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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 05/18/2005MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD May 18, 2005 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins -Municipal Building Community Room 215 N. Mason Street I�Ef) CHAIR: Brent Thordarson 679-2165 VICE CHAIR: Gary Thomas 482-7125 STAFF LIAISON: Mark Jackson 416-2029 ADMIN SUPPORT: Cynthia Cass 224-6058 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Sara Frazier Neil Grigg Jeannette Hallock-Solomon Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Ed Robert Gary Thomas Brent Thordarson Heather Trantham Lee Watkins CITY STAFF: Don Bachman Kathleen Bracke Cynthia Cass Tom Frazier Randy Hensley Mark Jackson Ron Phillips ABSENT: Kevin Westhuis OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE: Brian Werle — Carter Burgess Dave Woolfall — Carter Burgess Rick Price APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 I. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chair Thordarson at 6.01 p.m. 2. AGENDA REVIEW There were no changes to the agenda. 3. PUBLIC COMMENT Page 2 of 10 Rick Price, owner of Experience Plus Specialty Tours: We do bicycling and walking tours in about 12 countries around the world. We don't do any here in Colorado. Our building is the one right over there by Martinez Park with the turret on it. Please come and visit us anytime. I'm not here because I have any specific concern, but I would like to thank this group of volunteers for doing what you do. My business keeps me so busy I've never had the time or energy to volunteer to come in and talk about bicycling on a regular basis. I'm too committed to my business and not enough to my community, but I have gotten interested recently. Three weeks ago I attended the Bike Town meeting that Bike Colorado sponsored here with SmartTrips here in this room. We had a great turn out. I also want to say that I'm not here to complain about City staff or policies either, because I have tremendous respect for the technical and the management staff in this town who undertake bicycling and pedestrian planning issues. I think we're very lucky to have a community like we do. I want to talk briefly about what I see coming down the pike in the future. We are headless in this town for a Pedestrian/Bicycle Coordinator at the moment. Betsy Jacobsen did such a fine job that CDOT hired her. It's too bad that we had to lose her because now we have no spokesperson in this City administration because of the hiring freeze. Recently I decided to try and get involved and find out what the advocacy process is. Who do I call if I have a problem? I'm going to circulate a picture, please look at both sides of it. The bike detour asks cyclists to get off their bike and walk five blocks please. You'd never ask the driver of an automobile to do that! My concern is that as we address funding issues and I understand the City staff are now going through a prioritization to try and unfreeze some of the positions that have been frozen. September 1 is the drop dead date for recommendations to Council and I hope that somewhere in there that there will be time for public comment, but my concern is that this board is probably in the best position to influence policy issues and questions regarding transportation for bicycles and pedestrians in this town and I want to encourage you to do everything you can to think about including that in your recommendations and in working with City staff and in advising Council on this. I also will be talking with the City Manager and I think you can expect to see some interest. We had 50-60 people here the other evening to talk about issues relative to bicycling and walking in this community. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 3 of 10 I want to highlight one or two of the favorite issues that came out that evening. One of them was a question of communication. I raise the question with the issues relative to law enforcement. The County has some problems with bicyclists on county roads and the City has some problems with scofflaws. Lots of students create problems in this town on bicycles. I complain about them. I'm sure you do, I think we all do. I'd love to see SmartTrips engaged in more of an educational outreach approach rather than just trying to leverage people into VanGo and to pretend to ride their bike once a week. I'd like to see more outreach. I'd like to see more communication between City agencies: SmartTrips, Transportation Planning, Parks and Recreation. The photo that I passed around represents a classic communication problem. Someone said we need a detour and someone else said to route them this way, but the map that they provide differs from the signage. It's a mistake, an error, but it makes bicyclists in this town kind of laugh at whoever is responsible. That's just one good example of a lack of communication. My concern is that there be more focus of this committee and look at encouraging reestablishing a Bike and Ped Coordinator in this town in some logical office. I'd like to ask you one question. How do you gather input in your capacity as citizen volunteers on what I think is very critical committee, how do you gather input from your constituents, from other citizens about bicycle and ped issues? Johnson: I bicycle everywhere in town and I coordinate with people at the bike shops and I made some effort for the last couple of years to drop off bike maps at the bike shops and just talk to people there and at places like Avagadro's and find out where connections are made. I happened to miss this detour that you saw. I wouldn't mind if you would call me directly when you find something like that. I get feedback from a number of people, but in this town we have a few thousand cyclists and I can't talk to all of them. If I'm out on the trails I will ask them what they think. I'll frequently talk to people at stop