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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 02/15/19951] • Draft minutes to be approved by the Board at the March 15, 1995 meeting. TRANSPORTATION BOARD MEETING MINUTES FEBRUARY 15, 1995 5:53-7:55 P.M. FOR REFERENCE: Chair — Colin Gerety (303) 546-0460 Vice Chair Paul Valentine 493-0100 Council Liaison — Will Smith 223-0425 Staff Liaison — Rick Ensdorff 221-6608 Secretary — Cindy Scott 221-6608 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Alan Beatty, Mark Egeland, Sara Frazier, Colin Gerety, Paul Perlmutter, and Paul Valentine. BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: Dolores Highfield and Elizabeth Hudetz. * Dave Lemesany submitted his resignation on 2/15/95 before the meeting. STAFF/COUNCIL/GUESTS PRESENT: Rick Ensdorff; Eric Bracke; Ron Phillips; Cindy Scott; Will Smith; and Clark Mapes - Planning. AGENDA: Call to Order Approval of Minutes A. PUBLIC COMMENT B. ACTION ITEMS C. DISCUSSION ITEMS 1. Transportation Demand Management Project 2. N. College Plan Update 3. Board Member's Comments 4. Update from Staff 5. Summary/Next Agenda 6. Other Business Chair Gerety called the meeting to order at 5:53 p.m. There was a motion, a second and a unanimous vote to approve the January 18, 1995 Transportation Board meeting minutes as presented. ANNOUNCEMENTS: Scott informed the Board that she received a letter of resignation from Lemesany, effective immediately. Smith stated that when the team did the interviews for Board vacancies, they created a priority ranking and what they have been doing is going back to those and taking the next person on the list, avoiding hassles with recalls, so someone could be on the Board more quickly. Chair Gerety said that next month would be satisfactory. The Board agreed that it would be desirable to replace Lemesany with someone who could bring the business/trucking aspect to the board as he did. Staff will contact Rita Harris in the Clerk's office tomorrow to start the process. A. PUBLIC COMMENT None B. ACTION ITEMS None CA. TRANSPORTATION DEMAND MANAGEMENT PROJECT Bracke stated that the Regional Transportation Plan's (RTP) main goal is to begin a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) effort which is to be regionally coordinated, locally implemented. The region consists of the cities of Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, and Larimer and Weld Counties including the rural areas and makes up the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) also known as the North Front Range Transportation & Air Quality Planning Council (NFRT & AQPC). Final approval of the RTP occurred in December, money was programmed to begin the TDM, monitoring system and an Origin and Destination Study (O/D). Staff has combined the O/D study with the TDM because they are very much interrelated. Staff has entered into contract with Charlier Associates. The O/D study will probably occur in early April. The plan is to send out travel diaries in the mail. The diaries will be for 1-2 days (emphasis on weekday traffic), individuals will be asked to fill it out - where they re going, how are they making the trips, how many people, why they are making the trips theyre making, etc. This will be done for the entire region. Another part of this will be a 'Travel Intercept". This entails stopping people on the road, asking a few questions to find out where they're coming from and where they're going and the routes they're taking. All this information will be compiled for the entire region and then we will finally have a real good handle on trip making and travel behavior of the residents in this area. All we have right now is a guess. Bracke said that we'll be able to take this information and develop new trip tables for our transportation modeling effort that will be built more on reality than on national adages. Gerety asked what the effort will be to make sure we get a decent sample - the response rate for mailing out is usually poor and skewed. Bracke responded that we're looking to get a 95% confidence level. The specifics have not been worked out yet, but it will be a mass mail out. A marketing firm has been hired as part of the overall package and will be involved in marketing the diary and the Travel Intercept project. Gerety asked if other modes will be pulled over as well and Bracke responded that there will be a sampling of pedestrian and bicycle activity. Some transit data was gathered in Greeley last fall that will be useful to this study and won't have to be duplicated. r All this information will go into the monitoring system and we also be able to use it for the regional rail activities, for the TDM activities, major investment studies, etc. The total contract is $350,000 and is the biggest contract that the MPO has had. The majority of that is for data gathering. Beatty asked if the State Department of Revenue would have a way to sort a data base from a living zip code to a working zip code and from that do a mileage study? Bracke said that this is a good point. The MPO is getting a GIS system and it will be able to tie to the journey to work information from the census bureau called the "Census Urban Transportation Planning Package". There is a lot of journey to work information. In 1990, the census did a 1 in 6 survey. This information will be available through this software program. There will be opportunity to share information with other GIS systems such as the one in Planning. Bracke referred to page three of his hand-out which demonstrates the building blocks of the travel behavior information system. These are the types of things that will go into our monitoring system. Bracke said that for the design and implementation of the TDM program, we will be doing the "dog and pony" shows to all the areas in community workshops to figure out what people in the region want. We'll also do business roundtables with the major employers as well as many small businesses too. Many businesses are already doing things and we need to find out what they're doing, how successful they are and celebrate those successes and find out what we can do to help and make it better. Another target will be the University and the school district, we want to work with them as well. The TDM has a two pronged approach to it, the journey to work and a community wide type of trip. We don't know yet what the latter will look like yet. Each entity will be accountable to the MPO for the money they are given to spend on their TDM projects. Hopefully, everything will be in place and we'll be up and running by the end of October. This is not a planning study, but actual implementation. Perlmutter commented that this is excellent. Valentine suggested that volunteer groups such as the Sertoma Club be asked to help out with data gathering