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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAir Quality Advisory Board - Minutes - 05/16/2016MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AIR QUALITY ADVISORY BOARD Date: Monday, May 16, 2016 Location: Community Room, 215 N. Mason Street Time: 5:30–8:00pm For Reference Mark Houdashelt, Chair Ross Cunniff, Council Liaison 970-420-7398 Lindsay Ex, Staff Liaison 970-224-6143 Board Members Present Board Members Absent Mark Houdashelt, Chair Chris Wood John Shenot Gregory Miller Jim Dennison Rich Fisher Vara Vissa Robert Kirkpatrick (6:13) Tom Griggs Staff Present Lindsay Ex, Staff Liaison/Environmental Program Manager Dianne Tjalkens, Admin/Board Support Lucinda Smith, Environmental Services Director Cassie Archuleta, Environmental Planner Timothy Wilder, Service Development Manager Councilmembers Present None Guests Chris Breiland, Fehr & Peers Andrew McFadden, Fehr & Peers Shelby Sommer, Brendle Group Call to order: 5:32pm Agenda Review: No changes. Public Comments: None. Review and Approval of Minutes: Greg moved and Mark seconded a motion to approve the April 2016 AQAB minutes as amended. Motion passed, 4-0-3. John, Rich, and Vara abstained. Rob arrived after vote. Corrections: minor edits AGENDA ITEM 1: Transportation Air Quality Impacts Guidance Manual Page 1 Funded through the 2015-2016 budget, this discussion item focused on the development of a manual for assessing the air quality impacts of transportation-related projects. The project’s consultants, Fehr & Peers and the Brendle Group, presented on the work developed to date, including a review of the proposed manual outline, discussed and refined the guiding principles, and reviewed the types of projects and scales in the manual. Have completed research from peer agencies of similar size. Currently at outlining stage of developing manual. Have determined that other communities are not doing this work, outside of environmental regulation requirements. People usually only look at air quality to get grants or to meet federal standards. There are pollution standards for Clean Air Act. Front Range is in nonconformity for ozone, which leads to a pool of federal money for transportation opening up to address air quality concerns. Atlanta created a toolset that standardizes CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality) equations. They standardized methodology and created a toolkit for use by other municipalities. Fort Collins is also in a CMAQ eligible funding location. Project was generated by AQAB because of projects coming to the board late in their process/development which had not had analyses of air quality impacts. Staff received funding to do research on other communities, determine scope, etc. Current scope is to look at City projects only. Manual will assist staff in determining when to do an analysis on transportation projects and the methodology to do it. Three main sections of outline: 1. Executive Summary—public facing infographic 2. Manual Body—technical information/instructions for users a. Guiding principles—seeking feedback b. Why, key terms, linkages to CAP goals and transportation decisions 3. Resources—case studies, best practices, etc. Users & Roles: To be used by City staff; executive summary for laypeople; results can support grant applications; can support CAP. Decision Tree: Provides a path to define how to do analysis. Grouping project categories by geographic scales. Ex: corridor vs. neighborhood vs. transportation master planning. Will have project examples with cross reference to other sections, methods to do analysis, and limitations to methodology. Will be able to isolate effects of different alternatives within a project. Sections: Transportation Master Plan (network-wide changes) includes sections on roadway improvements, transit improvements, active mode improvements, car sharing, and EV charging stations. Neighborhood/Area Plan includes corridor level roadway improvements, pedestrian/bicycle connectivity/mobility improvements, transit improvements, car sharing, and EV charging stations. Will be tradeoffs between near-term and long-term improvements and information to help make decisions using this information. Ex: Transit Improvements—increased frequency, new/lengthened routes, shuttle service, weekend service. Methodologies: 1. Ridership, round trip miles, and emissions rates (simplified); 2. Ridership, vehicle trip miles, auto occupancy, emissions rates (more refined). Manual will give recommendations for best analysis type/equations to use. Result is difference between baseline and new alternatives, with comparison to number of vehicles trips reduced annually. Will include criteria pollutants and carbon dioxide. Corridor Study includes corridor operations improvements, roadway rechannelization, pedestrian/ bicycle connectivity/mobility improvements, transit improvements, and traffic calming. Spot Projects includes intersection operations improvements, roadway rechannelization, pedestrian/bicycle connectivity/mobility improvements, transit improvements, and traffic calming (singular sections, rather than collective impact). Results & Reporting section will tell how to understand results and options, document and share results, integrate with other efforts, and assess ongoing effectiveness. Page 2 Appendices will include glossary, resources, and case studies. Ex: Case study of West Elizabeth