- Okay, we're good to go. This meeting will come to order. This is a planning session of the
- City of Bloomington Transportation Commission. Is there someone here to call the roll? I can call the
- roll if you would. All right. One second. All right. Coppock? Here. Connell? Here.
- Binder? Present. Bolin? Here. Dromey? Here. And Stostberg? Here. So we have quorum. The sole item on
- today's agenda is discussion of the Kinzer Madison Rogers corridor study presented by the City and Tool
- Design. Who will be presenting? So Tool Design will be presenting. I will give a short overview before
- I hand it off to
- Could you identify yourself first? Yes, I am Hank Duncan, State Street Program Manager for the City
- of Bloomington. I brought some friends with me today from Tool Design. We are kicking off workshop week
- for the Rogers Madison and Kinsey Corridor Study. Just so everyone knows, listening and hear, we have
- a number of public outreach events throughout the week, some scheduled, some unscheduled. The scheduled
- events that you all should know about are one,
- There is a public workshop Wednesday from 530 to 730 at Switchyard Park. That will be a more expansive
- version of what we're about to do, where we take up role plots and we look at the map and all sections
- of the corridor and figure out what's working, what's not working, what you all would like to see. And
- just to be clear, this meeting functions as, or this body is functioning as the steering committee for
- this project, can you explain briefly the significance of a steering committee? Correct. So as the city,
- this is a city project, as the city moves along in the study, we want to make sure that whatever decisions
- are made are representative of the city. And so this transportation commission, which also serves as
- the steering committee for the study,
- is a representation of the different transportation interests around the community. And so as we progress
- in the study, we want to make sure, we want to hear from you all how we're doing. We want you to push
- us in directions that we might not push ourselves in. We want your feedback and questions as we move
- forward. So once this study reaches a point to reach formal transportation commission review,
- us as the steering committee and us as city staff both feel comfortable in where we landed on this project.
- Very good. With that, if you can begin the presentation. Sure. I will talk about one more event before
- we begin the presentation. We also have stroll and discuss events. Those are essentially strolls along
- the corridor to provide on-site feedback about the existing conditions. What are you feeling? What are
- you seeing?
- How can those be changed if needed? One of those is tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning at 1030 in the
- morning. We will be meeting outside of the mill, which is just beyond City Hall, just north of City
- Hall. We will be traveling the more downtown stretch of the corridor from 11th to 3rd Street and then
- Wednesday at
- 1 30 p.m. We will be meeting at the corner of 17th and Kinzer by the Marathon gas station and we will
- be strolling across the or along the northern section of the corridor on Kinzer Pike up to the bypass
- and back. And as you can see on the screen there are a number of pop-up events those are unscheduled
- events to the public so we can attract more than just
- the folks who want to come to public meetings, the folks who have the time to participate in strolls.
- Those are the street users along the corridor that a lot of the times don't, that aren't able to provide
- feedback in these studies. We want to make sure that they are able to provide feedback. So with that,
- with that said, I will turn it over to Drew Parker, who is the actual design project manager who will
- present us through this meeting.
- Hey, everybody. Nice to see you. My name is Drew Parker. I'm a senior planner with Tool Design. I'm
- here from Ann Arbor. And I'm the consultant project manager for this study. I'm also here joined by
- a bunch of my colleagues, so Paul Lippins over here, Kishana over here, Joe, and Waleed. So we're all
- going to be here all week doing a lot of different things, working with the city to come up with concept
- ideas. But yeah, like Hank said, we really want to hear from you, and we want to hear from members of
- the public what their concerns are. And then we'll take that and directly filter it into what we look
- at for actual designs for the corridor.
- So I've just pulled that up to help Hank kind of talk through some of those events. That'd be helpful
- to see that visually. The majority of what we wanted to do today was to actually just look at these
- role plots and get your feedback on issues that you've experienced in the corridor, things you've heard
- from folks to kind of understand more about existing conditions. I think we talked a little bit about
- this last time at Transmission Commission, but we only kind of briefly got into it when we were giving
- an existing conditions presentation. So we brought these
- aerial roll plots of the whole project extent so we can kind of look at it and talk about it like all
- the way from the north end bypass down to Country Club. Is a roll plot just a roll of paper? Or is it
- some fancier term? Yeah, sorry, a roll plot is a roll. When you think of it as like a narrow, long print
- plot, usually it has an aerial on it. It's a plot map you have to roll up? Exactly, yep. It usually
- has aerial imagery
- of a city or street. And like this one has parcel boundaries as well. So you can see where houses are,
- different parts of the city, where city hall is, the beeline. So it helps us see context. And yeah,
- we can use it as a conversation piece to talk about issues at specific locations. So that's the main
- activity that we wanted to have for the meeting tonight. Just as a reminder, this is our overall
- project schedule. So there's the things in red are the things that the project team is doing. That's
- the city and the consultant team. So we've done data collection. We've done corridor analysis. We've
- created the vision and goals. We talked about that with you all last time. We're now in workshop week,
- which is where we collect even more feedback, existing additions to understand everything we need to
- know to move to alternatives development. And then ultimately we move to concept design.
- and a final corridor study that makes a recommendation. It might hurt to remind us what vision and goals
- we agreed to just briefly. Yes. At a high level, and Hank, feel free to jump in if you want to, but
- at a high level, the vision, because this is a safe streets for all project, the vision is zero fatal
- and serious injury crashes on the corridor. And then the goals break down from there further. I do have
- some design objectives in this presentation I can show for some more specificity.
- Thank you. So this is our second Transpation Commission meeting. We'll have a couple more tentatively
- looking at May or July for those next ones. How many total in this process? Four is what we're planning
- and less in addition. That'll be typical for any kind of corridor study is four. I don't want to say
- typical for a corridor study because all corridor studies are a little bit different. But in terms of
- where we are going on this one, we feel that four is enough. Okay, thank you.
- Concurrent with workshop week, there's also an online survey that's open on the website so people can
- provide their feedback on the corridor digitally. But we also want to go to people where they're at
- and get ideas from people in person. So that's why we're here. And it's just helpful to all be together
- and really understand intensely for a week what's going on on this street. Earlier today, Hank took
- us on a walk, a long walk of the corridor.
- a great, I'm not, it was a great long walk. He took us, he took us here from City Hall down to Patterson,
- and then we walked all the way up to 17th, right, and then on both sides of the street. So we got to
- see a pretty big stretch of the corridor, which is nice. So it's to help us understand a little bit
- better what's going on on the street today. And then just lastly, after workshop week, there will be
- website updates for the public. So there's not gonna be like another big outreach event, but there'll be
- updates about what's going on, what we're finding, and what the proposed concepts are. Okay, so I had
- this up when Hank was talking, just to give you a sense, like he was saying, the three blue things are
- the two transportation commissions to roll and discuss on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I think Hank
- also mentioned there's a public workshop, a big open house that anybody from the public is invited to
- from 5.30 to 7.30 on Wednesday at Switchyard Park.
- I also wanted to mention we have some internal city design workshops where we get to sit down with city
- staff and work with them on concepts and hear what they've been hearing over the years about this corridor
- and issues that they'd like to solve. So we're really here to listen this week. All right. So what we'd
- like to do, and we talked about this a little bit last week, this is actually an idea with one of the
- commissioners. Although I believe she's not here today, but she asked if we could weigh the different
- design objectives.
- So we have eight design objectives. There's four on this side, but there'll be four on the next slide.
- And hopefully it works on Hank's computer. If it doesn't, I'll pull it up on my computer. We have a
- Mentimeter, which is an online survey. We'll ask you to weigh these different design objectives from
- lower priority to higher priority. So if you have a phone or computer with you, that'll be helpful at
- that point. It's kind of just a straw poll to get a sense for which you think are the most important
- design objectives.
