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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-02-16 BABAB MinutesBABAB March 2, 2016 Members Present: Sam Haraldson, Jason Delmue, Tony LeBaron, Rebecca Gleason, John Vandelinder, Bill Cochran, Candace Mastel, Juliana Olliff, Officer J. Lusby, Zach Steffl, Carson Taylor, Jen Petersen, Dillon Warn Public Present: Marilee A. Call meeting to order: Called to order at 6:01 p.m. B. Approve February Minutes C. Public Comment: No public comment D. Belgrade City Commission meeting – no update E. Belgrade Path/Shoulder Flattening Project (Rebecca and Marilee) ● Marilee updated board on recent progress on project ● For benefit of board and public: 1.6 mile road improvement Slope Flattening Project; presentation to TCC; PTS; motion to say that when any construction takes place on old US Hwy 10, a shared use path would be part of the improvements (MDOT does not support and County abstains at this time) ● She is excited about meeting goal after goal and continuing building of support ● TCC meeting proved that County would not move forward with anything until Belgrade City-County Planning Board approves it; Rebecca and Marilee presented and Belgrade City-County Planning Board endorsed path idea (passed 5-1) ● Steering committee set up to manage project ● Shared use path to be as far away from road as possible for safety; want it attached to slope flattening project so that it sets precedent for further work on road way; MDOT is requested to at least do design now and get ROW established for future improvements; advocates agreed that dirt path at this time is better than nothing at all ● Rebecca spoke of low hanging fruit and how community has been trying to get this for years ● Kelly Pohl, Linda DuPriest, and Rebecca are going to be looking into funding opps for maintenance and other ● Manhattan, Three Forks, Belgrade, Bozeman and other communities are on board...just Need County Commission to be on board so that MDOT is encouraged to adopt idea also ● Grass roots to have name for group/path, website, etc. hopefully launched by Monday ● Marilee’s contact information: 579-5447; saferbozeman@gmail.com ● Need a name for the pathway…possible options thought of: Frontage Pathway, Belzone Pathway, Lewis and Clark Pathway (BABAB likes this one) ● Belgrade is excited about building connections to adjacent communities ● Sam asked Marilee if BABAB should write letters to County Commission ● -Write to commission@gallatin.mt.gov; who from BABAB will write this? ● Jason asked Marilee if we have a concrete request to the County Commission; Sam said that the request to the County would be for them to support the project from a county roads level with MDOT and reinforce that project won't be delayed due to shared use path inclusion AND maintenance concern issues ● Marliee noted that maintenance issues for MDOT don't center around sweeping and similar maintenance but more chip sealing and seal coating; Marilee said the focus is the support of a ROW allowance for the shared use path if nothing else ● Rebecca said that there are state level plans for discussion of shared use paths and how existing ones are maintained, not necessarily how they are built; she is guessing that another bill would be put forth in future legislation to deal with funding new paths ● Marilee says that it is about getting people to recognize the need for this and that people in the community want it ● Jason stated that it seems like consensus building or support building is the key ● John V. asked if Marilee has spoken to media; she will probably do this next week. Is shooting for before election. ● Jason asked about Alaska Road being an alternative; or Jackrabbit; Marilee said that Alaska isn't a part of another project so burden would be on county alone and Jackrabbit is being stalled by ROW issues ● Has Marilee and Rebecca used examples of the European Bicycle Super Highways? ● Gillian asked when Marilee wants letters submitted to County by; Marilee said ASAP ● Those underserved community members would benefit from transportation options ● Marilee said we can’t wait for future planning efforts…shared use path needs to happen soon ● North side of Frontage Road would be location for path; future development is going to happen on north side of road; mitigation of multiple curb cuts or intrusions across path needs to be addressed F. Letter of Support – Painted Hills Gap (Bill) ● Linkage sought to go to south and connect to Triple Tree; single track; deal struck for easement from property owners; state land will need to be purchased b/c it’s on state trust land (because of maximization of income) ● Cost involved has included private donors for several years in escrow account; RTP (Recreational Trails Program) [administered by Montana State Parks] state funds potentially could fund 90K of purchase of easement and trail needs; but full budget would be near 190K ● Looking for letters of support from BABAB to benefit GVLT ● Rebecca made motion for letter of support; Jen and Jason seconded ● Bill to write letter ● Fencing may increase cost if we need to protect interface with horse property or other uses ● Motion passed unanimously G. Transportation Master Plan Update (Bill) ● Jeff Key cancelled this week’s working group meeting ● Bill has been encouraging people to comment, including the Belgrade to Bozeman path ● Put on social media sites and spread the word ● Rebecca asked about performance metrics and if BABAB’s letter has been addressed…Bill said discussion is still going on and it was discussed a lot at last working group meeting; it’s on everyone’s radar…policy based issues in addition to infrastructure issues; consultant wants plan to include more of that language and guidance…instead of road engineering suggestions…focus changing; consultant to come back