11/16/2010 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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.t '~ T live at 5646 Canterbury Rd, close to the bridge on Butternut Ridge that crosses over 480. I was trying to include all members of city council in people I sent this to, but was unable to find their email address' on the city's website. I would like a fence erected to create more of a barrier between people on the sidewalk and the cars on the bridge. The residents that I have talked to and I want this fence for safety reasons to protect the people not in cars, particularly the children that use this bridge daily to get to and from school. I know there have been concerns with putting up this fence. One was with complying with ADA and having the sidewalk be 60" wide so that wheelchairs can turn around. When I measured the exisisting sidewalk, it was not 60" even now. Do we have a variance for the bridge now? Fairview Park has a similar bridge with a fence dividing off the sidewalk on Mastick and 220th, how are they allowed to have their fence? Particularly on the one side, the fence is significantly longer there than it would be on Butternut. The ADA also states that if there is a drop off of more than 6", there is supposed to be some type of barrier to prevent/slow down wheelchairs from going over the edge. The drop between the sidewalk to the road surface is definitely more than 6". Another issue that was brought up was how many children use this bridge and that there were very few children (I think the number was 3) that were seen using the bridge, and they were all with parents. First off, we have a duty to make sure that our city is safe for everyone, regardless if it is one person using it or 1,000, it still needs to be safe. Second, with the Great Northern Multi-Modal Transportation Plan, so much emphasis was placed on encouraging more people to walk and ride bikes in North Olmsted, I would think that a natural step to encourage people to walk and ride bikes would be to make it safer to do so. Third, I just don't understand how such a small number was arrived at. My only plausible explanation of this was someone watch the bridge for a very short period of time that was closer to when the elementary school let out of school versus when the middle school or high school lets out. On Monday of last week, I observed 9 children crossing the bridge without parents as I was riding my bike home from school with my preschooler. I also saw 2 parents walking across the bridge to walk their elementary school aged children home (I stopped and asked them if that is what they were doing). Wednesday of last week, I saw 8 children as I was coming home and the same two parents. Each time, I observed the bridge for less than 5 minutes and it was not in the time period immediately following the release of either the middle school or the high school and was prior to Butternut Elementary being dismissed. I'm sure that if someone were to sit and count for a period of time around when school lets out, the number of students would be much higher. It was suggested that there will be Less people walking once the weather gets colder, but there will be some children that will walk in the winter months. Not all families have the means to have their children get a ride home from school. If anything, we have more of an obligation to protect those children. Crossing the bridge when there is ice involved just makes things more dangerous. What if a child slips on the ice on the sidewalk and falls into the road? The consequences could be