Hamtramck Star

i'll be flying back from tampa then. boo. i'd like to put my two cents in.

Ok so we've got 11 days to get things looking our best, we need streets swept, lawns mowed, somebody get those stores on the southend to cleanup the storefronts and pick up all those plastic crates and bread trays that look all unsightly (you know who you are ) replace any lights or lamps so it looks neat.

i'll be making the house look upkept as well we are in this together.

Hillary& steve: redirect them to the nicest areas, you know the city well enough.

Beverly, you are in touch with our youth programs see if they can help in the cleanup :)

ok everyone look busy! we want a good rating.

and if anyone can identify any bike trails point them out so we can tidy them up.

lets roll

PS. to any restaurants out there you may wish to cater the luncheon so as to make a good impression

The consultant is being hired to make recommendations on "improvements", not to give grades.

OH!

so are his results published somewhere or do we have to pay for copys per the FOIA?

I'm guessing that he comes in, takes a walk, gives the presentation, and collects his paycheck. He did an evaluation in Ypsilanti 5 years ago that included a recommendation for a pontoon bridge across the Huron River. (Residents weren't invited.)

Waste of money. I believe there was a public safety study conducted some time ago of similar nature that contained many recommendations for improvement. These recommendations made by consultants were promptly ignored by city officials... who now suddenly want to blow the wad (that they supposedly lack) on cameras on Campau. Un-frickin-believable.

Council deserves all the credit for shelving the PAR report, but the frustration for this audit should mostly be directed at the Granholm administration and the Cool Cities of Promise Initiative.

Actually kristen, if anything i believe the audit will simply give the council more excuses to improve things (read spend money) to follow whatever the latest trends or fads are. Its much easier to suggest something like "bumpouts" or "cameras" if you have a source of recommendation that has the illusion of credibility.

of course its also true on the other end, people who are very active in rallying support can use his recommendations to fuel their own agendas.

its a twisted game we play

I'm predicting "street furniture", "bollards" and possibly "gateways" to create a "sense of place". All ridiculous.

Why not, the bus shelters are a hit with bums and crackheads.

Well I am open to ideas surely, but considering we are way over budget and will probably be again next year, do we need to spend $2950 to have a "day with dan"?

heres the quote from walkable.org:

"Cost: $2950 (covers Dan's time and project coordination) plus direct costs (flight, rental car, hotel, meals)"

Now I know they want to make hamtramck even greater than it is, and I applaud taking initiatives, but consider that no matter what he suggests, it will either mean finding the money through cancelling other projects (like cameras, snicker) or just spending the money and hoping that we'll "get by"

I say we fix our internal financial inconsistencies first before we take on new projects.

oddly enough he also works with communities to help meditate on cultural differences, he's got everything covered.

Here's the results of my walkability audit that I've been doing for free for almost 5 years:

1) There should be crosswalks on Conant at Commor and Eldridge because people cross in both places constantly.

2) The bus shelter between Social Security Administration and the dialysis clinic on Conant is a full-size shelter when it should be a half shelter. There is only between 1 and two feet of sidewalk for pedestrians, not enough to let a wheelchair through.

3) We have completely ghetto trees that are tearing up the sidewalks.

4) The auto repair shop on Conant at Casmere tore out their sidewalk several months ago and it is just a muddy, rutted hole. What city allows this to go on?

5)

6) The unauthorized parking lot at Aladdin Sweets is a dangerous situation with people driving in and backing over the sidewalk. The police should give tickets for driving over a curb, the way they always did before the restaurant opened. (They are moving, and that will be a good opportunity to begin enforcement.)

7) The sidewalks on Joseph Campau in the central business district are too cluttered and not wide enough.

8) The time for people to cross the street on JC north of Caniff isn't long enough. I can barely make it across the street in time, and I'm able-bodied.

9) Woman have a hard time walking alone on the North side because of the prostitutes working on Carpenter.

For bicycles:

10) Stop selling the alleys! Try to reconnect the alleys that were blocked off.

11) Reconnect St. Aubin for bicycles. It is a traditional bicycle route for Hamtramckans going to Eastern Market.

12) Increase street-sweeping to 3 times per year by starting as early as possible in the spring (Late February/Early March)

13) Allow bicycles to go South on Gallagher from the North Caniff Alley to Caniff, and add "Watch for bicycles signs".

14) Add a bike rack to the city parking lot on McDougall and Caniff.

I guess I accidentally deleted number 5. Surely, someone can think of something to put there.

Burden is being paid by the State of Billion-Dollar Deficits. The primary expense of the city is time that employees at City Hall have spent on it. Just about all the programs the State is pushing have this same problem - their focus is completely on the appearance of things and not about proven methods of solving our underlying problems. The State causes the city to spend time and energy, and often money, on things that should be handled by volunteers or the private sector, while our most basic needs are ignored.

