Rogue Valley Community Television

The Ashland City Council, in harmony with a Transportation Commission recommendation, voted last night to continue the new traffic/bike/pedestrian configuration for North Main street known as the Road Diet. An analysis was presented of the first year of the new design, which reduced the state highway from four lanes to three (with a middle turn lane) and introduced bike lanes. Twenty members of the public testified, including Jackson County Development Services Director Kelly Madding. Other testimony included comments from dozens of citizens in favor of continuing with the new plan that were garnered through a petition effort.

SOU faculty member Eva Skuratowicz led a team at the Southern Oregon University Research Center that conducted a community survey on the Road Diet, and she presented the group’s research findings to council.

See and hear Staff, Council, and citizen discussion of the Road Diet at the City of Ashland website, where last night’s meeting is broken into chapters and posted. Chapter 5 is Part 1 of the Road Diet portion of the meeting, including the one-year report and Traffic Commission comments. Chapter 7 is Part 2 of Road Diet, with public testimony and Council deliberation and vote. There is a 10 minute recess in between, just use the Chapters feature in the RVTV PEG Player to skip past the recess.