The Observation Deck

From Wikipedia
"In its early development in the UK in the 1930s, traffic calming was based on the idea of residential areas protected from through traffic. Subsequently, it was mainly justified on the grounds of pedestrian safety and reduction of the noise and local air pollution that traffic produces. However, car traffic severely impairs the social and recreational functions that streets are now recognized to have. The Livable Streets study by Donald Appleyard (1981)[2] found that residents of streets with light traffic had, on average, three more friends and twice as many acquaintances as the people on streets with heavy traffic which were otherwise similar in dimensions, income, etc."

The City of Lakewood's latest bandaid to fix something they broke forever is "Traffic Calming"
as described above, it is the new fondue of city planning! I mean who doesn't want calm
traffic, and a city that spends millions to prove we are cool, are deep into this.


The city has a serious sign fetish, this move will allow them to put up 21 new signs
on the block! You can feel their glee.

The place they want to try "traffic calming" ahhhhhhh that sounds so nice is Woodward Ave.
You know the nice little neighborhood that was big porches, nice yards and old homes, and
then a BIG MC DONALDS, with two entrances and exits on the residential side street, and
then the big lit McDonald's sign that shattered their little piece of heaven forever. So now
that a fast food place has an entrance and exit on Woodward, traffic is out of control and
needs to be "calmed."

Why didn't they try to calm the residents earlier? The residents I have spoken with see
this as making the best of a terrible situation brought on completely by City Hall.


The City and the ARB approved for McDonald's a national chain to place their sign on a
residential street instead of the front of the business, as is the LAW. Put their to protect
residential neighborhoods from unwanted encroachment.

Well before the city pushed McDonalds into their new location, traffic on Woodward was
pretty calm. Since the invention of the car, traffic on Woodward was pretty calm. It would
seem the only thing to shatter the calmness was Lakewood not just allowing a fast food
restaurant into a quality neighborhood, but assisting them in putting the entrances in
a residential neighborhood. As they insisted with Dunkin Donuts, Bob Evans, Social
Security and now the 150 seat sports bar in a church.

Maybe just maybe, City Hall should get some City Hall calmers and leave the residential
districts alone.

If you quit screwing stuff up you would have to keep fixing it.

.

Great news, Jim.

City Hall was able to get a grant for original, creative, traffic calming signs.

These signs were just announced today on the City Hall Facebook page:





The signs are scheduled to be installed this week.

Matt

The seven years we lived on Woodward, I would not have described it as "calm" exactly, with its direct connection from Detroit to I90 and the school at Madison. But anyone with common sense had to know how much worse it would be with McD at the corner.

Paul Schrimpf wrote:The seven years we lived on Woodward, I would not have described it as "calm" exactly, with its direct connection from Detroit to I90 and the school at Madison. But anyone with common sense had to know how much worse it would be with McD at the corner.

Paul

Small world, I lived there for 3 years back in the late 70s.

I-90 did not help, but neither did McDonalds, or desperately trying to make Lakewood the bar capital of Cleveland.

No matter, government screwed it up, and adding to the hardships of those on Woodward hardly seems like a way
to make it better. Actually, something I have noticed with governments and CDCs, they will spend billions proving
their $10,000 idea kind of worked.

McDonald's sign on Woodward was just the city rubbing the residents noses in it.

.

I suppose the most amazing part of all of this is. No money for parks, no money for hoops, no money
for safe clean streets but tons of money for projects to cover up the failures of this administration.

Outcry over Kauffman, ohhhh look enough money for one 1/2 court suddenly appears. No money to open
up parks that sit closed for very ignorant reasons. Suddenly money for 23 signs and a traffic test.

Yes this is another social engineering test from City Hall to see if they can train us. Yeah train us to
take it again, and again and again for businesses in Lakewood. Well you decide to be the new West Bank
of the Flats, you need a way to get the drunks in and out, and the residents suffer again, and again.

How about city hall takes a moratorium on screwing stuff up for 1 year.


.

Yeah, you do something that messes things up, then institute a "fix" that, if you generate enough "evidence" that the "fix" works, you can mess things up somewhere else and simply institute the "fix" at the same time.

