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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee - 01/10/2024 1 South Burlington Bike & Pedestrian Committee APPROVED Regular Meeting Minutes Wednesday, January 10, 2024 @ 5:30 p.m. Room 301, City Hall AND Virtual Committee Attendees: Havaleh Gagne (Chair), Bob Britt (Vice Chair), Nic Anderson (Clerk), Ken Burkman, Donna Leban, Amanda Holland Committee Attendees – Remote: Dana Farr, Doug Goodman, Mark Pasanen Committee Absent: Other Attendees: Silken Kershner (City Staff Liaison), Public: Ryan Doyle 1. Welcome, Emergency Exit and Virtual Meeting Instructions, Gratitude a. Havaleh grateful for sidewalk plowing so quickly in her neighborhood 2. Additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items a. Bob – Addition. Design standards. City Council meeting on Monday Ryan brought up topic with regard to City Plan 2024 - Transportation section. Maybe add to agenda. 3. Comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda a. Ryan Doyle – Read mission of South Bike Ped Committee. Missing from work city does is any set of Standards that are decided upon. Anytime sidewalk or path is installed, it is site specific, not using standards. Example given on Dorset St signal changes meeting PROWAG but not going further. Communities who adopt standards then anytime a project happens they would need to meet those. Detailed Amsterdam approach to adopting standards. Lots of transportation research over the decades. Things like engineering standards for things like 85%. b. Silken asked which standards. DPW are developing standards. c. Bob asked if they would come before the committee. d. Silken will connect with Erica to find out what the plan is. e. Ryan mentioned that Ottawa, MassDOT and VTrans have standards. VTrans are older and are optional so often get put to the side. Detailed Complete Streets designs with regard to Market St and during construction. Been asking for the city to adopt standards and would like to make sure they are at the level that would be acceptable. Some really good paragraphs in the City Plan but no action items. Concerned about Williston Road bike facility that is planned. Has been talking to staff for 15 months on this. If we put in City Plan 2024 it pushes the City to do it instead of choosing to do it. f. Donna noted that with regard to her reviews of the plan that the street lighting standards are antiquated. Added a line regarding that. Could add this as an action item too. For lighting, we stated the actual standard not just to adopt simple ones. By being specific it helps that. Good to reference a national standard for most details. Was part of the review of the street standards a few years ago. Had suggested angled curbs on streets with a hard curb for when bikes get squeezed on narrow streets. Would be nice to have conversation on beveled curb standards. g. Amanda – Would like to request staff communicate with Committee in terms of knowing what the standards are for awareness. Have been engaged in various conversations that had narrow applicability in the past. Not a lot of other opportunities to have those discussions. Helpful to be city cheerleaders. There are different standards by different entities. Asking if the demand is for a comprehensive package? Detailed VTrans page that links to different standards. One thing to have in town plans but maybe Climate Action plan avenue. How is this mentioned in the CAP? h. Ryan noted CAP is more on electrification but doesn’t mention things like street width. Detailed south states and how Federal Government passed rules for Cities to adopt standards when states don’t. Having an action item in the City Plan would require the city to do it. Concern if there was a city council change they could simply not do the standards unless they are in an action item. 2 i. Havaleh asked how detailed or granular this action item would be j. Ryan would not say to adopt a specific standard but to adopt a similar standard or level from a federal highway approved list. k. Amanda agrees we should have action item to update and have a more standard regulations. l. Havaleh asked Silken if addition to plan would help DPW feel supported or being told what to do. m. Silken – Depends on the type of details that are being referenced. Constructability is a huge concern. Hate for the standard to be too detailed and force their hand. Where it gets installed. n. Havaleh – So needs to be more practical? Maybe having a list of standards and be able to chose based on the project. o. Ryan – Could reference multiple examples so that they can chose the best fit for the project. p. Amanda – The VT State Standards are dated. 2025 is when the update project is planned to be updated. New standards are more complete streets and all modes. Can see progression happening. q. Ryan noted that the VT Complete Streets standard does not follow the guidelines r. Nic asked if it could not be a recommendation for the Active Transportation Plan? s. Bob noted that we would need to decide tonight for anything to be in the City Plan t. Havaleh noted that this was not a warned agenda item so we could not make any recommendation or motion tonight. We would need to have a special meeting. u. Nic asked if we could not include it in the ATP? v. Ryan said it would not have enough teeth w. Amanda suggested having a special meeting of just this action item to provide a recommendation to add an action item or revise an existing one to be specific x. Donna noted that a lot of the Climate Action plan referred to other sections but didn’t go into detail so may have gotten lots. Doesn’t know where to stand. Know the City does not like to have additional details. Concerned it would only relate to new construction y. Nic – Standards can apply to small projects such as moving a curb or sidewalk z. Ken – Not sure a standard could be actionable or enforceable if we don’t know what it is. Federal versus State vs City aa. Ryan – Standards could be relatable to different projects bb. Bob – Should have an aspirational action item in the City Plan, not detailed. cc. Silken – Could have standards where people could choose options. Comes down to staffing to get new standards produced and then constructability. dd. Ryan can type up some notes and can get to Havaleh and Bob 4. Consideration of minutes from December 13, 2023 a. Motion