- So as a reminder, we have eight design objectives. The first reflect community values and corridor identity
- that you can read on the screen. There's a little bit more detail. Each one has kind of a more detailed
- explanation. But I'll just read the headers for starters. Advanced safety through proven street design.
- Create a context-sensitive street that calms traffic and build a continuous multi-modal corridor for
- all users. So that's the first four.
- We also want to ensure universal accessibility and comfort, support redevelopment and local economic
- vitality. We know there's redevelopment happening on the corridor, so we want to make sure that the
- street design is supporting that. Strengthen connections to key destinations in the city-wide network,
- so understand how the street works overall in the city-wide network. And then support safe routes to
- school. There's a number of schools along the corridor right within a few blocks of the corridor, so
- we know that there are
- lots of students who are walking and biking to school. So those are the eight design objectives.
- And really, the way we think of design objectives is that any concepts that we come up with need to
- meet these objectives. And so that's like an evaluation criteria by which we decide whether or not the
- designs we're creating are successful. So what I would like to do is a metameter activity to have you
- weigh these, I think,
- it might not work on Hank's computer so I might have to pull it up on my computer. Let me do that real
- quick. I'll pull up these again if you want to read through those for a second. I'll pull it up. Okay.
- Sorry for the delay there. Okay. So if you have
- phone with you or computer, if you go to menti.com. Once you go to that website, it's gonna ask you
- for a code, and there's a code at the top of the screen, which is 91917664. And what you'll see is we
- have all eight of those design objectives loaded in there, and you can rank the priority from lower
- to higher priority from a scale of one to 10.
- And once you bring to all eight, then you can submit. And we'll see those pop up live on the screen
- once you submit. Does anyone have any questions about how to get on to Menti Mentimeter? The code is 91917664.
- Number two and number eight, advanced safety through proven street design in support of safe houses
- at school are the highest rankings so far. Followed by number four, build a continuous multimodal corridor
- for all users.
- changed it but looks very similar. Does anybody feel like yes I totally agree with this or someone feel
- like I'm one of these
- did totally disagree with how it was weighted or? Anybody from the commission want to weigh in? I'll
- just say that I see a lot of these as complimentary. The Venn diagram in my mind is a lot of overlap
- between several of these. Safe routes to school, universal accessibility,
- Traffic calming, safety, I mean, those are all, to me, rolled into the same general idea. So I ranked
- both. I'll just transparently say I ranked most of these fairly highly. I suspect that number one's
- somewhat low scoring result is maybe a reflection of people disagreeing about what community values
- or corridor identity actually means.
- Anybody else? Yeah, I would just dovetail on the community values and corridor identity. What exactly
- does that mean? I'm being serious. Yeah, I think... Sounds good. Yeah, I can pull up exactly what we
- said, or I don't know if we want to pull it up on the PowerPoint, sure. But I understand, yeah, it's
- a little bit ambiguous. I think what we were thinking is it's more like
- the design of the street and streetscaping and how it looks. Okay, sorry. So this one is actually more,
- there's a couple different things there, but informed by community input and lived experience, responding
- to local concerns, reinforcing neighborhood character and advancing a shared vision for the quarter's
- future. So it's more about does the street
- meet the needs of people who live near or along the street, or more broadly in the community, what they
- want for the street. So I guess that one is actually more about process in some ways than outcomes.
- Thank you. I know that the high school is to the north. Does someone remind us what other schools that
- would use this corridor for safety? Sure. Fairview, lots of schools.
- So you have, just going from north to south here, you have Bloomington North High School, like you mentioned.
- You have Tri-North Middle School off of 17th Monroe Street, so about less than a half mile west of the
- corridor. You have Fairview Elementary on the corridor at Rogers and 7th, Rogers and 8th. You have the
- Project School, which is off of Walnut and Smith. And then further south, you have
- Monroe County Adult Education, which is where Broadview Elementary used to be. On the southern end of
- the corridor, near, I forget the exact street, but I think Coolidge maybe is what it is, or Graham.
- About a quarter mile west of the corridor. Those are the main ones I can think of. And Summit is not,
- it's like up the hill from. And Summit's in the area too, yeah. In the area, okay, there's really a
- lot. Bachelor Middle School. I might have, yeah, ranked it, I ranked it high, but I might have ranked
- it even higher if that was a full inventory.
- it begs the question of to what extent is a corridor so long really unified? I mean, it's very different
- functions in different places. I mean, the roll-up maps here aren't even really that much of the corridor
- that we're talking about, right? So the maps, I believe, are the full corridor. Yeah, they're the whole
- corridor from Country Club to Bypass. So I think down here, yeah.
- Country Club up to, I can't quite see from here. Nevertheless, it's very different functions in different
- places. Absolutely. Anybody else? Did we just get these? Is this the first time we're seeing these design
- objectives that you've created? They were presented at the previous meeting. OK. Because as others have
- said, it's
- They overlap, and it's hard to really vote on them when they're complicated ideas. I mean, I voted five
- for everything because I couldn't, I didn't have really time to process it, so my vote wasn't very useful.
- But I hope that you don't take, you don't put too much stock into this initial vote. No, this is more
- of a, I think, kind of a straw poll.
- until you know right now in the room what people are thinking. Are you planning to edit the objectives?
- We can. Yeah, we asked for feedback at the previous meeting if anybody wanted to change anything about
- the vision statement, the goals, or the design objectives. OK, sure. So we're still taking feedback.
- Can I offer a little context? Yeah, for sure. I think it's good to see that these are kind of all prioritized
- to some extent and that there is overlap. The purpose for design objectives in a study like this
- is that we can look back, as Drew said, through a lens and say, are all of these being met? So we're
- not creating design objectives with the idea that we're going to do three of these, but not the other
- five. We want to achieve all of these through a quarter in design. So I think what we're doing here,
- even in this exercise, is validating that these are all important. And to a certain extent, looking,
- is there a need to maybe refine some language a bit, but also is there anything that we're missing?
- So the feedback that we get from you on kind of how your impressions are, whether these are achieving
- the things that you want to see done on the corridor, that's where we would take it back and revise
- it. But really what we want to make sure is that we're able to do all of these things, and then when
- we create a series of recommendations for the corridor, that all of these objectives will be met through
- the design. Is that helpful?
- Yeah, I mean, yeah, for now, that's fine. Thank you. OK. Any other feedback or thoughts on design objectives
- at this time? No. Go ahead. OK.
- Well, the last thing we wanted to do, the third thing we wanted to do is to get up and look at the robots
- in the corridor and take any specific location feedback, knowing that you all can come to the events
- whenever you like. But we figured since we have the time, we can take a look at it. And if people have
- specific thoughts or feedback, we can just take notes on it right now. Do you want to guide us through, I mean,
- Yeah, we can start, does anyone have a preference if we start on the southern end of the corridor or
- the northern end? Do you have it where you put up on the screen? All right. We can put a map up there,
- yeah. I think that would be useful. That would be helpful. Yeah. You want to put maybe like, or do you
- want me to pull up the... You can just put Google Maps up. Just look at Street View. Yeah. We also have,
- I can pull up the presentation from the last meeting, which had maps, if that's helpful. Yeah, go for it.
- And if we need to, Google Maps will be ready.
- I'm asking a question not because I have any grand plans, but just a curiosity question. Is, at this
- point of the process, is basically anything on the table optional? I mean, if it's determined that we're
- going to put an interstate highway through this corridor, that could be... I mean, I'm sure that would
- maybe struggle with the vision. It might be safer, but no means that, like, right now we're just talking
- about anything that's possible. Right now we're talking about anything that's possible.
- Once we get down to it, once we hear the feedback from not just this commission, but from the public
- and the stakeholders, then we can begin narrowing down and focusing on what are the priorities, what
- aligns best with the vision, the goals, the objectives. But right now, we are not looking at constraints.
