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Dear Editor

With regard to the above noted issue on the proposed changes to 100th Street, it is my opinion that the city would be well advised to give the issue greater consideration. Removing, restricting or hindering convenient parking options to businesses has always had a negative effect on those enterprises.   Additionally, before this project goes any further there needs be consultation with the taxpayers on this issue – they are the ones who pay for such projects. 

To wit: the alley servicing the 1100 block of 100th and 101st Streets relies on access and egress to 100th Street for the parking facilities necessary to those enterprises. Access to 100th Street from the parking lot between the Beaver Hotel and Moon’s Kitchen is necessary for both the continued use of the parking lot and orderly, safe, access/egress from that lot. Your plan to remove cross sidewalk access would effectively shut down that parking lot. Backing out into that alley is inherently risky and recognized as such which is why the access to 100th Street is routinely and safely used.

Additionally, your plan to remove the cross sidewalk access on the 1100 block and 100th Street in general forces the concentration of traffic into the alley which now would have only two exits. This alley is used by businesses on both sides for both service and delivery of goods, which often blocks the exits at either end of the alley for long periods of time. Access to 100th Street is necessary to alleviate that problem. This is a busy corridor and any city planning that creates congestion and bottlenecks rather than alleviating them is not one that customers and business owners would or should support. As a taxpayer and user of that corridor I expect city planning to recognize and alleviate problems there, not create them.

Cross sidewalk access and egress is not and has not been a problem, and, it is necessary to all businesses on 100th Street. Since you’re not likely to get any support for removing cross sidewalk access to the rest of the businesses on 100th Street, penalizing those on the 1100 block by hindering access to parking and creating congestion rather than alleviating it in the servicing alley is a proposal that needs a serious rethink. I have little doubt that the taxpayers who both own and support the enterprises on 100th Street will not be the least bit pleased by removing the cross sidewalk access to any of those businesses. Removing the access to 100th Street on the 1100 block, while not applying the same condition to the rest of the businesses on 100th Street, is a selective discrimination. 

In sum, the negative impact of the preceding proposal is to create a situation that increases difficulty for business owners, makes a less efficient traffic pattern, and will cost a great deal to effect. It will cost even more when the time to fix it back to something that actually does work comes along. I would expect that will not be all that long after the present city council is no longer in office.

Albert F Lowe

The Battlefords