and sorting and also said that the questions ought to be fairly specific, i.e. "what city?" instead of, "where are you coming from?" Chair Gerety said that he sincerely hopes that all the information will be accessible on the InterNet. If it is not, then you are probably swimming upstream and the demands are going to increase for information in this form. Bracke responded that there is still discussions about getting it on FortNet, which Gerety said would be alright, but InterNet is even better. The information that Bracke brought tonight was from Charlier's E-mail system that he already has in place. He said that he anticipates having most of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) members involved in the exchange of information. Gerety suggested that the way you exchange information through E-mail should be through normal InterNet E-mail so that anyone can exchange. As long as you have to dial a system and use their mail system, then you have closed yourself off to the rest of the world. Ensdorff said that staff will bring TDM information on a regular basis to the board. C.2. NORTH COLLEGE PLAN UPDATE Clark Mapes from the City's Advance Planning department stated that the Planning & Zoning Board will hear the proposal at their February 27 meeting, for adoption and recommendation to City Council Background: This has been going on for about two and a half years, the first half year was mapping and data gathering. There is a plan document that is in the last stages of editing. Existing conditions: Trucks are a problem; train crossings are a transportation issue; It is a smaller scale of circulation in the project area; and very few sidewalks, trails, bike lanes/paths exist in the corridor because no requirements were in place at the time most of the development occurred. Analysis of existing conditions: Transportation issues: Trucks/trains and circulation were very near the top of the list of important issues for residents and property owners. Recommendations: Continue to pursue the northeast area implementation of the NEAT Study; publicly support the efforts on the truck traffic as a policy statement. Policy Statements: (Some are reiterations of the general info.) Additional connections in the street system should be built with new development or as part of the North College capital improvement program; A pedestrian friendly transportation network that directly connects the local destinations should be at the heart of the plan; At a minimum, sidewalks and bike lanes should be provided on all streets (but does not include College Avenue bike lanes because for major arterials, street standards do not include bike lanes on the street and is sight specific) as required by city standard cross sections including retro fitting streets at the time of upgrading or resurfacing; All pedestrian and bike facilities proposed in the NEATS should be included in the implementation plan; We should continue to evaluate the recommendations in the NEATS regarding transit and to evaluate negotiations with the county to serve county subdivisions on N. College Avenue. He then went over the plan, referring to a large wall map, summarizing the elements of the N. College Plan: General land use patterns, additional street and pedestrian connections will be required... He showed the circulation pattern and explained some of the areas that will be rezoned for commercial property. Out of the six major projects for the Plan, four of them are transportation related. Valentine inquired about the one-way couplet, nothing was said about it. Mapes was not dear about it, so Ensdorff explained to him about the Transportation Board requesting that it be looked into again. The board engaged in a discussion about specific loops and realignments in the plan. Mapes concluded by asking for the Board's approval to take to City Council on March 21. He said that it is not critical to get anything formal, there is virtually no controversy. Chair Gerety asked the Board what they would like to do. Valentine said the Board should approve it. The Board was in consensus on approving the plan. C.3. BOARD MEMBER COMMENTS Valentine stated that the Bike Focus Group (BFG) is still moving along. Egeland said that the last meeting focused on encouragement and was a good brainstorming session in which marketing was brought up. Valentine stated that the TDM marketing is going to make people more aware of the problem and this would be a good time to take off with more marketing. The BFG is planning to go to Council on May 23. Next week the BFG will prioritize the work that they want done and the engineers will then take over and get a cost figure on the top x amount that are to be done. Then the BFG will look at reprioritizing that based on the cost. Meetings have increased to sometimes two a week. Egeland stated that at the last meeting, he brought up a concern about Timberline Road area at the convenience store and he has talked with Rita Davis about solutions. Beatty distributed a one page summary on the Transit Development Advisory Committee's first meeting on January 19, 1995 to all the board members. Frazier stated that she is involved with Leadership Fort Collins and that tomorrow they are having a mock City Council meeting. The focus of the meeting will be: Should the City of Fort Collins put the Timberline Extension back to the voters on the November ballot? In this mock meeting, she said that they will hear from the real Transportation Engineer/manager and from the Transportation Board Chair (Frazier) on the position of the Board to Council. She said that she met with Gerety on Saturday to discuss it. She asked for advice from other board members. After much discussion, it was agreed that she would take the stance to put it on the ballot as a yes/no (build the bridge) with an option for spending the money on x. CA. UPDATE FROM STAFF Omitted due to time constraints. C.S. NEXT AGENDA Ensdorff stated that the next meeting should be devoted to the Statewide Plan. Since a crucial meeting on this issue isn't happening until March 13, and the Board meets on the 15th, he is going to have to hand-out the information at the Board meeting. If at all possible, he will get it out to the Board sooner. C.6. OTHER BUSINESS Ensdorff stated that the State has decided to do a rail feasibility study. Staff has a lot of questions about it at this point. The MPO staff has been looking at it and the issue is heating up. He will have more information at the next meeting. Good news: Ensdorff said that we thought we had $121,000 of federal money to work on the Harmony Road Bikeway project, but the State tells us we have $321,000! (We hope it is not just a bookkeeping error on their part.) There being no other business, the meeting adjourned at 7:55 p.m. h, 62� jw- Cindy L'Scott, Secretary