Monday 6/3 Hearing on Eliza St./Mall Connector: Comments to City Council

This coming Monday night the Bellingham City Council meeting agenda includes 30 minutes for a public hearing on the 2012-2017 Transportation Improvement Program. This is your opportunity to speak against Project # 6: Eliza Avenue Multimodal Arterial Connection. I've written about it before. This is the project that will turn a quiet stretch of Eliza into an extension of the mall, thereby choking off the safest portion of the cycling commute between Whatcom Community College and parts south.

The meeting is at 7pm in the City Council Chambers -- here's the agenda. 

I urge you to attend and speak against this project.

If you can't, please email the City Council and tell them your concerns. Here's what I wrote to them:

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Council Members,

I'm writing to oppose Project #6 in the 2012-2017 TIP, "Eliza Avenue Multimodal Arterial Connection". This project, as described in the TIP, will have a negative impact on the safety of bicyclists commuting to Whatcom Community College from the south -- and there are more of us all the time.

It proposes to bring arterial-levels of traffic to a road segment (Eliza between Northwest and Matanuska) that cannot handle both that much traffic AND bicyclists at the same time. The price tag of the project is low because it's not a complete project. It will create a hazard where there currently isn't one.

Please do not support this project until it is redesigned to take the safety of bicyclists into account. It should not go forward without, at a minimum, removing parking from both sides of Eliza and also adding bike lanes to both sides. The most preferable alternative is fund the entire sidewalk/curb/gutter/bike lane portion of the project at the same time as building the mall connector.

I wrote to you last year about this project as well.

There's more information at my blog:

http://bellinghambikeblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/eliza-stmall-connector-bad-for-bikes.html

I would speak against it Monday's Council Meeting, but I work at that time and can't make it.

Please tell me you're not going to put me in with mall traffic on a road with no bike lane.

Thank you,