Item number one on our regular meeting is to consider
approval of the Traffic
Safety Commission meeting of meeting minutes of August 7th
2017. Has everybody
had a chance to look at the minutes? Okay. Do I have a
motion? Okay. I have a
motion. I have a second. Anyone favor? Approval? Yes. Okay.
That brings us to item
B which is to receive a report, hold a discussion, and
provide direction
relating to speed limit along Hickory Street between Avenue
A and Welch Street.
Thank you, Vice Chair. My name is Preet. I'm the Traffic
Engineer for the
city and I'll be presenting next two to three items and
then I think the last
item will be presented by the chief. So let me get started.
I want to, I know
everything is written down in the report but I really want
everyone to focus on
the area, the way it is set up, and here's a map. The
previous
Commissioner, Mr. Hannon, he had brought up this issue
regarding the speed limit
along this segment of Hickory Street. This segment of Hick
ory Street is
right in the middle of this whole commercial district. It
is not
adjacent to UNT property. So currently the posted speed
limit between Avenue A
and Welch along Hickory is 30 miles an hour which is pretty
standard for
residential streets throughout the city and the segment of
Hickory between
Avenue C and Avenue A is posted at 20 miles an hour because
as you see
there's UNT right on the south side. There is a parking lot
and all
these different buildings that I think most of them have
classes in them. So
because of this being a school or an educational
institution, the speed limits
per our ordinance. I think the chapter 18 section 18-72
says that if you're
close or if you're abutting a school or educational
institution, church or a
medical building or a hospital, the speeds may be reduced
to 20 miles an hour.
And based on that ordinance, back in the day this segment
between Avenue C and
Avenue A was converted to 20 miles an hour. Rest of Hickory
, west of Avenue C
and east of Avenue A is all 30 miles an hour and
Commissioner Hannon has
suggested looking at this segment, just a short segment and
converting it into a
20 mile per hour zone. So what we did is we collected speed
information, collected
speed surveys for a period about five days and we found out
the majority of
the motorists or vehicles are traveling at around 25 to 26
miles an hour. So it's
not over the speed limit, it's not even close to the speed
limit, it's a
about five miles less than the speed limit. So yeah, given
the fact that
they're fairly within the speed limits currently and there
no one's
speeding, 85% of folks are doing this and given that we
need to quickly move
traffic in this particular segment, there are sometimes
loading trucks and stuff
like that. So the more traffic that stays in this area and
the slower it
moves in this area creates a lot more congestion. So
looking at all the
different aspects of this, staff feels that we feel that it
should be 30 miles
an hour, remain 30 miles an hour. There's no ordinance to
back that section to
going down to 20 miles an hour. There's nothing, we'll have
to specifically take
it to council and reduce it. Even the 85th percentile
suggests it's 26.
Typically when you do that you have to bump it to the
nearest, round it to the
nearest highest and that's the posted speed limit. So there
is no nexus or
there is no real study to back this up. So staff is
suggesting we don't change
the speed limit and leave it the way it is today.
Any comments, questions?
Yes.
There is currently signage that actually starts right about
there.
So right after you cross Avenue A. Oh boy, it's not going
to work.
But there's signage right about here. It says it's 30 miles
an hour.
I'm on the wrong direction.
Yeah, it's hiding. It's hidden behind this pole. Okay. Well
we do have a card
on this item and I've card from Kim McKibben who wishes to
speak. So if you
would please, will you state your name and your address? My
name is Kim McKibben.
I own the business in the building at 1306 West Hickory
Street. It currently houses
Oro Coffee. Specifically the merchants along with the Fry
Street Merchants
Association have requested previously that this small
section be reduced to
20 miles an hour. We feel like it will increase the safety
in the area and not
so much congest anything because if they're moving through
another 600 feet
at 20 miles an hour, we've got students that walk right out
into the traffic. We
have a lot of congestion in the area and we did
specifically ask that this
particular part of West Hickory be changed to 20 miles an
hour and we're
told no. I would like to point out that the traffic study
that he is referring
to was done beginning August the 1st which was prior to
school going into
session this summer and that previous traffic studies that
had been done when
they wanted to do additional development in the area came
back, well you've got
about the right number of cars but you've got a speed
problem down here.
Hickory becomes where it crosses Welch is one of the bus
iest intersections in
the entire area around the University of North Texas. That
's been proven with
other studies done during the school year. So we
specifically requested that
this be slowed down, that you know we are looking to
increase the safety. They're
also looking at a lot of other things in this particular
area as this is part of
the small plan development that is going into place. We're
not real sure what's
going to happen at this point with sidewalks, with bypass,
and those sorts of
things. But we did request that this be reduced to 20 miles
an hour and do not
see any evidence from what was presented in the data that
was in on the website
at this point that it's going to cause any difference in
what's going on. Most
of the trucks, the delivery trucks, are past the area down
there around Lucky
Lou's where it opens up a little bit. They pull over to
that side or they pull
up right in front of that area. For me on the other side I
'm still in the 20 mile
an hour zone and I can tell you that they're not doing 20
miles an hour when
they come from the other areas and down the hill because it
comes down the hill.
Not even the bicycles are doing 20 miles an hour coming
down the hill. I would
submit as a representative of the other merchants on the
Fry Street that this be
changed to 20 miles an hour is not a hardship to the city.
