Good evening and welcome to the City of Danton Traffic Safety Commission.
We're meeting Monday, April 1st, 2019. It is 5-38. We do not yet have a quorum, so we will begin with number 1C, which is TSC-
19-019, which is to receive a report and hold a discussion regarding identified intersections with poor illumination from citizen concerns and historical crash data.
Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Pritam Deshmukh, Traffic Engineer for the City. I will start with a quick overview of what exactly this is.
There was a request from the committee members to provide information on different intersections, as this committee is appropriately named as the Traffic Safety Commission.
We want to make sure that we are looking at safety concerns throughout the City.
This is a list of intersections. There are essentially two lists.
The first list looks at intersections that were brought to staff attention through concerned residents, through Commission members. I think Daniel picked up a couple of those. We've gathered all the information needed as far as what's happening related to it.
One of the primary focus was during nighttime, it's not well lit, it's not illuminated to a point where people can actually notice.
If you look at the first list, there are about 15 intersections that came in through concerns from residents and through different avenues, even concerns from Council members that were passing on information.
If you look at the locations primarily, you can see there's a cluster around in the middle, and I can go to a better map that we can zoom in and out.
This is mostly around Carroll and Oak and Hickory. There are a lot of intersections on Carroll that currently pedestrians are trying to cross or even bicyclists are trying to maneuver through, especially Hickory Street has a bike lane going towards the downtown that's extensively used by UNT students as well as residents.
And this Carroll at Hickory was one of the intersections that there was an incident with a pedestrian involved, and I think that started or triggered the recent look at this intersection.
And what happened, what we discovered is the lighting at that location is really low. It's 250 watts. It's not super low, but at the same time, the width of Carroll is pretty wide.
And in order to have better illumination, we need to improve lighting. So as part of our recommendations, we're recommending some 400 watt LED lights to go up here.
That would definitely help illuminate it appropriately. We also looked at signal timing to help pedestrians, so there are certain improvements that we're recommending in moving forward.
There's another intersection here that we recently added a pedestrian phase. It's Mulberry at Carroll. So there was a missing pedestrian phase. There was no phase at all due to the way the signal was set up. Really old signal. There's no pedestrian connectivity here.
So we recently installed pad buttons and countdown heads so that pedestrians could go through. So all these intersections, we have started working on some of them.
It's not just a list that we've identified and it's put in a list sitting somewhere and nothing's happening. So we're slowly working towards it as dollars are available, as funding gets available, we make improvements so that it helps safety, boost up the safety of the intersection.
The second set or the cluster that we looked at is around university. University was recently widened by TxDOT. It was about a year and a half, two years ago that they wrapped up the construction.
And as a result of that, some of these intersections have, the crossings have become pretty wide. It's become an issue with crossing a six-lane divided facility versus originally it was really a smaller street.
So there are smaller intersections here like Malone and Alice that have been brought up and which are included in the list. We are currently looking at that.
As part of the University Drive project, we had asked TxDOT to install appropriate lightings at these intersections. Some of them were installed or updated.
There were some that TxDOT didn't really feel that it was needed or had some utility conflicts. So we're working with them to do that, but we're also having our own municipal electric engaged and having to use them and their poles to add more lighting where necessary.
So that's also on our list. We're working on it. The second set are these yellow boxes that were identified. Now this set of intersections, they're about 16. We pulled out top 16.
And these are based on accident reports. So we pulled out PD data, data that we have access through the police department, and it tracks information regarding what are the conditions when these accidents happen.
So physical conditions. And we we selected there are different queries that we can make. We selected the query that says dark, not lighted. So that means some of these intersections had some influence on those particular collisions or incidents.
And it was related to not being able to see it. We're going to start looking into what the appropriate mitigations are. Some of them, as you can see, these are TxDOT locations that we will have to coordinate with TxDOT to see what kind of lighting they can add or we can add or we can come up with a partnership.
So that's this item. This is the first start. This is our start of here's a list. Here are the locations that we have identified as an issue just purely focused on the lighting aspect of it.
This is not related to overall safety. There's another item later today that talks about overall safety of intersections.
I think that's about it. We are, as I said, moving forward slowly to address some of these issues and as the funding becomes available.
Any questions? So my question will be, I know that we're going to increase the wattage, what you said, from 250 to 400 on some of those intersections. But will we continue to keep the lights as high on those poles as we're used to?
It seems as though intersections where the lighting is closer to the ground, it gives more of, again, a visual interrupter to cars and shines more directly on the potential bicyclists and potential walkers.
So not just increasing the wattage, but is there a discussion of moving at least some of the lighting to make it more pedestrian oriented lighting? Yes, so up and down.
I think there's another project on Hickory, especially when you're coming towards Carroll Boulevard on Hickory, it is completely dark. There are no streetlights in that particular area.
And one of our projects is looking at installing pedestrian level lighting all along up and down that corridor.
And that lighting is going to help adjust some of the focus that these drivers and motorists have.
So when they approach the intersection, it is going to be at an angle where it's more visible and they had a consistent life, not necessarily you're moving from dark to certain bright area where you have to refocus.
But we are adding pedestrian level lighting along Hickory to make it consistent so that when you hit the intersection, you're not readjusting and refocusing.
What about at the, you started with Carroll and Hickory, what about the, we've talked about other slowing mechanisms.
So slowing mechanisms along Carroll? Yeah, specifically right around Hickory.
So yeah, I think that's a bigger topic. I've received, I receive all kinds of concerns, but one of the concerns I've received is Carroll has slowed down and I have to stop at every light and it takes me so long.
So there are pros and cons for both, but we can definitely look at options.
As I mentioned earlier, I think in previous meetings that we have to look at a big picture when we go through our master thoroughfare plan.
Is Carroll going to be a vehicle mover or is that going to be part of our complete street system, part of our downtown system?
And if that's the case, which is our vehicle mover? So we have to really assign and reassign.
And I understand that there is a signal there and it's a protected pedestrian crossing, but other than that, adding more traffic calming.
In visual sense, yes, we can add some of the visual effects, but not physical barriers where you have to change lanes or reduce the number of lanes.
I thought about and I don't know the studies on this specifically, but I know artwork things like that that kind of draw your attention, just kind of give you the feel I'm entering a new area have been projected.
I've even thought that even right there on that street, some people are driving down that street who are familiar with didn't who don't realize they're right and off the square.
And so even something that like, you know, we have signage, oops, sorry, we have signage in the area, but even signage, like maybe even right there on that intersection in the middle that was like downtown didn't that kind of like gave up.
I was just thinking something simple like that. We've already done a lot of it, but just even having it there would potentially signal to drivers.
They're in a new area, which could could lead to them slowing down. Yeah, I mean, we can definitely characterize areas and provide more visual cues.
And yes, we're open to doing that. But as far as actual physical barriers for the right for the vehicles, that would be a difficult one.
Yeah, I know that's more of a long term discussion too, like you're saying.
But yeah, I think the idea of like a sign or something that that would be simply could be.
I mean, we have a median there, you know, and there's space there and potentially where it could go, which could just also be kind of we could be.
We could even think of something that's almost like landmark right as you're driving down there.
There it's like, oh, this is, you know, so I think that would be a very appropriate spot for it compared to other spots.
Yeah, we can we can look into that. I mean, right at Hickory and Carol and Oak and Carol, those are places where it can designate.
If you're going to UNT, UNT is going this way. And if you're going to the square, it's going this way and some some sort of signage in the middle or even monument signs and stuff like that.
We can look at different options. The one other question on the traffic, because people complain about the traffic flow, which I, you know, I have the complete streets model.
I think rethink that and we think of moving people, not just cars, but the are the lights synced? Like, do they if you get do you usually get both lights?
Because when they say I'm getting all of these lights, can we tell them, well, they're saying you should not be getting these two in a row that are on Oak and on Hickory?
Yes, we recently went through that upgrade and Carol is synced. So moving southbound in the mornings and then northbound in the evenings, they're all synced so that you don't have to.
