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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee - 05/10/20231 South Burlington Bike & Pedestrian Committee APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Wednesday, May 10, 2023 @ 5:30 p.m. Room 301, City Hall AND Virtual Committee Attendees: Havaleh Gagne (Chair), Nic Anderson (Clerk), Joel Klug, Doug Goodman, Donna Leban, Amanda Holland, Dana Farr Committee Absent: Bob Britt Committee Attendees – Remote: Other Attendees: Erica Quallen (City Staff Liaison), Susan Grasso (Local Motion) Public: Ryan Doyle 1. Welcome, Emergency Exit and Virtual Meeting Instructions, Gratitude –Havaleh (5:30 PM) 2. Changes or additions to the agenda – Havaleh (5:35 PM) a. None 3. Comments from the public not related to the agenda – Havaleh (5:40 PM) a. None. Ryan Doyle attending but just to listen in. 4. Consideration of minutes from April 12, 2023 – Havaleh (5:45 PM) a. No edits b. Havaleh moved to approve c. Seconded by Dana d. Vote – All in favor. Donna Abstained 5. Bike Launch Area / Wheeler Parking Lot (5:50 PM) a. Holly brought up to Erica. Lot gets very full on weekends and nights. GMBC and baseball parking. Could there be somewhere in the City for another bike ride launch area. With amenities such as bathrooms, fixit station etc. Would like to see if something we could work with Rec and Parks Committee. Could have joint meeting each year since there is overlap with things like paths etc. too. b. Donna – Member of GMBC. Detailed reasoning for using parking there. Good location because its close to heading south. More downtown would require busier road riding. Meet in other locations too. Shelburne, Williston etc. c. Nic thinks that could there be a restriction in that lot for just dog walkers or Wheeler Park users. d. Donna – People come from all over e. Amanda – The issue is a parking issue. Not a use or amenity issue. How do we think of this area to add amenities to have people not drive there. Lots of other use at Wheeler House too. May not be in our purview. Need to have more bathrooms. f. Donna – Common Roots uses Temple and Mosque. g. Amanda – Had questions marks around the Wheeler House space and how much is going on there. h. Erica – For certain days the Temple and Mosque parking share and there are ongoing conversations about use. i. Donna thinks this is one of the big transportation issues. 2 j. Joel. Bus doesn’t go to Wheeler which is a problem. k. Ryan – Farrell Park is also a good starting point for biking due to open lot and proximity to the path network. Once path makes it to the Mill Market it could be a good location to have space adjacent or across the street for co-location. l. Doug – Bike parking doesn’t need to be near parks. Nowland Farm Road could be wide enough for parking. m. Erica – Would lose bike lane. 32ft wide street. n. Donna – GMBC doesn’t do time trials in South Burlington. Does in other locations. o. Nic thinks it is more important to reduce the number of cars for people who go to soccer, baseball etc, not just push the cars somewhere else. p. Erica so sounds like we should connect with Rec and Parks Committee. Will need to find a special time. q. Havaleh – Would be good to talk events. r. Erica – Should connect with Holly in January to start planning those things. s. Donna – Could communicate with GMBC to ask them to park other places. t. Ryan asked about Dorset St construction u. Erica – Dorset St is just signal upgrades not path changes. v. Nic – A discussion about public bathrooms would be great. Overlook and Farrell could be places. w. Havaleh – Why not just charge for parking. Could then use the money for fixit stations and striping etc. x. Nic – Fully agree. Could charge a buck an hour and use that for upgrade to facilities y. Amanda – Concerned about equity. z. Ryan – Worried about the equity piece. Until we have safe infrastructure from low income places. If its important to gather data about these pieces in Comp plan. aa. Bob asked about timeline for planning and coordinating events at Veterans Memorial Park bb. Havaleh – Will be great to have a joint meeting cc. Doug – This is the same issue at Red Rocks Park with cars spilling over. They use Burton at times. But may not be able to in the future as Higher Ground. dd. Havaleh – Summary - Didn’t discuss actual places for amenities. Problem of too many cars. Could discuss charging for parking. ee. Erica will connect with Holly. Fall meeting? 6. Transportation Comprehensive Plan – Draft Review a. Request from Kelsey was to not review line by line, but more feedback on policy statements and ideas on objectives and the strategies to meet those objectives b. Amanda asked for clarification on ask from Kelsey. Didn’t seem like the should and musts stood out as actual policies. Not clear in Comp Plan. c. Erica clarified the need. Have a couple of weeks for additional comments by end of May. d. Doug – Hits all the things we discuss. Seems really comprehensive. e. Donna – Nothing specific is included. Looking for broad objectives or strategies f. Joel – Is there anything about bikesharing in there? Didn’t see it. 3 g. Amanda – What about lending libraries? h. Doug – Seems to be much too broad. Need specifics i. Nic – That is what she is asking for in the end, objectives and strategies. j. Amanda – Did note that felt like it was missing stuff. Plans are very broad in general. Good to guide us, and also guiding developers. Liked the detail on sidewalks. Only took issue with one thing, but don’t see strategies for bikeshare, or getting people to schools or getting people out of cars. k. Doug – Access management is mentioned. Could these strategies be elevated so that things like history take the backseat. l. Havaleh – The granular things I think of. Great outcome would be no deaths or serious