planning session of the Transportation Commission is called to order. Shall we start with the roll call
attendance? Here? Here. Here. Here. And with that, I don't have the agenda in front of me. We have one
more member joining us.
Next on the agenda is approval of minutes. Any no minutes to approve. All right. Next is the Rogers
Madison Kinzer Pike corridor study from the staff. That is Hank Duncan, Safe Streets program manager.
throw it off to Drew Parker, the project manager from tool design in just a second, but to give you
a broad view update on what we've been doing. So since we last met, we have been developing concepts
based on your all's review, the public feedback that we got this past spring and the data from the corridor
analysis. We are now into the concept development and feedback phase of the study.
So we have nine different concepts to show you all in the public over the coming weeks. And we are looking
for your all's feedback and review, any questions you have, so we can steer these concepts in the right
direction. The concepts you're about to see are very much preliminary. They will change from now until
the final corridor study. A couple of notes on upcoming engagement events. There will be a public workshop
at Switchyard Park
on Tuesday, September 1st from 530 to 7 p.m. That will be an open house workshop so members of the public
can come in and talk to staff, review the concepts and give us their feedback. We will also host unscheduled
pop up events around the corridor to contact street users who normally don't or can't come to these
formal public meetings.
And we will also be hosting stakeholder-specific meetings with neighborhood associations, business owners,
et cetera, throughout the next few weeks. So with that, I will throw it to Drew Parker. Thanks, Hank.
Good evening, everybody. Thanks for having me. Hank, I think I need permission to share. Let me double-check.
Let's see if this works. Oh, no. OK, I can't do it. Sorry about that.
Okay, can everybody see a screen with concept designs in the room? Yes. Okay. Awesome. Well, yeah, thanks
for the introduction, Hank. So since we last met, we gave kind of a summary of what we heard during
workshop week and some preliminary concepts, and we have been working on revising those concepts, like
Hank mentioned. By no means are these final concepts, but as part of this study, what we're trying to
do is take the design objectives and the goal of the project
all the existing emissions that we collected and address some of those known issues through these concepts.
So we've picked 10 locations throughout the corridor to develop these concepts, so it doesn't cover
the entirety of the corridor. But as a reminder, what we talked about at the last mission meeting, our
overall concept, wherever possible, is to narrow the street cross-section in order to widen sidewalks at larger
buffer spaces where we can add more landscaping and separation, and where possible, add shared use paths,
especially north of the V-line crossing. So you'll see that kind of shown throughout some of these different
concepts here, starting with the first one. So this concept shows Gorley Pike, and what we're showing
here is a compact roundabout. And we think this is a really good place
have a compact roundabout because it slows people coming off the bypass and heading towards the bypass.
We know that in this northern section the speeds get a little bit higher and so anything we can do to
calm traffic as it comes on and off the bypass helps with increased yielding compliance at crosswalks
and just improve safety outcomes at intersections because everybody has to travel through the intersection
at slower speeds you know 50 to 20 miles an hour instead of
today where they don't have to stop at all at this intersection, maybe more like 40 miles an hour or
higher in some cases. So that's the concept that we're showing here for Gorley Pike. This is one of
a couple of places where we think a roundabout can fit with it right away or with minimal easements
for sidewalks at the corner. So yeah, I'll pause there. Can we take comments as we go, Hank?
Or do you want me to review all the concepts and then take comments? I would rather go one by one if
that's fine with the commission. One concept by one concept. Sure. And then take questions now. Yeah.
I've heard that in recent times, MDOT has been out to review the 17th and the bypass intersection and
found it to be problematic.
And they have also plans in the near future next few years to do something with that bridge. That's
kind of very recent. Has that those conversations been factored into what we might be doing here because
that's very close to the. Yes. So regarding the bridge. So we currently have the bridge about
called about a half mile west of here that connects Gorley Pike to the Arlington Heights Elementary
School area. NDOT owns and maintains that bridge and they are doing some maintenance, tearing it down
and building up a new bridge near there. Originally, our hope as the city was to push it closer to Kinzer
Pike to allow more direct travel for those along Kinzer who are going to either the high school or to
Kroger in that strip mall area.
end up pushed back on that, so the location of the bridge is shifting a handful of feet, but it's not
going to be anything meaningful to really make a difference in this study. For that reason, this is
a bit beyond the scope of this specific concept, but this past year in the spring, the city applied
for the Federal Safe Streets for All grant program, and some of the areas that we applied for are along
this corridor,
One of the items that we applied for, which we'll hear back about later this year, probably December,
is an intersection redesign here at Kinser and Gorley and a shared use path to go east on Gorley down
to old 37, cut under the bypass and come back up north of the bypass. So there is a grade separated
crossing at the bypass. Again, that is very dependent on federal funding.
but that is an idea that we've had because we know that NDOT is not budging on that virtual location
very much. In terms of the larger scale concept of this kinsman bypass intersection that NDOT has been
working on, so they are including that in a road safety audit. They've been working with city staff
this summer to make observations, to do analyses about
what can fit at the Kinsland Bypass, what can make safety improvements while maintaining the existing
throughput of and capacity of that intersection. They don't have any set in stone plans right now that
will come later, but I believe, you know, we have been pushing for changes like building a roundabout
at the Kinsland Bypass intersection or
narrowing the intersection in some ways. But I think what they're looking at more is changing signal
time or making smaller, smaller scale changes because they're looking at a lot of different intersection
projects like this. And so what we are requesting is simply beyond the scope of what they're able to
do financially. But again, nothing is set in stone. Thank you. Mr. Will, would you like to?
Yeah. I passed the gavel. That didn't work. I'll get it. Thank you. So the green spaces, do they literally
mean grass or do they mean some kind of special lane? Green means grass. That can be a grass buffer
or landscaping like undetermined at this point is just a concept.
holding space for, yeah, some sort of landscaping. So I see in the southeast corner that there is effectively
no sidewalk? This is shown as a shared use path. Sorry. So this is darker gray that almost looks like
asphalt color. The idea is that this would be shared use path. So they've used a different color to
symbolize when it's a wider shared use path. So the kind of more concrete color is sidewalk. And then,
yeah, this
If you could use a different color for the darker gray in the future, I think it would be. Because it
looks like the shadow of the building to the east of it, and I didn't see it at all. So any other color
might be a little bit better. Secondly, just to get back to Mr. Duncan, what you were saying about a
path that was a bike path or a car path under the bypass? That is a shared use path.
So for pedestrian cyclists, those who walk and roll, similar to what we have on High Street or Winslow
Road or a number of other locations in the city. So this was something that would also take advantage
of old 37 going through lower cascades. Correct. So this path would only go along old 37 for
about a tenth of a mile, maybe a quarter mile max. It is simply to get under the bypass and come back
up on the other side. So there would be a new path on the other side of the bypass where NDOT has property
between the bypass and the IMI construction quarry. Any other questions? Is this the end of the project
right here?
The northern end of the project. This is the northern boundary of the project. So we don't go to the
45, 46. OK. Any other questions, Mr. Binder? The island in the middle, I'm interpreting that as probably
traversable, but a different paving material. Was that the idea here? Drew? These medians would be concrete.
