Good morning, and welcome to this meeting of the Mobility Committee of the City of Denton.
We have a quorum present.
We don't have decisions to take today, but we have a lot of interesting sounding reports
and information.
So we'll start with item A, Receive a Report and Hold a Discussion Regarding City of Denton
Transportation/Mobility Project Status Report.
Mr. Polstoo.
Good morning.
My name is John Polstoo with Innovative Transportation Solutions, and you have your report before
you.
I will adjust it a little bit for those watching to see if they can see as much of it as possible
per page.
So the first sheet as we go through is this the project summary sheet that shows the projects
we're working on and dollar amounts associated with it.
It's roughly about $2.5 billion worth of projects we're working on in the city of Denton and
the surrounding areas.
First project we want to talk to you about is 2181 North/South Construction Project.
It is under construction.
We are working with Mrs. Zachary project.
It has a July 22 project.
The major issue on this project right now is we continue to do, and we have Travis Kimball,
the area engineer for a text out here today with us.
Pretty question you may have with him, but we are working on getting the critical path
item on this project is to have the traffic switch done in October.
If we can get that traffic switch done in October and we meet that date, then the timeline
for hitting the July 22 completion date, I'm going to have to make that larger, my glasses
are fogging up, if we can hit the time frame, then the July 22 completion date is much more
realistic to hit.
We have a wall, a sound wall, that is going to have to be tweaked on this project once
the traffic switch is completed due to the fact that the sound wall was added after some
of the utilities were relocated into an area where the sound wall has to go.
So we're going to work on that after we get the traffic switch in October, but it looks
like things are coming together.
We have various utility conflicts on a regular basis, but there's nothing that we can't
deal with on a daily basis.
So we are working daily on that and the city is, we're meeting with the staff and text
out regularly on this project and everybody seems to be working good together.
Any questions on 2181?
We're good.
Do I need to be recognized by the chair?
I didn't see your sign there, Council Member McGuire.
Yes, thank you.
I have several questions.
This is right through the heart of my district, right in my backyard, and I've gotten lots
and lots of questions from constituents about this.
Can you speak to sidewalks?
I can see, because I'm watching the progress very closely, that there are cutouts, sidewalks
are coming.
Can you speak to what the size of the sidewalks is going to be and when we can anticipate
those going down?
So what the contractor is supposed to be doing in the interim is continuing to make sure
that there are improved services for the pedestrians in that corridor continuously, so that might
just be gravel to connect where the sidewalks are.
But ultimately, when the project's completed, there'll be five foot sidewalks on both sides
of the road, continuously throughout the corridor.
And can we anticipate those happening after?
They are part of the project, so at July 22, when the project's complete, the sidewalks
will be installed.
Okay, excellent, excellent, as far as, sorry to get into this level of detail, but people
are like, "When can my kids walk to school?"
Can we anticipate, for example, the concretes going down at some of the cross streets on
the west side currently, can we anticipate that west side sidewalk going down as part
of that, or should we anticipate that happening after the traffic switch?
So again, what we tried to do with the school district was provide some type of surface
continuously through the construction of the project, so that if those that are walking
aren't walking in mud.
So they can do it now, it's just not on sidewalk.
It may be in gravel, it may be in crushed asphalt or whatnot, but they're able to do
that outside of the construction area now.
So I don't think there's a phasing where the sidewalks will be done before the road is.
I think it's going to all be done at the same time.
Okay, all right, thank you, that answers that question.
Can you elaborate a little bit on the sound walls?
I see these like 178R and 180R, I don't know what that means, are those locations?
Yes, and I've always asked for better descriptions on locations and tech center refuses to give
it to me, so I'm going to throw them under the bus.
But it's where it was shown in the schematics, do you know roughly where that is?
We'll get a better description in the report.
Okay, yeah, if you could tell me where those sound walls are going up, because I've had
several people ask me about that sound wall.
I will get back to my computer, and before the hours out after I leave here, you'll know
the locations.
Great, thank you so much.
They're on the schematic and the schematics on my computer and on Keep It Moving Dallas
and they'll show the locations.
Oh, okay, so I can look at Keep It Moving Dallas?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay, all right, then I'll go ahead and do that as well.
I need to get more facility with that.
It takes practice to learn that site.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, I think that was all my questions, yes, thank you.
Okay.
Then the 35E Mayhill Project, again, the critical path item on this project is the utility relocations.
You'll see the very long list of utilities here.
We've been meeting with city staff and utility DME and your city utility folks to talk about
expediting the time frame on this.
You see that we have a ready to let date of September 23, and we have some overlap on
that with the city's utilities.
We started a two-week meeting every two weeks, meeting last week with city staff, and we'll
have another meeting this Friday on some, is that this Friday, on some issues related
to that, but the reality is that the $87 million job, we did add some scope because we wanted
to do those bypasses at Brinker, so there were some things that we added about a year
ago that expanded the work for the city's utilities, but we have to hit our let date,
and we have to find a way to make sure everybody hits that date, so that's the critical path
item, just the utilities.
The Big Kahuna 35E merge project, again, the right of way is completed on this.
We're working on the utilities.
We think we have a path forward on this, and again, this is one of those projects that
we are meeting with staff on a bi-weekly time frame to make sure that any issues that come
up, both from the water, wastewater side and DME side, that we quickly address it, and
what TechSite has communicated to the city is, is if there's anything on the design
that TechSite's doing that impedes or impacts the utilities in a negative way, that if they'll
let us, the state, know, then the state will change the design to minimize the impact to
the utilities to the extent possible.
So we are shooting for that August 23, ready to let date.
Significant number of utilities, yes, sir.
Councilmember McCoy.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
Question about those utilities and the DME lines that I know are being moved as part
of that.
Have we reached any kind of consensus regarding how we're going to relocate those transmission
lines?
So, yeah, what am I doing answering?
Yeah, I think this is more a question for my colleagues here.
That project is actually being delivered by our utility department and also municipal
electric, but there are corridors, they've hired consultants along with internal staff
are working through that.
The project will require additional easements along the entire corridor for those utilities
to be relocated.
Some of those easements will be located along the actual corridor of 35, others will be
offset and offsite, so for example, they're looking at easements to be moved, and I'll
give James Wood as an example, to be behind James Wood versus in front of James Wood.
So there's some creative measures that are being looked at to try to find out the best
way to reroute the utilities, but the Denton Municipal Electric and Water Wastewater Utility
Departments are working together to see if easements can be acquired for the city versus
individual utilities also.
And that's part of the area where we're going to be working with the city to see if there's
a manner in which we can help expedite the schedule on these projects is the easement
acquisition process.
Good.
Okay.
Karen?
Okay, so the 380 interim project says that we're going to be starting on September 20th.
Travis just told me that the good news is we're starting.
The bad news is Friday night we're shutting down the on-ramp, which should immediately
improve the traffic on 35, but if you want to get on, you'll have to find someplace else
to do it between now and when the project gets completed.
But we are starting and we are still anticipating having substantial completion sometime around
the end/first of the year of this coming year.
So it begins.
At least you're fudging sooner, rather than fudging later, yeah, that's right.
Substantial completion means that you're doing what you can where you're supposed to legally,
but we may be still doing some farming and landscaping and close-out punch list items,
but you're essentially driving where you're supposed to without getting a ticket.
And then the big project to the north, we continue to acquire the right-of-way.
