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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 04/25/2006MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD REGULAR MEETING 200 WEST MOUNTAIN AVE. April 25, 2006 For Reference: Eric Levine, Chair 493-6341 David Roy, Council Liaison 407-7393 Lucinda Smith, Staff Liaison 224-6085 Board Members Present Jeff Engell, Nancy York, Dale Adamy, Dave Dietrich, Eric Levine, Gregory McMaster Board Members Absent Kip Carrico, Cherie Trine, Bruce Macdonald Staff Present Natural Resources Department Lucinda Smith, Tara McGibben Guests None The meeting was called to order at 5:36p.m. Public Comment • No public present. Debrief from joint Transportation board/AQAB meeting: The Board will discuss points raised in Todd Litman's presentation as well as "What Worked" and "What Could Have Been Done Differently?" at the April 19 joint meeting. • Lucinda passed out Todd Litman's presentation. • York: I was really disappointed with the results. • Smith: I know it didn't show where in relation Ft. Collins is with regard to best practices. • Levine: There is no quantification related to Ft. Collins. • Smith: I can understand because it's expensive to do the best practices. • Dietrich: I was bored with the presentation. • Smith: There will be two types of recommendations, low hanging fruit and what is the most significant thing we can do. Judy Dorsey of the Brendle Group will be available to make the final recommendations to the board if you're interested. • Levine: What are the metrics for the VMT? I'm concerned about the recommendations to city council with out any quantifiable evidence. How is the budget going to be allocated? • Smith: As a board, you can make a recommendation about Ft. Collins' VMT future practices. And the City is now beginning to work on future mobility metrics. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 2 of 12 • Levine: Health and the environment, congestion, lost work hours, better use of resources, transportation alternatives were all positive topics. How do you pick the various items to focus on? • Dietrich: When do you expect results on this? • Smith: In 4 to 6 weeks there will be a draft for the city to review for accuracy. The recommendations will be made by the consultants. Staff can use the report and recommendations in any way they want. Perhaps by June the report can be finalized. • Dietrich: Nothing was specifically said about the recommendations in the presentation. • McMaster: It is good feedback to hear this from you all, since I missed that meeting. • Levine: His presentation changed very slightly and was completely different to a completely different audience. His presentation wasn't consistent with every board. • Smith: To an extent, that is correct. • York: I think the transportation board was bored with the presentation too. • Smith: And they sort of said so in so many words afterwards. • Levine: He congratulated Ft. Collins before he gave his presentation. Where is Ft. Collins in terms of a report card? • Smith: There will be descriptions of nine types of strategy, and a qualitative assessment of where Ft. Collins is with respect to those strategies. • Levine: Litman was stressing that a lot of times what's do -able with the low hanging fiuit is the small initiatives. • Smith: I think that's true. Among other things, there wasn't enough time for the presentation and it was redundant with what some board members had heard before. What about the function of the meeting? • Adamy: Everyone was too tired to discuss anything more at our joint meeting. I feel we missed an opportunity to talk with the transportation board. I'd like to see it happen again. • Levine: A lot of it was information we've seen before. The presentation was so long so no one wanted any Q&A. • Adamy: Nancy is the liaison for the transportation board for the AQAB. Would the transportation board like to send their liaison to our meeting? • York: I was disappointed in the meeting and the exchange. I feel our board is marginalized within City Council. Are people paying enough attention to air quality, especially our own elected officials? • Smith: I have seen two things to support that. The Loveland Reporter Herald recently reported on air quality and ozone issues. While the article mentioned problems, it concluded by saying everything is fine because we are in compliance with the standard • Adamy: The SUVs prove they're not too concerned. Can the city be influenced by our board to set its own air quality standards? • Smith: That idea has come up in the past with the air quality board. The State of Colorado has set its own visibility standard based on public preference, but it is just a guideline standard. • McMaster: Because Nancy brought up the discussion on what is the public view on air quality, hasn't there been a few survey's that have been done that we can't go back and see if there's a change or trend here? • Dietrich: They would say yes, it's better based on 20 years ago. The large corporate polluter is gone so the burden is ours to bear regarding air quality. Individuals get less Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 3 of 12 than comfortable if they have to be responsible for it. The ozone is going up in most places. • McMaster: Acid rain has receded in public