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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 09/15/2004REGULAR MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD September 15, 2004 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins -Municipal Building Community Room 215 N. Mason Street FOR REFERENCE: 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 Neil Grigg Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Ray Moe Brent Thordarson Christophe Ricord Gary Thomas Heather Trantham CITY STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: David Averill Don Bachman Matt Baker Tom Frazier Mark Jackson Cam McNair Ron Phillips Pete Wray ABSENT: Claudia Eberspacher GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE: Bob Altrinol — Interwest Dick Dunn Christan Thomas, CSU Student 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chair Henderson at 6 p.m. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 14 Transportation Board September 15, 2004 2. AGENDA REVIEW No changes were made to the agenda as presented. 13. PUBLIC COMMENT I Thomas: I'm a student at CSU and we are Darticinatina in a marketine research project that ... (inaudible), regarding transportation in Fort Collins and if there are issues, what is the problem. So I'm here to research what the problem definition could be. Chair Henderson: If you'd like, we can arrange to have minutes of the board meetings sent to you. Bachman: We could also get you a copy of the Transportation Master Plan. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (AUGUST 2004) There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes of August 18, 2004 as presented Discussion: None. The question was called and the motion carried by a unanimous vote, 9-0. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT Not present. 6. DISCUSSION/IMFORMATIONAL ITEMS a. TIMBERLINE WIDENING PROJECT — M. Baker Baker stated that the engineering interim design effort is at 50% completion. This means that an alignment is pretty much decided on both horizontally and vertically with the exception of some minor tweaking to get it to fit exactly right. The project is Timberline from Drake to Prospect, a six -lane arterial on the Master Street Plan. The impetus for the project is the development of Sidehill that's going on now and another development parcel owned by St. Charles Investment on the other side of the road. Normally they would build the street frontage in conjunction with the normal Street Oversizing Program, but in this case, there were some Adequate Public Facilities (APF) ordinances -- some issues with the capacity of the intersection at Prospect and Timberline. The developments were not allowed to build until those capacity issues were taken care of. They felt their best interest was to develop and they put up an additional $2.3M to add capacity to the Prospect/Timberline intersection to bring it up to a Level of Service (LOS) D, which is what our APF ordinance states. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 3 of 14 The interim design is of necessity a compromise. For the portion of the project that does not front the two properties under development, plus the intersection at Prospect, the project cannot be built to full standards with the funding available. Only enough right-of- way may be acquired and improvements made to expand the roadway sufficiently to provide four lanes and remove the APF restrictions at the intersection. Additional improvements to meet full standards would largely be the responsibility of the City as they will address existing deficiencies. If the interim improvements are built as envisioned, once the incremental funding is available to complete the project, it would require a follow up project in the same location with the accompanying additional disruption. Additional funding of $3.1M for the full and complete 4-lane improvement, including constructing the Prospect intersection to full standards, is included as a candidate for funding in the proposed sales tax renewal, also known as Building on Basics (BOB). If the measure is successful in April 2005 and includes this project, we will have money programmed for the full and complete improvements before construction of the interim project begins. If the BOB measure passes it will be important to conduct the construction of the full and complete 4-lane improvements rather than allow the interim widening to be built, then following it with another construction project on the same stretch of road. The proposal is to conduct the design of the full and complete 4-lane widening of Timberline concurrent with the interim design work. To wait to initiate the ultimate design until after the election would delay the entire project 9 —12 months. If the design is already complete when the BOB vote occurs, the original schedule can be retained. Baker went over the design in detail with the board. Board Comments/Ouestions: Johnson: Did you look at the possibility of a roundabout and if you did, why wouldn't it work? Baker: We had our traffic engineer do a roundabout study and I think his conclusion was that a roundabout would be marginally more effective than this and would increase the cost significantly, especially for a three -lane. Johnson: So it wasn't that the roundabout wasn't considered because of the geometry or the space available? Baker: No. It was cost vs. benefit. All those things that came up when the traffic engineer did a roundabout study. Chair Henderson: What about the bicycle underpass that's on the southwest side, will that just be set back ... Baker: We'll go through ... improvements. We will be doing concurrent designs, but right now we're funded through the development for an interim roadway improvement. That would include the full improvements up Drake along the frontage of the improvements and as we get past the frontage, we would narrow it down to strictly an asphalt section and finish APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 4 of 14 it on one side and build our permanent improvements and where a median would go, we'd just pave in asphalt so we'd get additional capacity. In looking at the interim design, we're thinking about holding the east side of the roadway and building the eastside at its permanent location and then come out with pavement to the point where the median would go. That obviously would be removed to put the median in and move the lanes over, but that would allow the eastside to remain in its permanent location. Johnson: On page 3, under Natural Resources, I think I would take out the words "rodent infestation" in that second paragraph. 