by Ken to Approve b. Mark Seconded c. Amanda abstained d. All in favor. Approved 5. Budget Updates – Bob a. Requested 10K for striping and 10K for maintenance. Council accepted maintenance but at this point have not accepted striping. Does committee want to keep reaching out? b. Donna asked if we could roll over unspent funds from this year, next year. c. Bob was hoping to get 10K extra to get to 80K in four years. d. Havaleh – Cheapest thing to beef up bike ped safety is simply paint. If we want to address climate impacts and getting more people to walk and bike. Having lines helps people understand where they should be. Simple. e. Motion by Bob to continue to ask for striping fund addition of 10K. f. Ken asked what the actual cost is to stripe. g. Bob noted that from prior DPW director what the cost would to do all stripes every year would be 80K. Does not account for inflation. h. Doug – Maybe we need reassess what the cost is in 2024 3 i. Nic maybe we need to have an inventory done that could be a CCPRC UPWP project. Need to know the total amount of paint needed. j. Bob concerned about asking too much and the additional ask based on the current budgets as proposed. Suggested taking it from surplus. k. Havaleh – Thinks the communication from Bob should include the numbers even if old. l. Seconded by Donna m. All in favor – Motion approved 6. City Updates a. Silken read updates b. Bob asked the deadline would be for striping priority analysis c. Silken Continued reading updates d. Nic asked what Planning Commission decision was on 1/9 related to UPWP applications e. Donna noted that EV deployment should include level 3 chargers more. Capacity. Also should have parking analysis include bike parking. Noted Patchen Road study should include Burlington’s Grove Street and not just end. f. Amanda perturbed that what is in UPWP application and why we don’t get to review. Don’t understand why Hinesburg Road use study isn’t included. Land use changes. Why are we not engaged more for what should be included. g. Donna – Seems like the UPWP list should be reviewed by us before Planning Commission gives the final approval. h. Amanda – When do we need to get our suggestions to Erica. October? i. Doug – Noted Queen City Park plan from 2008 had three options regarding maintenance on bridge. Maintenance is not done. Reported that there were no crashes but there have been. Detailed crashes. City should circle back to Burlington. 16 years since this has come out. Really just ignoring maintenance. j. Donna noted City of Burlington owns the bridge but Railroad dictates what the design could be. Could have to be much higher and could be a much bigger project. k. Doug confirmed bridge would need to be higher. Just the bare minimum of maintenance is needed. Deferred maintenance is a big issue. Because of SB need to access Red Rocks Park and sidewalks, SB should go to Burlington to ask them to push. l. Amanda – Would like better communication between our two committees m. Bob can make sure its on the October agenda a. Ken – Should routine-ize our annual calendar to make sure that we are getting ahead of any annual needs. Clerks Note: There are some of these items as a tab on the maintenance spreadsheets n. Silken continued reading updates o. Donna asked about School Zone public meeting being on our next agenda p. Wide ranging conversation about High School drop off zones, transit. q. Donna suggested we need actual numbers of people using drop off lanes and the amount of traffic it creates on Dorset Street. 7. Active Transportation Plan Updates and Local Motion Webinar a. Havaleh detailed next Local Motion webinar and upcoming ATP meetings. 8. Sub-Group Updates a. Chair – Havaleh b. DRB – Mark A. Nothing jumping out at the moment with regard to bike/ped B. Development on Hinesburg Road just south of I-89 bridge going to DRB c. DPW/Safety – Bob, Dana, Amanda, Doug A. Need to get together and talk about street signs desired for safety. Will try to focus on striping as well at a next meeting. B. Donna would like to see “No Turn on Red” signs discussed. C. Nic asked if a citywide regulation could be done. Too much of a battle. 4 D. Discussion of the various places where right on red signs might be good or where they don’t work. d. Bike Friendly Community Planning – Nic A. Annually looking at list of suggestions B. Nic asked Silken to remind Erica about installing Bike Friendly Community sign. e. Communications/Outreach – Donna A. Welcome to ideas. Don’t mind writing it. B. Bob would like a Penny for Paths update on what’s coming next year and beyond. Important to keep telling people what’s going on. C. Donna – Happy to. Would be a great to keep showing its worth D. Havaleh – Would be good to have bike to work or bike to school event with Nick Atherton (May). And continue to partner with Parks and Local Motion for SB Bikes Out. Good to coordinate. E. Amanda – Could do as part of safe routes to school efforts to help partner F. Nic – Feb 9th Winter Bike-to-Work Day G. Amanda mentioned using CATMA for some data on SB residents f. Safe Routes to School – Nic, Amanda A. One meeting for “Safe Routes to School Taskforce” with School Board and Local Motion for this new group. Two groups for Infrastructure and one for Education. Amanda and Nic to work out which ones we want to be on. B. There is also smaller groups such as the RMCS Safe Routes to School that does g. Mapping – Nic, Amanda A. Amanda proposed to not need this sub group any more. B. Discussed GPS layer and Data Portal map that is on DPW page. C. Ryan asked about winter maintenance maps D. Silken working on Safe Routes to School mapping E. Would like to have a bike ped layer that was specific to each use. Be able to turn on all bike stuff vs walking stuff. F. Silken – Could do that easily and then make maps specific G. Consensus was to keep this as an active subgroup h. Signs and Wayfinding – Nic, Donna, Dana A. In Erica and Parks department hands. Nothing needed from us. Silken will follow up with Erica to get an update on next months City Updates. i. Bob asked to add a monthly Active Transportation Plan update for an agenda item 9. Confirm February 14, 2024 Meeting. Ken cannot attend. Special meeting to discuss City Plan and standards topic. Will need to work out room. If there is a room available we should shoot for 17th at 6PM 10. Adjourned by 8:00