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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 03/23/2005MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD March 23, 2005 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins -Municipal Building Community Room 215 N. Mason Street FOR REFERENCE: 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 Jeannette Hallock-Solomon Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Ed Robert Gary Thomas Brent Thordarson Heather Trantham Lee Watkins Kevin Westhuis CITY STAFF: Don Bachman Cynthia Cass Gary Diede Tom Frazier Randy Hensley Mark Jackson Ron Phillips Kurt Ravenschlag ABSENT: Neil Grigg OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE: Glenn Frieler — CDOT R-4 Allan Brown - PBSJ CSU Students (Natural Resources class) APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 9 Transportation Board March 23, 2005 1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chair Henderson at 6:00p.m. 2. AGENDA REVIEW There were no changes to the agenda. 3. PUBLIC COMMENT None 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (FEBRUARY 2005) There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes of February 16, 2005 as presented Gary Thomas noted that his first name was misspelled on the first page. The question was called and the motion carried by a unanimous vote, 10-0, to approve the minutes with the name correction. 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None 6. DISCUSSIONANFORMATIONAL ITEMS a. SH-392 EOS INTRODUCTION—M. Jackson Jackson introduced Glenn Frieler with the Colorado Department of Transportation, and Allan Brown, the consultant team project manager with PBS & J. Jackson gave some background info, bringing the Board up to speed on the project. A presentation was given that contained the following highlights: • Driving Forces of the Study - Rapid growth in the Windsor Area - Development along SH 392 - Setback needs - Corridor preservation - Need wide acceptance and support from all stakeholders - Solution: Environmental Overview Study • What is an EOS? - Planning document for identification of future needs - Not a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Study - Evaluates potential transportation solutions using a context -sensitive solutions approach - Considers potential environmental effects and public involvement - NEPA Study still required if and when Federal Action is pursued APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board March 23, 2005 EOS Process - Scoping - Develop Purpose and Need - Develop Screening Criteria - Alternatives Analysis - Environmental Analysis - Produce EOS Report • Major Steps in Study - Context -Sensitive Solutions - Develop Corridor Plan/EOS Report - Ensuing Steps Page 3 of 9 • Project Overview • Project Goals - Primary Goal: To ensure adequate provisions to meet regional transportation mobility needs for 2030 and beyond - Additional Considerations • Public Involvement Program Upon conclusion of the presentation, the floor was opened to comments and questions. Board Member Comments/Questions: Watkins: When you are identifying the alignment of 392 and also the ROW widths, are you taking into consideration just local impacts or regional or both? Staff: When you say "impacts" do you mean the travel demand? Watkins: Yes. Staff All are considered. Thomas: During the presentation, you said something about the North Front Range and that we need to get on their list. Could you explain what you meant? Staff. In order for regional dollars to be used for construction of projects, they need to be on the regional plan. Our hope would be to work with them to amend the plan to add this project. Thomas: So this wasn't put on the priority list in the 2030 Plan? Jackson: Correct, because there's no recommended alternatives. There's no recommended "fix". It has to go through the planning process first before you can put an actual final project in the Plan. Hallock-Solomon: For the public involvement, I assume you are going to notify the landowners in the corridor? Staff: Yes. Hallock-Solomon: Secondly, are you going to the Planning & Zoning Board with any kind of a presentation? Jackson: I will probably raise it just to let them know that this process is starting to see if they have an interest in having a presentation. Hallock-Solomon: I was thinking specifically of the ROW as a heads up. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board March 23, 2005 Page 4 of 9 Jackson: We did work with them extensively during the Master Plan process when we upgraded the facility type for Carpenter Road and then also, they unanimously recommended and advised Council to proceed with the extension of the Growth Management Area boundaries, so they're pretty tuned into this area. Johnson: At some point you'll have to determine your long range capacity needs. In years past, I got the sense that CDOT saw roundabouts as a toxic thing that they did not want to deal with. Has that culture changed at CDOT because the notion is that if we can use roundabouts, we could get by with using less lane capacity. Staff: That's a great solution and it came up last week as well. It is something that we would consider. I think it does have some traffic calming, and good characteristics and could be beneficial in this area. So it is something that we would take a look at. And as far as CDOT and roundabouts go — I'm not on the board, but there is a specific board within CDOT that is all about roundabouts. I can give you the name of one of the members of the board if you're interested. Watkins: What is the City's policy going to be in the interim until they've come up with some recommended alignments and right-of-way widths for developers who come in to develop? Jackson: The thing about this area is that there's relatively limited development potential along the corridor. There are basically two nodes of developable area — one is at the interchange at the Interstate and the other is at US 287. The rest is pretty much residential and natural protected areas. In terms of development near the interchange, they would be standard