The Associated Road War of Attrition

Reinforcements are on the way…

So characterized by Councilman Nick Dunlap is the no-longer ongoing attempt by City staff and liberal virtue signalers who were working hard to put Associated Road on a “diet.”

Mr. Dunlap seems well aware of how things that the bureaucrats want never seem to expire, and that meeting upon meeting are sometimes used to thin the herd of opposition until just about everybody has given up.

This seems to be what was going on with the rather unnecessary attempt to modify Associated by adding parking as a buffer for bike riders, along with the elimination of two vehicular traffic lanes. Meeting upon meeting were held to shore up support for the plan to get rid of two traffic lanes on Associated Road.

Here’s what happened at the council meeting study session on Tuesday. The City’s traffic guy announced that he had given up on the proposed new on-street parking, used to create a Class IV bikeway. Even staff could see the handwriting on the wall. The few citizens who were present (see herd thinning, above) still commented on the parking, but also remarked on the need for 4 traffic lanes. Those in favor of the project were all about big picture ideas that, in the context of this short stretch of road, seem sort of comical.

Dunlap says no…

When the council finally started chatting about the project, Nick Dunlap almost immediately made a motion to leave the damn thing the way it is – tabling the item for good. Shana Charles fought a losing rear-guard action as she tried to waste more time and effort on this scheme. Bruce Whitaker wisely pointed out that the total daily traffic counts don’t reflect peak hour traffic when having four lanes might actually be useful. Finally, with the dubious assistance of lawyer Dick Jones of the I Can’t Believe It’s a Law Firm, the council finally just gave staff the direction to proceed with the planned repaving and to reproduce the existing lane and bikeway striping. And so without a decisive action by the City Council, the Associated plan in social engineering sputtered to an unceremonious demise, Whitaker, Dunlap and Jung seeming to agree to a collective adios.

They never go willingly…

Will this plan really die, despite the seeming death blow? This is Fullerton, where no idea, no matter how bad, really dies if staff really wants it to live.

12 Replies to “The Associated Road War of Attrition”

  1. Why don’t they do something constructive like ban all big trucks north of Orangethorpe to help save what’s left of our crumbling streets ?
    The amount of big truck traffic on Chapman and on Commonwealth continues to increase daily.
    Ban all big trucks north of Orangethorpe unless they are making a delivery.
    Show us all some common sense instead these stupid ideas like one lane for Associated Road.

    1. People forget that trash trucks are heavy and yet without them we would be taking our trash to the dump.

  2. And so it ended as feebly as it started. No common sense, no intelligence and no accountability for a shit dump.

    Fullerton.

  3. These are the same sort of “professionals” that widened the road in the first place.

  4. Come to FFFF to celebrate/wallow in inertia and failure of all collective action. And you can usually find a conservative pol halting progress from the inside. It’s what they do. Disproportionate negative power. It’s far easier to kill things than make them happen.

    Bike lanes like solar power generation aren’t “virtue signalling.” They are infrastructure choices. Virtue signalling is expression / communication. Messaging. Nothing more.

    1. We got nothing. And by nothing I mean Dr. Schwartzman says I gotta give up the acid we like so much.

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