HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee - 02/09/2022
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South Burlington Bike & Pedestrian Committee
APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 @ 5:30 p.m.
City Hall Room 301
Committee Attendees: Havaleh Gagne (Chair), Nic Anderson (Clerk), Bob Britt, Amanda Holland, Dana
Farr, Donna Leban, Cathy Frank
Committee Absent: Matty Larkspur
Other Attendees: Ashley Parker (City Liaison), Sai Sarepalli (CCRPC), Paul Connor
Public: None
1. Welcome, Virtual Meeting Instructions, and Emergency Evacuation Procedure
2. Changes or additions to the agenda
a. None
3. Comments from the public not related to the agenda
a. None
4. Consideration of minutes from the January 12, 2022 meeting
a. Updating public person’s name to Michael Powers.
b. Motion by Bob to approve with name update
c. Seconded by Dana
d. Havaleh abstained. Matty not present. All other members voted yay.
e. Minutes approved
5. Updates from the City – Ashley Parker
a. Read updates from the packet
b. Hinesburg Road requests are coming in from all over. Will need to strategize a list.
Havaleh suggested doing at end of agenda and then Ashley will add the items she has
received.
c. Bob asked how much path maintenance would cost. More than 30K likely. Stonehedge
is going to require more work. Crack work needed between Butler Farms and Golf
Course. Could require design work because of stormwater challenges. Path needs a full
reconstruction.
d. Crosswalk painting – Nic wants to make sure Hinesburg Rd is done. And Williston
Rd/Hinesburg Rd didn’t get done last summer. Missed one of 4 crossings.
e. Bob asked if a committee member could be on the Maintenance Scoping Study project
team. Ashley said not yet but this may change as they look at the equity components
etc. Amanda would like to have more regular updates and would like to know more. Did
they use our documents or do a fresh assessment? Would be good for this to come back
to us so we know if the City wants us to continue our role on maintenance issues. If the
city finds our maintenance lists valuable or not would be good. Ashley - The city folks all
have the maintenance worksheet. They will use this for the maintenance budget in the
planning. There will be metrics. Equity will play a role in that in all parts of city. Can’t tell
if they will use the spreadsheet but hope they do use it as a tool. Donna asked who
started the project. Ashley – UPWP project. Amanda would more like to know what our
role could be in the future and where we can assist. DPW are short staffed and with the
Director being gone for a month. Once we have a new person, we will have more
stability.
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f. Bob asked if RRFB upgrades are June 30th or the end of 2022. Ashley noted its FY22 so
June.
g. Bob asked about fence near songbird and hoped Tom and Adam were aware of the
project.
h. Bob asked about being involved in projects like Kimball Ave. Have been present for
Queen City Parkway scoping study.
i. Ashley has been asked by Marla to have a public forum to talk about both Kimball Ave
AND QCP studies. Ashley noted Bike ped being asked to host it. Will have chance to have
input there. QCP in March meeting and Kimball in April.
j. Sai asked about timeline on Dorset St Rec Path project. Ashley noted CIP has it starting
in FY24 pending ROW. Funded with Penny for Paths and VTRANS Large Scale bike ped
program.
6. Mary Street Pedestrian Facility Alternatives
a. Paul Conner, Director of P&Z reviewed memo in packet.
b. Discussion of Fire Department desire.
c. Noted that once this is done it will serve a lot of additional people, even without cars.
d. Havaleh asked about the alternatives which show biking.
e. Nic thinks that safety needs to be mentioned in the need.
f. Amanda thinks softening the grid wording to connections would be better.
g. Reviewed alternatives in packet
h. Bob wouldn’t want to lose peoples parking
i. Nic would rather have a straight sidewalk that maintains a green belt instead of being
right beside the road. Could possibly address residents by creating parking on their
property. Nic would like to have a curb to stop people parking over sidewalk. Could have
no parking on that side of street.
j. Amanda commented on compaction and drainage. Asked about curbing. Chat
comments:
i. 1. Interested in knowing the difference in LT maintenance cost between curbed
and uncurbed? Does curbed add infrastructure considerations for drainage?
ii. 2. Concern that if uncurbed will have parking on greenway. Heavy cars =
compaction of soil = drainage issues. I know in my neighborhood there is a lot
of front yard parking in winter due to winter parking ban.
iii. 3. I apparently have a storm water theme. I see a lot of catch basins on both
sides, even in yards. An indication of drainage issues. I would support the traffic
calming for the dual purpose of storm water. BUT I would hope there is a
analysis done to determine proper placement.
