Save our Bricks, Protect our bikers and pedestrians

It’s disheartening that a year after this plan was first introduced to the public on March 23rd, 2023 the plan presented in the January 31st meeting is substantially unchanged despite objections raised at that time as well as a detailed letter submitted by a resident of Old Town summarizing our objections and suggesting changes to the design. The City never replied to that letter and obviously never incorporated any of the suggestions into the “Final” design. It makes us question why do you ask for feedback if you don’t intend to incorporate them or communicate to the resident why you won’t?

At this point we STRONGLY object to the plan presented on the 31st. We believe that that the proposed mixed use bike path is unsafe for both bikes and pedestrians, we are concerned about maintenance of the bike path and the proposed 7’–14’ green buffer zone that was added to the latest plans and we are adamantly opposed to removing the brick sidewalks in our historic neighborhood and replacing them with a 12’ wide asphalt path. It’s a slap in the face to all of our residents who work hard to preserve the historic streetscape in our area of the city and comply with the HARB restrictions, which often come at a significantly greater cost.

We respectfully ask that the plans be revised to retain the existing brick sidewalks on the north side of Church Street and convert the lane of traffic that you are eliminating into a dedicated bike only lane. This would eliminate our safety and maintenance concerns as the bike lane would be maintained by the current street sweeping and snow plowing schedules.