"We Know Best—Trust Us"
Secret Negotiations With the Focus Group
A Message From Your Core Group Negotiators
by Ron Johnson, Editor and Publisher
Two and a half years ago we were lulled and manipulated into voting for what most residents since have come to understand was an unacceptable proposition, namely Anthem Highlands. But that's history and no one really cares about that anymore. However, history, it seems, is raising its uncertain head again and is determined to repeat the unwanted results of those prior negotiations, but this time with our new neighbor to the west, the Focus Group.
While that long-ago Highlands achievement was a carefully controlled public effort designed to produce an acceptable outcome for Pulte, we are now proceeding full speed ahead to negotiate with the Focus Group but without any community consensus at all, and on a matter one would assume to be of critical interest to the community—the impact of traffic on Sun City from the residents of Anthem Highlands and Provence.
If we recall, from Del Webb and others, the proposed remedy for relieving Sun City of that unwanted Highlands traffic was the western extension to that Bicentennial Parkway stub Pulte had constructed. After all, most of the traffic from Highlands and Provence was supposed to exit onto Bicentennial and head west and them down Maryland Parkway to St. Rose. But now with the introduction of Focus Group’s proposed design, things have changed for Sun City, changed materially and, regrettably, adversely for Sun City.
Just what is the Focus Group and Favil West proposing? What Focus and Favil (the old Core Group) is proposing is that Bicentennial become a golf cart accessible street. What that translates to is a maximum 35 MPH road, preferably 25 MPH if the City prevails, and most likely with two rather than the three travel lanes in each direction (as originally proposed by the City). According to Mr. West:
"At our request, they went back to the drawing boards and came back
with a plan that, while not perfect, should go a long ways toward solving
our traffic problems . . . ." See Favil's Update (1) here: Focus Update
"We have had several meetings and are on the telephone several times
per week with the developer . . . ." See Update (2) Focus Update
"We have asked that this entire roadway [Bicentennial] be golf cart
accessible." Focus Update
[Just two months earlier before City officials and the Focus Group, Mr. West expressed his concern about the need for traffic relief for Sun City residents when he declared that "We're land-locked." "We're land-locked," said fellow board member Favil West. "We are desperately interested in that roadway system to the west of us." LVRJ Article Also see our Commentary Article No. 1 on this subject.]
This slower traffic movement on Bicentennial appears to make good sense within the concept of Focus’ Urban Design concept. It will allow for a safer traffic flow for vehicles entering and exiting their mini-villages north and south of Bicentennial, traveling to and from their town center, and for children walking to and from school—all important features to their overall design concept.
But the real question for Sun City is just how will their revised plan help to solve Sun City's traffic problems? And with all those meetings and behind the scene agreements Mr. West refers to, how much traffic relief were we able to achieve for Sun City? Don't be surprised if you find the answer to that question is, "None." As you can readily see for yourself, their revised plan will not solve our traffic problems at all but, instead, will greatly exacerbate our future traffic problems insofar as Bicentennial is concerned, forcing all that traffic that will not be using Bicentennial onto Anthem Parkway and Sun City Anthem Drive.
For an enlargement of this Map, and the
locations of new
developments,
Click Here
Those anticipated 12,000 southernmost neighbors
in Highlands and Provence will be looking
for a convenient and quick exit strategy to reach their jobs, their
children's schools outside of the community, local banks, etc., and Henderson’s
retail centers. Bicentennial had initially been designed to provide that
exit strategy and needed relief for SCA. And, now, apparently with our
resident leaders' support, that major escape valve (Bicentennial)
has been made essentially
unavailable as a viable, fast moving exit for Highlands and Provence residents.
Where do you think our southernmost neighbors will travel to enter and
exit their communities?
With a real disincentive for our southern neighbors to travel west on the slower, restricted speed Bicentennial, they will have to do one of the following:
a) loop around Anthem Parkway, exiting onto Eastern Avenue, with two lanes providing the most convenient and possibly the fastest way in and out, even with signals;
b) go down Sun City Anthem Drive and exit onto Eastern Avenue, with one driving lane eventually slowing down that traffic and impeding the flow of traffic on that route, making it a less desirable option; or
c) go down Sun City Anthem Drive to Volunteer, finally exiting onto St. Rose, for those who are not headed to work or to Henderson's commercial areas east of Eastern.
While anyone can come up with a guesstimate of what percentage of those multiple daily trips will take which route, I'll venture to make that guesstimate:
- 60%, a conservative percentage figure, will make multiple daily trips by looping around Anthem Parkway to Eastern Avenue;
- 30% will go down Sun City Anthem Drive and out to Eastern Avenue; and
- 10% will go down Sun City Anthem Drive and out Volunteer.
Whatever the percentage figures, one way or the other, we will be joining our southern neighbors on our parkways and not shunting our neighbors off to the west as we were once led to believe. Just when, along the way, did we change our collective mind on what would be helpful and desirable in mitigating Sun City's anticipated traffic problems, from noise, pollution, congestion to real safety issues, from those twice to four or more times a day treks in and out of Anthem that our southernmost neighbors will be driving.
While our southern neighbors may utilize Democracy Drive to travel to the I-15, no one at the City seriously believes that Provence or Highlands residents will utilize Democracy Drive to go to work or to Henderson’s commercial areas, as I was advised by a City traffic engineer in a meeting today to discuss Focus Group's street plans. In the end, what we all had feared and wanted so desperately to avoid for Sun City seems to be coming true.
What is unclear is why our resident leaders are joining forces with the Focus Group in a proposal that will exacerbate our future traffic problems and will preclude Sun City's residents from achieving the relief that we thought we were going to realize.
While others in the community will have other, hopefully better, ideas to contribute to this dialogue, we are offering the following ideas for consideration, ideas which we believe are designed to benefit the residents of Sun City:
- Keep Bicentennial as a three travel-lane street in each direction;
- Do not make Bicentennial golf-cart accessible;
- Just before Focus' town-center, provide for a vehicle bypass loop taking traffic from Bicentennial directly to Maryland Parkway, thereby permitting and facilitating unimpeded traffic flow around the town center for those wishing to access St. Rose;
- Make Bicentennial a below grade level street, permitting easy crossover for their local traffic and for children going to and from school;
- If Focus wants additional 25 mph traffic lanes within their community, they can add such arterials within their villages paralleling Bicentennial; and
- If we actually want golf cart access to their town center, then Focus, according to the City, can readily construct an off-street separate golf cart lane exclusively for the use of golf carts, facilitating our use of golf carts to travel to and from their town center.
Street design commitments by Focus and the City will be finalized within the next 30 days, if not sooner. Those upcoming decisions will afford us the only opportunity to provide us with the traffic relief that we thought our leaders were intent on achieving for our community.
Ron Johnson
30 September 2004