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This letter was written April 29, 1998, by Marvin Bartel, posted to the Internet, June, '99 GOSHEN ROAD DESIGN
As designers in the public domain, you must look at the greatest good for the greatest number, not merely what current political and commercial pressures may be requesting. I suspect that the statistical prognostication tools and assumptions being used are seriously flawed. Some of your arguments defied logic. Many of us know that anything can be proved with statistics if some of the variables are conveniently biased or omitted from the equation. I have done statistical work in conjunction with work for my doctorate degree. While my degree is not in civil engineering, I still see some gaps in your assumptions that are quite apparent to any thinking person looking at your assumptions. Reasons for doubting your assumptions about future traffic-counts: 1. In your forward-looking projections for traffic counts, you did not
give the basis for deciding growth rate. We know that a small percentage
change, when compounded, produces widely variant results when making predictions.
Since you declined to give us the assumptions used by your modeling, I
am forced to use common sense and say that it is quite obvious that your
assumptions about traffic growth must be totally wrong and without any
plausible way to substantiate them.
THE BYPASS ISSUE
Since 1971, I have lived along US33 at the southeast entrance to Goshen. My office and the classrooms where I have been teaching for 28 years are about 50 feet from SR15 in South Goshen. I am very familiar with the increasing traffic congestion and noise. On a nice day, if I open a classroom window, learning comes to halt while we wait for yet another truck or manufactured house to accelerate, to shift gears, or to hit the breaks or even to use their jake breaks. Even with windows closed there are times when all discussions must pause and wait for some peace. Most of these semi-truck drivers and modular house tow truck drivers would much rather take a bypass. As is, they pollute the city air, they disrupt life with their noise levels, they contribute to the accident rate, and they accelerate road damage. I appreciate the difficulties, expenses, and hardships created by building a bypass. If there appeared to be a better alternative for the future, I would certainly favor it. There is just too much damage being done by continuing to increase the amount of through traffic. Adding lanes to internal city arteries does move more traffic, but in doing so, it also destroys the environment where it passes. The old highway routes came into being in a pre-industrial time. To stubbornly refuse to consider better routing for today's vehicles, seems totally illogical to me. I was a quite surprised by your public statement at the April 27 meeting in which you indicated your own strong bias against recommending a bypass. MY PROPOSAL
A major road widening makes a huge change in the way the community defines and identifies itself. It will become more difficult to foster pride and interest in historical and conservation efforts that engender a sense of place. The project you are currently proposing will directly and negatively impact many more persons than a well designed by-pass. I have certainly been disappointed with the poor planning and design of the commercial development southeast of Goshen on U.S. 33. This area is hard to negotiate and presents many safety hazards. The local planners and INDOT continue to allow a proliferation of commercial sites to exit directly onto the highway, thus creating many hazardous opportunities for accidents. Now the number of accidents is listed as a reason to add traffic lanes. Widening is not the best design solution here. After widening, it will still be hard to get on and off at all the driveways, and we will still see accidents. However, it is probably too late to do it right. Who was the smart planner who failed to predict such an outcome? It is obvious that developers and/or local governments could and should provide a service road to the nearest signaled intersections. Why should the taxpayers fix what planners, designers, and developers should have prevented?
U.S. 33 and SR 15 continue to pass right through the middle of the city. Nobody would set out to design such a thing today. Today we know this is bad design. To widen by adding lanes does not change it into a good design. Widening will cause downward pressure on some very fine housing (both old and new) near the route. Widening will attract the wrong traffic to the center of the city. The old road is wide enough for local destination traffic. According to stories in the Goshen News, the number of trains blocking U.S. 33 and College Avenue between 8th and 10th Streets will soon increase because of recent mergers by the railroad companies. Overpasses are not included in your proposal, but would soon be an essential addition for reasons of health and safety. A bypass is a more logical way to expedite traffic. Save some of this money. Start planning the bypass immediately. Relocate the artery. The bypass is ultimately more logical than the proposed U.S. 33 project because it facilitates much better and safer traffic flow. It is the long-term solution. It is the best solution. Enlarging a city's dissection through its heart is bad design. This is not simply a question of how to move traffic by the cheapest means, it effects the very heart of this city. One of the most important basic principles of good design in public planning is to leave a place better than it was found. The current proposal fails to meet this test. Respectfully submitted,
cc: Frank O'Bannon, Governor
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