HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-08-10 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes
1 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee
2 Minutes of the December 8, 2010 Meeting
3 Upstairs Conference Room Alfred Stiff Office Bldg.
4
Those Present:
5
6
7 Voting Committee Members:
8 Ralph Zimmer (Gallatin County)
9 Frank Manseau (Gallatin County)
10 Gary Vodehnal (City of Bozeman)
11 Danielle Scharf (City of Bozeman)
12 Sam Miller (At-Large Voting Member)
13
14 Non-Voting Committee Members:
15 John Van Delinder (City of Bozeman – Street Superintendent)
16
17 Liaison Officers:
18 Tommie Franscioni (Bozeman Police Department)
19
20 Guests:
21 Sean Becker (City Commission)
22 Bill Bartlett (Bicycle Advisory Board Advisory Board Member)
23
Quorum:
24 present
25
NEW BUSINESS:
26
27
28 Ralph called the meeting to order at 12:10 PM.
29
Membership Renewal.
30 1.Ralph noted that both he and Gary’s terms on this committee will
st
31 expire on December 31. Both are applying for re-appointment but there is no guarantee
32 either will be re-appointed. Sue Brown and Sam Miller’s terms as at-large voting members
33 will also expire at the end of the year. Ralph does not yet know if they are interested in re-
34 appointment but will be asking them very soon.
35
Minutes.
36 2.Minutes from the November 10, 2010 meeting were approved with minor edits
37 made by Ralph Zimmer prior to distribution.
38
Public Comment.
39 3.No public comment.
40
CTEP Recommendations.
41 4. Ralph distributed copies of the memo from Ron Dingman, Parks
42 and Recreation Director to the City Commission for the December 13th agenda outlining the
43 recommended CTEP projects from the CTEP Committee. John expressed concern that some
44 of the dollar figures may be too low. In particular, he was concerned that $125,000 may not
45 be enough for Item #1 and $28,000 may not be enough for Item #3. Frank asked if adjacent
46 property owners would contribute to the cost of the trail along Oak from Rouse to Kmart.
47 John said that if Westlake’s property were to develop they would contribute, but there’s no
48 way to require it otherwise. Gary noted that the alternative included in the memo says to
49 complete as many approved projects as funding allows. This will help to account for the
50 possibility that some of the projects may cost more than budgeted.
51
52 Sean was surprised that the Centennial Park sidewalk project made it into the list of
53 priorities. Gary noted that it was a Safe Routes to School recommendation and it’s an area
54 that gets a lot of use by residents of the Senior Center. Gary also noted several other projects
55 that he considers to be a priority, such as College and Kagy. He said these other projects are
56 either too expensive to include on this list or they are included in priority lists for other
57 funding sources. Ralph asked if we were all in favor of him speaking to the Commission in
58 support of this list, other than some minor concerns related to cost. The consensus was that
59 Ralph should indeed proceed with his comments to the Commission in favor of the list of
60 priority projects on December 13th.
61
CTEP Steering Committee Representative.
62 5.Ralph recently spoke with Ron Dingman
63 about appointing a PTS Committee representative to serve on the CTEP Steering Committee.
64 Ron agreed to appoint someone and asked Ralph to make a recommendation. Ralph asked
65 for volunteers at the last PTS Committee meeting and only received one response from
66 Danielle Scharf. Ralph will send Ron an official recommendation that Danielle be appointed
67 to the CTEP Steering Committee.
68
City Commission Priorities.
69 6. The City Commission will be setting priorities for the coming
70 year at a meeting in mid to late January. According to Chris Kukulski, distracted driving is
71 already on the ‘long’ list for consideration during this priority setting meeting.
72
73 Ralph asked if there are any other items we would like to suggest at this time, such as
74 appointing a bike and pedestrian coordinator for the City of Bozeman. Ralph would like us
75 to decide today or at least by our January 12th meeting if we’d like to advocate for this. Gary
76 noted that many of the other larger cities in MT have at least a part-time bike and pedestrian
77 coordinator and many have received federal funding to help pay for these positions. Gary
78 would like to see Bozeman have one eventually, but he’s not sure if it’s feasible right now
79 due to the economic down turn.
