This meeting will come to order. This is the May meeting of the Bloomington Transportation Commission.
Can we please have a roll call? Should be not needed. Thank you. Thank you.
Go ahead. Copic. Here. Sturmitis. Here. Binder. Vollen. Here. Drummey. Here. Flaherty. Davis.
Strasburg here Okay, we have a quorum today's agenda includes reports from staff including Road closure
on West Clubhouse Drive bridge hundred needed the order update presentation of a pedestrian facilities
operation plan citywide traffic signal of retiming project update traffic calming and Greenways program
request for 2026 and
on an update on the Roger Street project as well as feedback on the transition plan. There are no cases
scheduled for today as far as items that are not on the docket for discussion. We will take up the college
model covenant or intersection evaluation update the Smith and Morningside intersection evaluation update
and Carla Street's Title 15 amendment ordinance being brought by Councilman Rosenberger that I've asked
to be put on the docket.
And then we will go to general public comment before we adjourn. Let's start with Let's start with reports
from commissioners. Are there any commissioners who have a report they'd like to make on my right On
my left I was just Osborne. Yeah Partly to inform the work that we do here I'm working on a project
to bike or walk every navigable path in Bloomington
including every cul-de-sac bike path and apartment complex. I'm currently about 340 miles into this
out of 420 about another 90 miles to go. I may have more reflections when I get closer but one I'll
share now is that overall Bloomington has a lot of streets that are comfortable to bike on. We think
of them often through a car lens of the busy roads we take from our home to shopping or work but many
of the miles
of roads we have in Bloomington are residential and quiet and I've now experienced getting from place
to place from many directions and overall it's been fairly a pleasant experience to see the city by
bike. So maybe more when I'm done. Thank you Mr. Sasberg. I'll just point out something we were talking
about before the meeting which is it's pouring rain out as we speak and I was driving here on
each third street where the The water is flooding so much that cars were actually driving the speed
limit of 25 miles an hour. So I've already Started fielding requests from commissioners as to whether
or not we can arrange to flood the streets more often. So it's a slow traffic down Anyway, let's go
now to reports from staff Let's start with item one on the closure of the bridge and clubhouse drive
and receive or welcome to
City engineer just wanted to provide the Commission an update on something that recently had a press
release And something that will also have additional dialogue at tomorrow's Board of Public Works meeting
But on Friday of last week the city closed a section of Clubhouse Drive on the approaches to a bridge
near the old State Road 37 intersection in lower cascades and
This was in response to some information that the county shared with the city after they conducted a
routine inspection of the facility and determined that The structure had some deficiencies and essentially
suggested a lower weight limit on the structure The report didn't necessarily suggest the bridge or
the road be closed but based on past experience on other structures that have relatively very low weight
limits that the reality is that a lot of vehicles
Exceed those weight limits. And so just to reduce the risk the expected risk that some drivers would
exceed that weight limit the city closed a section of that road just to in the spirit of public safety
Some interesting challenges with this structure are that the state law? Doesn't make it clear who owns
the facility it is
By definition it is it is more than 20 feet in span and so that generally takes it out of the city's
responsibility and There are some interesting components about structures over 20 feet that are typically
the county's responsibility But this bridge doesn't meet those so it's sort of in this this awkward
place right now
But right now the county has shared the information the city has taken some action to address safety
and we expect to have additional dialogue on it but tomorrow at the board of public works meeting the
board will be just essentially Validating the decision to close the road Until the facility is brought
into compliance that something that could carry a higher weight And on that I'm happy to answer any questions
Thank you for that report are there questions from commissioners about this on my left, mr Sasberg Will
the facility remain open to pedestrians and cyclists? I Think that's there there is I believe a multi-use
path adjacent to the structure But that is a detail we have it's all moving very fast But like another
structure on Allen Street, it seems very possible to keep it open to that those users Thank you to my right
I do I have struggled to understand the relationship between city and county with respect to bridges.
So it was my understanding that basically any bridge in the city is effectively some of the county has
to maintain and manage. But now you're saying that there are some there's a kind of a lower limit to
that. Can you explain a little bit.
Yeah, I think if you go back a few years in time Generally the the state law was a little more
straightforward that if a structure was greater than 20 feet in length That was generally the county's
responsibility but a couple in recent years the code was updated to basically state that some some reasonable
things that like if a new structure was going to be added that the county would be
Coordinated with and consulted as a part of the design and construction of such a structure But there
was also a clause that said if it if it bridge was not inspected by the County for a certain period
of time And they have not accepted into their inventory. It is not their responsibility. So this fits
into that unique category where it is not
By state code clearly a county maintained facility. So they haven't inspected it lately. That was the
they have been but they didn't start until I believe 2024 or something to that. Okay, that's interesting
So just to be clear the city can still build a bridge add to a bridge do what the city thinks it should
as long as they coordinate with the county, but it doesn't mean the county owns the structure and
We're not gonna build any covered bridges in it. I'm just trying to understand it I think generally
the city's not in the business of building bridges We don't have that expertise and most of our roads
already exist and they generally have bridges maintained and owned by the county But in potentially
like new developments where there are new roads being built in those situations We would generally expect
that the developer and coordination the city are also very much in coordination with the county Through
that process in a way. It's sort of like what we do now with building
permits that we have a sort of a contract. All of this one is kind of required by state law. That's
what I would expect and we would want to make sure that the county is consulted and accepts that.
Got it. Sorry. So the county has a bridge fund which is why they're responsible for bridges over 20
feet. So the fact that you just don't inspect them makes it a city bridge. I mean the other bridges
is the island street bridge one by the
Traffic building correct and how is that not a county bridge been there for a hundred years the Allen
Street Bridge Was a bridge managed and maintained by the county they inspected it Through one of their
efforts basically said that it should have a certain weight limit But with a storage facility nearby
there were frequent trucks exceeding that weight limit and so decided to close it
So then the interesting thing is if it's closed to automobile traffic, then is it a bridge or is it
not a bridge at a certain point? So so that is generally I would have from my perspective expect that
it is still seen as a bridge But it has been sitting like that for some time When I'm a grant eat your
heart out this is or is not a bridge Any more questions
Thanks for the report. Let's move on now to the 180-day order update Yeah, so next one is me as well.
So just wanted to continue the trend of keeping you posted on 180-day orders Since our last meeting
I did or issue three new 180-day orders The first one 26-01 is essentially caught up or recognizing
I think a series of stop controlled intersections that have been placed for years
The the city accepted in into our inventory a couple years ago and we just missed adding these two code
through that process So just bringing that into compliance with what was always the plan and has been
in place The next one is 26-02 related to traffic control in the atlas on 17th subdivision This is a
specific example of something we brought to you last month and so essentially just doing the order which
we presented and you supported at our last meeting and
Why we presented that one to you and not the prior is is we did make some changes from what was in the
plan as a result of some feedback from transit and police. So that's why we did want to bring that to
you first and then the third is a change in speed limit on East 11th Street where we recently installed
some traffic calming.
This was a project that we brought to you last year and you supported as well So those are the new orders
that we issued and then I also wanted to just note that two additional orders have been extended since
our last meeting Continuing the on-street parking clarifications. We made by the mills pool on West
14th Street and Some parking caught changes on 1st Street adjacent to the Hopewell neighborhood with
that. I'm happy to answer any questions you have Thank you. Any questions on 180 day orders to my left?
Right seeing none. Thank you for that report. Let's go now to The pedestrian facilities operation plan
who's presenting this I see Adam Wason from Public Works Good evening commissioners Adam Wason Public
Works director. Just wanted to give you an update on some work We've been doing across several different
departments over the last year plus and here recently since
Probably budget hearings this past fall. We've been discussing the idea of Working on a pedestrian facilities
plan originally we were talking about it from the perspective of a sidewalk master plan But realized
that you know a sidewalk master plan doesn't actually incorporate all the pedestrian facilities we have
across the city so we Have been working with planning and transportation staff engineering staff and
other city departments to
Start putting together the framework of what would be involved with this and then want to over the next
couple months engaged with Transportation Commission and others on taking some of the next steps what
we're really working on here and looking at is
Both a historical review of how are we how have we gotten where we're at with sidewalks in the community?
What a city code looked at over the over time who's responsible for what and a big part of the responsibility
component is even Defining what roles and responsibilities exist across the various city departments
You know, I've been this is now my third administration. I've worked for we have turnover and just really
defining across departments as we
As staff turns over and everything else that folks know who's responsible for what areas of the pedestrian
facilities across the community good examples, which department would be responsible for vegetative
encroachment versus what departments responsible for
Putting forward contracts for repair just all the different roles and responsibilities across the city
because that hits hand from an inspection perspective it hits Obviously public works in the street division
engineering gets involved quite a bit, etc also defining the
Private property owner responsibilities making that very clear based on what city code says We're also
going to be looking at and providing a lot of information on what programs exist elsewhere and in Bloomington
to that are having success getting sidewalks improved so this could range from
I'll just give you an example for the last several years. We've had budgeted dollars in the public works
budget for what we call the sidewalk assistance program It's intended to assist low-income individuals
with sidewalk repairs We're not super successful getting that money out the door because even though
we're able to fund up to 50% and such
It is often a cost that a low-income member of the community can't even absorb at a 50% rate So looking
at what programs exist elsewhere to help Our residents make sidewalk repairs that are their responsibilities
looking at Beyond that looking at Our maintenance and operations program
Councilmember Flaherty and some of the council members last week had a deliberation session about snow
control when it comes to Pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure across the community This would dovetail
right into that help define the roles and responsibilities Look at how we prioritize where we make those
efforts this last this last winter with that major snowfall provided a great example of we can't clear
everything and
but what should we focus on as far as high priority networks to get folks where they need to be? So
long story short of it is we've been working internally a lot on this and now we're gonna be coming
to the stage where we start putting out information on what we've collected, get it to the Transportation
Commission in a more formal way, see where the Transportation Commission members wanna be more involved
or less involved. So that was just the brief update. Happy to answer any questions you have and see
if I can't answer them.
Thanks for that presentation. Are there any questions from commissioners? To my right to my left. Mr.
Drumming How long do we expect that it will last
Sidewalks, I mean a properly installed sidewalk that doesn't have street trees that are gonna possibly
You know impact it within five or ten years sidewalks. I mean good concrete work should be 30 year 20
to 30 year minimum and you know Always dependent upon the quality of the concrete other things like
that. But yeah, at least 20 year investment. I think I
And that's and that leads me to my next question as I have some experience with street trees I know
more about street trees and I'd like to know but how is there a way to tell the truth? Is there a way
to have street trees and have nice sidewalks? Yeah, so that's a that's a big part of this too is you
know That we'll look at is how does the unified development ordinance impact the sidewalk network? Well,
we require street trees for all the right reasons is there a standard that we should change so that
The street trees are in a bigger plot that aren't at as high of a risk of Heaving a sidewalk ideally.
Yes, but you know, there's also all kinds of limitations when it comes to the development ordinance,
etc but You know, and that's the other part of defining roles and responsibilities In our sidewalk plans
that we've provided to the Board of Public Works over time and such, you know It's it was in my first
years in public works as we were really thinking about sidewalks and such the conversation
Came up about we were sending letters to folks to fix sidewalks that were damaged by city street trees
So we technically own the tree How can we expect the homeowner then to make that repair if it's a tree
that we own that damage the sidewalk so for the last
12ish years we've taken the perspective of if it's street tree damaged We're going to try to fix it
when it comes to our attention and within the resources we have But it is a really good example of a
question that should be discussed of you know What's the ideal situation to put a street tree in and
have a sidewalk last as long as it possibly can in good condition? Yep further questions to my left
couple I have a couple questions one is do you see this as becoming sort of a Component of the transportation
plan. Yeah, absolutely. That was one point talking point. I didn't get to yeah Incorporating this into
the transportation plan the safe streets for all program, you know, it all kind of melts together So
it's kind of like a sub plan. Yeah for yeah, that's good. Yeah how How long do you expect the draft?