There are 115 parcels.
We're a little bit further behind on this project just simply because when we got load
slowed down, we didn't stop.
We just went from 55 miles an hour to 30 miles an hour on acquisition.
We had more parcels to acquire.
It still has a 2023 let date, but we have a significant number of parcels still to acquire.
There are utilities out there, as you can see, that we still need to work with.
The good news is that there's not a whole lot of impact to the city north of 77, so
we shouldn't be beating up on y'all for that one too bad.
And we have a meeting set to discuss how to work with the TxDOT PIO office because what
we're going to do is all of these 35 projects, the Mayhill, the Merge, and the big project
to the north, that we're going to treat that as a corridor project.
And so all of that communication to your residents will be done in a unified manner.
So we're going to get with the district's PIO.
They've got some new pilot programs, and I'm not on social media, so I don't know exactly
what they are, but it's where they can communicate through neighborhood or just talk or some
other third thing that I don't know about, where it's interactive and they keep you informed.
And so we're going to put a more proactive, more like what we did with AGL on 35E project,
but AGL was responsible for that public outreach.
This will be TxDOT doing it through these new pilot programs, and once we have a better
idea of what that looks like, we'll bring that to y'all and your public information
folks to meld it into your system.
Okay, we always skip main lanes.
We are fixing to be environmentally cleared though.
What that means is, is that from right-of-way line to right-of-way line, from now on, anything
in the city of Denton, both the city and the county can protect that corridor as development
comes along that corridor, which is all we really wanted to do for the main lane segment.
The real project is the frontage road segment.
We are still working to get HNTB on contract.
We think that within another month or so we'll have HNTB on contract and then they'll begin
the PS&E, the plan specifications and estimate work to start doing the plans for the frontage
roads.
Right now we have it split 407 North is phase one, 407 South is phase two, but we have submitted
this and we are partnering with the Dallas district to get this project on a list to
be ready for a list of projects that may be asked by the commission if they have to reallocate
some of the funds out of Houston and Austin, because those projects are not going to make
their let dates.
So, this is a candidate project.
It's clear lanes, even though it's frontage roads are classified as clear lanes, it's
environmentally cleared, requiring right of way, and we're into the design of the project.
So it meets all the criteria for submitting money for those projects.
So if all goes well and they say yes, we can expedite the schedule to move up the ready
to let date, but if we just follow the normal procedures of normal timeframes, we're looking
at June of 2024 for a ready to let date for the frontage roads.
Okay, your 380-377 project, this is the segment from 288 out to the 377 cut north.
It's got a November 2023 completion date, the construction report, basically.
What we're doing is shoring up the bridge, so I'm going to go back up to the map here.
So this area, where you see where it crosses the lake, that's the bridge structure that
they're doing the underpinning to make sure that it can hold up to the additional weight
of the additional capacity we're putting on.
Once we get that done, what we've asked TxDOT to do is to do some temporary, you know, they
got to look at it from a phasing standpoint, but to do some temporary center barrier protection
now because those accidents that have been occurring are crossover accidents.
We're still asking the city to do the ordinance to reduce the speed temporarily to the 50-mile-an-hour
speed just because it helps us make everybody aware that that is a construction zone.
Once the project is done, it'll go back to its normal posted speed of 60 miles an hour
or whatever the 85th percentile shows it needs to be after the project is completed.
But we still believe that the best solution for the safety out there is in the interim
to put that barrier up in the median.
Ultimately, when the project's done, it has a raised median, and that will be the safety
issue that protects the crossover traffic accidents.
- Council Member McGuire?
- Can you give us a timeline on the temporary barrier?
- I knew you were going to ask me that.
Brandon told us at the other meeting that it might be the first quarter next year.
Yeah, it's, we're talking probably spring before we can, because they're out there having
to shore up all of those columns and bridge vents to make sure that it can carry the weight
of the additional capacity for the additional lanes.
Even when you put those plastic barriers, those are filled with water, and so they add
weight to the structure.
- That answers my very next question, which is why can't we just go stick them out there?
You mentioned an ordinance to lower the speed limit.
Is that something that's going to come before council?
- Did I jump the bean?
- I don't know.
- No, Council Member McGuire, we are actually working through that ordinance right now.
We have a preliminary draft that Legal is going to be reviewing in the very near future.
It's in their inbox, so they just received it as of yesterday.
And so we are working through that, and then it will come before council as an item for
approval to lower the speed limit, not only within the area across this project that John
just mentioned, also into town for Ruedell, just because we have some areas in there that
we need to lower the speed limit, and this will all be temporarily during the construction.
And so we're working through that process.
It may go to council before it comes to Mobility Committee, just due to timing, but we will
absolutely put it as a part of the agenda for Mobility Committee also.
- Great.
Yeah.
And I definitely, you know, time is of the essence.
There have been quite a lot of those head-on collisions.
So I'm totally okay with that, going straight to council to get it done as quickly as possible.
- Okay.
Thank you very much.
- Yeah, it's in the report, so I didn't spill the beans.
All right, then the next project, 380 East.
It has been let to Regal, was that who I got it?
Zachary, that's even better, came in a little, about five and a half percent under, and it's
got 36 months in barricades, 936 working days.
That's how we're able to say that anticipated construction, oh, we don't have a start date.
So we awarded it to Zachary, but they have a delayed start of sometime in December because
there are still some utilities that had to be relocated, but we wanted to go ahead and
get the project let.
So we will continue to monitor this, and come December, we'll have a pre-construction meeting,
and then we'll be able to know what start date is and what the completion date is.
But it has been awarded, and the utilities are being completed, and we'll continue that
project all the way out to the county line, and that also we're asking the communities
in that section of 380 to do the ordinances to do the speed, work zone speed to 50 miles
an hour, because we're just anticipating we're going to have that same problem there.
John, real quick, I would like to just say that we actually are looking at lowering the
speed limit to 45 miles per hour, and then 40 in some of the other areas.
So it will be a little bit different based on our results and research that we've done.
So we're confirming and reviewing that, and then we'll provide that as soon as possible
to counsel.
Great.
I'm glad to hear that.
Okay.
So the US 380 feasibility study, we've got a meeting scheduled with the district off
cycle.
I think we got it set sooner than later, and part of what we're going to do from the county
standpoint is we're going to divide the baby.
So the county and the state, we work together on who does what on the development of these
projects.
We are probably fixing to, Denton County is fixing to go out for an RFQ for the outer
loop, the EIS on the outer loop, which is just to the northern part of this box.
We anticipate that EIS will cost the county about $10 million to bring somebody on to
clear that corridor from the county line all the way out to 35, and it's consistent with
Collin County's thoroughfare plan, Aubrey's thoroughfare plan.
I realize I was nodding without actually understanding.
EIS?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Hopefully that's in your glossary.
Yeah, I'm sure it is.
Environmental impact statement.
Thank you.
Gotcha.
So you've got a categorical exclusion for environmental clearance, which is one of the
easiest.
Then you've got an environmental assessment, which is what normally we end up doing, but
on a very large project, they push you up to what's called an environmental impact statement,
which is what we've been told we have to do.
County line all the way to 35, consistent with where we pick it up at Collin County's
thoroughfare plan, consistent with Aubrey's and consistent with the City of Denton's thoroughfare
plan, where you all show the outer loop in your community, consistent with where the
Corps of Engineers tells us we have to cross the green belt.
