with fewer interruptions. One member asking questions may not seem to take much time, but without coordinated planning, five select board members separately could interrupt staff to ask similar questions.

The town staff has a boss, and that is the Town Manager. Directions to staff come from the Town Manager, and select board members routinely asking questions on their own (and discussing issues directly with staff on their own) can inadvertently put staff in an awkward position.

This can be awkward in at least two ways:
1)Staff members cannot easily say "no" to a request from a select board member. Even though the SB member does not hire or fire staff other than the Town Manager, staff know that the SB members speak regularly with the Town Manager and are his boss.
2)Any suggested directions or viewpoints expressed by a SB member directly to a staff member may create confusion, particularly if they are different from plans of the Town Manager.

Stephanie and Elaine,

THANK YOU BOTH. This has needed saying for a long time, and it could not have been said better.

Eva

Dear readers,

Regarding Lincoln Avenue:
the "standards" which the
DPW proposed to the Select Board were at odds with the public interest, not
"my preference" for bike lanes.

Along a road with curbing,
the standard width recommended for a bike lane
is 5', although widths as little as half that are (barely) acceptable in tight situations.

The Town has done an admirable job over the past ten years in incorporating bike
lanes in its roadways system, but it could do better. Even now there is
a backlog in repainting the
existing lanes, and some of
the recent repainting was not done properly by the contractors DPW hired.

Please keep in mind that there *is* a longstanding *policy*, recommended by the Public Transportation and Bicycle Committee, approved by Town Meeting (during Ms. Schiffer's tenure on the Select Board) and reaffirmed by the Public Works Committee (its chair attended the 13 August SB meeting as well).

It is the Select Board's role to uphold such policy,
and if necessary, to be flexible in its application of same.

In that spirit, I offered advice to my colleagues (while working overseas this past week) about how to deal with Lincoln (and shared this with
Stephanie directly, for which she thanked me, and then with the readers of this site via an earlier posting).

Stephanie has the right to
criticize whomever she wants, both specifically and generally,
the way the Select Board
as a whole, or any particular member, sees its
role. But others have the
right to disagree with that
criticism: some have even run for the Select Board and many more have voted for them.

Respectfully yours,

Rob Kusner
Select Board

Why can't a bicycle just slow down and go over the cushions like cars have to?

As long as the weather is dry and the fron wheel strikes the cushion "head-on" (away from the lateral slope of the cushion) this would not be a problem, as Mr. Kelley seems to have demonstrated on his mountain bike (thanks, Larry, for your Evel Knieval demo). But as Mr. Mooring explained early on,
these rubber cushions can be very slippery when wet, and since the lateral slope is also where the bikes are near the curb, this is more of a hazard for two-wheelers than for cars (even on highways,
there are signs warning motorcyclists of similar hazards). So it's not what experienced cyclists like Mr. Kelley (or Mr. Kusner) can manage on their mountain bikes that is at issue - instead, it's what other, less-experienced cyclists with less-sophisticated equipment(neighborhood kids, young students or old professors riding to or from UMass...) that are concerns. The Town should not be making the roadways *more* hazardous for its most vulnerable users. It should instead do all that it can to encourage folks to use healthful, environmentally friendly forms of transportation
(that's why - decades ago -
Lincoln Avenue was desiganted a bike route, and why some of the earlier traffic-calming plans for the area involved 1-way streets and wider bike lanes along Lincoln, as well as along Sunset and Fearing).

Actually I was not on a mountain bike, it was my road bike with those ultraskinny tires.

A 5' bikelane, in two directions would necessitate 10' in total. Since
Lincoln Ave is barely 24' wide, this is a tad unrealisic.

The 2.5' might be a more reasonable space. The problem with the cushions is the size of the center cushion - the one which is supposed to be for emergency vehicle use only. Given the surprisingly small wheebase of the ambulance and the 2' double-wide rear tires on the fire engine, this creates a space that any vehicle can use. This has been proven by the experiment to date.

The only real prohibition to traveling on the center line (which is illegal) will be approaching traffic from the opposite direction. However, center lane (or opposite lane) travel already occurs all the time as cars blast past cyclists, runners or parked vehicles. The center cushion at least requires a driver to line up on something rather than freely crossing the line, as they do now.

Ms. Greeney was out doing some direct observation of the cushions in action today, and I happened to be passing by on my bike. I showed her it's possible to get by the cushion on either the side or over the top. I did both options, on a road bike with skinny tires, and like Larry, lived to tell the tale.

Bottom line: Riding a bike anywhere, wet or dry, is potentially dangerous. And cyclists assume and accept certain risks, potential man-made hazards or changes in road conditions among them. The cushions are not introducing an increased risk into an otherwise "safe" or "bicycle-friendly" roadway.

