By Sam Klomhaus | The Daily Sentinel
Newly elected Grand Junction City Council member Robert Ballard wants to address changes on Fourth and Fifth streets and be a voice for outlying Grand Junction neighborhoods during his time on council.
“Day one is we’re definitely going to be addressing Fourth and Fifth street,” Ballard said during an interview last week. “At least I’m going to be, I don’t know about the rest of the council, but that’s definitely going to be my main focus.”
Ballard, who lives in Orchard Mesa and works at Alpine Bank, said a lot of people during the election have been asking for a pilot study on proposed changes to the roadway on Fourth and Fifth streets from Pitkin Avenue to North Avenue to be reversed.
“We’re going to address that right out the gate, that’s my number one issue,” he said.
Last year, the City of Grand Junction changed the configuration of Fourth and Fifth streets to be one lane each way from two lanes each way in order to slow traffic through downtown Grand Junction.
The project also added buffered bike lanes to each street and changed most diagonal parking to parallel parking.
City staff have proposed switching the bike lane from protected to not-protected in order to make drivers more comfortable with the changes. The city has also removed a number of temporary plastic bollards marking the new lane configuration that some residents have said are unsightly.
Many residents of Grand Junction and surrounding areas have complained about the changes and asked the city to put the street configuration back to where it was before.
Ballard said he thinks Grand Junction can improve multi-modal transportation by separating bike and pedestrian corridors from corridors with high vehicle traffic.
Ballard said he isn’t going to go into his tenure on City Council with any agenda.
“The agenda is to listen to the people, and provide those essential services that they’ve been looking for,” Ballard said.
Ballard said he thinks it’s wrong to go into issues with a predetermined decision made.
“The biggest thing is not going into these meetings with a predisposition on how you’re going to vote,” Ballard said.
Ballard said he wants to be a good representative of the community’s voice, and bring his strong voice to City Council.
The city has gotten away from providing essential services, he said.
“The people have been asking for a City Council that provides the essential services they’re mandated to provide instead of getting lost in special projects, and I know that Fourth and Fifth street was a big one for a lot of people in this election,” Ballard said.