Ok thats a good list but i have a few questions and additions as well.

1. hamtramck sells the alleys?
2. what "ghetto" trees in what areas?
3. any suggestions on the carpenter prostitute problem? otherwise its an issue and not a suggestion
4. they cant do anything about the sidewalks on JC unless they decrease parking (again!) or somehow setup only one side for parking.

my suggestions include:

1. go through the city removing all old outdated and unenforcable rusty parking snd road signs.
2. remove the bumpouts to increase traffic and parking
3. setup one side of JC as angled parking, this will increase parking by 30% but cut 2 feet from that sidewalk.
4. cobblestone looks great but its expensive, acid dye the sidewalks in the shopping district a nice red or some other bright color.
5. get stores to stop leaving crates all over the sidewalks in front of their stores, they look awful, they invite people to trip or hurt themselves and poeple use them to sit on and loiter.
6. offer classes for citizens to learn survival techniques on the streets like how to avoid being a victim and how to report something you witness as well as basic self defense.
7. post arrests and convictions as stats on the webpage to maybe help deter crime or post on signs near the border.
8. 6 kiosks along jc that are lit that each have a phone if you need to call the police, a map showing where you are and where each business is on jc and a spot for bus routes and local cab numbers. directions to the nearest hospital, police station, atms etc.

thats enough for now.

1. hamtramck sells the alleys?

Yes, the city sold several of the alleys on the South end around American Axle, S.O.S., Henry Ford Clinic, and McDonald's, and last summer, they tried to sell the alley behind Shopper's World to a developer.

2. what "ghetto" trees in what areas?

We still have 10-year-old tornado damage on the east side of the city, though I'm sure there are untrimmed, half dead, and dead trees all over the city.

3. any suggestions on the carpenter prostitute problem? otherwise its an issue and not a suggestion

I personally carry a camera and pepper spray and advise other women to do the same. Most of the men who have tried to pick me up are Bangla or Arabic speaking, so translated information about sexually transmitted diseases might be good to distribute, but how?

4. they cant do anything about the sidewalks on JC unless they decrease parking (again!) or somehow setup only one side for parking.

We could get rid of the planters.

my suggestions include:

1. go through the city removing all old outdated and unenforcable rusty parking snd road signs.

Already being done, though from looking at the attorney's bills, it looks like we are suing the sign company.

2. remove the bumpouts to increase traffic and parking

3. setup one side of JC as angled parking, this will increase parking by 30% but cut 2 feet from that sidewalk.

Anti-pedestrian. There is plenty of parking in city parking lots. Parking rates should be set to encourage lot use and reduce demand for street parking.

4. cobblestone looks great but its expensive, acid dye the sidewalks in the shopping district a nice red or some other bright color.

That horse already left the barn. We have what we have.

5. get stores to stop leaving crates all over the sidewalks in front of their stores, they look awful, they invite people to trip or hurt themselves and poeple use them to sit on and loiter.

Pretty sure it is illegal to leave anything on the sidewalk unless they have an approved sidewalk cafe. The ban includes sandwich boards like those used by Trowbridge House of Coffee and Recycled Treasures.

6. offer classes for citizens to learn survival techniques on the streets like how to avoid being a victim and how to report something you witness as well as basic self defense.

The neighborhood watch meeting in your neighborhood should be a great place to learn about self-protection.

The person Steve talked to at Tri-State Tae Kwon Do a few years ago seemed very interested in offering some street-smarts classes. I think a women-only class would be a nice thing to have.

7. post arrests and convictions as stats on the webpage to maybe help deter crime or post on signs near the border.

In cities with successful neighborhood watch programs, residents keep diaries and receive copies of the incident log, aka "blotter", from the police department. Then they can compare their notes and report anything that matches up to the police department. I have been lobbying for this for more than 3 years.

8. 6 kiosks along jc that are lit that each have a phone if you need to call the police, a map showing where you are and where each business is on jc and a spot for bus routes and local cab numbers. directions to the nearest hospital, police station, atms etc.

Hamtramck used to have police call boxes. There was an article in The Citizen around 20 years ago about the boxes being a disgrace because they weren't maintained and most didn't work. Cellphones have pretty much made call boxes obsolete. I don't think the phone companies support them anymore.

If you live in Hamtramck and have a cellphone, program 876-7803 to speed dial. If you call 911 from a cellphone, your call will be routed to Detroit 911. Calling the desk directly avoids this.

