From: Ed Myers
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2026 10:28 AM
To: City Council <[email protected]>
Cc:
Subject: Downtown traffic changes
Honorable Council members,
I had hoped to speak in person at tonight’s meeting but I have a conflict and may not make it in time.
I have reviewed the four proposed changes to the downtown traffic patterns that you will vote on tonight and have concerns that all will be disruptive, will be a poor use of the City’s limited resources, will have a negative impact on greenhouse gas emissions, with a negative impact on far more people than might benefit.
In my estimation, all four options will reduce traffic capacity. However, as I understand, no modeling was done to provide an estimate of how much the impact will be. Without that, we’re buying a pig in a poke.
Increased queuing from capacity reductions means more idling cars and unnecessary greenhouse gases. In the past, hasn’t the City limited drive throughs at fast food and other businesses to reduce idling cars? How many drive through equivalents in greenhouse emissions will be created by these options? We don’t know, since no modeling was done.
It will cost a considerable amount to implement these changes. All the while, Sebastopol’s streets deteriorate in quality. I travel regularly on Fannen Ave between Main and Petaluma, is, and has been for a while, rough. It’s only one block, but it seems it only gets patched, but it clearly needs to be repaved. Many more streets have poor pavement quality. So spending money on these downtown traffic changes is like the owners of a house with a leaking roof and peeling paint spending money on an addition to the house.
True, some people may benefit from these changes – bicycle riders and possibly pedestrians. But how many, compared to the numbers of those drivers who must queue or find longer routes on side streets and waste their time? If we had comprehensive modeling, we might know, but we don’t. My personal estimate is drivers outnumber bicyclists by 50 to 1 at least. I was a bicycle rider myself until recently, but I avoided Main, Petaluma, Bodega, and Sebastopol Aves even after the bicycle lanes were added, simply because more pleasant, safe, and quiet alternates were available.
In conclusion, let’s keep our streets so they benefit the majority of users. Isn’t that be basis of democracy?
Ed Myers
“Music fills the infinite between two souls.
This has been muffled by the mist of our daily habits” - Tagore