Enhanced Travel Corridor. Would like ideas for additional case studies. Comments/Q&A • Is this program completely unique? o Looked at seven cities most likely to do this type of work. In US relatively unique. There are guidance manuals for GHG emissions, but none for air quality and GHG. Can’t speak to international projects. • What is real world application? o Decision tree will provide guidance to types of analyses to do for specific projects. Will show the board more of the manual as it develops. o Will help get answers on air quality impacts of various choices. • Guiding principles: Should be guidance on post-project results/verification to see if calculations were accurate and to help improve modelling. Monitoring. o Living plan that can be adjusted over time. • What is baseline? Comparison data? Time-scale for verification? o The manual will tell how to calculate emissions from a project. Existing conditions can help baseline. If implement project can calculate emissions versus alternatives. • Make sure last principle references City’s Air Quality Plan. o It is being updated next year. • Have limited ourselves by doing this only for City projects. Thought it would be for any developer. Ex: building school in Wellington and will have transportation/buses. o Limitations on schedule and scope. Will determine next steps. Defines methodology for calculations, which could be used by others. Will help transportation be uniformly analyzed in Fort Collins. • Is modelling going to be sophisticated enough to take into account doing more than one option at a time? o Reliant on regional modelling already available. Can look at things individually and in concert. Cannot just add the results together from individual improvements. • Only covers impacts after improvements are made, or what happens while construction is underway? o Would not include construction impacts. Can provide some guidance on these. o Another element not addressing is cost. • Car sharing definition? o Zip cars, motor pools, etc. Reducing car ownership. • Charging stations for City vehicles only or public use? o Could be open to public. Use drives answers. • Emissions are the output, not monetary? CMAQ website has dust mitigation and many other things to monitor/analyze. o Looking at air quality comparisons, with objective of providing information on emission implications on alternatives to project managers. Not based on CMAQ grants. This will not say how to calculate the cost of a project. • Will give guidance on baselining? o Can give guidance on calculating baseline, but looking most at implications of an action. • Could there be multiple definitions of reductions? o Yes, can provide context examples. In the example, there is a reduction of 106K vehicle trips. • Will this manual tell when a project is too small to need an analysis or big enough to need one? o Yes. There will be thresholds. • Suggestions for case studies: o College Avenue downtown to Harmony o College Avenue north of town  Leaves GMA o Remington Greenway o Midtown In Motion Plan o West Prospect o Lincoln Corridor Page 3 o Harmony Corridor o Trilby connections through Kechter Farm development o Parking projects  Sticking with City capital projects. Will have parking lot for types of projects that could be addressed in future iterations of the manual. o Suniga (new Vine) o Bike/Pedestrian tunnel at mall o Shields underpass • Think this is right on target—plan for completion is in alignment with vision. • Staff may not know where to get data they need to do calculations. Suggest minimal and optimal data needs and where to get them. • Examples should be understandable to layperson. ACTION ITEMS: Will have draft in approximately six weeks. Presenters will return in July/August to give update. AGENDA ITEM 2: TRIP (Transfort Route Improvement Project) Timothy Wilder, Service Development Manager, presented and requested feedback on network changes to the Transfort system that are proposed to go into effect as early as August 2016. Background: Transit is key to mobility goals; MAX has increased opportunity for improving network service (growing ridership/broader range of community); mobility needs are shifting (growing CSU population and retirees); transit network needs to adapt. Goal: Shifting from coverage-based model to focusing on corridors and locations where will grow most ridership. • Leveraging MAX • Building off West Elizabeth Enhanced Travel Corridor • Strengthening network integration • Addressing underperforming routes (under 20 passengers per hour) • Making transit more attractive/easy to use Timeline: Data collection, public input, developing service recommendations, final plan adoption. Data Collection: Developed a number of maps/assessments to determine most likely sources of ridership. Factors include population, employment, density, median household income, percent zero vehicle households, percent senior population, percent college student population. Highest propensity areas are along MAX and West Elizabeth corridors. Fixed route transit is most successful at 10K people/sq mile density. Unique challenges with spread out community. Used vehicle GPS data. Found 4 major travel patterns— Harmony, College/Lemay/Timberline between Prospect and Harmony, Drake/prospect between Taft and Timberline, Drake/Shields. Ridership is highest while CSU is in session. MAX ridership stays high throughout the year. Also look at route