procedure like any other development process. They would have to do traffic analysis studies. The zoning is already established. Watkins: How would you know how much ROW to ask for and where to put it and are you going to ask for a certain section that's a CDOT standard? Jackson: While it still belongs to us, we would ask for what's on the Master Street Plan in terms of ROW. It doesn't necessarily mean that we would go out and start looking at six -lane solutions, but we would reserve the ROW for what's on the Plan. Thomas: As far as goals go, from my standpoint, we did a lot of work on the Master Street Plan and would like to see it live up to that standard, but minimize the footprint because there are some environmentally sensitive areas there. Johnson: I second what Gary said. I think that's a critical thing and it's also part of the circuit that people use a lot for cycling and for people to go from Fort Collins to Windsor. Having some kind of lane, separated, is of high importance. In other words, a facility that has a designated bike lane for sure and if vehicle speeds are high, then perhaps you have to separate them. Robert: Are there any plans or interest on the part of the City of Fort Collins to extend Carpenter Road further west over to meet Taft or Shields. Jackson: No. Larimer county had expressed an interest in it for awhile, but they are updating their plans and... APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board March 23, 2005 Page 5 of 9 Robert: Well it isn't too often you see six lanes end with nothing. Jackson: It's not like it's going to stop just right there, abruptly. If you look at the land use and zoning for that area where it stops at Carpenter Road and College, right across the street from that is zoned as a fairly major commercial area. Robert: That's my point. I think it's a little big for something like that. Henderson: I think the term Mark used earlier, "context sensitive design" is an idea we definitely want to see carried through this whole corridor here. Functionality support, but not at the expense of the surrounding environment. Jackson stated that he would ask staff to return to the board at the next milestone. A web site will be up in the next few weeks. It will be linked into the City's Transportation web page. b. CONE ZONE REPORT — D. Bachman Bachman presented a brief summary of each of the projects on the 2005 Cone Zone list: Construction Projects with Major Traffic Impacts. There were various questions along the way that Bachman answered. Bachman noted that the schedule listed on the table is subject to change. c. PERIODIC REVIEW REQUEST —B. Henderson Chair Henderson stated that there is a periodic review of every board and 2005 happens to be the year that this board is reviewed. He stated that there is a questionnaire that he will be filling out on behalf of the board. There will be a Study Session on July 26 at which the Council will review the four boards on the list for this year. The outcome of this review will be: 1) no changes and the board will continue as is; 2) continue the board but make amendments to the duties; or 3) discontinue the board. Chair Henderson stated that he would like to provide the rest of the board an opportunity to provide feedback and look at the comments he has written, perhaps in April or May. T. Frazier stated that perhaps it would be a good idea, when filling out the questionnaire, to indicate the relationship with the board/committee that Gary Thomas sits on as far as Dial -A -Ride. d. TRANSPORTATION BOARD 2005 WORK PLAN —B. Henderson Chair Henderson stated that at the last board meeting, the group started a discussion about how the Work Plan was crafted based upon the cumulative knowledge of the board, but then reached a stopping point in October and decided to wait until a new board was convened in order to give everyone a chance to go through the Plan in detail and really decide what kind of actions the board wants to take for the Work Plan to really get off the ground. He stated that he'd like to go through it section by section, starting anywhere that the board wants and have a brainstorming session. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board March 23, 2005 Page 6 of 9 The first section is METRICS. Chair Henderson explained that this is really an identification of the different metrics that the board thought was important to track. That's really all it is other than two actions at the very bottom of that section that talk about determining how to represent the date and planning how we're going to cover these topics in the future. The second section is TRANSPORTATION FINANCING. The third section is BUILDING ON BASICS (BOB). The fourth section is TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATIONS. The fifth section needs a bit of time devoted to it and is entitled COORDINATE WITH COUNCIL AND OTHER BOARDS AND AGENCIES. Section six is COMMUNITY EDUCATION ON TRANSPORTATION, which the board did spend a bit of time on at the last meeting with regard to Soapboxes and editorials. There is much more to do, and Henderson stated that the board would have to get back to that. Section seven is TRANSPORTATION SAFETY and the last section is PLANNING ACTIVITIES. The board agreed to start with METRICS. Chair Henderson stated that the discussion should focus on what should we be doing with the metrics listed? Should we be keeping them in front of Council for example? Should we put them out there for the general population of Fort Collins? Should we just use them to measure the effectiveness of us as a board? It was agreed that VMT #'s should be listed somewhere, whether it's in the Work Plan or posted on a web site. One of the best metrics that can be put out there is the Pavement Management numbers. There was a discussion about VMT and reasons for the success in reducing that number such as City programs and other factors. There was a discussion about the need for a grid system in the City's transit service and the lack of funding and the last couple of ballot measures that failed. S. Frazier asked what Colorado Springs did in their