School bus parking fiasco
New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, July 19, 2007 Page 8A
Bus parking, new lot will harm Waveny
Editor, Advertiser:
Nearly a year ago Ditte Reifsnyder made a bombshell announcement: the School Bus Facility Task Force, which she chaired, had chosen the playing fields at Saxe Middle School as the preferred location for the school bus facility. Fortunately, Town officials and the public resoundingly rejected that plan.
Plan B, the plan to park the school buses at the high school, was quickly set in motion.
Park & Recreation chair Jeb Walker offered a plan to sacrifice Waveny Park property for the school bus facility, but was outmaneuvered by Ms. Reifsnyder, when she proposed placing the school bus facility in the parking lot east of the high school and shifting the attendant loss of student parking on the high school campus into Waveny Park.
Plan B, it turns out has significant and unavoidable adverse impacts not only on the limited usable outdoor areas at the New Canaan High School campus, but also on New Canaan’s crown jewel – Waveny Park.
It constitutes a gross incursion into the Waveny Park with a 800-foot long, 80-foot wide double-barreled, tiered, sprawl-like, mall-like 266-space surface parking lot, which stretches nearly all the way to Waveny Park Road and with the high school back entrance creates a continuous, uninterrupted corridor of impervious, asphalted surface from Farm Road to Waveny Park mansion.
On Tuesday July 10, 2007, P & Z summarily granted the request for an 8-24 referral and special permit to relocate the school buses, construct bus facilities and a fuel station on the New Canaan High School campus. At that meeting I stated that there were better options for parking school buses, such as a bus company proposal to park the buses in Wilton or developing a plan to park the school buses at the transfer station.
Below are some statements commissioners made at the meeting and my response to each statement.
Commissioner Scannell wondered what was the reasoning for the commission to not grant the 8-24 referral. Well I think Chairman Papp described it best last summer when he said: “The aesthetic impact of parking buses (along) the most important route to New Canaan. South Avenue is really the calling card of the town and to spoil it substantially may not be considered compatible with the Town plan, which also calls for aesthetic and appearance consideration.” Mr. Papp was referring to the Saxe proposal, but the high school parking plan is directly across the street, thinly veiled only by the Waveny Woods.
In response to my suggestion to park the school buses at the transfer station Chairman Lazlo Papp said that it had been determined that there was not enough room for the buses at the Transfer Station to around and it was directly adjacent to parkland.
But what if they built a Town Park and nobody went to it? That is exactly what has happened with the unnamed Town Park at the Transfer Station dedicated under First Selectman Bond and built under First Selectman Neville’s oversight. No one to date has acknowledged the disutility of this dedicated parkland.
Furthermore town officials have failed to grasp the opportunity to trade this Transfer station land out of park status in exchange for dedicating the Michigan Road Dorothy Clark property as a woodland preserve.
Commissioner George Wendell’s commonly held assertion that a school bus parking lot at New Canaan High School “(This) is about as centrally located as possible,” But that statement is predicated on the unproven presumption that less fuel will be used by siting the buses at the high school.
A counterargument is that by locating the buses at the high school, the bus routes first have to travel though no school bus pick-up zones. School buses will waste a significant amount of fuel driving through these no pick-up zones adjacent to South, Saxe and New Canaan High School. Mr. Wendell’s statement also does not account for the fact that the school bus drivers work two separate shifts - morning pick-up and afternoon drop-off and drive off somewhere else in their personal vehicles during the break in between those two shifts.
Finally, Commissioner Scannell’s point that reducing another Town’s green areas for school bus parking is not a good argument for protecting New Canaan’s green areas discounts the reality that New Canaan doesn’t have industrially zoned land, but adjacent towns and cities such as Wilton, Norwalk and Stamford do.
Now is the time to put the brakes on Plan B and come up with a plan that will not further deface the New Canaan High School-Waveny Park corridor.
Town officials are currently engaging in a Safe Routes to School study to enlarge or optimize the no pick up zones. Truly a worthwhile study, it ultimately may reduce the number of buses the Town contracts. Each bus that is not needed saves the Town $75,000 per year, and the cost of removing one bus for one year equals the savings town officials boast are accrued by using the existing 20,000-gallon fuel tank at the high school.
Richard M. Stowe
New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, July 19, 2007 Page 4A
Clarifications
Richard Stowe said the following statement reported on page 1 of the July 12th New Canaan Advertiser contains factual errors
Richard Stowe, a local environmentalist, said the plan would create light pollution, “adversely effect every high school students’ school yard,” and the 125-space parking lot designated for students and park goers where the buses are currently being parked predicates plans for an ice rink and is “gross incursion” on green space.
What was actually said:
Mr. Stowe said that the 120-space parking lot designated for students and park goers in combination with an asphalted back entrance to that dual-use high school parking lot via Waveny Park road is a “gross incursion into Waveny Park.”
Mr. Stowe also made a point that additional parking conjoined with asphalting a back-entrance to New Canaan High School (not the dual use parking lot by itself) “will likely induce further development in the area.” When Mr. Stowe was asked for an example, he cited the ice rink proposal.