Take I would like to work with you folks over the next couple months and kind of final We've got a lot
of the bones in place. We got a lot of structure, but yeah, I just mean We're starting with a staff
draft and then you'll bring it to us and and we'll talk about what we want to do with it if anything
Yeah, so just just trying to get a sense of how much more time I'd say over the next quarter. We're
trying to wrap it all up Okay, so maybe August September the other big component of this too that feeds
in is we're wrapping up our
sidewalk condition index data
Collection efforts with IMS our subcontractor. This is the first time we've gone down every single city
sidewalk with a UTV type of equipment that is And there we're going through all the quality control
quality analysis right now with them We're hopeful that data is ready to go on the website in the next
couple weeks It's been a long arduous process of going through and working with them on it But in the
end, we're going to have the most robust set of data on the conditions of our sidewalk ever
Well, thanks for that. And we look forward to seeing did you want us to look at any I mean, we'll work
through Iris and everyone and get distributed what we want to you guys the commission members to offer
review on because if you're looking for some feedback to structure it when we have spare CPU cycles
in our agenda, it might be a good opportunity to to put that discussion in
But even before the draft is done if you need the help, absolutely. All right. Thanks so much. Thank
you all Let's move on now to an update on the citywide traffic signal of re-timing project who is presenting
Hello, John Garzi traffic engineer This is a general update on the city's traffic signal or timing project
The goal of this work is to improve safety improve consistency across the system and make signal operations
more predictable for all users and
So far, we have updated 63 signalized intersections across nine corridors. Most coordinated corridors
have now been retimed, including downtown corridors like College Avenue, Wallant Street, where signal
timing was adjusted to better align with the city's 20 mile per hour downtown speed limits. The project
has also included several pedestrian safety improvements. That includes leading pedestrian intervals
where pedestrians receive a short heads up start before vehicles receive a green indication, as well
as rest and walk
where the walk indication displays automatically. At this point the college mall road quarter is the
only quarter still to be implemented along with isolated intersections throughout the city. In addition
to the overall project rollout staff is also conducting field reviews to verify the timing. It's operating
as intended and to identify opportunities for additional refinement. And with that I'm open to some
questions.
Thank you for that presentation Mr. Garzi. Are there any questions on this report from members to my
right to my left Mr. Stossberg. We have budget challenges with the equipment upgrades to have all the
signals timed as we would like the equipment ready for the kind of retiming we want to do for the general
retiming. Yes.
There are other changes that we would need to do upgrades to the signals like doing protected only left
turns but for implementing LP eyes or leading pressure intervals and changing the phasing we have all
the proper equipment for that. Thank you. I'm a little confused about the distinction you made about
College Mall Road. It says you're saying that.
The only corridor that has implemented signal timing is college mall or it's the last one that hasn't.
That's the only one that has not been retimed. So everything else has been retimed. Every other coordinated
corridor where the intersection before it is time so that cars moving down it can progress. That's the
only one that hasn't been retimed. Okay. How many such quarters are there in Bloomington like that?
There are nine.
Did you say nine? Yes. Oh, I saw it was right there. It was right there. Okay. Like, um, third street
is counted twice for the Western section and the Eastern section. Uh, when do you think the rest will
be coordinated? Those final ones? Um, it's hard to say exactly when we'll do college mall. Um, we've,
we've done some changes, but we're, we're observing them just to see how, how they turn out.
I'd say maybe in like next, next month or two. Okay. So it's ongoing. Okay. Um, finally, um, can you,
uh, clarify a little bit more what rest and walk means? So in other words, uh, does it mean that, uh,
you don't see the blinking, don't walk aggressively telling you to stop or what does that mean? So the
rest and walk means that when the vehicles in your same direction have a green time that the rest of
the green time for the vehicles
is shown for the pedestrian sign. Okay. Why is this significant? Um, the benefits are that people know
when they can cross the street and same thing for people that are driving. They're also expecting pedestrians
to be crossing. If the remainder of the time isn't shown on the pedestrian walk symbol, then a person
driving may not expect a person to be walking.
So in other words, it has to do with the clock that says the number of seconds that you have left to
cross. Yeah, that's correct. So have you gotten rid of that clock? Is that the idea? No, the clock is
just going to show the remainder of the time that the pedestrian has to cross the intersection. But
it won't be red. It'll be white like it's a walk sign. Um, it will show the countdown once there is
only enough time for a person to cross the street. So if like the signal is or if the cycle is 30 seconds,
and it takes a pedestrian 15 seconds to walk. Once it goes down from 30 seconds to 15 seconds remaining,
it'll go from the pedestrian symbol to the red hand, and then it'll count down from 15 all the way down
to zero. So before, what was the typical? Before it would only show the pedestrian symbol for possibly
half the time. And so you might have the walk symbol only for five seconds, and then it would count
down from 25 to zero.
And then after the pedestrian symbol goes to zero Vehicles are still given a green but the pedestrians
don't have the green got it. All right now I understand Thank you for explaining rest and walk to me
any other questions Mr. Drummey, I thought I understood rest and walk before you explained it so Which
is not a criticism of you At one of these meetings there was a discussion about
Setting changing I think there was about changing the signals so that there would always be a walk symbol
No matter whether anyone activated any buttons or not. Is that related to rest and walk? It's another
safety feature, but it's different than rest and walk that one's called pedestrian recall So without
a person having to push the button it will always show that I will just assume that there's a person
there to cross and
It's like they could have come up with a better name than pedestrian recall, but what do I know seems
like maybe oh always walk or something Yeah, they're complicated and then in terms of retiming the lights
sometimes when I drive to work I drive down third Street headed west of my office is a third in college
and Sometimes I will get every red light available Does that mean I'm doing something wrong or is it
the light some have to sometimes have to resync or what? What would cause that?
Um, it could be that you're driving either lower than speed limit. Yeah. If you're too slow, maybe if
you're driving at the speed limit, it could just be that the number of vehicles that were expected to
be at the intersection in front of you is is higher or lower. And so we've just given that next intersection
and green time either later or sooner, but those are things that we were also also fine tuning.
Is that all manual work like somebody has to go stand at the box next to the intersection and
make adjustments or is that something you do? Digitally remotely you can do remotely Thank you There
are no further questions move on to the next item on the agenda, thank you for the presentation mr.
Garzi Traffic calming and greenways program requests for projects 2026 who is presenting this item?
That would be me
Over here Ryan Roebling from planning and transportation. Hello. Yes. Hello This is just an update that
the 2026 neighborhood traffic calming program opened up we have We're looking for a neighborhood applicants
from now until June 26th you have to submit a letter of intent to
David brand has who is the alternative transportation coordinator in the planning and transportation
department We sent a press release out on May 14th, and it's also available in your packet Last year
you all approved the 11th Street traffic calming neighborhood traffic calming. That was the highest
ranked project So we're excited to get to work on something this year We'll have a public meeting after
we have a project selected and then it'll come to you all for review and then I'm happy to answer any questions
Thanks for the presentation any questions about traffic calming while the traffic calming program to
my left To my right Is this a program that individuals do or that neighborhoods do like how Who should
think about doing this an individual can start it a neighborhood will you do need your neighbors signatures
a handful of them during your letter of intent, but we can help you with that and
You can ask any questions to David Brant as or Hank Duncan who is also familiar with the project but
will get you as far as we can. But you will need to talk to some of your neighbors. And once again the
deadline for people to apply for this year's program is June 5th 26th June 26th. So what is the letter
of intent deadline Friday June 5th by 5 p.m. in this notice here.
That's the pre-application meeting deadline. Yes, there's a pre-application meeting which you can have
with David but you don't have to have that this year. Historically you did this year. We're going to
try to do we found those to be less useful. So if you would like to get an early meeting you're welcome
to do that still but really you would just need the letter of intent and then we'll reach out to you.
Okay. Well again as from the plain reading of this document it says the deadline for letters of intent
is Friday June 5th. Is that the.
No it's June 26. So I don't know. Hold on. That's the next deadline for the pre-application meeting.
I'm glad I asked. I will double check what I am 90 percent sure the actual deadline is June 26. I'll
get that by the end of the meeting and update all of our numbers. OK. Well could we just.
for the sake of people who are watching say that practically speaking June 26 is the deadline. I am
happy to say that June 26 is the deadline for a letter and then and we're going to have another meeting
between now and then so we can reiterate it on the at the June meeting. OK. Any other questions. Mr.
Drummond I do. I'm sorry. Questions three questions I guess. But when I first moved to Bloomington as
an adult in 2008 I remember someone said to me
Bloomington will never install speed bumps again anywhere. And I haven't paid a lot of attention, but
I think we've installed them in a few places since then. Is there any truth to, was there a time where
we were, what is our current position on speed bumps and has that changed through the years?
And is our speed, and I'm asking in relation to this project, if somebody came, the reason I asked the
question is because one of my neighbors
I mentioned this program to them, and they said, we need speed bumps. They don't live on my street.
They live on a different street. But is that something that would be potentially a possibility with
this project? Not with this project on all streets. This specific program is on neighborhood residential
streets. So that is lower speed, lower volumes streets. There are traffic calming methods that we can
implement.
but not through this program, including speed humps on different streets. But for this specific program,
it is only neighborhood residential streets. But don't we have speed bumps on neighborhood residential
streets? Yeah. Like in Park Ridge or? Yes, absolutely. So this program would work for that type of street.
And speed bumps, is there something about this program that prohibits speed bumps? Yeah. No, no, speed bumps.
We don't generally do engineering could weigh in on why I don't know the technical details But speed
humps and speed cushions and things like that we can't do Can can yeah, so on 11th Street we installed
some speed cushions. Okay Point of clarification I believe I've highlighted this section that
does specifically suggest speed cushions and speed humps as an appropriate proposal for this program
Perhaps I should ask Mr. Drummy, before that answer, did you make a distinction between bumps, humps,
and cushions? I feel like I'm in a pop song. No, no, no, I wasn't. Whatever the most modern version
of it, what the rest of the world would call a speed bump, I mean, hump, whatever the newest, the latest
and greatest, which I'm all in favor of, used to not as a younger person, but now I'm, as long as bikes
can get around them without bumping, I'm good.
Perhaps someone could just briefly Remind us how the definitions of these terms could somebody please
do that. So speed hump and speed bump I think the average person thinks that they're the same thing
and it makes sense Speed humps are the ones that are 12 feet across 12 feet wide. Those are the pretty
standard ones that we use They don't have any cutouts speed bumps are the ones you typically see in
parking lots and they're about two feet wide and
For those, you would have to drive over them at five miles per hour. You mean deep as you're driving
over it, it's two feet this way. And then the speed humps are how? About two feet. They could be one
foot wide. They're one foot deep. And a speed bump is two feet. A speed hump would be 12 feet. And a
speed bump would be about one foot or two foot. Oh, so in other words, they're much more abrupt, whereas
speed humps are more gradual. Yeah, you wouldn't want to put a speed bump in the street unless you wanted
someone to come to a complete stop.
Okay, and a speed cushion and speed cushions are just like a speed hump So they're 12 feet deep but
they have cutouts for transit emergency vehicles But just for larger vehicles the cutouts aren't intended
for passenger vehicles So in other words the a speed cushion would only happen on a bus route Whereas
speed hump can happen anywhere
Well, you just you wouldn't use a speed hump on our arteries arterial roads. Is that the idea? Yeah,
you would typically not traffic on the arterial road because you wouldn't want to discourage people
from using the arterial roads You tend to put traffic calming on residential roads where people are
using those as cut-through roads Okay, I hope that Satisfies all our questions It does for now and confirms.
