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HomeMy WebLinkAboutParking Advisory Board - Minutes - 09/14/2015MINUTES of the CITY OF FORT COLLINS PARKING ADVISORY BOARD September 14, 2015 5:30 p.m. 215 North Mason – Community Room Fort Collins, CO 80524 FOR REFERENCE: Chair: Susan Kirkpatrick Vice Chair: Michael Pruznick Staff Liaison: Kurt Ravenschlag 221-6386 Administrative Support: Melissa Brooks 224-6161 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: CITY STAFF PRESENT: Susan Kirkpatrick, Chair Kurt Ravenschlag, Transfort GM & Parking Svcs. Manager, 221-6386 Michael Pruznick, Vice Chair Melissa Brooks, Administrative Clerk, Transfort, 224-6161 Holly Wright Liz Messenger, Customer Service Supervisor, Parking 221-6617 Stephanie Napoleon Mike Beckstead, CFO Seth Lorson, City Planner Amy Lewin, Sr. Transportation Planner Tessa Greegor, Bikes Program Manager ABSENT: OTHERS IN ATTENDANCE Councilmember Kristin Stephens Carey Hewitt Steve Schroyer Michael Short Tracy Mead Stuart MacMillan 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Kirkpatrick called the meeting to order at 5:35pm 2. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS 3. AGENDA REVIEW Approved after two additions were made 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES None Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 September 14, 2015 5. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None 6. PUBLIC COMMENT None 7. ACTION ITEMS None 8. DISCUSSION/INFORMATIONAL ITEMS A. Interim Parking Manager Introduction, Kurt Ravenschlag Ravenschlag Pleased to be here and excited to be in this new role and serving as liaison to the Board. I grew up in Fort Collins and started working for the City in 2004 as a Transportation Planner. In 2007 I transitioned over to Transfort as the Assistant General Manager. During the time as a Transportation Planner most of my focus was on MAX BRT project. Then when I transitioned to Transfort in 2007 I got to coordinate the implantation and operations of it. In 2012 I became General Manger for Transfort. Parking Services has gone through a lot of changes with new programs added, new responsibilities asked of staff, the retirement of long time manager and a failed attempt to bring on a new manager. At the time Planning Transportation Department Manager, Karen Cumbo, saw it as an opportunity to take a step back and maybe find different ways to organize Parking in the PDT model. Synergies between Parking Services and Transfort both of these are managing access and transportation to places. Right now we are in the process of the possibility to reorganize Parking Service and Transfort in PDT. I am excited to be working with Parking Services have doing it now for 3 months. I like new challenges and getting to learn new business is exciting to me. It has been fun to see our two groups work together and seeing the opportunities. This is my first board meeting and I will do my best to support you all and if there is something you need from me please let me know. Kirkpatrick as a consequent Liz will no longer the contact and that is why you are seeing emails from Melissa. Ravenschlag I know this is bitter sweet, Liz has been doing an amazing job with supporting this group. We have new exciting plans for Liz and we want to free her up. Kirkpatrick This will be interesting to see new perspectives. B. Downtown Hotel Parking, Mike Beckstead, City CFO Beakstead What I have is the presentation that I gave to the DBA Board last Thursday so it will not get to all the questions. There are things that are very preliminary. The location of the parking structure will be the lot on Chestnut St. the site of the Armadillo restaurant and parking next to it. Next to it is the alley way that was recently conveyed to the Bohemian Company. The hotel will be 5 stories stepping down 5 to 4. The parking lot about 4700 square feet. It is anticipated for 3 stories. The second floor of the hotel will look out to the sidewall of the parking structure. It is intentionally kept at 3 stories to maximize the visibility of the patrons to the hotel. Entrance to the parking structure will be on Chestnut. Retail shops along one side would be the Bohemian Company ownership. Per City code it is required that areas could be expanded into retail space. It will have a façade look, where it looks like a retail shop, but no windows. It will have framings that look like doorways and archways. At some point in the future the parking spaces on the first floor could be converted into retail Regular Meeting Minutes Page 3 September 14, 2015 space along the Jefferson St. side. It will not be in the initial development, don’t think right now is the time to build retail space along that part of Jefferson. Per code, this is a function that needs to be included in the current design. This is not the current picture. They went to P&Z and received approval. In their recommendation the lot right now is all surface. In the current design the lot is designed to be asphalt. The long term intent was to come forth in October with the proposal to do the parking structure. They weren’t ready with the details, cost, design, façade and what it looks like all at once. They had started with a surface lot which lead into discussions with the City if a surface lot was the right thing given the parking dilemma in Old Town. Approximate ideas what it might look like, the corner of Jefferson and Chestnut looking up towards Walnut with the Mitchell building it integrates together, with clear architectural