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Online
petition with 105 "signers" sent to County Councilors |
Victor Gavron set up an unofficial online petition with the following text.
"We request the Council
to declare that highest priority for the vital NM502 artery in Los Alamos County
is efficient, safe, and reliable transport via motor vehicles.
We ask the Council to support this goal through plans and designs that (1) incorporate
a minimum of 4 through-traffic lanes and (2) reject the use of roundabouts."
The format of the online petition permits signers to make comments. Below is
a selection from them.
- Over $400,000 spent on
consultants and over $30,000,000 planned for the constriction of lanes and
construction of roundabouts? It's ludicrous to believe that this "calming"
of traffic will generate more business. It's also fiscal irresponsibility
to waste money like this.
- Living on North Mesa
and being forced to use a really stupid rounabout to get off the mesa is a
mess. This stupid idea reminds me of the roundabouts on the New Jersey.
- I believe the option
proposed in the petition is the only option that can carry the traffic during
the rush periods, and I think the extra turn out dividers in either Z design
would be terrible to keep clean in winter weather.
- Roundabouts on Trinity
that force it from 4 into 2 lanes are not the solution to the traffic and
business problems of Los Alamos. They are an engineering solution that ignores
the human factors of driving and driver error. "Traffic calming"
is a synonym for "traffic stopping," in a situation where traffic
backups during rush hours are already common. Decreasing a 4-lane roadway
to 2 lanes is not a solution to get more people to shop in Los Alamos; people
will stop and shop when businesses can offer products they want and need at
reasonable prices. Roundabouts will not fix these problems.
- Roundabouts on heavy
east-west traffic on Trinity just DO NOT WORK. It would long wait for north-south
lanes or for making turn onto trinity.
- This stubborn insistence
on roundabouts in Los Alamos has to stop; the logic for them fails, the studies--if
done at all--are flawed and the expectations are dubious. Let's improve the
infrastructure we have in ways the reflect actual usage, not build to suit
a dreamed up community profile based on LA becoming a destination tourist
spot and shopping mecca staffed by employees "bussed up from the valley"
to live in low-income housing. We don't have the room to build proper, viable
roundabouts in this town. We do have room to upgrade what we have and improve
pedestrian crossings and turnouts. To the council: stay focused on the reality
of actual usage that is centered around working at the Laboratory and support
services in the community, not living in a hypothetical Hallmark village.
If it's not broken, don't fix it. If it works, improve it.
- I think a decision of
this magnitude that is not only expensive but which will affect the community
for years should be put to a vote. It is too important to be decided just
by the county council.
- Los Alamos needs a 4-lane
signalized Trinity Drive, now and in the future. Roundabouts are not user-friendly,
whether for motorists, pedestrians, or cyclists.
- Spending that much money,
after just working near that section of road to make it harder to get through
in order to increase business is foolish. ... Trapping folks will not necessarily
make them want to contribute to a community that stifles rathers than creates
a desire to be there. And making less lanes after our last fire seems incredibly
unsafe.
- NMDOT has repeatedly
said that the design must be for peak traffic flow. The proposed design is
inadequate. It also has received no vetting from the public or from NMDOT.
- I believe it is an unsafe
measure to reduce Trinity to 2 lanes only. If there was an accident traffic
would be at a stand still. There would be no way for police or fire to respond
due to the traffic. When we evacuated the county due to the fire, it would
have taken 2-3 times as long if there was one one lane on Trinity.
- This will slow traffic
even more. Reducing Trinity to 2 lanes would be a nightmare.
- I have not been convinced
that any roundabout design will safely accommodate traffic and pedestrians
in an area congested with both.