Once you hit one red, once you get a green, you continue getting green for longer span of time.
It is synced because I guess I guess that my last point I would make on that is just that I mean, I'm out there all the time. I live right there on the corner. And if anything, it just cars are flying by at 60 more often than they're having to trudge by at 10.
So I actually see the problem as being the opposite that that's just way too fast for what the area is turned into.
And if that's the case, I mean, one of the things we have our next item is traffic calming and which is what which is what we can look into enforcement. I think the first step is definitely enforcement and education.
I'd like to go back to Alice and University. That's one of my pet peeves because apparently there were no accidents reported there. But a lot of citizens are uncomfortable with that intersection.
And I am too, as a cyclist and as a driver. Would there be because that's kind of an oddly configured when there is just it just doesn't look like any other intersection.
Excuse me. Would something like the flashing signs we have on McKinney work there when the pedestrian light goes off.
I think it's one of the odd ones just because it's an entrance to this big commercial area on one side and residential on the other. Those flashing signs that typically for mid block and not necessarily at the signal for the signal.
I'm not sure if more signage is going to work if it's not working right now, but lighting is definitely going to help if if pedestrians can be seen at the corner or if cars can see the intersection appropriately.
Even cars waiting on Alice, then the safety concern will be addressed, especially at nighttime and during the daytime. Yes, I mean, there are a lot more cars. But at the same time, if you have a pedestrian waiting to cross, it's you can see him, then you can actually stop or pause or give them a chance to cross the street.
But it's, it's a protected crosswalk right here.
And I think it doesn't feel like one. It is a really like it's a it's a weird intersection.
There's no obvious entrance into the I mean, yes, we know that there's an entrance into didn't center there. But there's no gateway type thing that would indicate like malls and stuff you usually have a couple of pillars and some greenery and big sign.
Yeah, that's an odd one. Yeah, that's a private area and we can't really do private property. And part of what makes it weird is if you're walking north on on Alice, if there's just a slight incline when you're hitting university.
And, yeah, you can't even see it on the picture but there's an incline and cars are waiting at the intersection, and they, they act like they're a little freaked out about being on this incline.
And so, even when you're trying to cross frequently cars will just kind of gun it. And, you know, luckily usually miss the pedestrian, but there's, there's just this perception of the lack of safety at that intersection.
And all I mean, we've talked about I mean universities a mess right I mean like for pedestrians or bicyclists it's just, it's an unwelcome at every single, like, intersection crossing so I think the thing I'm really interested in is if we were to try to address it.
Could we at least identify one intersection that we think is the most important one that people could funnel to right because fixing them all is unrealistic in the short term. So what is the one that we could work on is that Alice is a Carol.
And then could we start to pick one because I just think we're. Does that make sense. It's just hard it's hard to imagine I mean I would love to see us fix them all, but I'd almost also love to see could we if we prioritize like one street.
And then we prioritized it, then bikers and walkers would start to realize that hopefully, and funnel themselves over to their further crossing. Yeah, I think, I think it's hard to funnel walkers bicyclists yeah that's a possibility but short of, yeah, short of fencing this whole thing up and down.
Really, I'm not even getting fencing it up and down there's nothing that we can do. And I've seen places that have done that.
There are places that have a lot of mid block people jaywalking. I've seen the medians go up and then fence in the median. So, what about trees, even to that extreme.
There's more trees in between the sidewalk, and right like so if you flip it back around where you just were right. So what about just trees right between that sidewalk in the places where we can planning them because those create a nice, you know, barrier.
Even, even, you know, psychologically, it can help you feel a little bit more protected when you have some trees there.
The tough thing and university or there's so many bus stops to. Yeah, it's a, it's a heavily traveled bus route. So, and there's a bus stop on almost, almost every corner, right, so but in between like even the mid block kind of right to.
I think that the line of trees can make you feel a little bit better about it, like kind of down the street but right.
If you, if you look at the challenge right here to install those streetlights is all these electric lines above it. So that's why if you see on the other side near the commercial area there's, there are no streetlights or luminaires on the top of these signals, which
technically they should be. So, I think we've worked closely with DME to see if we can install here or put other places that we can install. So that's, that's why some of these intersections become challenging is you have to physically have a separate pole and a
separate device away from these under these wires so, and that's why these aren't underground there, you know, that might be an idea.
Yes, yes.
And as as I say every time we can do it, it's just a matter of where do you have the money.
Yeah, this is what we already have that luminaire up here.
So what we can do is increase the intensity and have it one facing the other direction as well. That way, it creates a bright spot in this area, and then there are two on these two sides.
There are different ways of getting there and we're working with DME for that.
And then some of these like Fulton at Egan Fulton at Bernard for instance. Yes, what will happen there same.
I think that same that would be most likely pedestrian level lying. It won't be these big big ones. It's residential, which means you don't need and you only need enough to see someone at the corner and not let's light someone's backyard so that's.
Yeah, that's the, I think, Fulton and Egan, let's see.
There you go, go south, north. Okay, there you go. Yeah. So this will be most likely a pedestrian level lighting, and you see you already have a light, there might be way too high in the, in the air.
There's some lighting. I mean this poll could be used so we'll work with DME to improve the lighting at this location.
Any other questions.
Anything else on that item.
Because we can then move on to one D, which is still a discussion item, and that is TSC 19 dash 020, which is to receive a report and hold the discussion about the current traffic calming efforts and the plan to develop a traffic calming policy to ensure a fair and clear process on the selection of city funded projects for traffic calming.
So, at this time we do not have a traffic calming policy.
And we wanted to set something up and at least have a framework policy framework where citizens can come in and request studies and some sort of traffic calming device implementation in their neighbor within their neighborhood and subdivisions on neighborhood streets.
We currently have to, we currently have a process that we look at if there are concerns and complaints from residents for speeding traffic. We start with the assessment, we get a two week survey for speed, where we assess the 85th percentile speed limit, and we check if it's about 30 miles an hour or above the posted speed limit.
And if there are concerns, if there are issues of the speed limit, currently people are moving much faster than they should, then PD goes in and starts enforcing, they enforce it for a couple of months, then they again go back for another two weeks of data collection and surveying as to what was the impact, are people really doing it.
And then they put out some of the education component, which actually flashes the speed on those signs and tells you how much you're driving at.
And after that happens, then if there is still a problem, then PD will contact us and we'll have to go through a process of what are the options, what do we recommend, and finally what we have to acquire some funding to start implementing that.
There are a couple of neighborhoods that we are currently working with in order to implement some of the traffic calming devices along their streets, and there is one along Lakeview that is currently having some serious issues.
A long stretch of Lakeview that connects south goes and connects between 380 and then it transitions to Trinity and connects to McKinney on the south, so this is a big connection in between.
There is a neighborhood north of, I want to say Mills Road, this neighborhood, they're seeing traffic at 40, 45 miles an hour passing through their neighborhood street.
As part of a development project, there's a development project on McKinney that came in.
The developer promised doing some improvements along Lakeview, and that's how we got this project moving forward because we were promised some of the funding would come from the development.
What we're doing is shown on this particular map at this particular location.
We're providing, obviously we're working with the HOA to make sure that the HOA is okay, so we submitted this, we talked about what we're going to do, we talked to the HOA, the residents know what the plan is for the city.
We're still working with them to work on this landscaping piece, last I heard that they may not be interested in this, just because they have to maintain it.
But the rest of the stuff is moving forward, we're putting in traffic circles at four locations, two ways south here and then two closer to 380, and then there are several speed cushions.
These are speed humps with brakes in between so that emergency vehicles can pass through without slowing down.
These are speed cushions, and then we're obviously adding some pavement marking up and down in the middle, just a center lane and then reflector markings down here.
We're currently in design for these traffic circles, and then once they're done we will do temporary bolt down curves and then backfill the curves within the island and provide a circle here, and these will be bolt down speed cushions.
The reason we're taking smaller steps and slowly moving forward with this program is we're going to start with temporarily installing this, and if it really works for the residents, then we can find money for permanent and make it permanent.
