Bulb-outs Pop Up in Milpas Traffic Debate

» MesaRes on 03.15.10 @ 08:48 AM

I agree that the city’s process for notification is a failure. From Chapala One to Plan SB and Pot Dispensaries, the citizens are uninformed until it’s too late. Our progressive leaders have it wrong. We want a safe, clean, and efficient city, not the experimental utopia of someone’s college thesis.

If I were a city “visionary” I would think it would be more appropriate to move to a city that already was the way I liked it rather than to force my “vision” onto an existing community.

If this is representative government, it’s broken. Let’s start over.

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» John Locke on 03.15.10 @ 10:00 AM

The most obvious problem with bulbouts is that they endanger bicyclists by forcing them from the curb lane into the driving lane at the intersection.  Secondly it is not at all clear to me that having pedestrians stand on the “bulb” is safe for them - kinda puts them closer to the traffic flow.  Thirdly our streets are full of holes - spend the money to fix them - and if this is “different money” as we are so often told by our city officials, then give it back. 

Want to make pedestrians safer?  Do what Washington, DC did about 50 years ago - synchronize the traffic lights so that everyone walks at once while the cars wait, then no one walks while cars are moving.

On a related point, the traffic department has grown from 2 to 10 (or is it 12?) people in the last decade and, as has been reported, is not staffed with traffic engineers. I think we have too many people in that department so they spend their time and our money dreaming up things like bulbouts and miniroundabouts (which fire engines can’t get through, as was reported by the fire chief b4 Mayor Blum hushed him up).  We’ve got a million dollar savings opportunity here, maybe more.

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» susie on 03.15.10 @ 10:56 AM

I am really tired of the city transportation engineers and their elitist attitude. Mr. dayton doesn’t even listen to the people who use the roads, as was the case on Alamar and Junipero streets.  I even heard the comment a few years ago at a planning commission meeting that the cyclists were being pushed out of the bike path into the traffic lane to remind cars to slow down.  I would like to see these self important (jerks) people stand on their bulb outs in heavy traffic, or be the cyclist that gets put into harm’s way because of these stupid policies.  They obviously didn’t get a very good education. They are mostly social engineers, and can’t even read plans (lots of plans that show the city streets) as shown by the Granada parking garage fiasco.  That whole garage deal was so stupid, that they voided a contract, and ended up with more costs later. Who thinks that the contractor should hold to an earlier cost analysis after the city spends a few years trying to manipulate plans, and the costs just keep rising? I am sick of the whole thing. Are they getting a good education? I don’t think so. Fire them all!!!

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» publius on 03.15.10 @ 12:51 PM

No problem with Feldman having his appeal hearing. Anyone can file for almost
any reason.

The question is, why?

Why does it bother someone whose shop is on lower Milpas (by TJ’s), that a
builder up at Milpas and de la Guerra, (almost half a mile away), wants to
voluntarily make crossing the street near the entrance to the County Bowl a
little bit easier and safer?

Feldman wasted no effort trying to “protect” invading rats on Anacapa Island,
and escaped pigs on Santa Cruz Island a few years ago.

Okay, it’s his money, and he can spend it any way he wants.

But who values rats and pigs over the safety of the SB Jr. High kids, and
all the neighbors hauling little kids and groceries, who want to be able to get
across Milpas safely?

How’d he feel if business owners on upper Milpas were appealing Feldman’s efforts to “improve” his store and its immediate area, even though there’s no connection between them?

This is certainly legal. But it sounds like a weird waste of City government time
and money.

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» AN50 on 03.15.10 @ 02:26 PM

Thanks Johnny, well said. I have actually had conversations with the “working” end of the city and county traffic departments and they have an ongoing beef with management and their traffic follies. It comes from the mistaken believe by Santa Barbara’s flower children that reducing lane count and road capacity will magically make traffic go away. Nope, you keep getting more traffic on less facilities for more of that LA feel. Nice work! After killing our wealth generating industry, killing housing growth and driving pricing through the roof and generally unleashing neighbor on neighbor animosity over anything built whether a bird bath in your yard or a granny flat over the garage, all that to maintain that “small town charm” only to have the traffic tyrants screw you with coercive and offensive devices that give you all the feel of Los Angeles. Nice work and is this the same kind of government folly we can expect further up the food chain, like federal control over healthcare? Whoa, please stop helping us before you kill us all with your condescending arrogant kindness.

