I'll go ahead and call this meeting of the Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee to order
as vice chair. I believe that our chair is online today and if we could just go around and names and
organizations let's go ahead and start over on my left today. Julie Thomas Monroe County Commissioner
Andrew Seabor serving as proxy for Mayor Thompson.
And then Hopi Stasberg City Council Transportation Corporation Board of Directors John Kennedy proxy
for Sam Tobin Hawkshit from the Citizens Advisory Committee Scott Ferris Monroe County Planning Commission
Linnea Wellings in dot proxy for Rebecca Packer. Good morning. Nate Nichols City of Bloomington Public
Works Department serving as a proxy for director Adam Wason.
Can you hear me now. That's better. Yeah I think that it might have been on our end but wonderful.
Thank you. Never never led this meeting before so I'm going to have to pay careful attention to the agenda.
So first thing we need approval of the agenda for today. So it looks like the agenda includes some minutes
and our usual communications from chair and vice chair officers committees several pieces of reports
no old business a couple pieces of new business public comments and then some more communications. Does
anybody have any thing that they want to add or comments on.
Can I get a motion motion to approve the agenda and a second. Second. Thank you so much. We're going
to need a roll call on the motion to approve the agenda since we have a member online today. Seymour.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes motion passes. Great. Thank you so much. First on the agenda then is the approval of the minutes
from May 29th of this year. Were there any corrections or comments to be made on these minutes by anybody.
Do I have a motion to approve motion to approve the minutes. Thank you for that motion and seconds.
If there's no comments we please call the roll on that motion to approve the minutes Ferris.
Yes. Kennedy abstain. Wellings. Nickel. Yes. Ridge. Yes. Thomas Stasberg. Yes. Horn abstain. Seaborg. Yes.
Motion passes. Great. Thank you so much. I want to take note of Jason branch coming in. You start on
time and I come in five minutes late. Jason Bannock with IU. Thank you. Thank you so much. We just approved
the minutes.
Communications from chair and vice-chair. I do not have any communications today. Lisa. Do you have
anything to communicate? I don't except thank you for stepping up for me some computer upgrades out
here Wonderful. I hope that those go smoothly Any communications from officers and or committees John
Kennedy from the CAC the CCAC met Wednesday evening
and Recommended to the policy committee that you approve the two tip amendments that will be on the
agenda today Wonderful I Can provide an update from the TAC? TAC met this past Wednesday the 22nd Also
recommended approval of the new business items that are listed here. There's one thing we talked about
and we can discuss this more when we get to this item, but
Item number eight point two about the state safety performance targets. We did have some language we
wanted to include with that. So that was an issue that we discussed at length. But other than that we
recommended approval. Thank you. Okay great. Thank you. Sounds like we need to discuss that more when
we get to it. Next reports from staff Katie. Thank you.
Item six point one the state of Indiana is currently updating their strategic highway safety plan which
is a multi-agency document. That guides the state's traffic safety efforts over the next five years.
It is also what will be used to kind of help establish the next
Targets for the next phase not the not the call for projects starting this fall, but the one after that
in two years So if you have 10 to 15 minutes, they're accepting public comment through a survey and
it will help in dot prioritize safety concerns That are most important to you Next wanted to share that
the state of Indiana is also updating their state rail plan and
that guides the state's rail infrastructure investments and policies. Their website includes an overview,
the draft plan, summaries, and then a link to submit feedback. So again, if you have a moment and you
wanna take a look at that, we just wanted to inform you about it. The feedback is all the way at the bottom.
Third is another public input opportunity, this time at the federal level. So the Federal Transit
Administration is seeking input from the transit industry and the public about how to assess public
transportation service quality across realms of safety and security cleanliness, universal accessibility,
service data availability, and reliability.
So they there's only like 41 comments so far. So but they're accepting comments till August 3rd. No
further questions. I'll go on to the crash dashboard. There's been an update to the crash dashboard
in that the staff went through and proofed
and cleaned up and added gps data corrected gps data to a number of the crashes for calendar year 2025
that's been added to the crash dashboard crash dashboard was created two years ago by the staff and
by the information technology services department please feel free to look at that whenever you get
the chance let us know if you have any questions on that
We also want to note that the 2018 and 2019 data have been removed to maintain consistency with a five-year
trend used by the Department of Transportation to cap information shown on the dashboard. Past crash
information is still available in various locations. It's available on the MPO website. We've got crash
report going back to 1996 if you're so interested in something like that.
The MPO also helps to find other ways in the future to consolidate and share trend data. If you have
any questions, please let me know, or Katie, either one of us. Next item we have is an early coordination
letter from the Indiana Department of Transportation. This early coordination letter is for State Road
45 over an unnamed tributary of Griffey Creek,
0.38 miles east of Interstate 69 in Monroe County. If you look in the packet, yeah, there it goes,
thank you. That'll show you the approximate location and then the next one will show you the specific
location of where that's at. If you have any comments, concerns regarding this project, please respond
to the early coordination letter. The consulting firms and the
consulting agencies also would be of interest to that. If there are no further questions, I'll go on
to the, yeah, I'll let you scroll through that. Yeah, there's the reason right there. Okay, a crushed
pipe, probably 30 years old would be my guess. We also wanna let you know about recent,
Indiana Department of Transportation roadway safety audits that were conducted last week. State of Indiana
takes usually they select the worst of the worst or the ones they have concerns about from the district
offices and those determine how many roadway safety audits are completed in any any one area in any
one given year. This year we had three
locations that underwent roadway safety audits last Thursday. This was a multiple multiple district
and central office and a local team. We all met first project which was examined with State Road 45
between Industrial Boulevard and Curry Pike. I affectionately refer to this as Wally World.
This is the area where you've got Walmart Sam's Club and a number of other areas, which is a high High
traffic. I'll wait till Katie gets down there This is a high traffic movement area a lot of turning
movements a lot of what I would call property damage crashes rear end side swipes turning movements,
it's not what I would call a serious
Uh, injury type of location, but the frequency is disturbing given the volumes that are out there. Uh,
that was the first one examined by the roadway safety audit team from the central office and from the
Seymour district. Second location that we examined was stick road 45 and Kinzer Pike and Rogers street.