More street signs and less street parking for residents is not a fair tradeoff for quicker access to burgers. I would not feel calm.

Paul

This is a great chance to take a breath, relax and look very closely at how City Hall works and doesn't work.

This is a great chance to see, do they admit mistakes, or just keep on blindly throwing crap at the wall?

Do they care about residents or businesses.

For over 10 years we have warned of the dangers to residents when city cares more about commercial
economic development than people, residents, homes, neighborhoods, etc. You cannot serve two masters
that are so completely at odds with each other.

The residents of Woodward begged, and pleaded for common sense, and instead we got the mayor
himself counting cars for almost 4 hours, then declaring it, "Not a problem!" Now we could argue the
common sense of having a mayor getting paid 6 figures taking a half of day to count cars, but lets
move on to the LIE told by the mayor. "No traffic problem." Well guess who was wrong?

Will City Hall admit it or crack on the residents some more. Well we got our answer, Screw the stupid residents
some more, after all "It couldn't be the phony traffic study, it was the mayor himself!"

This group of rank amateurs is out of control. Nice people, but in way over their heads.

The other day I was told they will fix traffic on Detroit by stopping parking! WTF. Detroit was fine for
over 100 years, even when there were trolleys, cars, horses, and bikes sharing them. They were fine
when the city had 72,000 residents and Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Pontiacs the size of motor homes.
Detroit was fine until they screwed it up. Now, the problem isn't that they broke it, its too much parking!

Just like when your good friend lost themselves in the bottle of booze. Time for Lakewood City Hall to get
sober, come clean, and admit the fault and the damage and move on from there. Using resident's cars
as speed bumps and chicanes is hardly the answer.

Can we even believe or trust them on the "small micro brewery" that actually has 150
seats and full service bar in the middle of a residential neighborhood? Did I mention the
numbers of TVs this small upscale micro-brewery will have?

When you can no longer trust City Hall to represent the voters, party is over. When they
purposely lie and mislead, they need to be run from office.

.

I just want to say that myself and many many of my fellow residents on Woodward have been asking the city to do something about the speeding safety issue on our street for more than two and a half years.

The city did research on options to reduce speeding and came up with this approach.

All of the neighbors I've talked to are hopeful for the chicanes and all agree something needs to be done about the speeding safety problem. I did my own research and I actually agree with the city's approach. Street design seems to be the best way to do that.

The majority of the facebook comments on this installation are positive and residents of other streets asking for something similar. I'm not sure why these boards are so negative all the time.

Ben I'm glad you brought it up....

The criticism here seems to focus on the signs, as though signs alone can calm traffic. We all know that is not the case, including the critics. Instead, the street redesign features a series of bump-outs that cause motorists to have to slow down as they drive on one side or the other. In chicanes as you call them. The bump-outs can be seen in the drawing. I hope it works. I don't see how it cannot work.

City hall is not to blame for speeding motorists. Speeding motorists are to blame for speeding motorists.

Good luck to all of you on Woodward!

I agree Ben. Although I live on a little used east-west street there are on occasion some speeders flying by my house. I would love to have this done on my street. An added plus to this project is it will add some garden spots which is another good thing.

Ben VanLear wrote:I just want to say that myself and many many of my fellow residents on Woodward have been asking the city to do something about the speeding safety issue on our street for more than two and a half years.

The city did research on options to reduce speeding and came up with this approach.

All of the neighbors I've talked to are hopeful for the chicanes and all agree something needs to be done about the speeding safety problem. I did my own research and I actually agree with the city's approach. Street design seems to be the best way to do that.

The majority of the facebook comments on this installation are positive and residents of other streets asking for something similar. I'm not sure why these boards are so negative all the time.

Ben

Actually go back through the archives looking at speeding, streets, and you will find years of ideas and ways
to not just help residential stay residential neighborhoods, but address problems in very positive ways. I could
list the positive projects started by the Observer, but why, a bunch of complainers ehhhh?