I'm just the average person. Thank you. Yeah Any further questions before we move on to the next item?
Thanks again for the presentation. And again, reminder that anyone who wants to, uh, a resident
of Bloomington who would like to see a traffic calming project done, uh, has until June 26th to send
a letter of intent. Let's go now to an update on Roger street from Grimes, the third street, the project,
Andrew Seaborg.
Just update on our Roger Street project if you recall I think it was back in your March meeting Kendall
provided an overview of that project and particularly focused on related title 15 change that reduced
some on-street parking on Roger Street and also committed to following up with the neighborhoods and
having some additional feedback and
The concept that was presented and you did vote on So since that meeting he did have a series of neighborhood
meetings with the Prospect Hill neighborhood He's also submitted mailings to the adjacent properties
and reached out to council members And and collected an amount of feedback Really focused on the the
area in the Prospect Hill neighborhood
I'm wanting to also note though that he has not yet been able to have a similar meeting with McDowell
Gardens neighborhood. So that is still forthcoming but specific to the section in Prospect Hill essentially
received a lot of feedback. I could share some of his notes from you but what he heard over well from
overall from that feedback and also in consultation with the planning department that has the ongoing
corridor study.
Is essentially that what was presented and what you voted on is the direction we're going to continue
to proceed with through Prospect Hill. So essentially that has a refuge island in Roger Street for the
Howe Street intersection and then bump outs at the Smith intersection and Prospect intersection
So essentially we're maintaining what we presented and what you voted on in that segment and we are
expecting to continue to do that for the McDowell Gardens where we had removed
Parking to do bike lanes, but we just want to still know we are still meeting with that neighborhood
That's still coming so I could go into more details from what he shared with you, but just wanted to
give you that update Thank you for the report any questions to my left on Roger Street to my right My
only question would be when Do you think the project will be complete I think
By the end of this construction season, it will be complete this construction summer will be very busy
and work will be starting here soon I think generally on the Grimes corridor, but this is a very large
project that includes it was bit out as one. It's Kirkwood Rogers Grimes and Patterson And so it's a
big project and so work will start soon and will be done this construction season I'm just asking because
I'm anticipating future this item on the agenda in the future So I just want to know how much more to expect
Sure, I think this item I think the main thing we would come back to you is is likely in in After we
meet with McDowell Gardens in case just just provide a findings from that as we said we would Because
this just the timing of this project ideally we would have done that before we brought the project to
you But when we received funding that we weren't expecting in the timeline we did that's that's why
we're in this Great. Thank you so much Let's go now to feedback on the ADA transition plan Who is?
I believe I can present this is a very short note on behalf of Michael Shermus who came and presented
a draft of the ADA transition plan He just wanted to provide a reminder that The deadline for receiving
feedback is May 22nd. That's coming up in a few days and He just wanted to genuinely encourage everyone
to participate take a look at it. I've provided a hyperlink to the press release
Specific to this and I would encourage people interested in providing feedback to Utilize the press
release as far as a best path for following up with that team And just to be clear the EDA transition
plan is a document the city's creating that identifies accessibility barriers in city facilities programs
services and activities and Outline steps to address them. Is this the first such plan we've done?
I Don't believe so Okay, so this is the latest draft perhaps or I believe this is an update if staff
want to if other staff want to chime in Andrew seabor city engineer. This is I think the current basically
plan has been every two years. It's updated. So this is It's been two years, but it's been on that cycle
for a number of years The prior version last was in place for a while, but we've had one for quite some time
Do we generally receive? Comments that might be appropriate for such a plan even when we're not in the
process of updating it. I Am probably not the best person to answer that Michael Shermus would be and
I'd encourage you to reach out to him. Okay, that'd be great Any other questions on the ADA transition
plan update again? We have till Friday May 22nd this Friday to submit comments to this plan To whom
do they submit them? To whom?
The press release indicates that they should be There is a feedback form in cited in the press release
that's bton.in slash 26 ADA URL and That's the best place to submit your feedback. Thank you. Thank
you very much. I
We have we now go to the cases section of the meeting, but we have no cases scheduled So let's now go
to discussion of topics not on the docket first up is an update on the college mall Covenanter Drive
intersection evaluation who is presenting? That'll be me. Hello. Mr. Garzi John Garzi traffic engineer
This item is the follow-up
to a previous inquiry regarding pedestrian safety and left turn operations at College Mall Road and
Covenanter Drive. We reviewed the intersection conditions, traffic volumes, crash history and field
conditions. This intersection includes a neighborhood greenway crossing on Covenanter, protected and
permissive left turn operations on all approaches, bike lanes on College Mall Road and fairly high traffic volumes.
As part of the reviews staff evaluated 30 reported crashes over approximately five years. Recurring
pattern involved left turning vehicles entering the path of opposing through traffic during permissive
left turn operations. Staff also reviewed a pedestrian involved crash associated with the left turn
movement. Based on the review we intend to move forward with several low cost near term improvements
including left turn yield on green signage adding signage for the existing eastbound
no turn on red restriction and refreshing faded pavement markings. Staff is also evaluating whether
an LPI or a leading pedestrian interval may be appropriate at this location through the citywide signal
or timing project. Given the Greenway crossing long term, we identified potential safety benefits associated
with eliminating permissive left turns and moving forward or moving toward protected only left turn
operations.
However, the existing signal infrastructure cannot currently support that change without being upgraded
We are also evaluating potential lighting improvements at the intersection I'm happy to take any questions
All right. Thanks for the presentation. Are there questions on my right? Mr. Coppock So the leading
pedestrian interval is that already in all directions except for the pedestrian crossing? Could you
repeat that please is the leading pedestrian interval?
Is it all red for all four legs of the intersection only for pedestrians to cross in? Yeah, so the the
pedestrians would get approximately like a three head three second head start and While the pedestrians
have a green time the vehicles would have a red Okay, mr. Jimmy With my questions regarding this the
leading pedestrian interval as well and
You said that you're still evaluating it Isn't generally speaking wouldn't the leading pedestrian interval
always be safer for the pedestrian It would be so what is there to evaluate? I guess is my question.
So when we I Think maybe in February we came to you all hasn't presented a policy about citywide timing
and part of that was how we determined where and when to implement leading pedestrian intervals and
And for that, we set a certain threshold, which is pretty low, based on pedestrian volumes. And the
Covenanter College Mall area didn't meet that threshold, and so we didn't add any LPIs. But since it
is a greenway, we are considering adding that just based on the context. Mr. Stosberg. Is there an expected
timeline to be able to make the capital investment for the upgraded
signaling. It's not clear exactly when we can make that investment. The main barrier to that is just
prioritization. We could find the funding for this location but there are other intersections throughout
the city that are higher on the priority list on the safe streets for all plan. They've ranked different
intersections from highest to high and I think some of those other locations would be better for us to
Upgrade first I Appreciate I'm familiar with that kind of prioritization But I also know that sometimes
if things are on the near-term list then later it could be 10 or 20 years. So is there a their ballpark
range Yeah, I don't have a ballpark range at this moment Thank you Let me let me go first Mr. Garzi, so
The reason that this is getting the attention it's getting is because it's not just a normal intersection.
It has a greenway running through it. Is that the idea. That's that's why it's getting this this extra
attention. The extra attention that it's getting is because there was a collision with a pedestrian
crossing and a left turning vehicle hitting them. And I believe last year it came to the commission and
You had made an inquiry for us to look into this intersection and see how we can improve it. And so
we're coming back just to show you our findings. How quickly we forget. Sorry. I do have trouble tracking
projects from meeting to meeting. But secondly so just to get a clarification what you said to Mr. Drummey
I didn't quite follow the thing about leading pedestrian intervals.
Uh, why aren't they just de rigueur and, uh, why do we need to, why don't we, I didn't understand the
answer to that question. I'm afraid. So your question is why don't we just do leading pedestrian intervals
at all locations? Uh, as a matter of course. Yeah. Um, I don't think we really have a reason for not
doing it. Um, we just set certain guidelines for when we would do it.
And we made the qualifications for that fairly low we can always change that and so like right now We're
reconsidering applying the LPI at this location. So it's not that we couldn't we just had a policy and
said When an intersection meets this threshold, we'll do an LPI Okay, we'll go second round a question
mr. Coppock Just For clarification. So who does the signal timing? adjustments is that done by
You guys are a consultant or right now the city wide timing is done by a consultant but we are able
to make those changes ourselves as well. And then how are the changes actually made. I mean is it can
you do you do them on say a laptop or something take them out download them to the intersections that
how it works these days. Yeah yeah basically we can go to the intersection we can change the timing
and we can then upload it to the controller. OK thanks.
Mr. Stossberg. Yeah, to clarify the leading pedestrian intervals, you're balancing throughput of traffic
because this does slow down the cars a little bit with pedestrian safety. So at some threshold you have
a lot of pedestrian volume. Clearly it's helpful. And at some other threshold where it's a very low
pedestrian volume makes more sense to maybe prioritize the throughput of cars. That's what you're balancing.
That's correct.
That's good. Thanks. Mr. Drumming You this question may be it's a little bit off topic, but I've noticed
that this intersection and I'm Looking in the other direction. So heading eastbound This happens and
not be there is no as far as I know that you can turn red on right on red there Is there a reason is
it which I is there a reason this intersection is not does not prohibit a right on red? I'm not aware
why it doesn't prohibit it. It may just be that
We don't have a sign at that location but my understanding is that this intersection is coded to have
no right on red. OK. OK. Last time I thought about this intersection it was several years ago and it
was about the idea that it was a prime location for a greenway with a more elaborate
Infrastructure Perhaps even a protected bike lane at some point Are those is is what is the status of
Covenant er as a I mean It's a greenway now, right is it going to be other plans to upgrade it infrastructure
wise to make it a more Like a Covenant er has some even beyond this intersection of some pretty
wide lanes and Where are we going with with that as a greenway? Does anybody know? I'm gonna defer to
Andrew Sipo for this sure There was a time you probably would recall for I couldn't tell you what year
but there was a bond package and
That City Council approved that basically had a list of capital projects that were prioritized in order
And and one of those bonds a protected bike lane project on coven enter was was included But I believe
I'm going by memory years back. I think that was maybe the lowest priority project of that band bond
project and essentially
there was not sufficient funding to move that project forward certainly to a construction stage and
since that time additional plans have been adopted that kind of Re-framed how we prioritize project
from a SS for a type perspective. So you've nailed it. That's that's what I want to know is tell me
how how the plans have changed since that bond was proposed and You know, what can we look forward to
the SS for a related I think
I'm just going by women. What's in my head here in the dark here? Yeah, but I think in short we are
now prioritizing corridors based on what is seen as highest or high priority and I am just Guessing
that coven enter in that stretch that a protected bike lane was identified on is not one of those higher
priorities and so has been Deprioritized compared relative to other projects like 10th Street or something
like that that has kind of been bumped up since that time
Very good. Thank you for helping me rescue that memory. I appreciate it. Further questions
on the intersection of College Mall and Covenanter to my right to my left. Mr. Seward I know I'm I just
wanted to know we did put this item on discussion in case there was maybe comments from the I think
maybe members of the public right. Be interested. No no that's we're getting to that. I just wanted
to check with further questions before we go to the public.
So again this is a discussion of topics that are not otherwise on the docket as a case if there is but
we would like to take public comment on it if there's any member of the public who would like to comment
on the intersection of College Mall and Covenanter please come to the podium state your name you'll
have three minutes if you're online please raise your hand and zoom and you'll be called in due order.
My name is Laura Gao. I live on Fair Oaks Lane. I'm a neighbor of that intersection. I was struck on
December 17th, 2025, or 24 at that intersection, and was wounded. And the man who ran into me with his
pickup truck was not cited for a moving violation. And I came and I brought this in.