There's only one place to let us cross, and it's at 428.
So we're going to start that.
We're going to meet with TechStat, and we're going to request them to do two things, start
on the 380, clear out the feasibility, because they're saying they're going to have this
meeting in the fall.
We'd want them to have this closeout meeting sooner than that, because to me, today's fall,
so they can do it tomorrow.
Close out this feasibility, and then start on the environmental clearance for 380 as
a freeway, and separately, because of the issues we're having with development on the
loop, start the environmental clearance for adding frontage roads on the loop, which is
needed because the development is being pushed on the loop.
So all that's on that little map right there that we're going to be pushing in the next
two weeks.
Questions?
Comments?
Concerns?
Cajoling?
Okay.
I will respond to hand signs.
I was just making a general face at my displeasure at the development of the loop, but that's
not your problem.
We've got some kind of radiation there.
Yeah.
All right.
Carry on.
So am I allowed to proceed?
Yeah, please, despite the council member's displeasure.
All right.
Loop 288 West, Chank Patel has been executed the contract, we are scheduling a kickoff
meeting.
We'll include city staff, because it is very important to your community as far as development
and setting that corridor.
We're doing the inside frontage road for sure, and depending on if we can get additional
money for this project with this Houston-Austin clawback, we may end up trying to shoot for
the whole enchilada, but we'll get you a schedule on what we think the timing is on the PS&A
and the actual completion of everything once we get them actual working.
And then we'll have regular updates on that that will be able to provide the city staff
that will show into your report where we are on the project.
Same same on 1515, we have LTRA under contract now, and we will, we had to do a little tweaking
because we changed the footprint after it was environmentally cleared at the western,
where it says FM 1515 here, we removed a traffic circle and we tweaked the alignment that Peter
built to accommodate some of their concerns, which required us to do a minor reevaluation
on the environmental assessment.
We're done with that pretty much, I mean, we've still got some of the procedural work
to do, but we're going to bring LTRA in with the city and the county and tech stock to
do a kickoff meeting, make sure we're all doing the right thing for the right reasons.
And once we know that, we'll have a better schedule for you.
Lins?
Of course.
So you know, I know that this is not a residential area that we're talking about.
But is there any?
Are there any, you know, maybe four foot sidewalks in the plan for this project?
Every road that the state builds now includes sidewalks.
Okay, so yes, all right.
The federal government required them.
And they used to require a 14 foot outside lane, and we finally explained to them, because
you got bike experts that show, explain that if you've got a 12 foot lane, the people who
know what they're doing on the bicycle ride in the middle of the lane, because it's safer.
So if you got a 14 foot lane, they're just going to ride in the middle of a 14 foot lane,
right?
So it doesn't do you anything.
So we finally, over 12 years and millions and millions of dollars, convinced them that
we were right.
So now we don't have to do the 14 foot outside lanes, but we still do the sidewalks.
Excellent.
All right.
I'm glad to hear that.
Thank you.
Okay.
1173 is one of those projects that we're also going out when we did the outer loop in September,
hopefully into September, for the outer loop, we're also going out the county is to do the
RFQ for 1173.
So the county will be hiring somebody to begin the design on this project.
The intent is if we can get it done in time, hopefully some of the money on 35 will just
dribble off and fall off on 1173, and we can get it constructed out to crumb.
And it's environmentally clear now as of August 26, so now we can protect the corridor.
We'll just skip it on the locusts, no, I'm kidding.
So we are working with TxDOT and your staff to figure out a way to solve at least from
the courthouse south now, because that's the part that's been, the utilities and drainage
has been done.
Travis is doing coring right now to determine what the heck is out there underground.
We kind of know what the pavement condition looks like.
We just need to know what the base looks like, and so we're going to get those cores, identify
the amount of the substructure that needs to be redone, and then we're going to come
back to city staff and we're going to talk it through from then.
And hopefully that's a quicker process than just doing a mill and overlay and then coming
back two years later when we have some other third way of getting it funded.
I have become accustomed to the kind of methodical pace of these large projects, but this is
so in the heart of the city and the businesses are bleeding.
Is there anything different that can be done in the way of concentrating resources to get
this done faster?
Well, Travis is your new area engineer.
He's been on the job I think less than a year now, right?
Three months.
And he's breathed the fresh air.
Why aren't you done yet?
Huh?
You've had three months.
Why aren't we done yet?
And so what he's going to try to do is try to do that, where we combine.
So he's going to try to do, to do the bigger job, you really actually have to go to a different
pot of money, which requires a whole lot more effort.
What he's going to try to do is justify out of his maintenance budget.
And then what I've offered, because I know that the county is also interested in their
front door, is that once we find out if there's a delta on what he's able to do versus what
he needs to do to make everybody happy, that I just need to know a number and let us find
out what the art of the possible is.
That what you're asking us to do is what we're going to do.
Well, yeah.
I'll be encouraged to hear.
I'm encouraged that you're going after it, and I'm looking forward to hearing the breakthroughs
you came up with.
And I'm going to sit here and acknowledge that you heard a similar kind of urgency out
of Mobility Committee on the 35-380 situation, and you're very creative and came up with
a solve and had to find money to do it.
But January's looking almost like it's real.
So I'm hoping you can hit it out of the park again, Council Member Byrd.
I have a simple question.
You say that you're going to ... Those are the ones that hurt the most.
Just educational stuff.
You say that you're going to go and drill a core and see what's under there?
What does that look like to a lay person?
It looks like all those other holes that are out there.
Oh, okay.
So you're going to take a big ... I don't know if it's big, but it might be like that
big.
Oh, it's a little big.
We're going to core to see what's down there.
We're going to do it in random spots to see what's underneath the pavement.
So why do you need to know what's underneath the pavement?
Well, because we need to know if it's crappy, and if it is, then we've got to figure out
if it needs to be repaired or replaced.
Don't use that technical jargon on us.
So if the substructure is not up to standard, then we have to come in and do base repair
so that the base of the roadway will hold up to the traffic once you put the asphalt
on it.
So the asphalt just sets on the earth, and what it sets on determines how long the asphalt
lives.
Okay.
How's that?
Did I screw that up really bad?
You did a good job.
Because I was thinking that four is like taking a big back hole and going in.
No, that's called utilities and drainage.
Travis, if you want to understand the impact of not knowing what's under there, take a
drive on West Oak, west of Bradley, we'll talk about that one later.
So I think Travis and Becky, because this thing, like I said, this thing has been languishing
forever, and when Travis came on and Becky really grabbed it by the horns, that's when
things really started moving.
So you got two people that are really adamant to solve the problem, and I get the easy part
at the end.
So.
Okay.
We're really counting on you.
Thank you.
Money's always the easy part.
Okay.
Council Member McQuarrie.
Thanks.
I apologize because I think that you might have answered this in our last meeting, but
I just want to clarify, so TechStat is responsible for the section of Eagle Drive that's between
Elm and Locust.
Is there any other section of Eagle that TechStat is responsible for, or is the city responsible
for everything?
Yeah, that's it.
That's it.
Just that little section.
Okay.
So what we're trying to do in phases is once we get this to a certain standard that is
to your liking, it'll come off system so that you guys can do with it what you want in a
more of a community, comprehensive, complete street, context sensitive manner as opposed
to what the state will allow you to do.
Yeah, great.
