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3 comments:
For starters, plan wisely when you are approving traffic generators
such as new library, City Hall, businesses, grocery stores, etc. on
Main or other congested streets.
Additional roads will do nothing for congestion as long as you are
building desirable destinations along Main St.....
The Master Plan had designed commercial centers on the periphery of
town and these should be well planned. There are only a couple of
ways to get to HEB, so another grocery store in one of these would
drastically change traffic patterns.
The knee-jerk response of building bypasses to alleviate traffic on
Main disregards the reality of traffic patterns. Very few people use
Main St. to just pass through town- 3351, Herff/Old San Antonio Roads
and Hwy 87/IH 10 are the connectors County commuters use to go into
San Antonio. Studies indicate that most of the traffic on Main is
generated by the businesses or schools on Main. It's a case of
wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
The sugestions by HDR/TxDOT for improving Main are a start. It would
accomplish more than almost all other options combined. The problem
here is the dynamic created when roads are discussed in isolation
rather than comprehensively. It's understandable that business owners
are going to be concerned about perceived impacts, but they weren't
informed about the impacts of the alternatives if the improvements to
Main St. aren't done- multimillion $ 'bypasses' that will impact
several historic/founding homesteads, private homes, commercial horse
farms/facilities, watersheds, etc. -all of which will not change most
of the current traffic needing access to downtown.
Short answer: comprehensive community planning.
RSCP is exactly right about loops and bypasses and arterials doing
nothing to relieve downtown congestion.
Anecdotal evidence indicates that most downtown traffic originates or
terminates in downtown, and analysis of the traffic counts shows the
same. The drivers are coming to work, shop, wander, party, or do
business in the downtown area, extending a block or two east of Main
Street.
A major exception to this rule is construction traffic, especially
gravel and cement trucks, that transit Johns Road to Main Street, then
head south to access construction sites east and south of the city.
But the only bypass that would divert that traffic would have to begin
at Ingram Ready Mix, cross the Interstate, then launch into the air
with a viaduct over downtown, making a landing out near Esperanza. Not
likely. (But picture for a minute how many hundreds of concrete and
gravel trucks are going to drive thru downtown on their way to
Esperanza. We could eliminate that simply, by putting weight/axle
restrictions on Johns Road and School Street.)
Another obvious fact is that congestion diminishes north of Blanco and
vanishes north of Johns Road. Neither of those roads (nor North Main)
contributes an overwhelming amount of traffic. Most of the congestion
comes from the south end of downtown and circulates back out that way,
entering and exiting from either River Road or the bridge. You can
stand at the Riverside Market for an hour and figure that out.
I suppose that eliminating on-street parking would relieve some
congestion. Or at least distribute it among more lanes. A turn lane
would help. But there are costs to that solution. More about that
below.
What would help the most would be alternate access routes from the
east and the south. Give people choices other than River Road or South
Main, and provide parking to the east of Main. A south relief route
might actually approach from the west (School and San Antonio?) From
the east, about the only choice is to beef up the Plant Street
intersection and run traffic north on Plant, then west on Theissen,
James or Rosewood. Residents on that route would scream bloody murder.
Same goes for the School-San Antonio route.
It's a conundrum.
I submit that the best solution is to let the congestion remain.
What's the big deal? Locals use the courthouse, city hall and the
library, but they're not in the highly congested zone. Locals do very
little shopping downtown, and we all know ways to get here or there
without going through downtown, or going over the bridge. Moreover,
congestion has its benefits.
No, I am not being flip. Consider Fredericksburg. It is a commercial
success, but its least attractive feature is the broad, busy highway
through downtown. It's busy and noisy and crazy, and it eliminates any
sense of small-town intimacy. Fredericksburg would be more attractive
if its Main Street were narrower and more clogged.
It's like signs. I hate signs, and have come to the conclusion that
they add a desirable visual clutter downtown. I have come to love the
Pickle Lady's sidewalk junk. We need more of that downtown, not less.
On-street parking is a big deal in terms of downtown vitality. It
really is. And making a more efficient traffic corridor--increasing
traffic speeds--impedes the disorderly, unlawful and highly desirable
practice of dumb tourists wandering in the streets mid-block.
Not to be snooty, but have you ever tried driving (or finding a
parking space) in Carmel or Georgetown or Aix en Provence or Aspen or
Provincetown or London or Manhattan or the French Quarter? Those
places are traffic and parking hell. And they're hugely successful as
magnets for tourists and dollars.
The perfect solution--the PERFECT solution--would be to get the State
to remove the highway designation and allow Boerne to put weight/axle
restrictions through downtown. Then let cars and light trucks clog it
up up just as much as possible. Build parking structures so even more
people can pile into downtown and cram Main Street.
My advice? Shunt the cement and gravel trucks off of Johns Road,
accept the reality of a few 18-wheelers so long as the state owns the
road, keep the on-street parking, see if it's possible to gain relief
from Plant or School, and let nature take its course.
Sometimes bad is good.
Jack has hit on something worth discussing- the interesting dynamic of
what makes a place memorable, unique and
has a true vitality. This sort of place doesn't happen in a
commercial strip or a gimmicky downtown that is designed for tourists
only. There has to be an authentic life to keep a downtown alive in a
good way- residents living nearby that actually drink coffee, shop,
walk the streets or listen to music on the weekend. Commercializing
residential areas near downtown is a slow death to its viability. The
town my husband grew up in is constantly launching a new program to
"revive" downtown. It never gets off the ground because life is
happenning in the strip centers that spring up on the perimeter of
each new suburban development. Boerne is at an important place in its
planning for the residential areas around its downtown.
I actually walked Fredericksburg this spring to look at its main
street. The highway is unattractive, but they have done a nice job of
enhancing the sidewalks with plants and awnings, etc. They are
building a truck bypass for the highway, but they seem to have a
logical placement for it that will actually draw large trucks off the
road.
We have had too many conflicts of interest at play in this area- the
City chose years ago not to follow through on old existing plans to
connect Bandera to Herff Rd (making an ideal 46 alternative), a second
road paralelling River Road on the other side of the Creek, (they
built Heart of Boerne as a closed subdivision instead).
Actually, Bandera Rd. was discussed by the TPCC as a possible
alternative still. It is safer for elected city officials to anger
non-voting county residents than city residents who do vote. They are
reluctant to impose impacts on areas within town, even if it is a more
suitable solution from a mobility standpoint. When it reaches the
level of millions of dollars in new roads that will not change
downtown's congestion, we have to hope that level heads will prevail
over politics.
Your suggestions about downtown are where the thinking needs to go-
faster really isn't always better.
Do we completely shift the life of downtown to accomodate a gravel
company? Do we build a multi-million $ road to accomodate them? Do
we tell Esperanza where we want their construction trucks to go?
Trucks do something like 32% of the damage on roads, but contribute
only about 17% to maintenance funds.
The ideas you point out about downtown funkiness should be part of a
planning discussion.
Maybe there needs to be an ongoing 'Master Plan' discussion with
citizens and officials to "flesh out" the ideas in the plan...
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