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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 12/18/2002REGULAR MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD December 18, 2002 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins - Community Room 215 N. Mason Street FOR REFERENCE: CHAIR: Christophe Ricord 472.8769 VICE CHAIR: Bruce Henderson 898.4625 STAFF LIAISON: Don Bachman 224.6049 ADMIN SUPPORT: Cynthia Cass 224.6058 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Dan Gould Neil Grigg Bruce Henderson Edward Jakubauskas Tim Johnson Tom Kramer Brad Miller Ray Moe Christophe Ricord Brent Thordarson Heather Trantham CITY STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: Don Bachman Matt Baker Cynthia Cass Gary Diede (as Santa Claus) Mark Jackson Cam McNair Ron Phillips Mark Sears Bob Smith ABSENT: GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE: RA Plummer Gary Thomas Bob Felsburg Don Taranto SharShadowen Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 2 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Ricord called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. 2. PUBLIC COMMENT None. 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Johnson stated that the November minutes reflected the discussion very well and Met the effort Cass put into them was very much appreciated. Chair Rlcord reminded Me board that If there are particular comments that members want to have included in the minutes, that it would be very helpful to summarize them. There was a motion to approve the minutes (November and October 2002). There was a second and the motion carried by a unanimous vote (11-0). 4. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None. S. DISCUSSION ITEMS a) MASON STREET TRANSPORTATION CORRIDOR UPDATE — B. Felsburg Mr. Felsburg stated that Reavis and Frazier are in Lincoln, Nebraska meeting with the railroad folks again. He said that the purpose of tonight's presentation will be to bring the board up to speed on where the progress is with the project. There had been a hiatus on the project for awhile and it's coming alive again so everyone needs to be brought up to speed. Felsburg gave a PowerPoint presentation that included the following highlights: ✓ Benefits of MSTC - Provide mobility choices along primary North/South community corridor - Reduce Travel Time and Congestion - Create Activity Centers, Public Art & Linear Parks, Opportunities for Mixed -Use Infill Development ✓ Who Benefits? - Bicyclists & Pedestrians - Transit Riders - Motorists - Railroad ✓ Where We Have Been? - Initiated with Building Community Choices —1998 - Master Plan Approved by City Council — 2000 - Rec'd FTA Approval to Proceed with Preliminary Engineering and Environmental Analysis -New Starts - Rec'd CMAQ Grant from DCOT for Bicycle/Pedestrian Trail South of Harmony ✓ What Could it (MSTC) Look Like? Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 ✓ What is Bus "Rapid" Transit (BRT)? Page 3 - Speed, Comfort, Travel Time Savings, Environmental & Fare Collection Efficiency of Light Rail Systems - Flexibility, Convenience, and Lower Operating, Maintenance and Capital Costs of Buses ✓ Public Participation ✓ Capital Cost Estimates ✓ Capital Cost Funding Sources/Options ✓ Where We Are - Working with Local, State and Federal Representatives to Pursue Funding -including New Starts - Also Working on Additional Local Funding Sources Such as Potential Ballot Initiative (2003?) - Land for South Transit Center Being Acquired by the City (Dec 2002) - Continuing Discussions with the BNSF Railroad and Colorado State University ✓ Key Elements of Work Plan - Expansion and Refinement of Master Plan Efforts • Environmental Analysis ■ Preliminary Engineering • FTA New Starts Submittal — Aug 2003 - PE/EA Schedule: mid-2002 through Dec 2003 ✓ Collaborative Public Involvement/Public Relations Program ✓ Environmental Assessment ✓ Preliminary Engineering - Alternatives Development & Analysis • BRT, Bike, and Pedestrian Alignments • Grade Separation Studies — Bike/Ped and Roadway • Urban Design and Landscape Architecture • Transit Facilities Site Analysis ■ Parking Demand Analysis • Mason/Howes 1-way to 2-way Conversion • Mason/McClelland Offset • Railroad Coordination - Preliminary Engineering • Geotechnical Investigation ■ Hydrology and Hydraulics • Utility and Irrigation Canal Coordination • Right -of -Way • BRT, Bike, and Pedestrian Design • Structural Design • Railroad Design • Urban Design and Landscaping • Transit Station Design • Plans and Cost Estimates - Final Engineering • Bike/Ped Trail, Harmony Road to Fossil Creek Trail ✓ FTA New Starts Process Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 4 - FTA Evaluation/Rating of Major Transit Capital Investment Projects for Funding - Annual Update of Information Required (August 2003) - Request to Enter Final Design ✓ Phase 1 Early Action Items - Data Collection - Purpose and Need Statement - BNSF Coordination - Alternatives Development • Cross -Sections • Station Analysis • 1-way to 2-way Conversion Analysis • Grade Separations • McClelland Offset ✓ Frequently Asked Questions A three -minute video was shown regarding BRT in Eugene, Oregon. Following the presentation, the floor was opened to questions/oomments from the board. Grigg: What has the Railroad's attitude been so far? Felsburg: It's been enoouraging. At this point, they've identified some things