Traffic concerns with proposed hotel

Editor:The proposed new hotel in Sonoma is a bad idea from the point of view of gridlock and congestion on the Plaza. As things stand now, any rush hour plus all weekends of never-ending, frothing at the mouth, Disneyland wine tourist type hype, it is impossible to drive around the Plaza. Impossible: too many cars, buses, vans, limos, delivery trucks, tourists, dogs, horses, pedestrians, bikes, skateboards, rickshaws. It is obvious; the Plaza is already maxed out in terms of population and transportation infrastructure.

However, Darius Anderson is a big fish. All bets are leaning that someone with his level of power and influence will eventually get their way. This means life will be made miserable for the whole valley’s population who has to drive anywhere near the Plaza.

Some type of serious traffic modifications will be necessary to handle the volume of 50 plus room hotel plus all its associated vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Sonoma can’t be made into one big traffic jam and maze of stop signs.

You can’t have a quaint little Plaza scene if you keep injecting more people into it; the very scale destroys the attraction of it. So, new hotel, new traffic modifiers to handle the volume, say goodbye to the façade of quaint. The wine tourist economic gestalt is the new bubble and the powers that be seem intent on riding it until it pops, so council members, at least give the rest of us a chance to be able to drive around town in the meantime.

Fred Allebach
Val, If the original of this letter is being considered for a print edition, I’d prefer this version to go instead. Thanks, Fred , nice to chat with you today
Fred Allebach
Vineburg