A blog for better streets and public spaces in Portland, Maine.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Action-packed agenda for tonight's City Council Transportation Committee meeting

UPDATE: due to the snowstorm, this meeting has been cancelled.

The agenda items will be discussed in the February 15th meeting instead - save the date.



Tonight's City Council Transportation Committee meeting - this afternoon at 5:30 PM in City Hall - is going to be packed with things you'll be interested in.
  • Bruce Hyman and the Public Services Dept. will be proposing a workplan for an update to the city's Technical and Design standards to incorporate a "Complete Streets" policy for city streets by 2012;
  • Agents from the Maine Turnpike Authority will be there to talk about why they want to spend tens of millions of dollars on widening the freeway along the western edge of Portland (you might consider coming to ask them to provide better regional bus and commuter rail service instead for a fraction of the price)
  • Folks from the Amtrak Downeaster will discuss plans for future rail service downtown, including a possible downtown train station.
You can find more details on each of these agenda items on the Committee's webpage. Should be interesting - I'm hoping to be there, and hope I'll have some company.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Christian - my question here is vaguely related to this post (and yes, I am planning to attend this meeting!) A woman who lives near my house routinely parks her car in a driveway, but the car completely blocks the sidewalk. As a pedestrian, today, I literally had to walk through a snowbank to continue on my way around her car (SUV). I have asked her to keep her car off the sidewalk, but she basically flipped me off. Who is legally correct here? Who owns the sidewalk? Thanks, and I enjoy your blog!