It's not going to
make a big difference. You also have people parallel
parking in the area and
you know it helps if if they're slower. But our major
concern was for the
students and for the individuals going in the evening back
and forth from the
the U Center over to the bars that are on that side and
over to the commercial
areas that are there. So yes this request was made. I am a
little surprised that
the study wasn't brought out any more than just presenting
data. So I guess
that's all. Unless somebody has questions I can answer your
questions.
I have a question. On your form you said that there was not
enough info on the
agenda to know what was being discussed. Do you feel that
other Fry Street
merchants would also felt less informed and then they may
have needed to be in
order to come to this evening? Absolutely. There was
nothing there except the first initial
statement about that there would be a discussion and then
the raw data. It
wasn't that the city was proposing that it remain at 30
miles an hour. There was
no indication of what was going to be discussed here this
evening. There should
have well I had other people who were supposed to come with
me but you know
that happens sometimes. Pretent does this have to be
noticed to business owners?
No. Typically speed limits are it's more based on federal
and state
guidelines how we define speed limits and post them and
regulate them. So if
there were studies conducted that show that speed limits
cannot be changed or
if you try and reduce the speed limits there are going to
be more citations
there are more people that are going to go above the speed
limits more kind of
regulatory issues that the city is going to run into as
well as challenges in
proving in court that this was acceptable when the study
shows that or
the speed survey shows that 85th percentile is more than 20
miles an hour.
How would you set something at load? Those are the typical
federal and state
guidelines that we follow and it's been seen throughout the
nation that if speed
limits are set based on these particular guidelines
typically they are followed
they can be regulated they can be and they're acceptable in
the court of law.
But here if we post something that's below then it becomes
a challenge for
everyone. I'm all about safety I'm not saying that's not. I
can only make
comment if I'm asked a question. My question is if this
were to be reduced
is the major cost to the city enforcement? Correct. En
forcement and
actually compliance. People complying would go and the
other issue would be is
if we start enforcing and start ticketing if it's
challenging the court
it doesn't hold ground. Our study doesn't support it. Thank
you. I have a question.
Who enforces the parking and the speeding? City or UNT? It
depends on where you are.
Supposedly the University of North Texas is responsible for
the parking in most
of this area. It is currently the city that is responsible
for enforcement of
the speed limits all the way down West Hickory Street. It
is not the
responsibility of the University of North Texas by the
Interlock and
Agreement to enforce speeding only parking. So this is one
of the things that
we were we were looking at when we made this request at
multiple meetings. Where
are you going with the small area plan? Don't know yet. Don
't really have
answers to those things yet. They are currently started
collecting data
from the stakeholders and from the people in the area. They
started
doing interviews with the consultants. The consultants were
just brought on
board beginning of this month I think with the final budget
approval. So we
won't know that for a little while. Would you be happy with
a fresh survey when a
little farther down the road? I would be happy with a fresh
survey. I would also
like to give the the other stakeholders and business owners
in the area an
opportunity to know that they need to speak to this council
related to this. I
speak to this committee related to this. I do not feel like
that we were well
informed about what's going on. I just came not knowing
what it was. Would one
more meeting be sufficient for you? If you will allow me to
develop some sort of
petition for those people who cannot get here to give
comment or to send comment
to you guys individually. So can we hold it for a date
certain? Yeah we can. For
next meeting. Next meeting. Can I have a date for that
please?
It's uncertain. I understand that. This is not the usual
Thursday. No this is not the usual.
No because it's the holidays.
It's typically the first Monday of the month. So yeah we we
're not sure if we want to meet in
15 days and if we can even get there within 15 days with
this particular item.
Can we go to the first November?
Sixth of November. Is that okay? That should be fine.
Okay. Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate it. So
if it's okay with everybody we will
continue this on November 6th. Do we re... this isn't
planning and zoning. Do we
don't need to reopen anything? We don't need to reopen
anything. Okay so
November 6th. We'll see you again. Okay that brings us to
item number C. Letter C.
Receive a report and hold a discussion regarding no parking
anytime restriction
on the south side of Congress Street from Bolivar Street to
Carroll Boulevard.
Okay this item has been on the matrix for a while and it
was first brought up by
some residents in the area and since that time and even in
the recent past
there have been quite a few changes along this particular
segment of Congress
and currently Congress Street which stretches pretty much
east-west from I
think it stretches from Oakland all the way west past the
high school. So the
section between... I'm trying to get to that. Okay the
section between Carroll
and Bolivar is the segment that we're currently looking at
and just a little
brief background on what the street widths are and why we
're proposing the
parking restrictions on Congress. So what's happening is if
you go all the way
to the east this segment of Congress between Oakland Street
and all the way
to Elm is 20 feet wide. It barely has any space for parking
lanes. There are two
travel lanes. They're striped that way and if I can zoom in
you can see it
better. But this is a really narrow section of Congress.
The further you move
out I think the pavement width changes so does the land use
. If you look at this
segment this land use is commercial between the two one-way
couplets between
Locust and Elm and this commercial area this is about 30
feet wide which can
support parking on either side. This is the widest segment
which is 36 feet wide.
It does have commercial on either side. Then you get into
this this particular
segment which is what we're talking about. It is a mixed
use at this point. It
is not necessarily completely a residential like this
segment on the
other side of Carroll. This has a seven-mile cafe, some
more commercial in
the backside. There is other things going on here. I just
found out from one of the
residents that this is being used as a yoga place or
something more than just a
residential unit. So all these different things happening
at this corner and I
believe there is a trickle effect of this natural foods and
the parking kind
of you know overflowing into the street. So a lot of things
this kind of area
acts as a as a mix to use and that's why this is was
targeted as the section to
look at and restrict parking and make make things safer for
residents. This
segment is completely most of the times completely parked.
