- I'm calling to order this meeting of the Bloomington Transportation Commission planning session. Can
- we start with the roll call? Connell? Here. Flaherty? Here. Binder? Here. Davis? Here. And Stossberg?
- Here. Great. Next is approval of the minutes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Sorry.
- What was that? There's no meeting minutes for the planning session. All right, great. All right, moving
- on to the next item on the agenda, which is the main item, a presentation for the Rogers Madison Kinzer
- Corridor. Yeah, I will give a quick update and throw it to Drew Parker from Tool Design for the presentation.
- Since we last met, there's been
- a number of activities that we've been doing, primarily centered around community engagement. Drew will
- go into more details about what we've been doing, but essentially we have been talking to different
- stakeholders in the community, businesses, property owners, members of the public, street users, to
- talk about what's going on in the corridor. How do you use it? How would you like to use it? What's
- going right? What's going wrong? And how street or infrastructure changes
- in this corridor study could help their experience along the street. From there, that engagement has
- informed initial design sketches and concepts that you all will see will have an opportunity to review,
- talk about, discuss, ask questions, and that will then steer the next month or two of this study in
- terms of starting to hone in on specific designs that we would like to move forward with to possibly
- include in the final corridor study.
- With that, I will throw it over to Drew to say some more. Thanks, Hank. I'll share my screen here. OK,
- can you all see the PowerPoint slides? Yes. Yes. OK, thanks for confirming. Appreciate it. Thanks for
- having me, everybody. My name is Drew Parker. I'm a senior planner with Tools Design. And I'm a consultant
- project manager for this corridor study.
- So excited to be here for our third of four Transformation Commission meetings. Like Hank said, I'll
- give a recap of some of the engagement that we did in March. And then I'll talk a little bit about the
- design objectives, which we covered in the last Transformation Commission meeting. And then I'll also
- go into some of those design concepts, those sketches that Hank was talking about. Without further ado,
- let's jump right in. This is a reminder on project overview.
- This is our third or fourth Transmission Commission meetings. We started this project back in October,
- and we expect to be done kind of late summer, probably in the August time frame, I would think. And
- like Hank said, a big part of our engagement and intensive work all happened during workshop week, which
- was March 23rd to 27th. So we've kind of been organizing all the material since then, picking up the
- pieces, collating all of that public
- engagement, comment, and feedback that we've gotten and turned that into some recommendations for initial
- ideas for concepts. So let's go through a recap of that engagement in March. During workshop week, we
- had a lot of different opportunities for members of the public to come out and talk to us. So we had
- an open house in the evening at Switchyard Park on March 25, and then we had various pop-up events throughout
- the week that were just kind of
- like popping up along the beeline trail, places along Roger Street, along the corridor, just talking
- to people as they walk by, engage them in a quick one-minute activity. So you can see an example of
- that. On the right side of the slide here, we had a really simple question about what are the top three
- things that make it difficult to walk, bike, or drive on Roger Street. And so then if people want to
- sit around, they could engage us further, but it was really just a way to get quick feedback from folks.
- There was also an online survey hosted on the city's website concurrently with this in-person engagement.
- So we got a lot of feedback from that as well. From the pop-ups, we got four to 20 participants per
- location, on average 15 people per pop-up during the week. And the top things that we heard is people
- had concerns about unsafe intersections and crossings, walking and biking too close to traffic, and
- then speeding and aggressive driving.
- And this is pretty consistent with what we heard during other activities throughout workshop week and
- in the survey. Really people were talking about how it's hard to cross the street and how it doesn't
- feel very comfortable to walk or bike on Roger Street. So there's just another set of photos showing
- you what that activity looked like and all the different places that we, we set this pop-up up around
- town during the week. So,
- During that same time frame, we also had the online survey. We got 106 respondents to the online survey
- with a 73% completion rate and 57 map-based comments that people dropped in and said, this is my concern
- specifically at this intersection or mid-block location. From the survey results, 74% of folks lived
- along or near the corridor, 59% regularly visit destinations along the corridor, and 23% work along
- or near the corridor.
- And the vast majority of people travel on Roger Street daily. That's the second question I was asking
- about. So these are people that know the corridor really well. We also asked, what modes of travel do
- you use on Roger Street? And people were allowed to select multiple choices. So the top choice was driving,
- 95% of people drive along Roger Street, followed by walking or rolling at 67%, and then biking, speeding,
- or skateboarding at 53%.
- And then it kind of goes down from there. We also asked what modes of travel would you prefer to use
- on the corridor if you want to use a different mode. So 22% said, I prefer my typical travel method.
- How I travel on Rogers is fine by me. But the next option up was 16% of people said that they would
- like to bike, ride a scooter, or skateboard on Rogers Street. And then we also asked people what makes
- it difficult to use the corridor.
- I've highlighted the top five answers here, which kind of is starting to build this theme of what we've
- been hearing from the public. So poor driver behavior, speeding, people have concerns about people driving
- too quickly on the corridor, unsafe intersections or crossing. So same thing we asked the pop-ups, difficulty
- crossing the street. It's uncomfortable to walk or bike on the street. And there's a lack of bike lanes,
- paths or trails along the street. So people are really feeling like,
- The speeds are too high. It doesn't feel comfortable to walk there. And it's hard to cross the street.