And I'm very much looking forward to that, no offense.
I have a question that I think is probably best answered by Becky.
So I know that a lot of residents and business owners in this area, particularly on Elm have
reached out and I believe you've had some conversations.
Could you give us an update, or maybe your staff has had conversations, can you give
us an update on what your department intends to do in the future as far as communication
with...
Pardon me, Council Member, actually it's on the next item, Elm and Locust traffic public
outreach.
Okay, nevermind.
Sorry.
I'll wait.
Yes.
On agenda order.
Okay.
All right.
Now we're primed for it.
Okay.
Sorry.
I'll hold my horses.
So I'm gonna check to see if the IAS is on here, and it's not, so I'll add that.
It should be right after environmental assessment, so we'll add that.
Learn something new every day.
It's a growing, it's a living document.
That's all I have.
Again, I'd like y'all, if you haven't met Travis Kimball, and I don't know if you're
gonna do that, Becky, but...
We're about to meet him.
He's the best man.
We can't meet him until we call the item or we meet him.
All right.
I'm done.
Thanks, John.
Great report.
Do I leave this here, or...
I don't even know what this is.
It's your report.
You can probably take it down.
You know, I'll put it back on the Denton logo.
This looks better.
Okay.
I'm calling item B. Receive a report and hold a discussion regarding the City of Denton
staff update regarding a number of items.
That begins with introducing Travis Kimball.
Thank you very much.
Yes, Travis, we would like to take an opportunity to have him introduce himself.
As Travis mentioned, he's been with the Textot Area Office as the area engineer for about
three months, but has worked for Textot for a number of years.
And so just wanted you to get familiar with him.
We've had a really great time over the last three months working on a lot of things together
and appreciate the partnership and collaboration that Textot is willing to have, and really
look forward to a lot of the projects.
As you see, they have a lot of projects that are going on within the city.
And we know it's very important that our teams work together.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Travis and let him introduce himself.
Thank you, Becky.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate the invite from Becky to come this morning.
I'll just quickly...
My name is Travis Kimball.
I work for Textot, Denton County Area Engineer.
Started June 1st up here.
I've been with the department a little over 12 years.
I've worked in design down in Mesquite in our roadway design section.
I've worked in construction in Collin County for several years.
My most recent hire to that was working in our project delivery office down in Mesquite,
managing our large mobility.
A lot of the projects on the list was my group.
We were managing the development and the planning of those things.
Our hydraulics group were in my section, and we also had schematics and local LED.
So a large assortment of type of projects.
I've had the pleasure of working with John for several years on a lot of these projects.
We've delivered some tough ones in Denton County.
So new as the area engineer, but definitely not new to Denton County.
Very familiar with the big projects we've got coming up here.
Very familiar with the growth in Denton County, especially the city of Denton, and know what
we need and how we can deliver it.
So I'm really looking forward to working with you members of the council, continue working
with Becky.
Becky's got my cell phone number any time she needs anything and vice versa.
We've got a very open line of communication.
Same thing with ITS.
I've worked with them for many years, and so looking forward to continuing that relationship
as well.
So we've got a lot to do.
We've got a lot of projects to clear, and we want to get on the ground running.
We've got that project starting Friday, which was a huge win, I think, for TxDOT in the
city and all the residents in the area.
It's a much needed interim fix while we wait on that larger project to come.
So I think that's basically all I've got, unless I'm happy to take any questions while
I'm here.
But just, again, looking forward to working with everybody and continuing the partnerships
that we've already got going.
So the one thing I would add to that is I would tell you we would meet quarterly with
TxDOT on all these projects to make sure they kept moving.
When we would meet quarterly back in the day, we were meeting with him.
Yes.
That was me.
Well, I really want to welcome you, and I've got to tell you, Travis, until now TxDOT
has seemed to me to be this big faceless entity, so at least now I know what the eyes of TxDOT
look like.
That's us.
If it's Denton County, it's me, so feel free to call any time.
All right.
Thank you so much for visiting.
Thank you all very much for inviting me today.
Thank you, Travis.
All righty.
So as we move along on the staff memo, the next item that we were going to talk about
is the speeding concerns.
So as you can see in your memorandum, there were questions about speeding concerns along
Pennsylvania Drive from Ridgecrest Circle to Woodbrook Street.
Staff did collect data in September of 2020, and the results showed that the roadway did
not warrant any traffic calming measures at the time.
Since the previous analysis was conducted during COVID, staff is going to be reevaluating
the location the week of September 21st, so that's next week, and then staff will develop
a plan once the results are available and provide those details in a future Friday report.
The next item on speeding concerns was Moore Street, and from June 6th to June 14th of
2021, staff conducted a speed study on Moore Street and found that 12.9 percent of drivers
going eastbound and 18.7 percent of drivers going westbound were speeding.
Based on these results, there were measures speeding on Moore Street.
So staff has been working with the police department to increase enforcement based on
the results received.
In this area, we've also worked with the PD to deploy what we call driver feedback signs.
So what that is is when you're driving, you actually will see a detection that shows if
the speed limit is 30 miles per hour, it will show you're going 37 miles per hour, and it's
a recollection, so individuals understand the speed they're actually going in this area,
and we're going to be working on that to notify residents of their actual speed, and we'll
be reevaluating this segment in six months, and we're currently evaluating the use of
additional signage in the area.
One of the things that staff has actually looked at is how many speed limit signs are
actually along Moore Street.
It's a wider cross-section, it also includes a hill, and so individuals are actually, based
on the data you can see, they're actually speeding in this area, so it's very much an
area that we're looking at what are some additional things that can be done, and evaluating the
number of signs on this street, so we're looking at the use of additional signage in this area
for speed limit signs.
And then the third street that we actually looked at was Lakey Street, and staff conducted
speed studies along Lakey, south of Wilson Street, from June 8th to June 14th.
Based on those results, about 1.4% of drivers were speeding, and staff noted and shared
the data with PD to increase enforcement based on the results received in this area.
So I'm going to, are there any questions specifically about the speeding concerns before I go to
the next item?
- Council Member Byrd?
- My particular concern is for Moore Street, and then I'll add Curly Street onto this conversation.
I know that we're doing, you're saying something about police enforcement, and it just seems
like it could be something else done more than police enforcement.
I know that I've driven that street, and there is not very much signage on Moore Street as
well as Curly Street.
The tool that you're using to notify drivers of their speed is so close to the stop sign,
a driver would be practically slowing down to stop.
It's gotta be less than 50 yards.
So I purposely went, made a right turn to go west, I'm sorry, yeah, to go west on Moore
Street, and immediately came upon the sign, and then just another 50 yards there, you're
stopping at a stop sign.
So I would certainly move that to maybe the center of that roadway, since it's such a
long, wide road.
I don't think that it will just give enough information to the drivers that are smoothly
going down the road.
I do know that there's not, it just looked like there was only a couple of speed signs,
one at the beginning of the road and one towards the end of the road, and not one in the middle
of the road.
There's a bushy street that intersects that roadway, I thought that that might be a great
opportunity to put a slow down sign there, or a stop sign, I don't know how it will work,
but it sits in the center of that road there.
So we've been having a lot of complaints for a number of years about that roadway from
that community, and I'm just really glad to see that there's some attention being paid
to it now.
