Paradise Valley Town Council to cultivate a CIP process for arterial roadways
By Terrance Thornton | Digital Free Press
Paradise Valley Town Council Thursday, Sept. 12, put the kibosh on pending drainage — and speed calming — efforts planned along Mockingbird Lane in between Lincoln and McDonald drives.
The pause on the Mockingbird Lane improvements come following a robust discussion last week where elected leaders came to realization a formal development process ought to be cultivated for roadway improvements — especially for minor and major arterial roads.
Not to be confused with another portion of Mockingbird Lane capital improvements between 56th Street and Invergordon Road, which appears to be underway. The improvements between 56th Street and Invergordon Road are ongoing include:
- Installation of new storm drain system along Mockingbird Road,
- Full-width asphalt mill and overlay & restriping with bike lanes, and
- Traffic calming measures including the installation of chicane(s).
Further down the arterial street of the Town of Paradise Valley — Mockingbird Lane — is a similar effort whereas the installation of a round-a-bout at Valley Vista Lane, which is no longer part of the plans, has been met with unanimous Town Council and resident chagrin.
Earlier this year, Town Council awarded a contract to the tune of $50,000 to Kimley-Horn for the design and professional services for the Mockingbird Lane traffic calming measures whereas Town Council has now provided the transportation engineering firm a total of $200,000 for all work done, including sewer and drainage work along Invergordon Road, according to Town Manager Andrew Ching.
Of Note: Read the presentation for yourself HERE.
But the halting of the ongoing project along Mockingbird Lane is only temporary as Mayor Jerry Bien-Willner gained consensus last Thursday afternoon to develop a formal development process for the maintenance and improvement of minor and major arterial roads within the Town of Paradise Valley.
Of Note: An arterial road is a high-capacity urban road that sits below major motorways on the hierarchy of roads as it were.
“I think the outcome is only as good as the process and I would look at our work together on Mockingbird Lane between 56th Street and Invergordon as an example of even without a good solid process we can come together,” he said of frustration reaching a quiet simmer at Town Hall. “I am not putting all of this on staff; we need to work together on this for a few reasons.”
Mayor Bien-Willner points out for effective community outreach to be obtained a common development language ought to emerge from Town Hall to help residents understand better the scope and effect of certain roadway improvements.
“We certainly want resident input to some of the comments you made, but I agree that it’s not fair to ask our residence what they want to see when we don’t even have a consistent design language, so I think we have to examine that as part of this.”
Mockingbird Lane improvements remain complex odyssey at Town Hall
Each member of Town Council offered feedback and hints of frustration on how the improvement plans, budget and community outreach have unfolded at Town Hall, 6401 E. Lincoln Drive.
Paradise Valley Councilwoman Anna Thomasson points out — in agreement with Councilwoman Ellen Andeen — the original scope of the project was flood mitigation.
“I agree with Councilmember Andeen‘s memory that the project started out as a flood control mitigation project so I spent a lot of time in that neighborhood and they were all focused on the speed and they said: ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ on the flood mediation,” she said.
“But the main topic was speed management and then the secondary topic was sidewalks.”
For many the issue along Mockingbird Lane at certain points is speeding motorists; however, a recent check on motorist behavior had the vast majority of all motor vehicles following posted speed limits albeit 8% of the several thousands of motorists exceeded speeds of 50 MPH whereas the posted speed limit is 30 MPH.
“It will be a surprise to many of them on the street that the speed study came back with the fact that there is not a speeding problem there, so in terms of community outreach, I think if and when we go back to the residents, the first thing we have to do is educate them about what the data said,” she said of the surprising speed study results.
“We should have some very specific plans in mind. We don’t want to put the burden of designing our streets on our residents — that’s not their job, that’s our job relative to Mockingbird Lane.”
Paradise Valley Councilman Scott Moore did not mince words.
“I’m shocked that there’s comments from our staff that says there is no speed issue here,” he said of motorist data collected and presented at the Sept. 12 work session discussion.
“I’m in land development and I would never get away with something like this — where you have April data for one week you did some traffic counts on the street and shows that 3% were doing 50 miles an hour and in August you were there again for another week and 5% we’re doing 68 [MPH]. However, this is not a traffic impact analysis where you actually go through and you look at the regional area.”
Councilman Moore points out the Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley will open in the next few years and with promising efforts at the SmokeTree Resort underway traffic could grow exponentially over the next 24 to 36 months.
“This is not a residential street,” he pointed out. “This is an arterial that runs parallel to major arterials, and people will be using this whether we like it or not as another alternative to Scottsdale Road and possibly it’s going to carry more and more traffic when the Ritz-Carlton is built out and other developments are built out like Smoke Tree.”
Councilman Moore says a standard operating procedure ought to be forged for major and minor arterial streets.
“I am pretty disappointed in this,” he said. “I think it’s important we talk about the process. I am not comfortable giving this to MAG and if it has to sit for another year, I am alright with that because it is not right.”