treatments on the exterior of the parking structure to look less like a parking structure and to integrate better into Old Town. Down Firehouse Alley will be retail shops that are owned by the Bohemian Company. Three story structures, first floor ceiling foot height will be around 11 feet so the commercial space on the first floor is functional and attractive. The first floor will have a higher ceiling that the other floors. The ramp will be in the center of the structure so the exterior is flat. This has impact on space but from a aesthetics perspective it seemed appropriate. The way it is anticipated to work, is condo ownership, with a property owners agreement. The City will hold title to a specific number of spaces. The Bohemian Company will own title to a specific number of spaces, roughly one thirds, two thirds. In the cost of the purchase we will adjust out the retail space, the space that could potentially get converted into retail space along Jefferson. Ideally it would be helpful for the hotel to have the first floor and then have all the public parking on the second and third floors. Once the nineteen spaces are consumed for retail spaces along Jefferson some of the hotel parking will end up on the second floor. One entrance, our parking service group will operate maintain and man the parking structure. Will have O & M agreement on how costs will be shared. There will be placards that designate hotel parking, but not sure exactly how that will work. The Bohemian group will build the parking structure and it will be an asset purchase from the City, buying spaces from the Bohemian Company sometime late 2016 or early 2017. The City won’t be building but will review costs and will hire folks to help to manage and scrutinize costs. Right now costs are estimated to be around 11 to 12, which works out to be about $33,000 per space. That is 11 to 12, we don’t exactly know yet. That is a big range that changes 34 to 31 if you take out the difference. There is land in there, we have worked with a real estate organization Patrick Rowe to put an evaluation to the piece of property this is going to go on. Part of the Bohemian contribution will be the value of the land. This is in the 2 million dollar range. Another adjustment would be 11 to 12 minus the value of the land, worth 9 to 10 that puts you down to the 28 to 30 thousand dollars per space. Variables to this is the mall parking structure, concrete, industrial looking. It doesn’t have much aesthetics to it. This would be in the low end, when we priced it out a few years ago, it was around 13 to 14 thousand dollars per space without the land. We are talking here twenty-eight to thirty cost to build without the land. The Parking Study we used 20.5 based on 2013 estimates and 2 to 3 percent. There is still a significant gap there. A couple of reasons for this are that construction costs have gone up dramatically in the last 12 to 15 months. We have seen this on a lot of projects. CDOT saw it on the repaving of College Avenue. The bigger issue gets to the nature of building in Old Town the skin and façade that need to go on the parking structure that is part of the heart of Old Town. That is going to add cost, but don’t how much yet. Once we get designs we could estimate the added costs. We are talking really detailed articulate treatments, pillars and bricks along Jefferson Avenue. The other thing is when looking at the mall, it is 1000 spaces, and this is 300 spaces. There Regular Meeting Minutes Page 4 September 14, 2015 are some economies of scale when building 800 parking versus 300 parking structures. There isn’t land available in Old Town to build more Civic Center parking structure. The Parking Plan Randy put together, envisions 6 smaller parking structures that ringed Old Town. They were 200 to 300 spaces. The third in hindsight, I think we might have been too aggressive with the 20.5 thousands per space. Point of reference, a parking structure being built in Boulder is coming in around 50 thousand as cost per space; part is underground which adds costs. There is a wide range of cost based on design and construction. The timeline has us going to P&Z October 9 and going to Council Finance October 26 to talk about financing. The current plan has us going to council to approve the purchase, operations and maintenance agreements Nov. 17. The financing will happen sometime between the end of this year and the end of 2016. This is an asset purchase we don’t have to bond now and fund the construction bill we don’t get the cash until the purchase. We are doing a sensitivity analysis on how much rates do go up. Should borrow now and put the money in the bank and pay additional year of interest. We talked with the DBA about an IGA where they are committee to participating in the debt service, right now they support on Civic Center $275,000 which is about half. If they continue to pay what they do with the Civic Center garage it would be about a third of the cost of the debt service of this garage. Right now, they are planning on starting construction on the hotel in January. They need about four months for prep work. The hotel construction will start around April or May and plan on an eight month construction. This is why closing is in late Q4 or in Q1 of 2017. These are preliminary numbers, 12 is the high end number for planning purposes. If we borrow for 10 years at 3 percent and if borrowed today it would be about 2.25. Don’t know when we will borrow. There will be an annual debt service of 935 over ten years