Bulb-outs Pop Up in Milpas Traffic Debate
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/031410_bulb-outs_pop_up_in_milpas_traffic_debate/
By Lara Cooper, Noozhawk Staff Writer
Business owner challenges effectiveness of curb extensions, city notification of project plans
Rick Feldman has become the de facto leader against an issue that’s been bubbling under the surface of Santa Barbara’s Lower Eastside for the last few months.
Feldman takes issue with the curb extensions, what some call “bulb-outs,” that are part of the current plans for a mixed-use project slated for Milpas and De la Guerra streets.
As a business owner at the Santa Barbara Eyeglass Factory, 1 S. Milpas St., for the past 14 years, Feldman says traffic on Milpas makes it one of the busiest corridors in the city.
Putting in curb extensions could endanger pedestrians as well as add to traffic congestions, according to Feldman.
The extensions are planned for the northwest corner of Milpas and De la Guerra streets and would extend by several feet the rounded portion of the curb where pedestrians cross.
The extensions and “traffic calming devices” used by the city’s Transportation Division have been controversial among motorists and bicyclists.
Last month, the city Planning Commission voted 3-1 to support the plans, in spite of Feldman’s public comment opposing the addition of the curb extensions.
The project is now going before the City Council on March 23, and Feldman is trying to rally support of the appeal by holding a news conference, at 1 p.m. Monday, at the project site, 803 N. Milpas St.
But Feldman has another issue to take up with the city: how and when residents are notified of projects in their neighborhoods.
At least 10 days in advance of a public hearing, the city must send notices of projects that require it to property owners within 300 feet of the site. Within the same time frame and under a law dating to the 1800s, the city also publishes a notice in a “legally adjudicated newspaper” of general circulation, in this case the Santa Barbara News-Press.
According to Feldman, many of the Milpas Street property owners live out of state and renters or tenants of the affected properties aren’t informed of the changes. If people don’t read the News-Press or skip the legal ads, he said, they’re unlikely to learn about the projects at all until they’re being built. To date, the Legislature has spurned efforts to expand the definition of legal adjudication to other publications, online news sites and even municipal Web sites.
Feldman said he only found out about the project, which is nine blocks away from his store, when a fellow business owner told him. By then, the project had been approved, so he scrambled to file a legal appeal before time ran out.
“I didn’t believe there had been sufficient notification to anyone,” he said.
The project’s manager, Jarrett Gorin, approached Feldman after he filed the appeal to see if the builder and the business owner could compromise, and Feldman agreed to put his appeal on hold.
To avoid the appeal, Gorin even agreed to pay more than $6,000 toward the city’s access ramp program to take the curb extensions out of the plan at the Planning Commission hearing.
Gorin couldn’t be reached for comment about the project, but had urged planning commissioners in February to focus on the project instead of allowing the discussion to become overtaken by curb extensions.
“I don’t think they have a right to go after an individual for speaking up,” said Feldman, describing a particularly heated exchange between himself and Commissioner John Jostes. “In effect, this developer is being held hostage by a flawed process.”
But commissioners moved the project forward, and Feldman will make his case in front of the council.
Rob Dayton, the city’s principal transportation planner, has a different view of the extensions.
“It’s a very common design element,” he told Noozhawk.
Dayton points to a policy in Santa Barbara’s Pedestrian Master Plan that calls on the city to enhance the pedestrian corridor of Milpas, which reads “main improvement needs on this corridor include crossing improvements such as high visibility crosswalks and curb extensions.”
Dayton estimates traffic trips in the project area to be around 10,000 per day, while Milpas traffic reaches between 25,000 to 30,000 trips daily nearer to Highway 101.
Just one block from the proposed project, Dayton said a curb extension installed at Milpas and Canon Perdido shortened the crossing distance for pedestrians by eight feet and has been successful so far.
Making pedestrians more visible to motorists is a key advantage of the extensions, according to Dayton, as well as enforcing the paths of bicycles alongside vehicle traffic.
The sidewalks will also be widened in the area to accommodate the heavy pedestrian activity, Dayton said. City traffic studies show that more than 1,600 pedestrians per day pass the Milpas and Cota intersection, just two blocks south of the project site.
Feldman said sidewalks should be widened where they can, and bike lanes put in where feasible, too, but that “people aren’t going to leave their cars.”
“City staff agree that this is just one tool in the toolbox,” said Feldman, adding that he’s concerned the city still hasn’t put forward a striping plan in the neighborhood.
“The majority of business people and citizens who I talked to understand the need for transparency,” said Feldman, who says he is backed by about a dozen Milpas business owners.
Jim Westby, a neighborhood activist and supporter of Feldman, has said he’s made a request for information about how many accidents have occurred at the Milpas-De la Guerra intersection, but has yet to hear back from the Police Department.
“The Milpas corridor is a stepchild compared to State Street or Cabrillo (Boulevard),” said Westby, who added that there’s no proof that bulb-outs make traffic safer to deal with for bikers and pedestrians.
“Is it safer or not?” he said. “There’s no data. We just don’t know.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/031410_bulb-outs_pop_up_in_milpas_traffic_debate/