The Next Step plan for Main Avenue will make parking downtown dangerous. The center lane, where delivery trucks park, is being reduced in width from 12 to 10 feet. The two traffic lanes will be reduced from 10 1/2 to 10 feet and both sidewalks will be widened by 3 feet.
This will eliminate the safety zone on the driver’s side of a parked car. Doors on the left-hand side of the car will open into the traffic lane. People exiting their cars will have to hope that traffic will stop, or press themselves against the sides of their car to avoid being hit.
The bodies of handicapped people, people with walkers, elderly people, women unloading babies from car seats, etc., will intentionally be used to slow down traffic, another goal of the planners.
Bicycles will not safely ride on the edge of the traffic lane for fear of a door opening in front of them. Planners think bikes should stay in the middle of the lane, between cars. That’s a dead wish. And because the red and yellow zones at the ends of the blocks are being turned into bump-outs, bikers will have no safe place to pull out of traffic and dismount.
This is all being done to provide “bistro” restaurant space on the sidewalks. Perhaps planners believe that diners will enjoy watching the “reality TV” of people endangering their lives to come downtown.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Jackson Clark II
Durango