and if switched to twenty years debt service would be about 600,000 per year. We would like to go ten years. There are some financing alternatives available if we stay under 12 years. I have a philosophy and it is in line with the City’s of rather than extending it out to lower the payment, pay it off and move on to the next project. The debt service on the Civic Center including this building the City is paying just a little over a million one. It is my proposal starting after June of 2018, which is when the last payment is due, that this becomes the revenue stream starting 2019. We have some one time use tax revenue forecast for 2016 great likely hood we will exceed that. Confident that there will be general reserve funds available for 16 to 18 time frames and hopefully it is really a 2017 to 2018 time frame because we wait until mid-2016 to go borrow. That is the concept. Wright How long did it take to pay off the Civic Center parking garage? Beckstead I was not here when they borrowed. I believe it refinanced in 2007, but I do not know when the bonds originally went out. Purznick Thank you for that information. This helps a lot compared to what I saw in the paper. For what we charge for rates in our garage and what it cost to maintain the garage, how do we set that up and are we expecting to have other revenues on top of that? Beckstead Right now the fees collect cover the operations and maintenance cost. They cover minor capital up grades. Ravenschalg That is accurate I think the one piece that was missing you described the future capitol out lay. Beckstead We set up a new parking fund so now all the revenues go into their own special funds so these things can be tracked. Part of the cleanup ordnance going to Council next month is a transfer from the Transportation fund to the Parking fund. I think a million five will move over. Regular Meeting Minutes Page 5 September 14, 2015 Kirkpatrick If the Parking Plan identified a need for 1500 additional spaces and if this proposal goes more than 10 percent of the way, 200 spaces, the progress is in the correct direction. As I understand this is one of the first private/public partnerships proposed outside of inter-government. The Civic Center is City, county and DBA. Beckstead The parking plan that Susan reference with the 1500 spaces needed over then ten years or so, the work I did with Randy Hensley late 2013. I got asking the questions where would you do that and what would it cost. Independently, all the financials came together and worked out well. This happens to be in line with the plan. To solve the parking dilemma in Old Town there will need to be more of these kinds of things done to help solve the problem. Kirkpatrick The next Parking Board meeting that is before Council in October, I would like to have an action item that would give some kind of recommendation from the Parking Board that outlines the reasons why and how it fits within the Parking Plan that was developed. Certainty won’t solve all the challenges, but is one step closer. So if we could have a brief recommendation developed for us for our October meeting to vote one. We will need quorum for sure. It would be helpful to communicate to Council. Beckstead That would be very much appreciated. The DBA Board was unanimously in support of their contributions of revenue. It fits into their strategies and is crucial for the development of Old Town. C. Downtown Plan Project Update, Seth Lorson and Amy Lewin, City Planner Lorson I have a number of handouts. The first hand out is the Phase One Summary. This is a general, we identified issues and priorities it not parking orientated it the Downtown Plan. The next hand out has the draft visions statement for transportation and Parking as well as a synthesis and summary of our Phase two online survey where we had 456 full respondents. The last two handouts are the Downtown Community Dialog, an overview of the effort we have been discussing, Spectrum of Alternatives and Peer Communities. Lewin The overall project schedule of the Downtown Plan is about a year and half total going into the middle of next year. Right now we are in the visioning stage. We are headed from the vision phase to choices and strategies. The idea is that parking dialog moving a little faster and will know where we are headed by May next year a little before the rest of the Downtown Plan. We have done a lot of events like New West Fest and have done a lot of project specific events like the Visioning Open House in July. We have complemented those with on line efforts. We have really tried to use a variety of tools to reach a variety of people throughout this process. We have working groups that have been set and are based on topic areas. For example, Susan and Kurt are on the Transportation and Parking work group. We also recognize that these topic areas are interrelated. We did a survey of the five emerging priorities that have come up in transportation and parking and rake them in order of importance. Right now the top priority is to improve conditions for walking and biking. Ranked number three is coming up with strategies to have adequate parking Downtown. 