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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee - 08/13/2014 BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN COMMITTEE MINUTES 08-13-2014 The Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee held its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, August 13, 2014 at 5:30 pm in the medium conference room at the city office building. Members Present: Matthew Boulanger, Chair; Dana Farr, Clerk; Cathy Frank, David Jacobowitz, Donna Leban, Roy Neuer Members Absent: None City Representative: Todd Goodwin, Director of Recreation & Parks Also Present: Paul Conner, S Burlington Director of Planning & Zoning Meeting began at 5:34 pm. 1. Agenda: Changes or Additions  The Development Review agenda item will be discussed first.  Discussion of the CIP will be set aside until the next meeting.  On the September agenda, we will be discussing Dorset Street recreation path changes. Todd commented that because appointments will occur before committee restructuring is done the SBBPC’s committee structure will be extended through the next round of member appointments. Our committee has 3 openings, plus re-appointments of some current members. 2. Comments from the public not related to the agenda None 3. Accept & Approve Minutes from July Meeting David requested that item 8, General Matters, be re-written to read: 8. General Matters-Cathy asked about committee restructuring-Todd Goodwin said that the process has not progressed-people who are up for re- appointment will be notified and will need to reapply. Task Force Committee assignments-This is for the Underwood Property. Cathy Frank volunteered to represent the Bike/Ped Committee. –motion by Donna Leban 2nd by Roy Neuer 4-0 vote. Roy: Moved to approve the minutes as amended Cathy: Second Vote: Unanimous 4. Development review: Paul Conner informed the committee that the street topographies have been reviewed, and soon more information will be available about the street type designations for the proposed streets. Introduction of City’s new policy for reviewing design changes: 1) Public kickoff. 2) Planning Commission to sign off on a “Purpose and Needs” statement indicating what the goal of the project is. 3) Consultants will use the data that was collected to come up with some public-generated concepts to distribute to the public. 4) Comments are received on the draft. Staff and consultants make recommendations to Council based on above. 5) Council determines how to proceed. Staff Level Committees are anticipated to help keep development on track, but not set policy. Volunteer Committees will be heavily emphasized. Donna: This committee should meet with the Garden Street Consultants. This would be advantageous from the design stand point. –The specifics need to be ironed out together. Roy asked if task forces can have non-residents on them. Paul responded that there is precedent for this. Discussion #1- Garden Street: Both Impact fees and TIF funding will be used for the design of Garden Street. This street goes past Healthy Living and Trader Joes, and will connect into Trader Drive by Al’s French Fries. Improvements at White and Midas are also possible. That intersection has been identified as key. Stantec’s office in South Burlington has been hired and ORW is their sub-consultant. Design process is to continue until sometime in January, 2015. This is a fairly compact time schedule. September 10, 2014 at ~6:30 PM, the first public workshop will be held. Currently they are doing background fact gathering. That meeting will be open to the public. Matt noted that this kickoff meeting coincides with the committee’s regular monthly meeting. He will keep the agenda short in order to allow interested members to attend both. Roy asked if the route of Garden Street is expected to go along wet land park land, connecting into Midas. Paul said that this is the current thinking. The street will go between the Credit Union and Midas Muffler. There is also a water project going on in that area. There may be buildings on both sides of Garden Street. Roy pointed out that this change may present an opportunity to make the far right lane on Williston Rd a “Right Turn Only” lane up to Midas. This would allow us to make a single “straight thru” lane on Williston. Discussion #2- Garden Street, Part 2: Dumont Park Design is underway. There will be some connectivity through City Center. The park is expected to include walking trails, and forms of passive recreation. The city plans on a big public outreach, kicking off in October. A Fletcher Allen Health Center complex has been proposed in this same area. Presented a “Certificate of Need” to buy the buildings they currently reside in on Tilley Drive, and purchase about 40 acres of land between Tilley and Kimball. Discussion #3- Street Types: Based on the SBBPC feedback and the feedback of others, the consultants came up with a pallet of street types that can be used city-wide. Its current form came after gaining input from Public Works, the Fire Department, and the Police Department, and then it went back to the Planning Commission. There are several variances within the street types. For instance, Neighborhood Street/Bike Boulevard- This street type