Study Session Recap: Main Street Revisited

Last night, the city council met for a study session. The last item on the agenda was to revisit the Main Street reconfiguration. This section of the meeting started with Councilor Kevin Stine giving a brief history of the bicycle lane decision, acknowledging that the January vote "was not well received" and that, unlike previous transportation changes in the city, the pushback never subsided.

Following this, staff presented several new alternatives featuring angled parking that would add roughly 40 parking spaces to Main Street while keeping a bike lane. Councilor Card clearly liked this option and had staff present an option that harkened back to Option 3. Option 3 was the compromise that moved the protected lane to the right of Main St. The street layout would remove the existing protected bike track in favor of placing angled parking lots. An unprotected single lane bike lane would then be installed on the right of Main St. Main St would still be 2 lanes. Councilor Card made an impassioned case for what he called "Option 2A," and ultimately, the session ended with a show of hands indicating enough support to bring it forward for a formal vote. When the straw poll was conducted, interestingly, councilor Smith indicated he would vote for this. Smith, who voted to remove the protected lane, has now switched his position without indicating any reason why.

You can read the full transcript of the study session discussion here.

The issue with the leading option

From our perspective, the option that Council will most likely consider at the next meeting has the obvious win that it restricts Main Street to 2 lanes. However, that is probably the only win. The city cites an issue of being in violation of the ODOT grant conditions, meaning the grant money would have to be paid back. The proposed angled parking creates unbuffered bike lanes, and the overall cost actually goes up to $1.2 million from the original $1 million estimate for reverting to three lanes. Further, since the bike lane will be one-way, westbound, this leaves 8th Street with unprotected sharrows for bicyclists to navigate eastbound.

Some notable quotes from the session

Councilor Card clearly views Medford as a car centric city:

"We are a car-based community. Most people who come to Medford are not walking downtown or biking downtown, they are driving downtown."

Councilor Keating invoked the age of the population as a reason to resist change:

"We've got an aging community, and they do not like change. They're not going to come down to Main Street in the rain at night."

Councilor Stine suggested bike infrastructure simply isn't for Medford right now:

"It's just not that kind of community at this time. Maybe it will be decades from now, but it's not like that now."

These quotes are revealing of a general mindset of a council with very little vision. A car-based community is a choice. Though the city is making the right choice to keep Main St restricted to two lanes and include minimal biking infrastructure, this will be a sad but necessary win to keep Medford moving in the right direction. The city can be a more bike-friendly community, and we know the demand is there from the community reaction to Main St. The next council session will be worth paying attention to for sure.

What happens next

Councilor Card indicated he will bring a motion for reconsideration at the next regular council meeting.

Keep showing up. Keep submitting comments. The council needs to hear from you.

Take Action