I will get up there.
Okay this is on State Road 45 46. There's been a increase in traffic in the last two to three years
went from something like 36 37000 vehicles a day up to 42 or 40000 vehicles a day. We don't know why
the increase probably because of increased development along the corridor.
Directional split is a 50-50 on either side of the intersection there. We've got the concerns here are
not only serious injuries, but also what I would call pedestrian movements or vulnerable road user movements,
where we've got a number of people walk to the Kroger, which is up in the northwest corner, the upper
left-hand corner of the intersection.
A lot of people walk to that intersection and as a result of that there's deep concern about vulnerable
road users. The traffic safety engineer for the district Seymour district as an experiment went up and
went up to that corner and tripped the pedestrian walk on that activated the pedestrian walk and we
immediately had a backlog.
of traffic on Roger Street and that backlog lasted for almost 20 minutes. We've also got an issue too
and some of that westbound to eastbound movement traffic there stopping past the stop bar. Don't know
what we're going to be able to do about that. Anyway this we spent almost an hour on this intersection
out there observing all of the movements.
Now the roadway safety audit team will report back latter part of September or first part of October
on what they're what the alternatives were that were considered and what proposed actions are. The third
intersection we looked at was State Road 446 and Morris Pike. Well she gets down to see what for 46
and Morris Pike Lampkins Ridge Road.
The concern here is that in well in 2016 17 18 and 19 this was one of the top intersections in terms
of crashes even though that's got a lower volume on it. So as a result the district upgraded the intersection
in 2020 calendar year 2020 where the stop
stops that were made into flashing, they removed an overhead beacon, flashing beacon, which was impossible
to see and actually no one ever saw it. Yeah, you can see the flashers right there on the stop. The
volumes here are roughly around 8,000 vehicles a day on State Route 446. Some of that is seasonal because
you get campers, motorboats, trailer track,
Well trailers with motorboats and houseboats and all of that that are on the on the corridor. But that's
usually from roughly May until the end of well I'm sorry until Labor Day. And then after that it drops
off. The one issue we note there is on the west leg of that intersection somewhat of a grade differential there.
And as a result, the automobiles come up in a eastbound movement and they stop on the stop bar and actually
they're stopping past the stop bar to check their sight distance. The sight distance to the north is
almost unlimited actually. We verify the sight distance to the south and the sight distance to the south
is adequate. And then also if you're on the east leg of the intersection and you're looking
looking to the south or looking to the north you've got adequate sight distance. The Department
of Transportation also added a left turn movement there. So if you were northbound on 446 and you wanted
to go westbound on Moore's Pike you could do so. And that reduced a number of the right angle accidents
or crashes property damage crashes. But still it's a problem again.
We discussed the idea of doing a minor roundabout at the intersection, but the problem with a roundabout
is you've got all of the utilities. You can see those there. Utilities up above, and you'd have to have
a massive relocation of that. We also talked about the idea of making it a four-way stop, but I don't
know if that really meets the warrants since the volumes on Steward 446 are much greater than they are
on the other two legs. Anyway, the audit team will,
take all of this under consideration. Again, give us a report at the end of September, the first part
of October, and we'll make sure that everybody is aware of what happens there. And that's all I've got
in the way of roadway safety audits unless anybody has any questions. Okay. If not, we'll move on.
Next item, the MPO will be issuing
fiscal year 2028 2032 call for projects. We'll be doing that middle part of August to the end of August.
The funding which we've got projected available. Normally we would have a total of approximately five
and a half five point two five point five million dollars available for funding projection though is
that we'll only have somewhere around four point six million dollars available.
So a real dollar loss and inflationary increase in costs will be including in that the normal what I
would call surface transportation block grant projects will also have what I would call the normal highway
safety improvement program call for projects. All of that will be well we'll we'll have a 30 day 30
day period.
for all of the LPAs to respond. The LPAs would include Town of Ellisville, Monroe County, City
of Bloomington, Bloomington Transit, and Area 7 Agency on Aging, or what's called rural transit. I'd
be happy to answer any questions anybody may have on that. We'll have much more on that on the next
meeting next month. No questions? You know the dates that you're gonna do the call for projects?
Do you know the dates of when you're going to put out for the 30 days? We're looking at mid-August to
the end of August and then it would be 30 days after we issue the call. Tentatively right now it's the
last week of August. We want to give everybody 30 days which should be ample time and the last two to
three months we've been saying
Beware beware the call is coming. So that way it's not and no one's caught by surprise Some of these
may be new projects and some of these may be continuation of existing projects that are already programmed
in the current transportation improvement program Does that answer your question? Yeah, I was hoping
it was gonna be earlier in August, but that's what I was trying to plan on I appreciate it. Thank you
We can make it earlier if you want
I would take it earlier. Whatever works for everybody, we'll make it work. Okay, well, yeah, I mean,
we have a draft package put together and we have a draft schedule, which has been assembled for several
months. Whether we can meet that schedule or not is dependent upon the Indiana Department of Transportation
Central Office. Central Office will be doing their call for projects in the middle of, I'm sorry, the
first week of September to second week of September.
and then they will be having a series of public meetings at the Seymour District in September initially,
and then they'll also have another one in October. NDOT is looking to have their statewide transportation
improvement program adopted somewhere around March or April of next year, which makes us nervous because
Federal Highway Administration has been challenged in terms of reviewing everything
Because of staff shortages, so we're being Katie and I are being very aggressive on what we're doing
to allow ample time for federal highway review Any other questions Okay, thank you Just wanted to share
item 6.8 just wanted to share a few updates on some of the projects receiving
federal funds through the npto. So the city's downtown curb ramp improvements phase 4 project. The letting
date was changed from October to December of this year due to consultant submission delays. The high
street project is currently doing its utility road relocation is ready for letting although we did have
to change the letting from September to October.
due to a federal highway delay. Second Street project, as I'm sure you're all aware, is in construction.
