Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-08-10 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes of the September 8, 2010 Meeting Upstairs Conference Room Alfred Stiff Office Bldg. Those Present: Voting Committee Members: Ralph Zimmer (Gallatin County) Frank Manseau (Gallatin County) Gary Vodehnal (City of Bozeman) Danielle Scharf (City of Bozeman) Sam Miller (At-large Voting Member) Non-Voting Committee Members: John Van Delinder (City of Bozeman – Street Superintendent) Liaison Officers: Guests: Elizabeth Bird (Bozeman Area Bicycle Advisory Board [BABAB] Liaison) Quorum: present NEW BUSINESS: Ralph called the meeting to order at 12:05 PM. Public Comment. 1.No public comment. Minutes. 2.Minutes from the August 11, 2010 meeting were approved with the minor edits made by Ralph Zimmer prior to distribution. Liaison Officer Representation. 3.There has been some discussion about whether Jake Wagner (former liaison officer from the Sheriff’s Office) should be removed from our email list. Ralph sent him an email to see if he desired to go on the committee’s list of “friends”. He replied and said he would like to remain on the friends list and would try to attend an occasional meeting if his schedule allows. City of Bozeman Ethics Handbook. 4.John passed out the ethics handbook and form for each committee member to sign and return. Since this committee was established jointly by three groups, not just the City of Bozeman, and since the City only appoints a portion of the committee’s membership, Ralph is not yet ready to concede that the entire committee is subject to the City’s policies and regulations. While the City’s policies may apply to committee members appointed by the City, Ralph questions whether they apply to, for instance, himself and others appointed by the County Commission. Therefore, Ralph stated he is going to make certain changes to the receipt form before he signs it. He left it up to the other committee members and their conscience as to what they do. Liaison Officer Reports. 5.The liaison officers were not present at this meeting. BABAB Report. 6. Elizabeth reported that BABAB has a meeting scheduled for tonight and the agenda will include distracted driver issues and representation on the committees for the downtown street transformation study. Since our last meeting, Ralph received an email back from Rick Hixson stating that our committee and BABAB will both have representation on both the consultant selection committee and steering committee for the downtown street transformation study. Ralph will forward that email to Elizabeth so she has it for their meeting tonight. Draft 2010 County Interconnect Parks & Trails Plan. 7. Ralph recently submitted comments to the County on behalf of this committee. Those comments are attached at the end of these minutes. Update on Distracted Driver Issues. 8.As discussed during several recent committee meetings, Sam was initially hoping to just get a letter of support from this committee, but is now hoping that we’ll take a stronger role toward making this a priority issue for the community. This committee may have a better chance of getting the Commission’s attention and moving it forward. Sam provided several more handouts for the committee to review, including a draft ordinance for Bozeman, example ordinance from Anaconda, and various articles and statistics. Ralph also provided a copy of the recently adopted Billings ordinance. Sam’s biggest concern is the effects that distracted drivers may have on pedestrians and bicyclists, because they have the least amount of protection. Missoula recently passed a texting ordinance, but dropped the hands free requirement. Sam is not familiar with any other communities in Montana that currently have a similar ordinance. The Bozeman City Commission has not made the issue a priority because they don’t feel there’s enough data available yet to support it. Sam said it might be another year or two before there’s really good data available showing a reduction in accidents with this type of ordinance in place. Elizabeth said part of the problem is whether or not secondary enforcement has any real effect. The Billings ordinance includes primary enforcement. Sam proposed secondary enforcement for Bozeman because he thought it would be easier to get approved than primary. Sam would like support from this committee and BABAB. BABAB is already on board. Sam has also considered going to ASMSU, but most on that governing board are not actually residents of the City of Bozeman. Sam has also approached the School District, but hasn’t received much support so far. John suggested contacting individual PTA’s and Sam noted that he was hoping to gain support from the District as a whole rather than going to each individual PTA. BABAB has drafted a letter (by Bill Bartlett, BABAB member and attorney) to the Commission that will address how the proposed ordinance affects bicyclists and to propose that it be a secondary offense. The letter will state that, similar to seatbelts, changing the culture is as important as or more important than implementing a new law. Our best approach would be to have a separate letter from both committees to help get the issue on a Commission agenda and then have a representative from each group speak at the Commission meeting. Another option would be to have a representative speak in favor of it during the public comment portion of the meeting even before it gets on the agenda. Gary would like to see our committee support this and draft a letter to the Commission. We should note that the ordinance should include language that would exclude two-way radios and others who use the device for work-related activities. Elizabeth would be willing to share BABAB’s draft letter with us for review. John asked if we could get signatures to get it on the ballot by