South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Arterial Roads

Arterial Roads Downtown Sioux Falls recreational Road Funding Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

UPDATE III: BREAKING: LOCAL TV STATION TRACKS DOWN NEWEST HOT DOG CART!!!

l3wis 12Comments

UPDATE III: As I predicted most of these plastic thingies have been removed or destroyed by vehicles. Shocker! I Know. Just yesterday the last one remaining in front of the post office was ran over by a mail carrier big rig. He didn’t completely destroy it, but he broke one of the pieces. Absolute stupidity. Do we even have a traffic engineer that studies industry standards and keeps abreast? Doubtful.

UPDATE II: As you can see, cars are already hitting and damaging these devices, and they have only been on the street for a couple of weeks. I think this will end badly, mark my words.

UPDATE: As I suspected they are using these bands in the wrong way, they are for protected bike lanes;

Bicycle lanes should feel safe and inviting. But that doesn’t mean they have to be eyesores. The Wave Delineator accomplishes this by quickly and easily creating protected bike lanes, while providing a visually appealing alternative to its traffic cone and flex post counterparts. Ideal for temporary pop-up bike lanes during day- or week-long events, or when communities want to pilot a location for a longer-term protected bikeway.

Now that I have your attention I really wanted to talk about the city’s traffic calming efforts. While I get how this works, these white bands are actually not only a hazard to passing car they are also to bicyclists who are trying to navigate around these contraptions. I am all for the other stuff, but not this floating thingy that I have almost hit twice now. The city has a bad habit of doing this all over town, building pedestrian crossings where the curb slopes are NOT cut out and other hazards like barriers, light posts, weird angles, etc. Can’t wait to see this wrapped around someone’s driveshaft.

We need to educate drivers on pedestrian safety. This city needs to drop about $500K on driver education thru a multiple media platforms. We can paint every intersection like Willy Wonka, but until drivers wakeup, doesn’t matter.

Speaking of idiotic things the city does, after former councilor Neitzert spent months on changing the rec trail ordinances the city employees fart around installing inadequate signage;

Notice how small the MPH sign is. They also have E-Bike crossed out and you have to read the small print to realize you can ride an E1 or E2. And where are the speed signs? I think that the SFPD probably told the Parks Department they won’t be enforcing speeds on the trail, and probably the reason there is NO speed signage along the trail. Can’t ticket someone for speeding if there is no speed limit notice on the trail.

Still waiting for a road biker doing 25 hitting a grandma on her E2 doing 10, then we can have a discussion about speed, braking and physics.

Arterial Roads Developers Development Public Works SF City Council Sioux Falls

Arterial Road Funding to be discussed Tuesday at SF City Council Informational meeting

l3wis 5Comments

platty-fatty

I think this graphic pretty much says it all

City councilor Kenny Anderson Jr. Plans to discuss proposed changes to arterial street funding. Anderson and Public Works Director Mark Cotter will be making a joint presentation.

This of course all stems from the 6 year anniversary (2008) of raising the 2nd penny tax to a full penny after developers and city administrators made false promises to the city council in order for the tax increase. The developers haven’t even came within striking distance of their promised 60% input. The entire tax increase was based entirely on lies and a failing economy that was evident at the time of the increase.

One proposal would be to keep the tax increase in place and simply ONLY match developers platting fees for arterial road expansion. Any additional money from the tax increase would go towards existing road maintenance, not expansion.

Arterial Roads Citizens for Reponsible Sales Tax SF City Council Sioux Falls

Miscalculations? Recession? or lies?

l3wis 17Comments

When the city council decided to raise our taxes last Semptember they promised two things. 1) That the extra revenue of .08% would go into a special fund that would only be spent on arterial roads 2) That the developers would be paying 50% of that tab through platting fees. Even with the economy down and the city not being able to raise $10 million for the roads doesn’t mean that developers should be off the hook for their half of the bargain. But it seems like they think they are, and the city isn’t doing a damn thing about it.

In my interview yesterday I reiterated that the night of the increase vote that we told councilors a recession was coming, they didn’t care. It was pretty obvious that night as it is today that the four councilors who voted for the increase, Knudson, Brown, Jamison, Litz and Mayor Munson, were bought and paid for through campaign donations by the developers, one of which I busted cracking jokes about citizens testifying against the increase in the bathroom that night. The same guy who was crying and blaming the recession and the economy last night on the boob tube. Pretty funny now, isn’t it?

Here’s some highlights in the story that seem to prove they knew all along that the developers were not going to pony up;

“There’s a good supply of land platted and until that land becomes to be matured, meaning there is rooftops on it, additional land does not need to be platted,” Cotter said.

So, then, why did we need to increase taxes in 2009 to build roads we may not need until 2010 or 2011?

“We have a million dollars more in the fund today than we would have had before. We can always take the negative approach to everything and it really wouldn’t matter in the long term. We don’t build our company and I don’t think Sioux Falls builds their city, and I don’t think any bona fide business person is going to say, ‘Well, I build my company one year at a time,'” Craig Lloyd of Lloyd Companies said.

Craig’s comment is very revealing. 1) He is right, we have a million in the fund, money we, the citizens, put in the kitty, you know, the same people you belittled that September night while taking a leak. Where is your share? I agree, a city doesn’t build itself one year at a time, but when the city and developers tell us there will be a 50/50 partnership, you better hold up your end of deal, and if you don’t, why should we?

But let’s just look at the figures;

$1,000,0000 – What the city has raised so far

$78,000 – What developers have put in so far ($70,000 was added in June to the fund)

Now lets scenario the economy turns around and those numbers triple by the end of the year;

$3,000,000 – City

$234,000 – Develop

$3,234,000 – Total December 31, 2009

But this is where it gets interesting and the city gets caught up in their lies. The CIP has $5.4 million budgeted for arterial streets next year. Where is that additional money coming from? Most likely us.

$2,166,000 shortfall (that will have to be taken out of the regular CIP fund)

That would mean while taxpayers will have to pony up $5,166,000 for arterial streets next year, developers will only be putting a fraction of that aproximately $234,000, unless of course they win the lottery.

Does that sound like a 50/50 partnership to you? Kind of sounds a bad restroom joke to me.

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