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.