- Kind of the main things we kept hearing. We also asked people, do you feel safe and comfortable driving
- on this corridor? Or do you feel safe and comfortable biking on this corridor? And we basically got
- the exact opposite results. So people feel somewhat or very safe driving on the corridor. You can see
- the vast majority of people in green there felt safe driving. But the vast majority of people that do
- bike don't feel safe.
- They feel very unsafe or somewhat unsafe biking along on the corridor, and very few people feel safe
- and comfortable biking along the corridor. Which makes sense, there's not really great bicycling facilities
- along the corridor. So we also asked when you're driving along this corridor, what's most important
- to your comfort and safety? And the top results were people like smooth pavement, they like separation
- between cars and people, so having separate space for people driving
- biking and walking. People also said they wanted to reduce vehicle speeds or traffic calming, but that
- would make them feel more comfortable driving, and then having sight lines free of obstruction. So those
- are the top four things people said about driving. We also asked that same question about walking, biking,
- or waiting for transit. And people said the top things that are most important to them are having a
- buffer from traffic, so separation between either the bike lane or the sidewalk from cars.
- having marked pedestrian crossings, some more places to cross, separated walking and biking paths, having
- more street trees and shade and lighting at night. So it's really, a lot of what we heard was we want
- to reduce speeds, we want to have a more comfortable pedestrian environment and more opportunities and
- places where we can cross the street safely. We also asked in the online survey about
- specific locations. So we got 106 comments with different locations. And then for the in-person engagement,
- we also allowed people to play sticky notes or pints on the map to tell us about specific locations.
- So in both cases, the top intersection that was mentioned was the bypass. And most of those comments
- brought people feeling unsafe crossing at the bypass, just in general, speeds being too high.
- And then we kind of got slightly different results for the online survey and in-person engagement. But
- we also heard about the Madison Street Bridge being uncomfortable to cross, walking and biking. The
- B-line crossing, people had a lot of thoughts about how that could be improved. West 6th Street, people
- wanted to see some improvements in that crossing. And then for the in-person engagement, we heard about
- Gorley Pike, Howe Street, and Allen Street. Those were like the next three after the bypass.
- So these were, yeah, we definitely heard about all those intersections throughout the week. And I think
- we also heard from city staff about some of the issues they already knew about and some of these locations
- as well. So each of those comments, we added themes to them, tagged them for what people were asking
- about and saying. And the top two themes were pedestrian concerns, so missing, narrow, uncomfortable
- sidewalks, and crossing concerns.
- missing or uncomfortable existing pedestrian crossings. And those really made up the bulk of the comments,
- but there were still plenty of comments on other topics going down from there. But I think overall,
- just to summarize, what we heard from people is that the street works pretty well if you're driving
- today, but it doesn't work particularly well if you're walking. And there's a lot of room for improvement,
- both just to make the sidewalk environment more comfortable
- And also just add more crossings so it feels safer to cross the street. So that's the high-level overview
- of what we've been hearing from people about the corridor. I will briefly touch on design objectives.
- I know we talked about this last time as well. But if you want to talk about this in more detail,
- we can. But then I'll move to the third section, which will be showing you some of the initial design
- concepts that we came up with.
- So just as a reminder, we have eight different design objectives. There's four on this slide and four
- on the next slide. And these are, starting with the first one, we want to reflect community values and
- corridor identity in our design. We want to advance safety through proven street design. So we know
- it's the safety first project. So that's really the guiding light is improving safety outcomes on the
- street. We also want to create a context sensitive street that calms traffic. So understanding what
- the surrounding
- land uses, neighborhood contacts, and making sure we're supporting those adjacent land uses. We want
- to build a continuous multimodal corridor for all users, so not just for people driving, but also for
- people walking, biking. We want to ensure universal accessibility and comfort along the corridor, making
- sure that designs exceed, meter exceed, ADA PROAC standards. We also want to support
- redevelopment and local economic vitality. So we know that there are some larger redevelopment sites
- that are along the corridor, and we just want to ensure that our design takes those into account and
- also supports existing local economic vitality along the corridor. And then we also want to strengthen
- connections to key destinations in the city-wide network. So we want the street not to be a barrier,
- but to feel more like it's part of the network, no matter how you travel.
- And then the last design objective is to support safe routes to school. There's a number of schools
- that are close to the corridor and at least one school that's right on the corridor. So we know that
- our design has to support safe walking and biking to school for students. So those are our eight design
- objectives. Last time we met, we asked you to weigh these design objectives. And the top two objectives
- that you told us were advancing safety through proven street design and supporting safe process schools,
- really focusing on that safety aspect of the project. And then that was followed by building a continuous
- multi-molded corridor for all users. And I think that really aligns well with what we've been hearing
- from the public as well. They feel like speeds are too fast on this street in certain locations, and
- they want it to work better for everybody, not just for people driving.
- So I'll move to our design concepts overview. So while we're in town for workshop week, we spent a couple
- of days drawing up different sketches and concepts, both cross-sections and intersection design drawings
- to reimagine what the corridor could look like. And we did this in tandem with city staff kind of iterating
- as we went along. And this was just to generate initial concepts
- our initial recommendations on how we could make improvements to the street. So there's really five
- key things about the concept design here, five key elements. The first being we want to narrow the street
- to a two-lane street wherever possible, where you don't need left turn lanes or medians to allow for
- more space to have wider sidewalks with a larger buffer from traffic.
