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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 12/17/2003REGULAR MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD December 17, 2003 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins 215 N. Mason Street Community Room FOR REFERENCE: CHAIR: Bruce Henderson VICE CHAIR: Heather Trantham STAFF LIAISON: Don Bachman ADMIN SUPPORT: Cynthia Cass BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Joe Dumais Neil Grigg Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Brad Miller Christophe Ricord Heather Trantham CITY STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: Don Bachman Cynthia Cass Tom Frazier Randy Hensley Mark Jackson Cam McNair Ron Phillips Marlys Sinner Garold Smith Timothy Wilder 1. CALL TO ORDER 898-4625 206-4255 224-6049 224-6058 ABSENT: Dan Gould Edward Jakubauskas Ray Moe Brent Thordarson GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE: Natalie Brown Toni Lueck Leigh Winfield Henderson called the meeting to order at 5:55 p.m. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 14 Transportation Board December 17, 2003 12. AGENDA REVIEW Chair Henderson reviewed the agenda. No changes were necessary. 13. PUBLIC COMMENT I Toni Lueck: One of the things going on with Dial -Ride (DAR) that is a concern to riders of DAR, is the privatization portion. There is a concern that this has to be monitored to maintain service quality. This is particularly important to having drivers receive some training and be consistent as far as seeing the same driver more than once. Many people with disabilities form a relationship with a driver that is a social arrangement as well as a perpetual thing and there is trust involved. There are proper ways in assisting someone with disabilities get from where they are to where they're going. This involves training. With privatization, there is a concern that these standards will not be met. There is also concern about how this will be monitored by staff. Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of people who ride DAR who aren't going to complain even if they have concerns. My name, by the way is Toni Lueck and I've been the Chair of the DAR Advisory Board for a number of years. We're a board for people who have complaints like this. We discuss some of the things as far as policy; at least give our take on things. Leigh Winfield: My name is Leigh Winfield and I've been using DAR since 1990, when we had Care -A -Van and then Shamrock and all that. I've got to say that I'm really impressed with DAR when you compare it to other cities. We've got one of the best paratransits anywhere. I'm pleased and proud to be a part of that. I would like to see us try and cut some more comers of course and one way that would possibly be is to try to include more people in fixed routes and that's sort of happening already so we'd have a slight reduction in paratransit usage and an increase in fixed route which is a good thing. Anything that any of us on the DAR committee can do to help more people to use more fixed routes, we'd be happy to do it. The other issue I'm concerned about is I want to encourage our City to be using whatever increase in funding comes from the increased fares be used for fixed route or paratransit. It needs to stay in public transportation. I certainly hope that will happen. I think the privatization is a good idea. It's far easier to drive a sedan around than a large DAR van. Natalie Brown: I'm Natalie Brown and I'm representing the Larimer Center for Mental Health. Many of the folks that I work with do not qualify for DAR services, however are reliant on other transit programs. We are definitely interested in paratransit issues. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17, 2003 Page 3 of 14 Toni Lueck: Another concern is that there is no transit service to major public services and that there is no bus service to Poudre Valley's Harmony Campus. In addition, if there are additional funds that do come in due to fare increases, we'd like to see those monies used to expand Transfort, to expand DAR, to possibly provide training for people to use Transfort efficiently, or to provide a bus out to Harmony Road. Get buses to places that people need them. Ricord thanked the public for being here and for speaking about their concerns. He expressed his appreciation that they took the time to come and share their perspective. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes of November 19, 2003 as presented Discussion: Johnson stated that on page 4, last paragraph, second line, where the dots are [meaning it was inaudible], the sentence there should read. `I think it's interesting the range of activities that the City takes outside of the GMA. " The question was called and the motion to approve the minutes, including Johnson's amendment, carried by a unanimous vote, 7-0. