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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 08/18/2004REGULAR MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD August 18, 2004 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins -Municipal Building Community Room 215 N. Mason Street FOR CHAIR: Bruce Henderson 898-4625 VICE CHAIR: Heather Trantham 206-4255 STAFF LIAISON: Don Bachman 224-6049 ADMIN SUPPORT: Cynthia Cass 224-6058 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Dan Gould Tim Johnson Ray Moe Brent Thordarson Christophe Ricord Heather Trantham CITY STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: Don Bachman Cynthia Cass Craig Foreman Tom Frazier Marty Heffernan Mark Jackson Cam McNair Kathleen Reavis ABSENT: Claudia Eberspacher Neil Grigg Bruce Henderson Gary Thomas GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE: Roger Sherman Matt Delich 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Vice Chair Trantham at 5:57 p.m. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 2. AGENDA REVIEW No changes were made to the agenda as presented. Page 2 of 10 13. PUBLIC COMMENT Vice -Chair Trantham stated that she prepared some public comment that she would like to deliver to the board: This is regarding the issue of Spring Canyon Park. I have some hand-outs (distributed). I'm taking this opportunity to address the board as a member of the public because of my involvement with the design of the park. It's pretty close to my home and I know it's going to be a facility that I use. It's my hope that the park is designed to reflect the needs of the entire community because it's a community park for everyone. There seems to be a small group in the community that's very vocal and want the park designed just for them. I don't think that's fair or right and to that end, I have compiled some statistics. On the hand-out, the front page is a graphic that I'll talk about in a minute. The second page is an email that I gave to both Craig and Marty. The third page is the data that I'm going to talk about. This data is from the US Census Bureau and every year they publish a statistical abstract and I was just really curious as to what kind of involvement and participation people have in the different sports that they do. So the latest data they have on sports participation is from 2001, so that's what this data is. The list is very long, and rugby and lacrosse are not on the list interestingly enough because I understand those sports are growing. I chose out of that list, the things that I thought were things that people would be doing in the park. I'm sure it's not inclusive of everything but there's no statistics on things such as picnicking or bird watching. These are things that are recognized nationally at least as being recreational pastimes. If you look at that top table, these by the way have also been adjusted for the age demographics of Fort Collins because statistically we are a younger community than the United States as a whole. I have taken that into account and if you look at that first line — baseball and in the column, "all persons" that means that 5.7% of the American public enjoy baseball as a recreational pastime. Then those statistics are broken out in to different age groups from there. The second thing I did with this data is I classified it as either passive or active and I did it two different ways, but I'm going to talk about the table at the very bottom. What I considered "active" were things that needed a facility to do them in such as a tennis court to play tennis or a roller hockey rink to play roller hockey. Things that are more passive are things that you can kind of just go out and do like ride your bike or go for a jog. I split that list into those two categories and by looking at the bottom table, you can see that under the column "all persons" a little over 30% of the population enjoy doing sports or more programmed types of activities and just over 70% of the population like to do more passive forms of recreation. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 3 of 10 If you look at the graphic on the front, this was made from that table so you can see, broken out into different age groups, are the different numbers of people who are involved in active versus passive type sports. The only age group where participation in active type sports exceeds passive is in the 7-11 year olds and that is by less than 1%. So I think you can say that statistically those numbers are probably equal. All other age groups enjoy more passive pastimes. What's important to me to get across with this graph is just the fact that this is a community park and it should be designed to represent the needs of the community and this, to me, shows the needs of the community. One other thing about the statistics, if you look at that bottom table again, and you look under the row "active" and you combine the numbers for 7- 11 year olds and 12-17 year olds, you get approximately 15%. So approximately 15% of 7- 17 year olds are involved in more active forms of recreation. You might think that means 85% of kids are not involved. I've heard the comment made that, "Well kids are all in sports and that's just the way kids recreate these days." That's just not true. The numbers do not show that. And you might say that 15% is too low because we live in Colorado and we're all very athletic and soccer is very popular and soccer starts well below the age of seven so maybe this statistic is 201/6 or 25% and even if it is, that means that our community park, whose focus has been on youth recreation needs to be designed for 75% of the kids who aren't involved in organized sports. With regard to transportation, I think that it's a pretty easy conclusion to make that if you build something that has a lot more facilities and is sponsoring a lot more games and tournaments and that sort of thing, you are going to have more traffic. I think that the infrastructure surrounding this park is not appropriate for a big increase, the slug -flow type of traffic where everyone comes at one time and leaves at one time. We have Horsetooth between Shields and Taft which is completely inadequate and that is supposed to be the gateway, the main road to get to the park. Taft, between Harmony and Horsetooth is an inadequate two-lane road, and although I understand that is going to be redesigned