Council: Traffic study needed
Dark sky regulations enacted next week
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
Ketchum should undertake a study of the city’s traffic, bicycle and
pedestrian amenities, the city council decided Monday night during considerations of the
city’s draft comprehensive plan.
The Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission and the city council met at 5
p.m.—an hour before the council began its regular bimonthly meeting—to discuss
and validate issues in the plan.
As the council and P&Z worked through the action plans section of the
comp plan, they decided to remove language specifically referring to parking, a proposed
Fourth Street pedestrian mall and traffic circulation pending the completion of a
comprehensive traffic and circulation study.
That could be as simple as updating a study that was completed in 1995,
Mayor Guy Coles pointed out.
Councilman Maurice Charlat said he’s not sure if Ketchum can be both
pedestrian and car friendly.
"Pedestrian-friendly cities are not car-friendly cities," he
said. "Somewhere along the line, we have to decide how to deal with these widely
disparate concepts."
In a prior meeting, the city council asked the P&Z to rework the
plan’s parking concepts. On Monday, Commissioner Peter Gray told the council that the
P&Z should base parking regulations on the completed traffic study, an idea the
council supported.
The council continued its comprehensive plan hearings to its next regular
meeting on July 3 at 5 p.m.
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At the beginning of the city council’s regular meeting, Dr. Stephen
Pauley, one of the driving forces behind Ketchum’s dark sky ordinance, presented city
council members with T-shirts stating "stars up, lights down."
"I just wanted to express my appreciation," he said. "This
ordinance is considered to be the best small town lighting ordinance in America."
The ordinance will go into effect next Wednesday for commercial property
owners, who must install lighting that faces down and which is shielded from sideways
glare. Residential lighting won’t have to conform until a year from next Wednesday.
Ketchum city planner Tory Canfield told the council that she is working on
an inventory of Ketchum properties that will not conform to the ordinance when it takes
effect next week.
Council members thanked Pauley for his involvement in drafting the
regulations.
"We couldn’t have done this, Dr. Pauley, without you,"
Councilman Randy Hall said.
Ketchum city attorney Margaret Simms said it was okay for Pauley to offer
the council gifts, considering that the ordinance was already adopted.
