SIDE STREETS: Layoffs translate into stalled street improvements and safety projects

About a year ago, 57 homeowners along Platte Avenue east of downtown were all fired up about speeding and the number of rear-end wrecks occurring in front of their homes. They even organized as the Historic Platte Avenue Neighborhood Association to speak as a more powerful group to City Hall and request changes.

It seemed to work.

Neighborhood meetings with city traffic engineers produced agreement on changes to Platte between Hancock Avenue and Union Boulevard. A temporary median was installed to stop some left-hand turns — blamed for many of the wrecks — until permanent solutions could be designed and built.

The $400,000 plan called for:

• Installing a 2-foot-wide median on Platte from just west of Meade Avenue to Union Boulevard.

• Constructing traffic islands at the entrances to Sheridan, Foote and Farragut avenues to prevent left turns from Platte onto those streets. An island also would bar left turns onto northbound Logan Avenue from eastbound Platte. Left turns from westbound Platte onto Logan would be allowed, to accommodate the owners of Platte Floral, who feared restricted access would hurt their business.

• Widening Platte by 7 feet for 50 feet just west of its intersection with Union. That would allow motorists to make a U-turn to gain access to Walgreens pharmacy.

• Cutting three trees in the city right of way near Walgreens but none in the residential area to the west.

The residents were generally happy. Until now.

This week they learned their project has been shelved indefinitely, a victim of budget cuts and staff reductions.

“We are disappointed,” said Nan Stillwagen, president of the neighborhood association. “This really concerns me. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

It’s simple, according to a city news release. City engineers, including the traffic engineer overseeing the Platte project, were among the 88 early retirees and 93 layoffs of city employees due to budget cuts.

“The person managing the project had to be let go,” said Dick Carlson, traffic engineer.

Platte is being shelved along with a list of about a dozen major construction projects scheduled for 2010. They include the Proby Parkway construction at Powers Boulevard near the airport, the Austin Bluffs corridor from Nevada Avenue to Old Farm Drive, several intersections along U.S. Highway 24 on the west side and assorted bridges and safety projects.

The projects will resume when there is money to hire consultants to manage the projects, a city news released said. Until then, they will all just have to wait.

Carlson said it was just a sad fact of life.

“There’s no one to manage the projects,” he said. “They had to be postponed.”

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