The other thing is that I just happen to be on Woodrow, is that Woodrow, yeah that's Woodrow,
that's in front of North Lakes Park, that is Woodrow, it's a long road that goes, Windsor,
Windsor, where did I go, Windsor, and I think that that's a great opportunity for us to
possibly look at the way that that road is striped, it does have room, because it's such
a wide road, it has room for maybe an area for parking, and then it had the bike lanes
on the inside, and then it had pretty much a one lane to drive, but it also had a turn
lane in the middle, and would you all connect that Woodrow, sorry say it again, what was
that road I was trying to think of, Windsor, to see maybe if that style of play could work
on Moore Street, where there's, it's just, we need to narrow, I think we just need to
calm that road down quite a bit, and if we're talking about some parking, and then some
bike lanes, because we have, it shows we have bike lanes, but of course they're worn out,
you can't see the bike lanes, it just says share the road, and then have the middle lane
as turn lanes that might be helpful, just offering some, you know, just some thoughts
on that, as well as Curly Street, that road, Moore Street doesn't even have sidewalks,
and I know the kids from Tomas Rivera, they're having to walk down that road to get to their
little neighborhood, so that's also part of the concern, I do know that we're going to
be doing some utility work on that road, so I'm just trying to connect the timeline for,
is it worth the effort to do all of the striping and, you know, possible suggestions before
we get to the utility work under that road, is all of that, does that sound feasible to
put all of that energy into it now, and then we're going to pull that road up, and do the
utility work?
Talk to me about that.
Sure, no, I appreciate the feedback, definitely we'll work with the police department to look
at where the driver feedback sign is deployed, to see if there's a better location for that,
we don't mind looking into that at all, I appreciate the feedback on Windsor as an example
of the type of roadway that you're envisioning for Moore Street, I will tell you that we
will want to coordinate with the 2019 bond program projects, just because we don't want
to put something down that's going to be torn up, but if there's a gap of time that's going
to be more substantial than what's anticipated, or work that's not going to be done on one
of those particular streets, then that's something we can evaluate.
In your last Friday report that we also produced, we've already worked with the police department
and then our traffic operations department, Chandra, our senior traffic engineer, has
worked to look at locations, and we're going to be installing some additional speed limit
signs along Moore Street to help with some of that also, I believe there were only a
couple of signs, and we felt like that there could be some increased number of signs in
that area also, just to notify drivers, like you mentioned, it's a wide street and a rather
long street, just to notify them so that they're not going a long period of time without actually
having a sign for their knowledge and for their use.
But happy to look into Windsor, I will tell you there are more things happening on Windsor
due west of that location, with the 35 project, and then also some of the plans for that future
Westgate and Windsor area, but I think you brought up some valid concerns and some ideas,
and so happy to look into those things, what I will do is work to add that to a future
agenda item and bring that back for you, and we'll also bring back an update on the signs
that are deployed on Moore Street, evaluate curly to see if there's anything additional,
and I know we've provided some of that information previously, see if there's anything additional
that needs to be done, and then look at what could happen to Morris, maybe one of the things
that has been talked about before, and this may be kind of where your thoughts are, is
a more of a roadway diet type project, and so definitely something that we're willing
to look into, just want to make sure we're coordinating.
As you mentioned, we don't want to put something down that could be torn back up, so I appreciate
you bringing those forward, and definitely we'll add that to our future agenda item to
the next meeting.
Sir, I have one more question, do we have children at play signs, or watch for kids,
or I see some of those somewhere, are the communities putting those out, or do the cities
coordinate reminding drivers that children are in the area?
Sure, so we have several different types of signs, and actually the traffic operations
department notified me that starting October 1, they're going to be doing a 5-year program
to do those regulatory signs, and that's really all over the city as a replacement and installation
of those regulatory signs, and then the next 5 years, they're going to be looking at doing
some of those more warning type signs, but due to the fact that the MLK Recreation Center
is located very close to that at Thomas Riviera, I'm happy to work with the traffic operations
department and our traffic engineering to see if there's additional signs that could
be added, such as what you're speaking about, just due to the fact that there are a lot
of children in that area that are working to make their way either to school or to the
recreation center, so we're happy to look into those, and those are signs that we do
capture and deploy.
We can skip the next item.
The next item we're going to skip?
No, I'm just kidding.
I was going to say, you're going to give me a free pass on that?
No, I'm kidding.
Okay, so the next item is the latest OCI number for West Oak between Bradley and Thomas Street.
So the new overall condition score for Bradley between Thomas Street, but Oak Street between
Bradley and Thomas is 49.
This compares to 77, which was the score for the same segment in 2015.
So obviously, the score has decreased.
I know it's very much something that you're interested in, as I know that there were concerns
with the actual construction of that area.
Was this like a stunning bit of news?
Did this give you new information to find out that it scored well?
I don't believe it's stunning information.
I mean, I understand and drive the roadway myself.
I understand the concern.
Yeah, it's okay.
All right.
Just checking, making sure we're...
No, sir.
We're on the same wavelength.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Sorry, carry on.
No, you're fine.
But I think really what the next steps are to look at what could happen in this area,
as I mentioned before, some of the testing methods, and John was just talking about one
of them with the coring that's being done.
That's a testing method to look at the actual geotechnical determination below the roadway
surface.
And so this is definitely a street that due to the fact that the OCI has decreased, it'll
be something that's going to be evaluated as part of a replacement program.
What I have known to date is it's not...
I'm not aware of a program that it's currently on, but something that we will continue to
work with the streets department to see if it's something that can be added.
And I do realize that it was just recently replaced in that area.
Yeah.
I mean, we know all the facts.
It's just, you know, for all the resurfacing and reconstruction going on in the city, for
something that egregious, you know, not to be able to make it on a list is just baffling
to me.
So I'm very hopeful that you'll crack that nut.
Sure.
No, I appreciate that.
And we will definitely work with the streets department and see if there's anything additional
that can happen in that area.
So appreciate you bringing that to our attention.
The next item we're going to talk about is really their proactive traffic safety measures.
So in the July 30th Friday report, we talked about the, and this was a request that came
up from the last meeting, the citywide speed reduction and some of the questions resulting
in that.
So on June 28th, council member Beck inquired about the speed reduction strategies and the
way, you know, that staff could be more proactive in identifying areas where speeding is a concern.
And we just talked about a couple that council member McGuire brought up.
I'm sorry, council member Bird brought up.
So currently speed studies are being conducted on an as requested basis.
With school starting, you know, and this is when it was put in the July 30th report.
So with school about to start and the traffic patterns normalizing, then staff will reinitiate
efforts for that citywide speed study in the fall.
And then we've already began that and we see two of the individuals in the audience today
that are working on that.
One is our senior planner, bicycle ADA, pedestrian coordinator, and then also our senior traffic
engineer.
And when we begin working on moving forward with a citywide speed study, we will be bringing
back to you on September 28th during the council presentation, the mobility plan, and it will
touch the surface of some of the different measures that we're doing, whether they're
traffic safety measures, whether they're measures specifically related to bicycle and pedestrian,
or whether they're project-related measures.
And so you'll see some of that within the mobility plan, but really this is just to
let you know that we are moving forward with that citywide speed study.
We feel like we have all of the individuals in the right seats on the bus so that we can
move forward.
- Council Member McQuarrie.
Sorry, go ahead.
- Sorry, first.
- Come on now.
There we go.
