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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-10-10 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes of the November 10, 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) Sue Brown (At-large Voting Member) Sam Miller (At-large Voting Member) Non-Voting Committee Members: John Van Delinder (City of Bozeman – Street Superintendent) Liaison Officers: Guests: Sean Becker (City Commissioner) Daniel R. Peterson (Concerned Citizen) Bill Bartlett (Bozeman Area Bicycle Advisory Board member) Quorum: present NEW BUSINESS: Ralph called the meeting to order at 12:06 PM. Minutes. 1.Minutes from the October 6, 2010 meeting were approved with minor edits made by Ralph Zimmer prior to distribution. Public Comment. 2.Daniel Peterson expressed some general concerns regarding a lack of pedestrian accommodations in Bozeman and specifically mentioned that the pedestrian signals on Main Street were not working. Ralph and John explained that our committee was instrumental in working with MDT to change the pedestrian signals so you don’t have to push the button to cross Main Street from 7 am – 8 pm from Wallace to Grand. You should never have to push the button when waiting to cross the side streets. Unless something is malfunctioning, the walk signal should appear automatically. Sean also noted that if a fire truck would have recently come through, the Opticom would override the pedestrian call. John said he would check the signals to make sure they are not malfunctioning. Liaison Officer Reports. 3.Liaison officers were not able to be in attendance today. Voting Member Status. 4. The terms of two of our voting members (Ralph Zimmer and Gary Vodehnal) will expire at the end of the calendar year. Both will most likely be seeking reappointment, but it is possible that the respective commissions may choose to appoint someone else in their place. Our two at-large voting members are annual appointments, so their terms will also expire at the end of the year. Ralph has not had any discussions with them yet regarding their desire to be reappointed. College and Willson Improvements. 5.As recommended at our last committee meeting, Ralph contacted the City to suggest that they delay implementing the turning restrictions at College and Willson until after traffic counts were collected at nearby intersections in order to permit subsequent before/after comparisons. He learned the City had already started collecting the “before” data. Ralph asked the committee if anyone had any observations to share since the restrictions have been implemented. Gary observed a driver waiting to go straight, but after a significant delay and honking from Gary, she ended up turning right. th CTEP Project Update. 6. Gary attended the recent CTEP committee meeting on October 14 and encouraged the committee to incorporate our recommended project additions. Several of the accessible curb ramp projects that we suggested were added to the top of the list. Drainage in that part of town will still be a concern and it remains to be seen if CTEP will pay for any necessary storm drain modifications that may come up. Other top priorities included sidewalks along Centennial Park, south side of Oak, south side of Durston, and north side of Oak along Rose Park frontage. Gary also attended the County Commission meeting and testified on behalf of using County CTEP funds for the trail project along the south side of Oak from Rouse to 7th. The Commission approved using $90,000 to build the portion along the fairgrounds. The goal is that the remainder of the project will be completed th with contributions from City CTEP funds and the North 7 Urban Renewal District. Gary will get the updated CTEP project list to Ralph for distribution to the rest of the committee. The list will likely be on the City Commission agenda for early 2011. Street Department Report. 7. John reported that MDT will be looking to get funds together thth for upgrading ramps and street crossings along Main Street from Grand to 19 and from 20 rd to 23. They are currently looking to get the design underway and the improvements will likely be installed within the next 5 years. The City is still expecting that the North Rouse project will be a ways out in the future, probably 15 years or so. The CTEP trail project from College to Ferguson is mostly constructed, but they’ll have to hold off on installing the ramp at Ferguson because of the location of an existing pull box. Frank asked about resurfacing on th Kagy and John said that MDT is currently working on plans for College from 19 to Huffine (curb, gutter, sidewalk), then they’ll start working on Kagy next. The median improvements th that the City installed on Kagy east of 7 are just about complete. They narrowed the median to provide additional room for bike lanes and have asked MSU if they’d like to landscape the median. As a privately funded project, a half-block of new sidewalk was recently installed rd on the east side of South 3 immediately north of Hill Street. Update on Distracted Driver Issues. 