- We are looking at what you are experiencing on the corridor, what you would like to see long term in
- the corridor, and how we can help.
- So here's a map up on screen, too, if that's more helpful, just to show the extents and kind of the
- major intersections. So the project's extents are from Country Club Drive up to the backhouse. And you
- can see some of the more major streets labeled there. I'll just say something, because nobody else is
- saying anything. I really hope that one of the outcomes of this is that,
- You know, not just Rogers as a corridor is considered, but that east-west crossings of Rogers improve
- across the board because I find it difficult to cross Rogers in a lot of places. And that doesn't have
- much to do with traveling on Rogers itself, but it has to do with
- I mean, obviously, the design of Rogers, the street factors into that. But I could point to any number
- of places where they're either not crosswalks or poor visibility or high speeds, high traffic speeds,
- things like that that I really hope are improved by this project.
- And if you want, I'm happy to circle probably half a dozen of them on these roll blocks. And Erwan,
- you mentioned last meeting specifically at that Howe and Rogers cross. You mentioned that Howe and Rogers
- intersection. Yeah, I live on Howe. And so I cross there at least once or twice per day. And I mean,
- if you want, I can point that out. Yes. Right here.
- This is a fairly problematic, especially because one thing you don't see on the old plots is elevation.
- If you're not familiar with the topography of this neighborhood, could you look at this and say that
- you know where the hills are? I don't think you could. So that's maybe another thing I would encourage
- the tool team to look at. In cases where there's a lot of uphill, downhill, that kind of thing,
- Now, how to deal with that and the core visibility sometimes that's introduced by that. Going off of
- that for a second, when we were on our walk today, we were talking about how there's an upcoming resurfacing
- project. So the city was awarded a community crossings grant to resurface a couple of areas of the city.
- A couple of areas that were chosen were on Roger Street along this corridor area. And this is an imminent project.
- Right now, a question that we have for you all in the public that we'll be talking about this week is
- within this Repaving Project, it's not just repaving. It can also be crosswalk improvements. It can
- also be striped bike lengths, things like that. And so in that area that you're talking about, specifically
- between Second and Third Street, where right now you have two travel lanes and on-street parking that's
- not highly utilized, would we rather
- promote safer east-west crossings across the corridor or promote safer bike facilities along the corridor,
- which would probably be striped bike lanes or for across the corridor, pedestrian refuge islands, curb
- extensions, et cetera. Is that an either-or choice? I don't know why that's mutually exclusive. So for
- a short term, it is an either-or choice with the street width that we have. With the long-term vision
- of the study, then we can start looking at a yes-and.
- But if we're talking about a repaving project in 2026, then we do not, this repaving project is more
- maintenance than street widening and construction. Are you asking us to meaningfully weigh in on this
- idea? Yes. Absolutely. Well, Hank, I feel like the scope of this discussion is the long-term future
- of this corridor. Yes. And I appreciate that
- Obviously, there's a lot of moving parts to this and there's a repaving project scheduled for a few
- blocks of it this summer. But in my mind, that is almost a completely separate discussion from this.
- I mean, I don't know. In my mind, paint on the street is not really the kind of outcome I would expect
- from a long-term, you know,
- expensive project. So yeah, I mean, if the city wants to paint some lines on the ground, that's fine,
- but. Yeah, I mean, as a cyclist, I find ways to avoid riding on Rogers, but I do cross it at a number
- of locations. We heard it from a member of the public, Tim Clower. Seventh and Rogers was his concern.
- Sixth and Rogers, I think is what he specified.
- has a crosswalk, I think, because it's right in front. And it's an always stop. So it's pretty
- straightforward to cross here. But 6th Street, there's no north-south traffic control, nor is there
- a crosswalk. That's another one that I would circle. It's a little far away for me to circle, I think,
- but maybe Hank can do it. So there's a lot of crossings like that that are between intersections that
- have either
- you know, always stop control or traffic signalization or something that people still want to cross
- there, especially, you know, if it's a less busy street. That's the irony is the less busy streets are,
- you know, like how or six, they're very pleasant to walk or bike on because they're low traffic, but
- they also don't get their own safe crossings of Rogers. So it's the busier streets like second,
- or 7th Street that have more easy ways to cross. But then, you know, there's generally fewer people
- walking and cycling on those streets. There's got to be a term for that idea that was first put to me
- many years ago when I was in college. They were talking about building a new student union. And vice
- president of facilities said something like, if you give the students something nice, they'll treat
- it nice. If you give them a bus station, they'll treat it like a bus station.
- In the same way, if we give people crossings, you're going to see more traffic there, and then you can
- see there's demand. If it's not there, then how would you know? I'm always reading ignorant social media
- posts here saying, why are we putting so much stuff up for bikes? The answer is, if you don't put it
- up for bikes, you're never going to see bicyclists. So it has to be comfortable enough for them to show.
- So I'm not sure what we're like, are we trying to make
- intersections that are more comfortable for pedestrians and bicyclists, or are we trying to identify
- those intersections that we think are already safe and that maybe we want to emulate that? I would say
- that that's both. That is both. Where you absolutely see, you know, look at the City of Bloomington's
- transportation plan, where there are prescribed neighborhood greenways. Those are the low-stress, low-volume
- streets that you're talking about.
- but many of the greenways across this corridor, the city has not actually done anything infrastructure-wise
- to improve it for pedestrians or cyclists. So those are the intersections you're talking about where
- maybe we don't see that amount, that high volume of bike-ped traffic across it because right now it's
- not that safe. Whereas at, say, 3rd Street or Rockport or 17th, one of the major signalized intersections,
- we know we are going to see
- a number of users regardless of transportation mode, and we can also improve it for them. I have a personal
- focus on intersections that are truly multimodal. Like I don't worry about Rogers and Howe, for example,
- because it's already relatively safe, although there are issues there. I'm more concerned about
- an intersection like
- where the seven line crosses Walden and College, I want that high visibility of pedestrian and bicycle
- infrastructure so that motor vehicle users get accustomed to it. Do you have any examples like that
- along the corridor? On Rogers? I think that 17th is just a very important intersection to get right.
- It's very busy, it's very high traffic, it's got the new
- side paths that were a big help, and it has the real potential to be an example throughout the city
- of what good design should be. 17th and Madison, isn't it? Can we rename all the streets to one, please?
- I just don't know why. What's that? It is. So Steve,
- 17th and Madison is a great example. That's an intersection that was redone in the last handful of years
- in the last three years Is there something about that intersection that isn't right now or something
- that we could do better in the long term? I guess maybe I was thinking that
- I mean, I don't recall what bicycle infrastructure specifically at that intersection. Right now, you
- have that side path you're mentioning on the north side of the intersection on 17th crossing. And then
- for Madison and Kinzer, you have either a striped bike lane for the southbound traffic at Kinzer or
- a Sharos for the rest. It's nothing low stress. I'm not a fan of Sharos at that intersection.
- a pretty high speed intersection relative to other ones. People in cars are about to go higher speed
- in at least three directions there, if they're not already going at a much higher speed than is comfortable
- for bicyclists. So short of more hardened infrastructure for bicycles, I still think that that's important
- that we see that we're giving something like fairer, more explicit right of way to non-cars. But that's
- just one. I'll think about it. I'm not sure if this is another intersection. That's as big as that country
- club, maybe. I don't know. Here's another one that comes to mind for me, which is,
- This one is particularly crazy to me. When the city was designing Switchyard Park, which is this, there
- was originally a crossing. Sorry, Steve, I'm going to displace you here. There was a crossing depicted
- on all of the designs right here between the side path on Rogers and this path leading to the entrance
- of Switchyard Park. It was in the plan for the park, and it never got built.
