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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTCSP Oversight Committee Minutes TCSP OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MEETING MI]NUTES OF DECEMBER 9, 1999 The Laurel TCSP Oversight Committee (OC) met on Thursday, December 9, 1999 in the City Council Chambers fi.om 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. Those in attendance were: Cai Cumin~ Gay Easton, Debbie Ricci, Anne Cossitt, Larry McCann, John H. Smith, Mayor Charles Rodgers, Kathleen Baumgartner, Bud Johnson, and Diana Walker. Cai Cumin called the meeting to order. Cai stated that this is the first meeting of the Committee. He also said those absent are Ken Olson, who is sick, and Kate Stevenson. Cal said that Laurel Haggert has resigned. A representative is needed from the Montana Department of Transportation. Originally, Baron Parks was scheduled to be this representative, but Barren has quit working for the Highway Department. Kathy Harris, a transportation engineering consultant fi.om Helena working for the TCSP Project said it would be good to get Baron's replacement, Stan Jonufis; Cai will check on this. This Committee will meet every second Thursday of each month at the same time, (7:00 p.m.) in the City Council Chambers. Cai stated thara ehman should be appointed to this Committee since he should not be conducting these meetings. The purpose of this Committee is to oversee his work. Gay Easton nominated Bud Johnson for this position, seconded by Debbie Rieci; all present voted in favor. Cai Cumin stated that he mailed the Committee members a packet of information about the project: its function, analysis, progress to date, and the breakdown of the budget. TCSP stands for Transportation and Community and System Preservation and is a pilot program funded by the Federal government through the Federal Highways Administration. This is a huge, national, program that all involved are excited about. Cai encouraged everyone to check out the program on the Internet since the program has a website. He stated that they have a nice logo and would like to include this logo on our notebooks but has not yet figured out how to download it. This program was created because Federal Highways had an idea that more highways tend to create the need for additional highways and transportation infi.astmeture investment at the detriment to town's sense of community--as well as maybe creating a need for even more roads to be built. The purpose of TCSP is to analyze the impact of transportation systems on' communities. Alternatives to driving are looked at like walkways and non-vehicular traffic and how to make these alternatives attractive to a community. Laurel is one only thirty- five communities in the US to receive this grant program. Laurel qualified for the program because it is definitely impacted by transportation systems: Old Highway 10 runs east and west through Laurel, Highway 212 runs north and south through Laurel, Interstate 90 runs east and west, and the new Shiloh Interchange will be located just east of Lanrel. The railroad also runs east and west-north and south through Laurel. Transportation has a large impact on Laurel. National experts in community consensus building visioning, and alternative transportation systems have been brought to Laurel for presentations. Paul Zykofsky from the Center for Livable Communities traveled to Laurd from California in order to get an idea of how the people of Lanrel view their own community. A slide program was created out of this with approximately 40 slides. The Laurel Revitalization League (LRL) has been going around a showing this slide program to the different organizations and businesses in Laurel. Paul will return to Laurel to make recommendations when the community is ready to have these recommendations. The National Main Street Center (NMSC) Program was also brought to Laurel by Scott Day of San Antonio to share its ideas. Scott was kind of like a cheerleader in urging Laurel to think outside of the box and explore different approaches and ideas to downtown redevelopment. Cai stated that these presentations are very expensive but are written into the project. After the NMSC Program, Dan Burden fi.om Walkable Communities in Florida put on a two-day workshop in Laurel. Dan pulled a lot of disciphaes together. He talked about streetscapes, community design opportunities, levels of service provided by existing roads, traffic volumes, and roundabouts. Roundabouts are traffic turning circles at intersections that can replace stop signs and traffic lights while increasing the level of service; roundabouts are also cheaper to build, provide community design opportunities, and reduce the number of serious accidents. Roundabouts create excitement and opportunities for revitalization in communities. Roundabouts could work well in Laurel, but both Main Street and First Avenue--areas where roundabouts could be located--are State highways; any changes must be coordinated with and approved by the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT). Cai