Crosswalks Phase 3 and curb rate ramps Phase 5 are both in design. Crosswalks Phase 4, the consultant
selection is anticipated for the end of this year. Dunn Street is in its right-of-way acquisition phase
at the moment.
College and Walnut, as you may recall, has two phases that have been merged into a similar year, and
consultant selection for design is underway. Dillman Bridge, number 83. The right of way is starting
in the next month or so, and the contract is with Aegis.
Eagle Sim bridge nine nine twenty two the county has met with IU officials and other partners and bridge
utility relocation will start soon. High friction surface treatment on Fairfax Road. The RFP was posted
for construction engineering services just recently.
And it has been awarded and will begin soon. Rockport Bridge, number 308, is under construction and
anticipated completion is tentative, but perhaps around October. That road bridge, number 79, has been
executed and is starting the federal aid process.
And in terms of NDOT projects of interest, the intersection improvements on SR45 and Pete Ellis, between
Pete Ellis and the bypass, utility relocations are in progress. No utilities have indicated they will
close Pete Ellis or SR45 during their relocations. However, there will likely be lane closures during
the relocations.
And the only utility that really needed a lane closure is CBU water city of Bloomington water and they
are coordinating with the contractor to install during their lane closures. And then if you see the
link to the spreadsheet that's in the agenda there's more detail on timelines for utilities utility
relocation that more detail than you ever wanted to see.
Any other questions? Okay, moving on. I have a question. Okay. Could you restate College and Wal-Mart,
the update on that, please? Consultant selection for design is in progress. Okay, so evidently there
is a design for College and Wal-Mart. What's the requirement?
Has a requirement ever been published. Has a weapon proposed. If you have a design you have to have
a requirement for the design. Has a requirement ever been published so the public is aware of what the
design is going to be. We can check.
Director seabor can speak to this a little bit. Yeah, I don't believe that anything has been published
formally yet. Yes, that's my understanding is the city's ongoing corridor study for college and walnut
is still Pending I know it's been a discussion in these meetings in the past There will be public updates
and public opportunities the ultimately the project that study needs is
Several a couple commission City Commission and the City Council's review. Right now what is underway
is just a consultant section for a design consultant. A design has not been selected but we are just
trying to get the ball rolling because it takes time to get things in place. But I do expect in the
coming months that more news will be shared and there will be more public discussion on the corridor
study. Thank you. Thank you. That addresses your concern.
Thanks. Thank you. Any other questions about those things? Wonderful looks like there's more reports
Yes, thank you Item six point nine just a quick quick note to you on an item that was updated in the
tip That did not require committee review The city Bloomington's downtown curb ramps phase four project
due to some
delays in environmental and design process. The decision was made to update to move the construction
phases from fiscal year 26 to 27. And this wasn't a concern really for the MPO because it does not use
MPO funds. It's in here because it's using other other federal funds that were awarded to the city as
part of a special call for projects.
safety call This is the same award that the Monroe County got for their Fairfax Friction surface treatment
project Okay item six point ten So this is simply
document for your information for now to Get you introduced to the concept. So this is more more information
on the amendment Modification process so this describes this multi-layer process that we have to go
through There has various levels of review at federal state and local so we have this document called
the tip but this also applies to
Our other documents such as the MTP as well. So in federal law, they have very kind of broad definitions
of what an amendment to the document is considered and what is considered a modification. I've written
those here for you. And then at the state level, they have more specific standards in terms of how they
take those general federal definitions and
They've they've coordinated with Federal Highway to come up with these standards of how they treat or
what they determine is an amendment or a modification and This determines whether how long they post
it to how long the state posts it to their website for review Before sending it to Federal Highway So
you can see it's a little bit more specific And then we
also have our own level of review locally and where we can create our own policy for what you guys would
like to review and see before it then gets sent to in dot and ultimately federal highway. And so our
current policy for this is in our participation plan. And I've pulled out the portions that are just
related to the tip and put them here for you so that you can see
Now we haven't been following this to a tee. I've actually just been giving you way more specific changes
than this for a long time now just just so that you all can see as much as possible. So we've been showing
you more specific things. But this is this is the process that we have right now where we have a major
amendment section and
Those require 30 days of review and all committees can see those changes. And then we have a minor amendment
classification where the citizens advisory and technical advisory committees don't need to see it, but
it does have to be approved by the policy committee. And then we have an administrative approval amendments
policy, which is close to the
you know, federal and state definitions of modification. And those are lesser changes. And we,
at one point, dictated that it does not require the 30-day comment period, does not require CAC and
TAC review, and it only requires a three-day notice to policy committee members via email.
So that's what we have. And moving forward, we may come and present proposed changes to this policy
to you to bring it better into alignment with current state and federal processes. And so this is just
for you to start thinking in all of your free time. If you have specific things you would like to see
or things you really don't care to see,
you know the changes don't mean that much to you and you don't think that the committee needs to review
it then feel free to like write those down and save them for a time when we propose some changes to
this policy or feel free to you know brainstorm on it in in the meantime.
Great. Thank you. I think that that wraps up all of the reports from staff. Does anybody have any questions
about any of those? Any of those items At this point Okay, I actually do have a clarification on the
6.6 the road safety audits if we can go back to that path I just want to make sure that what I heard
from you was right that
While you guys were out there somebody triggered the pedestrian walking going across forty six traffic
safety five. Right. And that caused a 20 minute backup on Rogers. Yes. OK. Northbound northbound movement
on Rogers north. And what time of day were you guys there. We were there. Yeah. Noon hour noon ish. OK.
Yeah, well I was thinking about that to you at summer so there's not this is some students and there's
a lot of student housing in that area, but but that's also not when that intersection is horribly backed
up when School gets out both Arlington Elementary and also North High School that gets crazy on on concern
for and we did observe two pedestrians prior to his triggering We observed two pedestrians initially
and then 15 20 minutes later is when he went over there and Hit the trigger and then that's when the
backup happened and actually one of the vehicles a southbound to westbound turning movement from Kinzer
in other words, they were Driving south on Kinzer and they were turning west onto the bypass one of
them almost
Yeah gave him an intimidation Movement and he gave them the evil eye but and we were concerned about
that but Yeah, because they're normally the vehicles aren't looking for pedestrians and that's the issue
that we're worried about it's not That we've had any pedestrian Incidents at that location. It's about
the potential that that's got us deeply concerned and
Well and there have been pedestrian incidents at that location in. Yeah. In the past. Yeah. In the past.