injuries for bikes. We don’t have and need a maintenance plan. Wanting to have specifics on how regularly crosswalks, bike lanes, bike paths and sidewalks are replaced. m. Donna – Need to have maintenance n. Amanda – So action would be maintaining? o. Hav – Formulating a budget for paving and painting. Need to make biking pleasant and safe. Pavement and paint make it that. p. Doug – Need to include not just safe but “perceived to be safe”. Comment on this came up on Queen City Parkway. q. Amanda – So its more about upkeep to be able to be accessible year-round. Cracked sidewalks may not be ADA compliant for example. Need to define what is pleasant. Could have the conditions assessments. r. Erica – Could use Pavement Conditions Inventory which gives ranking and thresholds like VTrans does with excellent, good etc. s. Hav – This would be good as its measurable. Good for paths and sidewalks. t. Donna – Big challenge is neighboring City such as Patchen Road being good but Grove St in Burlington is really dangerous. Lots of potholes. How we can work with them. u. Ryan – Notes that there are a couple of UVM lots there that may be developed in 2028. Read details about how maintenance is mentioned in plan. Not connected to strategy so should define that. Develop Bike Ped infrastructure safety and design standards that include maintenance. Looking at spaces where they don’t meet these standards and having standards for developers to reduce places that feel uncomfortable based on infrastructure. v. Amanda – Good point. Vegetation, sitelines, ADA etc. Have had challenges of these things. Have things like this on maintenance spreadsheet such as brush. Should make a strategy out of that. Don’t like what’s before that part about facilities and complete streets – pushing for separated facilities or off-street paths which is bad. Should be pushing for complete streets. Should correct that so it doesn’t push bikes off road. Would rather be on road if there was good protection, which would be better than dealing with curb cuts etc. on paths and sidewalks. Should be rewritten to not “emphasize off street facilities”. w. Nic and Doug agree 100%. Separate facilities is nice but there are many more roads and it will be much easier and cheaper to put facilities on roads. 4 x. Joel – Route planning is very important. Feel much better on neighborhood streets. So route planning of having connections through neighborhoods is important. y. Ryan – Has been to all the meetings. Thinks the language is trying to get at, at places where its prohibitive to create those corridors, it may be preferential to put bike facilities on lower use areas. Agree the current plan is written badly with regard to this. z. Donna – Often putting the negative in when it should be positive. Also use shall instead of should. aa. Amanda – Having hard time with how its broken down and communicated. Want to see goals and actions. Some terminology seems wishy washy that could feel like a policy vs descriptive language. Not sure what is a conclusion bb. Donna – Would be helpful for whole piece to be written consistently with goals and actions. Should have less text and more bullets. Needs to be clear and concise. Need goals and actions to be clear in text presented. cc. Amanda – Difficult to review in the form that is presented to us. dd. Donna – Thinks the Climate Action Plan is a good model for how it looks and how easy it is to read, and then use. ee. Amanda – Should we pull Transportation strategies from Climate Action Plan into this Comp Plan? ff. Donna – There were lots of ideas, which got boiled down. There is an appendix with all those ideas. gg. Ryan – There is a lot of crossover of Climate and Bike/Ped thoughts. Wanting to make sure they don’t contradict. Should totally look at Climate Action Plan hh. Nic asked about Bike Ped Master Plan. Should be about implementing the plan not just making the plan. ii. Doug detailed Portland 2035 Transportation System Plan. Portland Oregon. jj. Hav noted Minnesota could be a good place to look at too. kk. Ryan – Back to discussion items, could be good to have Vision Zero. ll. Amanda – We don’t have crash history or volumes which will help us to prioritize or focus on safety. Why isn’t that data in there. High Crash corridors. mm. Ryan – Strategy suggestions: i. Needing data to make good decisions ii. Create data sets and maps of how far people are from various amenities iii. Create bike ped safety improvement fund from ticket revenue from driver safety infringements iv. Require geometric road changes based on redevelopment of other properties or other infrastructure updates. As in, Design our roads for how fast we want cars to drive and actually change some of our existing streets. nn. Amanda thinks that we should a strategy to have criteria for re-evaluating our neighborhood roads instead of just having the street standards for new developments that we have heard from Paul on. oo. Donna – This could be in the stormwater section. Like what Burlington did. 5 pp. Doug – Does it actually cost less to reduce the road width. Means less plowing or paving needs with narrower streets so over time may be cheaper due to less maintenance. qq. Havaleh – Writing is vague. Have we collected enough comments rr. Donna – One thing we have not discussed is incentivizing commercial users to reduce vehicle miles by making routes more efficient. Boils down to garbage trucks issues. Other big piece is how commercial buildings do not have good bike parking. Would like to incentize them to install better bike parking. ss. Nic would like to see commercial businesses be required to install bike facilities that meet zoning requirements within a certain timeframe like we did with the sign requirements. tt. Doug – How about the city buy and provide bike racks to