|
Access Project history
I-35W Access Project open house meetings - Fall
1999
The initial round of I-35W Access Project open house meetings took
place in September of 1999.
Attendees had the opportunity to choose preferred alternatives
from 18 options available at the time. A controversial ramp relocation
option incvolving the closure of the 5th Avenue ramp was not made
available to the PAC until a week after the open house meetings
were held and was thus not shown to the public at these meetings.
Although a "no change" option was not available on the
open house ballots, a significant number of participants wrote this
response on their ballots. A report produced for release after these
meetings did not accurately reflect this fact, prompting protests
by PAC members who felt the public meeting process was being manipulated,
and leading to the revision of the report (which was not widely
distributed).
Excerpts from the original and revised reports, regarding the provision
of northbound exit ramps to 28th Street (which duplicate existing
exit ramps at 31st Street) are provided below:
In the original summary, the impression given is that a majority
of participants were supportive of the Access Project. This is done
by adding together all the votes in support of one or another access
point, and then saying that since this number is greater than the
support expressed for the no-build option, that people wanted the
28th Street ramp.
Trouble is, the "no-build" option WAS NOT one of the
choices given to people at this meeting. The remarkable thing is
that when the summary was revised and the actual numbers, without
grouping, were made available, the majority of "open house"
participants actually chose to not build anything at all.
|
