Municipal Service Committee
Meeting October 25, 2022
Comments on Information Item #1
Pasadena Draft Pedestrian Action Plan (Pasadena Walks!
Submitted by Thomas Priestley, Ph.D., AICP/ASLA
RECEIVED
202? OCT 25 PM 4:05
CiTY CIERK
C?n OF PASADENA
Introduction
My name is Tom Priestley. I am a resident of Council District 6 and also have professional training in planning, urban design., and urban design research. I have a long-standing interest in the design of streets to meet the needs of all users.
Here are the main points that I want to note. I know that for the MSC, Pasadena Walks is an information item and no action will be taken tonight, so for you, the members of the committee, what I have to say are points of information that you may want to keep in mind when the Pedestrian Plan comes before you again.
Since the Department of Transportation will be revising the document over the next 6 months, these comments are mostly aimed at DOT staff, who I hope will take these comments into account as they make their revisions to the plan document.
Point #1
The name of this document must be changed to reflect what it really is. It is not a "pedestrian plan". If you take a look at the pedestrian plans that have been adopted by other communities, you will see that they are much broader in scope and integrate the perspectives of not only traffic engineers, but planners, urban designers, and members of the community and present a wide array of measures to enhance walkability. What we have before us is a narrow, technocratic analysis that appears to have been prepared within a traffic engineering silo.
It is very important then, that to avoid giving the impression that this document is a pedestrian plan, this document must be renamed to reflect what it is, which is an Identification of Potential Crossing Improvements along Selected Corridors.
Point #2
The introduction to this document should be revised to indicate the narrowness of its scope and to call in very strong terms for the City Council to provide the funding for the Department of Transportation, the Planning Department, and the Economic Development Department to undertake the development of a true pedestrian plan whose scope matches that of the best pedestrian plans prepared by other communities. Furthermore, it should be specified that this plan should be interdisciplinary, comprehensive in scope, and should address the pedestrian needs of Pasadena's Central District and each of the City's neighborhoods.
Point #3
For the current document to have any value at all, something has to be done about the long, mindless laundry list of corridors and intersections in Appendix E. Further analysis is required to identify those specific intersections where improvements would have the most strategically significant impacts so that they can be prioritized for improvement as funds become available over time.