Study Session Transcript

We can do whatever we want. That is not always the case. There are certain land use decisions that are out of our — I mean, even then, we can still do what we want, then we can get appealed and have to spend the money to have some greater governmental powers to tell us we're in the wrong. With this, we can do whatever we want.

So I am rarely surprised. In my many years of public service, I have seen lots of things. And so as we have gone down the road — pun — you know, we came up with — we took the staff direction, and it was a little bit of split, and we moved forward. And it was very quick that it was not well received.

There was other things, other transportation things that had been done in the city previously that did get some pushback, and then it really didn't take long before people either didn't see the worst thing happen, or they just kind of moved on. And so Columbus is one example, and then McAndrews was another. There was a whole bunch of pushback. Then it occurred — the McAndrews one was very interesting because we actually got some emails then that said, oh, yeah, I thought this was going to be terrible until I actually saw it, and then it's actually fine.

This was not that. You know, almost immediately there was pushback, which, again, totally understand. The difference here compared to the other two examples is that pushback continued. There were things done from that initial pushback to try to help people navigate with the bollards and different things where you didn't have people driving in the parking lane and wondering why the cars were not moving. That has largely been rectified, I believe, but I think that there needs to be some sort of change made.

And so at that point, it becomes the policy decision of what that change is. So we have seen all sorts of different examples of what can be done. You're literally only space limited. The ideas are out there. I think we had, what, 20 things of examples, and we kind of narrowed it down quite a bit to four.

And then, you know, it looked like from a council perspective, from a policy perspective, we were really down to two or three. And then it seemed like at a study session we had, we were going to go forward to what was referred to as option three. And then where I come back to, I'm really surprised. On that night in January, I was very surprised because it seemed like we were going in this direction based on a study session, and then when the vote came, we went a different direction. And that's okay.

So all of us, we have different people that we talk to, and depending on how big or small is the amount of people you talk to, you might hear pretty narrow opinions, or you might have pretty large opinions, depending on the different groups you talk to. The concept that there's going to be one magic solution and everyone's going to be happy, as I said however many months ago, that's not going to happen.

Some of those people would prefer it to stay the same. Some of those people would prefer that option three, maybe because they think it's the best, maybe because they think it is at least better than three lanes.

One of the things to give a little bit of color commentary to what Kevin said is never let, in my opinion, never let a good grumbling go to waste. And so when you make a mistake, one of the things I've always said is making a mistake and then trying to come up with different ideas is, that's what governance is all about. You cannot know everything about all issues.

And I think while I still stand by option one versus option three in terms of like — go back to the way it was versus the one buffered bike lane. I still say going back to the way it was is better than the buffered bike lane. But clearly there were some other people and had some other opinions. And this was an opportunity for us to kind of relook at maybe some things that hit the cutting room floor a little too early.

And this particular proposal that is on the screen before you is something that is inspired by something that Mr. Kerlinger was a fan of in the early days. And there are some concerns with this proposal in the sense that these are narrower lanes than we're comfortable with. There are no buffering on the bike lanes. It's kind of a narrow bike lane.

But one of the things that we do have to deal with with Main Street is we have a curb to curb footprint that's there. And so sometimes squeezing a little bit, especially if you can get more for the community, like a significant increase in parking on Main Street, this proposal puts 40 more parking spaces on Main Street. It gets us a bike lane. It puts more parking in the community. Man, that just seems like a win to me.

And I know that it's not exactly everything we want it to be. But to me, this is the kind of proposal that I think if we take another look at this, this gets us somewhere closer to perhaps upsetting everybody, which is usually a good solution.

I am personally, like I said, when there's three lanes, I could get down to City Hall. When there's the standard cycle track, I could get down to City Hall. So I'm not as married to something more than another.

I will tell you that it frustrates me to give back the grant money for an option that was, I mean, resoundingly unattractive to the entire community. And the fact that the state, now we've got some — that's a decent answer actually to hear, which is they're using that money for something else. Anything they can sweep back into that account and maybe plow roads or do something with the money, that's what they're looking to do.

The idea that whether it's a one foot or one foot on both sides for a buffer, that's not even being considered. If you put a bike lane in, it's not being considered. If you took that money and put it towards a different bike ped project, that's not being considered. So we're getting kind of — we have minimal options is the way that kind of the state is working with us on that, if the money is the critical issue.

I certainly, of course, I'll say it as I did before, the idea of the additional parking on Main Street is certainly at least a goal that is achieved with this option that makes it very interesting.

I tell you one of the number one things that if you know anything about the way people drive and this research has been going on for a long time, people drive at the speed that they feel is safe and appropriate for conditions. They don't care what a speed sign says. They care what it feels like.