But if it doesn't work, there are issues that residents run into, they can't really maneuver some of these intersections, or there are other issues that we might have not predicted, then we just go ahead and take it out.
So that's the reason we're moving forward with ATEM, and then we'll come back, and if a year or two years later down the street, if that works, then we'll come back with permanent ones.
So this is one neighborhood, there was another neighborhood that we worked with that has a similar problem, Tissell Hills, it's way south between Hickory Creek and Bryan Road.
So this is the community right here.
There is no clear connection between Bryan Road, which is an east-west connector between Country Club and Teasley, and then Hickory Creek, which is south here, so there is no clear direct path or straight shot street.
So a lot of times these motorists find these neighborhood streets to cut through and join between Ryan and Hickory Creek, and one of this neighborhood, which is right this.
They had some serious concerns, we did collect information as far as speed data, speed count, other information, we had a neighborhood meeting, and we discussed options, and what they chose were these four locations that they actually wanted speed cushions.
So this is a similar concept to Slow People, this is a straight shot street, fairly wide, so there will be a speed cushion here.
People speed between these two edges and the intersections, they also use this, there's a sort of a knuckle, it's a wider bend, so people use this to see how fast they can make the bend.
So we added some signing and strapping, it has helped.
We're going to add these speed cushions in between to make sure that people slow down, and these are the main street that the residents identified.
One of the important things that we focus on is we identify a location for these speed cushions, because a lot of times there is a noise issue associated with some of these traffic calming devices.
So if there is a speed cushion or a speed hump in front of your house and everyone is screeching their brakes, then you should be comfortable, because I've been in situations where we've installed it, and we had to remove it within 48 hours, we had to get rid of it, because someone's bedroom was right next to the speed hump.
So this has been agreed by all these folks that live here that they really want it in front of their yards and they're okay with it.
So some of this, we're still, it's a new process for the city, we're still going through it, we're trying to make sure that we draft a policy that has several steps that are in there.
The most important is coordinating with the residents, making sure they're comfortable with what the type of traffic calming device that's chosen, or may work or fit better.
And so we're really focused on the community outreach effort, which means everyone should be on board, everyone needs to be fully engaged. If they're not, if someone doesn't like it, then it defeats the purpose in the sense they'll come back and they'll have an issue and we'll have to go back and remove it.
So on our end, we make sure that we have a lot of coordination. So that's something we're going to build it into policy that we have a lot of coordination, and then obviously there's a lot of enforcement and education that goes beforehand until we get to the steps.
So we want to make sure that we set up a policy, and then of course we'll come back to the committee on that policy and then take it to council.
So these are the two neighborhoods we're working on, and I think that's it for this particular item, unless you have any questions.
Well, I thought that new neighborhoods, I thought part of development code built in traffic calming in new new neighborhoods and these neighborhoods should have already had everything that they needed.
Correct, new neighborhoods should have.
So yes, we do have a transportation criteria manual that has criteria regarding traffic commons on new developments should have traffic calming.
And in this particular case in this development there are some traffic calming devices here. All we had to do is go in at some more pain signage and striping and reflective markers so that it's more visible people actually start slowing down so we had to do some minor adjustments here it does have that.
It does have some on this section, but it's apparently it's not working so our criteria manual has changed in our requirements have changed for newer developments.
So, with how wide are the roads in these divisions and when were they built.
I can get back to you on that one I don't know how wide they are currently.
So I'm, and I'm just curious because these, you're saying on the new ones were changing I'm just curious the.
Because a lot of these new suburban neighborhoods that are out of the core oftentimes are built with very wide roads that are naturally going to create the various situation they're now trying to go back and fix later.
When if we just design the roads thinner this problem wouldn't exist in the first place. So the question is, is our new subdivision subdivisions being encouraged to have skinnier roads so that they don't have this problem.
And then we have to install these later, we, we have swing the pendulum on either direction so we have gone.
It has. So we went from really wide roads if you go to some of the older neighborhoods like around Denton High School, really wide Linden is wide.
Some of them. I think even some sections is pretty wide. So some of these streets are wide, and they were wide in the past. So what would happen is when we went to a new design, we started shrinking the size to the point, I think it was 26 feet was our standard.
Back to back curb.
What ended up happening with that particular standard is people started parking on street on both sides, and which created an issue with the fire lane, we did not have enough space 20 feet is required for a fire lane we did not have enough space.
So then, this last year, I think a year ago a year and a half ago we updated our criteria manual to make sure that now we're somewhere in the middle, where we're not designing them too wide, or we're not designing them too skinny.
We still get enough space and have enough space for parking on both sides that we satisfy the requirements of fire trucks so there are certain subdivisions down in the pecan Creek area, they're really narrow streets and fire trucks cannot make through it.
Is it the, is it our fire trucks are there I'm just curiously is that a federal regulations or federal, it is federal regulations 20 feet fire lane, but it's our fire trucks that really can maneuver especially the corners and intersections they can make the turn.
Right.
So what do cities that have older smaller streets do about fire. I think what they have ended up doing and we're probably facing the same issue in the UNT area is we end up restricting parking.
Okay, that's the only way.
Either one side or both sides are all fire trucks the same size or other different options for the sizes of fire trucks. That's a good question. I do not have an answer for that one. I can send, I can let you know.
I'm just, I guess I've, I've heard the argument sometimes we're designing all our streets for fire trucks instead of designing fire trucks that can fit all our streets. So I'd be curious.
I want to say this fairly standard sizes, but I'll let you know.
We did have a real situation where a fire truck had to turn around on a heart attack.
There has been a real situation with a real person where a gentleman had a heart attack and the fire truck had to go around the neighborhood a different way so they're looking at the fire truck size issues.
I don't know if I was supposed to say that. No, no, that's helpful. It's good to know. We like information. Yeah, yeah, it's good.
Good. Good, thank you.
In case you don't know. In case you don't know that Stephanie Barry, our city prosecutor, so she knows much more.
Yes.
I think that's all on this item. If you have any additional questions.
All right. In that case, should we go back and do the minutes? Sure. Okay. And then we'll go or am I breaking it? Here's a question. Am I breaking it up too much? Should we just go into historical crash data?
Will that make more sense? Is it a better transition? Sure. Okay. For the sake of a better transition, we will move to one ETSC 19-021, which is to receive a report and hold a discussion regarding historical crash data exported from the text dot CRIS query.
Sorry, guys. We're almost there. Okay, so just wanted to get a start on what was requested. I think Commissioner Thurmond had requested that we look at safety information, some crashes, and start analyzing these intersections, developing some fixes for the crashes that are happening.
So what we did is we pulled up the Police PD database and we looked at the top locations for crash frequency, so how many crashes are happening, and we pulled up the last year data of 2018 and highlighted the intersections with 20 or more crashes.
The top 10 are listed here, and as you can see, they're on pretty large arterials. If you look at the intersection, I think the top one is McKinney at Carroll Lake Louisville City Limits, okay, McKinney Street at Carroll Boulevard, and there's a very small entrance to McKinney at Carroll.
There's a left lane into McKinney, and it is not protected by a signal, so there is no signal. It's a stop control location, and that's probably the reason that some of this is -- actually, I'm sorry, I take that back.
This is just a roadway segment that we're focusing on. So this is a roadway segment. McKinney is the highest, and the stretch of the segment is from Carroll all the way to the city limits on the east side.
And I think it's -- if you look at the maps that are associated -- let me pull the maps, and you can see the spots that actually show the intersections that have the intensity.
Sorry about that.
All right. So this is the first section from January to March. You can see all these dots show the intensity, so the higher -- if they're red or yellow, it tells you that there are a lot more accidents.
As you can expect to see, this is the I-35 at 380. A lot of congestion, a lot of traffic, higher volume crashes, and most of them are along tech stop facilities at the interchanges, so if you can see 35, this is -- I want to say this is Teasley,
and this is the Loop 288, and we further south, that's Mayhill.