And then the Department of Transportation also has in a longer range program putting a pedestrian sidewalk
on the north side of the bypass between college Walnut and Kinzer. That sidewalk would be a protected
sidewalk with a barrier wall. But that is probably four to five years out.
before construction would begin on that. That would facilitate the safe movement of pedestrians in that
area, at least on the north side of the bypass. But that doesn't necessarily address that intersection
specifically itself. Yeah, it certainly doesn't help the crossing distance. OK, thank you so much. And
we did discuss a wide variety of options and taking into consideration the bridge project of NDOTs,
the pedestrian bridge to the west,
that project is forthcoming and then the sidewalk that Pat was speaking about and even talking about
cascades, you know, and what is the best, you know, what is the best path, way to create that path across
the bypass using all of those elements. And we talked to him a bit about the concept of moving the bridge
to Kinzer and it sounds like the hesitation
With that is that it would take a lot of right of way, a lot of additional funds to make the appropriate
decline, you know, coming down onto Rogers or coming down onto Kinzer Pike. And another alternative
would be to create a tunnel underneath the highway, which it sounds like they're hesitant to do because
They fear vandalism of lights and folks, just the unsafety feeling of the tunnel, which they'll still
be thinking about it, but I don't know that that would be as much of an issue for us, the vandalism
part of it, or the unsafety part of it, but those are some of their initial thoughts about the bridge
moving to that location.
Thank you. Was there any consideration about narrowing the road there at all because there's like significant
shoulder and quite wide lanes and We would we would love to do that but the Federal Highway Administration
as of two weeks ago narrowing travel lanes is a verboten That's a safety countermeasure that was
out there on Federal Highway's Web site one of twenty eight one of twenty eight safety countermeasures
proven safety countermeasures out there narrowing travel lands. But that one was removed two weeks ago
along with a few others. OK. Thank you. It also sounds like the capacity is too much for a roundabout
but I don't know that some sort of peanut roundabout I don't know the official name for that.
Like a double roundabout between College of Walnut and Kinzer I don't think that's necessarily out of
the question, but it's something they'll also look into as well Great, thank you. It's also called a
double dog bone. What I couldn't it's called a double dog bone Double dog bone Yeah, double dog bone. Yeah, but
That that's pretty far out there, right? But certainly the turning the Even if even if lanes can't be
reduced in size the the turning radius is pretty large You know, they don't doesn't require cars to
really slow down very much which is the as a primary hazard for pedestrians so You know, I do I do believe
that's something they'll be working to address. The question is, you know How big of a change are they
going to make?
You know and how much funding will it require. That was that was another thing the 85th percentile speed
on the west side of that intersection was 55 miles an hour even though it's posted 45. They're coming
off of the interstate or coming off of what I would call a modified freeway and they're still up to
speed. The 85th percentile.
On the east side of that intersection was only somewhere around 50 to 45 miles an hour. So it was within
the speed limit on the east side but on the west side there 10 miles an hour above posted speeds. Great.
Thank you so much for all that additional information. Any other questions Mr. Harris. I wasn't to bring
this up but I think it's relevant. Number one.
With respect to when these audits are conducted the point was brought up closer. We can. How about now.
That's OK. I wasn't going to bring it up but I think it's relevant and it was brought up just a couple
of minutes ago. All these audits should be done when the students are here because all around Bloomington
as well as we all know it's saturated right now. It's a pretty pleasant drive in certain elements of
the city right now.
So I would suggest that in future audits, and there may be a timing issue, et cetera, et cetera, because
of when these reports are due, but I would suggest that they be done when the student population is
present, because you're going to get a much different picture when the students are here than when they're
not. The second point that I would bring up, and it's really a question, and that is that for years
now we have brought up
the issue of public safety with respect from Grand, this is 10th Street, from Grandview all the way
up to Russell Road, and those folks were familiar with that roadway over there. There is no shoulder,
it's very narrow, there are no sidewalks, and because of the increased student population, because of
the more apartment complexes, because of the church,
which has now expanded exponentially in the school there and such it. And we have people walking along
that roadway there pushing strollers. I've seen skateboards. I've seen all sorts of folks being exposed
particularly when you go from Grandview going going east as you come over that hill. You cannot see
people on the other side. So from an audit standpoint has this
piece of roadway between Grandview up to Russell Road after hearing some of the concerns I've heard
on the ones that you're actually talking about. Has that ever reached the level of an audit. No it has
not really reached a level of audit on steward forty five to forty five from the bypass to Pete Ellis
to up to Russell Road.
There's not been an audit done on that even though we have had a fatality down now. They're now on the
bottom of that hill there as you go up to these are these audits are selected on a statewide basis in
relation to other corridors in the state. And so from a process standpoint to do we this body or you
representing our as the MPO staff to see more do you get a chance to provide an input.
Yeah, there may have been an audit done in the past because Russell Road down to the bypass is slated
for projects. I mean, those projects are in the timeline. I don't think it would have made it to the
point of being scheduled for federal, for state funding if there hadn't been a safety audit done at
some point, but it was likely years ago.
Okay so that the argument well the data point would be that if it's a scheduled project then an audit
is not something you would normally do on a scheduled project. It is something you would do on a project
before it gets to the point of being scheduled for funding. Yes. So there likely was a safety audit
done at some point. I'm unaware. It just may not be in our memory of things. Okay. My point I'm making
is is that the
The project for the from essentially Pete Ellis all the way up to Russell Road has been pushed FY 31.