explicitly has bike lanes. There would be a minimum of a 5 foot wide bike lane on either side of the street. There is a proposal that there be no on-street parking on a street like this. Another example: For a much narrower neighborhood street- “Share The Road” would be inherent in this type of street. Donna asked, “If there is a street within this area that IS marked for bikes, would there be a parking area on that street? Paul replied, “If there is an official city map which specifies a higher class of bike way, that specification shall supersede the typography.” He continued that it is important that our committee goes through the typographies again to distinguish anything that needs to supersede the typographies. Matt agreed adding that a high-level of participation between committee and Council is desirable and appreciated. Land Development Regulations are better understood by our committee due to our relationship with DRB. Roy ask Paul if the legal notion of Complete Streets as legally defined in Vermont is now firmly grasped and supported by the state of Vermont, and if the people in development are familiar and knowledgeable about Complete Streets and all that it entails. Paul replied that Complete Streets is known and understood, but there is variance in interpretation. The committee wondered if there are designations of the street types within City Center. Paul provided a map with these designations and informed us that if a developer is doing a project that is an entire street, the developer would be responsible for all of the street requirements for that street. For partial streets only the portion that is in the development, and possibly adjacent will be required to be fulfilled by the developer. Paul Recommendation: Determine the committee’s preference for bicycle facilities along Garden Street. -Should it be on the street, parallel to the street? Once the SBBPC determines this, it should make a recommendation to the consultants and to the Planning Commission. 5. Airport area planning process Paul stayed to discuss the Chamberlain Airport Project informing the committee that the city received a grant to $18K from the state and $130K from Regional Planning Commission. It will be looking at a lot of issues in that neighborhood. Issues such as homes that are slated to be removed, noise, airport growth,… The city is looking for guidance on what the community’s priorities are. The city is also looking at what that neighborhood’s relationship could be to City Center. Also, how to enhance the neighborhood, with, for instance, better street lighting, sidewalks, and the like. There is a lot of anxiety about at F35’s and noise, what the airport might do, etc… He summarized that the thing that is known is that there will be a neighborhood and there will be an airport. What the long-term vision is for those to coexist needs to be defined. There are three main traffic groups for the neighborhood: Neighborhood traffic, airport traffic, through traffic. Paul excused himself to attend other meetings. Todd informed the committee that the South Village neighborhood took Lou Bresee’s recommendations to “Ray”. Todd asked that the developer come talk to the SBBPC, rather than talk through him. He recommends that this be the format for further discussions between developers and SBBPC. 6. Capital Improvement Plan Moved to the next meeting. 7. Bike/ped facilities Survey & Petition Matt has noticed that the surveys are out. Indicate that you are on the committee, if you fill one out. He recommended that our committee urge people to fill out the survey online. 8. LAB Bicycle-Friendly communities update: None 9. General Matters Cathy volunteered to write up something for TOP about the committee’s current priorities. Once written, it can be sent to the entire committee as bcc, and everyone should email directly back to Cathy. Committee suggested we talk about the “Master Map” and the CIP, and what is feasible based on what is wanted and what can be done. The committee asked that Cathy provide a view of the grand plan to the public. Over time, we have had input. The time to re-examine the priorities is coming, and we invite input. The suggested format for the article should be: 1. This is the existing plan. 2. It is reviewed every year 3. Input from the public is an important part of the process as shown by the current Dorset Street activity. With Dorset Street being so active, Cathy asked that Spear Street not be forgotten. Matt wondered how we can solicit comments from the public for bike and transportation concerns in general. Matt will write up a letter to Council with our request that in reviewing candidates for the committee, they look for people with an interest in transportation. We also want to request that developers come before the committee. Will present at next meeting. In Matt’s capacity as Chair, he received correspondence about a hole on Williston Road by the imported car place. He forwarded to Jason VanDriesche at Local Motion. He will report at the next meeting if this will be fixed soon. 10. Next Meeting: The next meeting will be Wednesday, September 10 at 5:30 pm. 11. Adjourn David: Motion to Adjourn Matt: Matt Vote: Unanimous Meeting ended at 7:20 pm. Respectfully submitted, Dana Farr, Clerk