There's barely any
space to for vehicles to pass especially if you're
traveling either direction and
you come across each other one vehicle has to pull over
close to the curb.
The curb to curb width here is 29 feet. Fire lane typically
, fire department
requires 20 feet clear which only leaves 9 feet. If we park
on one side that 9
feet is enough but there's not it's not enough to park on
even on both sides and
that's what's happening. They're using both sides to park
vehicles. These
businesses that business and some other you know resident
home businesses have
really kind of used up all the parking and that's why we
looked at this parking
lot. This is a city-owned Chamber of Commerce parking lot
that serves this
building. This can be used as an overflow parking area and
there's parking up and
down in Bolivar. So it's not that there's no parking
available next to this
and that's why based on the width of the street the fire
lane requirements fire
lane requires at least 32 feet to allow parking on both
sides 26 to allow
parking on one side. So we're between that range of 26 and
32 feet and that's
why staff recommended that parking be restricted on one
side. Here I said the
south side primarily because there's a huge vacant space.
There are some
commercial here and there's a parking lot here so the
impact would be minimal
for residents that want to park and I think that's that's
the recommended
option is restrict parking one side for all the fall about
reasons. Any questions?
Did you is there a difference between the number of
available parking spots on
the north versus the south? I think it's fairly the same
there there are a lot
more driveway openings on the south side so there are
lesser spaces on the south
side. Okay and the driveway openings are wider that means
you know even if you
have like a one residential car entrance is much smaller
than that so you would
be losing lesser space if you restrict parking on the south
side. How many spots
are left then if we park on the south side? If we restrict
parking on the south
side? No you're proposing currently restricting parking on
the north side
right? On the south side? Correct. Okay.
We can measure I can give you.
You're counting? Yeah I'm counting.
No there's a speaking card that you need to fill out.
Okay.
I would say there are about anywhere between 15 to 20
spaces on the south
side but if you look at this parking lot this is fairly
empty and can easily
accommodate the 15 to 20 and there is parking on Bolliver
so. Do all the houses
have off-street parking? Yes all of them have driveways
that go in there this is
a big area in the back that has parking these driveways
that are brand new and
they have garages I believe. Most of them are quite long.
No parking on the south side. We want to minimize the
impact of you know taking
away spaces but at the same time we want to be safe and if
you look at this
there's one car right there how would you fit three more
cars on either side
that's the whole argument here. Right now? On Bolliver? I
think Bolliver is on one
side.
Wow. I think it's restricted to one side. It is one side
parking. Right up
against seven mile but if you're going north on Bolliver
then you can park on
both sides.
Okay does anybody else have any questions real quick? Yeah
we're grabbing
some cards. Oh okay we can find some more. Yeah okay so we
have some cards then
and with people some questions and comments so I would like
to start with
Abby Buford and you have a question about the parking lot
access and so if
you would please would you go up to the podium and state
your name and your
address. Hello my name is Abby Buford 311 West
Congress we work for seven mile. The idea of restricting
the south side access
makes sense to us I guess our question is would we then
have access to the
parking lot down the street? The Chamber of Commerce
parking lot? Because I would
say it's most of our customers that take up that street and
it's not the cup
or it's not right whatever yoga place is or isn't there.
Right right and I think
that's what Preeten was saying that the Chamber of Commerce
parking lot since it
is part of a city you know right a cooperative yeah you
should have access
to that. I never knew that was a free public parking kind
of place. The south side of it sounds good. Is it marked as
public right now? It is not marked. Can we mark it as
public?
Not marked? We know we can talk to the Chamber of Commerce
and see what can be done but
that's definitely an option. Okay we are against the north
side being closed off
so but south side sounds reasonable. Okay thank you and I'm
putting by the way Kim
and I'm putting your agenda number on here so and Abby I'm
putting your agenda
item on here also so we just keep you recorded. Okay I have
another card to
speak from Chuck Carpenter and if you would please go ahead
grab the podium
state your name and address please.
Charles Carpenter residential address is 1112 Pennsylvania
but I'm the owner of
the property in question that parking lot is like private
parking lot. We have a
sign that designates it as such. I was interested who told
you that was
available to the public? Really? Yeah not that they we
wouldn't be but we're in the
meeting business and that parking lot is full a lot of the
time and I would love
to accommodate our neighbors at the end and we do. Part of
the problem is we get
a lot of people that aren't necessarily commercial oriented
and I only have so
much money to maintain that lot and so the other issue that
we run into is the
problem on the north side is that apartment complex has
their trash pickup
right there and it's very difficult for them to pull a
truck up and pick it up
from the side. Also from that standpoint very rarely at any
time during the day
can we make a left-hand turn out of our own parking lot so
my issue is I'm very
supportive thank you for even considering it. I wouldn't
say that we
wouldn't be amenable to public parking but that is a
private lot and there's a
very large sign that states that on our fence so I would
leave it we would like
to be good neighbors just for the standpoint that this is
important to us
but please correct the record that is a privately owned
paid for by the Ditton
Chamber of Commerce. Anyone have any questions? Is it
developing more commercial?