So I'm just curious to know a little bit more about the speed study and what that's gonna
look like.
Is this primarily like a paper and pencil exercise, or are there gonna be staff like
out on the streets with radars and taking speed measurements?
How does this work?
- Sure.
I'm gonna ask Chandra to come down and describe to you the actual study and let him describe
to you some of the next efforts.
We know it's gonna take some time to collect data, and so he can describe those things
to you.
- Good morning.
This is Chandra with Traffic Engineering.
Citywide speed study, how we do is we select the corridors that are throughout the city,
and we have contracted with CJ Henge, and they use video cameras, and wherever it cannot
be done, they use those tubes laid out on the street, and they get speeds in different
sections so we can see the pattern.
And from there on, we get the data back, either like video or Excel spreadsheets, so we can
interpret it and make appropriate changes in the field.
- Thank you.
And a follow-up question.
Is it sort of gonna be like random streets being studied, or can you speak to which streets
are gonna be studied?
- We will be selecting based on the speed requests or issues that we got in the past,
and also proactively we select a lot of corridors.
Pretty much the citywide arterial collectors, not much on the residential streets, except
if there is any past issues that we had.
- Okay.
Thank you.
- You're welcome.
- Did you have a question?
- Yeah, Council Member Rupert.
- How is it determined what speed a street would be?
- The collector streets get more priorities, arterials, and residential streets that make
more like a longer length, like where it has the possibility for driving faster and things
like that.
We have those metrics, we go by.
- So if a neighborhood says that their street at 30 miles per hour is too high, can they
petition the city to bring the street speed down five miles per hour, if they like to,
collectively?
- In the state of Texas, the premature speed limit, which is the default speed limit, is
30 miles per hour.
If there is any safety issues that's been already there, like crashes or severe injuries
or fatalities, we can take a look at it, and we have room to adjust lower to speed limits
to 25, but not everywhere, except if it poses an unsafety issue out there.
And schools are generally, in those school zones, it's 20 miles per hour.
And hospital areas are 25.
Those are already being taken into account, and the Texas Transportation Court provides
those provisions for those special conditions.
- Okay.
So just a general complaint that, oh, they're going too fast down my street, can you lower
the speed limit?
Doesn't necessarily, it has to have provisions to be done, because that question has been
asked to me.
- 30 is the, if there is a sign, or there is no sign, 30 is the state's residential
speed limits.
- Okay.
- And if there is any safety issues, we can address those with the countermeasures that's
appropriate.
- Thank you.
- Sure, welcome.
- And Council Member Burt, I would just add to that, that's where we can deploy measures
such as our speed studies to actually evaluate the individual street to see if there are
concerns.
But we do our best to follow the codes, and the criteria, and the traffic manual documents
that are state-forward, state-wide.
So we're very much interested in getting this speed study completed.
And there are some individual streets that, you know, whether we've received the speed
study complaints, we'll also be hand-selecting, as Chandra mentioned, some of the other areas
that are arteriolus collectors that we know, you know, there are concerns, or areas where
we just want to have that as a part of the evaluation due to the amount of traffic that's
on that area.
So.
- What is the percentage that you have to get to bring a level of concern?
- I would say that that's really on a case-by-case basis.
Chandra, I don't know if you want to speak to that.
- Sure.
Usually in the state of Texas, it's the 85th percentile.
At least, say, 85 percent of the drivers, what they drive the speed would be the natural
speed on those streets, and there could be the rest 15 percent which could be driving
either slower, or they could be driving faster, but we target for those 85 percentile.
And we have, but the codes, we have plus or minus five miles from those 85 percentile.
We have the leverage to adjust it.
- Thank you, Chandra.
So I'm going to move on to item number seven because Mr. Polster and Mr. Campbell need
to leave for another meeting.
So I'm going to skip the next couple, and then I'm going to work towards talking real
quickly about Elm and Locust.
So I know there was a question earlier from Council Member McGuire specifically related
to Elm and Locust and the public outreach.
And I think Travis mentioned this, John has mentioned this, I also will echo that we've
been coordinating with TXDOT on a very regular basis to address the roadway condition of
Elm and Locust, and that would all be due south of the courthouse where the Pecan Creek
Phase Four project was that was a utility relocation reconstruction project for both
water sewer and a drainage installation.
And over the past month, staff has conducted weekly meetings with TXDOT area to discuss
that path forward.
There's been a lot of public outreach by the project manager who is now a program manager,
but he has had lots of conversations.
I know TXDOT also has had conversations.
We anticipate having those next steps identified as Travis mentioned and John mentioned they're
doing the coring right now to really look at what is the replacement measures that can
be made in that area and what needs to happen with that roadway.
Obviously, we all know it needs to be reconstructed, but as was mentioned, they need the data to
actually be able to see what type of surface that needs to be replaced and what those improvement
measures are.
We actually have work to schedule and Travis will be on that call with us.
There's going to be a meeting.
It's going to be a virtual downtown community meeting on October 14th.
And that's where the improvement measures will be discussed.
It's hopeful that we'll have the data back by that time and we may not, and if we don't,
we will find that opportunity to inform the public at a later date, but really just wanted
to have that opportunity to bring forward anyone in that area who has questions or concerns
and have representatives from the city and also TXDOT on the same call so that we could
talk about Elm and Locust and the concerns that have been raised.
I will tell you that our staff is committed to answering and being a part of any of the
questions or concerns that come up.
We have had questions and concerns that have arisen, and I know that our staff has been
very much active in meeting with those individuals, even meeting on site with those individuals
and talking through those concerns.
So I look forward to that meeting.
It's about a month away where we're going to have that opportunity to really discuss
that entire downtown area.
Councilmember McGuire. Great, I just want to thank you for being
proactive about that and scheduling that meeting.
I know that this is a challenging situation.
I know that there are a lot of stakeholders who are very concerned, and it's possible
that in the past some balls may have been dropped that have made this more of a challenge
that it needs to be, but I just want to commend all the staff that's working on it currently
for doing your very best with a very challenging situation, so thank you.
No problem.
I appreciate it.
We're just doing our job.
We just want to make sure that we can coordinate the best we can.
So we look forward to that, and I know John and Travis both, and John may even be on that
meeting with us also.
So I know we look forward to that conversation, and if there's questions that we can't ask
during that, obviously we'll get back to the residents or citizens that have questions.
So I appreciate that.
All righty.
So, Mr. Polster, Mr. Campbell are going to need to leave, so I appreciate you all letting
me go to item number seven.
Thanks, Jones.
So I'm going to move back to, I guess it's item number five, and that's the Southeast
Denton construction.
So we provided in the Friday report on July 23rd, you know, some updates to the Southeast
Denton reconstruction project, and during the July 21st mobility committee meeting,
Councilmember Byrd had requested information on when roadway construction would begin in
that neighborhood.
So there are 73 street segments that are planned to be constructed as a part of the 2019 bond
program.
You will also find in your backup and attachment the first phase of the 22 segments, and then
a complete list of all of the planned segments in that entire area.
We anticipate the construction contract for phase one to be advertised for the selection
of the contractor by December of 2021, and I will tell you, we have meetings actually
today to be talking through some of those items.
So we're very much excited to get that project started, and the information for the specific
roadway segments is provided in the backup.
All righty, so also with that, I will mention that there were some traffic calming measures
that were developed and a flyer that actually was developed that I know that we gave to
Councilmember Byrd, and that flyer is also attached in your backup.
