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.