And then right in the middle here, that's where Elm, Locust, and Eagle meet, so there's some congestion here, especially people trying to make different maneuvers, getting from one way to two-way.
If you move on to the next level, it's April through June, similar. I think it's all the same areas that are being higher crashes.
So what we're planning on doing, this is a very big-picture, high-level view of what are the streets and what are the locations that are mostly impacted and having high crashes.
The next step is obviously going to -- we'll focus on intersections, particular intersections that are highly -- intersections that have high crash rate, and look at what exactly is happening, what types of crashes, and start analyzing intersections at a time as opposed to looking at the whole corridor.
So that's -- it was just a quick overview. There's a lot of data. So when we start looking at particular intersections, there's going to be different types of crashes.
We're going to try and pull similarities. We're going to try and pull information as far as, you know, what are the causes or is there a quick fix, what are the fixes that we can do.
So we're going to go through this and pick the top ten intersections and start working on what are certain things that we can address or why is it happening.
So I think that's about it on this, but if you have any questions, let me know.
>> Would you drill down later to pedestrian versus -- or pedestrian compared to bicycle compared to --
>> Pedestrian compared to bicycle compared to motor vehicle.
>> Correct. So once we drill down on these top locations, we'll find out, okay, we had five pedestrian crashes or ten in this last year or whatever the frequency number is, and then yes, we'll come up with what's the reason and what could we do.
>> Yes.
>> I thought it's interesting that it doesn't seem to -- and I realize that a heat map is pretty broad brush, but there doesn't seem to be any difference when -- during the summer when school is out and enrollment is lower and public schools are out.
It seems to be the same 12 months out of the year regardless of the school cycle.
>> Correct.
>> I think that's interesting and I wonder why that is.
>> That's a good question, but what I'm -- I mean, this -- when school is out of -- if you can see it from April to June and then this is January to March.
>> Yeah, the -- yeah, when school -- it should be slightly different, but apparently it's not.
>> Yeah, although 35 seems to pick up between July and September, which is when they were probably finishing some stuff there.
>> Right.
>> And they were doing those frequent lane changes.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
Anything else on that?
Okay.
We'll go back and do the things that we need a quorum for.
Here we are.
So item 1A is TSC 19-017, which is to consider approval of the minutes for the Traffic Safety Commission meeting on March 4th, 2019.
And if everyone has had an opportunity to read the minutes and see if there's any corrections, everything's good.
>> I move that they be approved.
>> Okay.
We've got a move for approval.
>> Second.
>> We've got a second.
Everyone in favor?
Aye.
>> Aye.
Okay.
Minutes are approved.
Next is item 1B, TSC 19-018, which is to receive a report, hold a discussion, and provide staff direction regarding a proposal to modify the traffic pattern on Avenue A and Mulberry Street from two way to one way.
>> Good evening.
Mark Oliphant, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the city.
Thank you for this opportunity to address you.
So tonight I'm going to be talking about a proposal.
This is related to another effort that we've been discussing and working on for a long time.
And hopefully this will help solve a lot of problems for the city.
So I'm excited to present it to you.
Just to orient you, we're talking about Hickory Street area near Fry Street.
This is a busy restaurant and bar and commercial area right on the edge of the UNT campus.
If you'll follow my mouse up here is Hickory Street.
This is Fry to the north.
To the south here is Avenue A.
And then we have Mulberry.
And this essentially is a bubble diagram of what we're proposing.
Which is these two roads, Avenue A and Mulberry, currently two way streets.
You have one lane in each direction.
What we are proposing is to eliminate the southbound on Avenue A direction and the eastbound on Mulberry direction.
And so have one through lane to the west on Mulberry and the north on Avenue A.
And then in the blue spots, we will add additional parking.
And one of the big advantages of making this change is that we can accommodate parking spots that will be lost on the south side of Avenue A on street parking spaces up here.
We can accommodate spaces that we would lose if we install the bike lane on the south side.
But they can be placed in these two locations here.
I'm going to go to a little more detailed graphic of that right now.
So again, here's Hickory Street at the top.
This is our engineering rendering where we use real measurements and everything.
So we've just gotten a little more granular with this slide.
So you can see, hopefully, what we're going to do here on Avenue A, what we propose is to mirror the diagonal parking on the east side of Avenue A.
So add diagonal parking over here.
We would see we'd stripe that and that allows us to accommodate additional parking spaces that we couldn't have. We have about eight currently that are we call it parallel parking spaces on street.
And then down here, we have another bunch. I think it's 16 spaces that we can add on the south side. And this relates a little bit to the conversation earlier because the one limiting factor that we have is we have to ensure that we maintain a 20 foot width for the firefighting apparatus.
We can do that. We're actually going to cut six inches off of these off of our typical design for these to accommodate that. So it's tight, but we can do it. And that's fine to do.
We have one consideration and one limiting factor that we discussed here previously was that buses currently turn down Avenue A and go east on Mulberry and then turn right on Welch. They will no longer be able to do that.
And the reason they do that currently is because Welch and Hickory has kind of a tight turning radius.
Well, in in conjunction with this proposal, we also have some plans as part of the UNT traffic study looking at this intersection and what we propose to do is eliminate if you can see there's two northbound lanes here.
We would eliminate this lane, make it a painted median, and buses would then have the sufficient clearance to make that right turn and clear that corner.
So they can now be once we make those changes, they can be rerouted to that intersection.
Here's a little comparison. So once we once we had mocked up that draft with the engineering folks, we went around to all these different stakeholders to discuss the positives and negatives of this proposal.
And I'm pleased to say that of all the of all the options for accommodating bike lanes on Hickory, it is the least hated and actually warmly received by some.
So, I mean, it is a big step that no one hates it. Everyone's like, you know, I could see this and we had great conversations with all these different groups, DCTA, they run both the public buses and the UNT shuttles.
Talk to UNT because they're an adjacent property owner. Talk to many of the business owners in this area, bicycling advocates and fire and police with the city, a lot of the major stakeholders.
And so you can see we've listed out what their various concerns are and our responses.
Now there are still, you know, we haven't gotten down to a 90% construction design or something with all of this.
But so if someone says to me, okay, where is every loading zone or something, I'm saying, well, we're still looking at that, but we can accommodate loading zones. We can accommodate on street parking.
And I think for many, this will actually be an improvement. The police for a while now, at least a year, have been advocating for some type of traffic calming or some type of changes there.
I don't go there late at night on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but I'm told that is really the reason for desiring that traffic calming is you get large crowds of people, young people, it's late at night, they may have been drinking.
And so pedestrian safety in the area is a big concern. And one of the things they really like is that at this crosswalk here, pedestrians will no longer have to look two ways.
They will just have one direction to look and only one lane to cross. There are some dumpsters here that can sometimes get in the way.
And so there will now be just the one lane to cross. So that's a positive, really.
So what we're hoping, what staff is hoping, is that this one way conversion can be found pleasing to the various groups charged with reviewing these sorts of things.
And that we can accommodate option two, which was the preferred option of this group in January or February, I think, we reviewed it with the Traffic Safety Commission and you unanimously supported option two.
That's also a favorite of the cycling community. And yet we can still keep parking within a reasonable distance of these businesses.
And we can keep most of the parties pretty happy. So I'm happy to take any questions.
>> Have you considered reverse angle? >> Reverse angle.
>> Parking.
>> I don't have the same history here as everyone, but I hear from a lot of people that that was, I know we do have it on, is it on Hickory currently, but it's controversial.
So we didn't look too hard at that one. We just thought mirroring what's on the other side of the street would be.
>> Well, I think given that this is a college area and students keep on changing and coming in and out, it's really, it's going to be extremely difficult enforcing some of it as well as making sure that the requirements are followed and have a safe environment in this area.
I believe that's one of the considerations that went into that.
>> See, I was thinking since we get a new crop of students every year, they could be retrained every year.
Yeah, you have to back out at some point anyway, whether you're backing into your spot or you're backing out of your spot.
