Actually, 8.5 feet wide is the federal standard for commercial vehicles.

(thanks W)

As we inch toward the Speck plan's public meeting finale on Wednesday at the Pepin Mansion ((March 18, 6:00 p.m., 1003 E. Main Street), perennial civic value extractors in the trucking and heavy equipment business, and their convenient politically motivated apologists like Irv Stumler and Dan Coffey, continue to press the point that their narrow interests must trump all other considerations.

James Padgett's infamous newspaper missive remains an instructive example of a random argument generator, into which is fed various fears and innuendo, and even the stray good point, in the creation of a grandiose mash-up with the superficial appearance of credibility.

However, just because intellectually lazy newspaper editors adoringly fall for it doesn't mean the rest of us should. As a friend points out ...

The Padgett comments were classic misdirection - meant to confuse the folks who don't pay attention to facts. When people use wrong "facts" as a way to claim they aren't lying in a dishonest debate - it's just wrong.

So true, as in the case of lane widths. We already know that a 12' - 13' wide lane width isn't necessary to accommodate a Honda Accord -- one of the best selling cars in America at 6' 7" wide.

You don't need 'em for trucks, either.

WIDTH REQUIREMENTS

U.S. Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration

The maximum width limit for CMVs on the NN and reasonable access routes was originally established at 102 inches, except for Hawaii where it is 2.74 m (108 inches). (See discussion of Reasonable Access on page 12.) To standardize vehicle width on an international basis, the 102-inch width limit was interpreted to mean the same as its approximate metric equivalent, 2.6 meters (102.36 inches) (Figure 1 above).

Here is Spring Street as Rosenbargered today.

And here is a quick capture of Speck's planned refit for the same stretch of street.

See a median anywhere in there?

That's what I thought. When it comes to reading comprehension, New Albany remains the land that time forgot.