k. Sai commented on stormwater components
l. Amanda likes chicane features and maybe they could incorporate stormwater features
in the traffic calming.
m. Paul noted higher maintenance requirements for stormwater features for DPW and
would not want to create a maintenance challenge.
n. Amanda – Sees a lot of catch basins there so looks like water management needed.
o. Paul – Traffic calming could be done as more of a pop up for $1000-2000 to see how it
worked.
p. Donna tends to prefer curb but would like to talk about mountable curbs. When there is
no curb, the greenbelt doesn’t do well. Small change in elevation helps water to stay
out. Would street trees be installed in green belt? May be nice to help the argument of
additional pavement. Would want to make sure no trees are removed.
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q. Paul doesn’t think any trees are being removed.
r. Donna asked how this would fall into the street typology. Is it a Mews?
s. Paul more a Neighborhood Narrow. Mews is very different. Would not want that off an
arterial and also a school. Did also consider an edge road lane but didn’t think it met the
projects need for pedestrians to provide a safe environment.
t. Donna thinks you need a change of elevation. Could you get away with not needing
green strips.
u. Paul mentioned snow storage is the main reason for a greenbelt.
v. Nic thinks the more greenbelt the better.
w. Bob asked about funding
x. Paul – Possibly with Impact Fees or various City Center funds. If project gets expensive it
could require us to be more creative.
y. Havaleh – Likes it being on the west side and having the traffic calming already in place
before the street is opened up because they would already be used to the calming
features. Prime place to put in calming features.
z. Donna asked if all houses were residential?
aa. Paul as far as they know the only commercial ones are Berkshire Hathaway and the
Bank. A lot of the residential properties are owned by one property owner. There were
previous talks about the location of Mary Street. In T4 zoning district which means any
home could be used for non-residential purpose.
7. Review Status of the Kennedy Drive/Twin Oaks Crosswalk Project
a. Ashley – Significant cost differences from scoping to concept. Lowest bid was $310K.
Significantly higher than design cost estimate. Gone over all options. Cost of material
and cost of labor. This is best time of year to bid projects. Important to have lighting
given the location. May not have been scoped. Drainage issues and paving much higher.
Compared with Allen Rd project and pretty much everything was more expensive.
Would need to have City Council review and approve asap to be able to get done this
year. Compared some cost savings from previous projects and looking at higher grand
list for P4P it could be covered by P4P but would be significant difference. Have $75K
from VTRANS. Could try to rebid but advice was that it wouldn’t change. We had it as
$169 in CIP after we increased.
b. Donna asked about lighting.
c. Ashley noted FHWA requires lighting for this type of project. Our decision but would
recommend. Paul is talking about potential lighting for the future on Kennedy at
pedestrian scale.
d. Bob asked if there were RRFB’s in three locations or two.
e. Ashley noted getting RRFB’s in time could be hard. All components are higher, even
flaggers.
f. Bob asked if they could take lights from Deerfield Dr.
g. Nic doesn’t think we should skimp on lighting because it is a safety feature.
h. Havaleh asked what City Council approval is needed.
i. Ashley – Need to have City Council signature on bid projects. Wanted to connect with
committee before that. Wanted ideas on how it could be changed but doesn’t think
there is much potential. We have seen savings from previous projects so it could be OK.
Do think the money is there to cover this cost.
j. Motion by Nic to recommend Ashley continue with this project at the higher cost.
k. Seconded by Donna
l. Unanimously approved.
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m. Nic asked if Ashley can forward the finalized plans. Yes she said.
8. Discussion: Planning for Future Council Presentation
a. Havaleh asked that with DPW being short staffed and without a Director, could we delay
this presentation.
b. Amanda – Could do the presentation or not.
c. Bob noted we were supposed to present to meet our goals.
d. Ashley is doing that for the committee with the spreadsheet Jessie sends to Council.
e. Amanda would like to propose that we develop a presentation and we can either hold
onto it for once we have DPW staff. Thinking of creating 10-15 minutes to be a snapshot
of the committee work with a broad overview of the work. Could send out the workplan
where we grouped actions into three key themes which were
i. Cultivate and maintain network
ii. Strengthening communication
iii. Promote culture of walking and biking
f. Amanda asked about things worth highlighting. Greenway could be one.
g. Nic – How do we show just how many things that are going on in the bike ped world.
