HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-12-12 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee MinutesPedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee
Minutes of the December 12, 2012 Meeting
Upstairs Conference Room Alfred Stiff Office Building.
Those Present:
Voting Committee Members:
Ralph
Zimmer (Gallatin County)
Gary Vodehnal (City of Bozeman)
Danielle Scharf (City of Bozeman)
Frank Manseau (Gallatin County)
Sam Miller (Member At-Large)
Vance Ruff (Bozeman School District)
Non-Votin
g Committee Members:
John Van Delinder (Supervisor, City of Bozeman Streets Department)
Liaison Officers:
Tommie Franscioni (City of Bozeman Police Department)
Guests:
Taylor Lonsdale
(MT Safe Routes to School Coordinator)
Chris Mehl (City of Bozeman Commission)
Dustin Johnson (City of Bozeman Engineering Department)
Chris Budeski (Madison Engineering, representing
Saddle View Apartments)
Quorum: present
NEW BUSINESS:
Ralph called the meeting to order at 12:00 PM.
Public Comment. Ralph offered the opportunity for public comment on items
not on the agenda. No public comment.
Consideration of Meeting Agenda. Ralph offered the opportunity to provide input on the agenda and noted that he will take some liberties as
we have many items to discuss. No additional comments were made.
Minutes. Frank made a motion to approve the minutes of the November 14, 2012 meeting, second from Gary. The minutes
were approved.
Liaison Officer Reports. Tommie was in attendance today, but did not have anything specific to report.
Street Department Report. John reported the Bozeman Area Bicycle
Advisory Board (BABAB) is advocating for the addition of bike lanes on Main Street when it is resurfaced from Grand to 19th. BABAB is also asking for bike lanes from 19th to 23rd.
He also noted that
Craig Woolard (City of Bozeman Public Works Director) has requested a signal at 3rd and Main as part of the same project.
John was not able to attend the recent College Street project
meeting, but he believes it is moving forward. Taylor asked if the project would include a pathway on the north side. John said no, it will be sidewalk on the north side.
Bozeman
Area Bicycle Advisory Board (BABAB) Report. John said there isn’t a lot to report at this time, other than they’re advocating for bike lanes on Main, as noted above. They have some
new members, but no change in leadership yet. They have been working on a list of issues to address for the coming year.
Distracted Driving Report. Taylor noted a recent media release
from the Police Department. Sam did not have any additional update beyond that.
CTEP Report. Dustin Johnson reported that the City has applied for all of the priority projects from
the list approved by the Commission in 2010. They received approval from MDT and the contract is currently under review by the City’s Legal Department.
They currently have about
$600,000 in the CTEP fund and will have $250,000 remaining after the current projects are completed. They are currently working on a new list of priority projects, just at the staff
level at this time, but they would be willing to take input from this group. Ralph asked if they would be consulting with the CTEP task force again and Dustin explained that they probably
will not be because the process has become repetitive. They will ask for input from our committee, BABAB, etc. anyway, which are made up of many of the same people as the CTEP task
force. Ralph expressed some concern that it may result in a larger burden on this committee to identify projects, rather than just depending on our representatives on the CTEP task
force (Gary and Danielle) to do it. Dustin said they are currently working on a list, with just one project identified by Andy Kerr so far. They will likely have a list ready for our
review by this summer.
Ralph noted our interest in strongly advocating for new projects for Bozeman, especially since the process will now be on a state-wide competitive basis. Ralph
is concerned that if we don’t identify projects for the remaining $250,000, we may the run the risk of losing it as we transition into the new transportation bill. Chris Mehl assured
the group that the City is keeping an updated list that is short enough that they can stay on top of it, but long enough that they are not concerned that the state will take the funding
away.
Gary asked about the status of the Oak Street trail project and Dustin explained that the City turned its CTEP money over to the County to administer the project. Danielle
noted that the County just recently released a request for proposals for consultant selection.
Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Report. Taylor reported that Bozeman’s SRTS program is progressing
well. They are implementing funding under the current grant and applying for the next funding cycle. They are planning events around bike to school day and bike week and have implemented
a bicycle safety education program using a trailer full of bikes that is available for use by all schools.
At the state level, they are accepting applications until December 31, 2012 for the final round of funding under current transportation bill (SAFETEA-LU). Taylor’s contract with MDT
will expire on June 30, 2013. They will not continue that specific contract, but they are interested in Taylor providing some support to the communities that receive funding in 2013.