I believe 32. I think that's 32. And so if you in fact had an audit that talked about an increased public
safety requirement that would help facilitate hopefully moving that project to be completed in an earlier
date that's my only point I'm making since that project has made it to the point of
getting on the schedule for state funds then my point is there is likely already a safety audit that
has been done for that entire stretch but I encourage you to if you want to submit I end up for you
ticket to ask that's something you could do all right you've answered my question thank you great thank
you very much are there any other questions on the reports from staff
Okay, let's go ahead and move on then we don't have any old business on the agenda new business we have
resolution FY 20 2701 proposed changes to the 2026 2030 BMC MPO tip Yes, we have some changes to make
the tip the first is the addition of a new in dot projects two of them, although they are
The general category is already in the tip, so we already have fiscal year funding for seven and eight
in here for traffic signal modernizations at various locations in the Seymour district, but they are
adding on some projections for 29 and 30 funding. Again, this is not specific to us yet, but there could
be some of these projects for us in the future, and getting it in
Our document helps speed up all of the approval processes in the future. Similarly the second amendment
is we'd like to add to in dot projects for raised pavement markings at various locations in the Seymour
district. Again this is already in the tip but this is an addition of
funds for projected for fiscal year 29 and 30 this is also general category funding for the Seymour
district, which is the district we're in and More specific allocations will be determined at later times
Third we Were asked by in dot to update the
Project for 446 between SR 45 and Morris Pike or s between SR 46 and Morris Pike So this is that north-south
road that That has it's been in the tip for a while, but they have removed the HMA overlay portion of
the project or they're proposing to remove it and
they've changed the title to bicycle pedestrian facilities on SR 446. They've also had to move the right
away phase out to 29 and the construction phase to 32. And this decision would have been just made based
on their own prioritization and funding levels. This project we did have a discussion with the city county
city folks county folks and in dot a year ago last April or so to discuss the pedestrian facility portion
of this project and the city and county both advocate for a multi-use path. However the funding in does
not fund they have specific ways that they categorize
what they find and sidewalks in a specific with a specific with I think six feet or so is the max that
they will find the only the only occasion when they will find something wider than that is if a multi
use path happens to be cheaper than the sidewalk or if the local public agencies decide to help with
the funding.
So as of now it is it's it's just a sidewalk because there's not been any further discussions on that
and there probably won't be since it's been pushed out a few years. The fourth change is to update the
county's SR 37 and Dillman Road intersection improvement project. So after we moved this project to
a new fiscal year and we moved the college and Walnut project.
projected timeline to a different year. We reorganize the funding. You were with us through all of this
and we ended up with hundred and twenty two thousand leftover after the exchanges that we did in left
over in fiscal year twenty eight. And then we met with the county highway department and city of Bloomington
engineering department.
kind of because both of those LPAs had projects in fiscal year 28 that could use the funds and we ultimately
have decided to propose to you that we give those funds to the 37 South and Dillman Road project. And
so this update adds that hundred and twenty two thousand to the right away phase for this project.
Thank you. I think that looks like that. Does anybody have any questions about any of these tip amendments.
All right. Seeing none I think that that means that we need to go to public comment around this. I don't
see any members of the public in the room. Are there any members of the public on zoom. There is one
but he'll raise his hand if he has something.
If the member of the public on zoom would like to comment on the tip amendments Now is the moment that
you can raise your hand Using the raise hand option after the reactions tab Has there been a hand raised
okay, great then we'll go ahead and close public comment and then return back to the committee if anybody
has any comments Otherwise, I'll take a motion
Would anybody like to move approval of a move approval of resolution FY twenty twenty seven dash one
proposed changes to the FY twenty twenty six to twenty thirty MPO tip. Do I have a second. I'll second.
Thank you so much. With a motion and a second we please call the roll on approval of resolution twenty
twenty seven oh one.
Yes Seaborg. Yes Warren. Yes Stasburg. Yes. Bannock. Yes. Thomas. Yes. Ridge. Yes. Kennedy. Yes. Wellings.
Yes. Ferris. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you so much. Let's go ahead and move on to the second piece of
new business resolution FY 20 27 0 2.
Okay, the resolution is on page 32 and 33. On page 34, beginning of page 34 is a memorandum from the
staff concerning the national performance safety targets required by the Indiana Department of Transportation
for the Federal Highway Administration. These are for calendar year 2027 performance targets. This is
part of the National Transportation Performance Management System.
Required as a strategic approach for using system data to make informed investment and policy decisions
to achieve goals established by the Congress the targets the Measures performance measures which we
identify as targets. They identify as targets also include the number of fatalities the rate of fatalities
per 100 million vehicle miles traveled and
number of serious injuries the rate of serious injuries per 100 million vehicle miles traveled the number
of non motorized fatalities and no non motorized serious injuries going down into well they use a five
year rolling average. I'll go into the details of the data the statistics here in just a minute. We
use our five year rolling average to come to these numbers. State of Indiana's calendar year 2027.
performance targets include fatalities at seven hundred seventy seven the rate of fatalities at zero
point nine seven per one hundred million vehicle miles traveled number of serious injuries two thousand
nine hundred the rate of serious injuries for one hundred million vehicle miles traveled three point
six two and the number of non motorized fatalities and serious injuries equals four hundred and fifty
three. Now this reflects a
two percent straight line reduction as published in the Indiana State Highway Safety Plan in twenty
twenty two the baseline. I'll go down to the to the graphs here. My mouse works OK go down to the graphs
the data I'm sorry the first year.
I'm going to do a deep dive on all of this so that way all of you understand exactly how the numbers
come about because there have been questions in previous years about how did they derive the numbers
that they achieved or the targets they hope to achieve. First table there is the state of Indiana fatal
and serious injury crash data from 2014 to 2025. You can see the fatalities were at seven hundred and
forty five.
back in 2014 and in 2025 there were eight hundred and forty four. Now the volume on that is per hundred
million vehicle miles traveled seven ninety one point seven one back in 2014 up to nine ninety seven
oh two in calendar year 2025. If you adjust that for the fatality rate in other words what your what
your volume is for the number of fatalities you can see it was zero point nine four one.
back in 2014 and then in recent years in twenty twenty four zero point eight seven six and in twenty
twenty five zero point eight four seven serious injuries. There's no there's been no definitional change
on fatalities fatality as a fatality but on serious injuries there's been a series of definitional changes
on what constitutes serious injury.