that they would like to see and we're working through those discussions. Chair Ricord. Can you speak to the process that CSU is going through right now in relation to this plan and City Plan? Jackson: Generally speaking, CSU Is going through a revamping of not only the main campus master plan, but they are also redoing their Foothills Campus Master Plan and looking at the extension of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital and the area between the hospital and the main campus. The City is working with them at least for the Transportation/City Plan effort as far as some of the transit - related concepts. There was a meeting just this morning that Reavis and Frazier went to at CSU before they left for the airport, but no one has heard yet how that went. I do know that CSU is very interested in the MSTC project. They are very sensitive to the number of cars that come into the main campus right now so this offers them a way to alleviate some of that. Felsburg added that they've shown great enthusiasm. There was a field trip of the corridor by bus and they were excited about it. Thordarson: How is Eugene planning to pay for their public funding portion of their project? Phillips: Through 5309 capital grant processes outside the New Starts program. I believe they are coming up with their matching funds through a local initiative, but I'm not positive. Johnson: You said that this is at a "recommended" status and that there is one status higher. How are projects funded in the recommended area? Do they go in that area for funding? Felsburg: Yes and one of the things that we think this project has going for itself is that a lot of the New Start projects are one -quarter to half -billion dollar projects so this is a relatively small project in relationship to many of those larger ones that we'll be competing with. The regional FTA office has suggested that that may be a benefit. Also, the next category up, which is "highly recommended", only really goes to projects that are farther along than this one. They basically are in final design before any Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 5 projects get that kind of a rating. At some point, this project could go up into that category — we hopel b) TIMBERLINE ROAD WATER LINE PROJECT — C. McNair McNair stated that while this particular project isn't a "transportation" project per se, it is one that requires a tremendous amount of coordination among many departments and jurisdictions. Communication is of the utmost importance. It pays off in efficiency of projects, reduced traffic impacts when we can get in and do several things at one time under one set of traffic control measures, etc. This project is on Timberline Road, south of Trilby Road and is about 3 miles of a 30" diameter water main that the Fort Collins -Loveland Water District (FCLVWD) needs to install. They have started through the process of coordinating with City staffs like we normally would do and it turns out that three City departments are impacted by this project. The water main would go in Timberline Road, so Engineering is of course interested in what happens to Timberline as a city street, the Stormwater Department has a lot of interest in this as they are doing a Master Plan for the Fossil Creek Basin which is almost finished and they recognize that there are some improvements that need to be made in that area. The road passes through a large wetland and natural area so our Natural Resources Department is interested. The three prinicipal staffers from the City's side that have been working with the FCLVWD are present tonight: Matt Baker from Engineering, Bob Smith from Storm Water/Utilities and Mark Sears with Natural Resources. McNair introduced Don Taranto and Shar Shadowen from TST, Inc. Consulting Engineers. McNair said that this item was a request of the board and that everyone here is more than happy to go over the project and answer any questions anyone has. McNair referred to a memo that he planned to distribute and stressed that that the options listed in the memo for how the improvements will be made will be done in a way that serves all the needs of the public works agencies involved as well as minimizing the impacts to the natural areas. The timing on this is a target of opportunity. The water line needs to go in to serve the customers of the FCLVWD and the road improvements had not been contemplated as being necessary at this point in time, but since this old county road is going to be tom up with this project, it's an opportunity to get some improvements made even though the timing is not such that it would have to be made if this were purely being done for transportation purposes. This is a similar situation for Storm Water. They are just now finishing their Master Plan, weren't prepared to spend money on this project right away, but with this target of opportunity, it makes sense to do it now instead of having to come back and tear up the road again later and disrupt things again at some point in the future. With that said, McNair then distributed the memo which was prepared for and sent to the City Manager's Office on December 3. Mr. Taranto gave an overview of the project spanning the last 12-18 months. He said that about a year and a half ago, this project rose to the top of the priority list because the FCLVWD said that this particular 3-mile stretch of water line needed to be looked