By J. Graber
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The Scottsdale City’s Council’s controversial decision to remove car lanes on 68th Street to make room for bike lanes raised the ire of some residents as well as a few council members, but there are 15 more streets on the list to do the same thing to.

If all those projects were completed, it would come to under 30 miles of lane reductions that could take up to 10 years to complete, according to Scottsdale Public Works Director Dan Worth.

However, the city plans to add at least 60 miles of lanes to collector and arterial streets during that same period, Worth said.

“This is not a new idea,” Worth wrote in an email to Councilwoman Betty Janik “One of the first projects I was involved in after I got here 19 years ago to be the city engineer included reducing about a mile of 96th Street from four lanes to two lanes. A little over two years ago we reduced 124th Street from Via Linda to Cactus from four lanes to two lanes, and we reduced Indian School Road from 60th (Street) to Goldwater Boulevard from six to four lanes. These reductions total 4.6 lane miles, and we have had very few complaints about any of them.”

But Janik said she received about 200 emails in opposition to removing car lanes for the addition of bike lanes, sometimes called a road diet.

And Janik said adding 60 miles of road lanes in quiet, rural areas doesn’t mitigate removing car lanes on busy streets.

“That’s a totally invalid comparison ... Don’t give me that data that is so very fuzzy,” she said.

The city has a transportation action plan that calls for lane reductions on the following streets:

• 68th Street from Thomas Road to Indian School Road – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Thomas Road from 56th Street to 73rd Street – one lane reduction eastbound.

• 64th Street from Jomax Road to Dynamite Road – from four lanes to two lanes.

• 92nd Street from Raintree Drive to Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard – from four lanes to two lanes.

• 96th Street from Via Linda to Shea Boulevard – from four lanes to two lanes.

• 100th Street Loop from Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard to Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Drinkwater Boulevard: one lane reduction northbound.

• Goldwater Boulevard: one lane reduction southbound.

• Legend Trail Parkway from Pima Road to Stagecoach Pass – from four lanes to two lanes.

• McCormick Parkway from Scottsdale Road to Hayden Road – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Osborn Road from 70th Street to Scottsdale Road – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Raintree Drive: from Thompson Peak Parkway to Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Redfield Road from Raintree Drive to Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Thunderbird Road from 89th Street to Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard – from four lanes to two lanes.

• Westland Drive from Scottsdale Road to Hayden Road – from four lanes to two lanes.

The 68th Street project (first on the list) is what the council approved 4-3 with Councilwomen Solange Whitehead and Tammy Caputi, Councilor Tom Durham and Mayor David Ortega voting in favor during the March 21 meeting.

The Thomas Road project (second on the list) is scheduled for this year. The other projects could be as much as 10 years out, if they are ever done at all. Each project will be considered individually before work is done, Worth said.

In fact, Worth listed in his email to Janik a group projects scheduled for lane reductions but which won’t be done because of their individual circumstances. Those include:

• McDowell Mountain Ranch Road from 105th Street to 108th Street. The city repaved earlier this year and drew up a design for re-striping with two lanes, but staff believed it did not provide any benefit over what was there originally so they did not do it.

• Hayden Road from McKellips Road to Indian School Road – Staff believed it not likely that the benefits would outweigh the negatives so they will not do it when they repave this section of Hayden.

• 128th Street north of Ranch Gate. This road crosses part of the preserve and the city is reclassifying it to emergency access only.

• 130th/132nd Street from Shea Boulevard to Via Linda. The transportation action plan reduced the classification for this road, but it was already constructed to two lanes so there are no lanes to remove.

• Bell Road from Thompson Peak Parkway to McDowell Mountain Ranch Road. The transportation action plan reduced the classification for this road, but it was already constructed to two lanes so there are no lanes to remove.

All road narrowing projects were chosen because those stretches of road carry about 50% of the traffic they are capable of moving, Worth said.
Future lane reductions will be considered when streets are scheduled to be repaved.

Worth noted the city is not physically narrowing the streets. The city is simply re-striping the roads to accommodate bike lanes, and if traffic picks up on any given road, it can be switched back to the extra car lanes.

“It’s very easily reversible,” Worth said.

But that is cold comfort for those like Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield, who see the lane reduction plan as an attempt to force people out of their cars and onto bikes or mass transit.

“That’s a way to control how and where people can go,” Littlefield said.
Like Janik, Littlefield too says shes received “hundreds of emails” about lane reductions and “99.9% of them are against it.”

Residents paid for the roads with their taxes and they want them expanded, not to have traffic lanes reduced, Littlefield said.
Littlefield and Janik both feel the question of lane reductions should be on the ballot, and Littlefield intends to call for that at the April 18 council meeting.

In the meantime, Whitehead asked to have a meeting to discuss the lane reduction projects in the transportation action plan and include a section that would explain the procedure and timetable.

She added lane reductions are about public safety, not part of a plan to push people out of their cars.

“The city’s foremost responsibility is public safety,” Whitehead said. “On roads, our traffic engineers are tasked with improving traffic flow and increasing safety. Never in my 27 years in Scottsdale have I seen a street project designed to make traffic worse.”

Whitehead noted there have been three lane reduction projects in the past 20 years in Scottsdale and Littlefield made the motion to approve the last one (Indian School Road from 60th Street to Goldwater Boulevard), which was approved unanimously by council.

J. Graber can be reached at jgraber@iniusa.org. We like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments pro or con on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.