>> Well, and I think, too, it could be confusing having front end on one side and back end on the other.
>> No, but we should do it back end on both sides. >> Oh, on both sides? It would add some money because we do have concrete infrastructure here that's.
>> Oh, we have to. >> Yeah, so it's not all striping on that side.
>> Well, I think if you look on the island right up there, the island is basically a giant park place to park bikes.
And so that's where cyclists go. And so I think the idea of doing back end parking, which I know is not as popular, is a lot safer for cyclists, right?
Who, when you think about a cyclist coming around that corner at midnight when people are backing out their cars and have been drinking and things like that potentially.
I mean, so we're just talking about safety. I don't know if it's the right answer, but I think it's a good point worth at least looking at.
>> So at this point, there are no intentions of continuing the bike lane here.
We will be having bike lane on Hickory and Welch, which is parallel to this in Mulberry, as well as there's a wide sidewalk, if you can see on the other side, that can be used and converted.
So we're still in talks with UNT about that, this whole system. But adding bike to this mix with the added parking, not recommended safety wise.
>> I was thinking bikes in the car lane. I'm just talking about the safety of bikes biking with traffic, yeah.
I mean, if it's one lane, generally if it's one lane, you don't need a bike lane or anything. Yeah, so.
>> And then an additional question to ask about that is, what about, so I'll tell you this, my bike route every day is to come right off, if you go just a little bit further the other direction, sorry, right there.
I come right off of that corner on Mulberry every day to bike home.
And that's a big connector. A lot of cyclists use that because that gets you to the square.
And right now, well, and, you know, again, Hickory could replace that right now. Our bike lane on Hickory is not in great shape.
And so when that's fixed, that'll help.
Which, by the way, they did work on it this week and left lumps, almost like lumps of coal on the bike lanes now.
So literally you have these like bumps on the bike lane that go about this high over the ground.
That's right in front of H squared apartments, if you want to see those. But they did, there were some problems out there.
But it's, see, I can't believe they left the scene like that.
Anyway, it seems like, yeah, that's, that's for the matrix for something.
But so, okay, so what, if a cyclist wanted to go right there, what would they do?
Hopefully they go straight on Avenue A to get on our nice Hickory street bike lanes.
Smooth.
Which is?
Continuous.
When's the, when's the, when is the, that, and that's great, I'm excited for it.
We had it for like three months before we tore it back up.
I remember the days.
So what's the, the conjunction between these two projects, the estimate, and then when is, when is Hickory getting?
It starts June 1st.
June 1st, we're starting the section between Avenue B and Welch.
And redoing that, the section between Welch and Carroll is still under design.
And that'll go to construction later this year.
And then now.
And this would be, this would be after that, obviously, right?
Because, or is the, is the hope for this to happen quicker?
So this is, this is happening in conjunction with the parking spaces going away on Hickory and bike lane coming in.
So it's a combined project.
Now, as far as Mulberry being in connection to the square, we're planning on putting in path along Sycamore, so which is next south.
One more south.
So that would be a full-blown multi-use trail all the way past the square area.
So Hickory will have bike lanes, and then Sycamore will have multi-use trail.
That's why, that's the long-term plan.
That's why there is no.
And maybe before those cyclists depart campus, if you were formerly going this way, somehow you can exit that way and get on that Sycamore.
Well, I think the logical, I think what a lot of that, people, that sidewalk's not super heavily used.
I think a lot of cyclists are just going to use that to make that block, probably is what's real.
The sidewalk up here on the south side?
The sidewalk on Mulberry, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it's one block.
It's not, it's not, you know, there's a decent, just depending if it's not during classes.
So the main impetus for this is to get parking that'll be lost for the bike lane?
Is that the main impetus for this?
Yeah, although, I mean, that is what got us investigating it initially.
But then we found out that someone in the police department who patrols here had written a white paper a little over a year ago proposing more or less this.
And after talking to some of the other folks, we think there are some good arguments for doing it.
But that is a motivator, certainly, is parking there.
And then one last question.
Dumpsters?
Is there anything being done on those?
I don't know if you've seen them on a Friday morning.
That's a good question.
We can come back with an answer.
I mean, they, I'm surprised UNT hasn't made a bigger deal of it.
That's a solid waste question.
I mean, it's just a disgustingness that faces right over to the campus of trash everywhere, and it smells, and it's, there's no, it's just kind of, it just goes out into the street.
But you don't know that that's a super improvement, because they used to have all the dumpsters up a gripe at Crooked Crust, yeah.
Is that a solid waste too?
Yes, we'll get an answer back.
I mean, I think covering them is the ultimate solution.
Oh, okay, there you go.
Is that the Friday normal practice?
Yeah.
I guess when the trucks come, they don't get out and shovel the, the over.
And it smells.
I mean, it literally smells because of it.
Okay.
Thank you for answering this.
Any other questions?
I have a question for you.
Yes, sir.
On the, where are you going to take, where are you going to make it one way?
The side is going to put the extra parking on?
Are they going to be losing any sidewalk?
No.
There is a, you see here where my cursor is, there is a bus stop there, which would have to move because the bus is headed currently coming this direction.
But it goes to this big building and they said there's not even an entrance here, so what we'll have now is the buses come south on Welch, pull here, people can access the building the same, just from the other side.
I was just, I was just looking at like, put parking like they have to move some of the sidewalk back.
We just barely, barely have enough width.
Okay.
It'll work, yeah.
It's just going on the existing lane.
Okay.
Right, no changes to curb or anything.
Okay.
Which keeps the cost down.
Okay.
Anybody else have a question?
I've got some cards to speak on there.
Do you want to, do you want to speak and then ask a question?
Okay.
And we can come back.
Yeah.
Okay, so my first card to speak on this issue is Alejandro Galindo-Juarez and you're going to speak.
Yeah.
Becky, is it three or five?
Three.
As an individual it's three.
Right.
If he's representing them, it's three.
Three.
Hello, my name is Alejandro Galindo-Juarez.
I live at 425 Fulton Street and I just have one question.
Was, I wasn't at the public hearing at Fortman's the other time, but I do have a question like why, why do we choose the direction of the one way?
Why was it chosen that way?
I'll talk about it when you're done.
Okay.
And that's pretty much it.
That's the only question I have.
Oh, actually never mind, since I'm already up here.
Sorry.
Since I'm already up here, I just, I noticed that the bike lane, like it wasn't on the agenda.
It was more about converting the street into a one way.
So I'm just curious on to why that was only, why that was not put on the agenda.
Is it because we already made a decision on it?
We already did?
Okay.
And that's all I needed to know.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
And I have a card from Charles Browning who wants to speak in support.
Hello, my name is Charles Browning.
I live at 2324 Georgetown Drive in Denton.
I'm here to support, well, as far as the Hickoryland Street bike lane, that was option two, the one supported by staff, and support option one, converting Avenue A and Mulberry to a one way.
Two reasons.
One, it improves safety.
As the bike lane is implemented, bikes will be coming, I guess, to the east and cars will be to the north of them.
That is not converted to a one way, people taking a right turn into Avenue A, that's a right hook.
It's a very common cyclist and motorist accident.
Also, it addresses the concerns of the merchants.
They'll be able to get additional parking that will be lost.
I'd also like, not that I want this to slow down, but consider adding a no right turn on red at that point.
A lot of times, that's a very sharp angle, less than a 90 degree turn, so motorists, people in cars, may tend to sneak out to try to make that right turn on red.
And going eastbound, Hickory is downhill.
It's very easy to reach that 20 mile per hour speed limit, and people in cars often don't realize how fast people on bicycles can go.
So they may easily, even if they see a car or see a person on a bicycle, decide to pull out into traffic, not knowing the person on the bicycle is traveling at a high rate of speed,
which hopefully the person on the bicycle is paying attention and has the time to stop, but I would consider putting the no right turn on red there.
And that's all I have.
Okay, thank you.
And I have my last card from Susie Rumor, who is going to speak in support.