- So that kind of covers the first two points. So there's some places where you need left-turn lanes,
- and there's some places where it's nice to have mediums, especially if you want to have pedestrian or
- bicyclist crossings there. But otherwise, it's nice to have a narrower street because you can add in
- a tree plot between the sidewalk and the street and really create a nicer sidewalk environment than
- exists today. There are a lot of places today where the sidewalk is narrow or right up against the street or both.
- and it's pretty uncomfortable to walk in those positions, especially when you have a large truck coming
- down the street at 40 miles an hour inches away from you. So that covers the first two elements. We
- also think it's important to add a shared use path on the east side of the street from the existing
- B line crossing north to the bypass. South of the B line crossing, the B line creates a pretty nice
- parallel alternative route for bicycling.
- But north of there, there isn't a bicycle facility because the trail doesn't continue. We observed a
- lot of people biking on the corridor on Rogers. Madison Kinzer, as it changed his name, is moving north,
- north of the beeline crossing. And it's not a particularly pleasant place to bike, and the speeds are
- higher on that section of the street. So we think it's important to have a shared use path there to
- have a separate space for people to bike, so they don't have to bike in the street.
- And then the last two elements here are more about intersections. So where feasible, we think it's important
- to add roundabouts to slow speeds and just have better intersection operations. And then also adding
- median refuge islands at key pedestrian place with crossings. So together, that kind of makes up the
- five key concept elements. And this is just another cross section that we drew up, typical cross section
- that shows how that two lane
- street could widen to a three-lane street where we want to have pedestrian, median, or out-of-reach
- islands to cross the street. The same could also be done where we want to have left-term lanes
- and intersections. So that's the high-level concepts. We have a lot of different drawings. I'm just
- going to show you some key drawings at specific locations. This is a really large corridor with a lot
- of intersections, so we didn't
- draw up sketches for every single intersection, and we don't plan to. But we will recommend intersection
- typologies for each intersection, where it makes sense to have some sort of change. And so we really
- think there's three main typologies that we would apply. The first being a roundabout, if it's feasible,
- if there's enough space. The second being reducing the size of a signalized intersection, so if it's
- possible to remove dedicated turn lanes and just
- make the intersection more compact, that'll shorten pedestrian crossings and helps everyone get through
- the intersection more smoothly. And then, enhance pedestrian places, crossings where there's not a signal
- or a roundabout. This really applies to greenway crossings or places where there's a clear pedestrian
- crossing demand, especially because people told us there's not enough pedestrian crossings today. We're
- looking to identify where do we need additional crossings.
- So we have some pretty good information, some good data, and also good feedback from the public on where
- those new crossings could be. So with that in mind, I'll go through some of the intersections that we've
- sketched up here, moving from north to south. So these aren't any order of priority. It's just moving
- from north to south. The first one that we drew up is a roundabout at Gorley Pike.
- And this is what's known as a compact roundabout. So it's a single lane roundabout. And the intersection
- circle is mountable for very large semi-trucks to turn across that circle. So people in passenger cars,
- even the fire trucks, school bus, medium-sized trucks, they still all go around the circle like you
- would a normal single lane roundabout. But because it's a really tight intersection, we have to use
- a smaller circle
- for the roundabout, which means it needs to be mountable whenever a large semi truck comes through there.
- So some of the benefits of this are speed reduction, close to the bypass. There's an existing pedestrian
- crossing here. A lot of what we heard though is that people don't yield to pedestrians in this crosswalk
- because they're either rushing to get to the bypass or coming off the bypass, going quite fast and they
- just don't yield or stop for pedestrians.
- crossing here. So having a compact roundabout means everybody has to slow down to traverse the roundabout.
- They have to slow down to, generally speaking, 15 miles an hour to go through the roundabout instead
- of whatever. They are going 40, 45 miles an hour today past that pedestrian crossing. So we really like
- this concept. We don't know that it will fit in that many other places. This is actually one of the
- minor intersections that has a little bit more space than right away to fit a compact roundabout. But
- this was just one idea to get started, kind of creating a gateway as you come in and out of town from
- the north. The second intersection we sketch up concepts for is at 14th and 15th Street. So in the city's
- transportation plan, this is a planned greenway. So we would expect more people walking and biking
- to cross at this area. The concept that we've come up with is adding a new pedestrian bicycle crossing
- at 15th Street and then having a shared use path on the east side of the street. You can kind of see
- that like in tan, khaki color here. And then folks would continue onto 14th Street over here. So this
- is often called a offset intersection crossing. We've also added a raised,
- crosswalk at 15th Street for the pedestrian crossing to, again, have another traffic calming feature
- and increase the likelihood that someone would stop or yield to a pedestrian crossing there. It also
- just helps with, you know, having pulses of traffic calming as you move throughout the corridor, especially
- because there's no signal or stop between 11th and 17th in a stretch. So, and there's no crossings.
- This adds a new
- pedestrian and bicyclist crossing opportunity here at 15. The next intersection we discussed the concept
- for is 6th Street. And this is very similar to the existing crossing that's at Allen Street on the south
- end of the corridor where there's a greenway crossing. So the idea here is that you could still keep
- a three-lane cross section with a median refuge island with bicycle cut-throughs and pedestrian cut-throughs.