soon and then Overland Trail is also inadequate. For me I think it's irresponsible to design something that is literally in the comer of the city and ask people to drive there. We don't have a lot of growth around this area of the city. It's not the southeast or the northeast. To me it's a more unique site and it blends with the foothills, is adjacent to Pine Ridge Open Space and I think that the design of the park should reflect that. The second thing about transportation is parking. The more active sorts of things you have going on in the park, the more parking you're going to need. Personally, I find parking to be a big waste of beautiful land and money when it's not used all the time. If you're designing all these extra parking spaces for maybe three days a week where you have four hours of softball going on, then we're all paying for all the infrastructure and subsequent maintenance for parking that's used 12 hours a week. I think that we need to be more responsible in making better decisions about things like that. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 4 of 10 The final thing is that the mission statement of this board is to reduce VMT in the city. I think if we're looking to support or not support, you, as a board, need to be responsible in honoring the mission statement that we've all agreed upon. I think by saying you want more passive sorts of activities in the park is a way of supporting reducing the VMTs in the city. If anybody has any questions about the statistics, they're all on-line. Thank you. 14. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (JULY 2004) 1 There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes of July 21, 2004 as presented Discussion: None The question was called and the motion carried by a unanimous vote, 6-0. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT Not present. 6. DISCUSSION ITEMS a. SPRING CANYON PARK — C Foreman Foreman, Manager of Park Planning and Development introduced himself. Also present for this item were Marty Heffernan, Director of Cultural, Library and Recreation Services (CLRS), Roger Sherman from BHA Design and Matt Delich. Foreman described the logistics and what is known about the park's design at this point. Mr. Sherman took the floor and talked about the transportation aspects of the proposed park including parking issues and neighborhood concerns. Board Comments/Ouestions: Johnson: One comment off the top is that as a board, we don't like off -sets because of the hazard it presents, especially when you have a situation with a lot of children coming on bicycles. Off -sets, when we see them, I like to encourage the board to just automatically reject it. The second point I would like to raise is that you mentioned when the voter's funded it, they expected a community park with a ball field. Will the ball fields as you presently have them be lighted? Foreman: We're still working through the lighting issue; still getting information in. Johnson: But I think that legally, since the Choices '95 with the land purchase, I don't think there's any legal obligation to build it as a clone of the other parks that we have, is there? Heffernan: No Tim, there's not an obligation to have lights, nor an obligation to make this park look like other parks. What there is, is an obligation to include a new sports complex as part of this plan. We need to meet that obligation but there's nothing that says it has to be lit. We've heard from a lot of citizen's groups that they like the active sports and that they feel that we really need to meet that obligation and want a lot of ball fields and a lot of APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 5 of 10 soccer fields. These schematics that are in front of you today actually represent a varying compromise. It was written with regard to that. Some people would like us have a Rolland Moore style park here and others do not. Johnson: A youth sports complex these days comprises a lot of different elements and I think that one of the things that was very interesting to me with regard to what Heather brought up was that the number of people who participate at all age levels in active sports such as baseball versus other kinds of sports so I think that it would be included in such a definition, if you're focused on other sports entirely and didn't have baseball I think you could still be within what the voter's asked for. Especially when you look at 2/3 or'/< of the kids and then the adults would probably be a greater percentage would be participating in other kinds of things. To dedicate something that's new and novel and would fit the population rather than to be looking at that "clonal" function. I think to step away from it and shift the paradigm is something that as a community, I would strongly encourage that we need to do that. Moe: Are you done with the presentation? Are we into discussion now? Foreman: Yes. Moe: Why are you here? Why is this group here and why are we reviewing this? Sherman: We were asked to be here. Trantham: At the last meeting, we just thought that since the design was occurring and it is happening rather quickly, that there are transportation issues involved with the design of the park. It is a big piece of land and as a board we should be involved in giving any advice or at least hearing what is going on with the transportation of this park. Moe: I'm just trying to recall ever having done any like this before; reviewing a project of this nature, either private or city. We don't look at development proposals. It's not within our purview. Johnson: I think the impact element on Horsetooth is a development issue for us and the parking issues are so the movement of cars in the SW and the design of the park can change that or minimize that. Moe: I'd say you have a lot more traffic going in and out of the Lifestyle Center and we didn't look at that. Trantham: I thought we did look at that. Johnson: We did have that as one of our items. We reviewed it and it was a rush to the board time wise. Ricord: The other thing is that this is a publicly funded project and it is supposedly a voter approved project. The transportation impacts to me do seem substantial. I'm also concerned about safety issues, particularly modes other than automobiles; particularly pedestrian and bicycle types of movements especially on Horsetooth are going to be of concern particularly during