Committee on Infrastructure — 12/08/2021 Page 17
the red strobe is flashing and the light is green, that means there's a fire vehicle coming up behind you. This system is
extremely old but it only works in the direction of which the vehicle is traveling. Anecdotally | can say I've traveled Main
Street quite a bit every day. | travel multiple times just to see what's going on and | think | can say and | think, honestly,
anyone in this room who or anyone in this city who travels on Main Street multiple times a day will understand that there
are times when the traffic is backed up. | think the problem we have is not when we're going north or south. Our problem
is when we're going north or south and we have to go east or west because people get aggravated when they're queued
up, and they sit through a couple sets of lights, and then they decide they're going to pull out into the intersection and block
it. Unfortunately when we change the lights, it does nothing for the side streets.
At the end of day, | don't know how else fo say this but we are good and everything is good until something happens.
When something happens, people are going to look at Chief Rourke or | and say what happened. So this is our opportunity
to come here and just speak the truth to you and tell you how itis but ultimately, this is a decision that the board has to
make. We were never in favor of the islands that were put into Main Street. We weren't really in favor of the barriers going
out but we live with them and we make do. So I'll answer any questions you may have.
Chairman O'Brien
Thank you, Chief Rhodes. | do have one. | do actually have a couple. It seems in the public comment, and this is really
concerning to me. Can you state for the record as what was alleged? Has any elected official ever coerce anybody on the
Fire Department to provide false information on this particularly? | find surprised that | even have to mention this but it was
said that it seems that some people in power are affecting your influence on this. | would imagine if there was a severe
safety issue, you would have brought it to this board and to the city's attention a long time ago.
Brian Rhodes, Fire Chief
To the best of my knowledge, there is no one that has coerced or threatened anyone in my organization and again at the
end of the day, it's my job just to give you the facts and give you what} believe as the head of your Fire Department is the
best industry standard best practice advice that | can give for you to make the best decisions for the citizens and the
business owners alike.
Chairman O'Brien
And Chief Rourke you're not off the hook, I'm going to ask you the same question too. But any other questions from
anybody on the board to the Fire Chief? See none, Chief Rourke congratulations.
Kevin Rourke, Deputy Police Chief
Thank you.
Chairman O'Brien
Looking forward to your new appointment and working with you. I'll just give you the floor if you would like to speak on this.
Kevi De Polic: ief
Sure. Kevin Rourke, Deputy Chief of Uniform Operations at the PD. Again 1 know it's a hot topic so just prepared tonight to
give some feedback. So what! did is | went out and spoke to the officers who drive the road every day and all day long.
80 | have some feedback from what they've seen over the last year and a half or so. Some of their major issues that
they've had with the barriers. They've created significant traffic Issues on Main Street, especially during rush hour traffic,
the afternoons, second shift when most people are out there.
They also advised that this was not taking place at the beginning of the pandemic when the berries were put out but it has
tremendously increased when people started going back out come back to work. It has delayed responses when
responding to emergency calls. (inaudible) have pointed out a certain area of Canal Street between Canal Street and Pearl
Street as the most congested area and northbound traffic seems to be more congested than southbound traffic.
Sometimes officers have sate at the lights for multiple cycles without moving and most of this is the congestion going
northbound.
As you know, every spring and summer we recelve a lot of complaints of traffic and noise complaints of the vehicles and
the motorcycles. So what we try to do every spring is try to get out there and deter this behavior. We received many, many
calls from the restaurants downtown. | mean nobody wants to go out and sit at these outdoor dining facilities of these
restaurants and hear a motorcycle or vehicle revving their engine or playing the music loud. So we try to deter that right