I thought what can I do to make this a better situation? I can take it to the Traffic Commission to
improve the safety and I can try to get the record state straight with the police as There are representative
of the police here today or is some as a police person listening online? I don't know I Thank the Traffic
Commission for looking into this and for making a plan for for the future
I am very glad to hear that stationary signs Saying to obey the left turn to seed the right-of-way is
going in and I hope leading pedestrian Interval will be installed at that intersection the rest of what
I have that I would say that probably doesn't
pertain to what your work is regarding the police, because you have a safe street policy, and you can
make the safest streets possible, make the best speed limits, put your infrastructure in place, but
if the police don't enforce the law, that's my beef. And I have some things I could say to that, but
I don't know that this is the best place if there's no police representation here. It's not inappropriate.
I would encourage you to continue.
All right, it's gonna take me about three minutes to read it. The chief of police said when we talked
about this intersection in November of last year, do you think that giving that driver a ticket would
make a better driver of him? And I would say that the answer is yes. You can, as I said, if you have
all the work done by this group, but the police don't enforce the rules of the community, it's like
playing a board game without rules, but with much graver consequences. As I was hit,
By an inattentive driver while crossing in the pedestrian crosswalk and the inattentive driver was not
cited with the moving violation I thought what next not giving tickets first for running stoplights
and hitting kids and unfortunately that has been put to the test and A child was hit by somebody running
a stoplight Excuse me a stop sign and and the driver was not cited. I
I would repeat to this commission that in explaining what happened to me as I was going around recuperating
with my broken arm, every person who heard my tale was indignant that the police had not given the driver
a moving violation. They were just incredulous. Further, after this testimony to the commission, I was
talking to a group of eight women who are older, and several of them had moved to Bloomington community
recently. These women
were also indignant, but they also said that in this community, as in no place they had ever lived before,
running of red lights was done with no repercussions. You never saw traffic stops for egregious violations
of running red lights. And the police chief asked, will giving the ticket make a better driver? And
I would say yes. There are repercussions for operating a vehicle inattentively, while distracted, inebriated, or high.
Say yes, there are repercussions It acts on mortgage and then just the driver since other drivers see
the ticket being given in conversation with people That hear of the ticket it will spread the word tickets
are given there are repercussions for breaking the laws pause you here because your time is up with
the anyone like to make a motion to allow her to continue Mr. Stossberg I make a motion to let her finish
her statement. Is there a second? I
All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Please continue, you have three more minutes. Thank you.
And so people will take note if tickets are given. Further, there's a cost to the community in sending
out an emergency response team. And if the ticket is given, it has the person who caused the problem
have some cost, some skin in the game for the community having to send out the emergency response group.
Furthermore, if you report with the citation what has happened, it makes crash analyses and the law
enforcement and the insurers that have to deal with that driver in the future know what has happened.
If litigation is needed, the police record reflecting reality is crucial as well.
The police chief said we would not like it if this community was one in which the police gave out traffic
tickets. I have lived in a community where tickets were given out liberally, almost predatorily, College
Station, Texas. That community abided by the traffic law in an amazing way because they knew they would
get tickets. The Transportation Committee is doing the best they can
get the place safe, but they can't enforce the law. The victims can't enforce the law. The police has
to do that. The police are those who can give the tickets, who can enforce the laws of the community.
And this includes not just for transportation with vehicles, but pedestrians and bicycles as well. And
I would beg that the police do the job that is theirs to do. Thank you. Thank you. Is there further
public comment? Is there anyone online? I have.
Hopi s online they should be able to unmute Please state your name and you'll have three minutes Hi,
this is Hopi Stasberg. I just wanted to bring up something that hasn't been mentioned as part of this
intersection Heading if if you are heading East through it on a bicycle You can't trigger the traffic
light to turn
And so I'm just hoping that while we're talking about this intersection and while engineering is focused
on it, something is done about that. I have sat there on a bicycle before and gone through a couple
of different cycles and then ultimately had to essentially run a red light as safely as possible in
order to get through that intersection because if a car is not coming, then I as a bicycle am just sitting
there. So I hope that something else
happens with regard to that at this intersection too. Thanks. Thank you. Any further public comment
in chamber or online. I have Paul Rousseau who should be able to unmute. Please go ahead. You'll have
three minutes. Please state your name. Hi Paul Rousseau. I would like to strongly support the comment
of the first public commenter when she was struck by a car. It's a very similar experience.
Two years ago, June of 2024, as some of you may already know, I was struck by a car and thrown up over
the hood and nearly killed. I was waiting at a stop sign at East Third Street and Heritage. And the
driver made a fast left turn so fast that she went into my side of the street, probably hit me at about
25 miles an hour and broke my leg in four places. It was a life-changing injury. What I'd like to address tonight
is the fact that a year after the crash, I contacted the responding officer and I asked him, was the
motor vehicle driver cited for moving violation? And I asked about whether the driver had been tested
for THC or alcohol. None of that was done. The driver wasn't even cited. Her windshield was spidered,
my leg was out
split out into the road and I'm lying and screaming my head off and I'm on my side of the lane. And
he said to me, for us to cite a vehicle, I'm reading now from his email he sent me, for us to cite a
vehicle for any infraction would require us to see the infraction happen. I don't know what to say about
that. That's insane.
And I have not been able to ask the chief of police to verify that, but I hate, I suppose he probably
would, especially after the comment by the first member of the public tonight. I detect this particular
officer who helped me was actually very friendly, but he was apparently telling me what the city policy
was. It wasn't his decision, I guess. Um,
I detect overall though a real dismissiveness on the part of our police with respect to pedestrian and
bicycle safety. And it's got to end. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any further comments from members
of the public either in the room or online? Going twice. All right. Let's come back to second round
questions from commissioners.
Any second round questions follow-ups? Mr. Sossberg Thank you all for your public testimony I've also
been hit by a car while riding my bike and it's not something I care to repeat I recall that after this
case came before us last time we passed two resolutions one was about the physical facility
of the intersection that the other one was directing the city to look into aligning our ticketing policies
along with our safe streets per all plan and
And I believe that's something we're still waiting to have come back to us. Do you, do you share this
recollection? Mr. Seaborn, Mr. Roblin? Yes, that is correct. That was the resolution and we are still
working towards that. That'll take a little bit more time than the engineering. Okay. So thankfully
with that still in progress, we may have hopefully some positives, uh, something to report in the future.
Just to be clear, you're saying that there's a resolution in development, not one that we've adopted.
We passed a motion to direct the city to align ticketing policies to with our safe streets for all goals
Okay, so that's in the works, but it's not come before us yet. Correct. Okay further questions Mr. Drummond,
it's maybe a question for ourselves, but while we're on the topic of this intersection One of the public
commenters mentioned and I'm familiar with the same
Oftentimes I'll get on my bike and hop over the curb and go push the pedestrian button to make the light
trigger which is not well, which is not not everybody can do or things to do but But also the no turn
on red issue. Is that something we can ask? Those two things we looked into further or do we need to
present a new case? Well, that brings me to the thing I was going to say to
Introduce the discussion portion of this topic, which is I frankly I consider this portion of our meeting
to be perhaps one of the greatest Process innovations that I've seen in my time involved with the city
We are free Thanks to this Structure to discuss anything we've heard today. We are not voting on an
item that has been set out for us and
with language that we're you know recommending be adopted as city code or Has a new plan or what have
you? we have the option to make one or more motions to direct staff to T up a resolution to tee up even
an inquiry and that this portion gives us the freedom to
Go a field from the point of the main topic which was this intersection to talk about what the more
general point of what's the point of fixing it if there's no law enforcement at this intersection or
other places. So no commissioner has to make a proposal let alone right now. This is all fodder for
thought. But if a commissioner was so moved to say I think that we should
Direct staff to drop a resolution direct staff to put an inquiry on the agenda That would be an appropriate
motion to make so with that I just want to open the floor for You know for that everyone has come here
to see what we think of This this this issue so have at it, please
What do you all think? Think out loud. Mr. Stossberg. Miss Gal report mentioned this is not a one off
incident. Mr. Russo happened again at Smith and Morningside. We have not just isolated incidents but
a pattern of vulnerable road users being struck by
Motorists when it was clearly their fault, there's evidence to support it and they are not being cited
now I can understand if there's some level at which we can't write tickets for absolutely everything
but that this is was the impotence for Predest passing the motion last time I believe we can draw a
line where you can say when there's sufficient evidence when the people are vulnerable road users when
it was someone's clearly at fault it does feel like we ought to be able to cite people and I hope this
Something will come out of that emotion that we've we've passed that have this looked into further If
I may ask do we know if this is a matter of state law or local law in other words Is it local law that
prevents a BPD officer from writing a ticket or do to state law hold? Maybe there's a staff member who
can answer that question Going by memory from when we had
Police present at this meeting. I don't know if it's a law that is in place. It's more of a Practice
or policy of the department. Okay, so then it is something within our control As a city, I believe it's
driven partly by resource constraints as someone who does crash analysis We have like ten or so a day
that involve often single or multiple vehicles Right, but this was a case where or whether we heard
a case of a member of the public who said I was hit by
buy a car I'm lying there in pain and the officer says I Can't do this without yes, you know, but I
haven't seen it myself. Can we not change a policy like that? So again having to crash analysis if you
if you narrow it down to just the bicycle pedestrian crashes It is a much smaller set. So I think perhaps
If you look at only May have I feel like we have resources to do something as opposed to what we're
doing now, which is
hardly anything. Mr. Dummy. My observation like I've shared before I it's and it's not just Bloomington
specific. I don't see many police officers issuing citations for crashes hardly. It's a rare exception
to the rule. The police chief my memory is he said look this is for the lawyers to deal with and I appreciate
his trust in my profession but but we don't
We don't I don't have citations in my toolbox. That's not what I help can help do So I don't think there's
a probe I mean there's it's I assume it violates the transportation or traffic code to run into somebody
with your car It's just no different than if he comes upon the scene and it turns out the vehicle driver
was Intoxicated he didn't see the driver driving the vehicle intoxicated so that they still arrest people
on those grounds so I think it may go to the level of probable cause but
I think it's more of an issue. My impression is it's the police chief says hey we have limited and I'm
not I'm trying to paraphrase what he said. We have limited resources and this is not a resource we're
focused on and just like if they want to focus on speeding or issuing speeding tickets or not. I mean
I don't think there's I didn't understand there to be a policy that we're not going to issue tickets.
It's more just the practice of the department. We're not going to issue tickets. But as I said in fairness
It is this is not a Bloomington specific thing. This is I see and I have its statewide personal injury
practice and I can count on one hand the number of citations I've seen except for drinking and driving
is often there's often a recipe but otherwise using phones people they don't they don't they don't even
if the even if the person admits they were looking at their phone there's no citation issue falling
too closely speeding those types of things they're just hardly if there's a crash normally normally
there is no citation issue. The police report is always done but no citation issue. So basically this
is more of a state issue than a local one and that this is not uncommon practice among police departments.
I don't know about the first part of your question but my experience is it's not uncommon. Now that
doesn't mean we couldn't change or and I think we're I think we're actively trying to address it currently
with the pending inquiry. And so maybe the right call is to
wait till we get those results back No, I think you have mr. Stossberg so we are addressing this I think
in the best possible way in terms of Using design to prevent injuries and as we do that the number of
these Incidents will go down because the physical road designs will be safer and as that number goes
down It does seem like it becomes more practical to cite the remaining cases and that's the hope
I hope we can get to with safer street designs and then citations for a smaller remaining cases Anyone
observations on my right Are there any as far as this particular design we are we are brought came to
this topic because of College Mall and Covenanter Are there any observations or comments? Or motions
that people would like to make about it Does it?
