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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 02/28/2006MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE. February 28, 2006 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison 407-7393 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison 224-6085 Board Members Present Kip Carrico, Dave Dietrich, Eric Levine, Bruce Macdonald, Dale Adamy, Nancy York, Jeff Engell Board Members Absent Gregory McMaster, Cherie Trine Staff Present Natural Resources Department: Brian Woodruff, Tara McGibben, Terry Klahn Guests None The meeting was called to order at 5:35 p.m. Public Comments None New Member Jeff Engle was introduced as the newest member of the AQAB. Joint meeting with the Transportation Board Brian Woodruff said this meeting will take place on Wednesday, April 19. That is the regularly scheduled meeting time for the Transportation Board. This will be a worksession for the AQAB. Air Quality Outreach Results and Plans This item will be rescheduled to the March meeting. Mobility Management Best Practices Study, Brian Woodruff Woodruff said this project used to be called VMT Best Practices Review. Reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has been in the past, and is still today, a goal in City policy. Right now our city policy is to do as well at reducing VMT as other cities who are trying to do the same thing. We'd like to be world class when it comes to measures that reduce travel in order to reduce air pollution. The Natural Resources Department decided to invest $20,000 in a consulting study to have someone come in and look at the things we're already doing that contribute to VMT reduction. The consultant hired is the Brendle Group, with Todd Litman. They are experienced with pollution prevention studies, and have experience working with transportation too. Air Quality Advisory Board 02/28/2006 Page 2 of 6 Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute, said that most people don't understand VMT, and VMT reduction. It's hard to explain and it's negative. The new term is Mobility Management. Litman and the Brendle Group have interviewed people in the community and will prepare a draft report by the end of March. On April 19, Litman will come to Fort Collins and make a presentation to a joint meeting of the Transportation and Air Quality Advisory Boards. Woodruff reviewed slides from the "Healthy Community Planning: Integrating Health Objectives into Transport and Land Use Planning" presentation prepared by Todd Litman. • Woodruff: hi communities where there is a substantial investment in public transit, if you look at the stats on household expenditures, they're saving five times as much. The return on their investment is 500%. There is reduced energy consumption and emissions. There are also reduced crashes and the costs of crashes. For a 10% reduction in traffic, there's a 17% reduction in crash risk. That's an important benefit that is not well recognized. • Levine: Does it mention a list of cities? • Woodruff. I don't have that slide. There is a ranking of cities by their drivability. Most drivable cities tend to have low incomes, and they're low density and sprawling. The least drivable, like San Francisco, are cities with high density. • Macdonald: It would be interesting to see a comparison of cities who have been successful in reducing congestion and increasing health. Any success stories? • Woodruff. That's what the consultant is supposed to show us. They'll do a best practices review, reviewing our programs and making recommendations. We are trying to avoid spending energy trying to find an exact match of the City. • Macdonald: We could look for similar characteristics. If growth is one of them, we could look for something growing at roughly the same rate. • Levine: We could look at others that are the size of what we're projected to be and see what they've don't right and wrong. • York: A point missing in the list of benefits from a reduction of air pollution is the negative health impacts. Walking is great, global warming isn't mentioned. • Woodruff: I believe that "pollution emissions" is a catchall. • York: We should put an emphasis on health. It's reasonable to think that we're inhaling a lot of carcinogens. • Dietrich: At the joint meeting is that the final/summary presentation? • Woodruff. Yes, that will bring the report to a close. There may be recommendations for more education forums for the business community. • Woodruff: We've asked the consultant to show us the best university TDM program, best transit, best van pooling ... not necessarily integrated together. • Levine: That's fair. We've used Eugene, OR as an example of someplace that's bike friendly, and of course Boulder's progressive initiatives. I don't remember one place we've compared our self to. • Macdonald: What