- I'm just going to put a giant three question marks there because why wasn't it ever built? There's a
- side path on one side. There's a path leading to the park in the other. It's a perfectly logical spot
- for a crossing. And there's no crossing there. There should be a crossing there. There should also be
- a crossing where there's, I think, going to be a future path just to the south of the electrical substation.
- I believe there's going to be an electrical corridor
- like a high-voltage corridor path there, east-west. I don't know exactly the design details of that.
- There will be a raised crosswalk at that new intersection. Well, there should also be one at the end
- of the path, which I think, because first of all, there was supposed to be one to begin with, and it
- would also be silly not to put one there. I'll jump in with...
- Chins are in the bypass. I know that the state controls the bypass. We can talk about it. We also know
- it is one of our highest crash intersections. I have a parent of high school students there. And I'm
- surprised that every time I go through the intersection on foot, it feels like there's someone else
- crossing the road there. Even though it's an unpleasant crossing, I think there's a strong, there's
- a grocery store on one side and there's housing on the other. And people are walking across that despite
- Not only is it numerically dangerous, it feels uncomfortable to cross it. We know that the state has
- planned to move the pedestrian overpass, I think, by 2029. I think we have an opportunity to have a
- strong vision. Move it or remove it? It doesn't meet some standard that you have, because it's arched.
- But it's really a bridge to nowhere now, so there's an opportunity
- ask for it to be relocated to somewhere nearby to be more useful. I think it'd be more useful to have
- it at the Kinzer in the bypass. With the accessibility ramps, it would sort of go from Kroger's on one
- side to the gas station on the other. But there's an opportunity here. I would second that.
- I think that's, you know, just seeing pedestrians waiting across is frightening.
- Yeah. Yeah. They look for it. Yeah. Every time I'm like, yeah, this is. Having used it as a walker,
- you can have a truck blocking your view. The one with the super big trucks, and there's a car coming
- in fast wanting to turn, and they can't see you. So it's kind of harrowing. I want to mention a theme
- which has been brought up about
- Neighborhood greenways or low traffic streets crossing busy roads. As the transportation commission,
- someone has already been here to speak about being hit at the Covenanter Greenway crossing College Mall.
- And we have an upcoming item about someone hit at Longview crossing Smith. And I think it's an opportunity
- for the city to have standards for
- What's our level of service or quality that we provide when we have what we are telling people to use
- as a facility, low traffic 3, the greenway, but it's crossing a busy road? How do we continue that level
- of service of comfort from the greenway as they continue across these dangerous crossings? Because those
- are the places where people are coming because they've been sent to the hospital for using the facility
- that we told them to use.
- I mean, obviously, the drivers who blew through stop signs were at fault. But in terms of vision zero,
- right, we want to do what we need to do to, even when in the face of people not behaving well, we want
- to still share and have those services. OK, so we're trying to identify places that need attention.
- Yes. You all got some thoughts? More zoom out a little bit question.
- a quarter in the city that we, or even a small section where we think we've nailed it. Like this is
- the model. Or anywhere that, any other intersections that we might generally be familiar with. That's
- a really good question. That is a great question. And we've absolutely nailed it. I don't know. I think
- I have an answer. I honestly don't know. From a planning perspective, I mean, we certainly have our
- thoughts. I honestly don't know. The one that I think of first, but I can also think of
- a couple of flaws about it is the roundabout at High Street, Rogers, and Winslow, just north of the
- Goat Farm Park, where you have a multi-use trail on the east side of High, a multi-use trail on the
- north side of Rogers, and it leads into this wonderful park. It's right by Childs Elementary School.
- That said, it's not perfect. You have high-speed traffic coming down from the hill. You don't have raised
- crosswalks there.
- disconnect in multi-use paths going west up the hill on Winslow towards Sherwood Oaks area, so it's
- not perfect. That's the first one that comes to mind. I'll try to think of others. Yeah. It's a good
- example, though. I mean, it is better than it used to be. And for some reason, the way it's designed
- does make you pay more attention to the pedestrians and see them as they slow down. Having looked at
- a lot of crash data, the places where we have near-zero crashes are where you completely separate cars from
- pedestrians, like the middle of campus where there's not car traffic, the crash has dropped to zero.
- And D-Line is overall works great, but it's a separate facility. But is that necessarily good if it
- creates a whole lot more traffic on the outskirts by cutting off all the streets in the middle of the
- campus? I think it speaks to the idea of when you bring it back to a road contact, the protective facilities,
- the physical barriers.
- So I wanted to, or do you have a? Oh, I have lots more to say, but go ahead. I want to talk about roundabouts
- for a second since they came up. I mean, in 2011, the city council hijacked the budget over the proposal
- to build three roundabouts, Sarah Rogers, 17th and Arlington and Tapp Rockport. The engineer at the
- time was a drainage engineer and he was highway happy and all the roundabouts had double lanes.
- and they were meant to move cars, nothing but. Sierra and Rogers got built, and it got built as a double-lane
- roundabout, but since then, you all have reduced it to one lane, and it's working better. 17th and Arlington,
- to me, is another intersection that I think has succeeded beyond my expectations. As a roundabout, as
- an intersection, it's done quite well. And of course, we never built Tapp and Rockport because of the
- So I wanted to throw out 17 to Arlington as something that seems to get things right, at least we're
- around about it. But it also makes me think about the intersection of Rogers and Patterson. So ever
- since the RCA building came down, they stopped building stuff there. I mean, Patterson was built as
- a truck highway. And this intersection,
- has to me always seemed a bit too big. Now this is right near also where the bus garage is, but I also
- know there's a neighborhood right here. City Councilor lives a few houses up from here, and it's remarkable
- the difference and feeling of this block to this intersection right here. You got thoughts? Yeah, I
- was just thinking if you travel that corridor, it's like you come in and out of different
- you know, I don't know if I used the right word, but I mean, it's like, this section has a field and
- I'm not gonna go above three or four more blocks, it's gonna be completely different, you know, it feels
- like completely different than you're back into. So there's no continuity to, it just seems like you're
- in and out of different, and maybe that makes sense why it has 20 different names as you progress across.
- I don't know if that's part of, you know, but is there,
- Why is that? Why isn't there consistency in the naming of streets, particularly in a corridor that is
- continuous in the north-south direction? And you all might be able to help me out with this, but I believe
- at least one item. So Rogers at 11th Street, you have the bridge of the railroad that goes over to Madison.
- There used to be an old, rickety wooden bridge that went straight over to Rogers, and then they built
- the new bridge, I don't know,
- call it 30 years ago. So you do have a Roger Street north of the bridge. It is just not the connected
- Roger Street that we know. So it moved over a block to Madison. So that's why the name changes there.
- And then this is the one where I'm speculating here, but I believe Kinzer Pike used to be fully in the
- county. And so I'm assuming that at 17th Street, that was the city limits border. And so Kinzer Pike
- was a county road, got annexed, now it's a city road still called Kinzer Pike.
- I don't know if we can change it or not, but I want to get back to this intersection. I think
- this intersection, and frankly, it's fellow intersection at Walnut. It's a little bit better. It's a
- little bit tamer here. But I've noticed, especially as a car driver, that it does not feel friendly
- towards non-car users at all. It's big enough that I sometimes wonder
- What's the smallest roundabout you could put in there? Because there's so much space there, you might
- as well put a little roundabout in there. And when an intersection is so big that you think about putting
- a roundabout there, maybe it's too big. Well, just some history on that. So Second and Patterson there,
- Second Street was supposed to be all four lanes. Supposed to be four lanes. And so they built the
- the elusive east-west highway across the city. Yeah, so they built the intersection to the four-lane
- standard, and then they scrapped the idea of the four-lane section, which was from Rogers to out to
- I-69 and out. That's why it's so big, and it feels uncomfortable. It's funny, because I've had conversations
- with city engineering about the second street improvement project, which is
- coming up this summer. I think it's basically underway right now, the utility relocations and so forth.