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» John Locke on 03.15.10 @ 05:25 PM

sbblogfog, you apparently haven’t read these postings too closely.  Some of us are opposed to bulbouts precisely because they are demonstrably dangerous to bicyclists and pedestrians.  If our traffic planning department was staffed with professional traffic planners instead of psychologists and social “engineers”, then one might believe their statements about safety, but it’s not, so don’t be too quick to believe their PR.  Common sense is in unimaginably short supply in this town.

I’ll repeat a comment I made earlier:  follow the Washington, D.C. model of having all lights at an intersection permit walking and prohibit driving at the same time; then allow driving and prohibit walking.  Very Simple.  Much safer and much cheaper than pouring concrete.  But I’d bet a whole lot that our “traffic planning” department is not capable of applying the necessary queueing theories nor using the available software to do this. So fire them and get some real traffic engineers.

BTW, ever think that when the traffic planners recommend bulbouts and miniroundabouts they create work for the city construction crews?  Think that might bias their judgement?  Nah, ‘course not.

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» John Locke on 03.15.10 @ 07:28 PM

Um, sbblogfog, you’re repeating yourself. Other than assuming that anyone objecting to bulbouts must ipso facto care only about cars, do you have anything in the way of debating points to offer?

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» AN50 on 03.16.10 @ 10:20 AM

Sbblogfog, you are wrong. Please read my earlier post. The lane used for parked cars is the same lane used for right turn pockets so turning traffic does not interfere with through traffic. Blocking this at an intersection is a defacto obstruction to traffic flow and a source of increased fuel use and pollution. Most standard intersections have been modified by real traffic engineers to separate turning traffic from through traffic to minimize interruption to flow and increase efficiency.  This usually requires WIDER intersections, not narrower ones. Bulbouts destroy this efficiency and cause greater traffic friction, not less. Further you now have those turning cars in direct conflict with through bicycle traffic pitting an unshielded human against 2 ton hunks of metal. The transportation department knows this and has embarked on a campaign to de-emphasize motor vehicle traffic by coercion in an attempt at behavior change.
You can spin this crap anyway your mind wants to justify it, but that is what it is and there are many public statements by transportation weenies to that effect. You are being coerced forcefully by your government. The coercion is in the form of financial loss due to longer drive times and greater fuel consumption (not just privately but for public transportation as well) and the coercion is mental pain in that it is intended to make driving more difficult. As soon as a good lawyer decides they have merit this whole debacle will hopefully end up in court where the intentions of the city council and their transportation office will be exposed in the public record.

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» JeffKing on 03.16.10 @ 09:02 PM

Mr. Westby should perhaps say that ‘he’ knows of no proof of the usefulness of bulb-outs.  I know that I feel safer when walking across a street where the crossing distance is shortened by curb bulb-outs, and as a bicyclist I know they are not an impediment to my travel.  I drive also, and I believe that it is a good thing to slow traffic through an intersection. The positive change at Milpas and Canon Perdido is apparent to those that pass there, as I do. These devices can be designed to balance the traffic experience for all modes of travel.  It can’t be all about cars, despite the fact that some people believe we’ll not give them up.  A vital and interesting commercial street can’t really exist without a thoughtful consideration of pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.

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» AN50 on 03.17.10 @ 09:28 AM

Jeff thanks for the anecdotal observations. Most of the comments for bulb outs are just that. That is why you are not a traffic engineer and the real ones are screaming bloody murder that these idiotic devices are being blamed on them and not the dopy politicians and social engineers who thought them up.

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» downtownres on 03.19.10 @ 08:23 AM

This is one of the craziest things I have ever seen. The developer was FORCED to put the bulb-out in by the Planning Commission. The businesses don’t want it. The bus drivers can’t drive around them. So the developer said, well the money has been allocated to the project, so you could put in some pedestrian improvement (a street crossing signal would be good across De La Guerra) and then use the rest of the money for something else the community wants. The money is $6300. Parks and Rec is having to look at closing parks and shut down programs. The city is laying off police. Schools are laying off teachers. But no, COAST has to step in and demand the bulb-out. What kind of prioritization IS this???? What used to be a right-turn lane next to a straight-through lane now gets reduced to one lane for both, and bikes are forced to merge into that. How can COAST defend the position that this is ‘safer’???? How can the Eastside feel great about a forced bulb-out when they could use the money to put in pedestrian lights somewhere else on Milpas (and they need them, believe me!) I just don’t get it. Our city seems bent on getting you out of your car, but why on MILPAS???

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