Is it developing more commercial along there? Not that I'm
aware of most of he
explained it very well it's a lot of multifamily our lot we
have 28 spaces in
there some of you that been long around long enough
remember that building was
actually up on stilts took my covered parking and when we
filled in the lower
space we had to move everything across the lot and so we
only have ten spaces
and we have to give those to visitors and guests coming in
so any of my
committees my staff has to use that lot so to just openly
say it's it's a public
lot would that would be difficult to sustain don't take it
that we're not
willing but I was very shocked at that statement I wonder
who you spoke with
yeah and they were said it's open to public so I can reconf
irm my sources but
well it's open to the public but not because we know it
gets open to all
kinds of use I have a usual Monday morning cleanup that
amounts to a whole
lot of different things we happy to respond to you and
thank you for even
considering all right thank you I have a card from Gary
Steinmetz and also Chuck
I'm putting C on yours just so we can keep our record
straight
hi hi if you would please state your name and your address
for the record
and we need to speak strongly in support of the fact it
needs to be no parking on the
street I we're retired we're on the street every day you
know and it's been
an ongoing maintenance problem from the very beginning you
know not only picking
up a broken tail of broken lights broken glass you know the
the the fact that
there has been a major injury on the street from from
running on the street
and having to do the sidewalk that was one of the reasons
that the entire
section of Congress Street was redone with new with new
pavements their new
sidewalks because there was a really bad act in a young
lady you know they were
very old and a young lady caught a curb and hit the ground
and we immediately
went out for under days to her and called an ambulance it
was hard for the
ambulance to get to her the fact is that there is an I
understand there is an
easy answer for who gets the parking on their side it's
just not a good answer
for either side this street has bicycles this street has
bicycles that continually
travel up and down the street including small children yes
they do have the
right to ride on and the on the sidewalk in this in our
community but it is not
not without their right to be able to be on the street we
have a joggers that come
from the college frequently we have joggers and students
that we walk to the
library on the street the continued evidence of a parking
on both sides of
the street endangers any anybody that's made a wrong
decision momentarily either
whether it's a turn signal into the parking lot or or
whatever you know it
endangers the the flow of students it endangers the flow of
pedestrians and it
certainly has become such an inconvenience to be picking up
people's
mirrors I picked up two cars hit on my property and on a
daily basis I go
outside and pick up the glass which is subdued and try and
reattach parts to
the cars that are parked to my neighbors and I and and it
and it's not convenient
for me either I'm not doing this because I don't have
people that come to our
house well my wife has you know she's currently under in-
home health care so
they got to find someplace to park that's their problem
their job is to
come to our house my job is to make sure that it's safe for
my wife to have an
ambulance and a fire truck to come down my street currently
as of today they
have found a water leak underneath and brand new asphalt
and and and I didn't
bring pictures of it but we're staked out and we have you
know half of the
street now closed and it's going to be under construction
for the next several
days which means that those that think they can park there
I don't belong on
the street are going to be wondering where to go the place
to go is in the
parking lot for the people and their homes and for the
business across the
street and for the people next door to me these are these
this is a residential
area this is not a Boulevard this is not a wide street you
can't put cars on both
sides and be fair to the residents and on the street it
needs to be very simply
no parking on the street there's we have plenty of
residents have plenty of
parking for their own the house across the property across
the street from
a zone by mr. Burkett and Adam you know he's got a nice big
piece of property
you want to you want to put in a public parking lot he's
done his his land is
underneath the flood zone he would probably be more than
happy to sell a
piece of that put in a little public park pop parking in
the center of the
street great we do not need parking on the street it's just
too dangerous for
bicycles oh another issue every year we're on the parade
route and I love it
I get to use my garden hose and hose the mayor every year
it's great and I do a
great job of it I got my garden hose and I wash cars you
know and they throw
candy very well at me okay and and so we have the parade
that comes down our
street okay we've hit we've hit the three-minute mark here
but we hit your
three-minute mark here but can I ask you how do you feel
about parking on one
side unacceptable unacceptable it still is not wide enough
for the traffic flow
that we get with buses with with with the delivery trucks
that come for the
for the restaurants we have we have had wires pulled down
we've had branches
pulled down there is you know it's already it's already
rated for the fact
that we have semis that come up and down the street I've
picked up dead dogs I
picked up dead squirrels you know I picked up broken glass
this needs to be
a no parking streets for the safety of the people on the
street and the
community at large especially with the fact that there's a
school right down
the street you want to have any questions for mr. Steinmetz
and I had
the favorite I had you know I don't have written approval
of the three residents
that that I've contacted to live on the street but they
agree and it's just been
I actually had a friend of mine hit a friend of mine it's
not fun you know
it's a good way to lose friends you know she hit her we
know both of them we're
the common denominator and I'm tired of being that you know
the set guy that
says well I'm really sorry about my street it's really
dangerous you
shouldn't come and see me wrong you should be able to come
see me I certainly
appreciate your time I'm strongly support that this is a no
parking street
with bicycles on both sides this is a definitely a bicycle
community we have
the bicycles already at large on it on that at the cupboard
and at the the
coffee shop regularly you know I highly recommend this is a
no parking zone it
would be the best for those the residents and and the
parking could be
available for mr. Burkett okay well thank you thank you
very much
and I have another card from Josie Klingman Klingman Kling
er okay if you
would please you can go up to the podium and again you know
state your name
address
hi everybody my name is Josie Klingle my husband and I own
seven mile cafe at 311
West Congress Street and we understand parking's tough
there especially on the
weekends when there's cars on both sides and we're not
opposed to