134 people said that this is their top priority. So we know that it is top of mind for a lot of people as we continue planning. With the outreach we asked key questions about parking, trying to get what is important to people choosing to park. Some of the top responses were proximately to destination, know where spaces are available and finding a space quickly. The second question is what would improve your parking experience Downtown. The result is an increased availability of parking garages. If you look at the current occupancy data we know that currently the garages are not being used to their full extent and yet people want to see them available, maybe in different locations. Possibly the hotel garage could fulfill a need there. Other top choices are real time availability information making it easier for people to Regular Meeting Minutes Page 6 September 14, 2015 know where the available spots are and an increase availability of on street parking. The vision theme is when we look twenty years from now Downtown Fort Collins is easily, comfortably and safely accessed and navigated by multiply modes of transportation. If you have any input please email that to us. It is a work in progress and is part of a larger vision statement that covers downtown overall as well as the individual topic areas. Lorson Handout Downtown Parking Community Dialogue: The vision comes from the 2013 Parking Plan. The keys issues are the lack of parking, parking turnover and accessibility. This is a constant theme we are hearing within the community. Issues that came forward when Randy put up a budget offer for on street paid parking. These are the same themes we keep hearing, concern for impacts on the neighborhoods, better communications about parking access locations. People want to know where the parking is and where can they access it and a desire to move away from a punitive enforcement driven funding model. It sours a lot of people’s experience with Downtown if they leave with a ticket. The objectives are to increase availability and ease of access to and from, turnover of on street parking, develop a management system that is supportive of all stake holders of Downtown, provide options of parking and traveling to and around Downtown, encourage use of alternative modes of transportation to reduce that parking demand. Identify sustainable funding source for the future of access transportation infrastructure mainly parking structures. Handout Spectrum of Parking Alternatives: We thought about how to convey the variety of parking options. There are two different gradients, one represents on street parking management strategies the other is garage parking. Identifying the length of stay when you come to Downtown and if you are an employee you will be there for a long time, the appropriate place to park would be in the structures. If coming in quickly you want to park on street close to your destination. Identifying that type of behavior we look at on street management. Starting at Free Parking, Time-Limited Parking, we have free parking for two hours where you have to move or be penalized. The other end of the scale is paid parking. The Parking Plan right now said we should have a way to extend the two hour parking by some sort of on street paid parking system, which was adopted by City Council. We found that people were looking at and understanding these options. The same thing happens with the garage parking, you can do free, first hour free then pay, and paid parking. In the Parking Plan right now says that our pricing system is upside down. Where the most convenient parking on street is free and then you go to the parking garage, which is less convenient and it cost money. This is a conversed relationship, if the direction were to go where there was some mechanism to pay for parking on the street you could offset that by reducing the cost of the garages to encourage the use of that more. What we are seeing now is an underutilization of the parking structures. Why not sure, they are only in discreet locations and cost money. We know that those are not the only strategies for parking. Expand enforcement to evenings and weekends that is something we see. At the 6 pm hour everyone is coming down to dine and it is packed with no turnover. Manage employee parking maybe strategies for that, maybe a buy in from business owners. Residential parking permit program, we already have that in place and enhanced wayfinding and communication. These are all strategies that can all work in tandem in any way you want to structure your on street and garage parking. This is a spectrum of alternatives for the conversations we plan to have in the coming months. We did a snapshot of our peer communities. What we heard at our last parking and transportation group was we don’t only want to know how many parking spaces they have or how long they have been in operation; we want to know what their challenges are. Look over the information and send us emails and give us feedback because we want to grow this dialog. The next steps on October 14 and 15 we blocked out full days with two hour blocks where Regular Meeting Minutes Page 7 September 14, 2015 we hope to have focus groups with mainly the downtown business owners. We know that his is the principle stake holder group but, we also want to include DBA, Chamber, Library, Lincoln Center, Parking Advisory Board, Planning Zoning Board, so we can sit down for a two hour block. We want to walk through the spectrum of alternative. We want people to understand the issues, visions and objectives of the parking plan itself. Then we can start evaluating these tradeoffs. We don’t expect at the end for everyone to be on the same page but we want everyone to acknowledge the direction we are going. Then we can have a second round with follow up meetings and maybe come to this board with real information from what we heard and