Item A: South Willamette Street Improvement Plan

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At a first meeting on this subject, I and others on our table suggested using Willamette as a one way street (coupled with Amazon). No mention has been made of why this would not work. All plans were to be talked about tonight. Not so, I see. There should be talk and studies on future transporation needs on Willamette. The planned apartment buildings will add a great many cars to the road. Give us the future planning figures. We need to know the "capacity" of each plan. The side street bikeway idea will hopefully involve some way to get on Oak down the alley at the very North end and also how to get from Portland directly into Southtowne without carrying it down steps. I'd like alternate bike street option or improved alleys. Oak and Portland streets are viable routes for bicyclists. I am very concerned about bicyclists' safety if bike lanes are added in 3, 4, or 6. Bike lanes, parallel to Willamette St. would allow cars to drive to their businesses. The older generation living in the South area may not be biking as frequently as the University areas. I'm in favor of bikes on alternative routes or cycle tracks sharing sidewalk. The combination of cars and bikes on this opens a lot of safety issues, bikes and crossing each other, multiple driveways, etc. Concerns for economic loss, cost, and esp. safety -fire trucks? Police? Busses? Like the sidewalk width. Not sure 3 lanes can work in option 5. Although I support improving and increasing bike access and facilities, Willamette is a major arterial and I don't think there is adequate space to add safe, dedicated bike lanes. I support improveing bike routes on Oak and Portland and alleys. I also would like to see bus turnouts. If there was an option to get additional space beyond the 60 ft I would like to see sidewalks wider than 9ft. Definetly need to reduce number of driveways. When I bike, I prefer not to bike on busy streets anyway, even with bike paths. If Willamette was pretty, if people could walk and gather there, if businesees integrated smoothly w/ the pedestrians, the notion of cafe's, places to sid, accomodation of bicycle traffic are wonderful and Willamette would stop being a blighted, ugly, car motivated place. Raised sidewalks at In- Shape. As a business owner I am very much looking forward to the 'upgrading' of Willamette Street to make it an attractive -tree lined- no pot holes- area that attracts families, singles, students, etc. to come to our area. Lighting can be a problem. Wider sidewalks create safer space. If sidewalk next to traffic lane, maybe some form of protective buffer to protect pedestrians. Mid block crosswalks should be considered in front of Market of Choice and around the Holy Cow area. There are big distances between cross walk for peds to travel. The traffic light for Woodfield Station would be great for pedestrians, like across 29th coming out of Market of Choice and Asian Market. Please provide all background data prior to the next meeting/ decision.