restricting parking but we would like it to be just on one
side we do have a lot
of customers that come to see us that they do have trouble
parking our lot is
about 27 spaces we park on Bolivar we do not park in the
covered parking lot
we're not allowed to park there we are open just from 8 a.m
. to 2 and then to
3 on the weekends if there is a way to maybe you know ease
up the restrictions
from our business hours just you know during the day you
know we would be up
for that that would be very helpful for us it's just you
know we're really
trying to make that part of town a part of town where
people could come they
could eat they could shop at the cupboard you know get
their massage
across the street at the day spa or go to the glass you
know spot and you know
be able to park near the business not being able to park
near our business it
it definitely slows down and hurts our business we saw it
when Congress and
Bolivar were closed down during construction our business
went way down
when people couldn't just park in front even in our parking
lot and just walk
right in so we understand it's it's it's tight and we want
emergency vehicles to
be able to get in and we we feel that there be enough room
if we limited
parking to the one side and not both it would be really
hard on our business
there for sure you won't have any questions for Josie
I don't know the traffic rules I'm leaving that up to the
people who
understand that better than me I I would think the south
side because that way
our customers don't have to walk across the street to get
to our business
there's less business on the north side I believe that
people aren't really
walking to you so I wouldn't want them to park on the south
side and have to
walk across the street over there I don't see that
pedestrian traffic going
that way I don't know how many spots are on each side and
what's what's better
that way how many driveways there are or anything like that
I I would vote for
Southside parking
I understand that residents all have driveways as well
correct and our our parking is really mainly from 8 to 3 I
believe most residents may or may not be at work during
that time I don't know how much resident parking is on the
street during business hours
that's okay okay anybody on the Commission have a question
okay thank you
thank you and I have another card for Jasmine Foster from
Jasmine Foster and
if you again state your name please and your address my
name is Jasmine Foster I
stay my residential address is 603 Bolivar Street apartment
a on the map it's
actually
did you mean both sides of Oliver because there is actually
a there is a sign that
says no parking on the west side of the street correct I
think some portion of
Bolivar has only one side parking just given the width of B
ollywood I think if
you further go north yeah once you get past I want to say
it's Egan is this
next lock up is that's what that one you can park but on
this side you can't and
like like you said I think y'all's hours are 8 to 2 and 8
to 3 on the weekends I
know for sure like if I leave and I come back I can't park
anywhere so me parking
and so I feel that if y'all do restrict it find somewhere
for the people to go
to the businesses to park so that I can still park to get
to my house because
where I park is literally my car is parallel perpendicular
to the drivers I
can literally get out of my car and walk straight down the
driveway to my front
door if people parking for the cupboard park there seven
mile cafe or anywhere
else park there I have to walk further to get home but then
I can't see my car
so if somebody breaks in my car what can I do you know and
I use that car to take
her to school take myself to school take myself to work if
I can't get to my
house because somebody else's parked there because where
they normally park
is restricted it's a problem for me and I know their hours
are early so that's
not really a issue for me I think it's more just people
parking there because
it's close to where they're going and not thinking oh well
somebody else parks
here to go home so I just think that's a and something to
think about when you
restrict the parking because me and my neighbor actually
parked there and she
has two cars so when she's gone in her little cars there it
's like okay where
am I truck gonna go you know so just I guess thinking of
the other people who
do live on the residential side of Bolivar because there is
a driveway
behind the house on the corner but that driveway is for
that house and I don't
know how many people park in front of it but I know coming
down Congress I've had
you know where you go down the street and kind of weave
behind a car for
somebody to come down the street and come back but then you
have the people
trying to move out of their parking spot so it's just a lot
of congestion and I'm
kind of with them about restricting the whole street just
to give everybody
clear vision to get to where they're going and like how he
said he can't turn
left on his street out of his parking lot for his business
if there was no
parking he probably wouldn't have that problem so I think
if it's restricted
that would be good just designate parking for the
businesses so that
they're not taking up everybody else's spots for their for
their place thank
you and I have one more card from Arlene Hill for your
agenda D item D okay is
there anybody else who'd which to speak on item C any
discussion oh I was just
asking the Commission whether anybody had discussion so our
choices include
give us our choices again Pritam yeah the choices is
recommend approval of the
ordinance so recommend it or request it to council to
accept the ordinance so
that's the first thing for restricting parking on one side
and define the side
wouldn't that that would be and then decline the
recommendation of no
parking option one or two okay
item C okay go ahead I actually work at seven mile cafe I'm
when I'm assistant
manager there and I am all for safety I do want my business
or our business to
still do well and I have worked there during the period of
time that Congress
wasn't open so I experienced the lack of business but
possibly I was gonna say I
know that your parking lot wasn't or you don't want it
completely public but
maybe employees only being able to park there on the
weekends would maybe help
with the congestion because we have a lot of employees and
we have to get
there and park so I don't know just trying to like bring up
some sort of
solution to this problem I completely understand but how
many how many plays
there on the weekend we were trying to like estimate I
would I mean yes but not
everybody drives and if we can't I don't know when the
chambers of Congress meets
and when y'all have your meetings are really it's only on
the weekends that we
have 20 or more on the weekdays we have like eight people
up front maybe eight
people in in back and a lot of us walk or bike whatever but
it's more for the
weekend that we have the worst time with the congestion and
whatnot so yeah
okay thank you okay well it sounds like we've got a couple
things going on and
one thing that we need to learn is more about the
accessibility of the Chamber
of Commerce parking lot okay so do we want to move forward
with this without
knowing the status of the parking lot or do we want to
