The Spokesman-Review just published a bite-sized overview of the Community Assembly’s accomplishments over the past year and its goals for 2014. It’s a good chance to see what these volunteer representatives have been doing for their respective neighborhoods when it comes to public safety, land use, pedestrian and traffic improvements, and raising neighborhood awareness.
The story also features a graphic that illustrates how the Community Assembly/neighborhood council process works alongside direct citizen engagement to ensure that our individual voices are heard with collective force at the city level. For handy reference, we’ve included it below.
First post of 2014, and we’ve got both good and bad news on previous traffic-calming applications made by the Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council.
Let’s start with the good, taken straight from the e-mail we just received from the city:
The Emerson Garfield Traffic Calming Application from 2012 for infill sidewalks on the East Side of Adams from Mansfield to Alleyway and on Madison between Mansfield and Alleyway have been chosen by the City Council to be implemented.
The project is being moved to the final design phase and then into implementation. The build year for the project will depend on the complexity of the project and the design needed; some projects fall into a two year cycle for design and build.
Just to reiterate, that’s a request from 2012. The images below give a rough idea where the sidewalks are to be installed.
Madison/Mansfield
Adams/Mansfield
And the bad:
The applications from 2013 were not chosen for implementation, the crosswalk at Jackson and Maple St. and the Signage at Cora and Euclid. The crosswalk at Jackson was not chosen due to its close proximity to a school crossing one block north of this location. The Signage at Cora and Euclid did not meet the signatures that were needed to move the project forward.
That crosswalk on Maple was requested on account of the busy intersection there, which sees a lot of foot traffic (in addition to automobile traffic) from Safeway. While it’s true that there are two pedestrian crossings a few blocks to the north and south, traffic of any kind naturally tends to follow the shortest and most direct route. There’s a case to be made either way. The signage was a good idea but, as the e-mail indicates, saw no follow-through.
If you have traffic-calming or sidewalk suggestions for application in 2014, please submit them to the EGNC for consideration. But in the case of traffic-calming, also be prepared to gather the necessary signatures.
The Office of Neighborhood Services will be holding another event in its successful and informative Neighborhood Training series. This one is on succession planning: that is, how the current group of neighborhood council officers will be replaced by the newly elected group of officers following this year’s voting process (which most councils typically hold in January).
Incidentally, Emerson-Garfield Neighborhood Council holds its annual elections in April.
The succession planning workshop will take place on Monday, January 6 from 6 to 7:30pm at the Northeast Community Center (4001 N. Cook) [map]. It will be a great opportunity to learn how your neighborhood — or any committee, for that matter — can groom new leadership as well as plan for expected and unexpected departures of current leadership.
Apologies for the short notice (our neighborhood council is still waiting on being paired with a Web intern to help us post in a more timely fashion), but there’s a traffic-calming orientation tonight, December 16, from 5:30-7pm at City Hall [map].
Traffic calming is a frequent topic at neighborhood council meetings across Spokane. This 90-minute session will bring you up to speed on how you can slow down traffic in your neighborhood. You’ll learn how a stretch of road might qualify for traffic-calming measures, what forms traffic calming can take (such as curb bumpouts, roundabouts, or street trees), and what steps are necessary to get those improvements installed.
The meeting takes place in the Council Briefing Center, which is located on the lower level of City Hall, and is hosted by the Office of Neighborhood Services. Anyone with an interest in the topic is welcome to attend.
Pressure of holiday shopping got you down? The City of Spokane Urban Forestry program has a unique gift idea for any of your hard-to-please family members or eco-minded friends: a tree!
For $350, Spokane Urban Forestry’s Team Lorax will plant a tree in a Spokane city park in honor of any person, family, group or business of your choosing. It’s cheaper than a statue and has the potential to grow as large as a monument. Plus it helps improve air quality — how many urban landmarks can you say that about?
