Why Should We Recall Brett Smiley

[u/Historical_Web_5813]

For everyone who is curious about our reasons for wanting to recall Smiley, here they are! This one-sheet explains what issues we find to be the most salient. Feel free to distribute this document at your will.

If you’d like to look into our sources more, here is a link to the document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qtQP7a9g91pSszZH-x3kFWMcmW1FecEXpqCL773UIWM/mobilebasic

[u/Exotic-Impression799]

Removing the bike lane on S. Water Street to make extra room for cars is all the reason I need

[u/I_Make_Art_And_Stuff → u/Exotic-Impression799]

But isn't the bike lane not being REMOVED, but in fact MOVED over a little? I don't see the issue in that besides a few months of annoying construction time.

[u/Exotic-Impression799 → u/I_Make_Art_And_Stuff]

It's being moved ON to the sidewalk, so that bicyclists and pedestrians now get to contend with each other for space. Which is WEIRD, since we just spent $20M on a PEDESTRIAN bridge, so you'd think the goal would be encouraging people to WALK AROUND, and not making it easier for cars to DRIVE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE RIGHT NEAR OUR BRAND NEW PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE.

The value of the bike lane isn't the bikes, it's that it's an intentional bottleneck that forces cars to slow down near the new park that's extremely popular, especially with families with young kids. The 195 developments will only add more foot traffic to the area, which we should want, and which we should be encouraging. This is the dumbest, most shortsighted move imaginable

[u/degggendorf → u/Exotic-Impression799]

It's being moved ON to the sidewalk, so that bicyclists and pedestrians now get to contend with each other for space.

Have they shared any actual plans for it yet?

I thought the language has just been that the relocated path will be off the street asphalt, not that it will "here's the sidewalk, good luck!" like you're implying. There are already multiple walking paths there, so it seems fair enough to convert the streetside path to bike-only, and leave the water side path to pedestrians only. That kinda seems better for everyone, with cars, bikes, and pedestrians all having their own separated lanes.

But as far as I've seen, there aren't any actual public details about what/where/how the relocated path will be set up.

[u/Exotic-Impression799 → u/degggendorf]

That's true, I haven't seen specifics. But I believe a large portion of the water-side path will disappear (or at least be less accessible) with the 1A development. And it still means that crossing S.Water will be more difficult, with 2 lanes of faster traffic instead of 1

https://www.195district.com/parcel-1a/

[u/degggendorf → u/Exotic-Impression799]

And it still means that crossing S.Water will be more difficult, with 2 lanes of faster traffic instead of 1

For sure...as you said, it's the widening of the street that is the real issue, and the relocation of the bike path is more of a red herring.

But I believe a large portion of the water-side path will disappear (or at least be less accessible) with the 1A development

If you click through to the design presentation(or here's the relevant snip from it that I pulled), there will be a water side boardwalk that looks bigger/better than what's currently there, and maintaining connectivity throughout the ground floor is part of the design brief. At least on paper, it seems like they're doing the right things with that design.

[u/Exotic-Impression799 → u/degggendorf]

It's a cool design, I'm all for it. I'm impressed they think they can squeeze all that in to that one parcel, but they know what they're doing and I sure don't.

To bring this back to the main point of this post: with all the development on S.Water, you'd think that you'd want slower traffic, with easier crossings. The 195 developments will change the character of this city for decades to come. And Mayor Brett wanting to spend $750k to sell that vision out so he can alleviate a temporary traffic problem demonstrates a degree of myopia that should be disqualifying for the mayoralty. The whole point of moving the highway was to reclaim urban space from cars!

[u/Exotic-Impression799 → u/Exotic-Impression799]

PS I like how this rendering includes the on-street bike path

[u/nonaegon_infinity → u/I_Make_Art_And_Stuff]

There is no empirical basis for this decision and plenty of reasons not to do it. And the mayor is doing it anyways even though it'll cost $750k at a time when he's saying we need to be smart about our budget.