- And the idea being that it makes that crossing as a pedestrian by supposed to feel a lot safer, you
- can do it in two stages. And it also would help with traffic calming. One of the things we heard from
- a couple of people is that in this stretch, southbound traffic on Roger Street, because the lane is
- so wide, sometimes it gets used as two lanes. So people will be backed up in one lane and people kind
- of fly by in the other lane and it creates
- dangerous situation for pedestrian crossings in this location. The next area we sketched up is the really
- like third to Kirkwood stretch. And our initial concept idea for this is to have a brick curbless street
- in this area. So it'd be a much higher level of urban design type treatment in this section. And our
- thinking for that is that this is really
- a parallel section to downtown. It feels the most downtown of any of the stretches of Roger Street.
- And so really upgrading that section and making it have a much more downtown feel by creating a curbless
- street environment could really support that downtown feel and potential redevelopment in that area.
- brick in this area and have it be curbless, it does a couple of different things. The brick helps with
- some of the natural traffic calming. People tend to slow down when they're on brick streets. It makes
- it feel just like a higher aesthetic design, like it's more of a downtown space. And then having it
- be curbless also helps with flexibility of the street and accessibility. If you wanted to close down
- a section of it, like for a street festival, for instance, then there's no curb.
- in that area, so it can be used as more of like a street plaza for those types of events. So it helps
- with that flexibility. And then from an accessibility perspective, if somebody has mobility challenges,
- if the whole street is curbless, for one, all of the parking spaces become accessible because there's
- no curb. So people can get in and out with wheelchairs to any of those parking spaces. And also, again,
- if it were,
- you know, closed down for a street festival. Then you don't have to go to curb ramps at a corner. If
- you're in a wheelchair mobility device, the whole street becomes accessible because it's flush. So this
- is one area that I think we looked at with like a higher, there could be like a higher level of design
- treatment. We haven't figured out all the details of that, but we just really thought of all the sections
- of the corridor, this one felt like most downtown section.
- could potentially have this kind of higher treatment in this section. As part of the projects, we're
- also looking at this portion of Third Street from Rogers to College. And looking at initial traffic
- volume and operational analysis, the street has excess capacity. Right now, being a four-lane street
- in this section, the traffic volumes are quite low.
- and could easily be serviced by a two-lane street with a left turn lane at Riders. So we started drawing
- up different concepts for this section, but the main concept is to repurpose the outside lanes on Third
- Street in this section to either widen the sidewalks, potentially add a bicycle facility, potentially
- add landscaping space and tree lawn in that area.
- which could help with a lot of different things. It could help make the intersections smaller,
- more compact, and shorten those pedestrian crossings, calm traffic in that area, slow it down, but also
- just create a better walking environment. It's a pretty unpleasant walking environment along 3rd Street
- in this section right now because the sidewalk is right up against the outside lane of traffic and it's
- very narrow. So we're still thinking about different concepts for this one, but kind of the base
- level concept is to repurpose those outside lanes to make the pedestrian environment better. And then
- the last concept that we sketched up is a single-lane roundabout at Patterson. Patterson is one of the
- intersections that has the most space of any of the intersections along the corridor. It has quite a
- bit of right of way. And so a single-lane roundabout could be a great solution here for both traffic calming
- and traffic operations. So we know, I think in this section, speeds again increase a little bit as you're
- leaving that more downtown area. I think one of the kind of the 85th percentile speed is 38 miles an
- hour down in this section. So speeds start to get a little bit higher. The speed limit is 30. So we
- really want people to be going 30 or even lower than that speed for it to be a more pleasant environment
- for walking.
- And so our initial concept idea is a single-lane roundabout here to slow down vehicles passing through
- this area, facilitate those better pedestrian crossings. It shortens all the pedestrian crossings, but
- it makes all the pedestrian crossings two-stage. So you only ever have to cross one lane of traffic
- because you have those median islands and all the approaches. So that just makes those crossings a lot
- more comfortable than having to cross
- three or four lanes of traffic like you do today, which is a much longer crossing. So we need to look
- into it in a little more detail. There likely aren't other locations that a traditional single-lane
- roundabout like this will fit in any of the intersections along the corridor, but this one seems like
- a good candidate that could potentially be a single-lane roundabout. So all those concepts are just
- to kind of show you a flavor
- ideas that we came up with, kind of where our thinking is headed. The idea is that they're intended
- to be both examples of how that intersection could be reconfigured, but also an example of the typology
- that we would apply to other places where we're not doing an intersection design, but someone could
- think about that in the future as a future phase of the project.
- So I'm happy to go back to any slides anywhere in this presentation, but I'll just really quickly go
- over next steps, then we can jump into discussion. So for us, for the next two, three months, our next
- steps as a team is to finalize concept design, put together a final report, and then really finish the
- study sometime in August. So like Hank said, I think we're looking for feedback on this design direction.
- If we're headed in the right direction,
- specific intersections that you think are important for the team to look at, and also just initial reactions
- to these designs. Does that cover it, Hank? Yeah, you got it. So I'm happy to jump back to any of the
- design slides for discussion. Thank you for that presentation. At this time, we will move it to comments
- from commissioners' feedback on this design direction.
