Both city officials and residents of Alabama Hill and surrounding neighborhoods brought their concerns to the second open house meeting at Roosevelt Elementary for the Alabama Corridor Project on March 5. Bellingham’s Transportation Planner, Chris Comeau, presented the plan that proposed many changes to Alabama Street including the addition of “C-curbs,” which did not sit well with residents.
The main idea behind the project is to address safety. Alabama Street is second on the list of streets with most collisions with Guide-Meridian taking the number one spot, Comeau said. Over a 6-year period, Alabama has had 93 collisions with known or possible injuries making it a priority for the city, Comeau said.
C-curbs are the city’s term for small curbs in the road that block cars from making left turns across opposite lanes of traffic. These types of turns are the main cause of the collisions on Alabama Street, Comeau said.
Pinky Vargas, a City Council Member, lives at the east end of Alabama Street and wants the city to consider traffic as much as they do the safety of the road.
“I drive Alabama Street at least twice a day,” Vargas said. “I understand C-curbs are for a safety issue, but sometimes we need to look at the flow of traffic and make sure that is considered.”
The plan would include a C-curb from Superior Street to Yew Street and another curb from Yew Street to Woburn Street. There will be a few more C-curbs added further down Alabama toward Cornwall Avenue. There is already an existing C-curb median at the intersection of Alabama and James Streets, which the planners are using as a model to improve the safety of Alabama.
“You can’t solve one problem and cause another,” Vargas said. “I think that when we look at things like designing our streets, we have to look at it more holistically, not just the one element. What’s the flow of traffic? Where are people walking? How do we make it safer but also keep people moving? I think they have to be overlayed with each other, not just one.
Alabama Hill Association’s Chair Dean Haskins, also a long time resident of Alabama Hill, was not sure about the addition of C-curbs. The curbs would only cause people to make illegal u-turns farther up the road instead of driving around the block, Haskins said.
Bellingham’s Fire Training Director Chief, Brad Bannerman, worked with the city as the plan was being developed to make sure emergency response vehicles would not be blocked by any road changes. The city was originally talking about adding a center divide much higher than a curb, but Chief Bannerman made it clear that center divides would not be safe. C-curbs are much easier for the emergency vehicles to cross.
“They are designed for us to drive over,” Bannerman said. “Our fire and ambulances will easily get over them.”
The fire department is required to meet national response times, but the C-curbs will not be a problem.
“In a CPR call or an instance when someone needs life support or a structure fire or we need to get people in there right away, it’s a big deal,” Bannerman said. “A minute makes a huge difference.
For more information on the plan, there will be a city council public hearing on April 7.
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