Sedona, AZ -- I attended the August 15, 2007 Sedona City Council 89A proposed ADOT lighting workshop. It was one of the largest groups of concerned citizens I have seen in over a year. Every seat was taken, every isle was filled with people sitting on the floors, the doorway was filled to the danger point, and concerned citizens still extended out into the foyer. Two from ADOT spoke, two form Keep Sedona Beautiful spoke, dozens of the over 100 to 150 members of the public spoke, and an expected outcome from this council seemed likely.

The issue: Vehicle /pedestrian accidents have occurred on 89A in West Sedona. 84% of them have occurred during the day, 3 pedestrians have died from 2003 to date during nighttime accidents. According to the police reports, two of the pedestrian fatalities were “impaired”, one was not. Two fatalities were at Andante, one was at Dry Creek. The Sedona City Council, without inviting public input, asked ADOT on June 12, 2007 to go with a plan of ADOT’s design. As “ADOT does not use cutting edge” technology (according to ADOT’s Chuck Gillick), we will get the same design as Phoenix, Prescott, and every other city. This means 76 total poles, each 30 feet tall, with the full tilt boogie 250 high pressure sodium lamps that are known to bounce light off the pavement up into Sedona’s skies. These tall light poles will go from Dry Creek all the way to the Airport Road. When questioned as to why not just focus where the problem is, ADOT said that if they did focus on just the Andante to Dry Creek corridor, and even though that is where all the death’s have been, that ADOT fears that they will be liable for where they did not place lights even though there is no problem east of Andante.

Along most of that corridor, traffic stop lights occur every ¼ mile. However, the problem area of Dry Creek to Shelby has a span of almost 1 mile without a stoplight. This is where 2 of the 3 fatalities occurred.
 

As an example of light bounce mentioned above, I live in West Sedona uphill behind The Bank of America. Flagstaff uses low pressure sodium, known to have minimum bounce. You can clearly see a haze over the entire Wilson Mountain area rising about 20 degrees into our dark sky from that “minimum bounce”. It is possible that with lighting from the 179 project, the added lighting at Gallery Row and the new Y, and this 89A project as proposed by ADOT and the majority of the Sedona City Council, that Sedona will project a greater haze into our formerly dark skies and into Flagstaff’s skies than they project into ours.

Two members of the public came up to speak spoke in favor of the ADOT lighting plan. They lost or knew one of the three pedestrians who have died in the last 5 years. Our hearts go out to them and their loss. But as the rest of the hour or two of public speakers indicated, we CAN have both safety and dark skies. Many great ideas were presented to the council.

Photos were shown by Bob Carabel of Keep Sedona Beautiful of how bad the bright skies have become in Flagstaff. Photos were shown by Ernie Straugh of how other high end communities similar Sedona used 12 to 18 foot poles vs. ADOT’s Phoenix style 30 foot poles. Cliff Hamilton offered to put together a panel of residents and experts to calmly and intelligently discuss what is needed and what should be done. It was pointed out at the meeting and acknowledged by ADOT that no recent studies have been taken as to weather a traffic stop light is warranted at Andante where two of the three deaths have occurred. ADOT seemed to agree to now perform that necessary study. Residents are concerned over the mess of poles and wires that will impact our beautiful daytime views. Residents are sure vehicles will be hitting the poles at some point and then who will pay for replacement. Residents do not want 89A lit up like Phoenix and Prescott. Residents asked for on-demand lighted crosswalks like those used in Aspen, Telluride, and Boulder, CO.

Two or three business owners spoke of how any harm to our dark skies would negatively impact their businesses as their clients come specifically to view dark skies, meteor showers, etc.

One resident actually demonstrated to the 150 +/- people at the meeting how they had all become numb to the 14 dome lights overhead in the council chambers. No one notices all those lights anymore. He then flashed his camera to the council and audience to demonstrate how on-demand and flashing lights DO get attention much more than always on lights. “The same is true for 89A”, he said, “put up 76 250 watt lights at 30 feet, and drivers will become numb to them. However, put up on-demand lighting that lights the crosswalk as a pedestrian approaches, and flash the yellow diamond shaped Pedestrian Crossing sign, and motorists WILL notice. This demonstration clearly showed that on-demand lighting would INCREASE public safety. Oh that’s right; I was the resident doing that demonstration.

Do we deserve less? This is Sedona, the crown jewel of Arizona.

At the end of the meeting, the majority of the council spoke as if they were still voting for the full tilt boogie Phoenix/Prescott plan proposed by ADOT. One council member blasted the two panel speakers from Keep Sedona Beautiful who were there to present a plan for a balanced and focused approach. He blasted them for not living in Sedona. What he failed to also acknowledge is that the two other speakers (from ADOT) do not live in Sedona either. Do we care where we are from as long as we care about Sedona? How about our 4 million tourists, they are not from Sedona either? The point here is that Sedona belongs to the entire state and country. Again we are the crown jewel of Arizona and we need to treat it as such.

Another council member stated that she recently walked West Sedona’s sidewalks for the first time at night (during the fully darkened new moon which occurs 1 to 3 days per month). She said it was hard to see the sidewalk without a flashlight. As I have not heard of any deaths of pedestrians on sidewalks, I am perplexed as to why this was even brought up. There have been bicyclist fatalities and there have been many injuries hiking on the red rocks in Sedona. Do we stop ALL activities that worry (both ADOT and council used the word liability) ADOT and this council. Do we, the public, accept no responsibility for our actions?

What did the 100 to 150 concerned citizens there on August 15th ask for? The public asked for focus on Andante to Dry Creek, they asked for a stoplight at Andante, they asked for on-demand lighting of the crosswalks all along 89A, and they asked for a 25 to 30 MPH speed limit. They asked for either low sodium lighting with zero bounce, with shorter poles, or, as most asked, no street lighting altogether.

Any reasonable person will come to the conclusion that we can have safety and a fabulous dark skies environment. Any reasonable person will also come to the conclusion that a few on our council heard not a word of the 100 to 150 who came in opposition to making 89A look like downtown Phoenix.

Think about this in the next election Sedona.

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