42 replies to this topic

[Bill Z]

my taxes paid for those roads, I want to be able to drive on them.

I take short cuts all of the time, even if time wise it's a long cut, manytimes I prefer to stay off the main drag.

[mylo]

my taxes paid for those roads, I want to be able to drive on them.

I take short cuts all of the time, even if time wise it's a long cut, manytimes I prefer to stay off the main drag.

You can drive on them. However, all roads have laws and limits that are enacted for public safety and the benefit of residents and citizens.

For instance, just because "your taxes" paid for a road, doesn't mean you can drive the wrong way down the street. There are speed limits and stop signs. There are crossing guards that stop you, temporarily, from using your road. There are one way streets and no right turns in busy cities. Just because your road is there, doesn't mean you get to use it however you want. Believe me, I'd love to turn left when I get stuck on Market St. in SF. But just because I helped pay for the road, doesn't mean I get to screw it up for everyone else.

The road is available, for anyone wanting to drive on it. It's not very convenient if you just want a shortcut. But if you want to drive it, perhaps to visit one of the fantastic shops in the commercial district or just to tour the beautiful homes in the jewel of our city, you're more than welcome to exercise your tax-paying right to public roads.

Just don't be a !@#$ and fly through the stop sign on your ever-important commute to Roseville. Use the artery roads. Wait in line like everyone else. You are not more important or deserving or worth risking the safety or peace of residents just so you can save a few minutes off your drive.

[tony]

I'm happy to be in total agreement with Mylo on this one.

There several major differences between residential streets in the HD and other busy "residential collectors", as they are called, in town.

First, none of the other residential streets carrying significant traffic (Wales, Montrose, School, Briggs Ranch Rd. - the Briggs Ranch crowd got theirs cut off with the new bridge project) are carrying regional commute traffic, with the exception of Sibley, much of which is in the HD anyway. There is a difference between folks trying to get to Lowes and those trying to get the Galleria or El Dorado Hills.

Second, the HD streets, unlike any others in the city, are on a traditional grid, providing lots of options for dispersing traffic. While this is generally a good thing, in our case, it is not so much so because that small traditional grid is right smack in the middle of a suburban street system with very few options. And that suburban street system converges on the HD grid. The result is that the HD provides lots of opportunities for opportunistic short-cutters to try and circumvent the major streets.

Third, all other residential collectors in the city have sidewalks, so even with relatively high traffic volumes and speeds, they are fairly safe places to walk. Not so in the HD, where not even Natoma or Riley Streets have continuous sidewalks, much less the rest of the residential streets.

So, if for no other reason that for pedestrian safety, ,there are basically two options:
1) reduce traffic volume and speeds to those compatible with pedestrians walking in narrow streets with parking on both sides or 2) provide sidewalks on all streets in the district. To do the first, the city would have to overcome the standard fire department veto of any real traffic calming, as has been done in hundreds of city's, large and small, across the US. Some combination of traffic calming and sidewalks may also be viable.

In the past 15 years, we have spent $200 MILLION, I repeat, $200 MILLION to make it easy for regional commuters to get through and around Folsom and across the American River (ant that's just the two bridges). It's time to stop catering to that traffic in the HD. How about we spend about 1/100th of that to make the residential streets in the HD safe and livable again. And it's about time that the merchants recognized that allowing regional traffic to speed through the district (even on Riley Street) is not good for business.

The HD needs a comprehensive traffic management plan that prioritizes the needs of residents and actual HD customers, not all those looking for short cuts, and it needs it now.

[ducky]

I agree with mylo, too. I remember what those streets were like when there was no traffic calming and it was horrible.

Sorry, Tony, have to disagree with you on School St., Wales, and Glenn. We get significant cut-through traffic. We not only have people "trying to get to Lowe's," but also using those streets to cut through for the elementary school, and middle schools at both ends of School Street, and we also get people cutting over from Natoma to get to Riley and East Bidwell.

Not only that, we get plenty of City of Folsom traffic, too, including city vehicles, fire department, and police department - not that I mind the city stuff so much because we also get a lot of things taken care of faster because of that. It seems like I hear fire deparment vehicles go up Glenn, sirens blaring, at least twice a day. They probably used a lot less gas when they were just across the street from Park Folsom.

[Steve Heard]

I'd like them if they looked better. The only one I don't like is the curb thingy at Scott and Sutter.

[FolsomH2O]

Think back to 1994 and how traffic would be much different in Folsom with the Oak Ave bridge.

[Bill Z]

You can drive on them. However, all roads have laws and limits that are enacted for public safety and the benefit of residents and citizens.

For instance, just because "your taxes" paid for a road, doesn't mean you can drive the wrong way down the street. There are speed limits and stop signs. There are crossing guards that stop you, temporarily, from using your road. There are one way streets and no right turns in busy cities. Just because your road is there, doesn't mean you get to use it however you want. Believe me, I'd love to turn left when I get stuck on Market St. in SF. But just because I helped pay for the road, doesn't mean I get to screw it up for everyone else.

The road is available, for anyone wanting to drive on it. It's not very convenient if you just want a shortcut. But if you want to drive it, perhaps to visit one of the fantastic shops in the commercial district or just to tour the beautiful homes in the jewel of our city, you're more than welcome to exercise your tax-paying right to public roads.

