Today, I wrote a letter to the City of Baytown's government asking them to look into a street improvement that many of us feel is long overdue. I am asking citizens to do the same if you agree.
Lynn Caskey is the District 5 Councilman lynn.caskey@baytown.org. Write him asap. Include your own feedback also.
Here is the letter and the map:
View Larger Map
I suggest we work to get culverts and sidewalks installed on McKinney Road between SH-146 and Massey Tompkins. This is a high foot and car traffic section with numerous trailer parks and no shoulder. There are also apartments and a convenience store on both ends, which precipitates foot traffic by children at great risk to their safety.
This proposed improvement has become almost an obsession with me after being ran in the ditch by a car when riding my there. The new surface is great, but this town's roads are very hard on people walking or riding a bicycle. It is actually against the law to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk, but when there is no shoulder AND a sidewalk, it is the logical choice.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
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6 comments:
Thanks, Bert. We agree that many of our open-ditch thoroughfares would be better served with piped ditches and sidewalks. It is the age-old problem of money. Filling in ditches is much more complicated than laying pipe and covering it up. The open ditch has a significantly larger storage and conveyance volume than the pipes in the culverts. If we reduce the volume we are increasing the risk of flooding. Taking Raccoon Road as an example, two construction features need to take place:
1. Large storm drainage structures are placed under the roadway to maintain the storage and flow volumes.
2. The roadway is lowered below the adjacent land so that sheet flows from the adjoining property can flow into the storm drainage system and so that any excess of water is stored in the street rather that on adjacent property.
The reconstruction of Massey-Tompkins was a 1991 bond election issue as a separate ballot measure with a cost ~$9 million. Even at that cost we could not afford sidewalks. We are currently pursuing a grant to add sidewalks to one side of the roadway.
The Raccoon project was a joint venture with Harris County and our cost was ~$3 million from the 2001 bonds.
The rough estimates for McKinney and Crosby Cedar Bayou are around $5 million each. Bob Smith would be even more.
The $30 million in 2007 street bond funds is all dedicated to reconstruction of existing streets in their original configuration and only addresses about ½ of streets needing attention. Hopefully we will get “caught up” in repairing roadways so that future bonds issues can begin to address these types of needs, too.
Thanks for your continued interest and activities to make Baytown a better place to live.
Bob Leiper
Deputy City Manager
City of Baytown, TX
Way to go, Bert. Even tho you are sick, you are still out there working for the good of your common man. You get my vote!
Bert For President. JK
I’ll get on that bandwagon. I’m on that road more than any other in town.
Now that it’s getting darker sooner I get anxious driving that route. Too many folks walking at night with totally dark clothing on and no reflectors at all.
I believe there has been a fatality of a pedestrian last year too.
If it’s after 8pm, I practically crawl through there. Have had many close calls with people, bikes, and cars tearing out from the driveways.
I also think we need an arrow turning left onto McKinney from northbound 146. Too many folks take it for granted they can just turn left in front of any traffic regardless of the signal. I even know some folks that think it’s ok
to turn left on red after a stop at that intersection! They don’t think that anymore!
Lot’s of wrecks there all the time. The volume of traffic has
increased dramatically in the last 6 months! Don’t know why except maybe everyone discovered the nice new road surface.
Ev
Bert-We are on the trail of sidewalk money-it has been scarce, but some of the new federal programs might allow us to do more sidewalk projects.
Mayor Don Carlos
Mayor and Gentlemen,
I believe some options may be available through alternative modes of transportation dollars. Pedestrian traffic on sidewalks may be considered an alternate mode of transportation. Garry should be able to provide a better answer. I will go after appropriate funding if available through HGAC. Brandon Capetillo
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