They could have plantings as long as those are in locations that don't
obstruct sight lines, but yeah, the idea is that this is a pedestrian median refuge island on all four
lakes, so you're only able to be crossing one leg of car traffic at a time. Okay. I meant the island
in the middle. Maybe there's a different technical term that eludes me here, but the circle. The roundabout
circle, sorry. Yes. Apologies. Yes, that is mountable, so it would probably be designed with like a
three-inch mountable curb for large vehicles to turn across it or traverse across it, but
Passenger vehicles, 99% of vehicles that are coming through there are not going to need to traverse
there. So yeah, it's a truck apron type of material. And it's not a comfortable material for a passenger
vehicle to drive over. So normal cars driving through there wouldn't circulate normally through the
roundabout. But when there's a very large vehicle, a semi truck, the idea is that they can traverse
across that. Yeah, it's mountable. And that's the distinguishing factor between
a compact roundabout and a single lane roundabout so the circle is fully mountable. Mr. Sasberg? Is
this compatible with the amount of traffic that's coming off of the bypass so it doesn't back up? Yeah.
Yes. Thank you. Any other questions? Let's go on to the next design. I have a question. Mr. Drummey.
This would and I'm not concerned to say, but this would block off the entrances to the gas station.
So preliminarily what we're seeing right now, they have four driveways into the gas station and we know
from a pedestrian safety perspective, ideally you would have less driveways to cross and make it a more
comfortable walking experience. So right now we're showing closing two of those off, but that is something
that would be figured out in the final design process and would need discussions with the property owner.
Is it that that's my you know I and I understand why that would be ideal is that a voluntary thing or
is it can the city take in that city close access if they want. That taking. Ryan. Generally we do it
voluntarily seven nine. That's a pretty good proxy for this.
It is something that's on the table, but it's unlikely that. Could you summarize that for people? It
is possible to do a takings. It's unlikely that that's the option we pursue. Generally, we work with
property owners and do a voluntarily. We offer improvements that they wouldn't otherwise get, and then
they close an entrance or two. You can see that on the seven line, we did that quite a bit.
What's an example of an offering you might make? I don't know. I'm not an engineer. But generally, landscape
improvements, things like that, we can make a lot of times something that especially gas stations like
to see is better entrances, meaning you could turn into them better, more smoothly. So things like that.
We negotiate with the property owner and figure it out from there. Very good. Thank you. Further questions?
Let's move on to the next. OK.
The concept location we looked at is 14th and 15th, and so you can see here it's a two-lane cross section.
You have the shared east path on the east side, the sidewalk on the west side, and this location is
a greenway. And so what we designed here is a bikeway crossing and a pedestrian crossing at 15th, so
those don't currently exist today. So the pedestrian crossing would be a raised crosswalk, and the bicycle crossing
they have a green cross bike so they have green skip stripe markings. And then there would be curb cuts
where they could then connect into this shared use path to then continue either on 14th or 15th depending
on which way they're going. So this is a common bicycle boulevard or neighborhood greenway crossing
design that's used when you have an offset intersection like this. So we thought this was an interesting
one to show as a template concept because there's a few places where
intersections are offset and there's not an easy through connection. So this kind of shows how you could
continue to make that connection for people walking and biking on this green light in this non-standard
scenario. All right, questions about 15th Street. Is there any bike paths on 15th or they will be just
going from the street and then they go into the shared path?
14th and 15th are low enough traffic that we're not proposing a separated bike facility, so this would
be more of a shared street. Other questions? Sorry, go ahead. There's other neighborhood greenways in
the city, right? Yeah. That you could reference as examples, potentially? Like Allen or, I don't know
if you have others off the top of your head, but. Anybody else?
I'm wondering about bicyclists heading westbound on 15th Street, but on the multi-use path.
They are crossing, they're the only people, well, I'm having trouble imagining it. Like first of all,
if I'm biking on the east side of West 15th Street and I get to Madison Street
If I don't know the thing is there, I might try to turn onto Madison. I know it's there, so I turn onto
the side path and I jog down. There's a raised crosswalk to my right, but how slow will traffic be slowed
down so that I feel safe crossing? So with this size of student volume, you would probably want rectangular
rapid flashing beacons.
at a crossing like this so that people can be made aware and that you'd have advanced, you know,
yield lines. So there'd be a push button activated. Because cars driving northbound are not going to
be going as slowly as cars going southbound. And so the flashing lights are definitely going to be for
the benefit of northbound drivers. Is that right? Right, for both northbound and southbound.
I understand what you're saying is that it's coming southbound, if they're coming across a race crosswalk,
there's also a physical barrier that's slowing them down, right? Because they have to drive over the
crosswalk, the race crosswalk, like a speed hump. But it's for both northbound and southbound. OK, but
the bicycles going westbound in the north lane onto Madison Street is
sort of more at risk than? I mean, like a bicyclist going eastbound is already in the street.
I don't know. I don't know that I have a question. I'm worried about this. Yeah, I understand
your observation that the race crosswalks slow down traffic more for southbound traffic than northbound
in advance of the crossing. Is that what you're saying? So it's- It wasn't. That's an interesting-
I think for an eastbound bicyclist, it was closer to the cars coming north. For westbound, it was more
like, never mind. I don't know. There's going to be some kind of a signal? Possibly. So what Drew was
talking about is a rapid flashing beacon like we have at Walnut and Allen or at Hillside and Weatherstone.
where when there is crossing, or at Forth and Rogers currently, where when there is crossing traffic,
whether it's a pedestrian or cyclist, you can push the button, lights flash rapidly, vehicles are much
more likely to yield for that crossing traffic. And then there's a diagonal sign to say that there's
a raised crossing? Yes. On both sides? Okay. Do we have a shared path beyond the screen area?
So what's happening with the Sherrith Cross? So essentially, big picture. For most of this corridor,
you have the B line about two blocks east of Rogers Street. Once you get to around 10th, where the B
line crosses Rogers and goes westbound, that bike network disappears. You have some sections where you
have striped bike lanes, but that's not our low stress network that we'd like to achieve.
And so for folks who live up in Maple Heights or in the Kinzer Flats, that area, there is no low stress
bike network to get them in there. So essentially the priority for adding that separated path is going
to be from where the beeline crosses Rogers around 10th Street and up north up to Gorley Pike. So while
we were just showing these specific intersection concepts, the linear parts of
of the corridor in these improvements will go beyond just this intersection. Any other questions on
this intersection? You may cover this, but what are the green pedestrian crosswalk looking things? So
those are the cycling crossings. The cyclists aren't supposed to use the elevated crosswalk? No.
It makes it simpler so they can simply go from the street to the path. They don't have to make that
jog there. And then just marking it for them. Why not make that entire intersection elevated? I mean,
it seems like you got a lot of crossings in a small area. I don't know. Maybe that's a good thing. I
don't know. Yeah, that's potentially one concept as well. It would be a little bit more complex and
expensive to make the whole
intersection race, but it's certainly something we could explore. I like that. Can we, can you give
us a sense of how much more that is? Not off the top of my head, but anytime you're dealing with a race
intersection, a race crosswalk, it starts to impact drainage. And so you have to think about how you
redesign drainage for the intersection. And it's just, it's more complicated when you're doing an entire
race intersection versus a race crosswalk.
is really a question of, is there stormwater infrastructure currently there? If there is, then it becomes,
it is still more expensive, but it becomes much more feasible. If there isn't, then we're talking about
magnitudes more expense that we could be spending at other locations along the corridor. Thank you.
