BikeWalkLee's comments on Lehigh resurfacing contract

At Tuesday's BoCC meeting, the Board will approve one of the three annual resurfacing contracts and BikeWalkLee submitted the following comments for the record about the complete streets evaluation process of all resurfacing contracts.

Although it wasn’t mentioned in the blue sheet for this item, it is worth noting that this Lehigh resurfacing contract list was reviewed as part of the complete streets process.

The county’s complete streets policy requires that accommodations for bike/ped/transit be made at all phases of road projects, including resurfacing/improvements.  As part of the complete streets action plan the County Commissioners approved in November 2010, the County’s complete streets team has been evaluating the roads on the 3 annual resurfacing contracts (arterials/collectors; Lehigh local roads; and other county local roads) to see what opportunities exist to address the needs of all users when the roads are resurfaced. In November 2011, both the CSAC and the BPAC reviewed and recommended support of the internal complete streets team’s recommendations on three segments in Lehigh:

• 40^th St. W from Hanna Avenue South to east EOP—install shared road signage east of Sunshine Blvd
•   Woodard Ct.—add CIP project for sidewalk along north side of road connecting to Beth Stacey   Blvd. sidewalk and add bus pads to existing bus stops
•  Thomas Sherwin Ave. S from Milwaukee Blvd to Theodore Vail St—evaluate crosswalks, add corner sidewalk pads and connect to existing sidewalk on the SE corner at high school

In addition, the CSAC encouraged the Lehigh community (as well as other community plan communities) to develop an internal bikeways plan that designates certain streets as preferred routes to circulate around the neighborhood.

We look forward to the implementation of these complete streets recommendations, along with the dozens of other recommendations that have been compiled as part of this resurfacing contract evaluation process.   

Below is the link to the matrix of all recommendations to date. http://www.bikewalklee.org/BWL_PDFs/BoCC/BWLresurfMatrix1120109.pdf