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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-13-13 Pedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee MinutesPedestrian and Traffic Safety Committee Minutes of the February 13, 2013 Meeting Upstairs Conference Room Alfred Stiff Office Building. Those Present: Voting Committee Members: Ralph Zimmer (Gallatin County) Danielle Scharf (City of Bozeman) Frank Manseau (Gallatin County) Sue Brown (Member At-Large) Non-Voting Committee Members: John Van Delinder (City of Bozeman Streets Department) Liaison Officers: Tommie Franscioni (City of Bozeman Police Department) Guests: Chris Mehl (City of Bozeman Commission) Quorum: present NEW BUSINESS: Ralph called the meeting to order at 12:05 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. Item XII dealing with a proposed pathway along Bridger Drive will be postponed until our April meeting, since Gary was not able to attend today. No additional comments were made. Election of At-Large Voting Members for 2013. The Committee has the option to elect zero, one or two at-large voting members for each calendar year. Sue Brown is presently our only at-large voting member. No one else has expressed for 2013 yet, but Frank will consider talking with Nancy Planalp from the School District to see if she’s interested. Minutes. Frank made a motion to approve the minutes of the January 9, 2013 meeting, second from Sue. The minutes were approved. Report on Results of Previous Meeting Actions. Ralph reported that the turn lanes on south 19th Ave were on the Transportation Commission agenda and they were approved. MDT safety engineer thought they would be constructed in late 2014 or 2015, depending on the need to acquire right-of-way. At a previous meeting, the committee asked Ralph to indicate our support for these projects to the Transportation Commission. He did not do that specifically, but alternatively made a motion to TCC to support the project, which they did and provided a notice of that support to the Transportation Commission prior to their January 31st meeting. Ralph also followed up our previous meeting by scheduling a meeting with the County Commissioners to be held during our regularly scheduled meeting in March. It is tentatively scheduled for March 13th at noon in our regular meeting room. Liaison Officer Reports. Tommie was in attendance today, but did not have anything specific to report. Frank asked about cell phone violations and Tommie reported that he stopped 5 or 6 just last week. Chris Mehl reported that the Police Chief also recently made a presentation to the Commission that has much more detailed statistics on violations. Street Department Report. John reported that the College Street project is moving forward including some recent discussion about landscaped medians and the trail that along the north side for which Taylor was advocating. The City will also be working on milling and overlay of Main Street from Grand to 23rd, which should be bid and completed late this summer. The Rouse project is now looking like it will be constructed in 2016, instead of a 2015 start like he previously reported. Water main on Main Street from Broadway to 7th. The City is still working on their schedule for other milling, overlay and chip seal projects this summer. Frank asked John about the bottleneck near the intersection of Kagy and 7th. John explained that the Kagy project should be the next priority urban project after College Street. Kagy will likely be reconstructed to three lanes with a left-turn lane at 7th. John also noted the benefits of the recently installed rectangular rapid flash beacon system. Frank also expressed concern about pedestrian crossings in front of the Medical Arts Building on North Willson. John said it was a crossing location that he thought had been discussed previously, but the idea of a mid-block crossing on a collector roadway did not receive support from Engineering. Bozeman Area Bicycle Advisory Board (BABAB) Report. John reported that BABAB is currently asking for bike sharrows in several locations around town. They would have to be thermoplastic (at approximately $650 each) because the City does not have the staff available to repaint them every year. As an example, sharrows on Koch St alone would cost on the order of $20,000. Community Transportation Enhancement Program (CTEP) Report. Danielle reported that Gallatin County will be holding interviews this Friday with the top three firms that submitted proposals for the Oak Street, Anderson School and Monforton School Trails. She also provided a summary of an email from Bike Walk Montana today that outlined some announcements related to the application process for the new Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP). She also noted the upcoming Bike Walk Montana Summit on March 14 and 15th in Helena, where TAP will be a session topic. Danielle plans to attend and will report back to this group at our April meeting. Community Transportation Safety Plan. The next steering committee meeting for this project will be on Wednesday, February 20th at 3:00 pm in the City Commission meeting room at City Hall. Transportation Coordinating Committee (TCC). The TCC met since our last meeting and Ralph already reported TCC endorsement of the turn lanes on S 19th Ave. He could not think of anything else that needs to be reported. Topics of Discussion for Meeting with Gallatin County Commission. Ralph reported that we will be meeting with the Commissioners during our March meeting. At our last meeting, we agreed to add a topic on sidewalk maintenance to the list, which Ralph has now done and is reflected on the list he distributed at the meeting. Ralph may still reorder the list of topics before distributing to the Commission. Ralph noted that he will greatly appreciate input from committee members during that discussion with the Commission, so he asked that we please give some thought to what we might say in support of these items. Ralph noted that the County Commissioners met with other elected officials from the Gallatin Valley on January 25th. David Kack was hoping that support for Streamline would be a topic of discussion at that meeting. Ralph was not able to attend and has not received a report back on that discussion. Belgrade may have expressed support at that meeting, but we don’t know for sure. Frank asked if we should invite Belgrade to our meeting with the Commissioners in case they should be part of that discussion. We agreed that we should first get in touch with David Kack to ask who participated in that conversation and what was said. Ralph will ask if anyone from Belgrade spoke in support of funding, but he is inclined to not invite someone from Belgrade to our meeting. He will talk with David Kack about how to get input from Belgrade injected into the Commissioners process, but it will likely not take place in the format of our meeting. Meeting with Public Works Director. John reported on the Public Works Director’s desire to meet with us at a future meeting to discuss long range goals for pedestrian connectivity. Ralph expressed our appreciation for the opportunity and has been talking with John about when we should plan to have this discussion. He was reluctant to schedule it for today because it would be short notice for Craig, and because Gary was not able to attend today. We will not do it at our March meeting because the County Commissioners are already on our agenda. Our alternatives then are to hold that discussion during our April meeting or hold a special meeting. John also noted that the development of a long range plan may even take more than one meeting. All agreed to start the discussion at our April meeting. Next Meeting. Our next regular meeting time will be March 13th at noon. Because we will be meeting with the County Commissioners, this will not be an official meeting and we will not be voting on anything. April 10th will be our next official meeting time. The meeting was adjourned at 1:35 PM. Next Meeting: March 13, 2013 at noon as noted above. Minutes by Danielle Scharf Edits by Ralph Zimmer