stated that he is in the process of gathering data on these two roads. Bud Johnson asked if the State is hesitant about changing the two roads because of the actual operation or because it would take a change in the way they think since this has not been done before. Cai stated that after the study is completed, more will be known about where people are going, turning movements, and the peak hour volumes oftral]fic. MDT is very conservative and does not change its policies easily and without sound reason. Cai said that this is not going to be an easy task to do. Debbie Ricci stated that roundabouts offer more safety to pedestrians. Cai stated that it not impossible to get roundabouts. Stevansville was able to get roundabouts on their State highway. He said help roundabouts get people out of their cars and walking around the downtown, the key to a successful downtown. Laurel has big and wide streets and one thing that could be done is to extend the sidewalk nodes out into the street at least to a depth of the adjacent parked cars. This gives pedestrians move visibility and is subsequently safer; such construction also tends to slow traffic, another important part of making the downtown pedestrian friendly. Cai said that these types of things could be seen on Montana Avenue in downtown Billings. Part of the TCSP Project also involves building a map data base using GIS (Graphic Information Systems), a computerized mapping process that both maps and accumulates information such as land parcel sizes. Cal informed the Committee that working on the mapping of the land use in the GIS system is not easy and is not cheap. Once this is done, however, it can be constantly upgraded which will save time, effort, and money over the long mn. The Project is working closely with Larry McCann, the Public Works Director, and Yellowstone County's GIS system. Kathleen Baumgarmer asked if the data is available for Laurel around Fkst Avenue North. Cal instructed all present to turn to page six ofthair booklets. This first part of the program deals with the budget. The time fi'amc called for is au 18-month project. Cai stated that it is not critical tO get the project done in that time flame which would be about November of 2000. What is important is that the Project be done well and produce useable results. 2 The goals of the project need to follow with the federal explanation that is written in the first paragraph. Some of these goals are to improve efficiency, reduce impacts, increase knowledge, increase jobs, preserve the community, address the needs of the community, reduce the use of motorized traffic, and reduce the need for stop signs and stop lights. In order to qualify for the grant, these items had to be addressed. In order to implement these needs, ordinances will need to be revised; standards will have to be taken into consideration as well as the plans and building codes of the City. Subdivision regulations and parking regulations may need to he updated as well as parts of the Comprehensive Plan will have to be planned for. Everything that is done on this Project will need to be documented as part of a Project evaluation for the Federal Government. Anne Cossitt is working on the evaluation part of the project, which includes everything fi.om the scope of the work, proposals given, and the effectiveness of the public participation. She will work with the group and will pull everything together. Anne will create a quarterly newsletter to keep all informed. Discussion was held on the mailing list for the newsletter. A lot of the newsletters can be left in public places as well as mailing some out. At the end of the process, Anne hopes to be able to assess how the Project implements the plans and show how to monitor and keep track of the changes in Laurel that were made because of the project. Cai discussed the complexity of the evaluation process, how to evaluate what you are doing, document, and then present it to the Feds. Do you document the number of people who attended the first meeting and the second meeting and draw a conclusion if the number grows, that the project is successful? This is one of the functions of the Committee. The structure of this Committee is to guide and to offer criticisms. Cai stated that the next section of the booklet deals with a description of the Project itself and includes the original application and the budget. Cai stated that if anyone has any suggestions on how to refine this budget, he would be interested in hearing their comments. Each time the Committee meets, the bills will need to be reviewed and paid. Short-term Project goals are to consider roundabouts and more parking downtown. Diagonal parking could be installed on Montana Avenue between Main and 2nd Street. This would increase parking in the area by up to 60%. Debbie Ricci Stated that when Dan Burden made his presentation, he suggested extending the sidewalks for more parking and make the area more attractive by creating a parking lot type of 10ok. Cai asked Larry McCarm if he had any definite