80
81 Sean suggested that it may be more feasible and responsible for the Committee to ask the
82 Commission at its upcoming goal-setting session to assign those duties to an existing staff
83 member in the Planning Department in addition to other duties assigned to that employee.
84 Gary agreed that would be a logical approach and emphasized the need for a City employee
85 to be an integral part of the review of all planning and engineering proposals for adequate
86 inclusion of bicycle and pedestrian components rather than having some outsider such as
87 someone from GVLT attempt to fill that role. Consensus was established that we should
88 encourage the Commission to order that an existing staff member within the Planning
89 Department be assigned that role in addition to other assigned duties.
90
91 Ralph asked if there are any other items we should try to add to the priorities. No one
92 expressed any immediately, but Ralph requested that committee members let him know if
93 they think of any.
94
95 Gary asked Sean what other items are currently on the list of priorities. Sean said they have a
96 25-page document of past items for consideration. There is a separate list for each City
97 department. The list is available through the City Clerk’s office if anyone would like to
98 review it. Many are related to street and utility improvements. Ralph asked Sean what we
99 would need to do to get something added to the list for consideration. Sean said we should
100 write a letter to the Commission and request that the letter itself be included in the packet for
101 that particular Commission meeting so the Commissioners will have the opportunity to
102 review the letter when they are preparing to set 2011 priorities.
103
104 BABAB has also been discussing advocating for the bike and pedestrian coordinator position
105 and will likely discuss it again at their next meeting.
106
Update on Distracted Driver Issues.
107 7.At our last meeting, we approved the establishment of
108 a joint task force between the PTS Committee and BABAB to pursue getting this topic on the
109 agenda for the Commission’s priority-setting meeting. BABAB’s representative is Bill
110 Bartlett and Sam, Frank and Sue all volunteered to join that task force as representatives from
111 this committee. Ralph has also been attending the task force meetings. They have met
112 several times and have developed a new draft ordinance.
113
114 Ralph reported four separate state legislators have submitted requests for the state legislative
115 services office to draft bills on distracted driving. Ralph does not expect that all four will
116 officially be submitted as bills, but it is likely at least one will make it into the official
117 process. Ralph will assume that the PTS Committee’s support for this issue would apply to
118 both encouraging the City Commission to adopt an ordinance at the local level and writing
119 letters to state legislators in support of a State law. All agreed to approve such an advocacy
120 effort at the state legislature on behalf of this committee. Bill also requested that Ralph send
121 him a copy and he will pursue doing something similar through BABAB.
122
123 Bill provided an overview of the draft ordinance regarding distracted driving that the joint
124 PTS/BABAB task force has been working on for the City’s consideration. The majority of
125 the text in the draft ordinance came from the recently adopted Billings city ordinance, but
126 with reference to several existing Bozeman city ordinances. It addresses hand-held
127 communication devices only, so hands-free devices or those that are mounted in a vehicle
128 would still be ok. Immediate physical possession means physically touching the device and a
129 hands-free device must be voice activated. The intent of this draft is to provide a starting
130 point for comment. Sean has several comments that he will give to Bill after the meeting.
131
132 Ralph asked Sean what his personal thoughts are on the potential local ordinance. Sean feels
133 that it needs to be cleaned up before it goes to the Commission. For example, he doesn’t
134 think it’s necessary to individually define each of the vehicle types. He also thinks we need
135 to get rid of some of the redundancies, particularly if it’s going to be a primary offense. Sean
136 thinks we should define the amount of the fine as it will be relative to the severity of the
137 offense. Even a $20 fine would serve the purpose of raising awareness. Sam noted that he
138 feels it needs to be a combination of both enforcement and education. Sean thought it should
139 also specifically call out texting and possibly note that we shouldn’t even be allowed to use
140 hands-free devices under special circumstances, such as a large storm event.