Hi, Susie Rumor, 1700 Crescent.
I am speaking in favor of the one way.
The only things I would hope you would consider is, and I've kind of mentioned this to Mark already, students who are, let's say, on a bicycle heading south on Fry Street.
Yeah, I just remembered that, like I used to actually come to campus that way.
And generally what I would do is I would get on Fry, come down Avenue A, and then I was usually heading towards the center of campus.
So I would hop off onto the service road to get the rest of the way to where I was going.
So I suspect a lot of students on a bicycle are going to want to go straight.
So I know you're already kind of aware of that, so I would hope that there would at least be some kind of contra flow, whether it's on the sidewalk or something, lane, to at least get people to the service road, because I think students are going to go straight there, regardless of whether there's a bike lane on Welch or somewhere else.
The other thing I would hope, I would want to say what Charlie said, I would hope there would be a no right turn on red for people going north on Avenue A.
I know in my car, sometimes it's really hard to see the traffic that's coming from my left.
So I would hope that, you know, so when I can't see the traffic coming on my left, I start to creep forward and next thing I know, the nose of my car is in a crosswalk.
In this case, I'm going to be blocking a crosswalk, possibly a bike lane.
Bikers can be going 20 miles an hour on this downhill very easily.
And it is really hard to avoid a crash if you're going 20 miles an hour. If something suddenly happens, it's really hard to avoid it.
So I would hope that a right turn on red would keep people in cars, you know, a little further back behind the stop bar, hopefully, and not blocking the crosswalk or the bike lane where people are going to be traveling.
Thank you. Thank you.
Can I ask a follow-up question to those comments? Has it been considered, has it even been considered to, instead of adding those parking spaces to just adding a bike lane that goes the other direction that's potentially going to be lost?
Has that been considered?
No.
I think, so I think there's one huge flawed assumption, and it's the one that a lot of merchants, I know this, we're in Denton, Texas, and a lot of people don't live in urban areas, and they're not used to urban design.
But this constant, like, worrying about your business with only parking spaces, people are not going to park here and go to their businesses.
We already know they didn't even park on the street there and go to their businesses.
We have, we just did a study, and what was it, 90% of people did not go to the businesses who parked in front of them?
People a block away aren't going there, and if you just pull the SPAP out, there's parking everywhere, all over Denton.
The thing is, is if we build these streets the right way, these areas are going to become better, and they're going to get these, they're going to get more businesses.
If we could just build them the right way and build them to urban design, these businesses will continue to succeed.
But this idea that we're building, these are public streets.
You know, they're in, they're not in the suburbs.
They don't get guaranteed parking spots for every one of their businesses.
And we have to make the, do what's best for the common good on these, and I just think this, we always appease in this area,
I think a lot of the businesses who demand cars, without any evidence that that's actually helping the business.
It's a false assumption based on suburban design principles.
So that's just my comment, and because I'm, as we're hearing these discussions, I mean, I'm seeing that we're losing a big option.
Cyclists coming from this way, I'm going to have to change my route going home every day.
I take it every single day, this exact route, and now that we're taking it away for cars who are going to go to campus.
And these are, these are going to be public spots, metered spots?
>> Public street, yeah, public spots.
>> Public metered spots.
So for a few spots where people are going to be parking to probably not go to the businesses that we're asking for them, for the most part.
Whereas, I also walk to all these businesses.
That's how I get to them all.
I frequent all these businesses all the time.
So I just, I'm just throwing that out there as a way to reconsider.
We are taking something away from bike lanes.
We don't, from cyclists, we don't have a good solution for it.
And we're doing it for a reason that I don't think is benefiting the merchants anyway.
>> Thank you.
>> So I do have a question then.
We've had a couple suggestions about a no right turn on red at that intersection.
Is that something that can be baked into the design or do we have to go through a process to have that?
>> No, we can certainly look at that.
Once we get into the real design, we can look at that no right turn on red.
>> Okay, and we wouldn't have to gather data or anything.
We could say we want that thing.
>> Okay, something to watch for.
Okay.
All right, so.
>> Do you want me to address some of those?
>> Yes, I do.
>> Okay.
So I heard that you had some questions.
Why the direction we picked?
Well, one reason is if the bike lane is on the south side of Hickory, one of the most common and dangerous vehicle bicycle accidents is what's called the right hook,
which was mentioned.
And so if vehicles are coming down Hickory Street and turning right, they will be crossing the bicycle lane and you get that danger.
And so we avoid that by going this other direction.
It was also a matter of convenience to mirror the diagonal parking on the west side of Avenue A.
And so those are two big reasons I miss anything.
The sidewalk bike lane idea, we will need to talk to UNT about that.
But there is, you can see, there's about 15 feet here and it's divided in the middle by these power poles.
But then you also have a wide swath over here that pedestrians can use as well.
So there's a lot of width.
There's a wide pipeline for non-motorized travelers, pedestrians, bicycles, what have you, to get through here.
And so that's a possibility, something that we can talk to UNT about so that cyclists heading south on Fry Street could potentially pick this up off of the road
so they'd have a protective cycle track essentially that's protected by a curb and come right down to get into campus there.
Oh, and so on the agenda, because the Traffic Safety Commission had already given their endorsement to this option for building the bike lane on Hickory Street,
we didn't, in the agenda we didn't call it out as that matter because we do want to consider this somewhat independently.
It does have merit independent of the bike lane question.
And so we just wanted to present this because it hadn't come to the Traffic Safety Commission yet.
I think those are the questions.
All right. Does anybody else have any questions?
So the whole purpose of this is to make it safe, more safe.
Yes, we think it will be.
Not just for business sake, but safety, not traffic for.
We think it will be safer for cyclists on Hickory Street to have that continuous bike lane that doesn't divert off the road for a block or two or merge with traffic for a block or two.
It will be from from Bonnie Gray to Carol.
There will be a safe place for bicycles to be pedestrians, especially making this crossing will have a.
They'll have a safer place to cross Mulberry Street there.
Having the narrower road, I think, will slow down traffic also.
But what about when everybody get ready to leave?
Yeah, like at 2 a.m. when they all close at the same point when it was a two way street.
Yeah, I mean, you know, there will be a fair amount of parking, but.
And the reason why I'm saying that is because there's no light at that intersection where they're going to cross that only one here or up here.
There is a light up here.
Down at the end.
Oh, down here, right there.
There's no light.
It will all just be traffic heading here and turning right.
This does continue onto the campus, but that is purely for you and T maintenance and so forth.
So there's no general traffic going that way.
So it's there.
There's only one way to go.
Yeah, I brought up the light situation because everybody's trying to leave at one time and there's one light at the other end of the street.
Everybody's going.
So that's the congestion of the traffic.
It's time not only going to get released by that one light.
So if you put a light, if we could put a light at that way and that way and synchronize them.
When that one turns red, this will be able, you know, this is still great that it turns red.
You kind of break up the floor of traffic.
You get one street going, then the other street goes.
Instead of everybody just going and horns barking and people trying to back in and back out.
Yeah, I think that it's technically a bend and there is no opposing traffic, if you may.
So I don't think a traffic light would be warranted at that location.
But the one at Fry and Hickory, we can definitely time it late at night.
A year ago or so, we did receive requests from PD to extend the time it remains in operation because typically all our lights, they go in flashing right after midnight.
And this area used to be still buzzing and going after midnight.
So PD had requested if we can extend it all the way to 2 o'clock.
Okay.
And we have done that.
So the timing on this, the street continues, the signal continues to operate as demand requires.
So there are detectors that will pick up.
If there is a big queue, it will extend the time and give more light.
So yes, so there is some mechanism to pick up the added volume.
Okay.
I didn't know you could do that with traffic lights.
Yeah.
We don't want to tell that, no.
One final thing I'll briefly mention too is that we are -- whoops, back.
Okay, we are proposing up here, you see we have kind of a bump out.
So that southbound Fry Street traffic, they will have a visual reminder, do not go straight because their lane will end at the extended curve.
