Poll: Downtown one-way street plan bad idea

A majority of respondents to an online Argus-Courier poll said they are against a plan to turn Keller and Liberty streets into one-way streets downtown to create 45 more parking spaces.

Here are some comments:

“Do what you want. It’s impossible to get from the east side to the west side anyway, so I rarely visit downtown.”

“How can one merchant drive city policy on something that affects all residents. We need less parking, less catering to cars. Make Petaluma a walkable, pedestrian city. Don’t cater to cars.”

“Stop sticking our collective heads in the sand and work on solutions to parking and traffic.”

“I would say no. It would be like Santa Rosa, and create more of a mess. It is already a cluster mess everywhere in this town. Traffic here is awful.”

“One-way streets generally lead to higher speeds and more parking often brings more congestion. I’m for increasing mobility of the downtown district and livability in the surrounding neighborhood.”

“This will turn Liberty and Keller into parking lots, ruining the quaint residential character that draws people to Petaluma in the first place. The trend nationwide is towards reducing the number of cars driving around urban areas, not increasing them. We should clean up the Keller Street garage so that people aren’t scared to use it, then if there’s still a problem, we should start talking about setting aside funding for another parking structure.”

“Listen to the people who live there and don’t destroy their quality of life for the residents.”