Prior years, serious injury was determined by the officer completing the report in the field itself.
If he determined that he or she determined that somebody was seriously injured, it was marked as thus.
And then in more recent years, it was if they required a transport to a medical facility or a hospital,
that was classified as a serious injury. And then the definitional change came about
just in recent year and that is much more specific. I won't go into the detail on what that is but we're
looking at serious injuries what the definition is definition was was three different factors. But anyway
going back to 2014 33 3338 and then in 2025 looking at four thousand four hundred ninety eight.
Serious injury rate there four point two one five in twenty fourteen four point five one one in twenty
twenty five non motorized fatalities and serious injuries. These are the total for the state of Indiana
in twenty fourteen through twenty twenty five point sixty one in twenty fourteen five hundred nineteen
in twenty twenty five.
The non motorized fatalities these are pedestrians and bicycles and then I was informed yesterday that
this also includes buggies or strong buggies. It has to be a vehicle vehicle to a non motorized type
type of movement. In other words a pedestrian pedestrian or a scooter to a pedestrian or a bicycle put
to a pedestrian doesn't qualify in these statistics.
You can see the non motorized went from 90 back in 2014 126 in 2025 non motorized serious injuries.
Again this is subject to the caveat of what is a serious injury. It's been a moving definition from
2014 371 to 393. Then if you go to the next table.
You're looking at this as a five year rolling average five years what I would call data smoothing. This
is a statistical methodology required by Congress through Congress and the Federal Highway Administration.
You look at the 2014 to 2018 fatalities eight hundred and thirty three point four and then adjusted
for a VMT.
is eight hundred and seven point eight two but then if you look at twenty twenty one twenty twenty five
eight hundred ninety six fatalities and that's adjusted to eight point nine one point one for the volumes
the rate of fatalities then is one point zero three in twenty fourteen twenty eighteen one point one
eight slight rise in twenty twenty one to twenty twenty five serious injuries thirty three seventy five
in the smoothing there from 2014 to 2018 up to four thousand and twenty six in twenty twenty one twenty
twenty five. Same goes for the rate of serious injuries four point one. I'm sorry. Four thousand one
hundred oh yeah. Okay.
Got an extra decimal point an extra number in there that should only be three digits out four point
one seven nine and then that's supposed to be four thousand five hundred ninety five and then the rate
of serious injuries from that then boiling that down to the next table the final table. This is where
we get I affectionately call where we get the
the actual goals of the county calendar year 2021 was the baseline volume here for fatalities eight
hundred and eighty three the rate of fatalities one point one zero two serious injuries three thousand
two hundred ninety five serious injury rate four point one one and then the non motorized fatalities
and serious injuries five one four point four and then applying the two percent reduction in
You probably will ask why 2 percent. Why not 5 1 on 10 1 on 50. Well the 2 percent is achievable.
So the 2.2 percent was the adopted rate for calendar year 20 22 20 23 24 25 and 26. You can see how
it performs. There's been a drop in the fatalities from 20 23 4 5
And then in six in terms of the targets then you look at the serious injury rates. There's also been
a subsequent drop there to the non motorized and serious injuries. You'll see that that one is actually
dropped also. And then the targets which are in the memo in our staff memo reflect the current current
targets that the Department of Transportation has that they will turn in.
to the Federal Highway Administration the end of this month seven hundred seventy seven fatalities zero
point nine six nine. The rate two thousand eight hundred ninety nine rounded up to twenty nine hundred
for the serious injuries. The rate there is three point six one and then four hundred and fifty two
point well actually four hundred and fifty three is what it will round up to.
And that's a lot of data but I wanted to show you exactly how this came about. So that way you get an
understanding of the process. I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone may have. Thank you. Does
anybody have any questions. I just make more of a comment than a question but at the TAC level on Wednesday
we saw this exact same presentation that Pat just provided and I
I think it's fair to say that we always struggle with this. The rate of fatalities and we understand
what in doubt is presenting here and we also understand that these are maximum numbers. But I think
it's pretty safe to say that it's sobering to see these numbers and being asked to approve these every
year kind of makes us talk a little bit at the TAC level about just overall goals and safety and
I think, ideally, we at the TAC would like to see a zero fatality rate. And that's something that, although,
again, this is constrained by NDOT, and this is, you know, they have their own limitations here as well.
And they're certainly looking at safety as a priority. But I think we felt comfortable in saying that,
you know, we could accept these numbers.
We'd like to put a asterisk or disclaimer or however we wanted to note that here that we should have
zero. And so really kind of the crash targets and fatalities really should be that that should be the
target. So T.A.C. came up with some some draft language and we'd like to offer that as maybe some good
language to have here at the policy committee as well.
like to add to the Indiana fatality crash profile from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty five fatalities
predominantly on rural in rural sections predominantly on local routes predominantly they involve roadway
departure. In other words the vehicle went airborne which indicates excessive speed. They typically
are a younger driver somewhere under the age of 26.
And also it also involves passenger vehicles not commercial vehicles the typical serious injury for
the same crash profile for twenty twenty one twenty twenty five predominantly urban again local routes
predominantly turning or ankle movements and roadway departures youngest drivers youngest drivers meaning
somebody under the age of 30 or so and typically passenger vehicles again.
So these are the Department of Transportation has a limitation on what they can do with the state route
if the issues are on a local level. And the city of Bloomington has an adopted division zero goal which
was in the safe roads and streets for all plan adopted in December of twenty twenty four. State of Indiana
does not have a vision zero but they have a goal towards zero quote unquote
which is used by somewhere around 22 to 25 different states. Nate would you like to share the proposed
language from the T.A.C. And I think you just had it up there. There we go. Right here is disclaimer.
You want me to read it Hopi. Well I think that it would be good maybe to read it and yes just in case
somebody watching this afterwards that doesn't have access to the screen fatalities and serious injuries
that result from crashes on public streets can and should be prevented. The TAC believes that zero fatalities
and zero serious injuries is a more appropriate goal or target for in dot and MPOs to pursue.