maybe something that could be supported for recommendation to City Council. Does this approach seem reasonable? Napoleon Look at the handout that has the parking experience improvement for Downtown, the first two are offset, but the next set are complete opposites. One wants increased availability of on street parking, which would mean more turnover and the other is no time. Are you hoping these focus groups are going to get you to a one point path? Lorson I don’t think there is a one point path at this point. It is such a delicate issue and that is why I felt the spectrum of alternatives could lend to something that is a gradual approach to a different parking management strategy. Perhaps have infrastructure in place to expand your stay on street without getting penalize or if you are an hour and forty-five minutes into your dinner you don’t have to move your car. We don’t expect agreement; we want to have a full conversation about it. This is the mentality about parking we, want it right up front and free and accessible. We understand it is a challenge. Lewin The icons on the spectrum of alternative relate back to the objectives. The idea is to talk though how these strategies achieve different things and to have honest conversations about the tradeoffs and about how can we meet multiple objectives. Wright When you do your outreach do you communicate about how many spaces will need in the next 20 years? I love seeing 2014 revenue of 10 million dollars in Boulder. They have a system in place that has worked well for them for many years but, when we think about 200 spaces we are gaining if the hotel garage is approved now we have 1300 more to find and finance for, public private adventures. How do we get closer at incrementally chipping away at that number? It is helpful to show the revenues and then telling them it is 30 thousand dollars per space for these parking garages and just how much money will be needed. I think that along with your charts about real time parking information and will can do that with sensors that are associated with kiosks for on street paid parking and apps on phones. We can check off a bunch of these things that could be remedied if you did have that system in place and yes you can go along free time and spectrum of free time versus paid on your spectrum. Explain what you need as far as revenues and what these other people do to get it and accomplish what we are trying to accomplish. I think this is great information and dollar amounts that can be gain by managing parking can get us there. Lorson I think you are right that I am somewhat neglectful talking about the funding needed for the future, because we talk about management so much and getting people to the right places. We hear people say we just want the money. I should probably bring it up more often because it is a reality. Sometimes we talk about it in in terms of management. Kirkpatrick To counter that, just as the Parking Plan estimated a cost per space, my gut says we are over estimating for a number of reasons. If we couple transportation with a thoughtful parking strategy the likely hood of meeting all of those structures diminishes. The parking structure phenomenon is predicated on the City owns and operates all facilities. It does not take into account the use of existing parking surfaces that are in private hands right now. I respect the parking plan to some extent, but we already know some assumptions are flawed. I Regular Meeting Minutes Page 8 September 14, 2015 think the number of 1500 should be cautious about that. 200 added to what we currently have, I can feel good about that, but I can’t say I am all for putting in those big structures to meet that 1500 need today. Ravenschlag I would say that those numbers that we provided for a snap shot of time. That is the kind of number that needs to be continually assessed. We can’t say in ten years we are still going to need 200 we don’t know what going to happen. That is going to need to be assessed on continuing bases. Lorson A snap shot in time at that time there were no minimum parking requirement for any land use Downtown, commercial or residential. So we have changed that since then. We have to assume those numbers in the parking plan was to absorb new development as well. That’s changed and that could change again. Kirkpatrick So we don’t know what the real number for 1500 is any more than we know available structure any more than the cost to get there today. We do know 2 to 3 year timeframe. But I am really cautious that we need 1500 spaces. Lewin Today in the Downtown Planning meeting we were working on the Canyon District talking about the Lincoln Center, for example, and the need for parking when people come to shows. In the day time maybe the Otter world people would take those spaces and in the night time the Lincoln Center. So it would be good position for a parking garage on that stretch. Also talking as Canyon as a promenade, people park there and walk to the farmers markets, shows, dinner. There are things that make sense as far as collaborative thought of influence and there is already a need right now. I don’t disagree with you because who knows what the future holds but, we can see the pressure and if we could somehow put it motion early where you see that need in the existing. The heights of buildings with areas of 10 to 12 floors than you think OK that is residential this business space. Then we start thinking yes we need those parking spaces, because it could be very dense along that stretch and