I-35 Update
Jul. 12th, 2014 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI went to my neighborhood association's meeting today because the guest speaker was talking about the plans to update I-35.
I had a whole list of things to say to him, but found that he was saying virtually every one of those things to us. They want to add more lanes. They want to add more kinds of smart things like the U-turn lanes that don't make you sit through a light.
Basically, they've changed their minds about most of the things I talked about. They're not going to remove any crossings. They are removing some ramps, but they are more likely to switch locations of on and off-ramps than to just remove them. In sum, it seems not that scary (except for all the construction).
So that's a relief.
The one thing I still don't get is the fascination with round-abouts. They like them because they don't require waiting at a light. But to me they just feel like multiple suicide ramps curved into a circle. They're currently planning to install a big one on 51st just west of the I-35 access road. The traffic really gets backed up there--I don't see this working at all.
**
As usual, we got to hear from the winner of the yard-of-the-month club. He was my favorite speaker. "I'm not sure I'd call it a yard. It's more of anti-yard." It all started when they came back from a long summer vacation. Although they had hired someone to keep the lawn watered (or tried to, I guess), they came home to a dead yard. They decided to go with the desert look. They yanked out the dead plants and added gravel and plants that can handle minimal water.
Then someone mentioned that a quarter of his front lawn was vegetables. Oh, right. They put them in the front yard because they have chickens in the backyard. Someone asked his address ... because he has cats. He said is chickens were pretty tough and probably could take a cat.
**
There were also a bunch of people running for City Council. None made a particularly good impression. Either they just sounded like politicians or they didn't know the boundaries of their district (our neighborhood is part of two districts) or both.
And we heard a bunch of updates from people who attend a lot of committee meetings, and let me just say that I can't believe that so many things have to be handled in these kinds of meetings. I like my meetings at work--everyone has the same goals. These city-running meeting sound simply horrible.
I had a whole list of things to say to him, but found that he was saying virtually every one of those things to us. They want to add more lanes. They want to add more kinds of smart things like the U-turn lanes that don't make you sit through a light.
Basically, they've changed their minds about most of the things I talked about. They're not going to remove any crossings. They are removing some ramps, but they are more likely to switch locations of on and off-ramps than to just remove them. In sum, it seems not that scary (except for all the construction).
So that's a relief.
The one thing I still don't get is the fascination with round-abouts. They like them because they don't require waiting at a light. But to me they just feel like multiple suicide ramps curved into a circle. They're currently planning to install a big one on 51st just west of the I-35 access road. The traffic really gets backed up there--I don't see this working at all.
**
As usual, we got to hear from the winner of the yard-of-the-month club. He was my favorite speaker. "I'm not sure I'd call it a yard. It's more of anti-yard." It all started when they came back from a long summer vacation. Although they had hired someone to keep the lawn watered (or tried to, I guess), they came home to a dead yard. They decided to go with the desert look. They yanked out the dead plants and added gravel and plants that can handle minimal water.
Then someone mentioned that a quarter of his front lawn was vegetables. Oh, right. They put them in the front yard because they have chickens in the backyard. Someone asked his address ... because he has cats. He said is chickens were pretty tough and probably could take a cat.
**
There were also a bunch of people running for City Council. None made a particularly good impression. Either they just sounded like politicians or they didn't know the boundaries of their district (our neighborhood is part of two districts) or both.
And we heard a bunch of updates from people who attend a lot of committee meetings, and let me just say that I can't believe that so many things have to be handled in these kinds of meetings. I like my meetings at work--everyone has the same goals. These city-running meeting sound simply horrible.