- And I was hoping that the second street and Rogers intersection would be redesigned as part of that.
- I was told that, no, it's fine. So maybe we can do something in the scope of this project. I don't know.
- Effectively, this corridor is a legacy corridor of industry.
- The first color television and the last color television in America were manufactured on this corridor.
- And we haven't really, I mean, some industry has stayed here, but it's not as industrial as it used
- to be. We have Switchyard Park on it now, so there's a lot more non-industrial urban amenities
- it's a residential, it's no longer exclusively an industrial corridor, the roads don't reflect that.
- Again, this intersection is my favorite example of how, you know, what message is this intersection
- trying to convey, and it conveys I'm going to the RCA plant to, you know, build a TV set, or I'm going to,
- or whatever, it doesn't say, oh, yeah, you should walk your dog here or ride your bike here. So, I mean,
- if we did a snow test, will we see how much of the intersection is actually being used? Can we neck
- it down so that it's, you know, doesn't need to be that big anymore? So I'm going to put it big.
- We touched on this earlier, but back to the bridge across the CSX rail. You know, I think that's another
- case where it's a bit of a transition point. You know, there's a little bit of a different feeling between
- the Maple Heights neighborhood and then we come down into downtown. But it's also a funnel. You know,
- everything's got to use that bridge right there to cross over. The next crossing of the east isn't all
- the way until college.
- And then to the west, it's all the way over at Fairview. And there's the trestle and those tracks. Yeah.
- So I think there's a real opportunity there to improve the experience, I think, for everybody on that.
- It's actually Madison Street right there. Because I certainly don't find it pleasant
- walk along there. The bridge over the CSX track so that's between 11th and 13th Street or whatever.
- I hope that gets some attention too. The county owns that bridge as we established the last meeting
- though so that's something that the city would have to work with the county on I guess. Are you concerned
- about the height of the bridge? The bridge sort of
- like jumping over and going through it? I mean, Steve, there's no there's no separation from the sidewalk
- and traffic. There's a bike lane going one direction and a share going the other. Yeah, I don't I don't
- find it particularly, you know, pleasant in any respect to to use that that bridge. It's just it is
- kind of what it is. And it was probably designed in the 80s. And that's designed before
- small wood and that was the place to see downtown Bloomington driving over that bridge. What tiny skyline
- Bloomington had, you saw it from there until one big building got built and blocked it. That's all I
- remember about that bridge. Any other thoughts from commissioners since we're just kind of throwing
- stuff at the wall to see what sticks? Well, one thing you showed last meeting was the typical cross
- sections or whatever the sections
- for each segment of the project, that might be good to have some discussion on that. The districts,
- the contact zones you're talking about? Yeah, I think there were four of them. Let's find them.
- These ones? Yeah. Yeah. These ones? OK. And then there was actually, you showed, you had diagrams of
- what you thought four would be, would be bike paths on one side.
- We didn't propose typical cross-sections, yeah. I thought you had some picture. There were some pictures
- of something in there. We had an example of other cross-sections from other projects to say we would
- do it. That's after this week, that's what we'll do. We'll start sketching those ideas during this week.
- We haven't come up with those yet. But if you have an idea, take no ideas. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I just
- think it's going to have to fit the neighborhood.
- that's in there or whatever, so. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts about this intersection, the Sunoco?
- What is the, this is Rockport? It's Rockport Rogers. It's unusual. How did it, how did it happen that
- way? Rockport goes diagonally, I don't know. Where did, I mean, I mean, it just seems, I think,
- as when I, I don't use it often, it seems like a really good way for people that would even have to
- go out to Rockport, kind of no reason to slow down,
- you know, whips light, right? But if you're turning left over there, it's pretty high stress, I think.
- If you're turning left onto going north on Rogers, there's a lot of things going on. When I'm driving
- on Rockport, I'm always afraid someone's gonna like pull out right there, or if I'm going north on Rogers.
- And yet it's better than it used to be. Like there was an improvement made not too long ago. I mean,
- relatively recently, it's been a few years, but it used to be even more
- it wasn't a well-designed intersection at all. I think partly because of the design of the gas station
- too, like it was still kind of decrepit. But that's why I wanted to bring it up. Does anybody have any
- thoughts about the importance of this intersection? You guys should talk to the people that live in
- the Broadview neighborhood because they all have to use, they go through there all the time. Is there
- any non-intersection that
- people can think of anywhere along this corridor that really ought to get the attention of designers.
- Non-intersection, somewhere here that is distracting, or a place where people try to cross anyway, or...
- I don't drive on Rogers often, but when I leave my office to go to dermatologist center,
- I feel like I go to way more often than I should, but I always find it stressful, like when I drive,
- so I'll leave, go down 4th Street, take a left on Rogers, or 3rd Street, take a left on Rogers. I think
- you climb up that hill, is that, what's the name of it? Prospect Hill. Prospect Hill. I feel like it's
- the trees and the cars, and there's a boat that I've never, that's been parked there the entire time
- I've lifted this down. It just feels closed in, in a way that makes me feel like, is somebody gonna
- jump out or walk in it?
- walking out in front of me, it just seems high stress driving. I mean, and then you get in an open,
- as someone else has said, you drive down, if you drive this whole quarter, you go from, it's like walking
- through an amusement park. It's like, this is the neighborhood section, and this is the warehouse section.
- But it seems really, because of the topography and the trees, and the trees are kind of, if you look
- at Google Earth, it even like, or Google Street View,
- The trees seem to be crowded down into the street. Should there be some kind of a signal to drivers
- saying this is a place to slow down because people might pop out? Well, I say all that and then it's
- not like I don't feel like I see a lot of people walking around there. It just seems like it's hard.
- Visibility is limited. Maybe it's maybe sometimes it's a little faster there, although I mean it.
- It's tight, it feels tight. I'm a subscriber to the notion that jaywalking makes streets safer.
- So I don't have a problem with it being, if you're afraid that people might walk out, it means you drive
- slower. We have that and the deer to thank for it. They're everywhere and they don't pay attention to
- our rules. But do you think that there needs to be some kind of motorist design language that says you
- need to slow down here? I don't know if I thought about it enough. I think it's dark at night there.
- Yeah, it is dark.
- which could feel better. And I don't want it to feel better so I can go faster. I agree with you on
- that. I just don't know how to, I don't know the, I'm not an expert like you guys. That's why you guys
- can pay the big bucks. But it just seems, it just is an odd place. I always have found it to be a sensory
- overload area to drive through. That's a good example. Anybody else got a thought like that anywhere
- along this corridor?
- Similarly to that, in that same vicinity, I have noticed that going south on Rogers, drivers who want
- to turn left on the second street will sometimes just go past the queue of traffic in order to get into
- the left-hand turn lane. Wait, they're on second or they're on Rogers? On Rogers. Going south on Rogers,
- turning left on second street, so to go east.
- They'll just go the wrong way, on the wrong way, on the road, right, the wrong side of the road, briefly,
- to get to the turn lane. So, you know, you want to talk about hardened turn lanes, not hardened, or
- hardened center lines, right? That's probably a good occasion to add one there. Is it a protected left
- turn, like is there a left turn signal there? Yeah. Is it a leading left turn?
- It's a leading left turn. Some people are trying to get there at the beginning. It's like, oh. Yeah,
- exactly. Yeah. Well, it's a little short stack, too, in there. It's a short second. I don't remember
- it being leading. I thought it went at the same time as the... It might be. I don't know. Split bait.
- OK. No, I'm just curious. All of that intersection, too, fits the same description as Grimes. I mean,
- second in Rogers is a bit of a blight.
