On Wednesday, May 1st, the City of Coronado hosted a Public Workshop regarding the design of the Permanent Roundabout to be located at the intersection of Pomona Avenue, Adella Avenue and Seventh Street.
The City first conducted a survey to see what residents wanted and didn't want in the design. There were 334 responses to the survey and those responses were given to a company named Psomas Engineering. The Psomas website reports that the company was founded in 1946 and is a full-service consulting firm with offices in California, Arizona and Utah. It also stated that Psomas is one of the top-ranked consulting engineering firms in the nation and that they serve clients in the transportation,
water, site development, federal and energy markets across the Western United States.
Members of the Psomas group met with approximately twenty residents in the Nautilus Room of the Coronado Community Center and gave a Power Point® Presentation on the project description, goals, summary of comments from the survey and preliminary concepts.
Those who responded to the survey were grouped into three groups: Agree, Neutral and Disagree.
Those that approved the roundabout thought that it calmed the traffic, would like to see it made permanent, wanted aesthetic improvement and had some concerns about pedestrian safety.
Neutral respondents wanted to potentially see the use of roundabouts at other locations with "complex geometry". Concerns were voiced about the size of the roundabout, user confusion, pedestrian/bicyclist safety and parking.
Those opposing the roundabout thought it was aesthetically unpleasing and had concerns about driver confusion, safety, headlight glare and proximity to neighborhood homes.
From this survey information, Psomas created three design concepts:
Concept One shows a considerably smaller roundabout, slightly south of the current roundabout. (You can see the gray circle of the current roundabout.)
Concept Two shows a smaller roundabout but in nearly the same location.
Concept Three is very close to the existing roundabout in size and location.
[Click on any of the images to enlarge for better viewing]
Each design concept was placed on the screen and residents took turns listing the pros and cons as the Psomas group took copious notes. A vote was taken at the end of the discussion and Concept One was the clear winner.
There was some question from several residents as to why the project was being started all over. The City had hired a "roundabout expert" by the name of Mr. Wallwork back in June of 2008. Mr. Wallwork favored an oval-shaped roundabout for the intersection and Ali Shahzad from Harris & Associates made a presentation at the 06.17.08 City Council Meeting. That information was found in the
Scanned Staff Reports from the 06.17.08 City Council Meeting Agenda. None of those materials were made available to the Psomas group and they started over at square one.
The purpose of Wednesday's meeting was to get input from the residents on preferences, refinements and changes. That information will be studied and a second Public Workshop will follow in late June or early July 2013. Workshop #2 will discuss the revised alternatives, aesthetics and lighting. From that second workshop, a technical report will be submitted to the City on the preferred alternative and that will be followed by a final Engineering design.
If you did or did not attend the workshop, your personal feedback is welcome. Go to the Psomas "Comment Website" and fill out a comment form. Or you may contact Sean Samsel at ssamsel@psomas.com.
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