Does it need further attention? Mr. Johnny, I'll make a motion I guess for an inquiry into the no turn
on red signage and if there's reason that doesn't exist and also included in that motion an inquiry
into whether the signal activation related to cyclists can be improved moving forward. Is there a second
to that motion?
We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we'll have a roll
call vote on Mr. Drummey's motion. Mr. Garzi, can you give us a roll call vote? Just to those who are
present, please. Copic? Yes. Mr. Midas?
Yes, Jimmy. Yes Strasburg. Yes, that passes five zero any other motions on College Mall and Covenanter
Seeing none I'll just say I still feel like the intersection as a whole I mean I while I was appreciated
mr. Seaborg's
extracting of that memory that we had talked about this intersection before like I'm thinking about
the Rain example we talked earlier and the example of when snow falls that that intersection has always
been pretty Thick shall we say like with with with space for cars to go nice and fast and I think that
also contributes to it I'm a little disappointed to hear that
There is that it's, I mean, I guess it's safe enough because it's not one of our highest priority
intersections. But I did have the thought that Covenanter could have been made safer, a full greenway
with protected lanes, but I can wait. On the other hand, I'm not sure. I hope that no one else will
be unhappy that we waited.
With that let's conclude this item and go now to the second Intersection evaluation update of the day
the corner of Smith and Morningside Who is presenting? this update That will also be me. All right again
garsey, please go ahead Okay, so this item is a follow-up To an inquiry regarding stop sign compliance
pedestrian visibility and neighborhood greenway crossing safety at Smith Road and Morningside Drive and
We reviewed traffic volumes, crash history, field conditions, and community concerns. The intersection
currently operates as an all-way stop-controlled intersection with Smith Road functioning as the higher
volume roadway compared to Morningside Drive. During field review, staff observed rolling stop behavior
and reduced compliance on Smith Road approaches. We believe this may be partially related to
driver expectation issues associated with the relatively low cross street traffic volumes on Morningside.
We reviewed three reported crashes over the last five years, including a bicycle related injury crash
within the crossing area. Based on the evaluation, we intend to move forward with several operational
improvements intended to reinforce the stopping condition and improve visibility of the crossing. Proposed
improvements include supplemental left side stop signs,
on Smith Road approaches, replacement of the damaged southbound stop sign, and upgrading the existing
crosswalk markings to high visibility continental crosswalks. At this time, we believe these are appropriate
near-term improvements that can be implemented relatively quickly while continuing to monitor operations
and safety conditions at this intersection. I'll take questions at this time. Thank you for the presentation.
Are there questions on this update? To my left.
To my right Seeing none are there members of the public who'd like to comment on this report Please
come to the podium state your name. You'll have three minutes Patrick Martin. Are you a member of the
public? Yes My name is Patrick Martin. I live at four four seven one East 3rd Street summer house this
is just around the corner from me and
Smith and Morningside is I go through this intersection as a pedestrian or as a bicyclist or as a runner
Three two to three times a day. I don't drive through this intersection I fully support the
staff recommendation on supplemental sub stop sign installations and yes, they do roll through there
on Smith and also on the Continental style
crosswalk markings. One thing I also want to note here too is that Morningside is a BT route and the
buses go through there slowed down by the speed cushions. There are no cushions on Smith. There is on
Morningside and that's why it's calm. And then also the park which is right there in the corner to that
northeast corner. A lot of children crossing in this area quite frequently.
Most of them are accompanied by parents, but every once in a while, they're not that's all I got to
say. Thank you Thank you. I only asked because Mr. Martin is a member of city staff and I thought maybe
he was here for a different reason Any other members of the public who'd like to speak to this issue,
please raise your hand and zoom you'll be called if you are online Or you could just thunder your request
I have a Darrell on Zoom who should be able to unmute. All right, please state your name. You'll have
three minutes to comment. Please go ahead. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Okay. I was having
technical difficulties with the buttons.
My name is Darrell Boggess, B-O-G-G-E-S-S. I was at the previous meeting. I decided to avoid the risk
of rain tonight. So I have spoken with staff previously about the range of options. I appreciate what
they are attempting to accomplish. However, I take exception with the extent of their
reaction to the perceived urgency of the circumstance. It appears they have chosen the lowest cost,
easiest to implement response, which may or may not be effective. I hope and wish it will be effective.
In reality, as a decades long resident,
a Park Ridge East. I left three doors away from that intersection. I have seen and heard way too many
incidents. And at the last meeting in council chambers, I was impressed. Some of you may recall my new
neighbor at the corner of that intersection, right where the accident took place as a security camera
at his garage.
that was recording it at the time it happened. And during the meeting, he turned on his camera on his
cell phone and he counted something like a dozen people that just rolled right on through, like there's
no stop sign, anything there. So my concern is, which I voiced previously in writing,
I think the real problem is the behavior of the drivers. It's a cut through from 10th to 3rd. These
are neighbors, these are commuters, these are people who go through that intersection almost every day.
They have grown accustomed to the California roll through technique.
They maybe slow down. I've seen several people who did not even hesitate. They just blew right through.
But it's become a matter of custom and personal habit. And I don't think having a stop sign on the left
side of the intersection is going to be adequate to change behavior. I think they need some kind of
a rumble strip, a physical reminder
to slow down. So I hope we will come back and discuss this again later if it's not effective.
Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Are there any other public comments on this item this this item
the corner of Morningside and Smith have a Steve acres who should be able to unmute.
Please go ahead and you'll have three minutes. Please state your name. Okay, I'm here. Can you hear
me? Yes. Okay, great. My name is Steve acres. I'm a resident of Park Ridge and thrilled with our Greenway.
But at the same time, we want to make our Greenway safe from Park Ridge to Park Ridge East and back
and forth because we have a lot of kids and adults that pass through that intersection. So two items
I'd like to bring up one would be
Will you be developing some metrics after the enhancements that you propose to put in the additional
stop signs and the crosswalk enhancements? Will you develop some metrics so that we can tell if the
changes that you're going to implement are effective or not, if that's possible? And then secondly,
what will be the
timeline for implementation of the Enhancements that you've mentioned and thank you very much Thank
you Further public comment if you're on zoom, please raise your hand. You'll be called if you're in
the room, please come to the podium Second call for public comments All right coming back to thank you
for the public comment let's come back now to the
I'm so sorry. There was a late one. Oh, all right, just not too late. That was my fault Let's hear him
Please state your name. You'll have three minutes Hi, my name is Brianna Alexander and I was also at
the last meeting I am the mother of the little girl who is hit riding her bike at that intersection
and I just wanted to echo the responses from the
to other people who spoke and get some clarity around, is it the responsibility of interested parties
to bring this topic up after the changes are implemented and we're not seeing change in behavior of
the drivers? Does that complete your comment? Yes.
Thank you for your comment. Further public comment. Last call for public comment. Okay. Let's come back
for second round questions on the question of Smith and Morningside the intersection evaluation update.
Anybody on my left. Any questions. We'll get the comments in a minute just if there's any last minute
questions here because I have a few.
Andrew will you guys be monitoring these improvements once they're done? Yes, we will We'll do a before
study and an after study and to answer the question about the metrics We'll just measure stop
sign compliance. Just see how many people are stopping and not stopping beforehand and then the same
thing afterwards I have to follow up on that. Can you be more specific about how that works? How do you
How do you measure people stopping? Do you actually sit there and count? That's correct. Uh, we would
have staff grow out into the field and observe both the northbound and southbound direction. Um, since
eastbound and westbound is not the issue, we'll just ignore that and just focus on Smith and we'll just
observe people as they get to the intersection. If they actually come to a stop, we'll mark that. If
they roll through without stopping, we'll mark that and we'll compare the total counts. Very good.
Thank you, Mr. Stossberg.
I'll phrase this as a question Our neighborhood greenway program does a great job with delivering a
certain level of service for the roads We use a range of traffic calming metrics. We choose streets
that are low volume if you're on this metric Network, you have a good guarantee That you're going to
have a fairly safe route intersections produce a particular challenge because
of their nature. Do we have a particular way that we try to guarantee a level of service as greenways
pass through intersections as we do for the rest of the facilities? And if not, given a pattern of crashes
where greenways, which we're trying to advertise as a safe network, pass through intersections, should
we have some kind of level of service that we try to
Guarantee for these greenways and intersections. It's a good question Can any staff member address it
So your question is how do we guarantee that there's a certain level of service for people on the quarter
I know that we can't necessarily but there's a kind of a disconnect these the rest of the facilities
or traffic calmed I Write a lot of them and they're just consistently a safe comfortable environment
And it's a kind of a promise that we're making to the users of the network This is a safe route. The
intersections are also a part of the network How can we provide that same kind of promise or level of
service as these routes traverse intersections? It's a great question, it's a hard and hard one to answer
I think as I'm just was reflecting as you restated the question I
Think I mean this really sincerely but I might want to rethink it a little bit more but I don't think
we can make intersections as safe as we can make roadway segments like just by their nature that is
where conflicts happen. So so by default they will not be as comfortable as the spots between
them particularly where we get to the more major intersections like the two that we've been talking
about tonight. So I think there is just a matter of they can't get to that same level but we want to
still do all that we can.
I am also just reflecting on when we do these projects They're usually from major intersection to major
intersection and and making sure we are intentional about looking at those Endpoints as much as we are
the in middle intersections And and some every intersection is unique every corridor has some unique
features we apply a lot of the same tools but there they can look and feel different at different places and
And by nature always stops are different than signals than two way stops versus other things. So, um,
so it's just, uh, that's my honest, I don't know if I'm fully answering your question, but that was
just the initial reactions I was having. I understand. It's a hard problem. Um, I noticed this on the
Hawthorne greenway. I was heading north and it was like crossing neighborhood street, neighborhood street,
neighborhood street. Suddenly I got to out water and it was much more dangerous intersection. But as
I approached it, it felt the same.
So maybe there's some things we can do to alert the cyclists or the road users. Hey, you're coming to
a higher risk intersection, whether it's some colors or something. So that in addition, whatever we
do for the road users to slow down, I think as cyclists, we learn ourselves and to teach our children
to be defensive because the drivers are not really going to stop and we have to be prepared for that.
Yeah I think that's that's a good point and that's a great example of we did a neighborhood greenway
that really ended in many ways at a major corridor and the context there is very very different that
was one of the critiques of it too is that we didn't do more at that time for for crossing at water
but it does make it more obvious what that is whereas if we're looking at like an always stop
Or it's sometimes you've heard probably in the past people being hesitant to mark crosswalks and only
marking a crosswalk because that maybe implies a level of protection that Certain corridors you would
want to do more than just do a crosswalk to make it a good crosswalk And so in some cases like this
is an always stop so it may feel comfortable and safe but is it and those that have been talking know
that it does have its challenges but
From a more psychological perspective it has I get I think what you're saying An easier question and
our long-term transportation plan we have grid connectivity and As I understand traffic work somewhat
like fluid dynamics The traffic spreads out to use all the available routes people want to take the
fastest route this particular part of town We have an ongoing interruption, which is a railroad track
We don't have connectivity between Park Ridge East and Meadow Park Meadow Park is a private road network.
It's not connected with the East East Eastern Heights across there. Is it the case if we could improve
our grid connectivity that some of this traffic would then fan out and then there just would simply
be less traffic at this intersection and
The the theory yes, I think the more that we can have a robust network The more we distribute traffic
and the more we can avoid having an intersection where one road has eight times the traffic of the other
road To have those more balanced traffic flows We also being mindful of you know Not wanting to encourage
more traffic on some residential streets at the same time But but generally yes, the theory is the more
connectivity the better and then we can have those
It does make things easier. Yeah, but those are not easy easy fixes. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah Questions
to my right I wanted to ask about this solution This is sort of a minimal or like the it is it I don't
know how to phrase it. I look at this intersection and I see another fat intersection This is lots lots of room
for cars to go quickly. I've seen streets next down for pedestrians in more central parts of town and
I recognize that installing curbs and bump outs and the like are expensive. Does staff see that as a
second step if this solution isn't
adequate? Can you talk about that a little? Yes, that would be correct. This is like our phase one,
just to see if what can we do to encourage people to stop at the intersection? And then if people continue
to not stop at the intersection, what else can we do? So it's like an incremental approach. Okay. And
so you're going to take counts to try to see if the problem you can, you can measure whether the problem
is being alleviated by the solution, but you're not afraid to do more. You just that you wanted to start
with this.