that is the infill they are projecting and the area they want to infill like that. So that puts a lot of big buildings and a lot of people. I would for them all to take MAX and ride their bikes, that would be great, but I don’t every single company is going to do that. We will see what happens but I think sometimes when people are talking, no I want everything free then you can say this is the density we expect and the infill this is the space that could be needed and how are we going to pay for that. Purznick I wanted to point out that the City Council recently approved those smaller vehicles. It may save spaces and get more in the same lot. The post office, people have been complaining about not being able to park there any more. Kirkpatrick The meetings referenced in October do you see them as two hour blocks and people what two hours to attend. Lorson We set up an RSVP system like we did with the charrettes. Lewin You sign up on line. It will be limited 12 so we can have that small group and everyone can participate. Lorson Our consultant recommended that we maybe group those groups by day time business owner, night time are you a developer. Generally I was thinking to mix the groups because you can get the different perspective. What do you guys think? We certainly want to get people’s attention. Parking Downtown something that is on every business owners desk or inbox we want everyone to know it is parking alone. That alone most business owner will know how important it is. Lewin it might make it easier to schedule if all sessions are open to everyone. That is one thing that was tipping us towards this approach. Regular Meeting Minutes Page 9 September 14, 2015 Kirkpatrick We don’t get much participation from restaurants at the DBA business meetings to have times that are late enough. Lorson We are going to start at 8:30 am and go through to 7:30 pm in two hour blocks. People can come in at their convenience. Wright The sign up worked well for the Downtown Planning Meeting. Barb Developers Downtown used to have 2 parking spaces per apartment. If they can’t provide that they should be forces to buy 2 spaces in the garage. Don’t know why this isn’t being done instead of expectations all the time. A college student that lives Downtown is not going to need a car for furniture is beyond understanding. Lorson When we did the TOD parking study we did minimal parking requirements and allowed them to comply by purchasing spaces in the parking garage. At the P&Z meeting we permitted a variance to the parking for the hotel. There were 5 spaces out of the 111 that was required. Barb I know other people do not provide parking for tenants. That is why I think the private public partnership might be encouraged. Lorson Upcoming events, today was our first charrette for the Downtown Plan. Tomorrow over at 281 College will be there all day. Will have drop ins and see the work that was done. D. Mason Street Restriping Project, Tessa Greegor, Bikes Program Manager Greegor Thank you for the opportunity to come back I am the FC Bikes Program Managers. The last time I was here was to talk about the Laurel Street protected bike lane. Some of you might have seen the last phase of the project which is a parking protected bike went in. This is a pilot project and we will be collecting data over the next year and look at safety and ridership impacts and feedback form the community on how it is working. We are interested in hearing your feedback. The Mason Street Project, looking at ways, as a constrained corridor, to improve operations for all users, bus and bikes. Background: the scope is Mason Street from Laurel to Cherry. This is an important connection for the bike network and seen as an extension of the Mason Trail. It connects to the Poudre Trail at Cherry. It is a key connection to Downtown with riders. The corridor was recently restriped prior to the MAX implantation in 2014. Feedback from community wanted to see a facility that was consistent for the uses. As the result we have the chevrons shared condition for cars bikes. What we have heard it is not working everybody. There is a lot of confusion where you should be riding a bike, motorist what are people doing in the middle when there is space to the right. This is not serving as the multi model corridor we wanted it to be. We heard from Transfort that for operators it is not working to the extent we would like to see. This project was identified in the Bicycle Master Plan adopted in December. Ravenschlag What we are hearing for Traffic Operations are a number of near misses along the corridor. A lot stems from the confusion of what everyone should be doing. This is where our engagement is and to find a solution that is going to be safe and prevent any type of accidents. Greegor In terms of the project time line this is going to depend on the conversation we will have over the next couple of months. We are working on different design options of this narrow corridor and there will be tradeoffs whichever way we go. We have been looking at the different approaches we could do in order to get a dedicated safer facility all along this corridor. We started to have conversation with all the different boards that would have a stake in this. The Bicycle Advisory Committee will be at the Transportation Board. We will be talking to the DDA and DBA and potentially impacted property owners. Project installation, depending on how the conversations go will be later this fall. The goals are Regular Meeting Minutes Page 10 September 