lights and ask them how they like their routes, do they feel good about it and so on. I get that kind of ad -hoc feedback daily or weekly. Henderson: I use the intemet a lot for it too and am in touch with a couple of bike groups which is a great way to collect specific feedback on specific questions. Thordarson: About a year ago, we had a bike focus group as a part of the update to the Transportation Master Plan. They helped City staff with a system and facilities inventory and helped determine potential routes. Johnson: One of our previous Chairs, Chris Ricord, worked at the Bike Broker for years and was an Olympic class cyclist when he was in his riding prime. He had his own network of hard core riders and we got input while he was on the board and I still see him from time to time so we have that linkage as well. Price: I've been here 21 years and I've seen the interest in cycling go up and down. We get people on Council who are interested and we get those who aren't. At the moment I see a lack of communication or anything linking people together. We are going to start a log on local bike issues and I'll try to get that out to you through some logical vehicle. We're going APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 4 of 10 to try and do that as a pubic service. Glad to hear about all these things and I will talk with Tim about getting on an email newsletter or whatever information linkages there might be. Johnson: One of the things that this board does on a regular basis, is at the end of the meeting, we have `Board Member Reports". As a way to communicate with staff, we communicate a lot of things that we see as individuals as we go about the town. From those of us who ride bicycles you'll hear about construction areas where they aren't cleaning up after themselves for instance. Staff takes notes and generally, things are rectified rather quickly. So if you get information to one of us, that's another way to get feedback to staff on a monthly basis. You can call them directly too of course. Price: I would solicit any ideas that anyone else has as well. My email address is: rickgexperienceplus.com if you have any ideas and would like to communicate with me I would love to hear from you. Last night I was at the Metropolitan Planning Organization meeting. There were two county commissioners there, one being Glenn Gibson. I asked that same question of that group — how they gathered information from the bicycling or walking public. Mr. Gibson turned to me and said, "You know what I do, is I go out on January 9 on the county roads and I look around and see how many bicycles there are out there. I allocate my time and effort and resources accordingly." I thought he was making a joke or pulling my leg and I said, "Can you explain your joke or explain to me what it is you're talking about?" He said, "It's pretty clear. Nobody is out on their bike on January 9u' and that's where my priority is for bicycling. It's recreational activity anyway. When funds are short, that's what we cut first." The two federal guys who were there conducting the meeting said, "You know 4% of Federal funds from Transportation and Highway Administration go to alternative forms of transportation and about six years ago, we determined that the federal level that bicycling is a legitimate, verifiable form of transportation." There were all a little bit embarrassed about what our county commissioner had to say. I just wanted to share that with you and I've written to the editor of the Coloradoan to share that with them as well and it will be on our log. I am delighted to hear your responses to that same question as I posed to Mr. Gibson. Thank you very much. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (APRIL 2005) There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes ojAprU 20, 2005 as presented The question was called and the motion carried by a unanimous vote,10-0. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 5 of 10 6. DISCUSSIONQNFORMATIONAL ITEMS a. US287 EOS UPDATE — b Bracke Bracke stated that before starting her item, she would like to share some good news on the Mason Transportation Corridor project. On Friday, May 1 P, staff got the signed railroad agreement from Burlington Northern. Bracke introduced Brian Werle and Dave Woolfall from Carter Burgess and stated that they are also working with the Colorado Department of Transportation on this project. The first open house was back in April so it's still very early in the project. This part of the US 287 EOS covers the portion from Harmony Road on the north to 29`s Street in Loveland on the south. Highlights of the presentation included: - What is an EOS? - Process - Study Area - Purpose of Study - Outcome of Study - Need for Study - Goals for Alternative Development and Screening - Relationship to Regional Corridor Studies - Study Schedule - Public Involvement Opportunities - What's Next Board Comments/Ouesturns: Thomas: Where does transit fit in? Werle: We are looking for ways to enhance the current system. Bracke: The project team is working on getting that feedback from the various communities involved as each may have different needs and visions. Johnson: What is the criteria for having a separate bike lane? Is it when there are 4- 6 lanes? Is it at a certain volume or speed? Werle: The starting point is checking with the City of Fort Collins. Johnson: It makes sense to have a bike lane/sidewalk separated from the highway. I'm not sure when a separate bike/pedestrian facility is warranted. Also, right at the Harmony intersection with regard to the Mason Corridor that we're building that will come a little bit south of that might even be worthwhile to look at a connection to funnel traffic from US287 over to the Mason Corridor because that section from south of Harmony to Horsetooth is just wicked riding because of all the turnouts in there. If you bring them over to the Mason Corridor before Harmony somewhere south it would be convenient. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 6 of 10 Henderson: I see that there's a map with the other studies going on in the regional corridor. Is the implication of that some effort to coordinate this study with those in terms of assumptions say on US 287 maybe it's going to impact other parts of the corridor etc? Is the purpose to coordinate and share data? Werle: Yes. Henderson: In looking at your goals that you outlined from the beginning, is there an effort to prioritize the goals because it seems like in the process of some of the decisions down the road with these different options if you prioritize the goals, that actually might help be able to weight the alternatives that you've got. Werle: We always try to avoid weighting goals because that takes you to the next step of the argument that this person thinks bike and ped stuff is more important and this person thinks something else is more important. The process is one of informed consent where people consider everything. They consider their own values in looking at the different goals. I don't think we really prioritize the goals. I think it's an all encompassing process. Thordarson: Does the City of Loveland currently have a plan to widen US 287 to six lanes south of 29u'? Werle: We've heard confusion on that. Thomas: Their City Master Plan is under review right now. Robert: I've heard nothing about street lighting. Where does that fit in? Werle: That's a good question. I don't think we've gotten down to that level yet. Woolfall: Part of that would come from City standards, how the cities approach their lighting on each end of it and what they want. We'll have to talk about that. Johnson: One other thought that may be a little out of the box on cycling in the future, you can look at the volumes that you have presented here for Taft Hill for future volumes to be running ring about close to what US 287 is carrying currently. You might look at the extension of Mason Street as being the designated north/south corridor for cycling off route. You'd have a system that you don't have to interact with vehicles. Then you just need to think about some connections where people get on and off. It also enhances the auto mode too because they don't have to be looking for the cyclists. As a cyclist you try to get away from College as fast as you can. It's so dangerous. Thordarson: Are there any examples of other EOS processes that have gone all the way through and have been successful? Werle: This is the first. And we might finish first. The board thanked Bracke, Werle and Woolfall for their time. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 7 of 10 b. TRANSPORTATION FINANCE THEME — R. Hensley & D. Bachman - INTRO TO BUDGETING FOR OUTCOMES Hensley stated that originally, the plan was for staff to give the board a Transportation Funding 101 course. However, everything has since changed due to the new budgeting process the City is going through. It's called Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO). Hensley explained the BFO process in detail. He went over the concepts of. setting the price of government, determining the results that citizens want, determining the priorities of results and allocation of dollars, developing requests for results (RFRs), making offers, ranking offers and preparing the budget. Hensley also explained that in terms of the Results Teams, there is a Transportation Team of which he is a part of. He said that he would appreciate any feedback from the board that he could take back to his team. The board then spent a few minutes asking general questions about BFO and then inquired about how it will affect Building on Basics (BOB). Johnson commented that the Transportation Master Plan should be central to the process. Hensley stated that since BOB is the next item on the agenda, he will move from BFO to BOB at this point. c. BUILDING ON BASICS (BOB) — D. Bachman SURVEY RESULTS AND PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS Bachman said that in the materials that were included in the packets to Council (a copy of which were included in the Board's packets), the purpose was to show the history of how we got to where we are, what our current semi -short list of projects was and basically asking if we're still going in the right direction. Council indicated that staff is going in the right direction and now need to figure out how it combines with BFO and their Policy Agenda. It was also noted that the project descriptions that were asked for at the last meeting were also included in the board's packets. On May 24, there will be another Work Session. Council is going to be asked if they are still supportive in continuing with the '/4 cent sales tax in the November election. Another question will be: how does this list look? Staff will be presenting an outreach plan as well. Other important dates: - June 14 Work Session — Council will hear what the results are to -date from any informal citizen surveys and feedback from any outreach. - July — it is proposed that a formal scientific survey be conducted to get some more guidance - July 26 Work Session — Staff is expecting to hear a recommendation from the City Manager to the City Council for ballot language. As far as citizen and Transportation Board input, in between each of these Work Sessions, there will be opportunities to consider what Council is doing. Staff will keep bringing updates to the board. Bachman encouraged members to time into Work APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 8 of 10 Sessions on those dates as well. The last letter from the Board is attached to their packet so they do have it. The board talked about various issues and in conclusion requested that Council Liaison Kurt Kastein come to a future board meeting to discuss transportation funding issues and concerns. Staff will coordinate that. d. TRANSPORTATION BOARD 2005 WORK PLAN — B. Thordarson - CONTINUED DISCUSSION Chair Thordarson stated that this item would be deferred until another time due to time constraints. 