Further questions on 15th Street? Can we go on to the next? Is there something on 14th Street that we're gonna
It's just the same cross section with the shared east path. So really, most of the concept here is showing
how places and pedestrians are to cross the street here. So yeah, it's showing both intersections of
the concept, but there's not anything different to see. OK. Let's continue. So the next intersection
that we have, the concept for is at 6th Street. And so this is to show how we could narrow the intersection
footprint at a minor street intersection.
potentially add a raised crosswalk. So currently there's already this splitter island here. What we're
showing is just adding curb extensions on the east side of the intersection at 6th Street and then adding
in a raised crosswalk. So the idea is that you're making the intersection more compact. We're also shortening
all the crossings because right now this is a two-lane cross section with on-street parking.
So by eliminating that on-street parking that has
low to no utilization in our study is what we found. We're shortening that crossing and a number of
people at the public workshops told us that this crosswalk just doesn't feel comfortable as it stands
today. And so the goal is to make the intersection more compact, shorten those crossings. And then we're
showing prioritizing one race crossing on the north side. I think per discussion at the last location,
you could add it also on the south side.
It's just, you know, for right now, we're kind of showing one because that's those people down at that
crosswalk as they come into the intersection. Any questions about 6th Street? Just a couple of comments,
questions. What is the intention here for 6th Street traffic to be right turn only onto Rogers? No straight
through traffic? Is that the idea? I'm just seeing the right arrow on the
on the ground? Yeah. I think in a previous concept we had thought about that it's not necessarily in
this concept we're not restricting traffic. I won't put we also had looked at the potential to put a
median here, but that didn't make a whole lot of sense for a couple of different reasons. And so I think
that's just a leftover from that concept. So I think as it's designed right now, we could make it allow
all turns of this intersection.
As it stands today, yeah. Just to clarify, are you saying you will return it to straight or right turn?
Yeah, any movement. As it stands today, you can make any turn from these approaches. And then I guess
my only other comment would be that I think between this intersection and the one we just discussed
at 15th Street, if we were to spend the money on a fully raised intersection,
I think this one would probably be a little more justifiable, just because of the configuration of the
traffic and the intersections and probably the volume of pedestrian traffic and bike traffic here. I'm
not saying that based on any numbers, but just my own experience. Yeah, my comment was, or maybe just
to double check, I think on the sixth to the west, the island is a bit longer now,
based on what I saw recently. When you're leaving the gas station, I don't think you can, I think the
visuals on the left, the island is longer, no? The way they're constructing it right now. Sure, so that
is on Kirkwood. That's just one block south. Yes, right, sorry. But it's longer there, right? Yeah.
Okay. Other questions about Sixth Street from commissioners? Let's go on to the next intersection.
The next intersection that we're showing is at 4th Street. This is shown as a raised intersection at
4th and a curbless street north of here. So when we had the workshop week and our design shred, we had
thought that this was a great location to have a fully flushed street because it kind of matches, it's
parallel to downtown. It seemed to be the most urban, have the most intensity of businesses, and an
urban feel.
of all the portions of the corridor so right now what we're proposing is having this be a curbless street
feel have like the most main street feel I think of any portion of the corridor so that in mind that's
our proposing starting the raised intersection at 4th Street and this could potentially go up to Kirkwood
it could also go further up to 6th Street but we were just showing this section as a representative
intersection so the
You know, the street could potentially be done in papers or bricks to really create traffic calming
feel and create a sense of place. But it could also be done in colored concrete or other materials.
But the idea is that it feels like a more special place than some other portions of the corridor with
a higher design treatment. That's the concept here. So yeah, kind of that brick red color, that's the
roadway, these lighter pink
outside sections, these would be on street parking lanes. And then you have just very wide sidewalks
in the stretch to support that kind of more downtown feel. Questions on 4th Street? Maybe just
a clarification. So I know that you discussed it in the past, the different treatment, the brick or
any other material, but is it just the aesthetics or like there's any function towards that as well,
this change?
at pavers also have a traffic calming effect for people driving there's both the visual and auditory
change as compared to asphalt or concrete so you know you'll see that in a lot of communities on downtown
streets maybe just on the public square or a few blocks around the down most downtown area they'll do
it in brick or pavers because it really slows down traffic especially when you have a lot of activity
in that space but does also yeah not just visual it also has
a little bit of a traffic calming effect. So instead of brick pavers, does stamp concrete give you the
same perspective? I mean, brick's pretty expensive. Potentially. I'm not the right person to ask about
that. I'm not an engineer, but I would speculate that stamp concrete maybe doesn't have the same
um, strength for driving on as pavers and breaks. But that's, I would need to ask one of our engineers
about that in more detail. I'm going to ask a question here of staff, I guess. Um, is cost one of our
concerns? Do we not have an interest as a commission in spreading out, uh,
improvements across the city. And if cost is a concern and there's no engineer here to answer our questions,
are we supposed to make a final weigh in tonight? No. Okay. Maybe if you can clarify what the next step
is in the process for this body. For this body with the study as a whole? Sure. Sure. So over the next
Excuse me over the next few weeks to month or so staff will be doing Community outreach and review and
within essentially revising these concepts based on a lot of that review from there we will also be
Completing the final study document and right now URLs next meeting will be reviewing the final study
in the revised concepts and
whether that's to vote on it as a comprehensive document or if you would like to have a separate planning
session, I think that's something we can discuss. But as of now, that next meeting would be you all
reviewing revised concepts and a final study. Can I ask because in the packet for the last meeting,
it showed meeting number four in July. I thought this is our meeting number four and there was no further
meeting and so I didn't know
It just said final corridor study here. So you're basically saying there's another meeting planned that
you intend to have with us. Sorry. The next meeting that I was talking about would be that
final transportation commission review meeting to review the study as a whole. But if you all would
like to schedule a separate planning session to talk in more detail about these concepts of the study
before the entire body hears it and votes on it, we can absolutely do that.
Okay, I just wanted to know what our options were. Any further questions on the 4th Street intersection,
Mr. Binder? Is the intention here, because I'm seeing stop lines on Rogers, is the intention here to
turn 4th and Rogers into a four-way stop? No. Okay. Question? Back to resurfacing. Any alternatives,
first of all? And then the second question is where it ends. So is it
Is it 6th Street? Will it be just a chunk of brick and then the rest will be asphalt? Sure. This is
simply one option of what we could do. And again, we are not showing the entire corridor linearly. And
so if we all like, this could expand as far up as the trades district. Because you have the brick streets
up there that could combine very cohesively up there. But again, you're talking about a large street
reconstruction project, so cost is definitely
a factor. Can we discuss in the future in some way alternatives to it, which can help, not as well,
but I think the cost as well is a big concern. Yes. Further questions on 4th Street and North? Now let's
go on to the next. Sorry, just one quick comment about this cross section.
I think I would be supportive of this type of street treatment, but primarily if it were maybe combined
with a kind of long-term vision for changes in the immediate surrounding land use. I see surface parking,
a drive-through bank, a gas station on this block, multiple drive cuts, none of which are really things
that pair well with this kind of investment
the street treatment, I think. So I would love to see this. And I would love to see it all over the
city. But I think it would make the most sense to include that as part of a sort of vision
for the surrounding land use, as well as the street cross-section. Can a commissioner propose changes
to zoning that are in conjunction with
a redesign of the street. That might be a question for planning. Ryan Roebling, you should probably
just sit at the table with us. I don't know why you don't. You can be Leslie Davis. Okay, that took
long enough that I forgot your question. Can you repeat your question? So Mr. Binder just suggested
that there's a lot of gaping holes where buildings used to be. If a commissioner wanted to recommend
changes to zoning that go with the change of the street use or the street design, would that be appropriate?