14, 2015 focused on improving safety and comfort along Mason Street. We are trying to provide a consistent bicycle facility in terms of design we said a 5 feet minimum bike lane. Then preserve as much on street parking as possible. The proposed design is a unique intersection approach. In terms of segments between the intersections we are look at providing buffer bike lanes. They have the hashed buffer marks between the travel lane and bike lane. Where it is constrained there would be a bike lane with a minimum of 5 feet. The intersection approach, because they are constrained we are not able to get a bike lane. Bike would share the right turn lane. Buses and bikes would be exempt. The parking impacts, there would be 3 blocks that would be impacted. Northbound is the block between Mulberry and Magnolia, this is where we would have 6 parking spaces impacted. Napoleon How many spaces are in that block total? Greegor There are thirteen. Then southbound two blocks would be impacted, between Mountain and Oak in front of the courthouse. Kirkpatrick Have you looked at utilization? Greegor We will be looking at that over the next couple of months. The Parking Plan did look at utilization. Based on being out there and experiencing the corridor it varies on time of day, weekends. When I am comminuting to work most of the parking spots are empty. Kirkpatrick 415 is closed on Mondays; the impact of the business day is great. On weekends more parking is available because businesses are not open. Ravenschlag Are there spaces that are impacted northbound? Greegor No, parking in front of Everyday Joe’s would stay. The second block southbound is between Oak and Olive in front of First National Bank with a bigger impact of 9 spaces. Overall it ends up being 20 spaces in a mile of the corridor which has a total of 89 parking spaces. Next steps: Will go to the Transportation Board on Wednesday. Presenting to the DBA members in October and start discussion with the impacted property owners about the proposed plan. I would appreciate any additional feedback. Wright This was part of the discussion at the Downtown Plan meeting. Where we didn’t realized this was going to happen and talked about how stressful it is for bikes. We talked about Howes little bit easier because it is not as busy of a street and being emphasized as corridor for biking. Before determining that we discuss taking 20 spaces away or all of them what do you replace them with? How do we move it off the corridor and provide for it elsewhere. Hopefully this will be in the works in the near future. If truly be the corridor we want it to be than we have to do this kind of stuff. The traffic lights to have a bike light to tell them when they can go. Especially on Laurel and crossing over to the sidewalk bike lane is another thing we talked about. Is this part of this plan? Greegor Currently it is not it is something that we could look at. It is different because it wouldn’t be dedicated to bikes because of sharing the turn lane. We would have the sign buses and bikes exempt. Ravenschlag We did put one at Laurel? Greegor Yes our one bike signal is at Laurel and Mason. Wright I think it is really helpfully to watch for and know when it is your turn. Just as clear that you have right of way at the moment. Greegor There is still some confusion with the light at Laurel because we only have one. The more get the new facilities out there the more people will learn how to use them. Ravenschlag What is unique about that intersection is what we consider a cue jump. The signal for the bus and bike is given in advance. Wright if you are sharing the lane it might be nice to get the bikes off into set lane on the other side of the intersection then the bus goes. It might be less intimidating. Regular Meeting Minutes Page 11 September 14, 2015 Purznick I live down south and take the Mason Trail north when I go home head over to the Power Trail. This weekend I rode to the Sustainability Fair being early Sunday morning I was comfortable taking Mason up but, normally I will avoid it because I have seen a lot of issues there. This proposal seems that I might help not sure if it is the whole solution. One of the biggest things being a problem for me is the left hand turns around Mulberry. Some cars won’t move out into the intersection and backs people up and sometimes the person in the back tries to swerve around them. I have never gone past Laport on my bike and didn’t notice a camera at the intersection and went up on the side to push the button. I didn’t know if I could stay in the lane or have to push the button. Greegor Not sure if there is a camera there. That intersection might be timed. Ravenschlag I think the majority of the intersections along Mason are timed. Greegor The comment about the intersection at Mulberry and Mason, we have been discussing with Traffic. It impacts everybody. They were looking at doing a split phase, having one direction going straight or turning in a dedicated phase. All south bound and left turns would go on a green, while northbound movements on a red. This causes a little more delay but it does solve safety issues we are seeing. Kirkpatrick This proposal is the right one may not be the right one long term. Loss of parking is about utilization it is not the most popular area to park because of two hour slots. Utilization is something that we need to know about. 