petition. Sam said his discussions with the City Attorney indicated that they could try to do that for next year by obtaining 2000 signatures. John suggested that we draft one letter signed by multiple committees. Elizabeth will ask Bill to get together with Sam to draft a letter that can be approved and signed by both committees and modify the draft ordinance to reflect the statements of the letter (including how it addresses bicycles, which will be necessary to get BABAB’s support). Then our two committees can plan to have representatives speak at the Commission meeting. Sam made a motion that the committee make the use of cell phones while driving a major safety concern for the committee to work on and instruct our leaders to work with BABAB and other interested parties to pursue this as expeditiously as possible. Gary seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. College and Willson Intersection Improvements. 9. This topic will be on the Commission th agenda for October 4 (before our next meeting) and will include a presentation from MDT. Ralph anticipates that the presentation will include a recommendation for either a roundabout or traffic signal. Ralph asked the committee for input on whether or not we wish to publicly support some kind of improvement to the intersection at this time and if we want to specifically support either a roundabout or traffic signal. In the past this committee has supported the position that something must be done. All agreed that we must continue to support some form of improvement for safety in particular, but also for efficiency. Gary thought we should support a roundabout, Frank thought we should support a signal, and Danielle would prefer to see MDT’s presentation first or at least have more information before deciding which improvement to support. All agreed that we should support some form of improvement, but hold off on deciding which form of improvement until we have more information. The Commission meeting starts at 6:00 pm and MDT usually requests that they be first on the agenda since they’ll be traveling from out of town. th Next Meeting. 10. Our next regularly scheduled meeting is on October 13, but Ralph and Gary will both be gone. Even if Danielle were to preside in their absence, there is a good chance th that we would not have a quorum. All agree with rescheduling the meeting for October 6 instead. Sidewalk along Oak from 7th to Rouse. 11. Gary provided a brief overview of a recent proposal by the County to construct sidewalk in this location. Gary had a recent meeting with Ron Dingman regarding the possibility of using a combination of City and County CTEP funds to install a 10-foot wide path instead. Due to the close proximity to the fairgrounds, there is interest in allowing horses, but it could be on an adjacent soft surface trail. There is a narrow point adjacent to MDT’s yard with utilities located nearby. Additional right-of-way would be required for construction of the 10-foot wide path. Gary will find out more information about this topic for further discussion at a future meeting. Future Agenda Items. 12. The following items will be considered as future agenda items.  Path along Bridger Canyon Road  Galligator Trail crossing at South Willson & Lincoln – review # of crossings along Willson from Kagy to Garfield and consider a recommendation to install another at Mason?  South Willson & College intersection improvements  Citizen proposal to install flashers on South Willson at Dickerson  Continue discussion on Complete Streets Policy  Continue discussion on Sidewalk Encroachment Policy  Continue discussion on the operation of Main Street pedestrian signals  Continue discussion on Distracted Driver Issues th  South 19 Avenue turn lanes The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 PM. Next Meeting: October 6, 2010 (rescheduled from October 13, 2010 as noted above) Minutes by Danielle Scharf Edits by Ralph Zimmer prior to distribution Bozeman Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Created by, Responsible to, and Serving The City of Bozeman, County of Gallatin, and School District 7 Mailing Address: c/o County Commissioners’ Office, 311 West Main, Bozeman MT 59715 Ralph W. Zimmer, Chairperson, (406) 586-9152 Gary Vodehnal, Vice Chairperson August 15, 2010 Members Gallatin County Parks Commission County Courthouse Bozeman MT 59715 Dear Commissioners: We are writing to comment on the draft 2010 Gallatin County Interconnect Parks & Trails Plan. We are an official advisory body to the Gallatin County Commission which appoints a portion of our official membership (I happen to be a county appointee). We are grateful for the ime and effort you have poured into drafting this plan. While we have not reviewed it as thoroughly as we should have, we did discuss certain key issues at our August 11 committee meeting. Our primary concern lies in the plan apparently permitting some trails to be limited to private use of some subset of the general public. As a general statement, we feel that such action would be unwise and thus language allowing such restrictions to be unwise. We believe all of these trails should be open to all of the general public. The only exception that we might recognize would be if there were some overwhelming benefit to the general public that would occur if a certain trail were restricted to private usage. That would be a very, very unusual situation. We have lobbied long and hard before the Transportation Coordinating Committee (TCC), the City Commission, and other froups about the need for providing more opportunities for pedestrians and removing “gaps” in existing facilities. To permit the development of new facilities that are not open to the general public will lead to future gaps and thus is counter- productive. Sincerely, Ralph W. Zimmer Chairperson cc: Chris Scott