Brandon Leuallen, The Business Times

Following months of public backlash regarding the controversial Fourth and Fifth Street redesign, longtime Planning Commission member Keith Ehlers urged Grand Junction City Council to examine how future projects are planned. He recommended the councilors rebuild public trust and avoid projects causing the same level of controversy.

Ehlers, who also contributed to the city’s 2020 comprehensive plan, said the public response throughout the project highlights a disconnect between staff interpretations and the community’s actual priorities.

During the meeting when the newly seated council reversed its earlier decision to completely end the Fourth and Fifth Street pilot program, Ehlers, an Orchard Mesa resident, noted the importance of Fifth Street for connectivity for those coming from Orchard Mesa. He pushed back on divisive rhetoric, rejecting the idea that views on the project can be reduced to being either for or against safety or bikes.

Rather than further debating design details, Ehlers focused on how the city could avoid such controversies in the future.

“I’ll shift away from the design and get more into an interest of trying to de-escalate a little bit and focus more on: How do we make this better for next time?” he said.

Ehlers argued the backlash showed the planning process itself may be flawed.

“What this process has revealed is that there is a major discrepancy and a variation of perspectives on how the Bike and Ped Plan and comments within the comprehensive plan have been interpreted,” he said. “I would ask that you consider very deliberately issuing some directives to staff, or whomever, to go back and revisit the Bike and Ped Plan.”

He also addressed a common sentiment from project supporters, who encouraged the public to “let the professionals design these things.” But Ehlers said community skepticism may stem from a lack of alignment between staff decisions and public sentiment.

Remedying that can start with better data, “such as what is really our community’s appetite for these things,” he said.

In an interview Ehlers pointed out the city’s 2020 comprehensive plan, developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, had limited public input. He said the plan reported a little more than 2,100 “engagement responses” in a city of nearly 65,000 people. Ehlers believes that numbr is too low compared to other cities. For example, the city of Fruita’s comprehensive plan received more than 4,000 engagements out of 13,395 citizens. 

Ehlers also noted a significant number of the 2,140 engagements may have come from the same individuals engaging through multiple channels.

The plan itself clarifies: “Across all outreach formats including in person, online and immersive outreach, there have been a total of 2,140 engagement responses, each representing an instance of public participation within the planning process for one Grand Junction. The term ‘engagement response’ is used to acknowledge that an individual participant may engage with the planning process more than once. For example, a business owner may have attended the business workshop as well as the community workshop and may have additionally taken an online questionnaire.” 

Ehlers also questioned the safety data used to justify the Fourth and Fifth Street redesign, calling it outdated and vague.

“It’s very negligible as to how to identify these bike and pedestrian incidents. What was the real problem that we were trying to solve?” he said.

Asked to elaborate, he explained: “The data has marks on a map saying there was an incident. That’s it. It doesn’t break down what happened or how it happened.”

He also pointed out Fifth Street ranked 53rd on the list of priorities in the city’s Bike and Ped Plan, far from the top of the list.

At the end of the meeting, Mayor Cody Kennedy acknowledged Ehlers’ comments.

“Thank you, Mr. Ehlers. I want to acknowledge what you brought up about the discrepancy in how people interpret the plans, whether it’s the Bike and Ped Plan or the Comprehensive Plan, and that’s fair,” Kennedy said. “I think that’s something that’s been highlighted by this whole process.”

Kennedy agreed better community engagement and updated data will be essential moving forward.

“I also agree with your suggestion that, moving forward, we need to be more intentional about checking in with the community on what their appetite really is when it comes to these kinds of infrastructure changes,” he said. “That may mean directing staff to revisit the Bike and Ped Plan or ensuring the next Comp Plan update includes much more community-driven clarity on trade-offs between vehicular and bike/pedestrian travel.”

Kennedy added, “As for the data, we’ve heard from a lot of people tonight that the safety data being used feels outdated. I can tell you, as a council, we want to make decisions based on accurate and current information, so I hear you on that.”

Kennedy acknowledged the process had its flaws, but he emphasized the council’s goal of making practical, community-focused decisions.

“This process hasn’t been perfect,” he said. “But I do hope what people take away from this meeting is that we’re trying to reframe things and make decisions that aren’t ideological, but practical and community-focused. We’re going to continue to have disagreements on what the best path forward is, but if we can engage the public in a way that builds trust and gets better data and clearer direction, that’s going to help all of us.”