again hold this over
for our next meeting
it seems to me like that's more of an issue between seven
mile and the
Chamber of Commerce to work out the Chamber of Commerce
wants to be a good
neighbor then you know maybe they can have a conversation
outside of this
Commission I think our concern is more if somebody at the
Chamber of Commerce
or a seven mile cafe have a medical emergency can an
ambulance get to them
that that should be our first concern
I'm ready to make a motion that we accept the staff
recommendation I'll
second time okay we have a motion to accept staff
recommendation we have a
second voting in favor aye aye okay it will move on to City
Council okay
item number D which is to receive a report hold a
discussion to make room
recommendation to City Council to establish a new school
speed zone along
Lakeview Boulevard between Black Walnut and Burr Oak Lane
this is affecting
Pecan Creek Elementary School
okay let me get the bearings right here and go to the
location the concrete
elementary it's way down there on the south side of the
city and they if you
don't know where exactly it's located and what kind of
access it has I
don't know why it's doing this so it has two access points
one on Lakeview
Boulevard and that was when the school was designed that
was supposed to be the
main access and the main ingress egress there's a great
drop-off area that was
designed when the school was first constructed what
happened eventually is
instead of this area in front of the school and this area
developing faster
the area in the back started developing much more quicker
as a result pocket
page became a main entrance for the school and there are
certain sections
that we have school zone along pockets pages so that kids
can across and there
was no school zone along Lakeview Boulevard even though it
's a divided to
lane right in front of the school and the reason being
there historically there
was no sidewalk connection on this side of the street and
as you went further
and further this neighborhood could easily cross across and
get into the
sidewalk and get to the school so there was no need or
there were no students
pedestrians crossing from this side there was no access it
's a creek area
that's completely green built now what has happened in the
recent past in the
past six to eight months this area has started developing
this subdivision came
in they went through the planning process and now they have
a connection
here the houses are currently getting built most likely
start occupying early
next year and starting next school year a bunch of these
kids would be walking
down this sidewalk there's a brand new sidewalk now on this
side of Lakeview
Boulevard and it goes all the way and connects to this
recreational area for
for the HOA up there as a result of that sidewalk a lot of
kids from the northern
side this area will start using that particular sidewalk
also to come down
that side of the street so given the new development and
and the existing
development here on this side it is it's forecasted that a
lot of kids are gonna
start coming down this side on this side of the sidewalk so
the PTA has been
trying to get a school zone for years and they haven't been
successful but
given this all these new changes going on at this time it
is it seems like this
is a good time to get a school zone in this area we've
conducted a speed survey
particularly along Lakeview Boulevard right around this
area and what we found
as both directions the 85th percentile majority of the
people are above 30
miles an hour so they're doing 34 35 miles an hour and if
that continues
happening during the school year especially when kids are
trying to get
across the street and there is a nice crossing right about
here so this is a
nice crossing to get to the other side I've already met
with the principal we
have talked about how they're gonna change this how a
crossing that could be
posted here and how their circulation would work if kids
get on this side and
how they would get into the school so we've talked about
all that and at this
point based on all the changes and all the new demand for
pedestrian access a
school zone is recommended starting right about here which
is a few hundred
feet south of this is Burr Oaks I believe right about here
all the way back
to Black Walnut so this area people will be forced to drive
slower during the
school hours definitely and we will install and enforce the
school speed
zone along this so the staff recommends we implement this
so that next year
we're ready if it goes through if it has to go through
council we have to order
equipment installation and all that so we think that we
need to get this ball
rolling and then by the start of next school year we have
everything in place
so will there be crosswalks correct there is already a
crossing ADA compliant
crossing area right about here which was designed for this
particular reason this
is a ramp that goes in and there is a so this will be
completely striped as a
crosswalk with pedestrian signage crossing guards and then
the school zone
would start somewhere back here that would slow down
traffic about a year ago
what was that change we made about a year ago here in the
same area yeah
along Lakeview I thought it was along I think we did back
here where we shifted
the crossing for pedestrians to the originally the crossing
was located at
this intersection oops wrong location but originally the
crossing was located
at this intersection with the development stopped now the
development
has moved further and I believe the crossing has moved here
now eventually
we'll get to post oak so I think this this was the change
that was done for
this particular school I'm not aware of anything that was
done on Lakeview so
indicate again where you plan to begin the school zone on
the north on the
north it is right about where it starts dividing into it's
a few hundred feet
300 feet so let's see there's 300 feet of school zone oh it
starts 300 feet
yes it starts about there right where the market is and
then it starts here
goes all the way down to black walnut what's the speed zone
on Lakeview until
that point the speed on the posted speed limit is 30 and
people are doing 34
it will go down to 20 during the school hours correct
there will be yes blinking lights that turn on and notify
this is the time when
the speed is enforced it'd be morning peak between 7 and 7
30 or 8 30 something
like that depending on I think each school is slightly
different but we'll
have some timings there and you calculated that spot based
upon the
crosswalk yes the ADA crosswalk basically what is happening
is right
after this divided area when they hit the single lane
people tend to slow down
so this area is where they tend to slow down there is going
to be a brand new
access here and an intersection so people are driving at a
slower speed as
opposed to this divided area there's yeah they're actually
doing much faster
in this so once they go get past the divided area they kind
of slow down
automatically so we don't necessarily need to extend it all
the way back no I
was thinking about the the breadth of it because I'm
concerned of course about
the equity of school zones across Denton ISD and not our
school zones are 20
miles an hour are not necessarily equitable in all
