From: Danielle Connor
Sent: Monday, March 2, 2026 9:49 AM
To: City Council <[email protected]>; Mary Gourley <[email protected]>; Phill Carter <[email protected]>; Neysa Hinton <[email protected]>
Subject: Sustainable Transportation Planning
Hi there,
As many of you already know, I own a business downtown called Retrograde Coffee Roasters. I am reaching out ahead of the March 3rd meeting to express support for finetuning the existing one-way infrastructure we have in place, and that at the end of the day, the many small businesses in the core of downtown be carefully considered in implementing whichever option is ultimately chosen.
I have been doing business on Main Street for 9+ years now. I have heard 2-way ideas floated around over the years, and in general heard many ideas for how we can change and improve downtown over the years. I can't say that I have seen any of them come to fruition for various reasons. I would appreciate the city and Caltrans first making improvements to the existing downtown infrastructure before we move forward with larger, bigger changes that require more construction, planning and time to implement. A lot of what our community wants is improved public spaces in downtown, like seating options, wider sidewalks for disabled people and families, and more greenery, along with improving bike lanes to make them safer. All of these things are considered in the walkable 1-way option, without losing a significant amount of parking spaces or creating more traffic congestion.
There is also, whether it's agreed with or not, a desire for more parking and more accessible parking. It is disappointing to see how many parking spaces would be lost due to moving to 2-way streets (50 is a lot), and even more disappointing to hear of the ramifications of decreased traffic flow, which will ultimately clog up the downtown corridor and make people want to avoid it due to traffic. Increased traffic also makes it harder to park, and both of these things impact the small businesses downtown negatively. I don't agree with the opinion of creating a traffic issue
to "force" Caltrans to solve it, and I would hate to see the neighborhoods be negatively impacted by increased traffic from locals who know they can bypass downtown altogether and move more quickly using back streets. Again, that would hurt small businesses if people are avoidant of downtown.
Lastly, I think the community as a whole would appreciate their voices being listened to as constituents. The majority of survey respondents voted for the walkable one-way. I will acknowledge that there could have been more survey respondents, and I would also wonder what potential there is to put this on a city-wide ballot for more people to have the opportunity to vote on if it were directly presented to them.
I appreciate your time and consideration on this matter.
Thank you,
Danielle
Danielle Connor, she/her
Co-Founder, Head of Operations,
Retrograde Coffee Roasters
www.retrograderoasters.com