The real and chronic danger to cyclists - cushions or no cushions - of any age is still speeding cars and drivers who have no regard for their presence or safety anyway. Why we don't have a serious injury, or worse, is a major miracle each year.

I'm curious why we wouldn't more actively encourage all cyclists to use the massive bike path down on University Dr.? Their safety is all but guaranteed, particularly since the UMass police actively enforce speed limits there.

That the Select Board has oversight over public ways is why the issue had to be brought to it by Public Works for a vote of approval In discussing the proposal, the Select Board was therefore not illegitimately intruding into the affairs of Public Works. My analysis of this situation has to do with the fact that the decision to move from the original Public Works proposal of a system of one way streets to the traffic pillow solution, and then the reduction of traffic pillow solution to Lincoln Avenue, and then the final design that was brought to the Select Board all occurred in the absence of any public meetings or discussion. Those who think that traffic pillows are superior to one way streets as a solution (I have no opinion on that as I have never seen a competent comparison of the two approaches) should realize that had Public Works been left alone, the traffic pillow solution would not have happened. Had Public Works communicated with the Select Board before bringing the proposal to the Board for a vote, there might have been a dialog that would have allowed a compromise between design integrity and the legal rights of bicyclists to occur before the Select Board was pressured to vote on what it saw as a proposal with problems. In my mind, this is the missing step that led to the current situation. Of course, Public Works might have reported back (perhaps through the Town Manager) that there was a problem with the resulting design before the pillows were put in place. Just this once, perhaps, the problems occurred because of insufficient discussion before action. I would also note that the Town Manager has strongly endorsed the action taken by the Select Board to protect bicycle usage in public. I appeared at the last Select Board meeting asking that this time around, the new design from Public Works be publicly displayed before it is implemented, but this proposal was rejected by the Select Board (3-1), a vote that most of the commentators above should apparently applaud.

I think Stephanie's right. In general and in this specific case. And, contrary to Mr. Ackerman's assertion, the speed cushion idea was reviewed and approved by TWO committees in public meetings: the PW committee and Public Transportation committee. Now, granted, these meetings are not well-publicized, nor are their agendas always available before the meetings. Valid points and another "process" area that could be improved.

But it's not the case that the cushions were approved in a smoke-filled room by a small group of "insiders."

As for Mr. Kusner's intervention...it was both out of line, in my opinion, AND ill-conceived. Bicyclists--and I'm one--have absolutely no problems with a narrower opening between the cushions and the curb--and to suggest they needed THREE FEET on either side is baffling. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was an idea hatched by somebody who never rode a bike before.

I'm also happy to report that the now-widened cushions do, indeed, appear to be having the desired effect of reducing speed--though I await the actual data from the traffic counters.

Yeah, I just came back from a GREAT Sunday ride and detoured over to Lincoln Avenue to check out the "reconfiguration".

Looks like about a foot of room on either side for bikes. And unless Mr. Kusner consumes copious amounts of alcohol before he saddles up, he should have NO PROBLEM negotiating the cushion-to-curb lane.

Unfortunately, the recent fix generated a new problem... we've seen drivers going down the middle of the road to straddle the center "pillow." It's a bit of a fright to see one of these coming at you. I'm not an expert on traffic calming, as others in town are, but doesn't this create a bigger problem than we started with?

I can corroborate Jeff's observation--though I have only seen a handful of such maneuvers since the cushions were re-configured to the correct width.

The possibility of drivers violating the law (not to mention common sense) by crossing the centerline and straddling the center cushion is an unavoidable feature of this design. You cannot allow emergency vehicles smooth clearance AND absolutely prohibit regular cars from doing the same thing.

These cushions have been used in a variety of warm-weather towns for several years. In conversations that Phil Jackson had with officials in one Virgina town, the problem of people crossing the center line was not so significant as to outweigh the advantages of the cushions. It's a risk/benefit balancing act (like the rest of life, come to think of it.)

We'll need to do some kind of assessment of this phenomenon on Lincoln as part of the overall evaluation of the experiment. For that we'll need the kind of anecdotal observations made by Jeff and others!

I completely agree with your assessment. The Select Board needs to clearly understand its role of what it should be doing and it needs a clearer understanding of what it should NOT be doing. Rather than posturing on issues and making attempts to shore up constituencies, the Select Board members should review their responsibilities and focus on fulfilling them. Last I heard none of the current members are urban planners, isn't that what we hire people to do in Town Hall? In reference to SB Member Kusner comments above, all I can say, as one Amherst voter: I support Ms. O'Keefe's criticism and thank her for articulating it with such eloquence.

Stephanie,

Again you have analyzed the real problem correctly. If only we could act on this.
Thanks for stating it so clearly.