Bus parking, new lot will harm Waveny
Editor, Advertiser:
Nearly a year ago Ditte Reifsnyder made a bombshell announcement: the School Bus Facility Task Force, which she chaired, had chosen the playing fields at Saxe Middle School as the preferred location for the school bus facility. Fortunately, Town officials and the public resoundingly rejected that plan.
Plan B, the plan to park the school buses at the high school, was quickly set in motion.
Park & Recreation chair Jeb Walker offered a plan to sacrifice Waveny Park property for the school bus facility, but was outmaneuvered by Ms. Reifsnyder, when she proposed placing the school bus facility in the parking lot east of the high school and shifting the attendant loss of student parking on the high school campus into Waveny Park.
Plan B, it turns out has significant and unavoidable adverse impacts not only on the limited usable outdoor areas at the New Canaan High School campus, but also on New Canaan’s crown jewel – Waveny Park.
It constitutes a gross incursion into the Waveny Park with a 800-foot long, 80-foot wide double-barreled, tiered, sprawl-like, mall-like 266-space surface parking lot, which stretches nearly all the way to Waveny Park Road and with the high school back entrance creates a continuous, uninterrupted corridor of impervious, asphalted surface from Farm Road to Waveny Park mansion.
On Tuesday July 10, 2007, P & Z summarily granted the request for an 8-24 referral and special permit to relocate the school buses, construct bus facilities and a fuel station on the New Canaan High School campus. At that meeting I stated that there were better options for parking school buses, such as a bus company proposal to park the buses in Wilton or developing a plan to park the school buses at the transfer station.
Below are some statements commissioners made at the meeting and my response to each statement.
Commissioner Scannell wondered what was the reasoning for the commission to not grant the 8-24 referral. Well I think Chairman Papp described it best last summer when he said: “The aesthetic impact of parking buses (along) the most important route to New Canaan. South Avenue is really the calling card of the town and to spoil it substantially may not be considered compatible with the Town plan, which also calls for aesthetic and appearance consideration.” Mr. Papp was referring to the Saxe proposal, but the high school parking plan is directly across the street, thinly veiled only by the Waveny Woods.
In response to my suggestion to park the school buses at the transfer station Chairman Lazlo Papp said that it had been determined that there was not enough room for the buses at the Transfer Station to around and it was directly adjacent to parkland.
But what if they built a Town Park and nobody went to it? That is exactly what has happened with the unnamed Town Park at the Transfer Station dedicated under First Selectman Bond and built under First Selectman Neville’s oversight. No one to date has acknowledged the disutility of this dedicated parkland.
Furthermore town officials have failed to grasp the opportunity to trade this Transfer station land out of park status in exchange for dedicating the Michigan Road Dorothy Clark property as a woodland preserve.
Commissioner George Wendell’s commonly held assertion that a school bus parking lot at New Canaan High School “(This) is about as centrally located as possible,” But that statement is predicated on the unproven presumption that less fuel will be used by siting the buses at the high school.
A counterargument is that by locating the buses at the high school, the bus routes first have to travel though no school bus pick-up zones. School buses will waste a significant amount of fuel driving through these no pick-up zones adjacent to South, Saxe and New Canaan High School. Mr. Wendell’s statement also does not account for the fact that the school bus drivers work two separate shifts - morning pick-up and afternoon drop-off and drive off somewhere else in their personal vehicles during the break in between those two shifts.
Finally, Commissioner Scannell’s point that reducing another Town’s green areas for school bus parking is not a good argument for protecting New Canaan’s green areas discounts the reality that New Canaan doesn’t have industrially zoned land, but adjacent towns and cities such as Wilton, Norwalk and Stamford do.
Now is the time to put the brakes on Plan B and come up with a plan that will not further deface the New Canaan High School-Waveny Park corridor.
Town officials are currently engaging in a Safe Routes to School study to enlarge or optimize the no pick up zones. Truly a worthwhile study, it ultimately may reduce the number of buses the Town contracts. Each bus that is not needed saves the Town $75,000 per year, and the cost of removing one bus for one year equals the savings town officials boast are accrued by using the existing 20,000-gallon fuel tank at the high school.
Richard M. Stowe
New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, July 19, 2007 Page 4A
Clarifications
Richard Stowe said the following statement reported on page 1 of the July 12th New Canaan Advertiser contains factual errors
Richard Stowe, a local environmentalist, said the plan would create light pollution, “adversely effect every high school students’ school yard,” and the 125-space parking lot designated for students and park goers where the buses are currently being parked predicates plans for an ice rink and is “gross incursion” on green space.
What was actually said:
Mr. Stowe said that the 120-space parking lot designated for students and park goers in combination with an asphalted back entrance to that dual-use high school parking lot via Waveny Park road is a “gross incursion into Waveny Park.”
Mr. Stowe also made a point that additional parking conjoined with asphalting a back-entrance to New Canaan High School (not the dual use parking lot by itself) “will likely induce further development in the area.” When Mr. Stowe was asked for an example, he cited the ice rink proposal.
posted by Richard Stowe at 3:46 PM
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