consciousness. • Dietrich: Yes, the regulations are imposed and enforced at the federal level. The federal govemment drives this. • McMaster: It is starting to see lower level action. • Dietrich: Northeastern states have gotten together to make it happen. Fleet emissions are driven at the federal level. • Levine: I'm looking at the 2004 survey and I'd like a survey on how people answer differently from survey to survey so we can put this into perspective. • York: Except for walking, we don't walk. • Levine: Discussed survey handout regarding: Air Quality in Ft. Collins. • Smith: All these surveys are available on line under the Air Quality web site. In 2007 another survey will be done. • Levine: I find them fairly comprehensive and fairly long. But they don't measure people's knowledge. I'd like to see future surveys assessing respondent's knowledge. • York: On Earth Day at City Park, I took the Waste Not recycling survey and they asked what portion of aluminum cans are being recycled. It was an inquiry of knowledge to some extent. We can have our own survey at these events on air quality. I know City staff attends the fairs. • Smith: Many staff are cutting back on events because there is fewer staff. • York: Last year there was someone there about energy conservation. We can staff it as a volunteer board. I don't mind helping to staff the table and forming a survey would be fun too. • Smith: You can certainly do that and in terms of raising awareness it's perfect. • Engell: That's the quiz that you described. It was some sort of quiz that people took and got the right answers and they got some sort of feedback. • York: The feedback was lacking. • Engell: So the person that choose the motor to be made out of corn didn't get told that? There was a disconnect in that part. • York: There wasn't that answer. Anyone else think this is worthy of our time? • McMaster: New West Fest might be good because it's community wide and you have to think of whom you're sampling. • Dietrich: The city doesn't have a booth at all? • Smith: If they do a booth it's by department. Smartrips and Transfort had a booth. • York: It would be interesting to question the transportation board and it might raise the awareness. That's my concern. • Dietrich: Don't you go to that board? • York: Not every time, only if it's an interesting subject. • Dietrich: I know they're very knowledgeable. They're focused in areas of interest it appears and that's good. • Levine: I agree. Tim Johnson is very knowledgeable in transportation. • McMaster: Another thought on the idea would be if we were to do some kind of survey or out reach and gather information; maybe tie it into some of our agenda items. Because there are a couple key issues on our agenda topics that may be a way on how we can proceed on those topics and give us guidance. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 4 of 12 Dietrich: I agree. Get public perception on a particular issue that we're going to address, that we may think is worth while. The public thinks one way and it could be something different. Levine: Are we on agenda item #3 (air quality outreach) ? I'm ok with that. So, how do we do that? McMaster: 2006 work plan paperwork is being addressed. How do different communities deal with these issues. Most importantly how do we get a viable transport system in place and get people to use it. It has so many ramifications to economics, seniors, national security. The other big ticket item is cost of transportation particularly the single occupant vehicle. We need to understand attitudes and perception on public transportation. A lot of people don't realize how dysfunctional it's all become. York: The PTAG action group wants to form a grid system. There may be something on the ballot. • McMaster: That's what it's supposed to become eventually. • Dietrich: Transit is a good idea, but personally how can transit become effective in this town when you see the whole area going against it. The style is to have expansive property and no centralized core. There are cities with a centralized core, such as Denver; it works for Denver. It works for a centralized core, such as the university because it's the hub of the core. You can service Ft. Collins depending on the people's needs. There aren't any logical corridors for that to occur. How do you get people from there to one place? • York: The PTAG action group is looking at options, such as the eastern rail road line and one member is talking about using that rail road to bring people in from the southeast area to downtown. • Dietrich: I agree with that. • McMaster: I can't envision at this time every square meter of Ft. Collins being serviced by something like Transfort. Basically you can't get around town and have a connection between towns. There is such a total lack of connection; we need to get it further. • York: So the train goes to Tinmath, Windsor to Greeley. One thing for the Nov 2007 ballot is a regional transportation authority. I feel like transit is important, as is a local grid system and regional transit that will impact our land use. I know it's sprawling everywhere. Bush is talking about alternative energy and reducing demand on oil and is giving some credit to alternative transportation. That's providing some awareness but how are we going to get