would you expect us to do? What are the next steps? • Woodruff: That's a good question. Your role is to advise Council on air quality and related programs. There isn't an end point on the project. We're committed to getting the information out, but there's no plan yet. 0 York: It could add fodder to our memos to City Council. Air Quality Advisory Board 02/28/2006 Page 3 of 6 • Adamy: Is it possible to incorporate a conclusion that could be presented to Council for an action item? • Levine: We've seen lots of resolutions that state goals. If it doesn't receive funding it will sit on the shelf. A commitment would require a resolution, adequate resources and a timeline. • Adamy: The citizens would feel better about the monies spent on the study. • Woodruff: I have an idea of how this report can be used in the City structure. In the next round of budgeting (BFO) this recommendation could form the basis for programs that are budget offers. Through mobility management the City would save dollars on transportation services and have a better balanced system. There could be more alternatives and less costs. Those kinds of programs can survive in a time of hard budgeting. Hopefully this report will lay the foundation for Mobility Management as a fiscally responsible thing to do. • Levine: It needs an integrated approach. The BFO process tends to look at every item piece meal. It's much harder to defend something like that. That process is geared to specific items. • Adamy: At the EVSAG meeting there was a similar chart. This process is not new or unusual. • Adamy: NRAB is meeting the same night. Would it be valuable to incorporate them in this joint meeting with the Transportation Board? • Woodruff: Fort Collins has wonderful planning documents with far reaching goals and well thought out approaches. Implementation is where we are lacking. We do pretty well on the Land Use side. Because of budget issues we're getting rid of our marketing/outreach programs that encourage alternative modes. They're being de -funded and taken up. in different departments in the City without any budget. We're backsliding. The transit system lacks a dedicated funding source. Transit gets operating funds from the federal and local sources. The General Fund has many demands on it. • Carrico: Does the impact of population density really address goals listed on the slide. Increasing the population density will cause some backtracking in some of these things. The loft/condo projects in old town might help the broader Fort Collins area, but might impact the core of the City. Do population efforts, with making other efforts, get to these goals? What's Fort Collins' approach with that? Have they studied that in depth? • Woodruff: The Downtown Strategic Plan addresses the mobility aspect. I'm no expert in that area. If you just add people to an area and don't add anything else about the travel patterns you could end up with more of a problem. I don't want to be reductionist about this. There are multiple components. If you add people you'll have more activities going on. It will be a more attractive place, more people on the street. Land uses will have to adapt to that. It will be an increasingly walkable and attractive place. Keep the cars away, park on the outskirts of the activity center. Make it easy for people to access the area. There would be some congestion. • Levine: Look at Pearl Street in Boulder, and the 16`s Street mall in Denver. Woodruff: If you always prioritize the traffic then the pedestrians are frightened. You don't want to walk where cars are a priority. You slow down the cars to make an area more attractive for walkers and cyclists. Begin Discussions about Barriers/Opportunities for Air Quality Improvement Eric Levine distributed a handout listing his thoughts and ideas on how the board has operated previously and different approaches the board might think about taking. Air Quality Advisory Board 02/28/2006 Page 4 of 6 • Adamy: I like the concept. Might we have another meeting to discuss other examples, or are these suggestions? • Levine: I was thinking of ways to improve things. Like taking one specific item, and having dialogues. • Adamy: This is a positive approach. If it's fact finding there's no problem. In terms of CSU you could do the same thing. I have no idea how the City liaisons work with CSU. Are there people talking to CSU? • Unknown: Our role as a board is to advise Council. It is not to tell PSD what to do. • Woodruff: I'm certain we have people talking to CSU. There's been an ebb and flow. Things operate differently with different City Managers. I don't know where it is today. There's always a desire to reach out to CSU and work with them. • Levine: That's part of my point. No one knows who makes the decisions in the PSD. They have a huge bus fleet, the City's is small in comparison. There's