at seriously. It is needed to satisfy demands that already exist; that are already approved developments that are in process. This particular section does not serve within the GMA of Fort Collins to speak of, however, it will strengthen the entire FCLVWD system which does serve the Fort Collins GMA. Early on, it was recognized that about a mile of it was Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 6 going to be in Timberline. During the initial analysis of the alternatives relative to achieving this water line installation, the fact that there would be an issue with Timberline was identified and the City was contacted. A dialogue began with the City because it was felt there was an opportunity for a win -win circumstance. It was understood that there were issues with the road, the natural area and storm drainage and it was agreed that they should work together. Over the last seven months, the Timberline component has been looked at intently relative to environmental issues, storm drainage, and those sorts of things. Hard copies of alternatives that were looked at among many others were distributed. As staff went through this, it was understood that it was a sensitive area from an environmental standpoint and they worked with Sears and the Natural Resources Department to try to identify the impacts and the mitigation efforts that would have to take place. Similar situation with Smith and the Storm Drainage issue. The options have been classified numerically to correspond with the memo that was just distributed. Mr. Taranto went over each option with the board. They are: 1. Place the water main in the current alignment of Timberline without a new stormwater structure at Fossil Creek and without any improvement of the road. 2. Place the water main in the current alignment and upgrade the stormwater structure at Fossil Creek, but do not improve the road. 3. Improve the road to a 36' section (two 12' travel lanes and two 6' bicycle lanes) to the west with no curb and gutter within an 80' ROW. This would impact about 38' of City natural area wetland on the west side of Timberline which would be mitigated with replacement wetland. Also do the stormwater structure improvements. Note: This 36' two-lane section could probably serve as a reduced Minor Arterial standard in this area as there is no need for access to the adjacent properties and no center turn lane is necessary. 4. Improve the road to a 36' section within the 80' ROW we now own which impacts the east side of Timberline. This would impact about 35-40' of privately held wetland on the east side of Timberline which would be mitigated with replacement wetland. We also would have to skirt around the state record green ash tree that is on the east side of Timberline about 1/8 mile south of Trilby. Also so the stormwater structure improvements. 5. Bury the water main outside the Timberline ROW in the wetland area on either the west or east side. 6. Install all infrastructure (water main, stormwater structure, and transportation improvements) to its ultimate size and location. He stated that #1 and #6 are probably not practical and will receive the least amount of analysis. Miller. I seem to recall from a previous presentation that Timberline is eventually going to be a six -lane thoroughfare, I believe it was to go all the way to the Crossroads area. McNair. You're thinking of the 1-25 Regional Plan, but it showed it as a four -lane. Miller. My point is that moving it east or west doesn't matter if this thing is going to be widened out. McNair. That's part of the controversy with this. That has not yet been incorporated into our Master Street Plan (MSP). Right now the MSP, which is our guide Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 7 for road improvements, shows this as a minor arterial. One of the options here shows a full section of an urban minor arterial. We wouldn't need to really build all that in this area, but it is basically a three -lane street. A street section that we use typically in the City is what you see here with two 12' auto lanes and two 6' bike lanes. We use that as an interim arterial street standard all over town. We're suggesting that since there is not a transportation need that is driving a widening for capacity. The county road out there now has pavement structure that could be improved, the bike lanes could be wider, but basically that road serves its purpose for transportation right now. We're simply suggesting that we would put back something like that and it should last well into the future and then if the decision is made to upgrade that on the Master Street Plan we'll be one step ahead. Again, it's not at this point felt to be necessary to go there. Trantham: What is your guess as far as when it would need to be widened based on development and traffic if this project weren't taking place? McNair. My feeling is 10 years, but perhaps someone in Transportation Planning can answer better. Jackson: We're currently doing forecasts in the area. We'll know more at a later date. Grigg: Why is mitigation of the wetland an issue? Sears: Its the initial loss of course and then anytime you mitigate, it's always a gamble. The other aspect is that where it's currently being proposed is going to take away 2 Yz acres of upland and prairie dog habitat and convert it into wetland habitat. Yes, we mitigate the loss of the wetland, but then we lose the prairie