And there also, there will be a shorter distance that pedestrians are crossing.
Instead of one lane, they'll be crossing two.
So that's something else that we designed into it.
Okay, and our job today is to make a recommendation.
Need a motion for that?
Yes.
Okay.
Then I move that we accept this plan with the recommendation of the no ride on red and exploring the contraflow on the sidewalk.
That's good.
And we need a second.
A second.
Okay, perfect.
Okay.
So everyone in favor of advancing this recommendation with the addition of a, if we can, a no ride turn on red and the exploration of contraflow bicycle lane on Avenue A in Mulberry, if possible.
I don't know how it would be possible in Mulberry.
I just wanted to toss it in there.
I appreciate it.
Okay, everyone favor.
Aye.
Opposed.
All right.
That's it.
Whoa, guys.
Okay.
Does this go back to mobility and then to council?
It goes back to council.
Council, we skip mobility, okay.
We presented to mobility a week ago.
Yeah.
So I think 16 April.
I just don't know how long this little ball bounces.
When does it go to council?
April 16th.
16th.
Okay.
Oh, goodness.
Tax day.
Is it?
Oh, okay.
Tax day.
Oh, and that leaves us with our last item tonight, which is 1F.
TSC 19-022 staff reports, including the matrix.
So on the staff reports.
Yeah.
So on the street reports, I don't really have much to report other than some of the textile projects are moving along pretty well.
The traffic is now on new bridges over the loop in Brinker, so it's slowly getting better.
It's getting there.
Currently, they have a schedule for opening the Brinker underpass or punching it through by May or June timeframe.
So Brinker will connect all the way to the southbound Ferns Road under that bridge.
That's their timeline.
And once that happens, a lot of traffic is going to shift from the loop to Brinker so that a lot of people are going to try and get quickly out of that area.
There are going to be temporary signals at the Ferns Roads and Brinker, both northbound and southbound.
That's a quick update on textile projects.
If you have any questions on the street report, I can try and answer them.
But I want to jump to the matrix if there's nothing.
On the matrix, we're trying to knock some of these down, and we had started in that direction with some of these lighting and pedestrian issues, item number 10, 11, and then also I think there's another one.
Yeah, the quarterly report, number two. So we have tried to start addressing some of the requests, and we'll bring some of these items back, especially when we narrow it down to intersections and safety concerns and our recommendations.
So we'll bring some of these back, but as things come along, we're trying to address.
I think some of them, number six, I think we can keep it there until it's actually done, because it's under design.
We'll look at new crosswalks at Hickory and Bell, and once it's done, we can take it out, but essentially we're in design, so we're doing something about it.
I think the UNT item, committee member Jim Owen had requested that item, so we did not ask UNT staff to attend.
We did not ask UNT staff to attend this particular session, because he called in and he checked if there was any item on the agenda that one of the items was not number eight, and we're planning on doing that on our next meeting.
We'll coordinate with UNT and see who would come in and discuss this particular one about enforcement and getting some data in there, so that item has been moved to May.
I have a comment about UNT parking.
So I've been playing around with park mobile, and I know that when we temporarily removed paid parking from the UNT area, the main impetus for the business owners to protest the park mobile with the removal of the meters was the price.
But park mobile allows anybody to adjust the parking rate that they want, and so SMU, for instance, uses park mobile, it's $0.35 for four hours.
The idea is that at least it moves people through, and you can park down in Deep Elm for $3.00 for four hours, so really Denton uses really high park mobile rates compared to big hunks of other park mobile users.
So if UNT, if Denton wanted to use park mobile, it appears that you can choose the rate that you want, and if turnover is your goal, then you don't have to go with some of the original rates that we were maybe looking at with park mobile.
And understandably, we'd have to be able to pay somebody to do the ticketing, but we'd have to calculate the breakeven point on that. So anyway, I realize that would involve all that interlocal business perhaps with UNT, but that's my park mobile input.
Okay, so do you want a parking rate discussion added to this particular and ask UNT if that's something that they're willing to consider as far as their parking rate, because that's what they're deciding on their parking rate.
I'm going to say yes.
I don't have any other discussion, and I'll leave it up to you adding more items.
Seven minutes to get here from my house. And, and this is this is a constant Dallas where we're really doing all the construction and in the, in the busy hours or whatever.
It's one lane, one lane for buses one lane for everything. And at some point in time, that closed off both sides of the sidewalk, where you couldn't walk you couldn't do anything.
You have to walk in the grass it's raining, you know because I drive as well as walk around the bus wherever, whatever, whatever I can do the same a little bit, I'd be honest with you, but to get here at almost 40 minutes, you know what I mean and you get to the light, and it's one lane.
Five o'clock in the evening at one lane. Is there a beginning point for them and an end point to them and they say okay five o'clock we need to shut it down, lane needs to open, we need to get traffic moving, because this is a Dallas lane and everybody's trying to turn on the teaser lane.
And that light, 15 minutes to get from Dallas drive to 35, 15 minutes, one block. So, I just, okay, you know.
Matrix.
That's the way to start your first meeting.
It's just one of those things.
I have a sidewalk question to them. There are places where, and it has to it is clearly old construction, but where there is you're walking along on the sidewalk, and then the curb cut is to a parking lot for instance, is a full scale curb.
There's no ramp. So you're walking walking, whoop, curb, curb, driveway, curb. So it's not ADA compliant. And there's one of those spaces on Congress over at, like at the corner of Congress and maybe Elm.
And there are a couple places on Hickory. So I'm assuming that as the Hickory sidewalks are rebuilt, that those places where again it's a full on, full blown curb that you step up and or step down.
But I'm wondering overall in some of the old parts of town, some of the old sidewalks where there were not, where their design standards at that time did not require ADA compliance. Will there be a time when those curb cuts, those driveways would have to come into compliance?
Correct. So currently we are, we are going through a developing an ADA transition plan. If you've noticed, there is a small golf cart driving on some of the sidewalks.
What it's measuring is slopes, if the cross slopes are right, if the different panels are raised, not raised, if the differential between the panels is enough, more or less.
So they're, they're making sure that everything is ADA compliant. So they're collecting the data currently. Data should be available for us to look at our first look in May.
That will tell us that we are out of compliance on that many locations and these many linear feet of sidewalk. Once we get that information, then we develop a plan, could be a five year, 10 year, 15 year, depending on what's the cost price on some days and how we can fund them and take it to council.
That's our plan. So we're getting the data on all the old existing sidewalk. And then the new sidewalk going is definitely going to be compliant and we're making sure all new construction is compliant.
But the current one, we are going through a transition plan and there will be a plan to have everything slowly funded in the next five, 10, 15, whatever cycle we choose and get all of them replaced.
Okay. How do you determine what's prioritized? What goes first? Yes. And Mark can answer that. But there is a, there is a committee on persons with persons. Yeah, it has a really long name and fantastic.
So disabilities. It had its first meeting in February. Third meeting will be this month. It's really great. We have a great group of people. And this month we will be presenting just some general information about that ADA transition plan.
It's not won't be done, but just some of interim data and just examples of things that it's generating.
So as a first step, there will be some recommendations from the consultant that's going through the process, saying that this is really, we're really inaccessible area and we need to fix this area first because it's high pedestrian.
And then we'll vet all of those different things through the committee and say if the committee wants certain areas to be focused or fields that there's a need in certain segments or certain locations, they will be the one recommending it to council for prioritizing.
So we're going to go through the process of sharing the data and then having them having an input on the priority from from the committee. And most of the things I've put on the matrix is specifically I try to identify areas where we don't have curb cuts, but everywhere else around us.
And so it's just this barrier for if you're in a wheelchair, it's like you can get everywhere except we just have this one spot that stops you. And so that's what I've been trying to, you know, get on the on the matrix to make sure that we can start getting this.
But they'll know people that I'm sure that committee will know there is they want. I saw them up on Sherman and Bell. So they're getting out from the core.
