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If you were at the Circulator Study Public Meeting tonight, THANK YOU! Turn out was good. It could’ve been even better… but there were plenty of people there asking questions and giving input and the room had a constant buzz. Even the media thought enough to make an appearance. There will be another public meeting in June/July to share the preliminary findings of the study so stay tuned and continue to share this story with friends and neighbors. We’ll need even more of you at the next meeting.

The format of the meeting was more like a career-fair than a town hall meeting. No chairs, no stodgy panel or podiums. There were 4 tables set up with various representatives from the City, and various stakeholders to take comments, questions, and input. Maps of the downtown study area were on display as well as PowerPoint presentations showing the results of the Commuter Survey—which is still in progress, and if you work downtown you should really take it .

Of course I made my plea to consider the economic and social benefits that a streetcar line could have. Everyone I spoke with seemed very receptive. All public input was written down on giant board room memo pads. Several people made suggestions related to bike issues… bike lanes, bike racks, public lockers and so on.

Many people had questions about how the RTS bus network would be affected, and the answer is that it won’t be affected at all. At least not as a result of this study. I was told there may be a separate study for that.

Another common topic of discussion was the study area itself. Several people, myself included, asked for points outside the study area to be included. Areas like the University of Rochester and the Art Walk neighborhood seemed to be popular.

There was one off-the-wall idea which I thought was worth mentioning. One gentlemen thought the inner loop should be turned into an underground parking facility—instead of just filling it in. I’m kind of surprised no one mentioned a valet service. Well, there’s still time. Send any last minute ideas or input to the city’s Transportation Specialist, Mr. Erik Frisch, at (585) 428-6709, or email him.

Tags: bike lanes, bike racks, Center City Circulator Study, City of Rochester, commuter survey, Erik Frisch, Inner Loop, public input, public meeting, Rochester, Rochester NY, RTS, shuttle bus, streetcar, transit, transportation

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 8:31 pm and is filed under Events, Rochester News, Transit + Infrastructure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.