dog habitat. The main concern from the staff level perspective is not the mitigation or the loss of that 2 Y2 acres, it is the storm drainage improvements being made to the road as well as the railroad upstream and the change in flow characteristics across the wetlands could have an impact on many, many times that many acres of wetlands. It could drain them, it could erode them, it could flood them, it could dramatically change the characteristics of those floodplains and wetlands. That's our biggest concern. We are resolved to the fact that per the MSP the street needs to be widened. The question is how can we best design the storm drainage facilities so we can hopefully emulate what happens there now and not disturb those wetlands. Johnson: The reason we're in such a touchy spot with this is that with the proposal that we have to perhaps vote for a future four -lane road, this has a lot of appeal to the natural areas folks and the audobon people. I thought lt was statewide, but it turns out irs a nationally important binding area. We're looking at trying to go to funding in April with some revision perhaps of what we tried in November, and if folks that supported that see us going in the direction of covering that over when it's not even on the MSP, just puts us in a real negative light going into that election with those who supported the extension of the open space issue. They might have their own mitigation for us in April if we go forward. That's where it's sensitive. Looking at minimizing impact is so critical. Grigg: Is there an option that minimizes the impact rather than one of these that we're talking about? Johnson: I think the sections we're looking at in #3 and #4 whether we move it east or west, it seems to me that we ought to be sticking with that range of minimum impact of what we put in there and what we're aiming for in the future. Chair Ricord: What we're talking about is a priority. From what I understand, the Audubon Society has designated this area because there is something like 73 different Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 8 species of birds there. As wetlands go and environmental resourcing, the significance can't be underestimated. Why aren't we looking at this from the aspect of what do we need to do to mitigate the road so that we can maintain that? In other words, maybe the priority should be looked at the other way around and that discussion should be on the table. We can try to mitigate impacts on the environment, but mitigation really, as it's been pointed out, is not a sure thing. It's not certain that we can transfer the resource somewhere else and maintain its integrity. I would submit to everybody here that we should be approaching this from the other perspective and that is how do we maintain the environmental resources and mitigate the road and the utilities. If we look at things through that way, then its possible that using a railroad ROW type of theme could be discussed further in terms of the utilities. I hope this is something we keep in mind. At this point obviously I'm not very comfortable with this. There are a lot of environmental studies that are still outstanding. I would really hate to sign off on something like this at this point and I would like to see in writing that this is going to remain a two-lane minor arterial and not have any chance of this being widened to four lanes when we know how significant these impacts are. McNair. That is in writing in the memo we gave you tonight. In terms of the long-term MSP, that's something that the Transportation Planning staff would have to take a look at. In terms of mitigation for transportation impacts or minimizing transportation impacts, that's a different way of looking at it and that's good for you to bring it to our attention and have us turn things around. My reaction to that is what we're trying to do with our whole transportation network is create alternatives to the auto so we don't have to have such wide roads. That's why we build bike lanes every time we build roads and that's why we try to encourage transit and walking and such through the TDM activities. All of the efforts of our transportation planning and construction is geared toward trying to reduce the VMT growth and do those things. This is really a corridor that is for regional traffic. It goes outside of the city of Fort Collins and carries traffic away from and back into our city. Those get to be issues that are in that realm as well. To take a look at a speck project like this and look at aRematives to doing anything in that corridor would suggest the things that you said such as using the railroad corridor or some other route for this water line, but we'll still have the issue of the flooding and the flood control projects that need to happen someday. Whether it's today with the water line or a couple years from now with the stormwater improvements, we end up having this same conversation about raising and broadening that road somewhat. The best way that I think we can go at this is to minimize how much that broadening is and do a thorough environmental study, which we are in the process of having done and making sure that the natural resources folks buy off on it and in fad, make the determination for us, or with us, on where the road actually ends up. Miller. How big is the entire wetland that we're talking about? Taranto: A rough guess would be