The direct answer to your question is no, this commission, I mean, this commission can make a recommendation
on whichever, it's not really in their purview, plan commission is specifically tasked by the state
to do that. However, this document is unique, Hank can correct me if I'm wrong, but future land use
planning is a portion of this.
So a recommendation in that document would be appropriate. And what is expected to already be part of
it. In this report or in the, which document? In this final report. In the final report for the Rogers
Medicine Kinser Corridor Study. And this will have an impact on the Plan Commission? It'll be a document
that we reference moving forward to the Plan Commission, yes. Mr. Binder? So I was just going to clarify then that
the final version of this report is intended for our commission, but also for planning commission and
other commissions and staff and so forth. Yeah, ultimately this commission is the final body for this
specific report. It will lead up to other decisions by other bodies. So we'll turn to the transportation
plan and comprehensive plan and bring those forward to the planning commission. So yes. Great, thank you.
For the question. Last question, maybe just in the city, where else do we have any similar treatment
or treatment you're referring to when you said long term we can connect to other streets or places so
it will be more coherent? So you have further south of here, the Hopeville Commons area that was just
built. That's your curbless brick street just west of the Kroger area and east of Rogers. And then further
north, you have the trades district area, which is also a flush
brick and curbless. Thanks. Mr. Sasper. Yeah. Aobahn was mentioning relative traffic. I pulled up the
Strava heat map, which has bike traffic through the area. In all four of these intersections, 4th, Kirkwood,
6th, and 7th are all high-traffic crossings. So in terms of something like this, which will slow down
traffic for this in that relative corridor,
make sense to invest more for safety, particularly in that area, because there's a lot of bicycle, a
lot of bicycle traffic crossing Rogers throughout four adjacent streets. Further questions or observations
at this point from commissioners? If not, let's go on to the next intersection. Okay, so the
next intersection we looked at is kind of a bigger section, but we looked at
and then we took a look down 3rd Street as part of this couple of studies that we also looked at 3rd
Street down to Walnut. And so I'll start at Rogers and move my way. Where we orient this first? Yeah,
this is the 3rd and Rogers intersection. Okay, we're still here on the left side of the train. North
is still up, yeah, sorry. I know we've put north to the right on some of these three previously. Yep,
north is still up. This is the 3rd Rogers intersection. This is 3rd Madison.
over here, and then I can scroll over. This is a big role plot poster of the design. So right now, third
has four motor vehicle lanes, and has a left turn lane at the intersection. But the traffic volumes
are about 6,000 vehicles per day, which is a very, very small amount of traffic for that much roadway
space. So it's very overbuilt with that much traffic.
even a two or three lane cross section can carry 20 to 25,000 motor vehicles per day. And that four
or five lane cross section could carry potentially 40,000 vehicles per day. So with 6,000, it's very
overbuilt. And so there's excess capacity and space that we can repurpose. So the concept here shows
these kind of dark gray or almost black, these are sidewalk level separated bike lanes.
And then you have the sidewalk here and then you would have a landscape buffer. So we're changing the
cross section to a two or three line cross section at the intersection where you need this left turn
lane onto Rogers. But all that additional extra space that was to outside motor vehicle travel lanes
can be used to put in sidewalk level separate bike lanes and a better buffer from the sidewalk as well.
So that's the concept there.
And then as you move east at Madison, we would transition to the sidewalk level separated bike lanes
to in-street separated bike lanes to go under the B line over here. And then as you get to college,
we would continue those separated bike lanes. And then at Walnut, you would go back to the existing
four or five lane cross-section, depending where you look, of Third Street.
So in this concept, the westbound approach for Third Street, as you come to Walnut, that outside lane
would now be a dedicated right turn lane because you don't have one through lane continuing through
this section of third between College and Walnut. And those outside lanes would be repurposed for separated
bike lanes. So the overall concept is to repurpose that excess space for separated bike lanes if we just use
slightly different types of separate bike lanes, either in-street or sidewalk level, depending on the
condition. So that's the overall concept for third street. Wow. Comments or questions for Mr. Finder?
One, I guess, concern or perhaps objection I have to this, which overall looks great, by the way. But
one thing that maybe bothers me a little bit here is that
The separated bike lanes on the section of 3rd Street between Madison and College, they go, if I understand
this correctly, under the beeline, where the roadway is currently, they don't connect with the beeline.
Is that right? So we have, what we've shown right here in this southeast corner of the Madison Street
intersection is extending this shared east path that does connect up to the beeline. So that would be
one place where there is a connection to connect up there.
You're right because this is a you know underpass and it's going down under the beeline We're really
just repurposing the motor vehicle traveling and so the connection would be at this sidewalk level here
It were part of it exists, but it doesn't go all the way to Madison So this would propose you know extending
that all the way to Madison Thank you I think I would just maybe encourage the team to
consider ways to make the connectivity between east-west bike lanes on 3rd Street and the B line to
be a little more straightforward, a little less awkward, especially for, say, if you're coming south
on the B line, you want to turn west, turn right onto 3rd Street. It's just a little awkward to do that.
And there's not really any inherent value in having these cycle lanes go under the B line when
I mean, I understand for cost reasons, and if you're reducing the motor vehicle traffic lanes to one
in each direction, then you have the roadway space to do that. But it doesn't exactly improve connectivity
to the beeline itself. And I understand this whole explanation about the side path on the south side
of there. But I would just hope there would be maybe some thought given to better ways to connect to
the beeline here, because I think that's a real opportunity
Are there questions or comments from commissioners on Third Street? I was going to say this
is a Rogers-Madison-Kinzer study, but this is going four blocks east, and I think this is perhaps the
biggest news of the entire corridor study. Are you guys allowed to go this far east? What gives?
Yes. So the impetus for this is that engineering is going to work on third and Madison and third and
Rogers intersections this coming year to do some signal replacements. And while we look at
those intersections, we're changing curb line, we're changing the geometry. And so if we're changing
these two intersections already,
We should also look at the bigger picture of this area and work with it comprehensively with these other
projects that are going on. Can you scroll over to the block between College and Walnut? So now news
came today that this block is closing for construction of the Convention Center. Are we taking advantage
of, we're not going to take advantage of that to redo the block?
Again, this is very much in the conceptual design phase. The public has just had the first opportunity
to see this. The end product of the study is not going to be that all of these concepts are ready for
construction. It is an opportunity for when there is funding available to begin an engineering design
contract to then construct it. But for this specific concept, especially the areas closer to Rogers
and Madison, there are funds for construction along with the signal replacement.
How far east will that stretch is a question of what bids we get with this project? Last question I
have is you said that traffic counts on the block west of Rogers was only 6,000 cars a day. What are
the counts like down here? So essentially west of college is where the traffic counts
drop off a good amount. That's what Drew was talking about, where the counts are around 6,000. Drew,
do you have counts available for East of College? I can give estimates, but I didn't know if you had
numbers. I don't think we had any zip bit collected, so if you have some. I don't have anything offhand.
East of Walnut is where they jump up quite a bit, because right now you have a lot of traffic
Third then traveling north south on college and walnut and so west west of college is where the traffic
numbers drop off east of walnut This is a very very rough estimate. I would guess about 15 to 17,000
cars a day Just a counterpoint to mr. Binder's comment about the
beeline trail. I find this level of connectivity sufficient to me. This is the world I want to live
in where you have bike lanes traveling under bike lanes. We certainly have roads for cars with bridges
that travel under each other, and we're not always trying to connect them at that point. I think if
you're on a longer journey, you can find a way to navigate that doesn't involve being on the bridge
and looking down and wondering how you're going to get there. So it's OK with me. But to be clear,
This design does include at least one way to get off the Beeline Bridge and onto East or Westbound Road.