performance—passengers/hour. Route 31 and MAX are highest performers. Community Engagement: Had charrette in March. Going to B&Cs. Will have an open house. Top comments asking for Sunday service, more frequent service, more regional trips on FLEX, etc. Recommendations: Focus on productivity (efficient, cost effective, best GHG reduction), may have to provide different service to lower density areas, street design impacts routes, passenger type. Opportunities to provide other types of transit methods where fixed route doesn’t work. Future three types of service: 1. MAX-type service for West Elizabeth, North College, and Harmony; 2. High frequency network (15 minute) on major arterials; 3. Lower level frequency areas. Short Term Improvements: West Elizabeth routing changes, eliminating some low-ridership routes, eliminating some deviations, adding Foothills campus shuttle, etc. May 26 public meeting for review of recommended changes. Transfort staff can assist with inputs for transportation air quality manual. Comments/Q&A Page 4 • Do any buses extend into the county? o Yes. East Mulberry 60-minute route, regional route to Longmont and Boulder, Route 9 to northwest area. • How are people getting to their bus stops? o In most cases walk ¼ mile to bus stop. Certain routes operate differently. MAX has bigger capture area—drive, bike, walk, or bus to MAX. • How are you catering to middle and high school to get into culture of taking a bus? Drop off locations? o Fickle group to serve. Habits such as school of choice. Most of the system operates near schools. Hard to get students onto buses. Arterials have limited places for drop-off areas. Responding to land uses that exist. Hope that land use changes will help create a healthier transit system. Downtown and CSU are largest destinations. • Ridership standard for lowering emissions is smaller number than Transfort has set for performance. Make this point to Council that considering other factors. Council and public should understand in some cases decisions might increase emissions or miss opportunities to reduce emissions. o Load factor embedded in the model. Part of the efficiency. Providing service is very expensive. Model should be able to tell us numbers to get to in order to achieve offset. o Important to communicate that performance standards require higher ridership than GHG reduction standard.  Excited about the model to have that data. Because of high cost must look at all benefits. • Revenue vs. expenses? o Latest BFO is for about $16M, which includes general funds, federal funds, etc. General fund is about $8M for fixed route service. Complementary paratransit service is $1.7M. Also, there are expenses for replacement of vehicle fleet, bus stop improvements, and other expenses. o Industry standards?  Assess peer agencies based on community aspects. Do investment per capita assessment. Shows that in 2013 were one of lowest, now in about middle in terms of investment per capita. • Productivity gains attributable to MAX? o Yes, and CSU routes. All routes have grown over the last year—38% overall increase 1st quarter from 2015 to 2016. • Revenue? Also does CSU share equally in cost? o Fares are about 15.6% of cost (other agencies are typical 10-25% revenue recovery). CSU pays for a number of routes that feed into CSU, and they will be buying additional services for Foothills campus. Hard to determine what is a fair share of costs since general public uses CSU- specific routes and vice-versa. CSU also pays for students, faculty and staff to ride with Ram Card. • August changes include adding Sunday service? BFO? o Have submitted enhancement offers including Sunday service, additional service for North College, Game Day shuttle service, West Elizabeth enhancements, and downtown circulator including Lincoln Ave. AGENDA ITEM 3: Updates and Announcements Fugitive Dust • City has adopted manual with no threshold for its own projects. Working into all new contracts. Retrofitting existing projects. Council adopted ordinance unanimously—projects less than 5 acres do not have up-front prescriptive approach, but staff will track and give quarterly updates to Council, and re-present in one year. Tracking all complaints. May amend threshold in the future. o Requirements based on multiple complaints for small projects?  Two written complaints lead to mandatory use of manual. CAP • 97 offers tied to strategic objectives of CAP. Half are enabling, half will have direct contribution. Ex: New project coordinator for rebates at utilities. Offers are being reviewed now. Going to Energy Page 5 Board June 23—90 minute deep dive. July 27 Former Governor Ritter having conversation about book Powering Forward. First round of off-cycle appropriations approved. Next round June 7. Community Recycling Ordinance • Working with haulers for mutually agreeable package. Caroline can present update at June or July meeting. June 28 to Council. Downtown Parking Community Dialogue • Ongoing parking structures processes. Seth Lorson can present to board. AGENDA ITEM 4: Futures Actions and Agenda Items Agenda Planning—June • Air Quality Survey • West Elizabeth Enhanced Travel Corridor • Community Recycling Ordinance (tentative) Agenda Planning—Unscheduled • Ozone & Visibility • Asbestos Discussion • North College Revitalization—brownfield and asbestos Other • Superboard Meeting on BFO & Dark Skies—June 1 Meeting Adjourned: 8:06pm Next Meeting: June 20 Page 6