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None. 6. DISCUSSION ITEMS a. CONTRACTUAL DIAL -A -RIDE SERVICE UPDATE— Sinner, Smith & Frazier Ms. Sittner introduced herself to the Board and stated she would be giving the board a very brief overview and update of the privatization of 20% of the Dial -A -Ride (DAR) service. She explained that the Cost Savings Measure includes a General Fund Reduction of 5% and the package for TSA includes privatization of non-ADA ambulatory Paratransit trips. Referring to a map, Ms. Sittner explained that the part that will be contracted out will be the ambulatory rides for the people who live in the areas of yellow and green. DAR will still pick people up who use wheelchairs in those yellow and green areas because they have the lift equipment. She went over the comparison of costs between DAR and the contractor per trip and there will be an approximate annual savings of $88,500. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 14 Transportation Board December 17, 2003 The privatization process was outlined as follows: December 2003: Request for Proposals Advertised January 2004: RFPs Due and Selection committee will review proposals and interview February 2004: Contract establishing service levels and expectations and enter into a contract March 2004: Service Begins Sittner stated that the board has already heard from some passengers tonight on their concerns about this process. She explained that at one time DAR was contracted out to a private contractor and there were some quality of service issues. As a result, that is one of the main reasons why the City elected to bring the paratransit service in-house and perform it with our own employees. As you heard tonight, some of their service issues were that the contractor would not pick up the passengers or that the vehicles were not clean or safe or the drivers were not trained to have sensitivity towards the passengers. Sittner stated that all these issues have been addressed in the Scope of Service and are in the contract. There is some very extensive driver training in the Scope of Service that is very specific and includes sensitivity training. There are also very strict guidelines with regard to what the vehicles need to look like, the safety of the vehicle and the cleanliness of them as well. She stressed that staff has heard these concerns and strived to correct them within the scope and contract. Ms. Sinner pointed out that the board also heard from the public tonight about the bond that forms between passengers and drivers. It's true that there is a connection and one of the concerns was that the DAR drivers would be laid off. Sittner said that while it is anticipated that privatization will take 20% of the trips away, and it will reduce our staff, but we will be able to do that through attrition rather than do it through any kinds of lay offs. Board CommenftlOaestions: Ricord: Can you help me understand why it costs the City more than it would a private contractor? Sittner: For instance Shamrock Taxi provided the service before. Their benefits program is not the same as the City's nor are the wages the same. Since they operate sedans, they have lower operating costs as well. Ricord: In terms of concerns about the relationship with drivers, etc, can you help us understand how the process works with the driver expectations so that we can feel comfortable knowing that the needs of the users are being addressed? Sittner: Again, within our Scope of Service we get very specific about what we expect from the contractor. One of the things that we built into this contract, in order to collect payment for the trip, the driver must have a signature from the passenger. There won't be any payment for no shows which was a concern in the past. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17.2003 Page 5 of 14 Frazier added that the biggest difference is that our current staff has much more experience. And if they don't follow the requirements, they will be in default which means it goes back to the City. Chair Henderson: Is anybody from the DAR Advisory Board participating in the selection/review committee? Sittner: Yes, at this time, we do have a recommendation that one of the members of the DAR committee be on it. Chair Henderson: With regard to Service levels, they must be pretty thoroughly documented now that you have the RFP out. Would it be possible to get a copy of the Service level piece of that? Sinner: The full RFP including the Scope of service that spells that out is available on the City's web site. Chair Henderson: Are there some things the City could do to save money on paratransit? Frazier: Our difficulty is that the salary range is decided on by City Council and we have to pay it. We're higher than the private sector. The best way to save money in paratransit is to try to get as many people per hour on the vehicle as possible, but it's very difficult in paratransit because you have a mixture of individuals on the vehicle. You might have someone in a wheelchair that isn't quite ready when you arrive to pick them up, which takes more time and such. Dumais: Does the potential revenue from increased rates for bus rides stay in Transfort? Frazier: Yes. 1 7. ACTION ITEMS I a. DOWNTOWN STRATEGIC PLAN —Hensley Hensley stated that City staff members Timothy Wilder and Mark Jackson are present tonight to answer any questions as well. He stated that there is no formal presentation tonight, just an update on what's been done since last month. He said that staff is asking for a recommendation to Council about the Downtown Strategic Plan (DSP) specific to the transportation elements. This is going to Council on February 3. Wilder added that the board should keep in mind that this is still a working draft and there is still some more clean-up to do. Board Comments/Ouestions: Grigg: You're going to Council on the P to ask them to adopt this and what happens to the plan after adoption? Hensley: Adoption is not the word we're using and I'll let Timothy answer both of those questions. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17, 2003 Page 6 of 14 Wilder: I'll answer the second question because that will lead to the first question. This document is intended to provide an update to our Downtown Plan (DP) that's been a sub -area for the downtown area that was adopted in 1989. It's been a good document, however, when we started this process we knew that it was going to need to be updated. Our task was to find a specific issue that had come up between 1989 and now and try to address those issues, which we've done. So basically, the way it will work is we're going to go to Council to accept the recommendations of the DSP. It doesn't get adopted like a sub -area plan does. There will be a resolution of some kind to accept the recommendation and then we'll go through another process to update the Downtown Plan. We see that as more of a housekeeping task to update the DP. Some people may not see it as that and we'll be going through a similar process to update folks. Essentially we'd like to reiterate that it's going to contain the recommendations that are in this document and the transportation analysis section will be a stand alone section that is referenced in the DP. The recommendations that are in the framework section are going to be incorporated into the official DP. Some of the language may be shifted to make it jive with the terminology, but in essence the concept will be the same. Grigg: So the DP is a sub -area plan of City Plan and this is like a study guide to bring the DP up to the current level. Wilder: Yes, essentially that's it. So in the future, when someone asks for the DSP what we'll give them is the DP — this will happen in April or May or whenever Council adopts the DP. So then we don't have two separate documents making it confusing. Grigg: I noticed in the plan there are quite a few recommendations about Parking and Transit. However, I didn't see a separate recommendation for Traffic. Hensley: There are some things in there that we actually have in the Framework Plan referencing Traffic. The main Traffic recommendations are on page 33, 34, 37. Grigg: I was looking for a clear explanation of how we're going to use transportation as a vehicle to vitalize downtown. I think everything is there, but I would have to filter out a lot to find all the different elements. I don't know if it's worth pulling that out so we could be really clear about what these different transportation elements are and how they can help us vitalize downtown as a strategy. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17.2003 Page 7 of 14 Hensley: One of the main conclusions of the DP is that we cannot, because of constraints, do a lot of infrastructure improvements in the downtown area. So in order to handle traffic congestion, we've got to use alternative modes. We do that through recommendations in transit, ped and bike areas, implement things like the park once/ped first strategy, and there are a lot of recommendations in here about adequate public facilities and things that developers can do to assist with managing traffic congestion. Johnson: I think it's worth mentioning in a way that maybe would catch someone's eye like Neil's that if you just look at north/south movement and the way you have dealing with the couplet and the virtual arterial and sum up the numbers for 2003 versus 2025, it would pretty well be 50% more north/south movement into the downtown area which is very substantial for an area that is already pretty much maxed out. That might be something that you might mention that otherwise people wouldn't notice and think that there is very little you're doing by way of Traffic. That comes right out of page 147. Hensley: That's a good point Tim. Johnson: I think that as we get into 149-150, we're talking about APF and how we deal with those when we have development downtown and we talked about this briefly once before. On page 150, second to last paragraph, we talk about mitigation options; fees in lieu of what the developer would be paying because for instance they can't make College into 8 or 10 lanes and so where should that money go? It seems to me that this plan brings out some very vital things for the movement of people through the downtown area and one of those happen to be an integrated pedestrian network. That's going to take some capital to make that work. It seems that I would go there first. I would also be talking about sharing fees in lieu of with building the transit capacity on Mason Street before I'd be talking about things like bicycle showers. That I would just erase because we have some major capital things to move people in and get them to use the area and not talk about something that is secondary, such as the shower. Hensley: By way of explanation, we weren't talking about a full blown bike station for the public, we were talking more about what we did at this building here for example. We put in a bike room and added a shower. The County didn't do that when they built their new building and now they're coming to us asking where can we park our bicycles? We want something like what we did in this building to be something that developers consider when they put up new buildings downtown from the beginning. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17, 2003 Page 8 of 14 Ricord: On page 135, first paragraph it talks about significant uncertainty. I'm wondering if there are nexus laws that regulate these kinds of improvements with respect to development like there are with the street infrastructure for example. Hensley: It's my understanding that there are. We've discussed the fact that water mains downtown may not be big enough for some of the development that is planned. Representatives from Utilities did work through this with us. Ricord: The same question comes up again on page 30; equitable ways to finance the upgrade of sewer lines to support redevelopment as well as sustain existing development and there is a little bit of a difference there and I think that again, the mantra that growth needs to pay for its share of impact on the system is something that needs to be more out there. Also going up the page (30), they're talking about a 90% engineering threshold plan for submittal. Does that seem burdensome? Wilder: That's no longer in effect. Ricord: On page 26, 212 b, is that "in the river area" clearly delineated someplace else in the document? Wilder: It's clearly delineated in other documents. In this document you can see it on the framework plan. Ricord: It might help people like me, who look at things so broadly to make a reference to that so we can quickly go back to that document. I'm very pleased generally speaking to see such an emphasis on alternative modes as a viable solution to traffic congestion in this area. I really applaud the boldness of clearly stating that in this document and unfortunately there will probably be a little bit of heat regarding that but nevertheless I think we need to put this forward as something we all know is a congestion problem that we're not going to be able to build ourselves out of in this area of study. I appreciate that you did that and did it in a very elegant way. I certainly don't have any problems with recommending the plan. Johnson: Page 150, I was mentioning the mitigation of APF. I think the key point is that no strategies for mitigation are defined or stated in here and I think that we ought to even put in a paragraph talking about defining these strategies along the lines and paths that I was discussing as well as other ones that others may have too. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17.2003 Page 9 of 14 On page 30 of the framework you want to put in some of what I think are major or primary places where money should be spent. I'd rather have you focus on some of the things that come up in the plan that are new and important to make this plan work. On page 152, the Bike Map, add Sherwood running from Lee Martinez Park to the Lincoln Center. We talked to Mark about putting that on our Bike Plan for the City as well. It's a nice north/south route that is used. On page 160, one of the real key things here has to do with the integrated pedestrian network. This was carried out to a level that I hadn't imagined, but I'm real impressed by it and excited about it. Page 162, a suggestion I have is to take figure 423 and make it a whole page because it's hard to read. Secondly, there are a lot of tags on here that block out what you're trying to show. I would put little circles with numbers instead. Then on the side of the figure put what the number is. Let people see the map so the integrated network stands out at you. Wilder: This is one of the ones we're still working on. Page 165, the MTC comes up again. The business folks in the downtown are really concerned about how they can stay competitive with the new malls that are coming on line. They know we can't do much about College so they are looking at alternatives and I think they are open to it. So the MTC is important to those people downtown and the more I talk to them they are buying into that concept more and more. What they hated last year was that wall/partition. That really drove a lot of people away and it's taken some time to get people back to looking at how to make this transportation thing work downtown. Randy, I would also like to have you address the discussion about the $51M that was set aside for downtown parking — could you tell the board what you told me the other day about the source of funding. Heasley: We have a list of parking capacity which will be needed in the downtown area at some point in the future. Based on the projection of future development, square footage, and parking demand, we simply did the numbers where we took the number of spaces, multiplied it by the cost to build a space and then divided that up into a series of projects which we spread out into Mark's