about a 100 acres and we're talking about approximately 2'/2 acres of that being disturbed. Chair Ricor&. There is a significant impact even on a couple of acres. Miller. Yes, but you also have to put things in perspective. There is a road there already, and there is a water line there already, and as Cam said, something has to be done there sometime whether you disturb the area along the tracks which are there already and so forth. Some changes have to be made to what's already there. I don't think we should take Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 9 the position that N any wetlands are disturbed then "no can do' right away. Seems like it's a relatively small percentage and efforts are being made to minimize that portion. Ricord: I agree that it's a small percentage but I'm not willing to sign off on the notion that we have to go in a disturb wetlands in order to have a water line feed the Sentara development. Kramer. There's nothing to sign off on right now. It's just a discussion item. Ricord: When it comes time, I just want you all to be thinking about the trade offs that are involved here. We're always mitigating the environment. Taranto: I'd like to make one point. The water line doesn't really have anything to do with that. The water line can go in the road right now and have no impact at all on the wetlands. The issue with the impact on the wetlands is the road and the overtopping of the road during storm events. That's as simple as I can put it. Ricord: Who pays for this? McNair. Different ways. The rate payers to the FCLVWD pay for that project, as do Stormwater utility fees and the road improvements would be funded with impact fees through our Street Oversizing Program. Grigg: Since we're not signing off on anything tonight, perhaps it would be good to have a presentation in the future that would show these environmental studies and the big picture items. Chair Ricord: I realize we're not signing off on it tonight. I just want you to know that I have a very high level of discomfort with this because I think we're reaching the wrong trade-offs. McNair. We will definitely come back to the board. Taranto: Yes, we're looking at about a 12-month window of opportunity to construct what has the least impact on the environmental characterization of that area. We'd like to have the first two miles of the water line built in early 2003 and the road and remaining one mile of water line to start construction late 2003 and finish in early 2004. We will get very specific with these as we get more information to go on. This is a thumbnail sketch right now. C. TRANSPORTATION MASTER PLAN UPDATE —Jackson Jackson stated that the City Plan update is nearing the point where it will go to Council with a presentation of its analysis on its first phase. That first phase is determining the size and the characteristic of the future of the community. That's what we (Transportation) use to go ahead and make our final recommendations, test the feasibility and sensitivities for some of the things that we're looking at. Jackson reviewed and solicited the Board's input on transportation characteristics that serve as the basis of the evaluation for the travel demand model. An outline of travel demand model scenarios that will be used to help define future city size and character was also included in the presentation. Upon conclusion of the presentation, the floor was open to discussion. Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 10 Board comments/auestions: Gould: In terms of the ... enhanced travel corridor.... I assume it will be focused on transit high level of service. Jackson: The key feature for me is that it is the close coordination of transit with the land uses so that the land uses are intense enough to support the high level of transit and that you can provide the transit to support those high level land uses. Otherwise you've got just a ... of congestion sitting there and nobody has done any good for anything. We've started fleshing that out and have come up with a pretty decent working definition that we're still kind of hammering out. Grigg: With the recent announcement of the hospital and all that growth and development down there, is that going to change things in our plans? Jackson: Probably not because a lot of the Crossroads sub -area land use analysis reflected a really high intensification of land uses around the 1-25/US 34 area and that was pretty much worn out by the 2025 forecast from both the State demographer, the MPO and City Plan economic forecasting team. It should be in there. Johnson: Just a couple of thoughts. When you talk about inter -regional transit, if you would at least put in parenthesis the word "Longmont" when you talk about Denver because the key for us is to connect to RTD and then we can spread through the whole system, even over to Boulder. Jackson: And in fact, our matrix has that statement almost verbatim in it. We heard that loud and clear last month. Johnson: Also, I was encouraged to see that you aren't leaving Matt Baker out of this and are giving him chances to expand his numerator. He's always looking for ways to do that. I would like very much for when that consideration is being done for Street Oversizing that this idea of the minimum trip distance being 1 mile, that be open to some more rational future number. A one -mile mean trip distance in an automobile doesn't make sense to