neighborhoods so that's
something that I would watch for okay anybody else have any
questions I have
one card so finally Arlene Hill and if you would please go
up to the podium
state your name and address
good evening chair person members my name is Adrian Hill
and I am a student
at Texas Women's University graduate student in family
matters and policy
this is my assignment to since I'm working as a teacher
well not right now
but going back into them working on another degree so we
were concerned
about the policies of this or the parents did this do they
have any
accidents in the area were there any children with fear
because of the
walking or bicycle riding or did they have any fear of the
car speeding and
they're not having any hesitancy well they did have hesit
ancy they didn't
have any hesitancy about crossing the street so can answer
that okay so what
it was for years they did have an issue with the speeding
and they were there
they were hesitant to send their kids even on bikes on
sidewalks and walking
due to the speed of the divide up in the divided area where
Lakeview is divided
completely that area was the scary part as far as speeding
vehicles the other
issue was a lot of people were getting dropping their kids
off with the
vehicles lined up early in the morning there was an issue
with the conflict of
you know vehicles try and driving at 30 miles an hour
coming to halt or getting
into the school dropping kids off and leaving at the same
time pedestrians
walking in so in order to have a can more controlled
controlled entrance and
exit that's why the parents were more want to move forward
with the school
zone thank you so another question the policy would that be
coming from the
traffic and safety Commission and sending it forward to the
City Council
for signature since you all are part of the legislative
body the traffic safety
Commission would make a recommendation and then that would
go to City Council
to be heard and voted on by council that's it for me as an
educator thank
you so much okay thank you is there anybody else who has
who wants to speak
on this item
I mean I'm sure this one there there is a path there is
currently a path and a
gate on this side so a lot of kids actually use that yes
yeah I talked to
the principal and she said you'll be amazed how many kids
actually use that
path no that's the path
and actually there is a bike rack here and a back access
which is open for kids
it's it's all locked there's a gate here for the fence but
this is open in the
morning and kids can park here okay is there anything else
anybody have any
questions discussion motion I move to accept staff
recommendation okay okay
there's been a motion there's a second everyone in favor
all right and they
will move forward to City Council okay we are now on item E
which is to receive
a report hold a discussion and make a recommendation to
City Council for
amending chapter 18 section 18 - 38 of the Code of Ordin
ances use of wireless
communications while driving
good evening if you'll bear with me just saying here I'll
bring up a couple of visual
aids to you
you
yeah somehow I'm missing one of my visual aids now here we
go
okay good evening thank you for let me get on the agenda
kind of at the last
minute and bring this to you today what I'm proposing is
for you to recommend
consider making a recommendation to pass forward to the
council to approve an
amendment to the wireless ordinance while wireless use by
drivers ordinance we
as you know you recommended the current ordinance which was
passed in December
and then along came the 85th legislature of the state and
House Bill 62 and they
passed a statewide texting ban that preempted part of our
existing ordinance
concerning the using the phone as a texting or messaging
device so the City
Attorney's Office took a look at it and decided the best
thing to do for us to
keep intact the majority of our ordinance and laws in
addition to the
the state law that was just passed was to just to make an
exception in the
ordinance to make make it clear that it was not preempted
or not addressed or
did not address the texting part so that it's not preempted
by state law so that's
a it's a pretty simple fix and this section right here
which is I section
would be an addition to our existing ordinance as section I
just would state
that our ordinance is not not addressing anything to do
with texting with wireless
devices or sending electronic messages and so the portion
that our ordinance
that is then left behind to after the amendment is just
simply the hand hands
free part which prohibits using the device as a cell phone
while you're
driving so with this one little addition or amendment to
the ordinance and
plugging that in to the existing ordinance here at the
bottom of this
section at the just right after H would satisfy we believe
satisfy legally to
continue with our full ordinance in effect in addition to
the state law and
we would have the same coverage the same prohibitions as we
would have from the
original concept of the ordinance that was passed on
December 6th so what the
way we would enforce it is if officer wanted enforce a law
regarding the use
of the device as texting they would write the ticket under
the state law if
they saw somebody using the cell phone as a phone and
holding it in their hand
while driving then we would write the ticket under the
ordinance so the only
other there's a there's a couple of other issues that may
come up in case
that you would have a question about it one is there's a
difference in the
recommended fine amount the state law prescribes a $99 fine
for the texting
violation our ordinance says up to $200 which is just the
way we write all of
our ordinances to give the judge the latitude just put
something in there but
he had his fine for that other part of our ordinance would
be typically would
be the same as the state law texting part so it would it
wouldn't create any
issues there so really that's about all I have and I'll be
glad to answer any
questions that you might have yes
so under yeah it just it just states that basically we're
not touching the
texting part or using it as a to read write or send
electronic messages which
is the way the the state law is is worded we already in in
the existing
ordinance we did that already just back to this one on H so
H addresses a very
similar issue where there was already an existing state law
that prohibited
wireless communication devices by miners when driving so
that's the H is a very
similar thing that it does away with being preempted by the
state law and
addressing the use of it by miners were in school zones so
those were pre existing
before our ordinance we just plugged that in to make sure
there was no
preemption and then we're doing a similar thing after the
texting law went
in effect any other questions look simple
does anyone want to make a motion to move this forward and
we'll vote okay
okay it's unanimous thank you thank you we'll be taking
this amendment to the
council on the 19th so next Tuesday okay perfect thank you
very much and then our
last item is item F which is the matrix traffic safety new
business matrix
all right I have been trying to reduce the number of things
here but things get
added so I think we're still keeping the downtown