7. ACTION ITEMS a. STREET OVERSIZING FEE —M. Baker Board Member Thomas declared that he might have a possible conflict of interest on this item as he is involved with the development of a building that is going to change its use. He stated he hasn't researched whether or not that puts him in a conflict, but in order to play it safe, Thomas opted to recuse himself from this item. Baker stated that he has two routine revisions to the Street Oversizing Capital Expansion Fee Program. The purpose of the CEF charged to new development is to recover the capital costs of providing essential City services to new residents. These include fees for parks, library, police, general government and transportation. A Power Point presentation was given to explain the two revisions in detail. The first revision is an update required to recover costs for the East Mulberry Sub Area Plan recently adopted by City Council. That Plan added a significant network of streets into that area. The second revision is a look at the changes to the Master Street Plan included with the adoption of the Transportation Master Plan. There were several street segments that were reclassified after the extensive computer modeling. However, these changes do not result in any increase to the Street Oversizing Fees. Board Comments/Ouestions: Moe: You mentioned the Country Club area. That's not in the City limits is it? Baker: It's in the Growth Management Area. Moe: So the SOF includes roads that are in the GMA? Baker: Yes. As property annexes and zones and development happen, those properties are being added into the City on a continual basis. When the City approved the E. Mulberry Corridor Plan, they didn't have this information. It seems like when a plan is approved, full disclosure would require that the price tag is also on the table. If I was going to build a big business and look at those fees, I might be upset that the Plan had been approved and all of a sudden I'm surprised with this big fee increase. I can't think of any action because planning precedes what we're doing now, but it's just... Grigg: APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 5 of 14 Baker: I did provide planning level estimates for the E. Mulberry Plan and they did calculate the additional cost of the infrastructure and what it would entail. Those were just gross planning figures that showed an increase and didn't do the calculation down to the effect it would have on the SOF. Grigg: I don't know that you could actually do that in the planning phase. It's just an observation. Ricord: Regarding revenues, how does this proposed increase compare with say a 1% construction excise tax that failed on the '02 ballot? Baker: This increase is 10.2%. It doesn't come anywhere near the generated revenue of the construction excise tax. Ricord: So this is just a little increment of the kind of increase that we would see with the excise tax of 1%? Baker: This is a 10.2% increase in the SOF which is currently at $2,000 so the net impact is $200 a dwelling unit compared to $1,000 for the excise tax. Ricord: That leads to my next question. Are we asking for enough with this increase? Baker: We're asking all we can legally charge development. Ricord: So you're at the legal limit with this kind of mechanism? Baker: Yes, I believe so. I would like to charge development every penny that they need to pay, but not a penny more. I think our program is probably not the highest along the Front Range, but I think it's accurate. Ricord: In terms of public input, are we first on this list? Baker: Yes. Trantham: Does Loveland use a different formula or mechanism to calculate their SOF? Baker: They do. It's actually very similar, but they use a slightly different mechanism. It's very similar in the types of costs it tries to capture. Trantham: I'm not sure about this, but I didn't think their street standards are as costly as ours. Baker: I don't know how true that is. Trantham: I don't know what their standards look like. I know what the Latimer County Urban Growth Area standards look like. Baker: I can give you my opinion if you'd like. They think a small town feel means that you can get from point A to point B in a very short time, so they like to build lots of roads. We think a small town feel in Fort Collins is small roads with nice landscaping and it's a pleasant experience for a drive and visually you have barriers and you don't have a lot of sprawl. It's a difference in philosophies. I think they have expensive roads too. Johnson: With regard to the presentation, when you give this to the public and before the Council, I would really emphasize that the basis of this fee is the trip generation. It's something that kind of gets lost, but is so important for people to know. That there is fairness and equity built into the process. Baker: Thank you, I appreciate that comment. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 6 of 14 Johnson: The second thing is, with regard to comparative costs between cities, you have a cost for northern Colorado cities, but really you don't have peer cities there. Loveland is the only place close. You can't really compare Milliken and Johnstown to Fort Collins. I think you ought to have a table that has some other peer cities in Colorado. About six months ago, you were before us and we had two parts to this SOF. This is the minor part that deals with E. Mulberry Sub Area Plan. The other part, the intersection analysis, is that dropped for the time being? Baker: For the time being. We didn't get clear direction from Council as to bringing that forward or not. Johnson: That's what I was trying to gather. Baker: I think at this point, rather than ignoring the routine changes, the E. Mulberry Plan and that kind of stuff, I think we want to go ahead go forward with this revision so we aren't losing revenue over the next year or so. We'll look again at that proposal at some point. Johnson: Other than intersections for the future are there other items that we aren't calculating in the whole cost of the city transportation network, like for instance CSU land; streets that go by CSU since the State doesn't contribute are those a part of the numerator or are they still not there? Baker: There are certain lands which are exempt from SOFs and are exempt from SO reimbursements that are not included in the calculation. Those would include CSU lands, very minorly federal lands, Poudre School District properties and natural areas. Johnson: Again, I think that when you present this, you may have the information so that people will see that. With regard to natural areas, you might want to note that their extension tax does contribute. Baker: Yes and we also have an Intergovernmental with Poudre School District that they would take care of their transportation impacts and pay for it in full, so there are other mechanisms for street construction. Johnson: So you might have a side sheet that just deals with things like that so people can grasp who is a player and who is not a player in the system as we go forward. Gould: A related question is what's the category status of large churches, religious structures? Baker: If they have traffic, they have impacts and if they have impacts, they get calculated. Previously we had five categories and churches were kind of shoehorned into "office" so they paid kind of a high rate, but as we went to a change in the methodology of the SOF Program a few years ago, we expanded our categories to actually calculate based on trip generation. Since churches have a lot of trips at off-peak hours and weekends, their trip generations are rather low. Thordarson: Are you seeing much of an impact from inflation in the cost of construction materials? APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 7 of 14 Baker: We've been wrestling with that. Last year we had a 1.7% inflation adjustment which was rather miniscule because our costs showed a 1.7% escalation in the projects we do. This year, we're showing in our costs about a 3 %z % increase in construction costs. A lot of that is basically due to fuel prices, and material increases. We've also seen in our work that I do around the City, a decrease in some of the labor prices which kind of offsets that. Thordarson: Do you have a graphic that shows a comparative level of the commercial impact fees? It might be kind of nice to include that in the presentation. Baker: Okay. Grigg: Do we have any studies where like the Chamber of Commerce has weighed in on the impact on job creation of our impact fees for commercial/industrial categories? Baker: I'm not aware of any economic development studies that impact fees have. Grigg: Has the Council done any studies about whether we tend to attract new jobs with our level of impact fees and general growth management strategies or whether we repel jobs with it? I just haven't kept up with it. Moe: In answer to that question, I know that in Loveland... to recognize the value of the sales tax from retail and the high cost, they have allowed some wavering of that — recognizing that part of the payback of that fee is through sales tax collection over a 2-3 year period. Then it's a profit after that. There has been some communities that have looked at the effect this has on or not in attracting or discouraging development. I think what you're raising has been raised as a concem/issue. That you can price yourself out of economic development. That it could hurt the community. Johnson: As part of the Economic Vitality meeting discussions that went on this spring, that I was a part of, the business community is concerned about the cost, but they're also concerned about having the infrastructure. So they're well aware that if they decide to have no fees or low fees and we don't have infrastructure, that's a big negative. We recognize that our infrastructure needs much more capital than it now has and how do we get there? We tried a couple of ways and haven't succeeded. I don't think that we would do ourselves any favors business wise by stripping all capital. McNair: To add to that, Bruce Biggi, the City's Economic Advisor, did do a search of literature and compiled some conclusions for that committee. I could probably find that for you if you'd like. I think the bottom line was it really doesn't have an impact. Impact fees are in fact alike and whether they are high or low doesn't make that much of a difference. Grigg: It would be interesting to look at that. McNair: I'll get that for you. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 8 of 14 Chair Henderson asked the Board for a motion for a recommendation to Council on this issue. Grigg moved that the Board express their support because we need adequate transportation infrastructure and the plan has been approved, it has a cost, we have a Street Oversizing Fee calculation procedure, so we recommend approval. Johnson seconded the motion. Discussion: Chair Henderson: I think the motion probably needs some wordsmithing. Johnson: How about if the motion says that the Board recommends the Council adopt the fee recommended by staff. Chair Henderson: Do we want to put something in there about the infrastructure requirements? Johnson: Just mention the Master Street Plan and the adoption of E. Mulberry Plan require an update to the Street Oversizing Fee. Chair Henderson: So what I have is — Recommend Council adopt the Street Oversizing Fee recommended by staff as is required by the Master Street Plan and the E. Mulberry Sub -Area Plan in support for required infrastructure. Grigg: I'm okay with that. Ricord: So if this recommendation is going to sit in the can for a few months until council catches up to our recommendation, then we're not going to have this in their packets until holiday time for a Study Session. Bachman: Although it will be something that Matt will be carrying around with him to the other boards and outreach efforts. Chair Henderson reread the motion: The Board recommends that the Council adopt the Street Oversizing Fee recommended by staff as required by the Master Street Plan and E. Mulberry Plan in support of the required infrastructure. The motion carried by a unanimous vote, 8-0, with one member who voluntarily exempted himself from the discussion due to a possible conflict of interest. b. ALTERNATIVE LEMAY ALIGNMENTS/NORTHSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN — M. Jackson Jackson stated that as part of the ongoing Northside Neighborhood Plan (NNP) process, members of the Citizens Advisory Committee asked that staff examine alternative alignments that would expand Lemay Avenue to four -lane arterial status, staying at grade on its current alignment, rather than realign to the east with a grade separation as depicted on the adopted Master Street Plan (MSP). Staff has examined existing conditions and constraints and has considered past planning and community outreach efforts. Staff developed alternative design concepts keeping Lemay on its current alignment for comparative purposes. Jackson stated that at the end of the presentation, staff would like Board input and if comfortable with it, a statement to Council. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 9 of 14 Jackson introduced the project team: Pete Wray, Project Manager Ray Moe, LSA Associates David Averill, Transportation Planner Wray gave the board some background information on the project, stating that the staff has looked at alternatives for the ultimate design and location of Lemay Avenue for several years. Advance Planning staff began the NNP in early 2004. This plan encompasses the neighborhoods of. Buckingham, Andersonville, Alta Vista, Meadows and Evergreen Park near Lemay and Vine. This effort is examining existing and future land use and infrastructure needs and alternatives for these neighborhoods. Certain members of the project's Citizens Advisory Group have noted that in their opinion, the realignment of Lemay Avenue as reflected in the MSP is unattainable and unrealistic in the foreseeable future and that the City should revisit the ultimate alignment of this key north -south arterial. Staff assessed expanding the existing centerline of Lemay Avenue to an arterial status, which would require acquisition of approximately 23 homes and a church in both the Andersonville and Alta Vista Neighborhoods. Staff then developed a second alternative alignment concept that attempts to maximize mobility, consolidate and separate driveway access and minimize impacts to the properties adjacent to Lemay Avenue. Averill and Jackson went over the alternative alignment concept with the board in detail. One concept widens the current alignment of Lemay to a four -lane arterial. Another option, moving the alignment to the west, meant moving several large power poles and lines or splitting north -south traffic along either side of the lines. Staff came to the conclusion that the least impactful alternative was moving the power lines and poles to the west at an estimated cost of $lM for construction and right-of-way acquisition. The total estimated capital cost of this alternative would range between $10412 M. They discussed the issues which are: 1. Cost 2. Political/Social/Culture 3. Operations hi summary, improving Lemay on its current alignment to a four -lane arterial only provides a short term improvement to congestion and queuing issues in the area. This design would not address congestion issues caused by trains. Residents along Lemay would have even greater access problems that would need to be addressed. Board Comments/Ouestions: Thomas: If you did the deviation without the grade separation, would PUC even let you do that? Jackson: No, because it's adding a crossing at grade, but really the issue is the proximity to the switching yard. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 10 of 14 Thomas: Given the PUCs concems with at -grade crossings, if we do the alignment (go up in the air) are they likely to want to close the existing one thereby blocking the two communities from getting together anyway. Jackson: As part of these conversations and previous efforts, the plan was always to take the existing piece of Vine Drive and the existing Lemay alignments and revert them back to local types of streets and use them to provide continuity within the neighborhood and access to those new arterials. Grigg: Can you give us an idea about the stakeholder relationships that emerged from the recommendation? Wray: We're sure the council will ask us on the 28`h what does the neighborhood specifically feel about this. We've tried to set up sufficient public opportunities, but this area historically has not had good turnout for any kind of planning. Once again in July, we didn't have a good turnout to talk about this issue. What we're hoping for is to get direction on whether this makes sense. If it does, we need to spend more time on it and we need to hit the streets with this information. Knock on doors, have public meetings and try to get the appropriate response and feedback so Council feels more comfortable with it. Johnson: Regarding the cost of the new alignment, you have $7M in SOF, $5M in new development fees, $11M from new capital. Tell me about these new development fees. Are we talking about SIDS? Jackson: No, these would be fees collected from new development. The standard impact fee. Johnson: So we're not talking about any SID? Jackson: No. I suppose it could be considered. Johnson: So if we factored into this other $11M that's outstanding then, the new capital, an SID which would be appropriate since a lot of it is supporting new development like we're doing at Timberline and Prospect, maybe we could have something to talk about going forward with, with a realistic chance of funding. Moe: I think it would be important. I agree. Johnson: Otherwise I think we're going to be stalled for quite awhile because we're all aware that the price tag on this is rather large and with the BOB coming up, I don't see it coming out in any process like that. I think that if we considered an SID as a significant portion of this new capital here with the precedent with this new kind of an SID over at Timberline, we may have a path to fund this. I think we need to be talking about that as a serious part of the mix if we're headed through the MSP. Jackson asked Chair Henderson for permission to field a question from Dick Dunn, a guest in attendance. Permission was given. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 11 of 14 Mr. Dunn stated that he would like to compliment Jackson, saying that Jackson has worked very closely with the Hispanic neighborhoods and one of the reasons that there is the cooperation on the realignment and the realignment of Vine is because of the work that he's done and getting everyone together. He said that a key part of their acceptance of Vine as a major thoroughfare, they realize that truck traffic is probably going to increase even more than what it is on Vine, but the realignment of Lemay pretty much ensures that their neighborhood scape will be safe. Mark made reference to looking at some of the houses out there and this came up during the truck bypass issue. A lot of those people should welcome the opportunity to get $60-70,000 for their home and go somewhere else. That is not the case. There are third and fourth generation families there who are there to stay. I think it would be very difficult for Mark or any of the staff to go back to the people and tell them that they are going to get sold out for $12M because that's what we can save by not having to do a grade separation. I'm just saying this the way they would probably perceive it. I think you'll find that the Northside will strongly support the proposed realignment whereas they probably will not support the widening of Lemay. Johnson: With regard to Lemay and Vine and the new realignment, will a roundabout be considered? Jackson: I believe our standards require that an analysis be done. Chair Henderson asked for a motion on the issue. Grigg made a motion to support the staffs recommendation to stick with the Master Street Plan. There was a second by Johnson. Discussion: Ricord: Did you want to say something about the SID in the motion? Johnson: I don't know that that should be put in with this. Does that make sense to others? Henderson: You could be more general and say that funding options.... After more discussion, and agreement from Grigg to accept friendly amendments, the motion is as follows: The board supports the realignment of Lemay as represented in the Master Street Plan and searching for general alternative funding options such as SIDs that would support accelerating the project. The motion carried by a unanimous vote, 8 — O,with Board Member Moe abstaining due to a conflict of interest. 8. REPORTS a. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Grigg: Bus Rapid Transit System. I've been working in Columbia a lot this summer and they have some real innovations. There is a Bus Rapid Transit System that is very popular. It has improved the traffic congestion a lot in the city I was in and is real impressive to see. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 12 of 14 Gould: Regional Transportation. I care about this issue because I'm a veteran of battles with teenagers who want to go places in either their car or mine, especially regionally and trying to find ways for them to get places. I can never really come up with it though. Now I have a daughter who is a freshman at CU Boulder and in the last 18 months, I've made a huge effort to find out how you can get around the region. I've looked at Greyhound and had no luck. Then last Saturday, I was riding my bike and was going past the Transit Center and I saw a guy I work with standing there with his bike. He said he was waiting for the bus to go to Boulder. The ride takes 2 hours and 10 minutes and goes through Greeley and Longmont and then goes to Boulder. It turned out that it is a case study with not only no marketing but a negative marketing philosophy. I'd like to put out the idea that in fact there is an opportunity here, not only for people to get to Boulder, but I think there is probably quite a bit of potential traffic between Fort Collins and