Right. It doesn't start to make a cloverleaf or something where you can get accomplished every different
direction. Yeah. At this corner of college as well, we've shown widening the sidewalk to be a multiuse
path to make a better connection there as well. But all these things are kind of contingent on discussions
with the property owners.
In the current state, there's nothing impeding it. There's no building in the way. But in this case,
there's a wall here, a retaining wall. And over here, there's maybe some utilities in the way, but there's
not an actual building running right there. So like Hank said, the concept is an idea. This would be
ideal. But some of these improvements are outside of the right of way that we're showing. Further questions?
The question will be what will end up in the final report? Like the whole thing and will we be voting
for the whole thing or like for just the part which is closer to the corridor? True. What part will
end up in the final report? Yeah, like in the final proposal. Like will it be like this whole part of
third street or like it will be just the part which is closer to the corridor just because this whole
project is around about corridor? Will we vote for the whole thing? So for all everything you proposed?
just now, or like proposing. As it stands right now, we're planning on including all of this. I think
that's maybe a question for Hank. It was included in a scope of work that we would also look at this
section of Third Street. Great to do a research and plan, of course, if you've got resources. Is it
correct to say that the stuff east of Madison is light green to show that it's potential future, whereas
the dark green is what's intended to be built?
By East Madison, do you mean the highlights around the protected bike lane and some of the walls? I
don't know. That's what we're trying to figure out. It's just a different symbology. So this is just
showing that these would be concrete median islands separating bike lanes. So it doesn't indicate that
one is short term or one is long term. It's just a different way to symbolize as dark green as landscaping space.
This lighter green is the curb liner edging pavement. And these light gray is a concrete median island.
So we haven't discussed what's short term, what's long term. It's more just to start getting the concept
on paper. I think this ends your question. Yeah. Thank you. So I have a question. Mr. Connick. So we
have traffic counts from Madison to Rogers on 3rd Street. I would need.
to look up the exact block where we got traffic counts, whether it's from College to Madison or Madison
to Rogers, but it's at least one of those two blocks we have traffic counts for. I mean, it would be
good to know all those from College to Rogers. Agreed. So we can have those provided to us in time for
the final report? Yeah. OK. Further questions before we move on? Let's keep going south. All right.
So moving further south.
We have shown the Dodd Street intersection as another concept. At this location, we've now moved the
Charities Path to the west side, because it matches the Charities Path that starts at Patterson,
headed south, all the way to City Limits. And so, you know, the transition, we haven't decided exactly
where that transition would be, because we have designed everything, but potentially in the, somewhere,
you know, around Second Street, I would imagine.
a good location for that. So this concept shows where we have kind of a more compact intersection, a
more narrow right of way, a very constrained right of way really, how we can still fit in two lanes,
a slightly wider sidewalk, and a multi-use path. So there's a few blocks in the section around downstream
where we have the narrowest right of way of anywhere on the corridor, and we still want to achieve the
project goals. And so this
This concept shows how we can potentially do that at the Dodd Street intersection and intersections
that are similar to this area. So currently, it's an all-way stop so we're not changing that. We're
just showing widening the sidewalk on the west side into a shared-use path. Questions on Dodd Street?
OK. So the shared-use path is on the west side of Rogers in this area?
So there is a shared use path from Country Club to Patterson on the west side of Rogers. And this would
essentially extend that path further north. And are you going to, how are you going to do that? I mean,
you're going to move the path out into the roadway? I mean, all that sidewall in there has retaining
walls on there. I mean. Yeah.
sidewalk on both sides of the cross section and it would widen the sidewalk into the street. Because
in some places currently there is an on-street parking length here so the pavement is a little bit wider
than this currently. As we saw in our parking utilization counts, the amount of parking in that space
is very little or zero on most blocks in all the periods that we checked. So repurposing that space
to widen the sidewalk. So this doesn't
change the back of sidewalk in this section. And that goes all the way to 3rd Street on that side? For
this section, no. Our proposal was to extend it up to, I believe, 1st Street is where the existing bike
lanes start in the Hopel area. So between 1st and 2nd, you have the
the new existing protected bike lanes and then north of second we were not proposing any shared use
path or any additional bicycle infrastructure. North of second street there's no infrastructure. Bike
lanes north of there. Correct. But it is extending bike lanes from the south. Correct. So what happens
when you hit the second street? You go down to the B line? So our
Proposal was with the with the incoming second Street protected by claims that are being built right
now folks could go from Rogers from second to the beeline Or continue to use the street if they want
to So it kind of makes that connection at the beeline third Street a little bit more important Correct
For the questions on dot Street
Okay, let's move on. So the next concept that we have is at Patterson Street. And this is a place where
you have a little bit more right away. And so we're showing a single lane roundabout in this section
as a potential concept. This does potentially require, similar to Gorley Pike, a little bit of easements
for shared east paths and sidewalks on the edge of the roadway.
there's a little bit more right of way and there's a little bit more traffic volume size for your traffic
volume with Patterson. And so the nice thing about single lane roundabout here is that it calms traffic
on both East-West for Patterson as well as Rogers and keeps those speeds lower to keep everybody safer
at the intersection. So we also have coming from the East, there is a shared use path along Patterson.
So that connects into here as well.
And that's also why we have the extension of the shared eastbound on the west side in this section.
So we're making that connection east-west to Patterson, but also to the south on Patterson where it
continues. So single-lane roundabout, you can see here the larger circle that's showing how the red
brick crosshatch that would be mountable for large trucks. But the green center circle could have landscaping
in it or a gateway treatment.
of a car, that kind of thing, because it doesn't need to be traversable or mountable by large vehicles.
So this is both a safety and traffic operations improvement potentially over the existing signalized
intersection. Questions on Patterson. Mr. Binder. I'm curious what your methodology was in determining
the size of this tram, about the diameter of it.
This uses a standard inscribed circle diameter for a single-lane roundabout using design best practices.
So there's some flexibility, and I think we want as small as you possibly can. Whereas at Gorley Pike,
that's a compact roundabout. And the reason for that is because there's not as much space. So you need
to use a compact roundabout to make the circle smaller, but then the full circle needs to be mountable.
essentially as small as you can get with a single lane roundabout. And some of the benefits of having
a single lane roundabout is that you get a little bit more deflection and slowing of vehicles as they
approach the roundabout. You can have larger median refuge islands and they have a little bit more capacity
than a compact roundabout. And then also the accommodating truck turns without them having to traverse
and drive over
I guess I I don't totally understand why there's kind of this hard delineation between what is considered
a mini roundabout versus a single-lane roundabout to me in my head again not an engineer but in my met
in my mind there's just a sort of continuum of there's compact roundabouts that are on the larger side
there's single-lane roundabouts that are on the smaller side but you're kind of
saying you're sort of suggesting that actually there's kind of a distinct set of categories for sizes
of roundabouts, or at least in engineering best practices. Is that right? Generally speaking, and the
biggest difference is whether or not you have a center median island that has a vertical curve and something
in it that can't be tripped over. So that's really the distinction between what's a compact roundabout
and what's a single lane roundabout.