feelings on diagonal parking. Larry said he didn't and suggested trying diagonal parking on just one side of the street first before trying to implement it elsewhere. Kathleea Baumgartner stated that she spoke to a lot of people to get their views on diagonal parking. She reported that they like the idea oftha diagonal parking but have a concern about safety while backing out of the parking areas. Diagonal parking does encourage slower traffic which helps the pedestrian atmosphere of downtown. Diagonal parking used to be the norm but as time went by bigger and faster cars were made and everything was designed around the vehicles. Motorized Vehicles have been the driving force in community design for the last forty years. Diana Walker asked if MDT has a problem with diagonal parking. Cai said yes. Cai also stated that the diagonal parking that he is proposing is to be on Montana Avenue, which is not a State Highway. He said that there might be a way to get Federal assistance with this issue. If 3 there were a lot of sound reasoning behind proposed changes, MDT is worked closely with, and with support from Federal Highways, changes may occur. Cai said another short-term goal is the GIS mapping; it will be very beneficial to Laurel regardless of the outcome ofthn Project. Once the mapping is complete, this can always be easily updated. It will become a dynamic living document that will make this Project worthwhile regardless of whatever else comes out ofthn program. Bills presented for payment are as follows: Carter-Burgess $2,581.49 Fischer Associates $309.00 Cai Cumin (Project startup, mapping, analysis, etc.) $1,459.34 Cai stated that after each item listed he would include the Project budget item that the bills are to be subtracted out of. Cal further asked if the Committee members would like to receive individual copies of the bills to be presented at each meeting. He would like to know exactly how the Committee would like this handled. Gay Easton told Cai to include a copy of the actual bill with the agendas to be sent out. Cai asked if there is anything else that this Committee would like to see included in the next month's agenda such as mapping. He stated that as projects are completed, he would present the details of each project to the OC. Bud Johnson stated that the critical dement in this process is to make sure that all understand the data that is collected. He further stated that it would be interesting to see the traffic counts and other data collected. Cal was questioned on how he is collecting this data. Cal said that he is collecting the data by doing on-site counts. Data is being collected at specific intersections at estimated peak hours. The Average Daily Traffic (ADT) counts on major streets exist already and will be taken into consideration. As soon as he gets the data compiled, he will present his findings to this Committee and forward the information to both Dan Burden and Kathy Harris, our transportation engineering consultant from Hdena. Diana Walker asked if makes a difference that some of the traffic fight now is due to the holidays. Cai said it was probably better to record slightly more traffic than less for assessment purposes. Kathleen Baumgartner asked if she missed the information on the analysis completed by Burgess on the major transportation features. All that is listed fight now is the contract. Bud,said that the details of this are included in the back of the packet. Cal stated that this information is still in the stages of being gathered at this time and is not all pulled together. Cal informed all that the original project application shows Montana State University being used for GIS work. He is using instead Yellowstone County, Fischer Associates, and his own people to gather this information. On-going mapping is water, sewer, and storm drain lines, land uses, traffic counts, and zoning. Future information may include houses per block, tax codes, etc. Bud asked if there would be sidewalk inventories. Cai answered that this information may be gathered by one of the other consultants. Cai stated that there is a miscellaneous section in the back of the notebooks. There is nothing in this section at this point but this will fill up as time goes by. Cai asked if everyone has a sense of where the Committee is going from here and further asked if there is anything else that the Committee would like to see to help to get an understanding of the process. Bud Johnson asked what would be on the agenda for the next meeting so that he may orient himself with the items to be in a position to come up to 4 speed with the details. Cai stated that some of the map work that he has been working on will be ready for review, transportation raw data will be listed, and a better refinement of the process will be included. Bud said that it might be interesting to go over the traffic data that Cai has collected in order to see what things are being taken into account for this study. Cai said that he would have new raw data on this. There is a lot of community sustainability information. It is