Yes, that's correct. Okay. Um, last question would be, uh, uh, what would be, let's say that the problem
is not alleviated. Uh, what would be the next level of, of service that you would seek? Um, a big challenge
that we have at this location is that it's an always stop and
In order for us to apply some other treatments that we have on other greenways, like adding speed humps
in advance of it or rapid flashing beacons, we wouldn't be able to have it be an all-way stop because
we don't use those measures at all-way stop locations. And so if people continue to not stop at this
location, we would most likely recommend that we would remove the stop sign. It sounds counterintuitive,
But by removing the stop sign on Smith Road, it would allow us to implement other measures, like traffic
calming on the block or the rapid flashing beacons. And that would be similar to what we've done on
other greenways. In other words, you're suggesting that if you can't beat them, join them, let them
roll through the intersection, but only if we force them to go at a
Steady slow rate of speed in that area. Is that mr. Seaborg I see Yeah, I think that's that's right
and I agree with everything that that mr. Garzi just noted and I was just having reflections to past
debates about other intersections in the community and
Remembering a question that that somebody asked it might have been in a city council meeting But like
if we were starting from scratch, what would you do? Yeah, and so I think what was described just to
you is certainly a very realistic option There are other options that have their they all there's no
great thing But like from scratch like this is a very big intersection if we were designing a neighborhood
intersection and
We probably wouldn't have a median in the center of it. We would have the roads be narrow or we'd have
bike lanes of appropriate width or if there weren't bike lanes we'd be doing bump outs there would just
it would just be but that becomes a much bigger project and And then it becomes back to the
word prioritization on how much to invest We have taken always stops in the community that were big
and as we've done resurfacing projects and things or neat not even always stops but tried to gradually
Remove excess width we've we've brought brought some of them to you and we've done some before this
Commission So those would be other things that could be explored So just give there's a menu of options
But I think what we shared is is also a very very real option that we'd be looking at No, it's well
answered and I appreciate it. I guess my last question would be how When should we check back?
In other words, how long will it take to evaluate, to implement this solution and then to evaluate it?
I think a realistic timeline would be a month or two. Just for us to do that quickly. Yeah. Uh, because
we would just need to do a study beforehand. It would just mostly depend on staff time and availability
to go out. Um, then for us to coordinate with our shops to install the signs and then for us to do a
step, the post study.
Would it be safe to ask for an update again in August? Three months from now. I think that would be
fair. Um, I think for us to do the before and after study during the summer break would be an ideal
timeframe just because we don't have fluctuations with students coming back or the school year starting
again. I mean you don't think that the relative, uh, lower traffic counts, uh, would, uh,
Make it I mean wouldn't higher traffic counts show you a different set of data It would show a different
set of data But if we at least have for the before and after with that same level of volume, it would
be comparable Okay. All right. Well, so at the very least I hope that we'll get an update in August
but now we come to the discussion of the case among members if these questions haven't satisfied your
interest is What do we all think of this?
And what if any motions might we like to make to call for further action. Mr. Drummond I appreciate
the work the staff has done. I find this problem just to be depressing because it seems like I mean
as long as we're still if we're going to use our phones when we drive and not figure out that problem
then we can put up 50 stop signs at this intersection but if you don't see them and
You don't stop and then people get hurt. So it's but I I understand I understand the reasoning and and
And then it very interesting to the statement about taking out the stop signs and how that could make
it safer But that that it makes sense why that would be the case. So that's my only comment Stasberg
I also appreciate the fast action here. I am a neighbor to this intersection I have a daughter named
Lena as well and we've biked through that intersection and
I also appreciate the big picture that the Staff is doing they have objective system-wide priority and
they are working through those in a systematic way that includes cost number of crashes High volume
and all these metrics that make sense And so I realize there's this intersection is hard to fix in a
better way and I think
We will eventually get to a bigger longer term fix as time and budget allow. So thank you. Thank you.
Comments to my right. All right. I don't think any further action needs to happen. I think that with
the exception of stop signs on Smith whatever they might put in is worth putting in anyway.
And that if further remedies needed to come forward, I mean, it's still going to be helpful to have
zebra stripes, you know for pedestrians there I Find myself sometimes doing a thousand-yard stare as
well just like oh that's probably the way we're getting a slow exposure to the world of of what engineers
You know cope with and and are trying to solve and it's non-trivial I think it's fantastic that we can
Hope to get a feedback on the implementation so quickly I think that three months is a very reasonable
amount of time a little surprised that it could happen that quickly I guess because the the changes
are light but I Will not be surprised at all if we come back for more Again if the Smith is eight times
the traffic of Morningside
And the intersection is as vast as it is, uh, that it encourages, uh, right turn on red and the like.
Um, I mean, uh, just looking at that, um, that crosswalk, uh, going the cross, the North South crosswalks
are extremely long. Uh, I'm so used to seeing bump outs downtown where the, the, we've, we've sort of
rescued the intersection from the right turning car that
It's almost a shock to to realize how this is how we used to build our intersections. So I don't have
anything more to add. I also just want to say that the comments that people made on this intersection
really moved us to ask questions in a way that we didn't know how to ask. And I was grateful for all
the public comment that came in and I asked them all to please keep it up.
Any other comments before we move on mr. Robling? Sorry, normally I wouldn't jump in here, but just
wanted to update for we have about 15 listeners in Then there will be no August meeting. So the earliest
meeting this could be is September 28th I suspected that I in the back of my head. I was thinking I
wonder if there's an August meeting. So You've got an extra month engineering Let's look forward to
seeing a report on the
an update on this at the September meeting. Thanks for the catch, Mr. Humbling. All right, if there's
no other comment on that, we'll go to the third item on the agenda, if I can find it here. This is one
I put up and again, I wanna apologize to Mr. Seaborg for the way I put this on the agenda because I
did not follow procedure. It should have been submitted by May the 4th and I did not submit it till
May the 8th.
Nevertheless because it's only an item for discussion And we've already seen the benefit of this portion
of our period I thought it was still appropriate to ask to have on the agenda But I just want to point
out that staff has not Submitted a memo on this. In fact, we're gonna get a presentation now. It's a
An ordinance proposal from councilmember
Kate Rosenbarger who's here in the room and I'd like to ask her to come now and make her presentation.
This is on an amendment she's proposing to title 15 on Carla streets. Ms. Rosenbarger thank you for
being here and welcome. And I guess her slides. Here we go. Hi. Thank you. My name is Kate Rosenbarger
City Council District 2.
Today sorry these slides were also very late everyone But thank you to city staff for getting them in
this packet or out to everyone So my colleague councilmember Courtney Daly and I are working on an ordinance
that amends title 15 vehicles and traffic and it would create a chapter in that in that section of code for
Streets and alleys that are closed to vehicular travel. So the ordinance is a draft. I just want to
give a little process first It's coming before council on Wednesday this Wednesday, May 20th If it gets
introduced that will be first reading where the plan is to have a conversation with council members
and staff and department heads about the potential closure and amendments so
Next slide here is a little roadmap for the discussion today It will start with where are we now? And
so we'll talk about the process to date and the ordinance that is currently in existence ordinance 2502
It was establishing the outdoor dining program and in it amends title 15 and other titles of
that create a car free Kirkwood on specific blocks for specific months of the year. And then the second
part today we can talk about what are we fixing. So this is adding language to title 15 again to create
that chapter for vehicle free streets and alleys and the other
Part of this is really further clarifying the intent of City Council when we passed the ordinance 2502
to have certain blocks of Kirkwood Avenue car free except in emergencies. So I do too just want to say
this is very much of course this is on the discussion discussion section of your all's agenda and this
very much is a discussion as it will be on Wednesday.
I mostly have my laptop here to like take questions and comments from you all. So again, just very much
appreciated. So a little bit of the where are we now in 2025. So ordinance 2502 establish the outdoor
dining program. And these are some of the where as clauses for the purpose of this program and to sort
of also go through the history of the program.
The city I can read these I guess if that is helpful a lot of thumbs up from the commissioners great.
Okay, nobody moved whereas the city also temporarily closed portions of Kirkwood Avenue to make it available
for enhanced social dining and outdoor seating and whereas due to the success of the program the Common
Council expanded and extended the outdoor dining program
in ordinance 22 0 1 resolution 23 0 4 and resolution 24 0 5. That was street areas only that year because
we had a lot of construction and sewer work I think on Kirkwood and whereas the program continues to
add vibrancy to our downtown and add health and use of our downtown business community.
And whereas the Common Council is committed to activating Kirkwood Avenue as a premier destination for
commerce pedestrians civic engagement and community life fostering economic vitality and social interaction.
And whereas the Common Council seeks to provide long term certainty to businesses residents and visitors.
regarding parklets and the Kirkwood conversion allowing them to plan adapt and invest with confidence.
And whereas the city desires to continue the outdoor dining program in the downtown and I left that
strike through twenty twenty eight because the original ordinance twenty five oh two we that was sponsored
by myself and council member sorry.
And we had talked about reevaluating this program at the end of twenty twenty eight which we were also
dealing with the parklets but it was council member sorry I think led this that it would create more
predictability instability for businesses to plan with confidence as well as residents and their planning.
If we did not have an end date to reevaluate but instead it just created an indefinite program and conversion.
for every year. So then a little to show where are we now. Very similar place I would say this ordinance
26 1 2 somewhere as clauses that we took from the previous and 25 0 2 and some we changed around a little
bit. Do you thumbs up want me to read these.
Great good enthusiasm whereas the Common Council and resolution twenty five oh five that should say
oh two is signaled a commitment to a predictable seasonal schedule and still seeks to provide long term
certainty whereas the City Council is committed to activating Kirkwood as a premier destination. These
are copies and whereas by form
Formalizing this closure within title 15 the city establishes a transparent framework for governance
allowing Allowing the city engineer that's a typo to manage emergencies while maintaining a consistent
and predictable standard for the public So this is a little diving a little deeper into the changes
that I want you all to be aware of and that I hope we discuss here and at council
Twenty five oh two the city engineer in cases of emergency lack of preparation or any other reason that
may render the program impractical can permanently or temporarily suspend the program in part or in
whole and what we would like to change in twenty six one two would take out that part about lack of
participation or any other reason and say in case of emergency in cases of emergency the city engineer
may temporarily
Restore motor vehicle traffic as authorized And this would so this would be in the form of City engineer
proposing orders like 90 day orders or 180 day orders that we see in places like the seven line elsewhere
The process and discussion so far is I
So in February twenty twenty six there was a memo that was in front of council and it was when we learned
that the outdoor dining portion of the program would not be continued based on lack of participation
and impracticality citing the budget. And this came from the city engineer.
In March I worked on just a very simple initial draft of this ordinance and shopped it around to a few
folks on April 10th. I sent that draft via email to city directors so director of planning director
of engineering ESD and the deputy mayor. I also sent to all eight of my council members and in each
email I asked
For feedback welcoming phone calls texts, you know emails getting together Collaboration questions everything
there. That is where councilmember Daley came on board April 28th director Cooper Smith did respond
to my email and we got together and discussed it and As of today councilmember Daley has met via phone
with the mayor
Director Cooper Smith and director seabor I think happened to be together and they all chatted about
it, which was wonderful and She has an email from director Hiddle and she has a meeting scheduled for
tomorrow with the director of public works So we're current timelines is now starting today here we
are This will be again up for discussion if it is voted
for introduction May 20th City Council meeting and then council has two more meetings before we go on
recess. We have June 3rd and we have June 10th. So ideally we would love to have something finalized
and working with you all and potentially supported to bring back to council either that June 3rd meeting
or that June 10th meeting.
which I understand would add a special session from you all and I would like to talk about that. So
far the information needed that I know of is from one email from Director Seabor that we need a comprehensive
list of streets closed to vehicles because others exist and we would like them all to be in this proposed
new chapter of Title 15. Thank you.
