I just had a chance to review the document on the web. The proposal to require pedestrian activated signals at round-abouts was interesting and may be controversial. I have a concern on a different subject that was not addressed in the document. Older cities around the country (and in Washington State where I live) have holes in sidewalks next to existing buildings that have substandard handrails around the holes. These holes usually provide access via stairs to a basement level. The handrail openings are often much larger than 4 inches, and small children (and perhaps people with accessibility challenges) could accidentally fall through the handrail openings into the holes. Any major work in the area should require these substandard handrails to be brought up to current building code standards. In fact, it would be nice if there was a 5 or 10 year transition period where they would all have to be brought up to code.

Eldon L. Jacobson

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