around it without mass transportation. • McMaster: It's very critical for some cities to have mass transportation. So even though it's not used by many, those who use it depend on it. • Dietrich: How do you have mass transport in Ft. Collins? UNC should have a shuttle to Ft. Collins, and the university should be participating in this rather than ignoring the problem. It should happen at the upper levels. The rail road track is pricey and tells you where to go. I would use occasionally if I was going downtown to dinner for instance. • York: One of the things happening in Salt Lake and New Jersey is that municipalities are buying rail time during the day for citizens and it is used for cargo in the evening. • Dietrich: Has there been any other city like Ft. Collins that has the same demographics and geographies in numbers? • York: Have you been looking? Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 5 of 12 • Smith: That's what the mobility best practices study is supposed to do. Identify what city has the best car pooling and other related transportation approaches. But it's not a comprehensive study, and may not look at the best overall comprehensive transportation system. What were you thinking? • Dietrich: I don't think there is an effective system but it will eventually come. More density allows for this, so maybe we should be looking at some of those densities, such as the schools at the northern end of town with low density. Yet those areas are prime areas as they are close to town and the college. Does the city have anything going on to encourage people to move there rather than moving south of town. Can't people move here and get money to fix them up? • McMaster: There are some programs to fund low income families. • Smith: It's under the affordable housing programs, but some of those programs were cut. • Dietrich: Were they cut because they weren't successful? • York: They are successful. And my part of town is expensive. • Dietrich: And that doesn't bring in younger families, and that's ok I guess. • Smith: One model is called location efficient mortgage meaning the home is deemed to be close to school or work. Maybe Ft. Collins would be a good pilot city for Fanny Mae or other mortgage programs. • Levine: What about LUTRAQ? Is Todd going to address land use and best practices since that plays a determining role at 8-12 units per acre. The dynamic could be different. • Smith: I think he looks at community planning in his report. I wonder if there's an awareness about Peak Oil issues. If we all understood the seriousness of that issue, it may become easier to focus on fossil fuels and may provide more motivation to act quickly. • Dietrich: People will buy smaller cars but still not everyone getting it yet. The "first go round" is that people will buy smaller cars. • York: Some info in the environmental studies said transit increased 25% due to the last rise in gas prices. But when gas lowers the transit decreases. (Noted from EIS) • Dietrich: Cities that have transport probably show that transit increased with the gas prices. That will probably happen again. When you see all the new development where are they going to be 10 years from now? Is the value going to go up even more? • Levine: Another mode of transportation is walking. About 6 blocks from here are the new pricey condos, and one of the trends are those who can afford the gas and cars but they can't afford the time and stress. • Dietrich: Who are those people buying those condos? • Engell: They are people who like to live downtown; people who are retired and older and still active and single, such as young professional males. They all work in offices outside of downtown too. My friends play and work downtown because that's where their life is but they live outside of Ft. Collins even though gas is high priced. It's still worth doing economically. But redevelopment issues are worth looking into. • Levine: We don't have the congestion yet where people are willing to drive and withstand the gas prices, we're not at that point yet. • Engell: I work down town it's not an inconvenience to drive for a nice house and drive to work. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 6 of 12 • Dietrich: It'd be nice to live down town, but the real estate costs are just junk. • McMaster: It's a feel and people gravitate toward different lifestyles. We have to figure out how to guide the market in how it can work. Get people thinking down the road but first you need small scale items to make work. My situation has 4 people driving everywhere all the time. • Adamy: Why can't the city get a transit system? Why not have one? • McMaster: They need funding and there's a discussion about kids/seniors having to pay to subsidize them. • York: Bus routes don't cost a lot to run. It costs 230K to run one bus route. One of the issues is what is the best way to fund the bus routes? The sales tax is regressive and someone raised the possibility of a real estate transfer tax because growth isn't paying its own way. The transfer tax would help fund part of that. • McMaster: But look at what we're paying for the Prospect/Timberline project, would it be better economics? • Dietrich: I know how the vote would look. It takes too much time to take the bus. Why not have Ft. Collins High School pick