I know there was a Southeast Denton neighborhood meeting a few weeks back where we provided
not only the actual flyer of the Sedna neighborhood, the entire bond project, and we also provided
that traffic calming measures flyer, so I'm happy to do that and send that along to anyone
else who has any questions, but just wanted to make sure everyone knows that that's included
in your backup.
All righty, so the next concern that was brought forward was the Hodge traffic safety, and
this is in regards to the Hodge Elementary, and the traffic concerns.
I know Councilmember Beck brought this up at the August 19th, in August 19th, and really
talking about could we evaluate that situation, and really the concerns for the queuing of
the drop-off and pick up in this area, and Staffel-Wazurb and the measures and traffic
cues from the school, really what we're working towards is wanting to do this and working
towards getting this in our queue, actually to do a study of looking at this area.
I wanted to take the opportunity for school to get back in the routine.
I know the first few weeks of schools, you know, family members like to take their children
to school, and then as the time passes, that may not be the same pattern that happens once
people get used to the routine, so we actually are looking at evaluating and observing some
of those things in that area.
We've reached out to the principal of Hodge Elementary and are working on coordinating
with the principal also, any feedback that they're receiving, and once the study is completed,
we will report back with our mitigation measures in that area, but I want you to know that
we definitely understand there's some concerns for the pick up and drop-off times.
Just wanted to get a good data set that really represents exactly what's happening in that
area.
Yeah, I was thinking about this situation, and what came to mind was the way that that
neighborhood is, where that neighborhood is going to be situated, I can't imagine those
folks coming out of that neighborhood and always making a left turn.
It would be a right turn out to the street, I mean out to 288.
So on that, at that time when we were looking at all of the discourse and the concerns from
the neighborhood, it appeared as though that they were concerned more about getting to
the school, more so than leaving out of the neighborhood.
So if you would put that in your hat to consider that those kids that would be moving into
that brand new neighborhood, they would not be bussed, they would have to walk to school.
I would be more concerned about sidewalk safety and that kind of thing, more so than the street
because what we saw on the video, it was very congested, it was very, it was just unhealthy
for us to consider.
So just put in the back of your mind, just write a little note to the side that a majority
of the time that those new neighbors would be coming in, they most likely won't be going
in further into the neighborhood, but they would be going out to 288.
- No, that's a valid comment and I appreciate that very much.
Alrighty so then the last thing that is really on the specific staff report today is asking
to look at traffic calming considerations for older neighborhoods that would include
roadway diets.
We just talked about this a little bit on Moore Street with wider streets and as we
previously talked about, the Citywide Speed Study will incorporate some of these older
neighborhoods and evaluate the need for traffic calming measures and we've also included a
flyer that shows some of the traffic calming measures that the city may be looking at implementing
in certain areas where we do have concerns for speeding.
And so just wanted to make sure that you all had a copy of that and also kind of talks
about the process of which we follow, where we receive the request, verify the request,
do an on-site visit and then also work through that traffic study.
Just to kind of go over some of those examples of traffic calming measures, obviously there's
the police department enforcement.
We work very heavily and closely with the traffic division of the police department.
There are opportunities to install speed limit or supplemental signage.
I know Council Member Byrd, you just asked specifically about supplemental signage.
Speed humps are always a consideration.
One of the things that comes up for speed humps is we have to coordinate specifically
with our fire department and our police department.
As speed humps do slow down individuals driving down the road, it also slows down the emergency
response and that's something that we take very seriously, obviously.
Roadway narrowing or road diets as they're called, really making that roadway if it's
wide, really making that roadway more narrow to allow for one way of travel each direction.
One-way streets, you know, that's something else that can be put into play.
And then of course there's additional different measures and we gave you a website here where
you can look at other measures and this is obviously not a comprehensive list, but just
some of the ideas that we use when these concerns come forward is what is the best tool in our
toolkit that we can use to help make a difference and make a proactive measure for these areas.
So I just wanted to mention that.
And then the last item, unless anybody has any questions, I'm sorry, I'll look back down.
Councilmember McQuarrie.
So I'm, thank you for using the phrase road diets because I think I was searching for
that phrase at our last meeting and was struggling to come up with it and I can't remember.
I apologize if I'm repeating myself.
I can't remember if I just thought this in my head or if I said it out loud to you.
But is Bell on your radar as a possible candidate for a road diet?
Bell Avenue currently is not really a project that we're looking at as a road diet and a
road diet, it doesn't really meet the criteria because it's not as a wide of a street as
some of the other streets.
There are areas maybe from I would say Mingo North as you get into campus, whether it's
wider and some of those areas are left turn lanes or I guess there is a left turn lane
in one of those areas.
But Bell per se, mostly going through the college campus is a roadway that is narrow
and already has a lot of the medians in those areas.
So not a particular street that we're looking at.
One of the ones that is in the process of looking at and we've just talked about is,
you know, is there options for roadway diets along Moore Street?
Would that make sense or would that not?
I know one that's been talked about in the past is Carroll Boulevard, but currently Carroll
Boulevard is in a little bit different scenario.
I do realize it's six lanes, but it's something that we would coordinate with TxDOT.
And I will tell you that in some of these roadway diet areas and TxDOT coordination,
we're looking at trying to really work on getting Elman Locust to where it needs to
be before we focus on.
A lot of other projects that we'll be coordinating with TxDOT, I know at one time there was the
idea of coordinating with TxDOT on all of the projects that the city could take over
the responsibility of, but we, with the new leadership, have worked on focusing specifically
on Elman Locust.
And then, of course, if there's other areas of concern, talking about those too.
But instead of trying to take over all of the roadways that TxDOT's currently managing,
we're really wanting to focus our efforts on making sure we get Elman Locust taken care
of first.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that makes sense.
I mean, there's obviously an enormous amount on your plate right now.
I should clarify that what I meant was more like Bell from Eagle to McKinney, taking it
from four lanes to two single direction lanes with a turn lane, that type of road diet.
But again, I recognize that there's quite a few things in line ahead of something like
that.
Sure.
And I'm sorry I immediately went north, and that was where my head was.
But at this time, I'm not aware of us looking at a roadway diet on Bell from Eagle to McKinney.
I think it's something that we could possibly look at in the future, but currently not any
plans to do that in that area that I've been aware of.
But happy to evaluate.
Yeah.
I'd like to gently suggest that at some point, not that you don't have enough to do, but
at some point that that may be on the department's radar as a candidate for a road diet.
And I'm particularly thinking about, so that we can add bike lanes, because it's a really
dense area of town.
It's kind of an artery that leads to downtown, and the sidewalks are very narrow.
There aren't connected sidewalks all the way along.
On the east side of Bell, just north of Eagle, there are no sidewalks, and so we really,
I think, need greater pedestrian and bicycle connectivity in that area.
Sure.
No, I appreciate that feedback, and I know Nathan is listening intently.
He has some of the same ideas that you have in some of those areas, and actually, we have
been taking the mobility plan, the different maps with the sidewalk, the bicycle, and also
the thoroughfare plan, and looking at what are the best use of those roadways, and really
wanting to be able to get people to the center hub, which we consider the downtown area,
but then also being able to move throughout the city.
And so he is evaluating some corridors that could be specific routes, such as Bell, to
be able to have people have the ability to actually use multimodes of transportation.
