104th Avenue's Strip Park

After a year long traffic mess along 104th Ave and a million dollars are spent, the construction along the north side of the right-of-way is finally completed. There are several story lines surrounding the project including the project’s origination, design, funding, planning, and engineering. I posted an article concerning the project’s inception on July 16, 2006 if you wish to check the archives.

For years the Trail did not know what maintenance met. The weeds thrived and the asphalt walkway aged and crumbled all under the watchful eye of the residents while the city staff and our Council representatives tended to more important issues. In the spring of 2006 our Council representatives finally felt the heat you generated and asked the staff for a solution.

Staff designed a project, with slight variations, and took it before the City Council for immediate consideration even though the project was not budgeted. The alternatives went far beyond the rehabilitation of the area. In fact, just addressing the deterioration and rehabilitation of the area was not even considered, as requested by residents.

By a 6-3 vote, the majority chose the alternative with the highest capital and maintenance cost: Grass, trees, boulders, oversized concrete and high water usage. In other words, we now have a high maintenance, environmentally unfriendly, million dollar strip park. Where is the common sense?

If you do not know how to do a job; plan for it. The Council loves to fund and the staff loves to plan, but when it comes down to it, they operate by the seat of their pants. On 7-16-06 I pointed out that in order for the Council to finance this project, scheduled, budgeted projects and activities were cancelled. In addition, the previous year’s fund balance was tapped.

We need to digress to the bigger picture generated by a small part of the “green and wet” project as it pertains to the street curb work. A few years ago Westminster asphalted 104th west of the city limits. Earlier this year Thornton placed a chip and seal on 104th east of I-25. As a result, the City has been embarrassed into another non-budgeted, seat of the pants, project. The crack sealing and patching that has occurred over the last month is leading up to a chip and seal surface treatment to keep pace with our neighbors.

The City Council can not be faulted entirely for this misbegotten project. The lack of common sense and experience of their staff played a major role. It takes experience to know, how to throw out the bath water without throwing out the baby. The staff should have given the Council various alternatives including enhanced maintenance, rehabilitation and xeriscaping but they chose to go for the whole megillah. They should have demanded more alternatives. Instead, we have the strip park along an arterial street. When you do not know how to intelligently fix a problem, trash it, and build new.

Another tribute to staff's design ability is shown in the picture. In total there are four ponds permanently built into the 104th project. I would expect that most residents would know not to put the walks in the lowest area. The picture clearly shows that some fill or proper sloping would have been a design solution.

It is a shame and waste that part of the work just completed will have to be destroyed when and if the Council decides to construct turn lanes for the intersecting streets west of Huron. Turn lanes would have been a better choice then the capital expense and ongoing costs for the sprinklers. It is just another design flaw by staff and a disinterested Council.