I just bring this topic up because the city's constructed several roundabouts in the past with you know
fairly high capacities in mind and I think in retrospect some of those were probably built to be too
large and so I'm just wondering if this is kind of if the design if the size of this was informed by
you know some of the previous roundabouts that have been built in the city I mean I'm not gonna
get into citing examples, but I'd like to hear the answer to that question. Yeah, we haven't looked
at other comparisons of roundabouts around the second city, but this is the best practice to use a single
lane roundabout versus a dual lane roundabout. I mean, that dual lane roundabout would be excessive
and a dual lane roundabouts have their own safety issues. In some cases, depending on how they're assigned,
they can potentially degrade pedestrian crossings because now you have a multiple threat condition.
where there's two vehicles yielding to crossing pedestrians or bicyclists. So we prefer only ever going
as big as a single lane roundabout, because that means that as a pedestrian or bicyclist, you're only
ever crossing one lane of one direction of traffic. So that's sort of our controlling standard. And
then as far as how it's designed, that is using best practices in roundabout design, the engineers, my firm.
put that together using industry standards. I think the decision as to when you use a compact versus
a single lane really has to do with how much intersecting traffic there is, as well as how much space
there is. So they operate similarly, but a compact roundabout can't handle quite as much traffic volume.
And it's more of a kind of collector street or minor arterial type of treatment, whereas
If you have the intersection of two arterials, then a single-lane roundabout is a little more appropriate
for that context. Thanks. And just to be clear, I was not by any means arguing for a multi-lane roundabout
here. I don't think that would be appropriate. Although I would be curious to know if any of these streets
are actually categorized as arterials, because I would think they would be categorized as collector streets.
I would need to look that up real fast, but in terms of truck routes, that's what we have been looking
at in terms of turning movements and what we could put a single lane roundabout on, a compact roundabout,
or if we're just doing a single geometric change, which you'll see later, and Grimes-Patterson is a
truck route. Rogers is not defined as a truck route,
We know that a lot of big trucks use this route. And so we need to have the ability for those larger
trucks to make these turning movements. Whereas, say, at Gorley, that is obviously not a truck route.
That is a much smaller street with lower volumes. And so that is another big reason why we can put a
compact roundabout up there, but not over here. OK, thanks. That clears it up for me. The takeaway for
me is that Patterson is a more major crossing street than Gorley.
Okay. I would need to check. I don't. Oh, I think I think I think Shelley has a comment here. Yeah.
I just about that. So Corley Pike, we have an east west route that that goes through that intersection.
So that contact roundabout with the bus needs to go over
So like median treatment every time. I would have to check their engineers around. Yeah. I think there's
enough room for fire trucks and buses to go around, but it's for like a large semi truck that they have
to mount it. But I have to tell which I can get back to you. OK. Yeah, we'll need to know the further
questions or comments from commissioners on Patterson. I wanted to, well, I mean, when they built
Sarah and Rogers, it was the Champs-Élysées in comparison to this. I mean, it was built to be a two-lane
roundabout. And I think that we've since corrected that. But it's still the dimensions of a two-lane
roundabout, even though it's been reduced to one that's just a much larger circle, right? So am I correct
in looking at the satellite image of this intersection? And am I correct in assuming that there's some
land that would have to be acquired to the northeast of this intersection? It seems like a vacant lot,
but I mean, are you concerned about being able to get it, or is that why you designed it this way?
I mean, there is always concern about land acquisition in any project. If, whether it's here or in other
areas of this project, if that becomes a barrier, then we can redesign as needed. But right now, because
we're still in the conceptual design,
we would like to design what is physically feasible and this is feasible. Okay. Uh, I just want to say,
this has gotta be my favorite thing. I've called the project and I just liked third street, but, uh,
this intersection has been crying out for around about four years. It's just so, so big. And, uh, now
I have a sense of, I've always wondered what it,
how much land it took to build a roundabout, and now I know that there's a term called compact roundabout.
That may be my next new favorite thing, but for now, I'm excited about this. Is there more? Should we
go for it? Mrs. Cheruchko. What's happening with this shared use bus? It's just ending. Which part?
Sorry. Will it just end there on the left, from the north to the west? Yeah, this part. What's happening
with the ending of it? Will it be just?
Handling there, or? There is an existing shared use map to the west on Patterson, so I'm not sure how
far that goes. Maybe it just goes a few more blocks. But it connects at least to the E line to the east.
And then it goes maybe a few more blocks to the west. So we're just kind of showing tying into it. So
we haven't designed it all the way there. OK, so it goes to Fairview. So yeah, it would continue as
it was or tie into it at some point over here.
So compact roundabouts, just for everybody's knowledge or information, whatever, is that similar to
the one that's on Morris Pike there? Was that Renwick or whatever it's called? Yeah. Is that a compact
roundabout? Good question. Those would be single lane roundabouts because there is an island in the
middle. You cannot fully mount those roundabouts. Compact roundabout, there is no island in the middle,
so fire trucks,
buses, semis, could go over them if need be. So to follow up on this question, is the Morse pipe round
about the same diameter? I don't know. I would have to check. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, if it's
the same as the Compaq. Because it's pretty tight. We'd like to know that for the last meeting, yeah.
Is he pretty tight because you drive too fast, Mr. Compaq? Not on my page.
Further questions on Patterson, Mr. Duncan? If you give me 15 seconds, I can find out the diameter.
That'd be great. I guess we could use Google measure distance to do that. Mr. Stossford? That's what
he's done. It looks like it's about 100, 130 feet, 125 to 130 feet. Compared to? From outside curb to
outside curb. And then this one is? Drew?
I think the ICD inscribed circle diameter, which is the outer ring of the roundabout, I think is 100
feet. On this one, I have to check with Wally. So this would be about 30 feet smaller in diameter. And
the Morris Pike Rounding. Correct. Further questions? Let's move on south. So the next intersection
that we designed is Rockport Drive.
And this one is a little sticky. This one, again, has narrow right-of-way. The right-of-way just gets
narrower on this southern end. Depending where you are, sometimes it opens up intersections. At this
intersection, it's pretty tight. And so what we're showing here is some minor changes to try to make
the intersection more compact, organize the traffic a little bit better, and slow traffic as it goes
through the intersection. So initially we had
looked at testing even a compact roundabout. There's just not enough space, given the available right
of way. And so what we're showing here is adding a northbound dedicated left turn lane. Today there
is a northbound through lane and actually a dedicated right turn lane into the street to the east, which
is really not needed. The traffic volume is very low for that dedicated right turn lane. So we're adding
this dedicated left turn lane
that outside lane to a through right turn lane and then that allows us to have a striped median on the
north side here and just better organize the intersection and get left turning vehicles out of through
traffic so that they don't back up the through traffic and create a safety issue. What we're also showing
here is adding another crosswalk on the north leg of the intersection. There's no crosswalk on this
north leg today so this would add in a new crosswalk there.
Although that is very similar to the existing cross-section, but make a couple of minor tweaks to make
things more compact and better organize traffic through the intersection. Questions about Rockport Road?
I don't love the right turn angle from Rogers to Rockport. I feel like if we're trying to be safety
minded here,
we should be trying to aim for a closer to a kind of 90 degree approach. And I think there's definitely
some potential here for at such a shallow angle, you know, a conflict between right turning traffic
from Rogers and the multi use path. Um, and then the other thing I would say is, uh, it doesn't seem
like there's any reason to not have a
Port Concrete Island on Rogers for the crosswalk on the north side of the intersection here versus just
a painted one. But yeah, I don't know. This intersection has been a problem for a long time. And I don't
live in this area, but I have plenty of friends who do. And I don't think anybody really likes this
intersection, so I hope that if we are going to try to
improve it, we can do as much as possible. Further comments or questions on Rockport? Mr. Minus, I take
it you'll speak up when you have a question, right? Yes, I will. I'm good now. I have a similar concern
to Mr. Binder only from coming from the south or rather coming off of Rockport turning right to going
southbound.
