Tuesday, August 07, 2007
A plan for roads
The Lakewood City Council voted 6-1 last night to approve a traffic construction plan for 2008 to 2013. We've been talking about the plan for awhile, in blog posts below. This is the same plan that the citizens' transportation committee used to propose tax increases (another topic discussed below), so the financial projections are quite conservative and don't project a lot of construction without those new taxes.
The document is pretty similar to the ones I have posted earlier, but I did want to put the final document up in case there are any questions. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if you see a project listed as funded over more than one year, the actual construction is expected in the year of the final column. In an earlier posting, I put up a list of all the various proposed construction projects, including the many that are unfunded.
I was the no vote. Construction of a left-turn lane on Custer at John Dower Road is now scheduled for 2010, even though it will just cost more and more as the years go by to acquire the right-of-way needed for this safety measure. Obviously not everyone agrees with me, but I just feel strongly that this safety measure is needed sooner rather than later.
I should quickly note that the council saved any discussion of the tax increases proposed by the citizens' committee for another day. The volunteers did a lot of homework in making their case; and they won the endorsement of two other all-volunteer citizens advisory groups, the economic redevelopment board and the planning board, for tax increases. I'll let you know when the matter returns for discussion. It seems to me there is more we can do with our current resources, and I am against a tax increase; but it would be impolite not to hear the transportation group out again now that the transportation plan itself is settled.
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The document is pretty similar to the ones I have posted earlier, but I did want to put the final document up in case there are any questions. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if you see a project listed as funded over more than one year, the actual construction is expected in the year of the final column. In an earlier posting, I put up a list of all the various proposed construction projects, including the many that are unfunded.
I was the no vote. Construction of a left-turn lane on Custer at John Dower Road is now scheduled for 2010, even though it will just cost more and more as the years go by to acquire the right-of-way needed for this safety measure. Obviously not everyone agrees with me, but I just feel strongly that this safety measure is needed sooner rather than later.
I should quickly note that the council saved any discussion of the tax increases proposed by the citizens' committee for another day. The volunteers did a lot of homework in making their case; and they won the endorsement of two other all-volunteer citizens advisory groups, the economic redevelopment board and the planning board, for tax increases. I'll let you know when the matter returns for discussion. It seems to me there is more we can do with our current resources, and I am against a tax increase; but it would be impolite not to hear the transportation group out again now that the transportation plan itself is settled.