Sorry. Thanks for the presentation. Before we go to council questions and fully aware that staff has
not been able to weigh in with a memo on this. I wanted to give staff an opportunity to comment and
I suspect that maybe the person to ask would be director Cooper Smith who's here in the audience unless
Mr. C were wanted to present first because I think this is an issue not of safety but of commerce.
Whoever would like to speak those welcome director Jane Cooper Smith of economic and sustainable development.
Thanks councilmember Rosenberger for the presentation. I don't really have a lot to add. I think that
you know we made we staff did what we believed was a deep dive and due diligence to present information
and evaluate this program earlier this year and that was how we came to our staff recommendation in February.
And I would just footnote that it wasn't Andrew and I didn't decide like it was our it was the majority
of cabinet members and departments working on this together. And we really believed that was the best
recommendation for this space for a number of reasons. But I think that what council has expressed is
that they desire a different outcome. And so I think they have access to the information that we provided
at that time and we are happy to
Provide anything else that's needed. I've been deeply appreciative of the of the outreach. I think the
Initial version that councilmember Rosenberger shared didn't really have a lot of Matter to it. And
so there wasn't a lot to respond to but I did find our meeting and on the 28th to be super substantive
and helpful So I think just It's been really informative I think we should have been
doing some design thinking together earlier on in this process. I learned through these conversations
that council member Daley had requested a deliberation session earlier this year and I wish that we
had said yes to that because I think that's what this project truly needed. And so you know I've I've
said hey maybe we should do a deliberation session session but I don't think there's a huge appetite
for that at this time. And then my main concerns are just about what we have a
program that we're rolling out full steam ahead and we've we think it's really great but kind of just
triaging what the council's expectations are for the remainder of the year and how we're working with
businesses and maintenance of traffic plans with construction projects in the area. So I'm concerned
about 20 26. I'll just leave it there. But again thanks for the
Communication there's some media coverage had said said this is you know contentious and we're battling
but that's we're communicating and It's been pretty good. So, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Seabor would
you like to speak? Yeah, I just Appreciate the dialogue. I don't have a formal presentation mostly here
just to help answer questions the the main things I maybe wanted to share
Reflecting on when director Cooper Smith and I had a conversation with councilmember daily appreciating
the the note that some of the feedback is Potentially desire to include in it one of the the main questions
in my mind just to put it out there is And that a part of this it's a legal discussion to unlike what
is most from a legal lens and what is in title 15 or not and so we just between various schedules haven't
been able to connect and didn't
have a sense of the urgency of the timeline until more recently on this topic. But the independent of
the Title 15 discussion is that just throughout time, Title 15 and traffic code has never been the tool
used to temporarily close streets. And so that's maybe the biggest question in my mind, which is a different
question, it's related, but different.
Like we are closing Clubhouse Drive Temporarily we construct projects and close them temporarily. We
have some that are some roads that have been closed for seasons or for experiments or some permanently
that we just have been successful without doing a traffic code and Just in a very early quick assessment
an email dialogue in in state code when it talks about traffic regulations
basically says what municipalities can What what our traffic regulations we can regulate and and there
are things like stop signs and speed limits and one-way streets But closing a street isn't a traffic
regular. It's not one of the options It's just thought of I think differently and so just from from
that lens having some uncertainty with with The this specific just the legality of the ordinance that's
proposed But happy to answer any questions
Thanks to you both for your comments. So let me just frame this here again. This is the discussion portion
of the meeting. There's no official action we're taking except to ask the commission staff to tee up
a formal proposal such as a we would need to schedule a special session to hear to make a formal proposal
to hear a formal proposal before
It goes to City Council with the schedule that this legislation is on either that or maybe the ordinance
doesn't doesn't We don't know what the council is going to do with the ordinance whether they might
Decide it that quickly or postpone it, but it's on a track. That's faster than our next meeting so With
that I just want to say open up the floor to questions on
This topic do you constant do commissioners have any thoughts on? the ordinance that is Being proposed
Mr. Stossburg Yes, thank you. I had one time I owned a building on Main Street in Richmond, Indiana
Which for a period was pedestrian mall and a period cars went through but I'm very sensitive to the
fact this is more than just a transportation question this is a question about for the residents of
vitality of the area. I hear the point that consistency is good, it makes planning good, I hear that.
There's also a disconnect in what was presented about, sounds like first there was a recommendation
to close due to lack of participation and then impracticalities due to budget, but then following that,
this is where there's some details missing, there's a proposal to make it permanent after there was
just some data
Suggest that it wasn't working So how did and this might this might be a question more for the council
than not just the Transportation Commission, but how did we get from? Let's close it to let's make it
permanent Thank you first I would like to clarify The permanent would just be a permanent seasonal closure.
Okay. Yeah, so it's still the April through November
So we we in February were given memo from ESD with data in it and I guess some Points gleaned from a
lot of meetings and outreach that they did I think especially with council members and I guess I would
say there is a lot of data to that Wasn't in it I don't I it wasn't it wasn't I'm not saying it was
a bad memo I'm saying
For example there was a piece that said we're losing eighty thousand dollars in parking meter revenue
because that would be maxing out those spots that were converted to car free where we would need to
take a better look at that because we know mostly people then park on different streets so forth and
the side streets and everything so that wasn't really accurate. I think there is some other data that
essentially wasn't included about how long people are starting to stay. I think it's called stay time.
I don't director Cooper Smith would know more about it than I do where we're looking at cell phone pings
and folks are staying longer when it's when cars aren't on it. So they're going that sort of you assume
from that they're going to multiple spots instead of going to Nixon eating and leaving. So I think there
are other things to be considered I guess that weren't
the memo Also conversations with DBI and the downtown Kirkwood Association that at least I've had Thank
you It sounds like now there are more conversations happening between the council and the staff about
the best way forward Do you feel good about the timeline it sounds like I know on our end it feels compressed
the way we're receiving it
There's always an option to do something again temporary in the service of doing something better for
the long term as opposed to trying to start something this new and definite plan immediately. Do you
feel like this is the right way the options of this year versus next year with more conversation in
process. It's up for debate I would say. I mean I really try to come in
to draft ordinances and like things that I draft with I don't know a lot of curiosity still so I think
a lot of people are involved in this and because this has been in existence for years it doesn't feel
new to me it feels like we're moving it from the outdoor dining ordinance and just so we're kind of
separating it from outdoor dining and just putting it in title 15.
So to me it feels more of a fix than a big change and that doesn't exactly answer your question. Do
I think there's enough time before we go on recess. I think there is I think that it wasn't seen as
something that needed to be discussed until it became all in council's agenda which is OK. Everyone
has been so busy. I mean the PD has taken up an ungodly amount of council hours and staff hours. I know
that and that was
why this got pushed as well. I mean initially we were looking at trying to close it to cars by little
five but the PUD just took over. So that's just kind of a nature of where we are now. And so it could
happen or it couldn't happen. I think another question is if it were to pass in this time span does
it go into effect soon or does it go into effect in twenty seven.
I'll ask a process question maybe to Mr. Seaborg's concern. It sounds like there's another conversation
that Mr. Flaherty talks about, which is what's the right amount of code to have in Title 15? Should
we be removing that? And this is suggesting adding some new specifics at the point we're talking about
removing them. I know there's a distinction sometimes between policy, which is high level, and procedure
details, and some of these
Like to me the name of a street or the section of a sidewalk of the detail So I guess I have some concern
about what's the right amount to add to the title 15 Yeah, that's one of the questions on my mind that
I don't honestly have a good answer for I think as at meetings like this in the past every month it
feels like Commissioner Flaherty at these meetings will ask what's the the latest on those discussions and
And I think essentially for the title 15 discussion we're just looking for I'm looking forward to our
council legal team in the city administrative legal team to work together on it and happy to be a part
of it. And and some of those things are more detailed like how many feet from an intersection to another
is always there is no parking. This is a bigger picture policy thing but is it.
Where does it land on that I couldn't definitively say because we haven't had that chance to get into
those weeds yet. Thank you. Mr. Sasberg will go to Mr. Coppock. Well I've got some questions just on
this kind of information that's available like how much is this used date during the daytime on the
weekends. I mean even during the weekdays if the whole roads closed off how
How much use is there I mean people eat breakfast at uptown and Monday at 9 a.m. or I mean you know
how many of these stores are actually our businesses are in favor of closing down the street. Is that
that data that's available. I mean I would encourage you as responses from everybody but I know that
there's been surveys of businesses done. I suspect that you're going to hear that restaurants tend to
favor it. Non restaurants tend not to.
I their their experts here in the room Yeah, I mean, I think that's an excellent question obviously
and can bring that we have information from the outreach that we did prior to the February meeting and
I can share that Reshare that with councilmember Rosenberger. The other tool that we have is is from
Placer AI and it uses cell phone data to You know according to a footprint that you draw to show
many phones are in that space for how long where do they go where do they come from and The dwell time
is included in the memo and we can share that and I'd also be more than willing to just sit with you
if you Or any of the other council members want to look at that tool Drama, you know, like we can do
whatever but we could we could bring any information back to this body that would like to see it We
could also include
The original memo. I mean there's a lot in there. I understand that council members have questions about
some of the way the conclusions were made but there's a lot of information there I guess and the other
question I had is so how many parking spaces are lost not necessarily the revenue but Where do those
you know how many spaces are there 80 or 50 or where do those people go park at? I suspect
Commissioner of Olin would be able to answer that faster than me, but it's included in our Sorry and
I take Councilmember Rosen barter's point that there's better or broader Assessment of that. Sorry.
I'm just flipping through the memo to see if I can get a number on the parking spots. I
It just looks like it's translated to dollar amounts rather than actual spots. But we can you know I
think we could look at the full downtown footprint. We could look at number of spots. I don't know what
else but we can look at that. I guess the last question I have Andrew for Andrew I guess. How's fire
protection provided in that stretch. I mean I know you know you can get an ambulance or a stretcher
in there but how do they get in front of
You know busker chumlee or someplace like that. Yeah, I know In the past when the various blocks have
been closed there's been some intentionality about making sure like if outdoor dining is out there There's
at least X number of feet of free and clear width that can accommodate What fire needs? And that's there
are the bollards are in place and there's a plan for them to be able to access it through those bollards so
They've definitely been coordinated with they I think EMS providers certainly prefer the road to be
open But if it is closed, it's been closed and they've had a plan in place I just wanted to chime in
based on the question I'm taking from the 2018 parking commission report
100 East Kirkwood had 16 spots 200 had 16 300 East Kirkwood had 18 spots 400 East Kirkwood had 23 and
500 East Kirkwood has 14 now So that's 87 spots over the five blocks Not all of which have been closed
in a given time I also would point out that the net revenue for
The three blocks that had typically been closed one hundred four hundred five hundred in 2018 was close
to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So if it was only eighty thousand four gone in revenue I'm
going to be interested to know how that number was arrived at. But let's there's more questions I think
any other first round questions. Second round question Mr. Stossberg just to reply on the parking spots
case I think another useful lens is
Uh, business revenue to the will and to the extent they're willing to share during these different
experiments because I know some places have found that when they take out parking spots, they have bike
parking or other amenities that their sales go up. So it's actually good for sales. So just because
we're losing bark parking spots doesn't necessarily mean we're losing, uh, business revenue, but that's,
that's what, at this point, I believe we would have data for, for that.
