Street closure thorn in city’s side

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Problems with the safety and condition of Adams Street have seen it closed without public due process for almost a year. Now the city is wrestling with how much money they feel comfortable spending to reopen the street until a public process could be held to consider it for permanent closure.

During construction of the Jefferson Street project last year, the installation of a sidewalk from Washington Street up the hill to the top of the Haller Fountain steps, a one-block stretch of Adams Street from Franklin to Jefferson was closed to traffic so that it could be used as a staging area for construction equipment.

The steeply inclined and badly potholed street was further damaged during construction and asphalt along the sides of the street and the corners was removed according to Public Works Director David Peterson. Since the completion of the project nearly a year ago the street has been closed to traffic, blocked with street closure barriers.

During that time members of the public have expressed frustration at the lack of public input into the decision to close the street and at the stalled timeline to correct the issue.

“The decision making process could have been done more elegantly on this one,” City Manager John Mauro said.

“We acknowledge that mistakes were made along the way,” Peterson said. “We’re going to try and do better next time. We want to patch it up and move forward.”

Peterson also said the contractor was not responsible for damage to the street and was actually instructed to remove the asphalt that resulted in the street closure.

The majority of public comment has been in favor of reopening the street, at the very least for additional on-street parking. Others think the closure was mishandled but wouldn’t mind seeing it closed to cars permanently and made a pedestrian-only street.

City Council members said during a discussion of the problem at the regular meeting Dec. 2 that this issue has shined light on the need for a clear public process of how and when street closures will occur.

What the next step should be is as of yet unclear. Peterson said at the meeting there were several options the city could pursue including minimal gravel and asphalt work to bring the street into drivable condition and allow parking on the shoulders. One contractor quoted the work at $15,000 he said.

Another option would be to officially close the road to vehicular traffic and make it a pedestrian-only road as a sort of continuation of the gravelly public trail that goes up the hill from Washington Street and currently ends at the intersection of Jefferson and Adams. For $5,000, Peterson said, the city could add trees, grass and shrubbery to the area to make it better looking for pedestrian-only traffic.

At the Oct. 16 meeting of the transportation committee, Peterson suggested a portion of the money needed to work on the street could come from left over funds from the Jefferson Street project.

The third option presented was to continue with the status quo with the road closed in order to complete a public notification and hearing process. Peterson said that even if they decided to pay to improve the road so it could be reopened, the work would not be able to start until the weather warmed up so the third option might be the most practical plan.

Councilmember Michelle Sandoval said she was irritated by the closure and upset that the city’s time, energy and money had to be sacrificed for something she did not think should have ever been a problem. She suggested the city simply remove the barriers.

Peterson said he did not believe that was an option because of the condition of the road. He said while the center travel lanes of the road remained in the same condition as before, the turning corners would require asphalt to be driveable.

The main concern of the council was the lack of official public input on the project. Council member Amy Howard said the city needed to “untangle the knot” by opening the street first and starting with a clean slate.

But council members also expressed concerns about the possibility of spending public funds without public input, that could be used for other things, to open the road if there was a possibility that the city would just close it again.

Councilmember David Faber said he believed it would be a bigger disservice to the community to spend money to reopen the road without public input than it would to continue to keep it closed so a final decision could be made with more public input.

Ultimately after a tempestuous discussion which included several failed motions of action, the council agreed to table the issue for future action. Council instructed city staff to return with a more exact estimate of the very minimum amount it would take to reopen the road to vehicular traffic.