a big affect on air quality. • Macdonald: PSD does have a working group that sets up routes. They do a very poor job. It's not planned to flow well. There are many solutions not looked at pertaining to how to reduce emissions and congestion. • Dietrich: It would be interesting to find out how that planning is done. • Levine: We just had a presentation that sounded like Fort Collins has a commitment to a clean fuel Transfort system. We have 26 or 27 buses. PSD has many more. What are their plans for the future. • Dietrich: I can see a dialogue with PSD unless someone is already doing that. We don't want to duplicate efforts. • Woodruff: There are interconnections, but I'm not sure there is a focused approach. Advance Planning interacts with PSD on planning the locations of new schools. They supply data and recommendations. To what extend PSD takes those I don't know. • Dietrich: I think it would be great. • York: We could invite staff members and connect with PSD, or the hospital or CSU. We could hopefully stimulate thought. • Levine: We need to find specific issues, do a little work and then invite the participants we need to invite and schedule it. I'm proposing we identify specific Fort Collins air quality problems. Ideas and suggestions can be emailed to Tara McGibben for the time being until a permanent process is determined. Elect Vice -Chair Bruce Macdonald made a motion that this item wait until the annual election of Chair and Vice - chair. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously. Minutes With the following changes, the minutes of the January 24, 2006 meeting were unanimously approved: • York- page 8, bottom, change "unirail" to "a rail" • York- page 9, last paragraph, 2nd bullet; change "bus that ran" to "bus that runs" • York — page 10, 1st York, - remove entire bullet • York — page 15, change "name" to "lane" • Macdonald — page 16, correct misspelling of "anecdotally" Au Quality Advisory Board 02/28/2006 Page 5 of 6 • Carrico — Page 18, top of page, change to "solar thermal system" Other Business/Announcements • Bruce Macdonald reported that he attended the 2°d meeting of Transportation Management Feasibility Study. They're looking at the development, coordination and implementation of transportation management activities. They are working with businesses to enhance and improve traffic flow and identify traffic issues. Of 130 questionnaires that were distributed there were 17 responses. It seems that most businesses don't have a big concern about traffic. The next meeting is March 9. • Brian Woodruff said that Transportation Management Associations are public/private partnerships. This is a feasibility study to determine if a TMA can work here, or if there is any interest. • Nancy York: I am concerned about new residential development occurring in the I-25 corridor, and the proximity of traffic to residents. In my opinion the amount of traffic is going to be excessive. I wish we could do a scientific study to evaluate and address the impacts to residents. I know it would be costly, but this seems irresponsible. I'd like us to send a memo to Council saying that a study needs to be done if residential development is going in on I-25. I would like to recommend that the memo be passed on to the MPO. There's a major disconnect between transportation and air quality. It's irresponsible for studies to not be done. • Levine: We can take this up, with a possible recommendation to Council at the next meeting. • Adamy: In terms of what Nancy's asking, I'm confused about the goal. • York: I'd like to recommend to City Council that the amount of development along I- 25 in Fort Collins is enough to merit a study. • Dietrich: Do you know the progress on the EIS? We should find out when the public input period is. • Woodruff: I'd like to make a brief comment. In my experience in working with boards I have some advice. Your role is to advise City Council. I would urge you to nurture that relationship. They set up the boards, they interviewed and appointed you. You're appointed to be their advisors. When you advise them, send them a memo, or even call them there is no requirement that they listen or even acknowledge what you said. In that setting your best strategy is to nurture that Council relationship. Your liaison is David Roy. He is sympathetic to your mission. I'd suggest taking him to coffee, find out his perspective and see what would they appreciate the board doing. What topics are they interested in right now? If you're trying to be effective you'll get the most benefit from you energy by nurturing that relationship. • York: We should invite David Roy, Kurt Kastein and the Mayor to the April 19 meeting. Au Quality Advisory Board 02/28/2006 Page 6 of 6 Meeting adjourned 8.00 PM Submitted by Terry Mahn Administrative Support Supervisor Approved by the Board on 2006