We asked businesses to describe the impact on their operations, and we wouldn't ask them to share actual
sales data, of course, since it would be in the public record. And it was mixed, I think. Restaurants
largely benefited from it, and I think banks, the churches struggled with it. Sorry, I'm just summarizing what I
what I recall from memory, but yeah, it's mixed is where it's at. And then interestingly, CVS reported
no difference in sales, which I thought was, I don't know. I just thought that was an interesting item.
Okay, further questions before we go to the public for comment. Again, this is a kind of an informal
Conversation we we have to decide what we want to do about it, but let's open up to the public If there's
a member of the public, there's no one in the chamber but is there a member of the public online who
would like to speak on the question of Ordinance 2612 which is Working its way through the process which
is we're considering considering please speak now I Have a pulver so who should be able to unmute
Okay, please state your name. You'll have three minutes. Well, thank you, Paul Russo. I was going to
speak about this at the council meeting, but I'll speak now. I strongly support the proposed ordinance
and I thank the council members Rosenberger and Daley very much for introducing this. In my view, the
ordinance reestablishes a closed closure that is not new and therefore a quick timeline is not only
appropriate, but necessary. Summer is upon us.
Kirkwood should be closed as soon as possible for the sake of continuity with last year. In my view,
of all the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the seasonal closure of Kirkwood was probably the
best. I think the closure is forward thinking and it represents Bloomington well. Regarding the exact
language of the ordinance, I see
That it would allow the city engineer to suspend the closure for up to 90 days on the basis of an emergency.
If I've read that right. That's half the summer. That seems excessive to me. I would suggest instead
that 15 days would be more appropriate for any emergency because two weeks would reach the next scheduled
city council meeting at which time the city engineer could make the case for a longer suspension.
In the unlikely event that a lengthy emergency occurred during a schedule scheduled summer recess of
the council Then I suppose the council would need to convene an emergency meeting That's all I've got.
Thanks for letting me input Thank you for your comments. Is there anybody else online who would like
to comment on? the discussion over a potential ordinance 2612 No other takers online last call for public comment
Let's come back to the commission. So again, the question before us isn't what should the city policy
be? The question is how do we want to address it? If at all, uh, in order to, if, if the ordinance,
uh, uh, goes on the track that council member Rosenberger said, we would have to schedule a special
session to have input on it before, uh, it goes to council.
We don't have to have input on it. I am glad that it's been brought before us And I'm grateful to everyone
for being willing to address it But having said that what thoughts do commissioners have mr. Drumming?
I Question a rhetorical question I guess has is there any compromise and could it be made a one-way
like a one-lane one-way and have it partially closed but to answer your question I I think it's
My thought is this far enough along with the people that get paid to make these decisions that I don't
think I'm not dying to provide input on it if the world the group is we should provide input I'm fine,
but I'm I'm fine not providing input on it as commission Other thoughts mr. Midas I think the major
feedback I hear from that group is just like consistency like year-over-year
I feel like it's almost that they don't really care which which way the decision goes but just that
they really value that whatever it is remains the same year after year so that they can either invest
make real true investments in infrastructure for the street or or not and make other plans for it. And
then also I'll just mention Bloomington Transit when we used to go down Kirkwood and I believe back
in 2021 we removed all of our routes from the street in anticipation of the street being regularly closed
and we have no
plans to ever really go back to the street for that reason. So that's in our head it's kind of an awful
mistreating way doesn't really affect us too much. Last year we ran the summer shuttle because of concerns
about like lack of parking and like lack of accessibility and the shuttle just went like extremely
underutilized. And we saw especially from some of the different festivals on the events that on Kirkwood
that parking limited parking was not a reason that kept people from from Kirkwood. People went there
when there was
things to do there. They they found parking just fine. They walk there just fine. So further thoughts
Mr. Stossberg. I see this through some different lenses. One is as most people have pointed out this
isn't new. We've been talking about Kirkwood when to open it and close it for years. And in some ways
I think it's fair to consider it as something that predates the Transportation Commission as something
that's been talked about
before. The other lens is it's very much an interdisciplinary question. It is not simply a transportation
question, very much also a business question, a community question. And to me, it's less clear what
the role of the Transportation Commission should be. I don't feel comfortable just making a recommendation
about the transportation piece because it's much more than that. It has to do with the, we're impacting
the lives of, it sounds like if we go with this, the businesses that
There may change over time more the type that are successful will appear and some of those that are
less successful may move It's a big question for our community and not just one for transportation given
that and the timeline goals Yeah I guess my question is like What role should we play here? Okay. Well
Did you have a okay, let me weigh in here as a veteran of the Parking Commission I did not
to this commission primarily because I was concerned about safety. Not that I'm not concerned about
safety, simply that that's my super villain origin story. So as far as parking goes, like I had a immediate
question about the cited $80,000 as a loss of parking revenue.
There's just so many problems with that phrase in my head like we don't we certainly shouldn't be and
I like to think we don't make policy based on whether or not we can make money off of parking. I pointed
out back in 2017 that the overall system of parking the garages the lots the parking meters residential
neighborhood programs barely breaks even when you add up all the revenue from meters and the lesser
revenue from garages and lots That our system only started paying for itself when the meters were installed
Okay, so for all this time we've been sort of been at this equilibrium where the the the public parking
that the city of Bloomington offers Breaks even or roughly so maybe loses a little bit of money
We're talking about several million dollars a year, four, five, six million dollars a year. And that's
how much it costs to provide it. So let's not have any illusions about the revenue from meters being
somehow, I mean, I think some revenue is used for other things, but that was what the commission was
trying to establish was to what extent does
Offering parking cost the city So that's an important question and there are other veterans of the Parking
Commission on this body. They're they're not here today, but I Don't want to make policy based on Well,
we lost money on that's not how parking even works one thing I want to get is the total amount of revenue for a
2025 we don't have it handy in 2024 there was almost 2.9 million dollars in parking meter revenue if
The figure for 2025 is anywhere close to that. I think that the $80,000 question is Should not have
been a primary reason for arguing whether to close or open Kirkwood But yes, this is a commercial issue it's also
We have to weigh the commercial concerns With the right of people to get around so there are regularly
people who are elderly or Disabled who express their dismay at a street closure because they have difficulty
getting to a place on Kirkwood they were accustomed to I take their concern seriously and
And for a long time I've asked a similar question to why is it that we can't squeeze drive lane to an
inch of its life to allow cars to go through at five miles an hour 10 miles an hour that would satisfy
a problem like that. If we're talking about a citywide speed limit of as low as 20 miles an hour which
I've heard
Is is something that is being considered at levels above us? This dovetails with that goal Would it
cost more an infrastructure to build like I I was I asked this question when I was on City Council Can't
we just leave one lane open? Can't we put Jersey barriers up to block one lane off and the answer was
it was just way too much in material and an effort to do and
I think we would have to I mean I I sort of still favor that idea but I don't know enough to really
you know weigh in on it. I think we definitely need more information. I think this topic should be discussed.
I'd like to see it discussed as soon as possible but I'm open to
the pleasure of commissioners as to how quickly we'd like to take it up. I mean, we're gonna have, if
we want an opportunity to meaningfully impact the legislation, we need to have a special session. If
we want to take up an inquiry, we perhaps can, you know, take our time to do that. So I think that's
sort of where I see the commission. And I know that the,
The two other parking commissioners former parking commissioners Would have a great interest in this
discussion, but it's up to us to decide whether we want to what effort we want to make With that is
there further thought any feedback for me or for others? Anybody want to make a motion what do we want
to do I Try not to make motions on the chair
I don't want to make motions for people I could do it, but I'd rather come from somebody else Any thoughts
I have people to my left I'm in favor of a wait and see because it's gonna come to council I Mean because
the point is that we can offer the deliberation session They may not be able to schedule and they may
ask what does the Transportation Commission think? That's why I thought we should perhaps act
more expeditiously. Okay, I think in this case I'll look to you to make the motion
Okay, yeah, I'll do it Okay, well then I'm ready to make a motion to schedule a meeting for June 1 because
that gives us some time To to react it doesn't give staff a lot of time To to get ready We could also
do a meeting on June 8th and either one ought to give us the opportunity to weigh in meaningfully before
the likely final meeting June 10th and
I have Ryan Roebling. We have a planning session on June 8th already planned. Really? Yeah. Well, that's
convenient. Can we make it a double any any issues with that? Not from staff's point of view. Okay.
Let me ask staff over here. Would a June 8th meeting give you enough time to prepare if we were to put
this on our docket?
a case I Can only speak for myself. I'd certainly legal is a key part of it I certainly want legal to
have a chance to weigh in and yeah, June 8th is also a planned Commission meeting So I who June 8th
is a planned Commission meeting. Oh, so this room will be used for that and I will be at that meeting
So if you want my attendance, I will probably not be here. Will we be in McCloskey? Okay Thank you for
that. Mr. Seabor. Miss Cooper Smith I'm available
I'll do my best to prepare kind of some of the data points that you all talked about today and that
councilmember Rosenberger's as discussed so Do my best great. Thank you. Mr. Seabor maybe Maybe
a representative from engineering could attend in your stead I don't think it requires you there. Although
I you know, I know you want to weigh in on this Yeah, I'd love to be there. But certainly if there is
a meeting we will do all that we can to support that meeting and I imagine
Other departments impacted Would try their best as well. Okay. So, all right. Thank you that that helps
I Don't know what motion I need to make here I think that if we already have a meeting scheduled, we
don't need to schedule a special meeting We can just put it on the agenda or what you yeah that you
will need to that would be not a planning session
You would need if it would need to fall under regular hearing so you would need a special session a
vote to have a special session. Okay. And do you care whether we do this before or after the planning
session? Yes, because we will have consultants coming in or well zooming in at 530. How long do you
anticipate the planning session to be? Is it an hour or more? The plan is for an hour. I would give
it some wiggle room.
Maybe and I would give it a little bit of way over maybe 90 minutes just to be safe. Okay So if we were
to propose a special session for June 8th at 7 p.m You would find that acceptable Okay, any other I'm
gonna make a motion here I'm gonna make a motion to call a special session of the planning
of the Transportation Commission
June 8th at 7 p.m. Immediately to follow the planning session At 530 on which the question of ordinance
2612 will be the primary Item on the agenda is there a second for this motion Does nobody want a second Okay
You couldn't you can bind your fellow commissioners they won't resent you Yes, okay, we have a motion
in the second can we have a roll call vote Mr. Minus, yes Vaughn yes Jimmy yes
Strasburg? Yes. Coppock? Yes. Okay, so we are going to present this as a, this is a resolution, right,
Mr. Obling? I'm sorry, I was not paying attention. What was the question? Well, in order to weigh in
on the ordinance, we have to have a resolution, right?
Oh, you would like. Yeah, we can bring it forward as a resolution. Sorry. Yes. Okay. So it'll be in
the form of resolution. It'll be the case we take up at the special session on June 8th at 7 p.m. Thank
you all for that. Thanks. I'm trying. I really am. Okay. Is there any other comment on this issue before
we move on to the rest of the agenda?
Okay, thank you all. Let's go now to general public comment on items not on the docket. We did have
a written public comment submitted by Paul Rousseau on parking on Grant Street that's in your packet.
There's nobody else in chambers who wants to make public comment. Is there anyone online who would like
to speak to the Transportation Commission on an item that we have not already discussed? If so, please
raise your hand and zoom and you'll have three minutes.
Is there anyone on zoom who would like to speak final call? All right. I think that's it. There's no
other business. This meeting is adjourned and we will reconvene June 8th at 530 in the McCloskey room
for a planning session followed immediately by a special session at 7 p.m. In the McCloskey room. Thank you.