- for along to the big, God-forsaken mass of concrete, even into the adjoining private properties, especially
- on the south side of Second Street. Steve, I think you brought up earlier about the 17th and is it Madison,
- I guess, intersection. I go to the dry cleaner there. Yeah.
- I agree with everything you said about it. And then also the way those businesses, both the dry cleaner
- and the marathon, I think it's marathon, have like just basically wide open access to the parking lots.
- I mean, there's lots of ways that someone could, as a cyclist or pedestrian, there's just lots of, you've
- got to be head on a swivel the entire time up there. Does the staff have success in persuading property
- owners to close off certain, like who are on corners to close off certain access points when they have?
- I would say overall a mixed success. I am not the point person in those discussions, so I don't want
- to speculate on how those go. But I do know that there are a number of projects that we work on, and
- this is especially prevalent with gas stations, where they need space for their big tankers to come
- in and drop off the gas.
- As we know, wider curb cuts, more curb cuts cause more conflict points. And so hitting that half a medium
- can be tough sometimes, I will say. So back to your point. It's just, and I'm not suggesting, I mean,
- I'm sure they don't want to reduce that, but it just is a lot going on there and it would be a good
- place to get some, a good design would work, would be a nice
- work well there and I will say what everybody's been on this bridge and I'm not in favor of this bridge
- but it's it seems pretty on Google Street View I mean there's a lot of space on that I mean it seems
- like you could do something I keep that car I know it's a small car but it's got plenty of room in the
- lane the big side welcome both sides so it seems like it could be better without redoing the whole thing.
- I think that's not only Ayoban's point it's kind of the point of this whole yeah exercises to
- improved at least make a plan for a quarter that would include an improvement like that taking advantage
- of that space. I have a question for the group we've been focusing on and rightly so we've been focusing
- on areas that could use or need some improvement. Are there any areas of the corridor that are archetypes
- or examples to look off of as we want to do more of that. I know Brian you asked a question
- about intersections in general but are there any sections of the corridor where
- you feel comfortable, you feel safe, you feel like you want to be there and stay there. And if not,
- that's okay. No points or no. Yeah, no. It's never been that kind of street. It was always the edge
- of town or the wrong side of town for centuries. And now it's the middle of town. We're trying to make
- it like that. So, no. I've just got gripes. What about the beeline trail crossing?
- Even that's not great. It's at an angle. The beeline shows at, what, eighth or ninth, something like
- that. Can you pull it up on Google Maps? And I know that they tried to sort of straighten it to go across
- at a better angle. But there's also a little bit of elevation change. And it gives everyone pause, except
- maybe drivers. Here we go.
- Yeah, I mean, this does not say high comfort to me. Look at that. It's funny, because this check, this
- ticks a lot of boxes on paper, right? I mean, there's signs, there's the trail, there's a race crossing,
- there's a bump out on the east side of the intersection. But I agree with Steve. It's not effective.
- Yeah, I think if you're traveling north and you've got on the east side,
- somewhat of a blind spot, and if you're coming from traveling south, then you've got it on the west
- side. I've used that quite a bit, and cyclists will be, it seems like it comes out of nowhere. Yeah,
- yeah. I mean, that's the trail here, isn't it?
- Is it coming out here that it turns like that? No, that is going the other way. Exactly. This is the
- trail? Yeah. That and then just below, I'll scroll down, but just below, that's when it cuts back into
- the angled B-line. Yeah. The other side, they're kind of hidden until they pop right after you. So here's
- where the B-line comes out. Then you join with the sidewalk. Then you have that 90 degree. This is part
- of the problem. The sidewalk is not a side path, so it's kind of narrow.
- So bicyclists are a little hesitant to go at speed on it. Maybe you're not, I mean, yeah, I'm not a
- fan. Oh yeah, so this. Yeah, so this is a new
- of multifamily development. I don't know, I don't know the exact details, but call it about 100 units
- or so. And that's going through the planning review process right now, but that I think should be built
- in the next year or so. I mean, can you alter the path and square it up to the road?
- That's what this crossing attempts to do. I'm not saying that they did it right, but this is what it
- attempts to do. Yeah, but you don't still, you don't see, you see the blocks of stone there. You don't
- see anybody until they get to the block of stone. Are you suggesting have it come southwards now the
- driveway? Come towards the sign, the BIM sign and then square back at it. Kind of just hook it around.
- There would be more visibility before the intersection? Yeah.
- would be an improvement if this works for the new apartment? Either way, this is our premier non-automotive
- path. The first one, the biggest one, the one we were proudest of. And this intersection, yeah, is kind
- of dumpy. I don't know. It's just not. It doesn't say high comfort.
- It doesn't say we're proud of this. It says we're accommodating it, but we'd really rather not. Some
- of that's got to do, I think, with the immediate surrounding context, but yeah, I agree with you, Steve.
- I wanted to add on that what you said. You mentioned like it ticks all the boxes of design, right? But
- this is just one race crossing
- there's no other ones anywhere else on the corridor. And so sometimes if you want traffic calling devices
- to work effectively, you need to have multiple in succession along a street so people start getting
- used to, oh, there's traffic calming here and they slow down more systematically as opposed to this
- is just like you're surprised with a raised crosswalk and there's no other raised crosswalks anywhere
- else on the corridor. There is one. So isn't a hawk signal at 4th Street? No, that's a rapid flashing
- beacon and it's not a raised crosswalk.
- But it's the only other example of a crossing near this that bicyclists and pedestrians are encouraged
- to use. That has some in mind for that. And it's also not great. It's a recent project, too. I mean,
- that was most recently worked on maybe five years ago. Yeah. And it doesn't exactly scream comfort either.
- There you go. One thing that's quite difficult for drivers on 4th Street is to turn left.
- onto Rogers. So if they're going east on 4th, they're trying to turn left to go north. Or if they're
- going west on 4th, they're trying to turn left to go south on Rogers. It's difficult. And it's not pleasant
- to try to cross here either. I remember when this was being redesigned a little bit, I suggested, no,
- people don't really drive through on 4th Street.
- They use Kirkwood and 2nd Street and 3rd Street. So why not make 4th Street a less permeable route for
- motor traffic, and cut down on the left turns and stuff, and make it like a right in, right out, and
- put an island in the middle? Actually, I don't know if we have any cases of that along Rogers. Well,
- Allen, right?
- Nobody, nobody, staff didn't like that idea. So here we are again, five years later, talking about it.
- And the B-line are, if there's two places that should be working together, it's those two intersects.
- So this is an example of, I think, a good treatment. This is down in McDowell. This is a little older,
- I think, maybe seven or eight years ago they put this in. This is Allen? Yeah. I think this is nice.
- You know, Allen feels like an actual greenway here.
- Is that something you'd like to see more of along the corridor? Me personally, absolutely. I like these.
- Speaking of that, the corner of 3rd and Grant. 3rd and Grant? 3rd and Grant, not on the corridor,
- close to it, but not on the corridor. It's the only... I hated it when it first got put in. It's a diverter
- right there, okay?
- Because I was driving. And I couldn't. It was the only place that I couldn't turn left. And I was annoyed.
- And I was a driver. Then I started using it as a cyclist. And it's my new favorite. It's the
- only intersection on Third Street between College, Walnut, Washington, Lincoln, Dunn, or Indiana that
- you can cross easily and not at a light. Everything else is either a light that's one way or it's car friendly.
- And it's now and cars now stop for me when I'm in the middle of that diverter and if that's what it
- takes to make 4th Street and the beeline easier to cross I'm a big fan or six or how yeah, yeah, I mean
- this this this works it works like a charm and the fact that cars like I'll be in the intersection and
- I'll be looking at cars as they're coming this way and
- And some of them go through and some of them stop and I'm not the one to stop and I say thank you. Or
- I point at the sign for the ones who drive through. It's working, like drivers are noticing that. And
- it at once, it respects everybody. That sign, the way it's designed, it even respects drivers. All I
- have to do is point at the sign. I don't have to shake my head or, you know, I just like. And the driver
- stops, at least they know they have the instruction what they're supposed to do. They just have to pay
- attention to it. So more like this.