The solution now is very narrow, and my friends on Woodward are desperate to try anything, because since the
arrival of McDonald's it has gotten worse than usual.

Another thing the 12 year history of the Deck can give us, is perspective, and a running record on what works
and what doesn't work here in Lakewood. One of the funny things you will see if you do go back and do some
research, is that Woodward was upset over the bumps in the road and became upset with speeders two days
after the road was rebuilt last time. Ironically this happens all over town, and you can see the pattern on the deck.

But, I would say it is not the signs, I merely noticed the city has a real fetish for putting up signs. If you do not
believe me drive down Detroit and check out how many city signs block city signs! Then check out how many block
legal business signs. Yeah this city hall gets excited by signs, BUT the real outrage seems to be that this city seems
unable or unwilling to think before they create the nightmare is the first place.

And the City was being less than honest in dealings with residents from the very beginning. Which has become the norm.

The signs, the chicanes, the "social engineering test" is merely a desperate attempt to shut up one street, probably
at the expenses of the others. If you doubt it, ex-Planning Director got to keep his illegal hedges that caused
accidents, got his one way street, and the rest of us got more traffic. Even the streets with 3 times as many children!
ZERO CRITICAL THOUGHT.

Sure try something to slow down cars, but why not start with what is causing it? After all is McDonald's paying for
these tests, or concepts or am I?


.

OK folks, let's talk reality...


In my two hours on Woodward today, I noticed a couple things, one, is it is not as nuts as I thought.

I have been familiar with chicanes for decades. A big term in motor racing, for slowing down race cars by
making them change direction at least twice.

As you can see by the photo above, the gap in the "chicane" allows for people to go through without lifting
or turning, so many "mom vans" just flew by at full chat. Faster than I thought to be legal.


The head on issue. In the two hours I saw at least 20 near head-on accidents. Though I did not see
any accident. The residents wanted me back at 6pm, when it gets bad. I do not need to see it bad.
Anyone should realize that someone that takes two lanes going in opposite directions and combines them
to one lane going both directions accidents will happen, and they will be bad.


Trucks working in the area, including city trucks like trash trucks hide the chicanes from the car immediately
behind it creating an unsafe issue.


Some really unhappy residents waiting for the accident. It was a pretty wild discussion about how this
whole thing came about, another petition many never saw. How much it affects their property value getting
stuck with it in your front yard. After a 20% hit after McDonald's moved in.


Another near head on with horns blaring!




Please note the blue van went through 2 wide, and was pissed!


Every resident said something needed to be done. About 50% of those I spoke with (9) hated this idea. One
had their property affected. Another resident thought they were stupid but laughed how he had it moved to a
neighbor he didn't like. A couple were waiting to see. 100% said the city broke their neighborhood when they
let McDonald's put driveways on their street.

FWIW


.

From my observations just driving down my street every day, with all the cars parked on the streets in Lakewood most drivers (myself included) tend to simply drive more on the left side of the street (or rather, the side opposite from parking), only moving over to the correct lane when there is another car approaching from the opposite direction. I would imagine that this 'solution' of the chicanes will result in something like that - drivers simply driving in the middle of the street until forced to move over. And as you say Jim, it seems like it would most probably lead to more accidents, while not really addressing the speeding issue.

how did city hall "push" mcdonalds into their new location? the owners of that mcdonalds were salivating over that location even while the theater was still showing pictures. and so? should mcdonalds pack up and move?

I ride my bike every day in this city and I can assure you that speeding is a problem not limited to one street. I mean, from the gravity of this thread, you'd think that woodward was the only street in Lakewood.

so, since the city can absolutely do no right in this situation then what's to be done about speeders? seems to be a lot of experts on what not to do...

kate e parker wrote:so, since the city can absolutely do no right in this situation then what's to be done about speeders? seems to be a lot of experts on what not to do...

I don't speed in Lakewood.

But lots of folks speed on Belle.

I suggest handing out tickets.

Tickets stop speeding.

For example, I got caught speeding in another town a few weeks ago.

I got a hefty ticket.

I don't speed in that town anymore.

And I pay even more attention to my speed ... everywhere.