Beyond that, there will be a new set of rules for funding applications and SRTS will no longer be a dedicated funding program. All bike and pedestrian funding will now be combined
under the Transportation Alternatives program. Taylor said the state is working hard to define the application process for the new TA program. The types of projects that are eligible
have changed slightly from the previous programs. Taylor hopes to stay well-informed and intends to continue to help communities determine how they can continue to fund these types
of projects under the new program.
Ralph reminded the group that we wrote a letter to MDT advocating for full funding of bike and pedestrian projects and for them to maintain the State
Safe Routes to School Coordinator position. Ralph asked Taylor to please let us know if there is anything else we can do to help. Taylor noted his work with Bike Walk Montana and advocacy
at the state level for full funding of these programs. They have a similar letter going to MDT advocating for full funding and the SRTS coordinator position. Taylor stressed that the
point is more about advocating for the position than his job specifically.
Danielle expanded on Taylor’s comments about the letter by Bike Walk Montana and suggested that we sign on
as a supporting organization. Chris explained that we cannot officially vote on this today because we did not provide public notice prior to the meeting. Rather than voting on it today
then, Ralph will review the information and make a decision as Chair of our committee whether it is consistent with our goals and initiatives. Danielle will forward the email to Ralph
and he will distribute to the rest of the committee.
Pedestrian Concerns at Saddle View Apartments. Chris Budeski (Madison Engineering) explained that this is a new apartment complex
near the intersection of Haggerty and Ellis. 32 units were constructed previously and there will be 104 units total. There has been a recommendation to install a crosswalk at the intersection,
mainly to provide pedestrian access to the new bus stop on Ellis. The Engineering Department’s recommendation is to install just one crosswalk across Haggerty on the east leg of the
intersection. The City had previously installed an asphalt sidewalk to the east of the intersection to make the connection to the existing sidewalk further east. The City prefers to
keep the crosswalk locations at intersections and avoid mid-block crossing locations. John also noted that the City needs to be careful about installing crosswalks in locations where
they aren’t needed, because they already have a hard time maintaining all of their existing crosswalks.
Taylor expressed his thoughts that the intersection should be enhanced with
crosswalks and curb ramps on all approaches. It is much more expensive to come back and install them later with CTEP or SRTS money. Dustin and John explained that the City is trying
to get away from striping crosswalks in locations where they don’t get a lot of use. Danielle agreed that crosswalks should not necessarily be installed on all approaches, not only
because of cost, but because if they are striped everywhere they tend to lose their effectiveness at marking the locations where there really are a lot of pedestrians crossing. Gary
was happy to see that they are willing to stripe the crosswalk, especially now that he knows about the bus stop. He was originally leaning toward advocating for crosswalks on all approaches,
but now understands that just one may make sense in this case. The consensus was that we would support a
condition for the one crosswalk on the east leg of the intersection of Haggerty and Ellis. Dustin will proceed in that manner and will send a copy of the conditions to Ralph.
Community
Transportation Safety Plan. Danielle attended the recent steering committee meeting for this project and provided an overview of the discussion to the group. They provided another
summary of the goals of the project and discussed the desired emphasis areas or priority safety issues for our community. They presented quite a bit of accident data by contributing
factors and steering committee members voted on priority emphasis areas. Those that received the most votes included: intersections, young drivers, inattentive driving, unbelted,
alcohol/drug, and pedestrian/bike. After lengthy discussion, the top three were inattentive driving, unbelted and pedestrian/bike. Other items can be addressed as goal/objectives within
the three primary emphasis areas. The next steering committee meeting will be January 23, 2013 at 3:00 PM and the Community Safety Summit will be on February 12. Ralph noted that all
are welcome to attend both meetings.
Meeting with Gallatin County Commission. Gary further refined his list of topics for discussion with the County Commission and would like to get
additional input from Ralph and Danielle. All agreed that we should wait until our February meeting to try to incorporate a meeting with the Commissioners. This way we can discuss
the topics again in January. We will have a lot of other items to discuss in January (officer elections, etc.), so it would be too much to try to meet with the Commissioners then too.
Next Meeting. Our next regular meeting time would be January 9th at noon. We will possibly elect 2013 at-large voting members of the committee and will elect our 2013 officers.
There were not any concerns related to this meeting time.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:35 PM.
Next Meeting: January 9, 2012 at noon as noted above.
Minutes by Danielle Scharf
Edits
by Ralph Zimmer