Two Nights on Main Street

After two evenings of Concord City Council meetings to discuss the elements of the Complete Streets Project, here’s what they haven’t decided on yet.

Financing has been put off until Monday, June 3, when it will be discussed after the scheduled budget hearings. And signage - you remember the heated exchange between Councilor Dan St. Hilaire and staff - is also delayed. There will now be another set of consultants hired to put together a complete signage package. When it will be ready is another good question.

And what about the heated sidewalks? Well it appears Concord Steam may be in even bigger trouble then we were led to believe. It’s not so much will they be able to heat the sidewalks, but will the downtown buildings be heated if they go belly up? So the council has tentatively decided to put in the infrastructure for the heated walkways and is hoping they can find a source of heat to pump through the $600,000 plus maze of tubing.

Personally, I’m hoping the sidewalks can be heated and I would also like to see the streets with a snow melt system. Truly this is the only part of the project that will have a positive economic impact for our downtown. It will be unfortunate for the city if Concord Steam won’t be able to meet their commitment to this project

So, about three hours over the two nights was spent discussing parking. Keep the parallel parking on the west side or return to the traditional head in parking. The staff, consultants and city manager huffed and puffed that it would ruin the design if we had head in parking. Sidewalks could be as narrow as 8’ as opposed to the planned 19’ - 21’. They warned that if you took some of the width of the sidewalks from the east side of the street - to keep the sidewalk width balanced on both sides - the center line would have to be moved.

And let’s not forget what narrowing the sidewalks from as much as 21’ to 15’ would do to all those wonderful street elements. Fewer benches for the homeless to sleep on. Not as many raised flower beds with irrigation, electrical, outlets and lighting, to be used as urinals. Where will we be able to place the $4,200 solar-powered trash compacters with separate trash and recycling bins if the sidewalks are only 15’ wide. Even though the sidewalk in front of the Smile Building is 15’ wide and appears to have plenty of room for all of these elements.

So, the question of the night is, why didn’t the consultants have plans that showed what Main Street would look like with both parallel and head in parking options? Why did they only come back with a plan that showed parallel on the west side knowing the huge concern the community has about losing 21 spaces on the west side of North Main Street? And why did they tell the council the last two nights that they would have to go back and start from scratch if they wanted head in parking and balanced sidewalk widths on both sides of the street?

I’ll tell you why: Because the consultants and staff don’t want head in parking. Because they can’t fit all their new toys in on 15’ wide sidewalks. And because they know better then we do what’s best for Concord. Trust us, they say, it can’t be done. Well that’s what Simchick said when he was redeveloping the Sears block. Trust me, my building won’t block the Statehouse dome. Trust my data - he said to the Planning Board - no need to have it independently verified. Oops

So when the consultants say trust us, when they say it’s a waste of time to draw up alternative plans so you can actually see what the options look like... remember that old adage; Trick me once shame on you, trick me twice shame on me. 

The council finally decided on the worst of all options when it comes to parking. They decided to compromise. Part of the street is parallel and part of the street is head in. They told us if we had head in by the double steps we would be left with the double steps. But that appears only to be true because they were unwilling to develop plans that had balanced sidewalks on both sides.

So while it does replace five of the lost spaces we could have seen 10 spaces returned if staff and the consultants had done their job of presenting options to the council and not ultimatums.

So onto the more mundane stuff. Benches, yup; bike racks, of course; trash receptacles at $4,200 each, yes, after some discussion. Here’s how that went.

First the price. Wow that’s a lot of money. They only last for eight years... Is it cheaper then having someone empty regular cans. Staff doesn’t know for sure but they think the cost is abut the same. But ... these super duper cans can tell you when they’re full. They just send out a signal and let you know they need to be emptied. 

They’ll have two bins. One for garbage the other for recycling. But... garbage and recycling will be mixed because people aren’t that careful when throwing away trash. So both sides will wind up with trash and recyclables. That means everything goes to the  dump. 

Oh and one more thing. There are currently 20 trash cans spread out on Main Street. They are only ordering 12 of the solar powered trash compacters. So staff will add additional regular cans to supplement the special ones. When asked where will each type of the cans be placed, staff replied..trust us...oops. 

Kiosks for newspapers - maybe we should talk to those who place their products in them before deciding - decision delayed.

Bus stop shelters - another one just like on the corner of Park and North Main, cost be damned.

Move that clock tower. And while I would like to see the clock moved, staff has budgeted $40,000 for the move to Phenix Avenue. We are told by the folks who own it that it could easily cost an additional $20,000 to protect the clock against damage during the move.

Finally, the good guys get a win in their column. No fountains in front of the Statehouse. But there’s talk about a new granite information kiosk in front of the Statehouse at an estimated cost of $150,000. When my wife and I downsize to a one story home in a few years, we’re hoping it doesn’t cost much more then that. That better be one hell of an outrageous looking info booth for that money.

And finally we’ll be burying those power lines on South Main Street for a mere $2.5 million. Now the grant doesn’t cover the cost, but we’ll just keep on tapping the money from the tif district that is currently paying for the failed parking garage. Why would the city want to use tax revenues to pay for city and school costs when they can use it to bury a power line.

So some thoughts here.

Councilors St. Hilaire and Bennett, who were on the Complete Streets Committee, felt that the committee’s report should be accepted as presented. St. Hilaire went as far as criticizing Mark Ciborowski (another committee member) for having the audacity to disagree with some of the recommendations. So here’s the hypocrisy. While the committee recommended parallel parking - something both St. Hilaire and Bennett supported - the committee’s final report recommended against burying the power lines. OK, here’s an easy one: So guess how the two councilors voted when it came to burying the power lines? If you guessed that they were consistent with their statements that the city council should follow all of the recommendations of the Complete Streets Committee’s report, you would be wrong. They voted against the recommendation and voted for burying the power lines. One more example of do as I say, not as I do.

The votes the council took aren't binding. That will happen at next Thursday's meeting. What is troubling is that there will only be three days between the discussion of the financing and the final vote. One has to question the wisdom (and motive) for not providing more time to discuss and digest the most important component of this project, how we pay for it. 

At the last regularly scheduled city council meeting they set aside three nights (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) to discuss the project. Thursday night is still open. Staff is ready to present the financing options. So why the delay until June 3?

Okay here’s some info to keep up to date:

•  Monday, June 3 - the city council will discuss the financing of the project after their regularly scheduled budget meeting.
•  Thursday, June 6 - the council will take testimony from the public before approving the complete streets project.

 And here’s the website to keep up to date with the latest information for the project:

 http://concordmainstreetproject.com/index.php/information-center/public-downloads/