Letters to the Editor 6-6-13

Leave Brooks Road alone
Editor: I read with dismay the “Resurfacing project will widen bike lanes” article in the May 30 – June 5 issues of the Windsor Times regarding the bike lane widening along Brooks Road. I and approximately 20 other Windsor residents attended a hearing at Windsor Middle School as well as the city council meeting when the Road Diet vote took place, and voiced our strong opposition to not only the Road Diet plan, but to the expense of widening the bikes lanes and painting the asphalt green (which was brought up when it became clear that residents did not support spending money on ANY change to the current Brooks Road configuration).
In light of this, I am amazed that they can justify this $30,000 expense, especially when the city’s own traffic consultant, when asked during one of the Road Diet hearings, how many bicycles were counted during their day-long traffic survey, said “…less than six.” Even with this fact clearly laid out, certain members of the city council believe that bicyclists are somehow in imminent danger or something if the city doesn’t spend $30,000 on something a clear and vocal majority of residents told them in person they didn’t want—in either the Road Diet proposal or the bike lane widening / painting proposal that they just approved.
It’s clear some members of the city council are bent on pushing for what they want square in the face of information that does not support them. As an illustration of an apparent disdain for facts and pragmatic stewardship of taxpayer money, one council member commented during the Road Diet city council meeting after hearing resident’s comments that the change would create traffic problems where there are currently none, that “…traffic is not an issue on Brooks. I visit a friend of mine a couple of times a year up there and traffic is never an issue.” Excuse me? Another council member took a “build it and they will come” attitude when presented with the traffic engineers findings that bicycle traffic on Brooks is virtually non-existent, believing that somehow a green-painted lane will magically draw people out of their cars and into a zero-emission utopia.
I have an idea: Let’s leave Brooks alone and instead spend a couple of thousand dollars on a “Bicycle Day” in our lovely Town Green (a sterling example of what the city council does right), to focus on and educate the citizens and young people about alternate transportation and the good it brings to the community. Such a program would be much more effective in getting people healthier, out of their cars and onto bicycles than painting a shoulder green and adding a few feet of width to the bike lane.  
Let’s concentrate on what works and is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars instead of an expensive solution to a non-existent problem, which will result in little more than the potential to hang another “Playful City USA” type sign on another light pole.
Finally, lest I be accused of being anti-bicycle, let’s be clear I am not, and ride 150 – 200 miles a month.
Mark Homchick
Windsor