- If there's one thing that's working in the city, it's not on the corridor, but it would work on this
- corridor. I couldn't agree more, Steve. Hey, Hank. Can I add a question? Yeah, of course. So since you
- guys are talking about diverters like this, what are your thoughts about doing diverters where people
- just can't even drive north-south all the way? That's what this is? No. Imagine that this is Rogers
- going east-west. OK. So Rogers is north-south.
- What if you were to put diverters periodically along it so that you can't use Rogers as a cut-through
- route from north all the way to south? You mean actually block Rogers from being a... Yeah, like at
- a certain point you have to turn right to go off. You can use it for like five blocks, six blocks. It's
- a good question, but I guess the answer would be, the question would be where. Where would that most
- be necessary on this corridor? It could be at those, at the borders of the contact zones that we talked about.
- context. The changes of the use in the context of the court or how people are using them. I mean it
- could be you know for I'm just I'll tell you the number first place that comes up then is 11th Street
- at 11th Street. You know there might be a case for diversion. I'm not sure.
- Like, that's a changing of context. Or maybe it's somewhere maybe north of that. I mean, that bridge
- was built to make it a thoroughfare. So I guess it depends on, I mean, don't buses go up? I don't know.
- I'll give you an update. So two is 11 to 17. Yeah, I also had to talk about emergency vehicles, ambulance,
- fire trucks.
- I don't know if it's the case for that refuge island, but you can design them so the wheels can track
- through what those cut-throughs are so they can cut over them. Section four, I don't think of as in
- need of that, but maybe section two. Would you like an example of what that looks like? No, it's more
- I'm trying to imagine
- what you would divert from or to, like who's being diverted. Like I said, on Third and Grant, that diverter
- is perfect. And it provides that key function for people who are not in a car. But I'm not sure what
- the destinations are up there. Maybe near the beeline. Maybe 4th Street.
- Does Rogers have to go through, maybe that's the solution to the two intersections that Aobahn and I
- were just talking about. I don't know. Of course, the minute you divert, you have to ask where you're
- diverting them to. Prospect Hill, the near west side, are very sensitive about having traffic diverted
- to them. So I'd be cautious about that. I wouldn't blame them either.
- wants traffic. What about, like, at 3rd and Rogers? Again, who are we diverting? Who do we want to divert?
- 3rd Street. 3rd and Rogers is an interesting example, isn't it? Because 3rd Street is four lanes to
- the east of Rogers. It begins four lanes there. Yeah. And then it's two lanes into the Prospect Hill
- neighborhood. And may it flood him over to College or Walnut?
- Well, if you were coming down Third Street, you're westbound. You'd have to go either right. Yeah, literally
- Prospect Hill is a giant diverter. Like, they built their neighborhood to be a diverter. They did not
- want traffic going through there. I have the horror stories to tell you about just how badly they did
- not want traffic. But it would keep the traffic from not going all the way through. I mean, my guess.
- And that kind of already functions that way. Yeah.
- But you're saying a diverter so people can, like, that's a break point at third. So if you're going
- northbound on third, you would have to turn right on third. And if you're going south on you, you'd
- also have to turn on third. Like, you can't go through at third. Is that what you're proposing? My thought
- was if you're going, well, you'd be going westbound on third. Oh, gotcha. You'd get to Rogers and you'd
- have to go right. Gotcha. The thing is, if you're going south on Rogers from Kirkwood, from fourth,
- you get past third.
- Your next opportunity to turn westbound is 2nd Street. You're going, driving past the entirety of the
- Prospect Hill neighborhood. There's no other practical way to get people, again, the entirety of the
- neighborhood is designed to prevent cut-through traffic. Remember the chicanes on West 3rd Street? So
- if we were to divert people away from going south on Rogers, south of 3rd Street, I think that would
- raise some objections.
- Does that make sense? I'm not sure what else you divert. Yeah, it wasn't. I was thinking more or less.
- Diverting them off the 3rd Street onto Rother Street, not diverting Rother Street. Oh yeah, that already
- does that. Don't you think? Well, I think if you want a crossing and get crossing there for. Lights
- and pedestrians, I don't know how so you're talking about the western leg of the center section here
- at that, right? Yeah, so and this is I think what Steve's talking about where
- Naturally, if the through traffic, if you're wanting to get through the city to the west and get out
- of there, you have to either go north on Rogers to Kirkwood or go south on Rogers to Second and get
- out of there. Whereas if you go through Prospect Hill, that's where you have to jog on over to these
- small neighborhood streets. And then you have the slalom here. Yeah, I know. I think 4th Street, you
- identified 4th Street as like the practical bike route.
- So I would say maybe there would be more useful. What if you are you? What what if you block? I'm not
- saying it's good or bad, but just. If you block Roger Street off at 3rd Street, so if you're coming.
- North I'm sorry if you're coming south on Rogers into town, you're going to have to turn onto 3rd Street.
- You can't continue all the way to country club and vice versa. If you're coming, if you're coming north,
- you have to go over to the main thoroughfare to get out of town.
- It would change the nature of the road completely. It's an idea. Yeah, I mean, it violates one of our
- goals, which was to make it connective and whatever that was. But you could connect other people instead
- of just connecting drivers. If you do that, it would help it to be a better place for people to walk
- and to bike and connect it without them. I just said we're going to create, let's say we were to block.
- Rogers from through traffic, through car traffic from third to second street. That's going to force
- people driving eastbound to Madison and College. And if they're trying to get westbound, they're either
- going to cut through the neighborhood, because even as slow as it is, it's still faster than going down
- and around and all the way around to get to Second Street via Madison or College. And it's going to
- create car traffic there.
- I can see that backfiring from a motorist privilege perspective, if you know what I mean. Steve, I kind
- of lost you at the end there. Could you restate what you just said? If you block cars going southbound
- on Rogers from third, and people who are driving want to get west, but they're already headed that way,
- they're headed south,
- and they need to get west. They're going to turn east at Third Street. They're going to be forced to
- go to Madison or to college. They're going to turn and get to Second Street and then head west, and
- they're going to be irritated. If they know that that pattern is set up, they might start cutting through
- Prospect Hill anyway, despite the one-way streets, the narrow streets, the chicanes, everything that
- they've done to discourage car traffic through that neighborhood.
- I mean, there's been the fight between, we want an east-west highway across town, and this neighborhood
- is historic neighborhood, we don't want cars going through it. That's been my entire political history,
- and we've been doing it for 25 some years now. I think that any consideration in diverting traffic and
- that kind of thing, I don't think we should categorically
- you know, rule it out in any particular circumstance. But I do think that it would be helpful to consider
- it in the context of like, you know, a neighborhood traffic management plan, right? Where a variety
- of different types of journeys and different directions are being considered in a kind of more holistic
- way. I'm sure we could talk all night about little scenarios like this.
- You know, the way that neighborhoods of great cities solve this kind of thing is approaching it from
- a more holistic way and diverting traffic where you can and where there are straightforward alternatives,
- I think. What's the safety profile of Rogers between 3rd and 2nd? Are there a lot of crashes there?
- Also, we've been at it for. Hour and a half almost. Is there a time limit on this area? There is not
- technically a time limit whenever you are. To see what what's the room's mood. While they're looking
- at data of any other thoughts, well, I just want to say I wasn't talking about diverting rod of streets
- up as any you're going to push more traffic to college and all that that that was my point.