Boulder at the present Level of Service with the kinds of people that might be wanting to do that, but also getting to Longmont to make the connection to RTD. And since they're working out of our Transit Center which is really a great facility, could Fort Collins partner with this bus company — Powder River Transportation? Maybe some kind of a SmartTrips philosophy and their help to market this? As it turned out, my friend had to bail out because it was confusing exactly where he was supposed to stand and whether the bus had actually come and gone or not. I don't know what an approach to this may be, perhaps have a report on who is doing these regional operations and is there the potential to do more marketing of these kinds of things? I could not find out the schedule for the intermediate points. Before this meeting I went over to the Transit Center, went to the desk where that bus is and they were unable to give me the information on the schedules between Fort Collins/Greeley/Longmont. It seems with just a few relatively straightforward changes in information management, there could be some big effects on their business. Perhaps we could make this an agenda item? Bachman: Yes, we could do that. Johnson: Mason Street Meeting. After our November meeting, David Roy wants to have a meeting in City Hall, on a Saturday morning on Mason Street. The idea would be to just bring all ideas forward as to what might be the possibilities for the future. He's trying to round up a number of folks from staff and around the community and business community. He wants to try to integrate those folks so that they are a driver for the future of making that happen. That would be Saturday, November 20. Article. In the packets there was an article about Street Smarts and the hybrid vehicles. If you haven't had a chance, look at the last page. I thought it was quite impressive that by using a hybrid technology on buses, the City of APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Page 13 of 14 Seattle is going to convert their entire fleet over. They expect to pay for the extra cost in 7 years because of the efficiency. Article. I'd like to share this article I found in Science News about paved paradise and it talks about some of the effects of paving environmentally. Trantham: Signa /Crosswalk. My husband wrote Cam asking about getting some kind of signal and a crosswalk along the Power Trail. It runs north/south between Horsetooth and goes as far as Epic. I can't remember all of the response, but it's supposed to come soon? McNair: Yes, the crossing at Drake will be done soon. Where it crosses Horsetooth will be done probably this winter. The Parks Department is managing all that work, we're just helping with some of the design and Traffic will do the signal installation. Thomas: Loveland Master Plan Update. I've attended some "visioning sessions" as part of this effort and not surprisingly, Transportation is at the top of the list with all the groups, so we're not alone in having that as an issue. Thordarson: Signal Questions. I just have a signal question or two. 1) Intersection of City Park and Elizabeth. Right now it's a pretty basic signal and doesn't have any sun glare backplate, and also there's no signal lower on the right side of the standard. I was driving west on Elizabeth just a couple of days ago, right when the sun was right in the middle of the signal and you couldn't see a thing. You had to look really hard to see what color the light was. I wondered if there was a plan to improve that anytime soon, perhaps in conjunction with the current street project. McNair: They're working out there now, I'll check into it. The back plates are easy enough to take care of. Thordarson: Well, that and then maybe a signal on the standard. When I can't see the one overhead, I always look down to the right and there's nothing there. 2) It seems at night that at major arterial intersections, the east/west streets are running on demand and the north/south are on fixed cycle still. That just seems curious as to why we couldn't just have on -demand timing for both directions of travel through the intersection. Sign Question. There's a little access road to Taco Bell off of Elizabeth. I noticed that the City or someone put up a sign that reads: Private Road Do Not Call City Street Department. I was just wondering if this was a new type of sign you guys are doing. b. STAFF REPORTS McNair: Construction. We're winding down on construction, thank goodness. I'd be glad to answer any questions. Johnson: I'd just like to compliment the whole crew. I had a chance to look around on N. College and the Elizabeth project is coming along and I've sampled it both in a car and on a bike and it's much better to deal with. Many improvements and well done! APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 14 of 14 Transportation Board September 15, 2004 Jackson: E. Mulberry Corridor Plan. The EMC Plan is being given an award for planning excellence next week at the Colorado APA conference. Bachman: Council Study Session Report. Last night, the third item on the agenda was the Building on Basics program. A positive note was that it was unanimous that the Pavement Management '/4 cent tax, the one that they committed to before, still remain as a single use tax and that would appear on the April ballot. The only thing that is not settled yet is whether the extension of the %4 cent for the capital projects would appear on the April ballot or put off until November 2005. Next Agenda: ■ BOB Update ■ CSU Transit Center Design • Mason Corridor Update (possibly) 9. OTHER BUSINESS None. 10. ADJOURN meeting at approximately 8:45 p.m. Respectfully submitted, 4ak'a� Cynthia Cass Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services