9. REPORTS E. BOARD REPORTS F. STAFF LIAISON REPORT – Kurt Ravenschlag Wright I have a question since I missed a meeting or two. Enforcement on Saturday and Sundays, did anything move forward with that? Ravenschlag Those were things that rose to the top in terms of things that need to be looked at. Looking at our enforcement strategies our enforcement team is currently developing scenarios what that might look like based on when it is needed versus 8 to 5. I can’t say there will be a change or not. In terms of employee parking that is a management item that needs to be addressed. We need to develop strategies to incentives employee to park in structures or surface lots. I think that will help the on street parking significantly. We are evaluating options of what can be done. We are keeping an open mind and focusing on the mission of managing parking that is a limited resource. Wright I think another thing we talked about with on street parking is the hours of enforcement hours. I wonder if the hours that we have right now need to be shifted. Susan was saying at her block the parking is open in the morning. Restaurant owner’s employees who work the night shift, park on the street because enforcement ends at a certain hour. Think the hours need to be bumped out 12 to 7. I am not sure if this is being looked at. Ravenschlag That is exactly what is being looked at. Kirkpatrick What kind of time frame? Ravenschlag I am working towards the end of the year. Beyond identifying need of when enforcement is needed we need to figure out how to do it. Give ourselves 2 to 3 months and adequately evaluate what these scenarios are because right now it might not be a shift in hours, it might be a shift in technique or technology and how enforcement is conducted. There are a number of things to be looked at how to do it most effectively. The other piece to Regular Meeting Minutes Page 12 September 14, 2015 the program is the Residential Parking Plan which has expanded the service area. We need to figure out the management needs of Downtown and residential. There are four that we currently have and two to three more interesting in participating with an enforcement staff of 6. Kirkpatrick Holly’s question was important in recognizing that we put off a significant piece of our work plan because of the Downtown Plan. What can we do to make us a worthwhile advisory board? Ravenschlag Was the shift in enforcement hours part of the work plan? Kirkpatrick It was how we reoriented our work plan. Messenger It was in June that we decided that we would talk about it. That was when we heard from Karen then Laurie and see what boils out of the Downtown Plan. They agreed to fast track it for us. In the meantime what can we work on? It was in June that we talked about what else this board could focus on. Kirkpatrick None of these management recommendations will go before Council because they are departmental not a big policy issue. Wright I think making sure enforcement on Sundays too. A lot of us have busier days on Sundays. Ravenschlag We have three meetings before the end of the year this topic of enforcement methodology and hours. Another is the Residential Parking Permit Program. Should we focus these two topics for October and November? We were hoping to have information from RP3 for this meeting but we weren’t quite ready so I am thinking the October meeting for that. Then in November I would like to bring forward some ideas of what we are looking at for enforcement and in December what we are recommending to do. I don’t think we will make changes in the next three months. It would be more of this is what we are doing then set a date out in the future. What I have heard about the idea of enforcement in the evenings and weekends is a split. I want to get feedback from various owners and associations. Kirkpatrick It would be great to bring some preliminary ideas to us. We have a good cross section and have us go to the front end before the DBA. Wright When Mike was talking about transferring the funds, will that help you with staffing seem like you have to staff up? Ravenschlag Not so much it is more of an accounting exercise. It becomes like an enterprise fund. It is not comingled in the transportation fund. It can be isolated and tracked. There are a number of things we are taking a deep dive on. We are actively looking at our parking enforcement right now. Ravenschlag With the RP3, we have 4 neighborhoods currently participating and a fifth that conducted a vote in June to implement RP3. They had very low participation. This is an area that we are working on developing procedures and policies. Right now we had to make the call that there wasn’t enough participation to be a valid vote. Part of that I believe was that it was conducted in June when school was out of session. This is for University North, north of campus. We are going to conduct another neighborhood meeting, because we are changing the voting requirement as far as who votes and how many people need to vote to be valid. We want to have a neighborhood meeting to convey this information to them. As well as letting them know what types of units they own. That is another area that hasn’t been convey because different types of units will allow different level of permits to them. This will most likely be happening in October. 10. OTHER BUSINESS Regular Meeting Minutes Page 13 September 14, 2015 None October Agenda: Action Item: Downtown Hotel Parking Garage Recommendation to Council Discussion Item: Residential Parking Permit Program 11. ADJOURN The meeting was concluded at 8:04 pm Respectfully submitted, Melissa Brooks Melissa Brooks Administrative Clerk II Transfort