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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, October 17,2011 Page 17 of stress in making a decision. However, Councilmember Johnson stated that he needed to look at the need of the greater community; and what C-2 was initially designed to do: handle traffic from Hamline Avenue to Victoria Street; and ad- vised that he could not understand the disconnect. Mayor Roe concurred with Councilmember Johnson that this had been a difficult issue for all Councilmembers to work through. As a technical person and engi- neer, Mayor Roe stated that he could understand the Ramsey County grid system for the road when initial work was done, with C-2 being one of those connectors. Mayor Roe advised that he also understood current realities, with C-2 not making the connection across the City. However, Mayor Roe noted other similar roads with obstacles, whether Lake Owasso, the Twin Lakes Area, Snelling Avenue north/south traffic during peak hours,that are also a reality. Mayor Roe noted opined that, if done correctly from the beginning, C-2 should have been connected; however, he needed to keep in mind his philosophy as an elected official to "do no harm." While the level of actual harm may be debatable for the overall community, Mayor Roe opined that opening C-2 would create sig- nificant change to one neighborhood; and questioned how he would respond if it were his neighborhood. Mayor Roe opined that neighborhoods in Roseville were very important, and that while safe streets are also of high value, the City needed to make sure that less value was not assigned to neighborhoods versus streets. Mayor Roe noted that it may be necessary to look at restriping County Road C, since it was built to address future traffic issues; and noted his understanding that the backups were created from Highway 36 congestions that impacted east/west road, of which the City had several; they all took that impact as well. In an effort to consider solutions seriously in terms of not continuing to be "stupid," Mayor Roe suggested discussions with MnDOT on solutions for Highway 36 in the first place. Mayor Roe noted that MnDOT was currently studying the feasibility of high occupancy vehicle lanes (bus lanes); and that a park and ride facility was underway in Little Canada at Rice Street and Highway 36 to address westbound traffic before if got to Roseville. Mayor Roe opined that those mitigation efforts should be reviewed before looking at opening C-2. If between Hamline and Vic- toria, Mayor Roe questioned if he'd use C-2; and questioned if the benefit of opening C-2 was a reality or only a perception, even as much as it had been ad- vertised. Mayor Roe noted that costs don't weight the benefits from a county- wide view; and the traffic study indications that only 5% of the vehicle traffic be- tween Lexington and Hamline on County Road C would divert to County Road C-2. Mayor Roe reiterated that there were other ways to be explored to handle that issue beyond opening C-2 and to address that diversion. Councilmember Pust reviewed her understanding of the most recent traffic study, excluding County Road C traffic, and the 800 vehicles estimated from the regional traffic study using County Road C.