up the kids in a school bus? We know it works and you tell kids you're locked at school and the bus leaves at different times such as 4pm, 5pm or 6pm for after school activities. That is an effective major change that you know works whereas the other marginal subjects that we don't know that work or not. • Levine: But we're a melting pot with so many people living here who are used to their way of life. • McMaster: Market forces determine all this and let people's decisions make it happen. • Engell: I agree with the hub -type system. It works and I don't know any one who uses public transportation to get down town. I ride my bike and I'm the exception among my friends. I'm trying to picture Transfort routes and there's no reason to it. • McMaster: There is for CSU. • Dietrich: It's not ineffective, is it? • McMaster: Buses are full. • Adamy: Regarding the 2006 work plan: costs of transportation, could we investigate the cost of pollution of transportation and what route the existing bus transport system runs? We should find out what the buses are carrying and how many people they are carrying. We can find out and use a smaller bus for the larger ones. • Levine: We have some of that with the models from air quality and VMT. An example would be diesel versus compressed natural gasses. • York: You're talking about the buses that carry the bulk of the people, right? • Adamy: Yes, correct. • York: Part of the problem is the buses don't go to certain places and major centers. • McMaster: That's exactly my point. • York: We need a system that reaches places before you can actually ride it. • Smith: I take Foxtrot and it's pretty direct. • York: That's not bad. • Adamy: You live near the Loveland bus stop? • Smith: I used to but the stop has been moved. I have to drive or ride my bike now. • McMaster: It's a complex subject and I don't have all the answers but I'd like to move off a general discussion. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 7 of 12 • Levine: I'm making a suggestion. We discuss air quality improvement and it seems like the agenda is going to have the transportation staff discussing these things too. • Smith: I'd like to know if you're interested in hearing the transportation staff discuss their plan, transit planning and the bike path. • Levine: Is the best practices from Todd in May? • Smith: No, it's in June. The timing is one of my questions. Staff could provide a background on transportation planning and a summary could answer some of your questions and help you determine what to work on next; and how to accomplish that because I don't know how to answer your questions. Are you interested? • Adamy: I'm interested in any of that Lucinda. I'd also like to discuss grade separated crossings. • Levine: I envisioned the board and individuals boning up on the issues to a degree so we know why some of the things are being done and discussion based on those things. • York: I think we should generate questions that we want answered. • Dietrich: Regarding CSU, what works there? What would work better? How much would it cost? When could you implement it? That would be our next step to talk with CSU. • Engell: I don't know the cost to pay to park there; I never paid to much attention. • Dietrich: You have a presentation Dale on grade -separated road crossings? Can't you get that added to the agenda? • Adamy: Yes, I would like to add it to the agenda. I think it's best I present to AQAB first and move forward from there. I also brought something regarding barriers and opportunities for air quality improvement. Diesel is one of my concerns. School busses are supposed to protect our children yet they emit all that diesel black smoke. We never set forward something tangible from a citizen prospective. I have 7 tangible diesel proposals. Adamy presented his diesel concerns as follows: Recommendation to reduce diesel emissions. Submitted by Dale Adamy April 25, 2006 Diesel proposal: o Action: Set strict local emission standards for diesel vehicles, pending state or national standards. o Action: Declare that the City will discourage the use (sale or driving or contracting) of diesel vehicles unless the vehicle can pass local emission standards. o Action: Reassess the success of the Transfort system. Publish the findings. If bus capacity is consistently under a set tradeoff, replace the bus on that route with a smaller bus that can show a reduction in "passenger pollution". o Action: Require all City owned and contractor vehicles pass emission test. Important distinction: City contractual projects, such as road projects, must consider the vehicles under that contract to fall under the same emission standards as owned vehicles. o Action: Require PSD buses pass local emission standards. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 8 of 12 o Action: Tax any remote commercial hauler of a product that can be obtained from a local hauler. o Action: Increase the tax on the sale of diesel passenger vehicles. • Smith: State emissions standards do exist for diesel on -road vehicles. • Adamy: I want the city to start an emission standard that would upset all the diesel drivers. (Adamy continues to read his diesel ideas.) These are my points that I think would decrease diesel emissions. • Smith: It fits with the fact that fine particles were ranked as one of the high priority air pollutants in the Air Quality Plan. • Adamy: If we could accomplish at least one of these, the city would benefit. I want a tangible thing, such as the amount of diesel trucks being reduced. • Levine: Going back to the perception that air quality has improved, the health science has showed the standards still aren't enough. • Adamy: I heard a report about air pollution standards in China, with newer cars and reduction in emissions, they will make major improvements with global warming. But this can also encourage more rapid global warming. Now we don't see the effects as much because particulate air pollution can reduce the effect of global warming. • Levine: What is driving China is the leadership living there and the fact they can't escape the effects of their own pollution affecting their families. Are there any more comments as to Todd's presentation? • York: I'd like to send him some questions so he can address them. • Smith: That's not an option, but if you have burning questions I can do my best in the scope of my work to get them answered. • York: It is related to Ft. Collins demographics and transit. I'd like to know about developing a transit system in Ft. Collins. • Smith: That is within the scope of the Littman report. • Levine: What about comments on the joint meeting with the transportation board? • York: We should meet with them at least annually to discuss lessons learned. • Levine: People need to be prepared and focused in both our work plans. • Smith: That's a good point. • Adamy: What about the liaison issue. • York: Maybe Dale can get a packet too. • Adamy: I'll take the packet and agenda. I can go if Nancy can't go to the transportation board meeting. • York: At least be added to the mailing list. • Smith: Is that what you'd like to do? • Adamy: Yes. • Levine: Two liaisons would be an opportunity to make sure the two work plans would work together. I wanted to ask the transportation board a few questions like how are you planning to reduce VMT? Well, that's not city policy anymore. The board feels strongly about clear metrics and how that relates with meeting practices of similar cities. • Smith: There's a whole plan to make that happen. • Levine: But policy now is to meet or exceed similar programs. Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 9 of 12 • Smith: Yes, there are other programs that will be made available. Can I ask you if any of you interested in a meeting again with the Transportation Board to hear about the transportation study? It means readjusting your meeting time. • Adamy: If we were invited by them, I think that would work. • Dietrich: How are the results being presented? • Smith: Transportation board/AQAB presentation and city growth management lead team and that's it. Staff or boards can go farther with the info, but there's only those two presentations planned. • Dietrich: It would be more efficient if other boards were brought in. A joint meeting shouldn't be called to hear it. • Smith: So you feel a joint meeting wouldn't be necessary. I can ask the transportation board if they want a joint meeting. If not, you can each read the minutes from the other meeting. • York: It would be interesting to hear their take on it. • Levine: I suspect we got more of a sense of them than they got of us. It was interesting and you never know what to expect. It was just different and unexpected. • Adamy: The little dialog we did have could have gone further. • Levine: A better agenda can make that possible. • McMaster: Can we make another joint meeting meaningful? • Dietrich: The consultant presentation is what took up most of the time. • McMaster: Is it going to be joint then? • Adamy: How about a round table approach with them for a joint meeting? Is that what you had in mind? I think the chairs should form around the table so they aren't opposing teams. • Levine: They could see all our name plates. • Smith: Maybe, literally, a round table would be better. • Levine: I think once we actually had a joint meeting would be the only way to determine that. • Levine: Can any of this be wrapped up like the final presentation? Can we do outreach with any of that? • York: Can we have a public meeting? • Levine: Will Judy Dorsey make the final presentation? • Smith: Yes, but there's a slim possibility Todd would attend. • York: What do you think about it being a public meeting? • Smith: It's better to know what the recommendations are first and what has the most potential then bring that to the right audiences. We don't know what they're going to say yet, but raising awareness is always a great opportunity. • York: So it's a wait and see. Would Dorsey present it twice? • Smith: Yes, possibly the air quality budget, outside of the contract, could fund a second presentation if we feel it's important. A consultant might come across as less biased than city staff. • Levine: The Coloradoan has said they want to cover local issues. These are major community issues. How can these be left out of the paper? I don't understand how most of the front page news is in there. • York: Can't we have a targeted invitation to CSU and the outreach programs? Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 10 of 12 • Smith: To really understand the working relationship between CSU and the city and what role the transportation community plays is key. It seems we'd have to see what the recommendations are. You can have soap boxes on all your issues as staff can't write soap boxes. That's one avenue and it's free. We could provide information that would be appropriate. • McMaster: How would council look upon a "State of the Skies Report" if we produced something like that as outreach? It could be viewed as political and cause discomfort. • Smith: It depends on how it was presented. Raising public awareness is in your mission. But it's more of staff's role to prepare that type of report. • McMaster: It seems if we did some periodic report we can discuss different topics of interest such as a column or spot. • York: The Coloradoan Soapboxes are limited to 600 words. • Smith: The budgeting for outcome process will be tracked every year with a Community Scorecard, and one indicator is air quality. • Levine: The problem with that is that a lot of the transportation issues are inter -related and if you look at each separately you can cut out a few. Air quality is very dynamic and takes years and years to correct. • Smith: Yes, BFO is compartmentalized as you mentioned before. • Levine: How do you evaluate it 10 years down the road. It's not going to be reflected in the public's view. • Smith: There is a mis-match between the actions and results. But there is more of a short term focus. • York: Back to the air quality report , I think it would be a wonderful thing to undertake and put it into place and do it every year as a precedent. I can't think of anything more important. • Smith: As long as any information you out together was clearly identified as the AQAB's perspective, and not necessarily the City's perspective. Again, keep in mind just getting that information to council is important and that's something you can all do. Note that the Council policy agenda focuses a lot on water quality and not so directly on air quality. Council is your main audience. • York: I believe in public activism and changing people's behavior. • Levine: Can we wrap things up. • Smith: I want to remind you the MPO is having the big meeting on Thursday, May 4t'. They meet monthly and in May 4 they're meeting in Loveland to discuss ozone action plan and compliance as it relates to the increase in gas and emissions. You should have received an email on this and I can resend it or Tara will email it to you. The address is 810 E. loth street. The public is allowed. Also, the city is updating their bike plan and putting together a citizen advisory committee and will meet — monthly from now until the end of the year. The committee would review current bike routes and plans and provide input. The plan would come to the AQAB too, and the citizen advisory committee rep could update the board in the meantime. • Discussion between McMaster and Levine on who would represent the AQAB. • Smith: It sounds like Greg you'd like to attend. • McMaster: Then if we all go there's no need to report back. • Smith: I'll ask if two members would be willing to attend. The only other thing I want to tell you is regarding the information requests for the demographics of the city such as Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 11 of 12 the home -to -school and work -to -home trips as that would help you focus on trip reduction activities. The final Mason Street Corridor report did not repot the trip demographics data to the level of detail that I remembered. The other thing you asked for is copies of council work sessions that relate to transportation. You will get a DVD of four 15 minute presentations that staff put together on one DVD, covering: Transit strategic Plan update, Northern Colorado Truck Route Study Phase 11, Carpenter Road Environmental Overview. • Smith: Also, in May you should have the election of officers. You'll have the opportunity to elect a chair and vice chair. I'm not clear on whether you want the transportation planning staff to attend for about an hour in May or June? I suggest in May. I know it's out of sync, because more questions may come up from the mobility best practices presentation. • Levine: If they can come in May that's fine. • Smith: What if they can come in June, is that a preference? • Levine: Will Brian talk about radon in May? • Smith: I will confirm with him for May. • Levine: We're expecting that so we're on track. • Smith: It won't be the final results, but what the study has shown so far. • Levine: The air quality outreach, can we make a list of brain storming items? I'm sure there will be low hanging fruit that we can look at. • Engell: That's a good seg-way to the findings. • Levine: Thanks Lucinda. Approval of March minutes. Minutes With the following changes: McMaster: Page 19 Trac corrected spelling to Track. Levine: Page 4 delete citizens and replace with similar businesses. Page 10 delete entire last sentence from bullet #5. The minutes of the March 28, 2006 meeting were unanimously approved. • Levine: Any other business? • York: I second. • All in favor. We're adjourned. Meeting adjourned 7.59 PM Submitted by Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Air Quality Advisory Board 4/25/2006 Page 12 of 12 Approved by the Board onlmafv 2006 Signed Tara McGibben Administrative Secretary I Extension: 6600 Date