Bypass Bonding Small But Controversial

I Major interest in Mpnday's city election is centered on the 'five City Council races, but voters are also being asked to approve a bond issue to complete the Ashley-First ( o r Packard-Beakes) bypass. The bond issue totals $935,000 and would require a tax increase of .16 of a mili of assessed valuation. This is one of the smallest bond issues ever to be placed before the Ann Arbor electorate, but it is also one of the most controversial. Debate over the bypass route has raged since 1969. City Council placed its stamp of approval on the project again in February and decided to place the isIsue on the spring election ballot. Packard-Beakes was part of the 1966 roads bond issue which was approved by Icitizens. But the $1 million specified for Ithe project in that larger bond issue has lalready been spent and the city is still $935,000 away from completion. Voters are being asked to permit the Icity to complete the project. Because of the controversy which has surrounded the project, observers are placing no bets on whether it will be approved by voters Monday. Cost will probably not be the determining factor, since the proposal would amount to only $2.10 additional taxes on the average Ann Arbor taxpayer. There has been no significant campaign to pass the bond issue, nor has there been any great organized opposition to it. The only council candidates I supporting the proposal are Republican, with Democrats and Human Rights Party candidates opposing it. The project would not cali for a great deal of construction, the only new roadway called for being the links of Packard and Beakes with Ashley and First. Major costs have been in land acquisition for the project, the dollars required far exceeding the initial estimates of city officials. More than one-third of the bond issue ($391,842) would go toward buying the remaining pareéis required for rights-ofway while $368,208 is listed for actual mLumlkin ftnrfV'"'' g79 nnn '" rprnl'rpfl for traffic signáis, $16,459 will be used for beautification, and the remaining $86,491 being for engineering and other incidental expenses. Major purpose of the Ashley-First bypass would be to divert north and south bound traffic around the Mam St. shopping area. This would permit the city to proceed with plans to turn the Main St. business district into a mail, shutting off Main St. at Huron and William. If the bond issue fails to gain citizen approval Mondav, the future of the bypass will be uncíeañcíty I tor Guy C. Larcom Jr. said if the bond I issue is defeated it would be up to City I Council what steps to take. "If it goes I down and the determination is made not I to proceed, City Council will have to I cide what to do with the land originally I purchased for the bypass." Larcom said there are other ways of I financing the improvements without a I voted bond issue and these - if council I desires - could be considered. Should the voters and council decide to scrap the project the city would doubtless have to sell those properties purchased. It is estimated the resale would not come near to covering expenses already incurred because some buildings have been demolished. The Packard-Beakes bypass concept has been around for many years, first I being advanced - under another name with a slightly different alignment - in a 1922 master plan. The proposal as it now stands was first officially adopted as part of the city's thoroughfare plan in the 1960 Guide for Change. Folio wing the 1966 bond issue, the Packard-Beakes project proceeded I smoothly - although slowly - until 1969 when certain councilmen and Model I ie Policy Board objected to the route, claiming it would severely damage the Model Neighborhood by dissecting it. Altérnate routes were presented and rejected and council reaffirmed the original proposal on Jan. 31 of this year. City officials say the traffic on Beakes through the Model Neighborhood area will be the same with or without the bypass. But without the bypass, officials say, the one-way pair of División and I Fifth Ave. will rapidly become I ed. Packard-Beakes would divert traffic so I that hopefully Ashley and First would I carry as much traffic as División and I Fifth, officials say. The bypass "will focus traffic on a few I major streets rather than dispersing it I through smaller adjacent neighborhood I and commercial streets," city officials I say. Plans do not cali for the widening I of any existing streets, nor the I ate removal of parking from any streets I (although as traffic becomes heavier it I is expected parking would be removed). Opposition to the bypass has come I mainl: from the Model Cities Policy I Board and certain Democrats, although I Mayor Robert Harris did go against the I rest of his Democratie colleagues and I vote to place the measure on the baüot. Support has come from the downtown I businessmen, the Old West Side I tion, North Central Property Owners I sociation and others. I The argument is made by supporters I that the city has a commitment to oomI plete the project, and that without it the I downtown business district_wÜLJigQg:-l ponente say the bypass has no relaüon to the life or death of the downtown busiresses, that the downtown is dying anyway because of shopping centers that are built and planned.