141
142 The task force has also discussed what we need to do to be successful in getting the
143 Commission to adopt the ordinance. Ralph and Danielle helped research what else Billings
144 did to get their ordinance adopted. They established a task force (which was at some point
145 became an official City Council ad hoc committee) over a year before the ordinance was
146 drafted and presented to the Council.
147
148 The task force is currently looking for individuals to speak in favor of the topic at upcoming
149 City Commission meetings. They can speak for a maximum of 3 minutes during the public
150 comment period with no prior notification. The next option is a 3-5 minute “public service
151 announcement” and they would need to get the Mayor’s approval in advance. The third
152 option is to give a 10-15 minute “special presentation” for which we would need a City staff
153 member to submit a request ahead of time. John said he would be willing to write that letter
154 if that’s how we choose to proceed.
155
156 Frank tried to contact Dexter Tank last night to see if he would be willing to participate in
157 one of those three options, but didn’t reach him. Dexter was involved in an accident during
158 which the other driver was on a cell phone and he lost a leg in the accident. Bill anticipates
159 that there may be others that are willing to speak in favor of the ordinance during the public
160 comment period (3 minutes). Sean said there won’t be any more opportunities for special
161 presentations in 2010 and he thought the 3-minute short comments during the public
162 comment period would be most effective. Letters will also be effective, but we need to
163 specifically ask that the letters be included in the goal-setting packet. Letters can be
164 submitted to agenda@bozeman.net and/or emailed to Sean directly.
165
166 Ralph asked Sean if any of the Commissioners are in favor of a distracted driving ordinance.
167 Sean said that Carson Taylor asked for it to be included in the goal setting agenda, Mayor
168 Krauss asked to have it taken off, and the rest are in between. Frank suggested that if the
169 City Commission approved an ordinance it would help the effort at the state legislature level.
170 Sean noted that it can also have the opposite effect, as with the red-light cameras.
171
Future Agenda Items.
172 8. Ralph noted that we need to set priorities for our future agenda
173 items. There is a list of future agenda items included at the end of the November 10th
174 meeting minutes. Frank noted that he would still like to discuss left-turn lanes on South 19th
175 Avenue. Sean agreed and suggested that we write a letter to the County Commissioners and
176 copy the City Commissioners. Ralph noted that he expects that MDT would be involved and
177 that this project would be a difficult nut to crack. The reason we haven’t discussed it in
178 greater depth is because Ralph has chosen to focus on other projects that could be considered
179 low-hanging fruit and more likely to get implemented.
180
181 Gary asked about the grant application process for Safe Routes to School. The deadline for
182 applications is December 31st. It would be unfortunate to not submit an application for
183 Bozeman this year. It’s unclear who should be responsible for completing the application.
184 Sean suggested that it may be the City’s grant writer, Natalie Meyer. Gary and Ralph will
185 both do some checking to see if anyone is already working on this.
186
Future Agenda Items.
187 9. The following items have been carried over from previous meeting
188 minutes as potential future agenda items.
189
190 Missing sidewalk sections and accessible curb ramps along Main Street
191 Sidewalk/trail along Oak from 7th to Rouse
192 Longfellow Crossing
193 Path along Bridger Canyon Road
194 Galligator Trail crossing at South Willson & Lincoln – review # of crossings along
195 Willson from Kagy to Garfield and consider a recommendation to install another at
196 Mason
197 South Willson & College intersection improvements
198 Citizen proposal to install flashers on South Willson at Dickerson
199 Continue discussion on Complete Streets Policy
200 Continue discussion on Sidewalk Encroachment Policy
201 Continue discussion on Distracted Driver Issues
202 South 19th Avenue turn lanes
203
204 The meeting was adjourned at 1:45 PM.
205
Next Meeting:
206 January 12, 2010
207
208
209 Minutes by Danielle Scharf
210 Edits by Ralph Zimmer