CIP list over a period of years. It does look pretty daunting, especially if we had to pay for it. The main thing that we were trying to get across in that list is that it will be something that the developers will pay for as they bring those things to the downtown area. One of the recommendations in the Plan is that we would partner with development as those needs occur, not so much from a funding point of Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17, 2003 Page 10 of 14 view, but from a management point of view. So if a building went up that needed some parking, they wouldn't just build their own little piece of parking. What we would prefer to see happen is something similar to what happens with the Street Oversizing Program where Matt Baker will aggregate several different developments together and build a whole stretch of road in an oversized fashion all at once. We would prefer to take those "in lieu of fees" we were talking about developing and aggregating them together, build a centralized structure on the periphery of the downtown core so we can implement the park once, pedestrian first philosophy, have developers pay for that and have us manage it as a public parking structure to meet both the developments' and the publics' needs. That's the concept behind that list of CIP projects. Johnson: (Listed some items he applauds such as the Park once, ped first concept and the center line parking.) Page 223, "fee in lieu of'. I guess I wasn't aware that there was no parking requirement for non-residential. Hensley explained it. On page 229, item 13: I don't understand it, maybe it needs some wordsmithing? Hensley: What this means is that we would like to eventually get parking to the place where it pays for itself so it is self-supporting. Right now it is heavily subsidized. Johnson: Maybe you should state something like that up front because it's lost in the paragraph right now. Dumais: Is there a way to turn the alleyways into sort of a circulation system with something almost like what they use at zoos to transport people around where you get on and get off. That works in nice weather, but not in colder weather. If you can make the alleys look better and get the pedestrian movement out toward the other roads, there's a set of parallel alleys that are right off the street that might allow uncongested movement as long as you don't run into a delivery truck or something. Hensley: I think the alleys would work fine for pedestrian circulation, but to try to make them dependable for any type of vehicular circulation would be very problematic. They truly are loading zones for many of the businesses downtown. Dumais: What about a bus shelter type of bike storage? If there was something covered that provides storage that looks nice ... Frazier: In other communities they have something like a box (inaudible)... Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17, 2003 Page 11 of 14 Dumais: I was thinking more along the lines of three sides and a roof with a way to hang bikes inside. Page 167, Fare Free Zone, you were talking about a funding source. To me it seems obvious that it be the DDA or DBA because they would be the main beneficiary of trying to increase activity in the commercial center. Page 168, Bus between CSU and Downtown. I don't know if the idea is to go only between transit centers or if there would be stops along the way or what. Hensley: There would certainly be some stops along the way, but the main idea is the frequency where that center of the day period, say between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., you want to give people the opportunity to get downtown to eat lunch and get back. That requires about a 5-minute headway in order to make it convenient enough so that people on campus feel comfortable enough getting downtown and back to their jobs. We don't want to have a whole lot of stops because then you slow down the frequency. Dumais: The campus is so spread out that for a lot of people, the Transit Center is going to take a 10 minute walk and if you have to have 20 minutes just in walking time, plus bus time, you get to the point where you use up your hour lunch quickly and they just can't go. Without a couple of stops around campus you would limit yourself as you move out from the Transit Center the number of people who could use the bus. Dumais: It's $85 a year to get a parking pass on campus. I wonder if there might be some shift to off-street parking in between the downtown because it's free. If people can get very easy transport, it might have an inadvertent impact on parking. It could become a bigger neighborhood issue at some point too. Page 171, on the freight survey, I didn't see a raw number of respondents. I might have missed it. I think that number should be in there. Hensley: I believe it was 20. It might be in the appendix, but I will check. Dumais: Page 184, it seemed to me, the part about: does this allow you to park as long as you need and is this close enough. I know this is skewed because you were doing on -street survey on College so the people that managed to find a spot there probably thought it was good, but those that didn't were the ones you didn't talk to that are maybe dissatisfied. I just felt there was a huge difference between what the customers that are using the parking thought and what the businesses thought. I was really concerned about that. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17. 2003 Page 12 of 14 Page 188, Parking Policy Preferences. I just thought maybe it might be worth it to work the fact that you're talking about businesses into some of the titles so they don't think you mean customers. Page 208, Parking Policies upside down. I mentioned last time that there is a bit of a marketing issue there too. There is a lot of protection afforded by being parked in a shelter and out of the weather. If you try to sell the advantages, then it's not quite as upside down as it looks. Hensley: The people we hear from that have a problem with the pricing policy are probably the majority of the employees working downtown that are making minimum wage and working a part-time schedule. I would like to mention it now while I'm thinking of it that I'd like to get on your January agenda to come talk to you about some of the new parking things going on. A lot of new things are going to happen in terms of parking starting in February and you all should be aware of them. Dumais: On page 212, I don't know how you could say it works well if the customers don't like it. It seems odd. Maybe the system worked technically well as it should, but the customers didn't like it or something like that. On studies like this, I'm always interested in the cost and what the bid was and all that. Is there a chance we could get that information or even have it as an appendix? Wilder: The DBA's portion was $275,000, the City's was $100,000 and the DDA was $10,000. The costs held to the bid. Henderson: I too commend staff on the excellent document. I like the approach to dealing with the problems in downtown and the solutions contained in here. With that do I hear a motion? Grigg made a motion for City Council to accept and approve the Downtown Strategic Plan. There was a second by Ricord The motion passed by a unanimous vote, 7-0. Hensley said he would be glad to provide the final document to anyone interested. Hard copy or via CD. Johnson suggested the board send a letter to Council capturing the comments heard tonight. Chair Henderson asked that everyone jot down their comments and email them to him and that some time can be set aside at the January meeting to go over a draft letter. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17. 2003 Page 13 of 14 b. TRANSPORTATION MASTER PLAN — COVER LETTER - Jackson Chair Henderson provided a revised draft letter with the revisions in blue font. The board discussed the letter at length and made changes until it was satisfactory. There was a motion to approve the revised letter with the changes discussed tonight There was a second and the motion carried by a unanimous vote, 7 - 0. 8. REPORTS a. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Dumais: Trucks/N. Lemay. A lot of trucks seem to be missing the detour on N. Lemay lately and have been going all the way up to Country Club Road. They are supposed to be making a left turn on Lincoln and they're missing that. I wonder if the signage needs to be bigger or done differently so they see it, because obviously they're missing it. Could someone check into that? Miller: Good -Bye. I just want to say thank you and good-bye. This is my last meeting. After serving for 5 '/2 years, I decided not to renew my term. It's been a pleasure being on the board and working with all of you. Grigg:: Editorial. In the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal Howard Bean got taken to task because he was a bike path guy. The editorial said that he won't get excited about the capture of Osama Bin Laden but he gets excited about bike paths, so they were running down bike path people. Johnson: Albertson's. I was in Albertson's on one of those really cold days and she was complaining to the clerk that she couldn't find a parking place and had to drive around the lot for half an hour and it baffled me because the lot was two- thirds empty. The problem was there wasn't a spot right next to the store. Then she looked back at me with my bike helmet on and she said, "I suppose you can't identify with this." Henderson: New Members. City Council approved two new members. We're losing not only Brad, but Edward. We're gaining Gary Thomas and Claudia Eberspacher. They will start with us in January. b. STAFF REPORTS Jackson: RFPs Out. The Request for Proposals for the next phase of the Truck Mobility Study - Non -Route Based Strategies are due Friday. We'll be doing consultant selection in January. Frazier: Board Sunnort Needed. We'll have a request for Transportation Board support shortly for federal grants. One is to finish the CSU Transit Center and the other is for Job Access. Bachman: Next Agenda: Parking Strategies and the Downtown Strategic Plan letter. Approved Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board December 17.2003 9. OTHER BUSINESS None. 10. ADJOURN Chair Henderson adjourned the meeting at 8:37 p.m. Respectfully submitted, 40�� Cynthia Cass Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services Page 14 of 14