One of the advantages to the way we did our, the dual bike lane is by squeezing the cars together. You really only had a visual corridor two lanes wide to drive in. That slows people down. You push the cars back out and you have a giant buffered bike lane, you're not going to be full of bikes. So that means when you're driving down Main Street, you're still going to be in that visual corridor of three lanes wide. To me, having a buffered bike lane is not a substantial increase in safety.

This option right here, this gets us to that two lane wide, safer, visible corridor that's going to slow people down. It enhances parking. This is a thing that, I mean, if there's any issue that I've heard about more, I mean, I can't think of an issue I've heard about more than parking downtown, the need for more parking.

But when we say parking, I think it's important to contextualize that as comfortable parking. That means people are parking in a place that they feel safe, that's convenient for them to their destination. So increasing the density of parking on Main Street is a good way for us to actually create comfortable parking options that will fundamentally shift the needle for the perception of parking availability in downtown.

You know, we talk a lot about we don't want people driving through Main Street. Great. We do need people driving to Main Street. We are a car-based community. Most people who come to Medford are not walking downtown or biking downtown, they are driving downtown. Creating infrastructure that enables them to drive downtown and park downtown is important for commerce that we want to create downtown.

On the grant money, one of the things that I want to remind Council of is we did not go into the Main Street Restriping Project with an expectation of having a huge grant. That was an extra that we got. We were prepared to pay the full freight to make that thing happen.

I will lastly agree with Mike's point about the renovation. You don't go back to square one, but if your interior designer, if you say, hey, look, this kitchen that you made me looks, it's not what I'm looking for. And they say, well, you're right, here's this retro diner theme with black and white tile floor and red leather seats. And then your other option is to go back to the way it was. I think most people would also pick to go back to the way it was. So we have to make sure we're contextualizing that.

Here's kind of where I land on this. And this is what I would ask of council. I want to see option 2A move forward. If we don't move, if there's a consensus from council that staff can bring us option 2A, we can vote on it at the next meeting, hallelujah, I will make that motion to change the way that we are restriping Main Street.

If there isn't a consensus on council about option 2A, this is the last hat that I'm going to throw into the ring in terms of what we want to accomplish. And so if somebody else wants to carry water for a different option, great, fine by me. If it's a good option, sell me on it.

This is the option I want to sell you on. I think this is a good option. I think when we factor in all of the feedback and interest we've heard addressing longstanding problems with Main Street and longstanding community concerns, I think option 2A is the winner. I hope council will support that.

I do have a lot of heartburn about the cost of these options. I certainly don't like giving money back to the state. That being said, 40 additional parking spaces, that seems like a good value to me. One of the top things that I hear people complaining about downtown is the lack of parking on Main Street.

Some people don't care one way or the other about the bike lane because, you know, you can look at whatever data. It's not a super well-traveled. There is more — I mean, I think the data shows that there's more now than there was before there was a protected bike lane, but still, is it pretty low? Yes. 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.

But the reason that I keep coming back to this and I care at all is because the three just seems to be, while there's people that will highly support it, what we heard from when individual comments came, it was not like, oh, I really need three lanes because it's hard to get through downtown. That was not a general conception that we heard. It was generally, I don't like parking in the middle of the road, and things of that nature. Or I don't like when I'm turning onto Main Street, turning left, and then having to get past the bike lane and the parked cars, and my visual is a bit messed up.

Those seem to be the primary concerns that we had from changing from three to our current configuration. So things that get around that is I'm supportive of. This is not going to have universal appeal, but I'm far more willing to go for this than I am to back down from changing it back to the 1970s version.

Downtown Bend actually is almost entirely angled in parking on downtown Bend.

This is not some wild, crazy thing where we're going to be the only city in Oregon. It is unique to Medford, but it is also not unique in the sense of no one has ever seen this before. People come across angled in parking and go, why are the lines on an angle? I don't know what to do. Because every major parking lot has angled in parking, or some variation of that that's a very comfortable thing. People navigate it regularly in their car.

It being on a public road may be unique, but it's not like it's a unique thing in that sense. So I think while we may receive some pushback, I think there will be a lot less pushback than some of the other novel things that we've done, and again, to get those 40 additional parking spaces downtown, to me, that is what sells the value of this option.

Most importantly I can count to eight and I can count to four and assuming one of the ones who said they wanted option three doesn't change their vote, it'll be five to three I suspect if Nick is changing his view. So if he likes A, put it on the ballot to do A, we'll vote how we vote and it is what it is. Let's just get it done.

I'm going to bring back a motion. Since I can't seem to get the mayor to ask for a thumbs drop poll, I'm going to bring it back.

I will make a motion for 2A at the next meeting. Thank you.