me in terms of impacts when you're doing Street Oversizing. Jackson: A lot of the national and regional data we've been seeing suggest that trip lengths are certainly increasing. Chair Ricord: Do you anticipate that you'll have time to provide a preliminary digest of the characteristics matrix in our January packets? Jackson: Yes. We should be able to. Plummer. The other thing that we could report on next month will be the CAC's thoughts in terms of characteristics because we will have met with them two days prior to this meeting next month so we can give the board an update. Jackson and Plummer thanked the board for their time and said they would be back next month as an action item. d. TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROJECTS INTRO — T. Reiff Reiff distributed a hand-out on Pedestrian Safetv at Crosswalks. This is a new project that Transportation Planning has recently undertaken. So far, an interdisciplinary team has been created from multiple departments within the City to address this issue. There are six elements to the project which are: Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 1) Review of Existing City Plans 2) Review of Crash Data 3) Review Colorado and City Legislation 4) Role of Law Enforcement 5) Driver and Pedestrian Education/Outreach 6) Examine Characteristics of Safe Crosswalks/Intersections The end products will be: 1) Recommend Changes in City's Traffic Ordinances? 2) Identify "Hot Spots" and make recommendations 3) Create an Educational Manual 4) Law Enforcement Workshop? 5) Identify Partnerships and Potential Funding Sources Page 11 Grigg: it sounds like a great project and all the elements are good, but it seems to me that there is one element that could be added that would be really important. Because you create a citywide strategy to have the city buy into the concept of a "safe city' so that it becomes a public relations campaign that would be reinforced by the media, reinforced by the school and we'd be getting some change in the psychology of the city. Doing this could be a strategic element. Reiff. I know that there are a lot of national programs that attempt to do these types of efforts. That is something I can look into. Campus West Plannina Study, is the second project Reiff introduced to the Board. The Campus West Sub -Area Planning Study talked about the whole redevelopment of the Campus West Area. This project is looking at the very first phase implementing the street and sidewalk improvements that came out of the recommendations for the sub- area plan. We'll be looking at W. Elizabeth only from Shields to City Park improving the bike lane conditions, basically taking the curb on each north and south side and pushing it back about 3' or so to create a nice continuous site for a continuous bike lane. This is being funding by CMAQ funds we obtained from the federal government. Working with Pedestrian Plan funds, we're looking at doing some streetscape and sidewalk improvements to create a continuous sidewalk and if there are any funds left over, we'd like to do some landscaping. This is also in conjunction with an Engineering project that will be occurring at the same time which is new street reconstruction of that segment. It's a coordination of more than one ongoing project and trying to improve that section of roadway. Reiff asked the board how often they would like updates on these projects. It was agreed that he will come back on an as needed basis. Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 12 e. TRANSPORTATION CAPITAL FUNDING STRATEGY — Finance Committee Johnson reported that the committee met to discuss funding strategy and the new initiative W one is brought forward in the spring. The idea being that the initiative that ran in November doesn't need an organ transplant, ft needs some tweaks. The `tweaks" are that we should emphasize existing needs and perhaps downgrade some of the ideas about future capacity. In that regard, Harmony Road, which was going to be done by the General Fund, is not going to be done because as we all know, the GF is having some troubles. That would go right on top of the list. Perhaps we'd like to name 6 —10 intersections throughout town that would get immediate attention. I'd like to get a sense from the rest of you, but my sense was that people weren't really concerned with the length of time because people in Fort Collins showed they were willing to support natural areas for quite a long time period so that if we have a program that is reasonable... What do the rest of you think? Grigg: It makes sense; I just wonder how the word is going to get out on that about specks? Johnson: We just name them in the public relations campaign. Henderson: We also talked about flyers and brochures and that sort of thing too that we could maybe target some of the precincts that would be high return. Grigg: I could see if the Colorado Editorial Team could get a story out saying something like, "The City heard the message and they've responded and now here's the strategy of immediate needs, intersections and such." Johnson: That's what we're hoping. Kramer. The problem with that is you're getting back to Building Community Choices (BCC) and you're tying staff and the City's hands by naming speck things. Things and needs change. I thought that part of the thinking was to keep it a little more flexible. I do think there's merit in naming specific