Ann Arbor City Planning Department
January 25, 2005

Walking / Biking

Hello, my name is Brenda Bentley-Goenka.

I am a City resident and board member of the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition.

The N. Maple school site virtually mandates car use by students. The proposed school location is not within the city fabric and cannot become part of the city fabric because it is surrounded by low-density residential neighborhoods on three sides and a freeway on the fourth side. Township rural-character policies reject sidewalks and even bike lanes. Even students who live a stone's throw away to the west or north of the site cannot safely get to the school without a car. The barrier of the freeway poses safety hazards for the bulk of students coming from the south, and this barrier also virtually mandates car use for safety.

Automobiles are the most expensive mode of transportation. To force students into cars, against prevailing health wisdom and transportation goals, is fraudulent.

The N. Maple school site fails walkability and bikability criteria. From the north, there are no sidewalks or bike lanes. Newport Road is so narrow that walking on the shoulder is impossible because there is no shoulder. On N. Maple, there is a minimal shoulder (8-10 inches) but not enough to provide safety for pedestrians or bicyclists. For students who live to the north or west of the site, walking or biking to the new high school will be unpleasant or impossible.

From the south, where 85% of the students will be coming from, M-14 is a monstrous barrier to the site. All traffic must go either under or over M-14 to get to the site, creating two dangerous choke points for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Crossing over M14 on the Newport Road bridge is very scary.

The rail is too low for comfort, and the sidewalk is too narrow and has no protection from passing traffic. Students with backpacks could all too easily jostle each other over the railing or into Newport Road, especially if younger students are walking south to Wines and Forsythe while high schoolers are passing across the bridge northward. The bridge needs a much wider sidewalk, a much higher fenced side, and a barrier between the sidewalk and the street -- essentially a whole pedestrian bridge built onto the west side of the present car bridge. As for bicyclists, Newport Road currently has no bike lanes south of M-14, nor any room for bicyclists on the bridge or north of M-14. This means bicyclists will have to share the road with motorized traffic or that a bike bridge must be built on the east side of the Newport Road bridge. Lighting installed for visibility during dark mornings and winter afternoons, and a sidewalk on Newport from the bridge to Riverwood Drive, are required.

The other choke point is at N. Maple.

Currently, N. Maple is painted with bike lanes as far north as M-14 (the city-township boundary), and has a sidewalk on the east side almost as far north as the first on-ramp. The school administration is saying that the road will be widened to four lanes, but since bike lanes are no longer optional in Ann Arbor, only three car lanes will be possible. The proposed sidewalk up under the highway, behind the pillars, is a poor solution for walkers, because crossing the on and off-ramps will be dangerous, especially during the five months of darkness during the morning commute. Overhead lighting for visibility will be necessary. In the best of circumstances, pedestrians are at the mercy of motorized traffic to obey signals and walk signs. The worst intersection for pedestrians is crossing against turning traffic. Often the drivers are scanning for oncoming vehicles to the left, and they move into the intersection without checking to the right. Young drivers, and drivers who have already waited a long time for their chance to turn, are likely to be uncareful. Lighting to improve visibility, and perhaps traffic-directing police officers, will be necessary. Without extraordinary efforts like these, we conclude that going to this school by bike or on foot will always be prohibitively dangerous.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly recommend combating obesity by building exercise into community. The single most effective anti-obesity program for students is to walk or bike to and from school daily.

We can't help noticing the paradox that AAPS is hopeful to win an environmental award for building a "green" building, yet the extra emissions from the automobile-necessary transportation plan for the green building's location will more than offset the reduced waste of the building, not to mention the destruction of a botanically high-quality site. The same building placed on the painfully vacant Pioneer corner of Stadium and Main (just to name one possible alternative site for the school) would be able to display its green features with magnanimous pride because the location, which supports non-motorized transportation choices, does not subtract from the gains.

We support the smart-growth principle that all public facilities, especially schools, should be accessible by non-motorized means. This necessitates that a school be sited within the urban grid where it is accessible by walkers and bikers, and where the facility can be utilized by the community during non-school hours and months. An accessible location is a right not only of non-driving students, but also of the bulk of citizens in the community. They whole community pays for it.

Parking/Driving:

The school district is planning to supply 800 student parking spaces. This means that automobile transportation is being underwritten by the taxpayers of the AAPS district, in precise opposition to City of Ann Arbor policies of walkability and bikability, and in opposition to Centers for Disease Control & Prevention's recommendations that students walk or bike to school, and in contradistinction to the new school's energy-efficiency.

Students with their own cars will contrast sharply with the bussed students from the southeast portion of the city. The AAPS design plan is already taking the "haves" and "have-nots" [to use AAPS terminology] into account, by, for instance, making sure all students enter through the same door (instead of bussed students on one side of the building and car students on another side). The very students whose quadrant of the city deserves a new school facility, for use by the whole community, will become second-class citizens at school built in the Barton Hills quadrant.

Student drivers who carry other students have a statistically higher likelihood of accidents, and legislation is underway to limit young drivers' ability to carry other under-age passengers for some time period after they first get their licenses. When this happens, students won't be able to carpool. How many parking spaces will be necessary then?

Widenings, Lights, and Complete Streets

AAPS has paid a large fee for a complex motorized-traffic study. They acknowledge the need to widen the ramps on M-14, and that extra lanes and traffic lights will be needed on N. Maple Road, and even that N. Maple should be graded to minimize the hill. All this because of the site's inauspicious location. (Of course, for safety, automobile access from the east must be added to the plan, too. AAPS will have to add east-side access after a fatality.) These automobile enhancements will cost many millions, but the plan doesn't yet include the necessary infrastructure for walkers and bikers, such as the pedestrian and bike bridges over M14 at Newport Road. AAPS doesn't want to be held responsible for these costs, but large student parking lots (for 800? student cars) within the site are being designed and paid for by the district on the presumption that it is a legitimate and necessary cost.

State aid for education is falling; the City of Ann Arbor is clean out of funds, and the taxpayers of the AAPS district are carrying a monstrous bond and sinking fund? Millage which will take 25? Years to pay off. So where will the money come from to pay for these "non-educational" expenses? More careful siting of the school could reduce or eliminate them,

A very large comprehensive school, drawing almost 2000 students and staff to the site,

We expect you, as public servants, to do your duty to make it possible and likely that many, or even most, of those AAPS students who live within the walkability radius will walk or bike to the new school. We further expect that redistricting boundaries will not result in reduced walkability to Pioneer High School, which is to say, that no students who live south of Huron and Jackson Streets will be compelled to attend the school on N. Maple.