- So I have a question on 7th Street. What's the lane width there when it was redesigned? 10 feet wide.
- Okay. So this would be a one foot wider, the 11 foot? Yeah. That was one of the learning lessons of
- that project is that for transit vehicles on transit routes, for them to fit side by side, 11 feet is
- the minimum. And that's still tight, but it's manageable.
- And the new street behind the Blooming Foods? Do you know if that's 10 feet? The new street behind the
- Blooming Foods. Blooming Foods East has a narrow street. I'm actually not aware of the lane widths on
- that street, I'm sorry. That's fine. It seemed less than 11. Yeah? Yeah. I will check on that for you.
- That's fine.
- Yeah, some questions as well high-level process standpoint as far as next steps. So this gets studies
- finalized by August What are the final steps both for this body and for the city as a whole? Like yeah
- to wrap up the process. So this will eventually go through a formal Transportation Commission review
- and potential approval
- Long-term, and so this study will incorporate the long-term vision of what we would like this quarter
- to look like in the next 10 to 15 years or so. It will also incorporate short-term improvements based
- on that vision that we could accomplish within the next one to three years. In terms of next steps and
- broader city goals related to the transportation plan, city staff is currently going through a more
- comprehensive review and revision of the transportation plan.
- And we understand that what comes out of this study in the long-term vision may and probably won't align
- directly with what is in the current transportation plan. That will be a part of that revision. That
- will go through the necessary processes to have the transportation plan be revised to fit this study.
- Okay. Thank you. And so as far as like adoption, so to speak, that's with transportation commission,
- staff. Will this get presented to the city council at any fashion or?
- Within the scope of the comprehensive transportation plan review, this would be included. In terms of
- a separate presentation, we weren't planning on that. That's totally fine. I just check in. I had some
- other questions, but I'll wait until others. I just have one. Thank you very much, Drew, for
- your presentation and your work on this project so far. I would be interested in hearing any consideration
- or thoughts you have about
- the second street and Rogers intersection for, I guess, a couple of reasons. One, it wasn't mentioned
- as kind of one of the case studies here or examples. But in spite of the fact that that intersection
- probably doesn't experience a whole lot of pedestrian traffic currently, as hopefully we all know, it's
- going to be proximate to the Hopewell neighborhood. And so I would
- I expect that in the future that intersection is going to become a lot more busy with foot traffic and
- others. Obviously I'm aware too of there's kind of related city projects like Second Street and so forth.
- But I was just kind of wondering if there were any conclusions that the consultants
- developed about that particular intersection in light of the fact that There's also related projects
- and then and then hope well being developed Drew would you like to take this one or do you want me to
- take it first? I take crack at any good. All right, you know, it sounds good add to it so I think when
- we were there during workshop week our direction from city staff was that they already have a project
- going on that intersection and there's a I believe already a design and
- potentially like there's another consultant working on the science of that intersection. So it wasn't
- one that we looked at in detail. We did, you know, walk through the intersection, look at it, but we
- didn't drop any concepts. But yeah, I don't know. Hank, do you want to say more about that? That's honestly
- pretty much it because the Second Street project is in progress. It's been a project that's been on
- the radar for years now and it's set to be constructed within the next few weeks or months this year.
- This study is looking at
- you know, 10 years into the future here. Quite honestly, the city most likely won't prioritize another
- full re full intersection rebuild within that time frame since it's getting rebuilt this year. Okay.
- I have a question about funding. Are we this process to build the design the ideal street and have that
- on the shelf and when funding comes along, we build it? Yes.
- Yes. Okay. Um, we, again, we understand that there are funding constraints all over the place right
- now. So that's why one of the main focuses of the study is not to just look at the, look at the dream
- street we could build. It's to also focus on the short-term improvements that we can do, even if it's
- not in concrete. We have last year rewarded about $1.8 million from USDOT for
- planning and demonstration projects around the city. A lot of that can go towards a project like this,
- but in terms of quick build and temporary material, not necessarily curb line concrete changes. Additionally,
- we are looking for other funding opportunities as well. Just last month, the city applied for the 2026
- Safe Streets for All implementation grant and asked for about $12 million towards a project like this,
- to incorporate street scape changes. So we understand that we will not be able to fund this project
- all at once. We are looking for funding. And if we don't have it, then there are short-term iterative
- steps that we can take to improve it. Thank you. Mr. Flaherty? Yeah. So the scope of the study goes
- from basically the bypass to country club. Yeah. I'm curious, maybe two questions there. One is just,
- is the bypass intersection itself
- Included or no, because it's state DOT owned and operated, at least one component of it. And then the
- second part was just everything south of Paterson, all of it in a country club, which was a pretty big
- stretch. We didn't talk about it all in the recommendations. Obviously, it'll be included in the,
- you know, what comes next. But just if there's anything of note in that stretch that you all wanted
- to share. Sure. I'll start with the bypass. That is obviously a hotspot that we all know about it. We
- hear it from stakeholders. We hear it from you all. We hear it from the public.