projects, but I also think if you take it too far you might as well extend BCC. Johnson: I hear you on that and maybe we could name a modest number of intersections, but not try to do too many because we can't anticipate too far in the future. Bachman: Maybe one of the things you want to be clear on is whether you want these things named in the ballot or just as part of your campaign information. Jakubauskas: The feedback I have is first of all, the 20-year horizon. A lot of people seemed to think that 10 years would be okay, but why does it have to be 20? Secondly, a lot of people just didn't feel that they were stakeholders. They looked at some of the projects like Mason and Timberline and the feeling was that it didn't affect them very much personally and made them unsure about putting money into it. There seems to be a pattern as far as the precincts that went strongly for R and others that didn't. Is there a way of finding out? Ricord. We were coloring in the precinct map just tonight as a matter of factl Johnson showed the map and explained the color codes. Johnson: The one that you hear the most about is the linkage of the tax sources. I've heard that come from both directions. Some of the business community didn't like it, but on the other hand, the open space "yes" people liked having them together and said they would campaign openly against it if it were separated. This particular thing may be more than just a tweak — maybe more like major surgery. The assignment I have for myself this spring if we go forward on this would be to put in the Sierra Club Cache and other places a little bit of the history of cycling in this community. How we started with lottery money going into the trails, how we began to stripe the streets in the early '90s and some about arterial street standards and I want to spend a few paragraphs so they all understand that we don't build anything without building bike lanes too and that's real Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 13 capital into the system. I think we can deal with that. I know too many people who would easily have passed this, but who voted against this because they didn't understand street standards. That word MUST get out. Grigg: I agree that heavier education is a must. Ricord. Maybe instead of calling it "bundling' because we're not really bundling projects together, we should say it's "linking" funding sources together. I think that education piece is really important. Thordarson: The City is doing some additional surveying, right? Bachman: Yes, that's right. The survey has been conducted, but the results haven't been released yet. We can share that with you when we get them. Johnson: The other thing that is helping us is the Downtown Strategic Plan is going forward. The downtown business people are being told by the consultant that Mason is a real key to their future and they're listening in a positive way. As Mason goes forward, it would be a good idea for business owners on Mason to host the business meetings instead of always having it in an obvious City building, which makes it look more City sponsored. Gould. I think it's time we also try to develop the point that not only does it serve downtown as a sustaining element, but for the rest of the whole corridor, as an entertainmenttretailing destination that would distinguish us from the emerging regional shopping centers. Johnson: We should go with that theme more, I like that. Bachman outlined the general timefreme as it relates to City Council and the spring ballot initiative. Johnson asked if the board would like to forward tonight's comments to the Council. There was a motion and a second to forward the key points of this discussion to City Council. Discussion: It was decided that it would be in the best interest of the board not to forward anything to City Council at this point. Henderson withdrew the motion. Bachman agreed to send the survey results to the board as soon as permissible. The Board's Finance Committee agreed to meet on January 8 at 6 p.m. and everyone was invited to attend if interested in this topic. 6. REPORTS a) BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Chair Ricord: Appointments to the Board. Johnson, Trantham, and Thordarson have successfully been reappointed to the board. New member Joe Dumais will be starting in January taking the place of Tom Kramer who is leaving the board after tonight's meeting. Transportation Board APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes December 18, 2002 Page 14 Thordarson: Education Outreach. As you may have already figured, we're not going to be able to do an outreach at the mall before Christmas. It turns out the booth was already reserved every weekend. I was wondering if the board would be interested in doing this in January instead. I was thinking either the 18"' or the 25'". b) STAFF REPORTS Bachman: ITEMS FOR NEXT AGENDA: • Mason Street Transportation Corridor Update - Reavis • Transportation Master Plan — Jackson Hensley. Parking Amnesty. The recent amnesty program was very successful. Parking User Survey. We surveyed about 500 people in the downtown corridor as part of the Downtown Strategic Plan and we'll provide those results at a later date. 7. OTHER BUSINESS 8. ADJOURN Chair Ricord adjourned the meeting at 9:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Cass, Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services