election to be so successful. They are such a conservative community that it is surprising to hear how successful it was for transportation. The group agreed that it would be beneficial to have 2-3 people come from other communities who have been successful in getting the voters to approve funding. They'd like to hear how they did it. Chair Henderson stated that it would be helpful to have a "Finance 101" session to explain how it works and to get everyone up to speed on this topic. He agreed that it would be beneficial to have people come from the Springs and talk about how they were successful. A third topic would be transit. How does it work, how is it planned, how does the financing for it work, etc. Jackson and the Chair will work on getting those topics on future agendas. Henderson added that once those topics have been addressed, it would be good to talk about how transportation is used in the community, the behavior patterns, visions, how to go about changing things, and so on. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board March 23, 2005 Page 7 of 9 Chair Henderson said that before leaving this item, someone needs to be assigned to other boards as a representative according to the Work Plan. Watkins volunteered to cover the P&Z Board. It was also decided that for the Innovative Trends, folks will be on the lookout for items as they come up. Thordarson brought up the issue of safety and the idea that each month, different members could report on that topic. 7. ACTION ITEMS a. BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS — B. Henderson Chair Henderson stated that the board needs to send a letter to the Council by April 6. The Finance committee met recently and crafted the letter before the board. He stated that this time the committee took a different approach by identifying things that they thought would be more visual and that Council could associate with. He noted that there is blue text and red text in the letter which shows which wording would be used if the ballot passes — blue text. If it doesn't, then go with the red. After a brief discussion and a few minor changes, Chair Henderson read the changes back to the board. There was a motion and a second to approve the letter with those changes. The motion carried unanimously. b. ELECTION OF OFFICERS - All Brent Thordarson was nominated and elected Chair by a unanimous vote, 10-0. Gary Thomas was nominated and elected Vice Chair by a unanimous vote, 10-0. 8. REPORTS a. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Thomas: Issue #3 Update. Last month I agreed to be the "pro" spokesman when we had the issues debate with the League of Women Voters. Turns out we couldn't find a "con" so we followed two vigorous debates on the food tax and then on fluoride. It was just a short little six -minute thing and that was that. Hallock-Solomon: Soapbox Article. I did put in a Soapbox on Monday and she's going to try and get it in soon. Thordarson: Roundabout. I had a chance to try out the roundabout at SH 7 and 85 in Brighton. I was quite impressed. It really shows what you can do with roundabouts. Johnson: Argentina. Last month I had the great opportunity to go to Argentina for a while. I used every mode of transportation that's there except for maybe swimming. There were very few American made cars. Traffic in that city never stops. When crossing some APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 9 Transportation Board March 23, 2005 of the avenues, you wonder how you're going to do it. One place has about a dozen lanes of traffic going in one direction with three pedestrian safety islands to cross through there. You have to stay alert. Timberline. I found that on the north bound between Prospect and Drake that there is an awful lot of dirt and debris, maybe to do with the construction. Also on Horsetooth, west of the Power Trail it's bad. Henderson: New Traffic Light. There's a new light at Harmony and Seneca. It's fascinating because the standard in the city is that when you put up a new light it is set to blink on yellow for awhile so people can get accustomed to it. The first day, people stopped on Harmony! I don't know if we need to put up a sign that says this is a new light or that blinking yellow means caution or what! I've seen over the past two weeks five people stop on Harmony at this blinking yellow light. Maybe it's because it's on the curve there. CMAQ FundingPacket. acket. John Daggett sent out that CMAQ funding packet. Is somebody from staff going to be working on that? Will this be an agenda item coming up soon? Jackson: Yes to both questions. b. STAFF REPORTS Phillips: Thanks. I'd just like to tag onto what Gary said earlier and thank the members who helped out on the effort to pass #3. Bachman: Harmony Road. You'll recall that a few weeks ago, we talked about a proposal with CDOT to take over ownership of Harmony between east of I-25 to US 287. Council endorsed that concept and the City Manager signed the letter. CDOT has also approved it and has directed staff to negotiate an IGA with us. Jackson: Introduction. I'd like to introduce new Transportation Planner, Kurt Ravenschlag, who took Tom Reiff s place. Next Agenda: • Mason Transportation Corridor • Bike Lanes on S. College — maybe • Jackson and Chair Thordarson will get together and discuss the April agenda Frazier: Agreement with RR for Mason. We have an agreement with the railroad! Papers are signed we're just waiting for them to be delivered back to us. The agreement is for ROW along the RR all the way south of Harmony up to the Spring Creek Trail. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 9 of 9 Transportation Board March 23, 2005 9. OTHER BUSINESS I Johnson stated that speaking of the railroad reminded him that at some point, it would probably be a good idea to have on a future agenda — a topic that covers the railroad's liability and what exactly they are moving through our town. 10. ADJOURN Chair Henderson adjourned the meeting at 8:46 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Cass Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services