However, the TAC understands that in dot safety target declaration numbers are intended to convey only
an incremental change towards safer streets and not an ultimate goal. Furthermore, the TAC understands
that these safety performance targets primarily affect distribution of federal funding and would not
be used to justify fatal or serious injury crashes as acceptable.
As such the TAC recommends that the MPO policy committee approve the in dot safety performance targets.
Thank you. Are there other comments or questions or follow ups to that. Mr Seymour I just I.
I appreciate the more detailed presentation. I know every year like Mr. Nickle presented this is an
awkward topic to be reviewing and discussing. I think in the past in my mind ideally I appreciate MPO
staff are presenting this. Ultimately this is coming from in that though and in my ideal world in that
somebody from in that safety would be here presenting this. So maybe we could get more into the in-depth
questions. But this is me just leading to maybe an observation that I'm having
A part of me wishes, of course, for a better or more reduction in these types of crashes, but as you
see in these charts over time, INDOT's numbers are incrementally changing over the years, and it does
become relatively significant, and so while their goals continue to decrease, the observation I have
is that the actual numbers are not, and so the discrepancy continues to grow,
And so I appreciate that their goals and targets are decreasing, but the observation I'm having and
just wanting to reflect on is that the actual crashes are not. And so just ultimately my question to
INDOT or to others is, what are we going to do to try to actually achieve these goals? And that is more
just not something directed to anybody at this meeting.
Thank you. Any other thoughts on this? Did we lose Lisa online? No, I just got her out of the way. OK,
that's fine. I just wanted to I just wanted to make sure if she had a hand up for anything that I was
acknowledging her. I have kind of a similar comment that I'll go ahead and make based on Mr. Seaborg's
comment that I
What I heard you say was that in that was meeting their targets in 22 23 24 et cetera based on the baseline.
But what I see in the chart above that of the five year rolling average fatalities and serious injuries
the not only are the numbers increasing overall but the rate of serious injury is also increasing as
is the rate of fatality based on volume.
So I was a little confused at how they could actually be meeting their targets if their overall rates
are actually increasing not decreasing under the current legislation. They must meet their targets 22
23 24 25 and 26. They've met the targets in two out of the four years so far.
We have a five year period here currently right now. They met the targets in two of the years and the
jury is still out for calendar year twenty twenty six. The fatality rate the fatalities have actually
gone down. The serious injuries have gone up and going back to what I'd previously said this isn't the
Indiana Department of Transportation. They're happening on a local level.
outside of the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation. So if they fail to meet three out of
the five years they fail to meet three out of the five years there'll be a reassignment of funding to
Highway Safety Improvement Program projects won't be any net loss of funding but it'll be a reassignment
to HSIP type projects.
You know in in dot has only a certain amount of control over this because it's the entire state. But
if if the issues the fatalities are happening on the local level and serious injuries are happening
on the local level I'm not sure what can be done on that with respect to that other than shifting additional
safety funds to a local level. I hope that answers your question. Well no I guess I'm still a little
confused because
Mean we have a couple different charts here one is the actual year-over-year data and one is the five-year
rolling average data and so I'm looking at the at the rolling average data and Not Like seeing decreases
particularly but the individual years sometimes there are decreases and sometimes there are increases
so is it that I
Decide that compliance. We're looking at the single year. No, we're looking at For compliance, it would
be calendar baseline. The baseline is calendar year 2021 Okay, so it is looking at the yeah the last
year the last chart Yeah, the baseline is calendar year 2021
So the real target years are twenty two twenty three twenty four twenty five. Okay. As individual years.
Yes. Okay. Okay. As individual years and then that will be thrown into a rolling average. Okay. Once
those are over with the rolling average could be somewhat confusing in that you could conflate that
with current and it's it's really to just show performance more than anything else over time.
And again that definition of what's a serious injury has been fungible over the last three times three
times it's been fungible ever since 2014 Mr. Horn You mentioned that a portion of these statistics fall
within a local
jurisdiction outside of the state's control Do we know in our MPO district how we are contributing to
that? That sub statistic of local numbers Yes, we've got that data. I don't are we helpful or hurtful
Well fatalities are extremely rare
So it's almost like a lightning bolt coming down as an act of God. That's that's good news. So however
we investigate all of those aggressively immediately to examine is there a causal factor there that
in the road performance or operation or whatever serious injuries. I believe those are down but I don't
have I mean that's something we don't have at our fingertips right now.
But but that's something that that has a body and as participants various entities can work on yes to
to help meet the goals as Suggested by the technical advisory committee Yeah, I I know the city this
county in the city Have been very aggressive whether the balance of some of the other counties
and communities in Indiana which have
what I would call fiscal challenges or professional service challenges. In other words they don't have
the engineering staff. That's a different story particularly in the rural areas urban areas. It's it's
very aggressive. That's really helpful. Thank you. I don't know if you were here a couple of meetings
ago. We provided some some crash data. I missed me. I did miss me.
It's showing up here, but it's also linked on our website. If you wanna go to the crash data page, there's
a memo where you can see, or look in the previous packet, you can see the summary of 2025 crash data,
as well as some of the past trends. Fatalities have increased. However, within our, the MPO area,
Where did it go. Okay so 10 out of the 14 total crashes in 2025 that resulted in a fatal war within
the MPOs metropolitan planning area.
43 out of 62 of the total crashes resulting in serious injuries were within the metropolitan planning
area Thank you, I also did actually Let me just add one thing somebody did mention at that meeting they
requested that we break that down by State Road by owner of the road
in particular local versus state because that is very relevant information as well. So we hope to provide
more information in the future. But if you want to take a look at this memo it's got some interesting
things in it. Thank you. I also like I was reading through this going didn't we already do this this
year. And maybe it was this year or maybe it was last year. But I recalled that there were a couple
of meetings that we got significant data
And that was all earlier this year. Great. There was a meeting over in McCloskey that there was a lot
of data presented that around our own crashes and I'm just going to express gratitude right now to our
staff who got that together to be able to detail that. It's not just this packet there was a there was
a whole nother packet I think that had additional information in it.