important to Laurel as Billings is growing and getting closer to Laurel, to not get swallowed up by Billings. It is also important to note that Laurel is ahead of Billings in community sustainability planning. Laurel is already doing things that Billings is just beginning to think about doing. Debbie asked for more direction. She would like to see a mission or vision statement created in order to give her more focus. Cai stated that the requirements of the process are already spelled out in the grant. Kathleen Baumgsrtner said that the federal thing reads like a mission statement. Bud Johnson said that if this helps, Debbie might like to put some thoughts together before the next meeting in order to create a vision statement. Anne Cossett said that fi-om her perspective, the OC is more like a steering Committee that won't have the same kind of consistent review as other organizations. Questions that will be answered by the Committee are: Are the projects on track? What is the level of satisfaction? Bud stated that he feels what Debbie is trying to say is that it is a little difficult to grasp what the Committee needs to do and difficult to keep the focus at this point. The creation of an alternative scenario is that the group is at the beginning trying to access the program. As the group gets more knowledgeable as to what is going on, it will get things created. Cai reminded all that the system would be computerized. Once the data gets plugged into the computer, the group will be able to deal with the alternatives that are created. Cai said that he would do more research. This will be an interesting way to do community monitoring. Diana Walker asked if during the study would the data include just information about the streets, bike trails, and walkways. Cai stated that the information being studied is not just these areas but includes the whole community. Larry McCann stated that National Public Works Department is pushing for streets to be narrower. He noted that as the process is completed, agreed upon by the City, and fitted into the City ordinances, it will focus what the community looks like today and a 100 years from now. Larry further stated that iftbe streets were lef~ wide like they are now, the continued expense of maintaining them will be greater and greater Cai stated that in the plan received from Dan Burden, it noted that Main Street is 100-feet plus wide. This is wasted space that costs a lot to maintain. Parking could be created out of this wasted space to accommodate RV parking at the Visitor Center, boulevard sidewalks, etc. Anne Cossett stated that Larry suggested one alternative to look at is narrowing the streets. Should there be an examination of the long-term costs of maintaining these wide streets? Larry stated that they are in the process of looking into the ordinances in order to widen the boulevards and make the streets narrower. This probably would be put on hold until at~er this study is done. Cai stated that the only thing that takes any action at this meeting is to get the bills approved for payment. Smith made a motion to approve payment of the bills presented, seconded by Baumgartner. The motion was carded by a unanimous vote. Cai said that he would figure out the purchase order with the City Clerk-Treasurer. 5 Kathleen asked for clarification on how this program will be integrated into Laurel. Cai said that items would be looked into as to what impacts the design and the future when looking at alternatives that are needed now and as the community grows in a 20 to 50-year span. Cai explained that by doing this process, the changes made would not become worthless and wasteful. The new sidewalks in Billings Heights are a waste, for example, because they are not used. Since the sidewalks are located immediately adjacent to the busiest street in the State, walking next to the high speed traffic is discouraged. A major transportation study was completed for the Heights, and it encouraged the construction of additional traffic lanes-not looking at any non-motorized transportation alternatives. When people are looking for examples of ways to go, Billings is not a good example. Bud Johnson asked if anyone else had any other thoughts for items to be included on the next agenda. He stated that he would like the agendas sent out far enough ahead so that everyone will have a chance to look at the items. Gay Easton would like to have a budget report presented at these meetings. Cai stated that the expenditures are shown in the budget. The Committee approves payment for these expenditures, and then it goes before the City Council for approval. Mayor Charles Rodgers stated that he has enjoyed listening to the comments at this meeting but he will not be able to be a permanent member of this Committee. He suggested inviting others to these meetings so all may stay informed. Cai stated that since this Committee has met and now has a background, he would like to invite a representative to attend these meetings fi-om the State Department of Transportation. Bud Johnson adjourned the meeting. 6