There seems to be just the same kind of curve that encourages a fast move by a car. And yet I see the
west crosswalk, the north-south, like there's only stripes. The west side of that path is the right
width, but the right side is way too wide. Why wouldn't this intersection call for closer in,
90 degree turns onto and off of Rockport Road. Intersection realignment. Intersection realignment. Well,
slightly, yeah. What does that mean? You're not... Rockport's side could be moved north slightly, and
maybe I noticed the turning radius is larger on the west than the east side.
I don't know how you answered my question. No, maybe I'm not. So if you want to make it 90 degrees,
then if you're coming southbound or you're coming northbound on Rockport Road, you'd have to go veer
to the west and then come back to the. OK, say that again. If I'm coming northbound on Rockport. Rockport
to get it to be 90 degrees without taking out the gas pumps or gas tanks, whatever it is. It must be
in that little island up there.
So if you're coming northbound on Rockport, you'll have to go to the west, angle to the west, and then
come back to the. OK. Mr. Parker, if you would point that cursor on the southeast corner of the striped
crosswalk to the west, right there. Yeah. Why is that spot not made? Why is that still for cars?
Yeah, because of the truck turning template. So I think for trucks, this is a very sharp turn for even
a small truck to make this turn. So it has to be, I'm guessing this is like a 30 foot, maybe a 40 foot
radius. So what I think we think is one option would be to put in a truck apron in this section where
passenger vehicles have to turn around it, but trucks can track over it, similar to what we showed before
or are about to show on the next one.
I think we could definitely look into. Yeah, I would. I for one would like you to do that. I I'm. I
I get the problem of a truck turning and I take it that's the same issue with the north side of that.
Crosswalk as well. It's a truck issue. Yeah. So you say you can put aprons in that might. You know.
deter the faster car driver. Right. While still allowing the truck to make the turn. Is this like the
eastbound on Third Street turning onto Patterson? There's an apron there? It's just like that? Okay.
Yes, I would be interested in seeing that integrated into the design. Mr. Binder. What about moving
the stop lines back on, especially on Rockport,
and then shifting the multi-use paths crosswalk a little bit further west so that the distance is a
lot shorter and it's not so far out towards the edge of the, into the intersection. Do you understand
what I'm saying? Because if you look at how large radius those curves are, I mean, I don't think normally
you'd want a multi-use path that close to the
corner in the first place, you'd want it shifted a little bit away from the intersection so that the
overall length of the crosswalk is the shorter crossing distance. Do you understand what I mean, guys?
I see that that makes it shorter crossing distance, but it feels like you also become less visible to
the cars on Rogers as you move the crossing further.
So that's something we're about to see on the country club concept. And what exists now is the crosswalks
are a little bit set far set back. And there are pros and cons to it. There are pros, like you were
saying, but there are also cons, like Mark's saying, where you are a little bit less visible. So that's
something we can talk about more. Yeah. I mean, one way you saw that is with signal timing, right, is
you separate out the phases. So there's no right turn on red.
crossing signal for the multi-use path and so forth. Further questions? I was going to ask, is our new
friend the compact roundabout feasible here? No, we looked into that and there's less right-of-way here
than at Gorilla Bike, so it doesn't quite fit. We tested that at the design workshop. Works too bad.
It's also very hard when you have a skewed
leg coming into a roundabout like that because you need to create the space for the turning maneuvers
and now you're creating another obstruction for a truck to have to circulate around and it just, it's
very challenging. So we did try it many times and it did not, without acquiring significant right away,
did not fit. Okay. Any other questions? Let's move south to the next intersection.
So the last concept I have to show you today is at Country Club Drive. And like some of these other
ones that we talked about, we also tried test fitting a compact roundabout here. But because Country
Club, similar to Patterson, my understanding is a truck route where we have to design it for large trucks
to move through there, we need to have a larger circle for the roundabout. And it just, we weren't able
to fit that. So we did try and we tweaked it, went back and forth a number of times.
in review and it just took up too much space and had too many, yeah, too much additional right-of-way
acquisition was required for it to really be a feasible concept. So the other concept that we came up
with is to add truck aprons at all the corners and really make this intersection a lot more compact.
Like Hank mentioned, I think it already exists, I can't remember where he said, they're in Patterson,
I think I thought you heard you say. So like already exists in the city and like we could look at Barackport
The idea being that trucks can still make these right turns, but passenger vehicles will be slowed down
significantly with those truck aprons because you need to track around them. So that's the overall concept
here is just making a more compact and slower intersection and make it more comfortable to cross as
a person walking or biking. Questions on Country Club from commissioners?
Could you remind me once again, what is the downside of using more hidden inwards? What is the word
for this? The crosswalks? For the crosswalks, yes. The previous example was more visible, and now it's
like, yeah. Yeah, so this just came up last week. There's some research that shows that for right-turning
vehicles, there's a sweet spot of having about 16 feet or less
from the curb return to the crosswalk for motor vehicle drivers to not already be speeding up. So if
you are within that window of 16 feet or less, then drivers are still making their turn and they're
not yet speeding up. And if you're a little further back, then now they're accelerating through the
crosswalk, which you really don't want. And so I think that's kind of what, I think, I don't know who
mentioned it, but when you start to set back the crosswalks too far,
that right turning speed can just get higher. And we want as low of a speed as possible at the crosswalk.
So when they're closer to the intersection, then that's the slowest. And with a small curve rate, it's
the slowest speed that we can achieve. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Thanks. So one car length,
roughly? Yeah. We usually use 20 as a rule of thumb for car length, but yeah, 16.
and what type of car you're talking about. What kind of boat are you driving? All right. Further questions
on Country Club? All right. Well, if that concludes all the intersections, how do we sum up in general?
What's the next thing you want us to consider? Do you mean for the study or with these concepts? I'm sorry.
trying to wrap it up here so I think I have everything I need for this evening I've been taking notes
and we'll go through this recording again to look over the comments but I think we have what we need
to take the Commission's thoughts into consideration and then we'll also combine that with the overall
public and stakeholder feedback to rise to these designs and get back to you
Can I get just a general sense from commissioners of their thoughts on this, Mr. Binder? Actually, I
just had a question rather than a comment, which is, are there going to be any additional concepts for
any additional intersections or cross-sections of the corridor between now and then when we see the
final? In other words, at the actual plan commission meeting where we are reviewing the, are we going
to see a role plot of the entire corridor
with every intersection designed or, yeah. Not with every intersection designed. So earlier this summer,
you all saw some typical cross-sections. That's what you'll see to fill in those gaps of the
major intersections. So Mr. Stosberg asked me about the Rogers and Seventh intersection earlier. While
that intersection is not going to be designed like what we had
this evening, those linear aspects will be included in those typical cross sections. And all of these
concepts are simply a menu of options that we can choose at various intersections. So we are not prescribed
to do this at this intersection or that at that intersection. These are options that we could choose
at various types of intersections along the corridor. I guess the reason I bring that up is because
two intersections I was hoping to see concepts for were 11th Street
and also where the B line crosses Rogers. And we didn't see either of those. And that's okay. I mean,
this was already a lot and that's awesome. And also Drew, I just want to say thank you for doing all
this. I know I've been very critical, but I think that's like the kind of critique you guys were hoping
to receive. So hope you don't take it personally. But I would still love to see some discussion of 11th
Street and also where the B line crosses Rogers.
