The LSJ is reporting today that the City Market will have traditional 90-degree parking spaces like those seen on Washington Ave after there were too many complaints. The spaces were meant to be safer for drivers pulling out as they can just pull forward. They are starting to appear in Ann Arbor and Alma.
I really wish they'd have stuck with the experiment. I actually find the 90 degree spots to be very dangerous. In fact, of the less than a handful of times I've been in an accident, it was either backing out of one of these spaces, myself, or someone backed into me. The blowback over this reflects the blowback everytime a traffic circle gets installed. It's not that most of these people are fighting these things for logical reasons, but simply because it's different than what they are used to. IMO, the back-ins sound a lot safer and provide a whole lot more visible space to work with when both pulling in and out.
I was thinking about this more, and wondered why they couldn't simply do it like the current parking at the City Market, which is the angled parking where you simply pull in diagonally? This takes up less room and cuts down on backout incidents.
I'm not sure of it, but wouldn't the turning ratio be less with either way of diagonal parking, allowing the road to be somewhat narrower? (Not that the road would actually be made narrower, but would maybe leave room for a bike lane)
The Lansing City Market website has been posting minutes for what seem to be weekly meetings for some time, now. Anyway, here is the latest one from February 25th. Some pieces of info:
- It seems that cost to remove soil is higher than was expected but that the price of the footings for the new market have decreased in price.
- Final drawings were to be received in early March, and construction permits were to be submitted on the week of the 9th.
- They are looking to request a "wish list" in case new funds become available. I assume this has to do with the fact that stimulus money is flying around, now.
- There seems to have been much considering of making the market's energy system green over the last few months, but they considered everything uneconomical save for geothermal if they are able to get extra funds.
The City Pulse, this week, is reporting that construction of the market is still very much on schedule and should start sometime next month. Market Place, because of the economy, will not start until 10-12 months after the completion of the market. They also noted that since the market is a pre-fab construction the actual structure will go up fairly quickly, but that most of time will be taken up with grading the site and putting in its infrastructure.
Comments
- It seems that cost to remove soil is higher than was expected but that the price of the footings for the new market have decreased in price.
- Final drawings were to be received in early March, and construction permits were to be submitted on the week of the 9th.
- They are looking to request a "wish list" in case new funds become available. I assume this has to do with the fact that stimulus money is flying around, now.
- There seems to have been much considering of making the market's energy system green over the last few months, but they considered everything uneconomical save for geothermal if they are able to get extra funds.