I mean, obviously, there's the DCTA rail that stops there.
You can take your bicycle on the rail, and then be able to use it from that rail center
at Hickory and Railroad, and then get on your bicycle and ride into town, et cetera.
So definitely some of those corridors, and I think you'll see we've been diligently marking
up the mobility plan maps and moving forward, and some of that will actually be shown at
the meeting that is Thursday night for the comp plan as the mobility plan is a part of
that presentation.
Great.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Oh, no problem.
That's my preferred I travel on 288 quite often, and I've often noticed that there's
you can tell what people are walking and there's no sidewalks.
How do you how do you how does the city evaluate something like that I'm talking about from
McKinney all the way into Spencer Road.
I often I do see just worn down paths.
How does something like that come about in to be able to put a sidewalk there.
Sure.
So, like I mentioned, the sidewalk plan is something that is a part of the mobility plan.
So that's one thing that not always does everyone understand is the actual mobility plan is kind
of a three legged plan, right.
So it has the, the bicycle component, the pedestrian component, and then of course the
thoroughfare component.
And most people are thinking in the terms of the thoroughfare component, just because
obviously a lot of people drive cars, but we do have the sidewalk component.
So a couple of things I'll tell you is Nathan's working on a sidewalk work plan that evaluates
areas or gaps where we do see some of that foot traffic that you're speaking to.
We also have other areas that we have a GIS system that's basically showing any of the
gaps that we have, or any of the improvement measures that need to be made.
Evaluating that along with the ADA transition plan and then of course the parks trails plan.
So Nathan has been tackling that and working through evaluating all of those different
plans.
I will tell you that there are some developments that are going on along loop 288 that will
be required to build sidewalk and so then it's, or there are certain sections that need
to be filled in and one of the things we're evaluating on the loop itself is with the
new structure, the junction for the people experiencing homelessness, we want to make
sure that they have the ability to go from the junction all the way down to Serve Denton.
And so we want to make sure they have that ability and have that ability to do that safely.
And so at this point they would have to walk all the way down to McKinney across McKinney
where the crosswalk is and then back north.
But there are evaluations that also we're looking at are there additional traffic signals
that are needed along the loop or then we could provide for cross access or would it
make more sense for them to go north across prominent square and then down in front of
the female location.
So you know I would see if there's any particular area where it looks like there would be the
intention or the need for sidewalk.
That's always something we'd like for you to bring to our attention but we do have a
work plan that Nathan is currently working through.
We have a couple of years of projects that are already underway.
Some are under construction some are under design but we're going to be evaluating individual
areas and I would also mention that during the 2019 bond program part of what we're doing
is evaluating sidewalk gaps in some of those residential streets where we want to be able
to fill in so that we have that continuity.
I was wondering about McKinney Street now I'm kind of being a little nosy right now.
You know just curious about McKinney Street.
Any plans for between McKinney I mean I'm sorry between Woodrow and 288.
So between Woodrow and loop 288 so the city currently is constructing from loop 288 to
the east.
The section between Woodrow and McKinney is not a current capital project but the city
has submitted it to the county as a possible project for their bond package because it's
not something that's currently included or funded but obviously know that there's improvement
measures that could be made not only from a sidewalk perspective a draining drainage
perspective and then also an ultimate roadway configuration to make that road wider than
it currently is.
So currently the city's plan and Rachel and myself have worked on this together is submitting
that to the county of which we've already turned in that project as a possible project
to be a part of that county bond election that they're anticipating and the time frame
on that has been changing a little bit but definitely something on our radar that we
want to evaluate because we just want to continue to move that roadway in and make those improvements
the closer we get to town no problem.
Okay so then the last item well two things I have one is you don't have any minutes in
your packet today we will have a double set of minutes in your packet the next meeting
unfortunately we made an error and did not include that in the agenda so not something
that we can have done today so I was all prepared to advise council members to try to restrict
the speeches and the invective when reviewing the minutes but so next next meeting you'll
have two sets of minutes so that'll be easy peasy.
And then the other thing I just wanted to mention was going through I think according
to the future staff report and updates and agenda items we have covered all of the different
items I'd like to request to remove all of the items except for the ones that you have
asked us to follow up on which I would say specifically is in relation to the speeding
concerns one that was on Morris and then also councilmember Berge brought up Curly and then
I know councilmember I'm sorry Mayor Pro Tem Malter you're interested in seeing if and
when Oak Street is going to be a part of an improvement measure so there are a few of
them that we have follow up on but any of the ones that we feel like we have addressed
we'd like to request to remove those and just want to make sure that that's okay with the
committee to request any of the ones that we feel like we have taken the opportunity
to answer any objections.
I'm looking right now at the identified items of interest for future staff reports is that
what you're talking about yes ma'am exhibit number five so those are items and all of
the items that were listed from the July 21st meeting we've brought back feedback for you
on those any of the items that we have had discussion on or we have follow a future follow
up on will continue to keep those on the agenda and bring those back at the next meeting unless
it takes additional research will bring it out the meeting prior to you know following
that but if there's a particular item that we have addressed we'd like to remove that
from the overall agenda and just put it in the items completed okay yes yeah that's that's
fine sorry I don't know what I thought I was hearing but that's obviously fine yes that's
no problem and the so the last item with that is we'd like to see if there's any additional
items that you would like to add for any updates or any additional agenda items that we can
add to bring back to you at the next meeting on your mark get set
I mean you know just just those ongoing things the speed study the I mean you know a lot
was already raised yeah during the meeting yeah I would like to ask for an update on
the hinkle roundabout of what was planned what's already been done and as have we seen
a measurable benefit
no problem and definitely something we can work with the operations department and they
are currently working on that project so happy to bring back an update on the hinkle roundabout
no problem at all my primary concern at this point would be the college view neighborhood
there are some streets that still don't have curbs and I'm very concerned about that area
I know they're very quiet area and they be maybe missing out because they don't speak
very loudly paisley and Campbell's streets I think that's Campbell they just don't have
curves I don't know why we have streets in our center areas that are that don't have
curves and they have bike lanes perceived bike lanes they have mailboxes sitting in
the middle of sidewalks so just that little quiet neighborhood the college view neighborhood
north of McKinney Campbell street wood street you know those areas there would you all give
that some attention there they're not going to they're not going to let me know so I want
to be there for them and let them know that I do want to keep Roodale Roodale and paisley
that's my biggest contention right there I know that there's probably some we talked
about Roodale at one point that where they're going to go north you know from mingo that
Roodale is supposed to connect some kind of way there but I'm down here on paisley and
going north south to McKinney Street sure so you all take a look at that and I want
to give that area some attention I don't know anybody that lives over there but maybe one
person but I know that there and I don't have anybody to connect to sure you don't have
an association or anything like that so we want to be mindful and take care of those
folks in that area no I appreciate that we will go back and look at if there were plans
and what was approved in that area and then also look at if there's anything that's planned
in the future for a capital project any of that area which would bring it up to a current
standard but happy to look into that to see if there's any improvement measures that are
currently planned and maybe the reasons why some of the things you're bringing forward
I can't answer why they don't have curves or why there's mailboxes in the middle of
sidewalks but I'm happy to evaluate no problem all righty well that's all I have for today
sir okay thought to ponder but a road diet be paleo I think I think it would be we'll
adjourn our meeting at 1029.