- One of the strolls that we took the public on actually went up to the bypass, more so just to show what
- the current situation is. We know it's not great, but as you said, this is an in-dot controlled intersection
- and the city is limited in what we can do. Honestly, with this particular project, that was a key discussion
- point of how much time do we spend
- designing the city's preferred intersection when we know that we're at the mercy of NDOT in terms of
- what actually happens. And so that's why we didn't talk about it much tonight. We're focusing
- on intersections that we as a city can control and we can improve. That said, I have been in talks with
- NDOT about what's happening in the near and long-term future of that intersection because I hear things
- from the public, they need to hear those same things. And so they are aware
- That intersection was actually identified as, I'm going to get the terminology messed up, but as one
- of the higher risk intersections around the state. And so they are taking an extra look at it later
- this year to do their own study of sorts on it to figure out what they would like to see long term.
- I don't know exactly what that entails, but I'm hopeful that with collaboration between NDOT planning
- and engineering staff that
- we can communicate to them what we're hearing and what we as a city would prefer to have in there. Great.
- That might also be a place where even just mayoral or council engagement with like the governor's office
- or others that could be helpful. Maybe like, hey, like this is a, you know, need some support here.
- Yeah. Okay. In terms of your other question about other sites along the corridor that we didn't discuss,
- Was there anything in particular you wanted me to touch on? No, just if there was anything of note,
- yeah. Since it was a big swap that we didn't really talk about. We also, and again, the sketches that
- Drew showed were just examples of what we could do at potential locations. We either have or plan on
- designing in more detail the Country Club and Rogers intersection, the Rockport and Rogers intersection.
- Those are the two main ones on the south side.
- but also looking at the intersections of Graham and Ralston and Duncan and Cherokee and Chambers. Those
- are all uncontrolled intersections that either have a direct or indirect connection to the B line, a
- connection to Switchyard Park. And so there are, right now the Switchyard Park entrance is getting revamped
- and improved for pedestrian crossings, but there are areas along that stretch of the corridor that
- you don't have a legal crosswalk within a lot of feet from where you want to go, let's improve that.
- Because we know that folks in the Broadview neighborhood want to get around. They want to get to the
- B line. That's a key feature for them. Let's help them get there more easily. OK. Thank you.
- Other commissioner comments? Oh, yeah. Please go ahead. I had a question about the proposed brick curbless section
- between fourth and fifth. And as a wheelchair user, I am all for a curbless street. Also as a wheelchair
- user, I encounter brick, a lot of brick sidewalks that just don't hold up. Do brick streets fare any
- better? I mean, really old ones do, but
- You know what I mean? Like Drew, you may know better than I do. Yeah. There's some of the tools I'm,
- who has a lot more experience with brick than I do. So I don't know as much about it, but he has told
- me a lot of it has to do with like subgrade and how they're built and the pattern of the brick laying.
- And so some of the ones that you see that are older were built at a time when that was done right,
- I guess. And yeah, some examples are, don't have as good of a subgrade.
- or yeah, the pattern is not the right pattern for how vehicles track and move across them, and then
- it knocks out bricks, and then that starts a chain reaction. But to your point, I think what's not obvious
- in this drawing is that the sidewalks here are shown in concrete because we understand that brick is
- not a good sidewalk surface, so it's more for the roadway bed. But I think what I'll also say is that
- this is more of just an example
- having a different design aesthetic treatment. So it doesn't necessarily have to be brick.
- Brick is nice, but it could be some other type of material, or I guess potentially a different type
- of paver. It also doesn't have to be brick. It was more just to illustrate this is that more downtown
- environment, so something different. So people realize the space is different, and it's downtown, not
- like a through street. Yeah, and I really appreciate
- thinking about something like this, especially in light of our conversation that we're going to have
- next about Kirkwood, and what would make a portion of a street really ideal for closing off for events.
- And brick is nice, but curbless is even nicer. So thanks for adding that. Thanks for that question.
- I think I just had one more question, which is about Country Club.
- Since that's at the border of the city limits, how much, I guess, control does the city have of that
- intersection versus the county? Would that involve a partnership with the county to, like, let's say,
- for example, let's say there was a determination or a desire to construct a roundabout there, that would
- necessarily involve
- You can't build half a roundabout on the intersection. You could widen the sidewalks on half the intersection
- or remove a turn lane on one part of the intersection, but what kinds of conversations, if any, have
- you already had with the county about it? We haven't talked to the county about that intersection. We
- have talked to them about the Madison Street Bridge and what we could do there, and those have been
- very productive. I'm excited about that. That's good. As far as Country Club,
- Honestly, we haven't gotten that far in terms of where exactly does right of way and where does the
- county begin. It is a city control intersection. That said with almost any, I don't want to say almost
- any, but with most roundabout constructions, there will be some right of way acquisition just because
- roundabouts are big. And so I imagine not even just with the county, but with adjacent property owners,
- there would need to be those discussions.
- to come back to the bridge, the bypassing Kinzer intersection. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that Indot has
- plans to replace the bridge that ends on Gurley Pike in the next few years. And I've spent a lot of
- time thinking about that intersection. I've gone over it on foot, on bike. It's sort of a bridge to
- nowhere project now. Gurley is busy. And there are long-term transportation plans to go through to Arlington
- Mobile Park.
- So this seems, I feel like one of the best opportunities there is to move the bridge as long as you're
- going to take it down. The best place to put it is at Kinzer in the bypass. I'm a high school parent.
