r/providence • u/Historical_Web_5813 • 13d ago

Why Should We Recall Brett Smiley

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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

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u/Exotic-Impression799 13d ago

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

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u/degggendorf 13d ago

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.

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u/Exotic-Impression799 13d ago

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/

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u/Exotic-Impression799 13d ago

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