It's not an actual design. That is something we can mention in the APACA report. When you say discussion
of it, are you saying you want to redesign? I mean, there are two pretty major intersections on the
corridor. And I guess I don't understand why we wouldn't talk about those two. It just seems kind of
arbitrary to me to talk about 15th Street, say, but not 11th Street, or 4th and Rogers, but not
where the beeline crosses Roger. I don't know, to me it just seems kind of like, I don't understand
the methodology used to determine what, you know, which particular concepts we were reviewing tonight
versus what's making it to the final board versus what's just a cross section and it'll just be designed
at some point in the vague future. Isn't there a department complex going in there where the beeline
crosses Rogers that you talked about before, so it'd be good to see that intersection. Sure, sure, but
I think the broader point is, I guess, I don't understand why
I don't understand what the priority was for these particular intersections versus, you know, versus
some others that I think we have mentioned as ones that are important to consider. Sure. So essentially
it's the scope of work included 10 intersections to be designed and included in the final report. We're
at those 10 in terms of how those 10 were chosen. It's subjective. Okay. Okay.
Because we only could afford 10, is that it? Yes. OK, thanks. That's the answer I was looking. I mean,
if that's the answer, that's the answer. That's kind of disturbing, to be frank. Because I have to agree
with Mr. Binder that those are two important intersections, that it just seems remiss to not also study them.
I mean, I appreciated the 15th Street change, but yikes. There's something we can do to get those two
thrown in at this point. So I mean, that is something that Ryan and I can talk about after this meeting.
But my question would be, where is the line on what intersections we have a design for in the report
and which ones we don't, because there are
comments we've gotten from the public about almost every single intersection along the corridor. And
at that point, you are designing a full corridor, which is it simply costs a lot more than what we're
doing. And when there are only so many options of improvements that we could choose for these intersections.
I mean, I don't know about other commissioners, but I feel sort of an obligation to be able to explain
what we did or how we advised you, you know,
and that we're going to be people who may find ourselves having to defend the choices that we talked
about in these meetings. I imagine you were incorporating metrics like crashes and intersections or
volumes. That's defensible. Well, if we have the data, I mean, if you can provide us that data so that
we can, will that be in the final report? It can be. What's that?
It can be good. I think it's necessary. Like at the very least we should be able to explain why you
made the choices you made. Sure. And then I guess just a quick follow on that. Just to clarify the 10
intersections that we saw tonight concepts for were those 10 selected by staff or were they selected
by tool. It was a combined discussion but at the end of the day it was staff. OK. Further final questions.
I think as a follow up, so if we compare 15th and 7th, like how would we choose, like how would we prioritize
them? Like why would we choose the 15th street compared to 7th street, which we discussed just now?
Sure, between those two specifically? Sure, so we tried to choose intersections along the entirety of
the corridor, and so because we were already focusing on 6th and Rogers in the near west side area,
We also wanted to show something for the Maple Heights Neighborhood Association as well. So up in that
area between 11 to 17. A little bit. Yes. That's part of it too. One more related question and then
I'll I promise I'll stop. When this actually gets to high resolution engineering design. You know contractor
ready construction ready designs.
Is the idea that ultimately those other intersections will have been designed and then the entire corridor
would be built in a single, more or less a single phase, or would this be broken out into a lot of different
little separate phases and kind of rebuilt piecemeal? Very likely it's the latter, simply because of
how much we're looking at. Again, if there is a
giant federal grant that we can get, we're going to try to get it. But a lot of these intersections
in linear parts of the project, because we're not looking at something like a larger road diet,
for example, because this is already a two lane street, we can easily do this piecemeal intersection
by intersection. I mean, kind of, right? Because I think what could happen, I guess, is
You know, we could wind up with segments of Rogers that have a new side path, and then there's a segment
that doesn't have a side path yet, and then another segment that has a side path, and so forth. It sounds
like that may just be how it is, but I think we should just all understand that's maybe what our expectation
should be, is that it's not like once the construction of this gets going,
At some point, there will be a full side path along all of Rogers. That's going to take some time in
multiple design and construction phases. Mr. Coppock, could you let us know what other intersections,
like we mentioned before, that are part of some other project that may have some design already in place,
like 11th Street or something like that, or 2nd Street or Kirkwood,
Sure. I probably don't have the full list off the top of my head, but I can, I can absolutely get it
to you by our next meeting. Well, or just something, you know, when we have to report, it'd be good
to know if these other intersections are having some changes made to them. I mean, let us see. It seems
pretty important. Okay. Is there any public comment? Would you come to the microphone? Please state
your name.
I was just wondering, okay, is there anyone who would like to make a motion to allow public comment?
Second. We have motion and second. All in favor please say aye. Opposed say nay.
You may speak, you'll have three minutes. Okay, I'm Jill Bird. I live in Prospect Hill, so this is my
corridor. I'm on a foot bike car all the time. I did fill out a very detailed response to your survey
online. I hope that that is read and attention is paid. Can you flip through them or should I just try
to talk about each? Okay, well the first one, there's some areas where there's green space to narrow.
the street and at least one area, there is a right turn area. Anytime a car, which intersection are
we talking about? The very first one. Yeah. Anytime a car can make a left turn, I think there should
be more than one lane. The new work that was done on Rogers. When I turn left to go home, cars are backing
up behind me because you built a great big green space.
and I now have one lane. So I would avoid that any time possible. The Madison one, I agree with Steve's
concern about westbound traffic and how you have to make that little jog to get back on the multi-use
path. It's going to be particularly awkward for a bicycle that's going to be on the
right side of a car and then wanting to turn left in front of them. Madison is north-south, which street
were you? 15th. Madison at 15th. Thank you. That's going to be particularly awkward. And can someone
remind me, is sixth and Rogers stop signs? Yes. OK. No, it's not. Seventh is. OK. Because a lot of cars
seem to cross
And I think once again with the lane narrowing, it's going to be more difficult because cars turning
left are going to back traffic up and it's going to be harder for cars to cross 6th Street. Third and
Rogers. Assuming that you are going to do the bike lane under the bridge, please don't cheap out on
the concrete barrier.
Riding a bike under that bridge with that big concrete wall on one side of you and cars on the other
side is frightening. I take the rickety sidewalks just to avoid that. There would be some safety gained
with the concrete barrier, and I hope you don't cheap out and decide to eliminate that. All right, where am I?
intersection, when I looked online, it looked like it did not, the multi-use path did not extend past
Shalom Center to the north. And I urge you to do that because there's a lot of pedestrians, people are
hanging out, they're eating their pizza out there. And when you're on a bike having the extra width
of a multi-lane
versus a sidewalk would be very helpful, and it would be a huge safety factor. That's your time. OK.
Thank you so much. All right. Thank you. Any further public comment? Online? Please use the raise hand
function in Zoom. Last call for online comment. All right. Do we know, let's come back to the commission
as a whole, do we know when you plan to have the final meeting with us approximately? Mr. Duncan.
before the end of the calendar year, certainly. I would say between six to eight weeks from now. Okay,
so we're looking at a mid-October. I mean, we generally meet on the fourth Thursday, so a second, or
Monday rather, so a second Monday would be optimal. Or maybe it would be the second Monday in November.
Okay. All right. Well, in fact, our November meeting is actually in December because of Thanksgiving.
Okay. So we should expect one more of these perhaps early November. Okay. Any last words? This meeting,
our business concluded this meeting is adjourned.