Just don't be a !@#$ and fly through the stop sign on your ever-important commute to Roseville. Use the artery roads. Wait in line like everyone else. You are not more important or deserving or worth risking the safety or peace of residents just so you can save a few minutes off your drive.

I do stop at stop signs, sometimes to the point of irritating the stop sign runners behind me.
so yes, I expect to be able to drive on the roads my taxes paid for, and do so in a safe and legal fashion

[tony]

I'd like them if they looked better. The only one I don't like is the curb thingy at Scott and Sutter.

The curb thingy is gone. Traffic calming does not have to be ugly; in fact, in many places outside of Folsom it is considered and opportunity to improve the look of the streets. The biggest thing, IMHO, that would improve the look of the streets would be to eliminate the random parking in the residential areas. And how do you do that? By putting in well-designed sidewalks. That does not mean replicating the ugly suburban curb-gutter and sidewalk that was built in the parts of the district in the 1960s. Well-designed sidewalks would be separated from the street by a landscape strip, would, when necessary, wind around trees, would be of a material consistent with the historic district (as if the asphalt streets are) and would generally provide some order to a chaos of parked cars that hides much of the charm of the residential streets.

To those who argue sidewalks would ruin the "rural feel" of the district or that they are not historic, I say tell me exactly what is historic or rural feeling about cars parked every which way in front lawns, and 3000 cars a day driving in front of houses? And, if one is to pay attention, one will see that there are actually quite a lot of sidewalks in the district, they just don't connect into a usable system that provides any sort of consistent safety for pedestrians.

[tony]

I agree with mylo, too. I remember what those streets were like when there was no traffic calming and it was horrible.

Sorry, Tony, have to disagree with you on School St., Wales, and Glenn. We get significant cut-through traffic. We not only have people "trying to get to Lowe's," but also using those streets to cut through for the elementary school, and middle schools at both ends of School Street, and we also get people cutting over from Natoma to get to Riley and East Bidwell.

Not only that, we get plenty of City of Folsom traffic, too, including city vehicles, fire department, and police department - not that I mind the city stuff so much because we also get a lot of things taken care of faster because of that. It seems like I hear fire deparment vehicles go up Glenn, sirens blaring, at least twice a day. They probably used a lot less gas when they were just across the street from Park Folsom.

Didn't mean to diminish the traffic issues on Wales, Montrose, etc., but I don't see the same kind of wanton disregard for the neighborhood there that I do in the HD. I would definitely put those streets as next on the list after the HD for some real traffic calming. Incidentally, I was just noticing today how many city vehicles were using School Street.

[granto]

Go sit at the stop sign at Coloma and Figueroa for a single rush-hour. That place is a death trap w/ the barriers down.

Or watch the crazies cutting through Natoma to Figueroa to Riley, to avoid the right-on-red at Riley. ...Wow, flying through a residential neighbourhood, to beat people rightfully in front of you, by jamming onto a 35mph street with no controls. That's a good, safe, idea!

One community speeds up, while another slows down, from the Bee:
...Orangevale, a community that boasts of its semirural character, soon may be known for its bumpy roads, but not the country kind. Responding to residents' concerns about speeding traffic in their neighborhoods, the Sacramento County Department of Transportation proposes to install as many as 54 12-foot-long "speed tables" in the northeast portion of the community....

[john]

Think back to 1994 and how traffic would be much different in Folsom with the Oak Ave bridge.

then someone else would be complaining ...though it's the most logical spot for a bridge; seemed in the master plan but somebody decided to put houses up!

[Redone]

then someone else would be complaining ...though it's the most logical spot for a bridge; seemed in the master plan but somebody decided to put houses up!

I remember it being a vote of the people as to whether a new bridge would be at Oak Ave or Lake Natoma crossing around 1994.

I don't recall how close it was.

[ducky]

Didn't mean to diminish the traffic issues on Wales, Montrose, etc., but I don't see the same kind of wanton disregard for the neighborhood there that I do in the HD. I would definitely put those streets as next on the list after the HD for some real traffic calming. Incidentally, I was just noticing today how many city vehicles were using School Street.

I don't complain about the city vehicles because I have to say they really do stay at 25 miles an hour for the most part. I wish I could say the same for the harried parents getting their children to school.

[SmartMoney]

That was fast.

A half hour ago I saw them taking down the ones at Riley and Figueroa...

Let the races begin!!

[dnell]

I had no idea these barriers were going to be removed until I was woken up this morning to all the racket. Had I known, I would have definitely tried to give someone my opinion about keeping the barriers. There's already enough accidents as is. People like making quick turns left onto Mormon from Riley (going towards Sutter Street, by the preschool) and get hit, people try to hurry up to make the Natoma/Riley and get hit/rear-ended...I can only imagine the cars who are waiting on Riley to turn left on Natoma will be tempted to make that quick left turn onto Mormon now. I just think it's going to cause more accidents and problems.

From the Telegraph article:

She went on to express her concerns over the barriers’ “ugly” appearance.

They aren't all that bad looking. I've never thought they were ugly. Even if they were, I'd rather have something ugly up to prevent the traffic and accidents than nothing at all. I'm going to feel really unsafe without them.