businesses uu. Nic thinks they should do it themselves. vv. Amanda – Her daycare didn’t put in bike parking because it actually required them to do full site plan review which made it prohibitive. ww. Donna – Could we just let them do it? xx. Nic – Could it be a permitted activity for zoning without a permit needed at all. yy. Joel – Would like to see bike racks at all bus stops or shelters. zz. Amanda – GMT have been getting aaa. Ryan – Could require x amount of bike parking in a certain area. Could then trickle down into a master plan or something. At least being in an objective. bbb. Nic – We have really great bike parking standards, we just need them to be extended to existing properties not just new. ccc. Joel – Parks could have better bike parking at parks. ddd. Havaleh – Noted the League of American Bicycle recommendations from the Bronze award letter. We should check to make sure these recommendations are already in the Comp Plan or similar. eee. Erica – City meets or exceeds the Federal and State guidelines. fff. Ryan noted that some of these standards are very auto-centric and should not be required or used for this planning. ggg. Nic noted that there are a lot of new standards that have come out recently from places such as FHWA. hhh. Donna – At previous Planning Commission meetings there was a lot of discussion of speed limits and enforcement vs self-enforcing roads through engineering. Do you do bump outs and things like Burlington has done. iii. Amanda – Some things like that (quick build) should be kept in mind for the bike ped master plan. New guides will help that plan. Do we think the strategies are broad enough in this to capture all that. Need some more safety details. jjj. Doug – Adding Vision Zero could be good. Need more safety. Could be a game changer. kkk. Susan Grasso – Should focus on desired outcome for comfortable levels of stress. Comments in Chat: 6 i. 6:29 PM - Hi everyone, you have a VMT reduction goal. I wonder if you think it would be worthwhile to include a goal for percentage of kids who travel to school by walk, bike or bus. ii. 6:36 PM - Not sure if I am following exactly, but you could consider tying your infrastructure choice/design to Level of Traffic Stress analysis. iii. 6:58 PM - Ann Arbor's long-term transportation plan has two overarching goals: zero deaths serious injuries and fatalities and zero emissions iv. 7:13 PM - Shelburne is considering offering a match (of some percent) program to incentivize businesses to install bike parking. v. 7:24 PM - Are you familiar with the Vancouver All Ages and Abilities guidelines? That is another interesting resource to become familiar with. vi. https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/design-guidelines-for-all-ages-and-abilities- cycling-routes.pdf vii. 7:26 PM - This is also just guidance. However, it, along with Level of Traffic Stress analysis, can help communities design bike ped infrastructure that is appealing to a larger range of bicyclist types. viii. 7:30 PM - LAB is planning to create and advocate a nationwide speed management program - speed is the new "under the influence" ix. Erica can send level of traffic stress info from the CCRPC page of the Active Transportation Plan. x. Amanda – Would that be a strategy or an objective/goal? xi. Susan – High level goal to be appealing to all types of users. Come a long way in talking about comfort such as perception of safety. Other term is All Ages And Abilities. Gave example of Vancouver. xii. Havaleh – Other piece of LAB Road to Silver Plan was all about getting people to bike to schools, bike month events, serving underserved communities. All behavior change methods. xiii. Amanda – Legit in Comp Plan to have education and outreach. All modes need to be more educated. Could be a good action. xiv. Erica – Climate action plan included these components too. 7. City Updates – Erica (6:20 PM) a. Read notes in packet. b. Dana and Doug interested in striping. c. Chief Burke will be joining us next month. d. Amanda – Asked for information or guide/presentation for the Road Change Requests. Both history and process. Would love presentation from Erica sometime. 8. Updates Ongoing Committee/Liaison Work (7:30 PM) a. Chair updates – Havaleh b. DRB Update c. DPW/Safety – Bob, Dana, Amanda, Doug i. Doug – Regarding crash on Hinesburg Road. Doug has requested the Police Report. Got it from Court Record. Can share with Committee. Will send to Erica. 7 Would like to work on Safety Cameras project. Connected with Martin LaLonde. State collection of data. Excited that Chief is coming. Working on questions. ii. Erica – Will be open. If there are guiding questions, happy to share that beforehand if there are overarching info we may want him to come with background information on. iii. Doug – Interested in the 85th percentile information in the Hinesburg Road crosswalk study. Would like to do stop on Hinesburg location (like firefighter fill a boot thing) with Police presence where we have people stop and give them a flyer. Would like to also talk with neighbor about lawn sign or something. iv. Amanda asked Doug what the strategy would be for this meeting with Chief Burke. v. Doug – This community needs a different strategy for speed. Have been speaking with Susan Grasso about it. Shelburne enforces stop signs and speeding but South Burlington doesn’t. d. Bike Friendly Community Planning/Greenway progress – Nic e. Communications/Outreach – Donna f. Mapping – Amanda, Nic g. Signs – Nic, Donna, Dana h. Other – Nic detailed new bikeshare agreement with Bird for the committee. Will be on the ground in June. i. There is three open positions on Committee – Nic and Dana encouraged to apply. Ryan encouraged to apply. 9. Next Meeting: June 14, 2023 Meeting. No meeting in July. 10. Adjourned 8:11pm