- I've gone through that intersection a lot on bike and on foot. Not only is it a high crash intersection,
- but I've seen a lot of people using it. And I feel like there's no better time than what we're doing
- now with this corridor to say,
- look, we're working really hard to make this a pedestrian friendly corridor. There's a high
- crash intersection. It feels like a great opportunity to propose putting the bridge there. Can I just
- pile onto that slightly, which is that we explored with relative depth converting cascades into at least
- partial or all of a multi-use path to be the route that got to the high school. And that's sort of run
- its course and not happened.
- And Kinzer is also really well suited to that, the east side of Kinzer, because there are less hills
- and very few drive cuts. We've already talked about recommending an east side of the street multi-use
- path all the way up to the bypass. Yes, and also as a high school parent, I have tried every different
- way to bike to school.
- And the problem with the Cascades is the big hill. And Kinzer is a flatter route. And you're going to
- be late for school. You're going to want to get there at the last minute, right? So you're going to
- take the fastest, shortest route. So that route needs to be safest. And for all those reasons, I think
- if we can pile on to proposing that we would like a bridge to be at that intersection for almost no
- cost if they're going to tear it down and rebuild it. OK. I can tell you a little bit about what discussions have been
- And then what we are thinking for next steps here so in talks with in dot They so there are feasibility
- concerns on their end of moving the bridge too far east just because of the of the Topography of the
- land on either side of the bypass and how they're going to do it Relatively inexpensively they are going
- to move the bridge over a certain amount of feet. It's hard to
- talk about without visualizing it, but Gorley Pike west of Kinzer travels west and then there's a little
- jog in it where it goes north and then west again. And then the bridge is further west of that. What
- NDOT is proposing as kind of a compromise is they will move the bridge over from where it is currently
- over to that jog in Gorley Pike. So it's not exactly what we would like as a city, but that's I think
- the best we're going to get.
- We are going to continue to try, but I think we've hit a wall on that one. In terms of a grade-separated
- crossing at Kinser and the Bypass, because that's what we're talking about. Whether it's a tunnel, whether
- it's a bridge, we would like something that is a grade-separated for vulnerable road users to get around,
- under, or over the bypass, right? Because that is right now about a 110-foot crossing across about,
- how many, about eight lanes of traffic or so? That's a lot.
- And so as part of this past Safe Streets for All implementation grant, one of the projects that we applied
- for was a multi-use path from Gorley and Kinzer that travels down to Gorley to Old 37, under the bypass,
- and then up west, north of the bypass on NDOT right of way up to Kinzer. And NDOT has sent in a letter
- of support
- We would be using the right-of-way and there would obviously need to be some permitting and agreements
- there But they are largely supportive of that project and right now That seems to be the most feasible
- way to create a great separated crossing at that intersection You said take just to clarify taking Corley
- down to old 37. So not at the intersection exactly but the closest thing to it. Yeah
- Got it. And for INDOT, is it primarily cost-constraint-driven, this idea of moving it just slightly
- to the Corley Bike Jog versus to the Kinzer intersection itself? And I wonder if a match could change
- that conversation as well. Their constraint has been feasibility. That said, feasibility and costs go
- hand-in-hand. I mean, anything can be feasible if you have the money to do it. But this is something
- that honestly has not been
- It, matching a cost to repair this bridge has not been on the city's radar because we already have so
- many projects that we would like to construct. I'm not sure if it would be a priority for us, but it
- hasn't been a real conversation yet. Okay. Yeah, it is special with the grocery store on one side and
- like a lot of housing on the other. Right. When I've seen people going across, they're just doing what
- they need to do to feed themselves.
- On that note, when we were out, walk at that intersection. So I would assume part of it is just topographical
- feasibility because where it is today, you know, Gorley Pike is above the bypass and the bridge goes
- over. But at Kinzer Pike, it's like the area around the street is depressed and there's like a drainage
- ditch area. So when we were out there, we were thinking, oh, underpass would be easier here.
- Obviously, that's way more extensive and complicated. So my guess would be it has more to do with grades
- and the ability to ramp up to a bridge at a gentle slope, a 2% slope, would be really difficult. That
- was my guess. Yeah. Drew, I have a question for you on capacity. Anticipating some people who are interested
- in driving will be interested to know
- How do these designs anticipate changing capacity? I understand the roundabouts may improve flow for
- cars. There was at least one traffic calming device, the bricks. Do we anticipate more congestion with
- this design? How many cars, you know, will we be changing the number of cars that are able to move through
- it? No, we're not reversing any of the lanes.
- Right now it operates as a two lane street with left turn lanes. So we wouldn't be proposing removing
- any left turn lanes. We're just proposing narrowing it. So we still have one through lane in either
- direction. And I have to pull up the numbers from the last time, from our first presentation. But I
- can pull them up briefly in a second here. As I recall, the traffic volume, yeah, the highest traffic
- volume is 11,000 vehicles per day.
- The lowest is 9,300 vehicles per day from what we recorded. So typically, the carrying capacity of a
- two-lane street with left-turn lanes is up to 25,000 vehicles per day. So we're less than half of that
- threshold. So there's plenty of capacity with a two-lane street. And we're not changing that. And with
- the traffic calming, it's not so much that we're really about taking speeding and bringing it down to
- the intended speed, right?
