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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 02/18/2004REGULAR MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD February 18, 2004 5:45 p.m. City of Fort Collins -Traffic Operations 626 Linden Street FOR REFERENCE: CHAIR: Bruce Henderson 898-4625 VICE CHAIR: Heather Trantham 206-4255 STAFF LIAISON: Don Bachman 224-6049 ADMIN SUPPORT: Cynthia Cass 224-6058 BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Claudia Eberspacher Dan Gould Neil Grigg Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Ray Moe Christophe Ricord Gary Thomas Brent Thordarson Heather Trantham CITY STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: Don Bachman Eric Bracke Cynthia Cass Tom Frazier Cam McNair Ron Phillips Thomas Reiff ABSENT: Joe Dumais GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE: Brad Miller Jeanette Namuth Nancy York 1. TOUR OF TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT CENTER Eric Bracke, Traffic Engineer, gave the board members a tour of the facility at 5:45 p.m. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 6 Transportation Board February 18, 2004 2. CALL TO ORDER Chair Henderson called the meeting to order at 6:25 p.m. 3. AGENDA REVIEW Chair Henderson reviewed the agenda. No changes were made. 14. PUBLIC COMMENT I Jeanette Namuth, Senior Advisory Board, introduced herself and stated would try to attend as many meetings as she can. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES There was a motion and a second to approve the minutes of January 21, 2004 as presented Discussion: Johnson stated that on page 6, last paragraph, on the third line, add the word "mileage" and then a period. Johnson stated on the second to last line of that same paragraph, end the sentence by adding the following words: "by using any other mode. " The question was called and the motion to approve the minutes, including the above stated amendments, carried by a unanimous vote, 10-0. 6. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None. 7. DISCUSSION ITEMS a. 2004 CONE ZONE REPORT - McNair Using Power Point, McNair presented a brief summary of each of the 16 projects on the Cone Zone list: Construction Projects with Major Traffic Impacts. There were various questions along the way that McNair answered. McNair said that the schedule listed on the table is subject to change and he added that the best way to get current, up-to-date information on particular projects is to check with the project manager listed on the table. Board CommenWOuestions: Johnson: A suggestion perhaps: You've been pretty good about putting the note when you send out the monthly things about the taxpayers' money and the project. Maybe you could have a sign at the project site that tells us the cost of the project and the source of funding as a way to let folks know. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board February 18, 2004 Page 3 of 6 McNair: At the site itselfl We talked about that and another suggestion that came out of our Streets Department was to put up signs at projects where they're working on rehab projects and so forth, saying that "this is paid for by your sales taxes and by the way, it's up for renewal in April of'05, so please vote yes" or something to that effect. Johnson: I don't know if I'd use the second half of that, people would accuse you of campaigning. But letting people know that they are the source of funding would be the best help. Johnson: With regard to the Mason Trail and its construction, I've noticed that the concrete on the Spring Creek trail is buckling in places and it's only 4-5 year old concrete. I was wondering if your staff is allowed some oversight since you're so much more experienced in this area. Is there that kind of interaction? McNair: The Parks Department does the recreation trails and we really don't get involved in that too much. The Mason Trail is going to be built by us and maintained by Parks. Standards today are probably different from when Spring Creek was originally built. Johnson: I'm wondering how we ask that when it's put in place in the first place if perhaps folks like your staff who have all this experience might be interacting with the Parks folks. I don't know quite how we go about dealing with that policy or interaction between departments, but I think it's a question that needs to be raised. One example of the poor concrete on Spring Creek is if you go from Remington to the east to Edora Park, you'll find a number of segments there that should be reviewed and questions should be asked about how that was put in place and how it could be done better in the future. Phillips: The Mason Trail is being engineered differently than others. The construction standards are going to be very good on it. 8. ACTION ITEMS a. TRANSPORTATION CAPITAL PRIORITIES —Board Sub -Committee Chair Henderson reminded the Board what the City Manager's office is asking the board to do, which is to provide a written report to the Capital Planning Team that includes a prioritized list of projects. Tom Reiff distributed and went over the Pedestrian Plan Update Packet which includes information about three mechanisms in the city that pay for pedestrian projects in the Pedestrian Plan. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board February 18, 2004 Page 4 of 6 With this new information, the Board launched into a detailed and lengthy "work session" that included the use of a laptop, projector and the latest spreadsheet that the sub -committee worked on that contained the list of projects. Projects were discussed, ranked and moved around to everyone's satisfaction after agreeing on a process in which to do this. The general idea of that process was to create a $20M list with a few projects from each mode. The process was made more refined and more specific as the Board worked through issues that arose in reaching their goal. Upon conclusion of the exercise stated above, there was a motion to approve the list in the order shown on the projected spreadsheet. There was a second and the motion carried unanimously, 10 - 0. Details to be included in the cover letter were then discussed. Main points to include are: • We have a strong support for a multi -modal approach (MSP) • Transit projects — if rolling stock can result in adding a route —we want it to go for a route on East Harmony (first choice) • We are far short on Capital • Aggressively explore all alternative fimding and innovative ways to come up with funding • Since roundabouts seem to have fallen out of plans, anytime we do an intersection design, we feel that one should at least be considered. Therefore, include wording somewhere that a roundabout analysis should be done. There was a motion and a second to have Chair Henderson draft a cover memo to City Council with a copy to John Fischbach that included the above points. It was agreed that he will send the draft out to the rest of the board for review. The motion carried by a unanimous vote, 10 — 0. b. ELECTION OF OFFICERS — Board Bruce Henderson was nominated and elected Chair by a unanimous vote, 10-0. Heather Trantham was nominated and elected Vice Chair by a unanimous vote, 10-0. 9. REPORTS a. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Thordarson: Zipcar Article. There was an article in Computing Magazine about a service called Zipcar. Basically there are four cities right now in North America that are participating in this service that places cars around town, registered users get a card that will activate the car. It's $20 to register and about $8 per hour to drive. It sounded somewhat innovative. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board February 18, 2004 Page 5 of 6 Johnson: Lemav Signal. When you're at Lemay at Harmony, NB turning west, the signal there seems to be too short and drivers make a mad dash. MPO Meeting Report. I went to the MPO meeting about a week ago and there were a number of things that were interesting. One thing that Gary told me about has to do with toll roads sections and those areas that might be done by tolls I found fascinating. The other element was that if you look at the cost of rail running up and down I-25 cost per mile, it doesn't look like it's any more and possibly less than the cost per lane mile on the Interstate. CDOT is very wary still at the upper levels of doing roundabouts, but the lower levels are interested and they understand them. They want to find ways to put them in where they'll be failsafe. They still like our Mason project and speaking of Mason, with regard to crossings of Mason, east to west, considering doing this at grade, the railroad seems to be not interested in doing this. On the other hand, think about all the at -grade crossings we have at all of our arterials. If we consolidate crossings, for instance, some of these cow trails that are existing all over the place across that rail and just have them put new crossings at grade — designated — and funnel traffic there, it seems to me that this should be an advantage that we could bargain with. Bob Felsburg has a whole list of these things and I think that it may be interesting for us as a board to be able to look at that list and find out how we can better bargain with the railroad. Gould: It seems like we could be in for some problems with more east/west pedestrian pressure across the tracks and in fact, I'm not sure what's being negotiated exactly, but will there be a fence between arterials? Frazier: Yes, six -feet tall. Gould: It seems to me that in some areas that actually will produce way more hazardous conditions than are already present. It seems a rational approach would be to accept the pedestrian pressure at these ad -hoc crossings. I think I will pose the question to Kathleen that the City should ask for a more reasonable approach. Frazier explained what the past discussions were like with the Railroad contacts. Thomas: Ft. Collins/Loveland/County Commissioners/CDOT/MPO Meetine Report. Most of the discussion was with Tom Norton about sources of money — where can the communities plug into CDOT's funding. Norton was saying he was willing to let the presence of money from the local community influence the priority system of CDOT's projects. In other words, to the extent that we put money into the project and sign an IGA with CDOT, that might move their work up on their schedule. It gives another dangle on funding for any road that happens to be a state highway. APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Transportation Board February 16, 2004 Page 6 of 6 The second "headline" was just talking between the Fort Collins and Loveland and Latimer County, there seemed to be some traction for possibly some joint projects and Marty floated one out that I thought got a pretty good reception of a bus service between here and Longmont that would connect into RTD. The third "headline" was that the MPO folks were still trying to talk a unified across the whole MPO kind of a project and there just didn't seem to be any fight for that at all. The concept of an RTA that covered the whole MPO just didn't seem to fly. I spoke during Public Comment about the growing need for paratransit service between Fort Collins and Loveland. My recommendation is a unified paratransit service for the whole region (county). The meeting was taped by Channel 27. Henderson: Transportation Master Plan. The vote on this item has been delayed until March 2. b. STAFF REPORTS Bachman: Colorado Tolling Enterprise Report. There was a request by an organization that has been established to study/recommend a corridor for consideration for tolling and one of the potential ones they listed was I-25. Fort Collins feels I- 25 is not a good location for tolling and have sent a letter to the organization stating its position. Next Agenda: ■ Status Report: BCC Project List Selection ■ RTP Update ■ Pavement Management Report 10. OTHER BUSINESS None. 11. ADJOURN Henderson adjourned the meeting at 9:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Cynthia Cass Executive Administrative Assistant City of Fort Collins — Transportation Services