I have a couple quick ones. It's and these may be being addressed already. But you and T is finishing up right now. The new welcome center and that area is now probably going to get more foot traffic and their side.
If you kind of just walk around that building on the far sides, specifically over on Avenue B and like go down Eagle Drive on Eagle Drive.
There's no sidewalks at all leading up to that area. And the people are going to start walking over there a lot more. So there should be some sidewalks in that area.
And then just and I'm going to be has some good stuff going on. But I'm sure that'll get fixed there.
But so I'm just suggesting that as an area to take a look at and you can go on both sides of the building, essentially on the side, not not actually on Eagle Drive, but on the other on the sides of the building on Avenue B and then the street on the other side.
And you'll just see disconnected sidewalks or just no sidewalks. There's one area that just dirt and that people have to walk through.
So I think that's the closest area to Eagle Drive and Avenue B.
We are working on a request. I think it's Avenue C and Maple from you and we have to do an interlocal agreement.
But there I know there there has been a request. Yeah. So there you have like you're kind of walking through driveways and stuff on that side.
And then if you go to the other side Avenue B, if you just look right there on that left side of Avenue B right there, if I'm remembering it right, that area is on the far side closest to.
Sorry, maybe I'm looking at it backwards. It's the it's if you look on the if you go down and on the kind of right side of Eagle Drive right there, that area to the on that right side of the street.
There you go. Right there. There's just nothing. So those trees where they are, it's just dirt.
And so you just kind of have a loss of any sidewalk, not where the construction is, but going back towards didn't Wesley that that direction on.
Sorry, is that is that clear? I feel like I'm explaining it poorly.
Well, we'll look at it.
Where those trees are basically.
Yeah, where the trees are right there. That's where there's nothing that's there. There's nothing.
I think there is a challenging terrain there between the level of the parking lot and then the level of the street.
Right there. Yeah. Yeah. And the other the other side.
The other I was actually talking about the other side of the street over here. Right there. Yep.
So there's just there's nothing there kind of as you walk down it.
One other quick one over by the square kind of at the area where all guapos was that or in the little zoom zooms, you know, the little shop right there.
Prairie Street right there is just there's it seems like an easy connection and there's no sidewalks between Locust and what's our street on the other side that goes the other way.
Yeah, there's so between Locust and I thought that was a really easy spot to connect and there's just the sidewalk doesn't continue and there's not a clear path for pedestrians.
So that's just one other area I noticed.
Unfortunately, I'm starting to run a lot more again. So I'm getting out and taking pictures of all these areas.
Sorry for the matrix.
If you go to.
Yeah, we're zoom zooms is I don't know that may have been a.
You have another landmark. I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
South of South of Sycamore.
Yeah.
And on the on the north side, yeah, either side really honestly, but the north side I thought was easily to fix because there's actually you have concrete in spots there.
But you can see it's just like totally unclear where pedestrians supposed to go and get trucks and stuff just parked there.
It seems like we already have concrete to work with there.
Can you see where he's walking.
The two sides of the street. I thought that north side was the easier one to to fix in the short term, and it's just about making it clear.
So we do keep a running list of sidewalk requests and we can add that to our running list.
There's not a consistent funding source, but when they do become available, there's talk of a potential bond in the future, some things like that, then.
And once we have it on the list, it's at least ready to be considered.
And so, yeah, we'll add it to that.
Thank you. I know it's a long process.
We've 50 years of bad planning and we're fixing it now.
Finally, it's just hard to just quick one that little drainage channel south of Prairie that will be under construction and we're going to box it completely and around it.
So as part of their project, I mean, we have an easement there where it'll be really easy to put a sidewalk on top of it.
All the way parallel to Prairie going west.
So I want to beat Carol Boulevard again, just because that's what I do.
But I have I find Carol Boulevard just to be the psychological as well as physical barrier between the neighborhoods on the west side and the square city hall, everything over here.
And so we can cross. We have places we can cross, you know, Hickory. Is there a signal? Is it Mulberry or Sycamore where there's a signal?
Mulberry has a signal.
And then after that, there are no other signal crosswalks until you get to Eagle.
So you've got all those businesses. You've got all those apartments. You've got all that.
And then you finally get to Eagle before you can cross at a signalized crosswalk.
And I think that's a huge, huge barrier. And then if you travel north, you have the same thing.
Congress has a signal crosswalk. But then after that, you've got Egan, you've got Panhandle, you've got even the then you've got nothing, nothing, nothing until you get to Crescent.
And I think you've got a signal at Crescent.
So there are these gigantic expanses of Carroll Boulevard that most of it has sidewalk on either side, but you are not supposed to cross unless you're crossing at a signalized crosswalk.
And so I cross where I want to cross, but that's me. And I was walking home the other day from, you know, walking over to Sleeping Lizards.
I was walking west on Egan Street. And, you know, I know I can cross at Egan Street, but I watched a family, and they're pushing a baby stroller coming up, and they stood at the intersection.
It was a Saturday, and it wasn't even highly trafficked, but they stood at the crosswalk at Carroll and Egan for a little bit, and they watched cars go back and forth.
And then they turned around, walked over to Court, and of course they could cross at Congress.
But, you know, that's really so prioritizing vehicles on Carroll Boulevard to, I think now, maybe this didn't used to be the case, but now more people walk, more people bike.
And we prioritize vehicles all the way down Carroll Boulevard, whether it's at Hickory or at Congress, you know, anywhere else, to the detriment of keeping those neighborhoods permeable.
And there's so much, there should be so much more interconnectivity between the neighborhoods on the north and the businesses and neighborhoods and amenities on the east side, but we make it really difficult.
What can we do about that?
By tomorrow.
And I also just, I'll say I saw people dashing across the street, just as you're saying, in the middle of the street, like they're running for their lives, just like two days ago.
So right away, one of the options is hawk signals at some of these intersections, or they can be started and punched in just for pedestrians.
Not like that. It'll be a full blown red, green, and yellow light.
So you push the button completely goes red vehicles have to stop you cross and then it goes green remains green until then the next pedestrian comes in.
High intensity and they are purely pedestrian signals. They remain green for traffic. If there's no one crossing.
Okay.
We want a lot of those.
You made a mistake.
Yeah, there are several locations on on Teasley. I want to put one across from the park.
We have options. Okay. I really think that just even in the past 10 and 15 years Denton has changed so much.
There's so many more people walking so many more people on their bikes, and we're people are people want to get out of their cars.
And it's better for all of us if we do, but we still have we still have streets that were built in the 50s.
Good old Eisenhower.
I've got one question did Highland ever get their protected bike lane.
Yeah.
I'll talk about that so we are going to be cooperating with UNT a cost sharing agreement, and to do that, it really slowed things down because you do an interlocal agreement between the city and UNT, but it is in the works.
What is there an estimated time I went and checked it a couple times because I was excited that's right about my building.
I want to procrastinate I go see.
Early in the morning every morning you go.
Some in some ways the decision to share the cause between the two entities slowed it down, like the are we thinking like more the fall by the fall now or.
We'll take we'll take it through council quickly. Yeah, hopefully by the fall semester. Yes.
Appreciate it. Appreciate that. Thank you along that lane, you were going to do Hinkle also but what's the timeline on Hinkle. Yeah.
It's taking you to the. So, you're talking about it. Yeah, which segment. No, you're talking about the drainage and the street portion.
Well, you wasn't Hinkle. Yeah, as one of our demonstration protected lines. Correct.
So that's going to be dependent on.
It's going to be dependent on the construction of Hinkle it's currently under construction. So, the drainage work has the drainage, as well as the street work.
Once that's completed.
Yeah, the drainage work has started, but the street, I believe they have a 12 month time frame for construction.
Right after that will go in. I mean, strapping lanes and putting some stuff back is the last thing we have to do. Right.
Just don't want to forgotten.
Okay, does anybody have anything else to add to the matrix.
Okay. Well, with that, unless we've got any other business we want to conduct for next time. Okay. We are adjourned at 725. So, thanks everybody for coming.