- Yeah, but I was thinking of maybe it's 4th Street, an example like you gave on 3rd Street, maybe the
- diverter is for the traffic going east-west on 4th Street to make a crossing somewhere. Or maybe look
- at different points throughout the different segments. Yeah, that's sort of my general point. The cost
- of diverting traffic anywhere from 3rd and Rogers
- just from a public relations standpoint would be a challenge. What are these? I mean, I'm already seeing
- all the people, the motorists who can't understand why we would accommodate bikes at all, because we
- never see any bicyclists on the road. So what are ways to... I think you underestimate the bottomless
- desire of trolls to troll. Anyway.
- Any data on crash data on third between third and second on Rogers on third in the last 10 years that
- we look, there's no serious injury crashes at second. There were two in the last 10 years. I mean, does
- that make it harder to argue for diversion of cars? Because it's not strictly safety related. Sure,
- so I would also talk about so. Just going back to stuff when we talk about making a street safe.
- One aspect of it is looking at the past crash history. What are the fatal and severe crashes that have
- already happened? And also, look at the risk of future fatal and severe injury crashes. When we look
- at the intersection of Third and Rogers, even though nothing has occurred there in the last 10 years,
- that is not to say it won't occur in future years. So when we look at the profile, it being five lanes
- at Third Street, long crossings, that has the profile of being a risky intersection. You could absolutely
- sell it based on safety.
- Okay, well, this is new to me, and that's saying a lot, the idea that somehow there's a way of quantifying
- the risk profile of an intersection not based on crash data. Is there some formula that you use to say,
- this intersection is a textbook unsafe intersection. So I would, and I don't want to pull up the whole
- formula right now, but I would point you to Bloomington's Safe Streets for All Action Plan that incorporates,
- so the high priority network incorporates a number of things, one of the factors being risk. And Drew,
- you might actually be able to talk about it better than I can. Yeah, I mean, well, what Hank is talking
- about is systemic safety, which is more forward-looking versus crash data, which is
- Backers looking. So just briefly give us a sense of how you do that. Yeah. So what Hank is talking about
- is like if a street has a higher speed, has more lanes, larger intersections, no separation between
- users, no separation in time or in space, those kinds of things that we might say that has a higher
- risk profile than another street that does have all those things. That makes sense. Am I the
- only commissioner who would like to see more about how they do that? Cause I'd love to see
- the details of how you... The, yeah, the Safe Streets for All plan has a whole chapter on it. But is
- it a chapter or is it like, do you have a formula that you use? I believe the formula is in there. Yeah,
- it is in there. But it's, I would say that it's, so there's, there's multiple different methods. I'm
- gonna go do my homework. Yeah, there's something called like a facility profile analysis. What we did
- is more like systemic safety
- and it was based on our best judgment of things that we think are risk factors. So you've already scored
- some intersections this way? Intersections and all the streets. Do you have a list? Yeah, it's in the
- plan. Is it in the plan? Yes. Am I an idiot? I'm an idiot. You are not an idiot. I would look through
- the plan. There are corridors and intersections that are rated based on purely the past crash history
- data. The crash history, that's the high injury network. Then we have the high risk network, which is
- essentially forward looking.
- And then we combine all that together, plus the public comment, the public input that we received during
- safety week. And that is the high priority network, the comprehensive network. OK. I'll just come and
- get remedial lessons from you after this. Steve, and to any commissioner that wasn't at the first meeting,
- if you have time, go and watch the recording, or parts of the recording, because we talked about a lot
- of these things last time also.
- My apologies. That's why I was not here and I'm very sorry to waste everybody's time. Are there any
- other last minute comments on this quarter? Or general comments? We talked about roundabouts a bit ago,
- just taking like a temperature check on you guys or the general public, how much they like roundabouts.
- dislike them is a mini roundabout something you've seen that could be maybe retrofitted whether that's
- for access management especially for talking about some deferters or just as traffic calming devices
- or gateway almost treatments to a corridor commissioners I asked you to answer this question I actually
- suggested a mini roundabout for fourth and Rogers maybe five or six years ago
- Where is the mini-roundabout currently compared to, like, is it Curry? This is the director of the bus
- system asking. What about Renwick, over there, Renwick, and on Moores Park? Well, is it just single
- lane? Is that what we're talking about? I don't think so. A mini-roundabout is usually smaller, and
- the island in the middle is fully traversable. So bigger cars, buses, five trucks, they drive straight through.
- It's more like a neighborhood, but not a neighborhood traffic circle, but somewhere between a neighborhood
- traffic circle and a conventional sidewalk. When I served on the Bike and Pedestrian Safety Commission,
- there was a blind woman who was on it, and she highlighted that they're difficult for blind folks to
- cross because the traffic doesn't come to a complete stop. Otherwise, I'm aware there are a lot of benefits.
- And our representative from the Council of Community Accessibility is not here today to give us that
- kind of feedback. But I think you've heard sort of a cross section there. I've asked about why certain,
- I do love many roundabouts as long as they don't encourage cars to go fast. I don't want us to become
- caramel. With all due respect, you know, I think that's a whole different kind of city that I don't think is,
- I don't know if there are any, what you'd really call mini roundabouts in Carmel. Carmel builds huge
- roundabouts. I think the roundabouts the tool's talking about are very small. Well, there are tiny ones
- in the near west side. You can't drive over them, but they're really small. That scale.
- Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? Is it like a local-local street intersection? So that's
- a neighborhood traffic circle, which is a little bit different than what Wally is talking about. Yeah,
- OK. But similar scale. Are ones where you could drive over it, there's nothing in the middle? It's usually
- mountable, so there still is somewhat of a mound. It's either papers or concrete in the middle. So drivers
- are still just purged from going through, so they're still going around. They're still going down. But
- fire trucks.
- No objections. In fact, I can name three or four intersections around the city that I wonder why are
- these so fat? If we're going to leave them this fat, why don't we make them into a roundabout? Otherwise,
- let's neck them down. I think you mentioned taking the temperature. I think my view is the community
- is OK with them. We've gotten over the first few.
- And that, yeah, they expect them here and there and know how to drive through them. Yeah. OK, let's
- talk about next steps. So was this helpful? Yes. What next? What's our next?
- So what next? Steering committee is, I would say, on pause for now. Internally, we need to start taking
- your comments, putting pen to paper, drawing things up based on what you said, based on what the public's
- already said. We've gotten about 80 survey respondents. As of today, I'm sure we'll have a lot more
- comments at the public meetings come this week. So we are going to be doing a lot of work taking what
- you said, putting it on paper,
- After that, we'll regroup internally and then come back to you with next steps as of, you know, what
- is the role for the next meeting? How do we then narrow the focus towards a final quarter study? What
- is the next meeting going to? I still haven't answered it. What's our next meeting going to be like?
- What are we going to talk about at the next meeting? I think in the next meeting we'll have some typical
- sections, cross sections and concepts that we've drawn up during this week and iterated on to show you
- and say, this is everything that we heard. You could do some actual design. Yeah. Okay. Like sketch
- level concept design and say, is this doing, is this solving the issues that you've described to us
- and that we've heard from the public? So that's the goal is like, we're going to compile all the information,
- say we think these are the issues and here's some, a start at the solution. And this will be in two
- weeks, two months, two years? In May, likely. Okay.
- commission meeting. May is what we have. Well, we'll schedule a another what we call planning session.
- Yeah, like this one. Okay. Okay. Yeah, shooting for me. All right. Um, anything else? Okay. Thank you
- everyone for being here. Uh, our next meeting is our regular. We don't even have our regular staff here,
- but I assume it's our next regular meeting in April.
- You have your regular meeting March 30th at 5.30 PM. That's what I was afraid of. All right, our next
- meeting is at 5.30 next Monday, I assume, in Chambers. Yes. Great. This meeting is adjourned.