- It's about changing the design to match the posted speed. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I have no further
- questions. Anyone else? I have a last one. Go ahead. Which is just about interaction with the transportation
- plan. I know you mentioned, Hank, the broader updates you all are looking at. Something that kind of
- came up in the context of Hopewell discussions and I think you all are looking at is this idea that we have
- existing conditions and we have street typologies with cross sections that don't always match what's
- possible even with a street change. We need some flexibility there that doesn't undermine our goals
- with respect to what a street becomes. And so I'm curious about, I know you all are already looking
- at those, what type of mechanisms we would need for flexibility in that context.
- Also curious how something like a corridor study then interacts. So if you're looking at just a stretch
- and you say, okay, something we could do here is basically widen the sidewalks from five feet to six
- feet, put in a five-foot tree plot, and that's all we could do. And right now it's monolithic sidewalks.
- We don't really have a mechanism to allow for that exactly.
- So what would that look like? Would this corridor study basically supersede and say, this is the more
- detailed look at this? And so, you know, general urban street topology, notwithstanding, we use this
- quarter study to guide decisions on this street. Like which comes first? Yeah. Or how do they interact?
- And they might all change when we do a trustee spread update. Do you have feedback on that, though?
- Yeah, that's a very good question. Honestly, I don't have a definitive answer for you yet, but based on
- how detailed these corridor studies are and how much feedback we are getting from the community specifically
- about these corridors when we are looking into them. My guess would be that these studies would supersede
- what is in the general transportation plan just because we've done the deep dive look. This is not just
- a general look at what we would like in the city. The goal is to know what the community wants and what
- fits our goals best on this specific corridor.
- to expand on that, Ryan Rolland, Planning Services Manager. The transportation plan actually gives the
- planning and transportation director power to override the transportation plan in design criteria. And
- so this would, we would assume that the director would then default to this until the transportation
- plan matched. So the idea would be that this new corridor study plan would be the plan going forward.
- Okay, thank you.
- All right. I believe we've reached the end of our Commissioner's comment. Hank, it's my understanding
- that we don't need, this is a report. We're not acting on it. Great. Thank you. At this time, public
- comment is optional. We can engage it through a majority vote. Is there? I'll second it. All right.
- I'll just do a voice vote. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any opposed?
- None. All right, is there anyone in the room or online who would like to make public comment? You can
- have up to three minutes. I see one hand from Paul Russo. You should be able to unmute. Thanks for letting
- me say something. I strongly oppose roundabouts.
- don't build any roundabouts. They create an expectation among motor vehicle drivers that they won't
- have to stop usually. There's an expectation of not stopping. There's oftentimes a failure to yield.
- My experience with roundabouts in the city already is hair racing. So besides being, I was not hit in
- a roundabout,
- But every other time that was the most dangerous for me in the last three years was in a roundabout.
- I don't know why you're proposing them, but they're bad news. I'll be glad to give you research if you
- want to see it. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else at this time who would like to make public
- comment? I'm not seeing anyone on Zoom. All right.
- In that case, can you hear me? Oh, yes, I can. This is Buff Brown. Can you hear me? Yes, Buff Brown,
- you have three minutes. All right. I would raise my hand, but I can't find the hand. It's under reactance.
- It's OK. Find it for text. I found the mute. I'm mute. Oh. OK, I just want to introduce myself. I just
- now chimed in, not chimed in, tuned in.
- So I really did not see much of the material. But I just want to tell you a little bit about me, because
- I am going to be speaking in the next session. And I think I want to keep it short so that I don't have
- to reintroduce myself. But just so you know. So I grew up in Bloomington, raised my kids there. I now
- live in Portland, Oregon.
- I have been a transportation planner for 25 years, so I'm contacting you from Portland. For decades,
- I've been involved with Bloomington Transportation. I was a traffic commissioner in the 90s, and I ran
- a group called Bloomington Transportation Options for People from 2004 to 2014, where we advocated for
- bike pet in transit.
- BTOP had a major contribution to the downtown parking policy and many, and I would say that we were
- involved in many of the bike lanes that exist in your town. So I still keep in touch with Bloomington
- transportation issues. I just want to, the two things I would like to say is roundabouts are actually,
- you know, really good safety features. You know that from
- data, but they can be too big. I really argued that the one on South Rogers and Sarah Road was excessively
- large for the traffic that was necessary that the one that's actually on Hillside and helped me out
- here. The neighborhood. Thank you. Renwick is the right size.
- for many of the transportation needs of Bloomington. People go through it slowly. It's very possible
- to go through it easily on a bike because people travel quite slowly. And I'm sure it has the fewest
- wrecks. In fact, an analysis that I did about 10 years ago showed it was significantly less crashes
- than the other roundabouts, which are larger.
- I do like a lot of the things that you are proposing. Tool design is an excellent consultant, so I'm
- really glad to see what they're proposing so far or what I've seen here. So those are all my comments,
- and I'll have more for you at the 7 o'clock meeting. Thank you. All right, thank you. Any other public
- commenters who would like to speak? I am not seeing any.
- Okay, before we adjourn, for anyone listening who's interested in talking about Kirkwood, that's a separate
- meeting of the same group that starts at 7 p.m. and due to rules we don't start that early, we start
- it on time. With that said, we're done with this session and we will adjourn. Thank you, Mr. Barker.