But to your point, Doug, I think the more specific tracking of our crash data would be essential for
determining tip funding in the future. Yes. All right. Any other questions, comments? All right. So
at this stage,
I guess I'm looking for a motion of approval or I guess the other piece is if anybody wants to add in
any additional language similar to what the TAC added in to their recommendation for approval and what folks
thoughts are on that. I feel like I remember adding in language last time we did this, and I can't quite
remember exactly what it was. I don't know if anybody else has a better memory than I do. I do have
that. I can bring it up in a minute if you want. I think that that would be great. You have the language
that we kind of like added in last time.
Last time last year we said I moved to approve the state's targets as presented and strive locally to
exceed these targets. Over the next year I moved that the NPO pursue planning area goals related to
serious injury and fatality crashes to work toward a goal of zero serious injury and fatal crashes.
And when was that.
January of this year. Okay, I thought that it was this year. I'm like am I imagining that was like this
year's been really long Okay, and we're already doing this again. Are we just ahead this year or were
we behind last year way ahead? What we're way ahead this year. Okay, we have It's mandatory that we
we adopt these by February of every year and it depends on what the workload is and when they get us
the numbers the numbers were
what I call modified last year. They gave us the numbers in August of last year. They always give us
the numbers in August and then sometimes they modify them sometimes they don't. And we're taking the
well we're taking the guess that they're not going to modify them this year. So we're talking to them
now in August and therefore we don't have to wait until January February for adoption. OK. OK. So we're
still kind of within that.
over the next year pursuing toward area goals and it sounds like you guys are continuing to do that.
Yes. Great. Thank you. So do we have any kind of a motion around this resolution. Don't everybody talk at once.
I taught high schoolers so I can just sit here for a while. We are ahead on this right now. We could
also motion to postpone continuation of this until next month if we want to consider our options on
what kind of emotion we would like to have this year. I'd also be open to that sort of emotion.
And I just remembered that while you all are thinking about that we can go to public comment. There
is still no public commenters in the room but if we still have the member of the public online if they
would like to comment at all on resolution 20 27 0 2 regarding the Indiana Department of Transportation
safety performance targets now would be the moment that they can raise their hand. Do we have a hand raised.
hoping maybe that would give you guys more time to think about what kind of motion but We are back to
Mr. Seaborg, I'm I'm probably like everybody struggling with this a part of me feels I want to say I
don't know how much what we say if we add anything it will make a meaningful difference, so I'm just
and and I ultimately reflecting that our
CAC and TAC ultimately did recommend that we support this So I'm going to make a motion to do that I
also if somebody feels Strong opinions. Otherwise, like it could be deferred We could add an extra therefore
statement if somebody wanted to develop that for a future meeting, but just for the sake of time
And for discussion purposes I move the MPO resolution FY 20 27-02 adoption I move approval of this state
of Indiana DOT calendar year 20 27 safety performance targets Thank you, is there a second I'll second
Okay, I'll give that second to mr. Horne I guess I
So there's a motion and a second on the table to adopt as is. So this is the moment if somebody would
like to potentially add an extra clause or whatnot. This is the moment where you should speak to that.
Otherwise we'll do a vote. This might be an opportunity we could potentially even if we feel like this
would be appropriate we could just literally take the TAC
language and basically include this with our adoption if everyone feels comfortable with that I'm not
sure how it would how it would float with the state to just take the exact language because it specifically
says TAC in there and if we do want to take some language I guess like I would personally prefer given the time
To postpone this until next month and then actually come prepared with Similar language to the TAC if
that's what is desired Can there be a straw poll right now like how many people would desire that versus
just doing the straight approval because we have to do this vote I don't want to lose quorum right now
I made the motion
Would welcome tabling it or potentially even just adding this as one of the therefore statements and
replacing the term TAC with BMC MPO policy committee And including that within this I don't have a strong
enough, but I'm open to any and all of those things If that's the only thing holding us back as to language,
I think we're all in agreement the
The intent here so we can maybe wordsmith this quickly and if everyone feels comfortable with the language
we can proceed if not, I don't think we're under a time crunch. So if we did punt this the next month,
I don't think that's a concern. Okay, I just saw Katie is making some quick amendments on the fly. It now reads
Fatalities and serious injuries that result from crashes on public streets can and should be prevented
the BMC MPO policy committee believes that zero Fatalities and zero serious injuries is a more appropriate
goal or target for in dot and MPOs to pursue However, the BMC MPO policy committee understands that
in dot safety target declaration numbers are intended to convey only an incremental change towards safer
streets and not an ultimate goal furthermore the BMC
MPO Policy Committee understands that these safety performance targets primarily affect distribution
of federal funding and would not be used to justify fatal or serious injury crashes crashes as acceptable
as such the BMC MPO Policy Committee approves the in dot safety. Can we scroll up? In dot safety performance
targets calendar year
calendar year 2027 in dot safety performance targets, mr. Seabor would you receive that as a friendly
amendment to your original amendment to Approve I I do is that it would be an additional therefore statement
within the resolution Is that a good enough motion for staff? Mr. Horne, you seconded that. Yes. Okay.
Wonderful. Are there any comments around this? I
Great let's go ahead and vote then on resolution twenty twenty seven oh two as mended through the statement
that I just read which is the TAC statement slightly modified for the for our body. We please call the
vote. Seaborg. Yes. Horn. Yes. Stasberg. Yes. Bannock. Yes. Ridge. Yes.
Yes. Kennedy. Yes. Ferris. Yes. Wellings. Motion passes. Great. Thank you so much. That wraps up new
business. We are on to public comment. That member of the public is still online. Now is the moment
for you to raise your hand and have some minutes to speak on something that was not on the agenda.
Has a hand been raised. OK. Moving on then communications from committee members on non voting matters
not included on the agenda. Does anybody have anything. Seeing none upcoming meetings we have the
Technical Advisory Committee meeting on August 26th at 10 a.m We have the Citizens Advisory Committee
meeting also meeting that same day at 5 30 p.m And then our next policy committee meeting is August
28th at 10 30 and if there are no other announcements We are adjourned. Thank you