comprehensive parking plan it's
a valley and loading zone there's there are things
happening on the economic
development side and they're still working with businesses
it's a it's a
complex issue they were talking about sidewalk cafes and
all this was being
lumped together so they're still doing something I don't
have an update at this
point but we'll keep it and whenever I get an update I'll
all the two huh the
next two we already have them on the agenda and we've
talked about it we'll
bring back the Hickory Street speed limit with a new set of
data and new
information number four we were gonna hold off on that one
just because when
this was requested schools were not in session getting
anything initially two
three weeks or four weeks right after the schools open is
slightly skewed not
the typical data so we've decided especially both four and
five to start
collecting data in October I'm sorry September this month
so we can get back
to you sometime in October the fifth one was pedestrian
crossing at Hobson we
actually collected some preliminary data we had a camera
mounted I don't know if
I can pull that up here but we have a camera mounted on a
street light pole at
the entrance of at the entrance of the park and what we saw
is early in the
morning there were about five to seven people crossing that
area we actually
got a one of the days there was a cop a police car sitting
right there waiting
for speeders going up and down Hobson it was about 630 in
the morning so so there
there is some activity it's it's not a whole lot of
pedestrian activity going
on there and installing a signal requires a lot of
pedestrian activity I
think it requires about 50 pedestrian an hour to just be
warranted based on the
pedestrian activity we are going to collect traffic counts
at Forest Ridge
and Santa Monica which are which are two streets one Santa
Monica directly is
across from the access to the park and then Forest Ridge is
slightly to the
west and both of them will collect counts and see if they
weren't any
signals there to make it better for pedestrians across I
think we had
received two or three letters from residents the Commission
had received it
and as part of that we started that camera looking at the
initial
information it's it looks like that it's not going to
warrant any signal there
but that doesn't mean that we cannot do anything to improve
the safety what we
can do is add some more signage there are some of the sign
age that is right
across in front of the City Hall that actually starts
blinking when
pedestrians come in something like that can be installed
that way drivers
especially early in the morning when the kid when there is
not enough light
wintertime and kids are trying to cross their street it
would be really helpful
if the lights start blinking if someone you know wants to
cross so that's
something that can be looked at at this point I can only
provide that kind of
information so we we can bring it back as an agenda item
once we have more
information we can talk about this I just want to say I
like that idea of the
flashing crosswalk because Hobson is what's the speed limit
on Hobson Hobson
at that point is I think 30 miles an hour but seems like I
like to drive
further up is yes as you get closer to Country Club it's
close to 35 or 40 I
would say 40 okay okay yeah and that seems like a good
place to use one of
those lighted crosswalks since it's across the street from
a park sorry oh
you're such a gatekeeper Hilljoy I am being recorded okay
moving on we'll
bring back this item and then the last but not least there
's one extra item
that Commissioner Oven wanted to add and that's converting
the southbound right
turn lane into a through right at mingo and that's
something that we can look
into we will have to get counts I believe that the right
turn was separated
just because of the number of right turners there but we
can look into that
and we'll also have to look at the alignment let me I can
pull well we can't
discuss this item we'll discuss it when okay does anybody
want to add anything
to the matrix
it's now parking on both sides it's very difficult to get
through there I haven't
taken a tape measure out there but I'm pretty sure firet
ruck cannot get through
with parking on both sides so what are the limits of this
for between what and
what it's just two blocks long it's okay your microphone
sorry it's just two
blocks it's between oak and scripture oak and scripture
okay and right now
there's parking on two sides and we get a lot of students
so it's parked up all
day got it's very hard to get through there that has been
on the matrix it
fell off so at some point has it yeah we have been maybe it
went into another
dimension not going beyond it I want to point out to the
small area plan and
especially for this area so that might take care of or
address somehow
somewhat yeah we can't talk about it
I'm new here I have a question
related to like a topic you want to discuss at a future
meeting yes okay you
can start I'll cut you off okay I don't know I don't know
if this is the right
like if this commission would have anything to say about
adding like like
large cameras on street I'm not cameras mirrors on streets
like and on busy
crowded streets like like apartment complexes for folks
coming out it's like
the cars are in the street and they can't see some's coming
around the
corner to install like a large mirror for them to be able
to
yeah it's just west of Bernard Street on fanon probably
around like fanon just
just maybe like east of peak Street I think I'd have to
look at what the
actual address is it's like 922 because there's a apartment
complex there that
the cars are on the street and yeah you can send an aerial
picture whatever you
want but to pinpoint the location I was actually just
thinking about that I wasn't
sure if those are still used at any point but there's a
real visibility issue
going from old north crossing University going north on a
board
old north to yeah crossing northbound over University yeah
like as you as
mingo becomes old north and then like as you pass the gas
place I guess
sometimes it's difficult to see if there are cars oncoming
from the other side
and whether or not they're turning anybody else want to add
to pretends
with yeah this is matrix is much shorter than it was last
time I was oh yeah
let's load it up yeah uh-huh it's tempting I'm trying to
cut it down I know
well we can't talk about that my husband would like to add
pedestrian light at
the corner of Avenue C Jago and Oak right now there's a
light but there's no
cross there's no crosswalk there's no pedestrian it is
coming we already have
a design we're just waiting for the Hickory Street project
to end really
okay great put that on the list so we can take it right off
exactly I just took
it off he'll be so happy yes it was supposed to go under
construction but
Hickory Street is might divert traffic to oak while under
construction right
in front of fry Street so that's the reason they're not
installing it right
now is it gonna be one of those talking ones yes going up
town Karen all right
did anybody else have anything anything at all okay in that
case we will close
our meeting at 654 and I'll see you next month are we going
to be meeting on the
you