with broad group of performance metrics and let working group to discuss H. Winter Cycling Congress/Smart Growth Presentation (Rebecca) ● Conference attending spree!!! ● Taylor and Rebecca did a presentation in Minneapolis (300 people at conference this year) ● How do we design for cold weather and year-round bike infrastructure? ● Protected intersections exist in larger US cities (Davis, CA) and in the Netherlands ● Design Guide: Mass. DOT, separated paths solutions – check it out! ● Engineer from Ottawa; spoke about predictability of snow routes; priority routes are published ● Rebecca got language from the Ottawa Plan that she gave Taylor (have him include it in the MSU plan) ● Tactical Urbanism-short term action for long term change (Mike Lytle) [festival bike lanes for urban events] [Portland-traffic control for short term events] (could we do this for Music on Main and other special summer events…like close one lane of Main or side streets for bikes only during these events?) ● Smart Growth Conference – make communities better! (1200 people attended conference) [health, transportation, social equity, livability] ● Day long training on public involvement for transportation projects; would like to do presentation about how BABAB can be more effective at public involvement efforts; maybe do this next month ● NCHRP report that talks about prioritizing bike and ped projects; process created through research for how communities can spend their money in a smart way ● Peter Lagerway talked about budget and funding process as moral issue (bike vs. transit vs. peds, etc.) I. Kagy Boulevard Updates (Bill) ● Interesting conundrum: Bill feels like City Commission vote might need to take a stab at 3 or 5 lane road. ● Carson gets the vibe that city members on Kagy committee have been involved but Carson doesn’t have much insight at this time ● Bill and Taylor talked about it in regards to pedestrian crossings on campus boundary ● Candace updated on MSU’s conversations about Kagy ● Carson said that truck traffic reroute might be issue on Kagy vs. Main or Oak or Frontage ● Sam asked Carson if he wanted to hear BABAB’s thoughts on Kagy; John said public meetings are a forum; Carson said that anyone’s input is important; what do we want and how much are we willing to suffer ● Bill said Taylor asked about design speed; Danielle Scharff said that 35 mph was proposed design speed; Sam said there could be a steep accident curve at 35 mph ● Rebecca said that she heard at Smart Growth Conference in Portland that LOS determination for streets is going to be illegal because it’s just not meeting needs of ALL users ● BABAB might want to provide a letter of support for a three lane solution sometime in the spring; original date has been moved up from June to spring for next round of public input ● Rebecca reiterated that if we don’t design something good enough so that grandma or your 7 year old doesn’t want to use it, then we’ve missed the point ● Jason said we need to decide how we engage with the Kagy process without being “experts” in engineering or street design; can we make arguments to LOS or why 3 or 5 lane is right or wrong? ● WTI has been heavily involved in advocacy toward thoughtful design and benefits of a 3 lane design ● Carson said that the LOS grades are not total indicator of the actual condition (D, E, F doesn’t capture all issues) ● Sam said that Kagy could be paradigm shift ● Rebecca said that there’s a professor out of CA who did research on capacity expansion of streets…for short period of time LOS improves but within a few years, congestion and LOS is poor again J. Bike Rules Signage Subcommittee ● Moved to April. Zach said signs won’t be put up until April. Zach and Juliana passed around draft signage. K. Bike Ambassadors Subcommittee ● Moved to April. L. Presentation to the City Commission ● March 21st is scheduled bike board presentation; memo by March 14th to John V. if we keep this date for the presentation ● 2013 Ideas: 1. Increase bike friendly city staff atmosphere; 2. Increase miles of bike friendly infrastructure (progress: 23rd was done); 3. Promote community awareness of bicycling (progress: distracted driving ordinance passed, GVBC is handling Bike to Work event) ● 2016 Presentation: update on last few years of progress and projects ○ TMP ○ TCC ○ Bike Ambassador Program ○ League of American Bicyclists designation – renew silver certification (what do we have to do to reach gold?) ○ Bike Ped Coordinator, Infrastructure ideas) [50K, Metropolitan Planning Organization can help fund Bike/Ped Coor]; do we rename this position the Multi-modal Coordinator (Carson said provide reasons why this is advantageous vs. not) ○ East/West Infrastructure: complete Durston, Baxter, Oak; outreach to western neighborhoods; connectivity; Kagy (3 lanes vs. 5) ○ North/South Infrastructure: Kagy is barrier (underpass on Galligator and blinking light for Willson); Grand vs. Willson; Davis and Ferguson ● Rebecca feels like our bike counts are woefully inadequate and we need to get a permanent bike/ped counter system so that we can get better numbers for certain corridors ● Are we ready to go to March 21st meeting? Can we shoot for March 28th instead when Commission agenda is lighter? Or maybe April 18th? Subcommittee to deal with this? ● Sam and Dillon to follow up for April 18th presentation to Commission ● (Candace doesn’t think like we should abandon 11th connector…can we discuss this?) ● Bill says that we need to form subcommittee to work on League application M. Old Business ● Question from Jason about Daniel’s 3 no-shows; Carson sent him a letter; city removed him from the board ● Carson will find out if Ursula can be on board; Carson will find out from County ● Bike map update; Sam is looking into it N. New Business ● None at this time Meeting adjourned at 8:20 p.m.