8.Ralph has attended BABAB’s last two meetings to participate in their discussion regarding distracted driver issues. Bill Bartlett, a local attorney who is in attendance at our meeting today, has been the one most interested in pushing the topic on behalf of BABAB. Since the last BABAB meeting, Bill and Ralph have exchanged several emails and phone calls regarding this issue. Both groups have set this issue as a priority and have expressed an interest in working together to push it forward. Therefore, we should develop a task force made up of members from both committees that are most interested in this issue. The task force should then develop a joint strategy for moving this forward to the Commission. The consensus at BABAB’s last meeting was that it would be nice if our committee were pushing for wording identical to what BABA is pushing for, and they thought the wording ideally should be identical to what the City of Billings recently adopted. BABAB seemed to favor a primary law, but our committee has so far only been discussing a secondary law. BABAB may be wavering a little bit on whether they prefer primary vs. secondary. Sam noted that Billings’ law is much more restrictive than what he previously proposed for Bozeman. He’s not sure he agrees that bicycles should be included as they are not as much of a danger to the rest of the community. John noted that BABAB’s discussion suggested that bicycles may automatically be included as they are often considered a vehicle. Sam said we could also start with a secondary law for a certain time period then go to primary to allow for a transition period. Billings has been enforcing the new ordinance since October 1st but so far have just been giving warnings, and will probably continue to do so for the next 6 months. Ralph mentioned a recent US DOT ruling that prohibits texting while operating a commercial vehicle. He has requested more information from one of his contacts and will forward it to the rest of the group when he receives it. Sean noted that the Commission will be meeting in January to set their goals for 2011 and he encouraged us to attend and bring this up at that time. Sam has also been planning on submitting a letter to the editor to gauge support. Sean said we can also send the topic to the Commission’s agenda email address. Ralph asked Sean if the individual members of the Commission will be submitting their goals at some time prior to the goal-setting meeting in January and Sean said no. Then we’ll have time between now and then to lobby individual members. Sean said they probably won’t make a decision on 2011 goals until May, because they usually wait until the legislature convenes. The goal-setting meeting is an all day meeting where they’ll be allowing public comment throughout the day, but we can also submit letters now to be included in the meeting packet. We should push to make sure it’s an agenda item for 2011. Bill suggested that we consult with the new Chief of Police as they’ve received mixed messages on where the Police Department stands on primary vs. secondary. Sam noted that the decision of primary vs. secondary can be made after we get on the agenda. Sam spoke with the Chief of Police previously and he indicated that he was happy to follow along with what the public process dictates. John agreed that our focus should be getting it on the goal- setting agenda. Once it’s on the list of goals, a member of City staff will have to take it on. Ralph asked for a final consensus from the group about joining forces with BABAB and communicating a uniform message to the Commission. Gary and Danielle both expressed support for joining forces with BABAB with the goal of getting on the Commission’s goal- setting agenda. No one spoke against that course of action. All agreed to having the decision made by consensus that we will collaborate with BABAB with the likely form being a joint task force. Sam and Frank both volunteered to serve on the task force. Bill is currently BABAB’s only representative. The final consensus was that Ralph will designate individuals to serve on the task force with the initial members being Sam and Frank. Ralph will attempt to participate as well. This group will need to make some progress fairly quickly in order to get on the Commission’s January goal-setting agenda. Safe Routes to School Task Force. 9. The SRTS task force is currently in limbo and it’s not clear who will be leading it in the future. Ralph recently talked with Taylor Lonsdale and he encouraged us to designate someone from this group to serve as an official representative on the task force. Ralph asked both Gary and Danielle about this via email and both have expressed an interest, but we probably need to discuss it further. Ralph asked the committee to give him authority to designate one or two representatives and no one objected. CTEP Committee. 10. Gary is on the CTEP Committee as a representative from GVLT, but we do not have official representation from this committee. BABAB does have official representation from their committee (Bill Bartlett). Gary expressed some concern that there may be a conflict with him representing both GVLT and the PTS Committee because GVLT’s priorities are not always the same as ours. Ralph will send out an email to committee members to see if anyone else would be interested in serving as a representative of PTS on the CTEP Committee. Highland & Ellis. 11. Gary provided an update on the work he’s doing with the Bridger Ski Foundation to establish more ski trails behind the hospital and the potential crossing improvements at Highland and Ellis. There isn’t any money available to install a flasher on Highland and he wasn’t able to get permission to construct the trail connection from the intersection to the parking lot. They have proceeded with the development of the trails and the new preferred parking area will be the upper softball complex parking lot. Potential safety issues with crossing Highland will be evaluated this winter. Future Agenda Items. 12. The following items will be considered as future agenda items.  Missing sidewalk sections and accessible curb ramps along Main Street th  Sidewalk/trail along Oak from 7 to Rouse  Longfellow Crossing  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 Distracted Driver Issues th  South 19 Avenue turn lanes The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 PM. Next Meeting: December 8, 2010 Minutes by Danielle Scharf Minor edits made by Ralph Zimmer