I think we should have kiosks for residents to communicate - an alternative to fliering neighborhoods or taping things to sign posts. Bus schedules would be a really good thing to put up. I've talked to several people at the city about using our SMART allocation for advertising SMART routes.

The parking "problems" on JC aren't actually problems.

If we want a healthy business district, we're going to have to put pedestrians before automobiles.

Park your car in a city lot, walk to your destination. Look at Grand River in East Lansing, or main in Ann Arbor. There's no angle parking, there is public parking lots, and people use them then walk to their destination.

People that demand parking directly in front of the store, are going to find an excuse to shop at a suburban strip mall no matter what we do.

I believe that there should be No Turn On Red at many of the intersections.

why?

Hillary: If you live in Hamtramck and have a cellphone, program 876-7803 to speed dial. If you call 911 from a cellphone, your call will be routed to Detroit 911. Calling the desk directly avoids this.

Crap! You mean all this time I've been dialing the main line (876-7800) and having to listen to the prerecorded message before getting to the desk, I could have been dialing direct? The -7803# is not even listed in the AT&T White Pages, WTF? What other magical, secret things are you guys keeping from me? :-b

Though my secrets are numerous, I can't believe I haven't mentioned it to you before!

I think it's come up at block club a couple of times, but perhaps with amazingly awful timing.

To be fair, Hillary probably did tell me and my advancingly decrepit brain probably just forgot... again.

"I think we should have kiosks for residents to communicate - an alternative to fliering neighborhoods or taping things to sign posts. Bus schedules would be a really good thing to put up. I've talked to several people at the city about using our SMART allocation for advertising SMART routes."

This is a wonderful, inexpensive idea for the whole state. Lots of major cities have bus schedules and maps posted on every single bus shelter/stop, I'm thinking most recently of San Francisco, but it makes the bus system instantly much more accessible to visitors and residents not familiar with the bus system.

Another time that I was complaining about the lack of schedules, an informed reader told me that Transit Riders United was formed because a woman was trying to ride the bus in downtown Detroit, and she was appalled that there were no schedules posted. The D-DOT routes still need markings. (Sadly, there is no money available for that.)

Glad to see my kiosk idea taken well, i envision downtown being a sort of outside mall complete with a 4-6 security guards hired by the DDA to deter crime and help direct people to what they are looking for. heck most people i know who do "warm body" security usually only get paid $8 an hour to stand and walk around and look menacing and helpful at the same time.

you could get 8 part time security guards for about $60,000 per year. mind you to be cost effective the downtown would have to be a bit busier than it currently is.

maybe our little radio station can create a "buy hamtramck" ad campaign like the "buy michigan" one?

if every business downtown put in $5 a day to the DDA for security they could afford it.

OOH here's an idea:

get the Russell artist community to submit artsy ideas for the city, theyll probably do it for free just to get credit for it. maybe repaint the train bridge on the southend?

some ideas....

BTW cute signs Beverly, theyre very colorful and I noticed them right away!

"kiosk idea" sounds familiar...

and I wish I had time to work on my local shopping campaign again.

You know what would be a lot cheaper than security guards? If all the store owners on Campau would spend time outside or looking out the windows when business is slow, and call the police if they see suspicious situations before crimes happen. It would only take a few hours every week for one police officer to train store owners, relay information about criminal activity, and perform security audits.

You'd think JC business owners would act in their own best interest and keep their windows clear (like our zoning ordinance requires) so they can see the street.

Kiosks are still a good idea if they're implemented correctly. They've worked in East Lansing where fliering is prohibited. Users even maintain them by pulling down outdated fliers.

We should have a kiosk at each city parking area where anyone can post fliers.

I think it is pretty cool that Bosek's and The Polish Market use their foyers to optimum use by allowing people to tack up notices and whatnot on their cork boards. Albeit, I cannot read Polish... strike that, I can read Polish (pronunciation), I just don't translate very well.

I missed you guys today.

There were a lot of terrible recommendations for bric-a-brac, but there were two solutions I liked.

The best idea, I thought, was a round-about for the corner of Joseph Campau and Caniff. The street is unnecessarily wide, at least until we have trolleys turning there again, and southbound JC drivers engage in some crazy driving, passing on the right and turning on red. Left turns are nearly impossible during peak hours. A round-about could solve all of that. We didn't see it today, but I'm sure the same advice applies to the intersection of Holbrook and Joseph Campau.

The other idea I liked was to make some streets look narrower by painting the pavement with 9-ft driving lanes and a colored buffer zone between traffic and parking. There is a problem on Conant especially with people driving in the parking lane and passing on the right. Clearly marking the middle of the street with buffers on either side should theoretically restore some rule of law and cause drivers to slow down.

Maybe not such a good idea.