Tonight (2019-07-08) was a Circulation, Accessibility, and Parking Study public meeting for the Village of Honeoye Falls.
Was a different meeting in a variety of ways, although, as is often the case, the presenters and staff outnumbered the public.
After a short introduction and background, the bulk of the meeting was discussion during a walk around the downtown Village area. Amusingly enough, I’ve been going to these sort of meetings long enough that I remembered all the background events from being at those previous discussions.
At the core, the idea here is that the Village, while being nice, isn’t adequately friendly towards pedestrians. Which I find odd, as I almost exclusively travel on foot in the Village and find that it works well enough. There are a few scattered details that could be improved, but that will always be true. And often enough, improving things for pedestrians make it worse for some other group. There is always a balance between competing needs and wants.
By the sounds of it, this study will be finished ‘early 2020’. I’ll likely hear about it during upcoming Village Trustee meetings.
As mentioned above, the bulk of the meeting was a walk and discussion. We went from the First Presbyterian church, up to the Lower Mill, out to Norton st, and then back to the Church. Crossed the road multiple times, so we could experience both sides of the street.
All in all, it feels like we are trying to fix something that isn’t broken. Sure, details that could be improved are identified, but more often then not, those issues fall outside the Village’s jurisdiction.
I hope I’m missing some important part of the situation, because as presented it feels like an unneeded project. Even if it was nice to go for a walk and chat with neighbors.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the July 8, 2019 Circulation, Accessibility, and Parking Study public meeting for the Village of Honeoye Falls.