The Mill Valley City Council has discarded 15 years of community effort and voted to reduce the traffic capacity of the Parkway section of Miller Avenue by 50% by eliminating one traffic lane in each direction. Stephanie Moulton Peters adamantly declared, "This is the right market to get [people] out of cars." That anti-driving belief, which she defends as being "for the children," in her opinion, over-rides all other considerations, even though there is no actual evidence whatsoever to suggest the previously approved two lane solution is less safe.
Sashi McEntee, Stephanie Moulton Peters and Jessica Jackson voted to restrict cars, and refused to even acknowledge the legitimacy of any arguments of facts that contradicted their predetermined opinions. Submitting a public comment against those opinions was a complete waste of time.
John McCauley and Jim Wickham voted against restricting traffic capacity and for retaining the four traffic lanes as originally designed, and as the two most experienced and knowledgable council members with planning experience, voiced clear and cogent, unemotional reasons for their preference.
Traffic is and will increasingly be our biggest problem. And Miller Avenue has alway been designated in our General Plan as our major arterial. But the city council has now voted to turn it into a secondary roadway, making it equal to Blithedale Avenue, which will increase neighborhood cut-through traffic and continue to drive most of the traffic in and out of town to Blithedale.
Good luck to us all trying to get out of Mill Valley by car.