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Another view on Oak Street By Michael Bingham It has been said that history is merely the chronicle of unintended consequences. In that context, Oak Street is a prime example of history in the making. In his Oct. 5 commentary, Don Laws attempted to set the record straight on the "traffic calming" methods currently in place on Oak Street. While perhaps accurate from his point of view, Mr. Laws commentary ignores a number of very important facts. For example, Don states that "traffic calming should not be used where it causes the traffic to divert to an equally vulnerable neighborhood." Yet that is precisely what has occurred. In 1998, a petition signed by 40 neighbors residing on streets adjoining Oak Street warned, "traffic calming measures on Oak Street may have the unintended effect of increasing traffic at Helman School and on Helman and Laurel Streets." Don Laws, Carole Wheeldon and the rest of the city council chose to ignore this plea. Unfortunately, the neighbors were right. A recent traffic study commissioned by the city after the speed bumps were installed, showed that over a third of the traffic had shifted from a designated arterial street, to Helman, a narrow street with no sidewalks, blind curves and an elementary school. The mayor dismissed the city's own study with the interesting theory that the increase on Helman traffic was due to a sale at Ashland Greenhouse during the time that the study was being done. Strangely, not one councilor questioned this second-hand anecdotal explanation. Of course, accepting the study would mean that the council would have to take responsibility for the fact that their "traffic calming" had indeed increased the danger to grade school children who walk to Helman School. Mr. Laws states as fact that Councilor Wheeldon "was a leader in the [Oak Street] effort many years prior to even thinking she might be appointed to a vacancy on the council." While this may be true, it is also a fact that her efforts were completely unsuccessful until the mayor appointed her to the city council. After her appointment, the city council created an "arterial assistance account" (which we all get to pay for through our utility bills) that Carole and her neighbors were first in line for. Even so, the project went nowhere until the city found a large state grant in September of 1997. Many other streets in Ashland with traffic problems equal to or worse than those of Oak Street could also have benefited from this grant, but the city staff chose to apply it to Oak Street. Surely Mr. Laws can understand how the use of a large grant to "improve" a street where two prominent elected officials live might be perceived by the voters as an abuse of power. What is perhaps most disturbing though, is Don's suggestion that this whole project is some sort of experiment. This approach may work for choosing rubber speed bumps. When it comes to designing an intersection it would seem prudent, for the safety of our citizens, to use experts, not experiments. This obviously was not the case with the intersection of Hersey and Oak. In 1998, the council, O.D.O.T. and the city engineer approved a design for this intersection that did not include islands. At some point the islands were designed into the project. The city engineer, in interviews with the Mail Tribune and the Sneak Preview, stated that his department was not involved with the redesign and refused to name the individual (or individuals) who were responsible for adding these confusing and dangerous islands to the design. It appears that there are no records of how this unfortunate mis-design occurred. An owner of property at the intersection, who was an active member of the neighborhood group, has stated that he had no idea where the islands came from. It seems sadly ironic that a city council that takes such pride in encouraging "multi-model transportation forms" would create an intersection so difficult and dangerous to negotiate on a bicycle or on foot. Councilor Laws suggests that they are learning from their mistakes and that the project is ongoing and subject to change. Perhaps someday they will get it right. Let us all hope that this will happen before someone is seriously injured or killed by this poorly designed and poorly executed project. Michael Bingham lives in Ashland Visit our back issue library Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Western Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Corvallis Gazette-Times | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | | Ashland Daily Tidings | Gresham Outlook | Springfield News | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2000 Lee Northwest Publishing