17. ACTION ITEMS a. PERIODIC BOARD REVIEW —B. Thordarson Jackson stated that on the 28 h at the Council Work Session, the Chair, Vice Chair and staff liaison of 4-5 different boards are required to attend the meeting and go over their review. Chair Thordarson and Vice Chair Thomas stated they plan to attend. Chair Thordarson then referred to the questions from the City Clerk's office and the answers that he drafted. Bachman reminded the board that this is a periodic review initiated by the Clerk's office that every board goes through every 5-6 years or so. The group agreed to go over the questions/answers one at a time. That exercise resulted in some items of note: - Retreats. The board would like to look into doing one at some point. - Tour of Streets and/or the Traffic Operations facility. - Time Keeper. A time expectation is written on the agenda but it doesn't seem to be enforced. As the Vice Chair, Thomas agreed to be the time keeper who will remind people of how much time is left. - In the past, the board Chair would go to Council Work Sessions to be there for major transportation items in case there were any questions. For item #6, it might be mentioned that board representation at Work Sessions can be helpful. There was a motion and a second to approve the Periodic Board Review submittal with the statement that the Council might consider inviting the board leadership to be available at Work Sessions on relative topics. The motion carried unanimously 9 — 0. 8. REPORTS a. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Johnson: Thank You to Parks & Rec Staff. Please thank the P&R staff for putting in that crossing at Drake with both the signal light and changed location because the movements of the kids there are now far better than they've been in the past. This is the Power Trail at Drake. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 9 of 10 Thordarson: Mileage Based Pricing for Vehicle Registration. I've noticed in the news lately some discussion about this topic in some parts of the country. Sounds interesting. I think it would definitely tend to make people more aware of what their VMTs would cost them. In looking for that information on the Internet, I came across a pretty interesting web site which has a lot of good transportation related info. It's at: www.vtpi.org Overland between Drake and Prospect. Question for staff: Right now the lanes are marked for two lanes northbound and one south with a bike lane on each side. There are neighborhoods on the east side of the street making for a lot of left -turn movement from the southbound lanes to the east, but no tum lanes. Overland is heavily used by bicyclists and this makes for a potential area for conflict between the modes. It doesn't seem unreasonable to just have one northbound lane and change it a bit to make it safer. I11MIVl at a1 1 D101113171 M Bachman: Mulberry Project. Opened on schedule and turned out really nice. N. College Project. The closure lasted for three days and there were no problems. May 3 Council Meeting, The resolution for the Kechter and Ziegler roundabout was adopted. Safety was brought up by this board at their last meeting. Staff agreed to do a neighborhood meeting and staff also found out that a barrier can be placed just inside the curbs to discourage crossing anywhere but where you're supposed to. There will be an outreach effort to the schools and parents and crossing guard personnel will be provided if desired for the first few weeks of school. The speed limit inside the roundabout is 20 mph. Harmony Road Transfer. Back in March, I reported to you that we were negotiating with CDOT on the transfer of ownership of Harmony Road to City of Fort Collins. We've almost closed the deal and in order to accept the deal, the Intergovernmental Agreement requires a lump sum payment at the end of June. Jackson: Pikes Peak RTA — PowerPoint Presentation Hand -Outs. I gave everyone a copy of the presentation that was done at the May MPO meeting. Tom Frazier has been trying to get a representative from Pikes Peak RTA to come speak to our board. We thought we had it arranged for June, but then a conflict came up. We may be able to still get the person to come in APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board May 18, 2005 Page 10 of 10 July, but we thought we'd take this presentation and give you all a chance to look at it see if you can start formulating some questions that we can send down to them and have them reply back. We want to have a dialogue with them somehow and thought that this was a way to get started just in case we can't get this person to come in June. This is your homework and if you have any questions or comments bring them back and we'll talk about it next month. We'll have an RTA item on the agenda. Articles. I included several articles not only in your packets, but some more that I came across since. If you ever get tired of them, just let me know. Safety & Enforcement Theme for July? If you like the theme approach, like the finance one that we did, we're thinking of doing a safety and enforcement theme night. We could include TDM, PD, Traffic Operations, Transportation Planning and what the City does for community education. Next Aeenda: • US 287 Bike Lanes • RTA - Pikes Peak • Kastein come talk about transportation finance/BOB • Update on local RTA Phillips: We've lost three employees in Transportation Services to death. Susan Johnson from SmartTrips, Gary Bowers from Traffic Operations, and a former Streets employee, Liz Porter. The last few days have been very difficult. 9. OTHER BUSINESS None 10. ADJOURN Chair Thordarson adjourned the meeting at 9:18 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Cass, Executive Admin Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services