04-12-2007 Charter Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Strategies: • Identify potential traffic safety problem areas and adopt plans to lessen risks as traffic volume increases along these problem stretches and intersections. Rationale: The safety and convenience of using our streets and roads should not decrease as traffic volume increases. Strategies: • Plan, within the 20 year traffic component of the Comprehensive Plan, for an expanded and improved road system to accommodate projected increases in traffic volume accompanying predicted/planned growth and development. • Encourage high-density housing along our traffic corridors; e.g., County Road J, East end of Birch and Main Street. Add needed stop lights and turn lanes. Increase connecting and collecting roads — plan ahead for them. • Ensure, as areas are developed, that development bears the cost of this reconstruction to the fullest extent possible. Rationale: Properly maintained streets maintain the quality of life of the citizens. If a street is allowed to deteriorate to a "poor" condition, the street must be reconstructed. Current City Charter provisions frustrate the city's ability to be responsible stewards of its streets. Strategies: • Adopt, fund and steadfastly implement a Comprehensive Pavement Management Plan for the maintenance and reconstruction, to an optimum level, of the city's streets in a responsible and cost-effective manner. • Recognize that proper maintenance is less expensive in the long run than reconstruction after a street has been allowed to degrade. Once a street has been allowed to degrade to "poor", maintenance is no longer effective, and the city's ability to reconstruct the street is severely limited. • Change the City Charter, as favored by 60% of the respondents in the Quality of Life Survey, so city council can plan for and fund (budget) street construction and maintenance in a responsible manner. This effort should be initiated by a citizen's group or task force that identifies options and advocates that the city council, the charter commission, and the community support a charter change proposal on the ballot. 17