those slow, slug function type times when you have a lot of traffic egression from the facility. Another comment is that this was approved in 1989, which is 15 years ago. I think the priorities and the APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 6 of 10 composition of this community have changed significantly since then. I don't think it's inappropriate for Council to consider whether or not this issue needs to be revisited with a vote because it's clear that although you may have some special interest type groups coming to you wanting full blown facilities, I think a lot, if not the majority, of the people in this community have a lot of value on more of a transitional kind of function for an area like this than the one that's proposed. I think that you need to be much, much more flexible in how you look at the design of this from a variety of concerns and I think to say that this is a compromise is really the tip of the ice berg when you get into some more rigorous types of traffic studies. I hope you're not painting yourselves into a comer by being adamant about the function of the facility, strictly as a function of the voter language 15 years ago. Moe: What is the LOS to this site? Are we failing? Is that your finding? Delich: The traffic study has not even begun yet. We don't have a plan yet. I can tell you that I've done traffic studies in the area earlier regarding the improvements to Taft Hill from Horsetooth to Drake. Operationally, no, it's not failing and won't fail with this type of park. Moe: It that because it operates typically at off-peak periods or what? Delich: There's access capacity plus the fact that a lot of the traffic typically is not during the peak hours. Moe: So when you do your traffic study, will you be looking at bicycle connects and some pedestrian connections for safety and how to get from the off - site onto the site, etc.? Delich: The traffic study will be done in accordance with the guidelines of ....(inaudible) and we'll look at motor vehicle .... (inaudible) Johnson: Will access from the east side or the north side be available from the neighborhoods other than coming from the two walk-in/bicycle-in sites from the north? Foreman: Yes, there's Spring Creek Trail which feeds into Quail Hollow. There's no access out the back, but there is a connection for the Silver Oaks folks. Trantham: I've heard some neighbors complain about drag racing on Overland Trail as it is now. How do you propose to minimize that if you extend that road in an area that's less populated? Foreman: Yes, I got that email and I've forwarded it on to Transportation people to see if we can do some traffic calming type things. We also hire Anlance, they're a security company. They'll take care of certain sections of the trail so at least during the summer it will get people quieted down for that nighttime drag racing or cutting cookies in the park. We've used them very successfully. We use them at Fossil Creek Community Park and they're great to have. Trantham: I would recommend when that road or any of the other roads are designed in the park be designed to have pretty substantial speed bumps. The kind that you have to really go 10 mph because the speed bump that's at the end of Quail Hollow on Overland Trail isn't sufficient. You can take it at 60 mph because I've seen people do it. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 7 of 10 Gould: What is the strategy to size parking, for example, softball? At Martinez Park, in terms of traffic coming and going to/from games it gets pretty wild there. They get kind of anxious where it threatens bicyclists and pedestrians in that area. Foreman: Martinez was developed in the 70's and 80's and things are different now. Sherman: The number is 75 spaces per soccer field. That does allow for the game that's going on as well as the traffic that arrives partway through that game. There are some empty spaces at times, but the other comment we've heard is that people are worried that we're not going to provide enough and they'll end up parking in the neighborhoods. Gould: So those design standards are continually moving upward it sounds like. Sherman: It varies for adult and youth soccer. Adults tend to drive themselves. Thordarson: So is this the preferred concept? Foreman: No, not at all. We've got about five plans out right now. I'm sure we have a couple more generations to work through yet. 7hordarson: Are you leaning towards the open spaces concept? Foreman: We want to create a canyon effect; bring in some dirt and make canyon walls and such. We want to have people enjoy just being in the park, walking around the park rather than like at Rolland Moore where it's pretty benign just to go out there and have a good time. Most don't go there unless there's a game going on. Thordarson: Will there be any equestrian activity allowed in the park? Foreman: It's difficult on turf, but we know people come out of here sometimes on horseback. We'd like to create a false ridge here (referring to map) and leave this in a trail that the horses could come out and use. The big walkingtrunning path will be 12-feet wide with gravel. You could put a horse out there if you know how to handle a horse around people. Thordarson: What about roundabouts? Foreman: We're talking about all kinds of concepts. No reason why we can't add that to the hopper. This is the kind of thing that I don't know anything about and I leave to the traffic experts. Delich: By City code, at arterial/arterial intersections, the traffic impact study transition really has to analyze a roundabout - so yes we have to look at it. We have to look at it as a device to control traffic, as well looking at lights and signs too. Johnson: Brent, are you thinking of one at Horsetooth and Platte? Thordarson: Yes. And I was wondering if the ped and bike traffic wouldn't be able to come into the park a different way altogether to minimize safety hazards of mixing them with cars at a roundabout. Sherman: Sure. We can look into getting them into the park a different way. Delich: It's important to note that at Platte and Horsetooth that it's not likely that a roundabout would help operationally because the traffic that is occurring there ... The volumes are just not going to be major arterial type volumes on that leg of Horsetooth. Keep in mind that this is my off -handed opinion and I have not done the work yet. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 8 of 10 Johnson: Just watching Edora coming in from Stuart and there are pulses of activity due to events. During those pulses I can see that a roundabout would make that flow smoother. Mordarson: I think it would help because people leaving the park would be wanting to turn left. A stop sign would cause more delay where a roundabout would function really nicely there. Vice Chair Trantham thanked staff for the update. b. CSU TRANSIT CENTER UPDATE — T. Frazier Frazier stated that the visuals he intended for tonight's presentation were not available. He stated that staff is working to put themselves in a position to do final design on the interior of the building. The original intent was to show the board the internal layouts and what the elevations of the building would look like. Unfortunately, there was a change at CSU and they are debating how they want the elevation to look on the outside of the building. Frazier explained that when this project was first put on the radar scope back in the mid `90's, the idea was to utilize the area outside of Lory Student Center. Develop a transit center outside and one inside; a facility similar to what we have across the street from here — the Downtown Transit Center. In conjunction with that, the City and the University went into a partnership which said the land would be leased to the City for a certain period and the value of that lease will be used for the local match and the City was to go out and raise the Federal funds. Since 1997, staff has been doing that. They've been putting in for Federal funds in just about any program that we're eligible. Where we are today is the total Federal dollars that we'd hoped to generate for this project is a little over $9.2M. For that amount, we've built the outside transfer area with the buses and the shuttles from the apartments and exchange area, did some improvements in the parking area, and a lot of improvements in the landscaping. The second phase is doing the building interior. We're anticipating the project to be $9.2M and the second phase will run a little over $6M. In order to build the project, we're currently short on Federal dollars. We're at about $4.1M now. We've hired a firm from Denver to do the final design and they are in the midst of doing that right now. We hope to get answers from the University before the end of the month and get the direction to start on final design next month. Hopefully we'll be notified somewhere between November and February on our Federal dollars. If we are notified in that timeframe, then we can bid the project next spring and award a contract for construction beginning in May 2005 and to be completed in June 2006. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 9 of 10 Frazier stated that we're going to add about 14,000 sq feet to the Lory Student Center. The idea behind the transit center is to create a new fagade that is going to tell all the students, faculty and public that comes to the north side of the Student Center that this is the main entrance. Right now there are mixed messages about where to go and how to get to the bookstore and such. One of the big components of this design is to set up so it's a large welcoming opening where people can tell immediately where they need to go. There are four designs right now that we're looking at and they're working on a fifth. That's the scope and schedule of the project in a nutshell. 7. ACTION ITEMS 1►la�l�] 19. REPORTS a. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Thordarson: Slurry Seal. The City's been doing some slurry sealing in our neighborhood and my comment is that it seems to be going really well and it's well coordinated. Johnson: Article. I asked that a copy of an article having to do with hazardous delivery that appeared in the Fort Collins Weekly in June be placed in the next Board packets. At some point I would be interested in learning how we're set up to handle a hazardous spill, especially in light of all the trains going through town. Port of Entry Question. I guess this is more for Mark: Is it true that "Fort Collins is well above all other ports of entry, the number of trucks that bypass the weigh station. In October 2003, 44% of all trucks required to be monitored in the port of entry would legally cruise through the check point without stopping." Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but they're saying trucks are "bypassing" the weigh station. Do you suppose they meant "Pre -pass?" Jackson: Yes, they meant due to the pre -pass device. They don't have to stop. Johnson: You might want to get back with the fellow that wrote the article to clarify that. Gould: W. Elizabeth Project. My hair stylist has a shop over there and both times during the project that I was there, she seemed very positive and not put out or frustrated, which really amazed me because she's right in the heart of the project. You guys are doing a really great job of working with the business owners. She discussed with me the trade-off and obviously had the big picture of the project. Great education on staff part. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board August 18, 2004 Page 10 of 10 b. STAFF REPORTS Jackson: Tom Reiff has accepted another position with Greenwood Village, so we're looking for a replacement for him. CD for Tim. Kathleen got your message Tim and sent this CD for me to give you. Non -Route Based Strategies. There was a really bad article written recently that caused a lot of fall -out. Frazier: CSU Agreement - Shuttle. We've reached agreement with CSU to provide shuttles to and from football games this year. The buses will leave from the DTC and the University Park Holiday Inn. Hydrogen Fuel Station. We've broken ground! McNair: Spring Canyon Park. We're beginning the design on Taft Hill near Harmony and have been interviewing consultants. There are some right-of-way issues to deal with. Bachman: BOB Update: Here are the latest comments we've received from the BOB presentations. (Distributed a hand-out) Next Agenda: ■ Street Oversizing Issues - with Matt Baker ■ Timberline — Drake to Prospect Update 10. OTHER BUSINESS None. 11. ADJOURN Vice Chair Trantham adjourned the meeting at approximately 7:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, 406% � Cynthia Cass Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services