Meeting #8 - Preparing to Present to the City of Dover
The city has added us to the agenda for the next Transportation Advisory Commission Meeting
Welcome back to the Strong Towns Seacoast Newsletter and thank you for reading. A few friends, my wife, and I stopped by The Woodman Museum in Dover this past weekend on Dover Day to check out what they have on display they have quite a large number of artifacts on display. There are entire floors dedicated to taxidermy and natural history, sections of the museum detail parts of Dover’s history, and there is even a full garrison that you can tour. Some of the coolest attractions were a 10 foot tall polar bear and a full suit of samurai armor, but there is plenty more to see if you have been thinking about visiting. Check it out and be sure to visit the different houses that make up the museum.
Our topic for this meeting was preparing for an upcoming meeting with the Transportation Advisory Commission (TAC). At our last meeting we detailed out a plan that we wanted to bring to the city for consideration, and we have successfully reached out and been added as an agenda item to the next meeting for the TAC on Monday April 29th. We reviewed our notes for our plan (which you can find in detail by clicking here), and discussed our strategy for presenting this to the city.
Transportation Advisory Commission Meeting Details
Dover Police Station Community Room
Monday, April 29th at 6:00pm
We plan on advocating for extending the curb in two locations on Central Avenue in downtown Dover. By doing this we will shorten the length of three different crosswalks, (crossing Central Avenue at First Street, crossing First Street, and crossing Central Avenue at Waldron Court) and also create more space for people within the downtown. We also want to bring up the possibility of daylighting the two crosswalks that are on Central Avenue to further increase the safety for people using them.
What Does Daylighting Mean?
Crosswalks need both drivers and pedestrians to be able to see each other and negotiate for the right of way on the street. Daylighting is the act of removing obstacles to increase visibility, or “brighten”, an area on a street. This makes it safer for people using the street because it reduces the chance of a driver not seeing someone until it is too late to stop, and gives pedestrians a clear view of oncoming traffic. It is a very low-cost way of increasing safety around crosswalks.
For the two crosswalks that we are currently focused on, there is street parking near them that obstructs the view people who are waiting for their chance to cross and must peek around a parked car to see if it is safe. By removing the few parking spots around these crosswalks, we can gain the benefits of a daylit crosswalk and make walking around downtown Dover more comfortable, pleasant, and safe.
To illustrate how this can help, our group actually went to the crosswalks in question and recorded videos from both the driver’s and the pedestrian’s perspective to show when someone in the crosswalk is visible. Our vehicle was driving 25 MPH along Central with a passenger recording the driver’s perspective. I’ll be putting the different videos together and have it ready for my next newsletter that I’ll be sending out at the beginning of May, so be on the lookout for that. For right now, you can check out the screenshots below to get an idea of how daylighting can help out with a crosswalk.
Driver’s View
Pedestrian’s View
Wrapping Up
It is exciting to be bringing a project idea to a city and it feels like our Strong Towns Local Conversation is beginning to mature in some ways. We are hopeful that this presentation is well-received by the city and that we can make a positive impact on the safety and walkability of one the downtowns in the seacoast region. If you are interested in this topic and want to show your support, or even voice your concerns, please join us and let your voice be heard on this topic. Thank you so much for reading!