There are SO many future things, not just the City but developers too are all making the
City better in isolation but all are cultivating the network.
h. Feel free to connect with Bob, Dana or Amanda if there are any other thoughts. Bob will
not be here in March for meeting. Or May, June or July.
i. Dana – Being an advisory committee is very active. A word cloud or some graphic may
convey it.
j. Nic thinks a graphic of a wheel with P4P being the hub and all the projects are the
spokes. Like the Wheel of Fortune wheel.
k. Bob noted that Ashley already had a great presentation on those pieces. She can share.
l. Donna thinks we have the wrong audience. City Council knows but it’s the public we
need to show where the P4P money is going. Could get in Other Paper and inform the
public more.
m. Nic agrees that it should be ALL projects, not just P4P but also Ilona’s TIF projects and
other developers projects we have commented on.
n. Cathy is happy to do an Other Paper submission on all the projects if that works. By next
week to get ahead of the elections.
o. Bob mentioned we have the dollar figures if needed.
p. Cathy has Ashley’s list. Not sure deadline but will.
q. Havaleh – important to highlight that the P4P money has opened other doors for grant
funding that would not have been possible without it.
r. Dana asked if we Cathy was writing as a citizen or representing the committee.
s. Havaleh thinks that people can email individually without breaking any rules.
t. Nic – Be interesting to highlight all grant money we got by grants that were matched.
Almost a million??
u. Bob – Have all that. Can send through. More than 1 million.
9. Discussion: VT-116 Speed Limits
a. Havaleh asked if we wanted to just use this time to create list of Hinesburg Rd Requests
i. RRFB’s at new crosswalks. Ask for help on understanding what metrics are
needed to show demand or demonstrate use. States preferred approach is to
take step approach to improvements. Idea always was to go back at a later date
to approve RRFB’s. They did not say they would not consider it.
ii. Crosswalk Painting
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iii. Revisiting speed limit south of Kennedy using proposal Justin gave. 30-Kennedy
to Van Sicklen and then higher after that.
iv. CIP – Crosswalk at Dubois – Bob McDonald presented at City Council and
followed up with Letter. Would like no passing zone. Also rumble strips
v. Painting 10ft lanes from Williston Rd through as far as possible so that shoulders
are wider (may also help reduce speeds). Justin was OK requesting that.
vi. Replace sidewalk from Williston to Kennedy
vii. Church Crosswalk upgrades to signs
viii. Havaleh – Have heard of desire for shared use path for Dubois Dr going north to
Eldredge then Wellesley Grove to Kennedy.
ix. Nic would like to see paint changes in front of Price Chopper. Will send that
through in aerial photo form.
10. Updates Ongoing Committee Work
a. Quarterly DPW Meeting –Bob – On hold until City ready to meet with new director. Sent
email to Jesse with scope of coordination.
b. Climate Action Task Force – Donna. Next meeting is Thursday. CCRPC have broken out
pieces of states climate action report and filling in pertinent facts. Customizing the
report for SB. Detail will start tomorrow.
c. DRB Update –Cathy. Beta Technologies at end of airport. Bike path extended along
Williston Rd and into their property. Nic asked if Art Klugo is going to come back to
committee. Non-responsive. Members should look at the DRB packet. O’Brien haven’t
been back. Have had exchanges with Marla on removing left turn lane into Spear
Meadows. Nic thinks that having a turn lane would actually make the street worse. Is
happy to not have it. O’Brien’s Old Farm Rd project haven’t come back.
d. Communications/Outreach–Cathy – Will do Other Paper post.
e. Safety –Bob – Sent to committee the list of items that the sub group came up with.
Would love feedback on them. Wants to make sure committee wants these items on
the list and maybe suggesting next steps for moving them forward.
f. Mapping –Amanda/Nic – Amanda connecting with Pam tomorrow to get update on map
that they have already done. Asking if City doing updates. Will ask if we can see current
draft. Nic as edits. Doesn’t know what the next steps are. Ashley’s report noted that
maintenance is going to be plugged into City’s data. Need to figure out next steps and
what we want for mapping.
g. Signs –Nic – Has been busy with new promotion. Needs to get cracking. Will connect
with rest of group so we can get something in the ground this summer.
h. Bike Friendly Community Planning -Nic. Email from Ashley from Andrew. Need to get to
subgroup and Jonathan to work on next steps.
11. Confirmation: Next meeting Wednesday, March 9, 2022 @ 5:30pm. Virtual still. Public forum for
QCPR so need to keep it. Will be first hour and then rest of meeting after. We are just host, not
running the meeting.
12. Adjourned 8:11pm