Good morning, everyone.
We are here for the Mobility Committee.
After determining that a quorum is present, the Mobility Committee of the City of Denton,
Texas, is convening in a regular meeting on Wednesday, June 26th, 10 a.m., in our council
work session room.
First thing on the agenda is the citizens' comments on agenda items.
Have we had any citizens' comments?
No.
So we're going to move on to item two, items for individual consideration, AMC 24-016,
consider approval of the minutes of May 29th, 2024.
Is there any -- we need a motion for approval.
Anybody want a motion for approval?
Okay.
I move approval.
I'll second.
Okay.
I move and second.
Can we get approval, yes or no?
Aye.
Can we get an aye?
Sorry, had a little brain situation there.
So it's been moved and approved for the minutes of May 29th, 2024.
BEMC 24-017, receive a report and hold a discussion regarding the City of Denton transportation
mobility project status report.
Good morning, everybody.
John Poster, Innovative Transportation Solutions.
Start right in with I-35 North.
The 076 project is a project closest to us, I mean, 074.
And it's got a ready-to-let date of May 25th, but our dollar amount for that section, which
is half a billion dollars, is in the following fiscal year.
So currently, it's got a let date of July 2026.
We're working on the unified transportation plan.
If they happen to be able to move up half a billion dollars, we will, but probably not.
So that's the main part of the project, it's fully funded.
We're still at the budget that we anticipate, and this will allow us to get the next section
totally torn up before we start the next one.
And this is just showing you the utilities that we're working on for each section, and
the yellow highlights different from what you saw last month.
The merged job let in April 4th, I think we went over this last time, Seaman was a low
bidder.
All the firms had a maximum amount of 56 months they could bid, and all the firms bid 56 months.
So Seaman was the low bid at $100 million over what we had.
The district came up with $50 million, and the commission came up with $50 million, and
they awarded the contract.
And we'll start to see, probably next month, one of these types of reports that show you
what they're doing, and what they're doing right now, they're basically just mobilizing
and waiting for some of these utilities to clear by the end of June.
I have a question on that one.
Yes ma'am.
Did I hear you say that it's $100 million over what was...
Right, it was $450 something million estimated, and it came in at $555 or something like that.
Okay, and so you say that's over what was initially...
What I'm doing is trying to prove a point.
It was 18% over what the estimate was.
Okay, and so the estimate took place how many years ago?
They did it about four months before they led the project.
So what's happening in North Texas is, North Texas, the state in general is trying to spend
$200 billion every two years on an infrastructure.
And in North Texas, we're the only ones that are able to get our projects ready to let.
Houston is $2 billion behind their letting schedule, Austin's a billion and a half, San
Antonio's about a billion.
So the place to be if you want to work is North Texas.
But what happens is we've got all these projects that are going to let, so we are competing
against ourselves in projects, and material costs are going up.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you, sir.
Yes.
So how does the various firms, and your firm, and the engineers involved, you know that
because you just described it to us, how do we get where that 18% is zero, where the estimates
are better?
All engineering firms know they don't want to be the low bidder, right?
They want to be the high bidder.
And in the last two years, what I'll do is I'll give you on our next report, I'll show
you what the TechStats construction cost index has gone, happened over the last four years
in general.
But in particular, the last two years, construction costs have gone up close to 70%.
And the reason that is is that there's a lot of batch plants that are having trouble producing,
there's a lot of whenever you have a hurricane somewhere and a lot of signals get torn down,
the lead time for signal material is long.
We only had two bidders on this project, because they were -- they have to be large firms to
be able to do these size projects.
And so they're working everywhere.
So we try, but the construction inflation is outpacing what we're anticipating.
And we do a look back, which that's all I know that the state does, is they do a 12-month
rolling estimate for unit prices.
It's just a rolling estimate, and that's what they use.
Sometimes we hit them, sometimes we don't.
The question was more geared at how do we -- let me get closer to the bullseye so that
our estimates are a little tighter.
This is not me throwing blame.
This is me, like, how do we be better?
If I figure it out, I'm going to make a lot of money.
Y'all won't see me tomorrow if I figure it out.
All right, thank you.
So your Mayhill job, this is the big grade separation at 35 and Mayhill.
Just to put this in perspective, when we first started doing this project, we thought it
would be about 74 million bucks three years ago, four years ago, and now it's 125.
Now we did add some scope, but there has been some construction increases in this one as
well.
And this is the improvements.
If you remember, all we're going to do is go to about to where the quick trip gas station
driveway is for that intersection.
It'll be 12 lanes wide, as opposed to the 10 lanes you have at loop 288 underneath the
freeway.
And I just met with the county judge yesterday, and he's very interested in making sure that
that segment from 35 to Colorado functions properly.
So I'm going to need to work with your staff to figure out what it is that McCarthy's going
to be.
And McCarthy's doing it at that intersection, because is there something we can do to make
it bigger now?
I think it's better to do it now than later.
And we are going to use RTR funds for that middle piece.
And I'm working with Trevor on that.
He calls me twice a week.
So we're ready to let June 25, so the merge will be torn up.
We're about to tear this one up in June, and in September we'll tear the further one up.
So I'm going to go south.
That's my favorite project right now.
Yeah.
Remember, this adds those flyovers, bypasses, so you don't have to stop a brinker to go
from 288 to Mayhill or Mayhill to 288.
Right.
OK.
So the middle section, we did meet with TechStat.
They have 288 million of the 423.
I need to make sure Ms. Trill puts that in there for the asterisk next time.
We just got it.
It was in the southern section, and this changed UTP that the RTC is going to -- we're going
to approve the STAC, I think this week or next week, whenever they meet, flips the -- this
week flips money from the south to the north, and then we met with TechStat, and they found
a project they can do for about 300 million, and basically it just means eliminating frontage
roads where there's no development, and there's just floodplains.
But all the majors will be done, 407, 2449, and all those other ones in the middle, I
can't remember.
All those interchanges will be built.
We'll just leave out some of the frontage roads where there's no development.
So we'll update that with our next report once the UTP is approved.
Allergies.
So this is the project across the lake.
It's essentially done, and when I say those TechStat reports, do you see this report we
do here to tell you what's going on with the project?
You'll start to see that on the merge.
You'll see that on the A-Hill breakout, and you'll see that on the 074 project.
But right now you see punch list, punch list, it's just various things to make sure that
the contract is closed out, but the road's essentially open to traffic.
So are we expecting not to have any kind of lighting or anything?
I know we can't do it over the bridge, but before you get to the bridge, I mean, I'm
sorry.
The lake, after the lake, not any kind of lighting or anything.
So you're talking about continuous illumination?
Yes.
Oh, is that what it's called?
Yes, thank you.
I don't know when lights are interchangeable and something people get confused, but the
Corps won't allow continuous illumination over their property.
Right.
TechStat doesn't do continuous illumination.
If you see a road that's got continuous illumination, somebody other than the state paid for it.
Because, and don't shoot the messenger, the state says they build the road, so the reflective
materials on the road and the signs and markings are all you need to be able to see where you're
going is your headlights.
That's the way they build their roads, so you don't need continuous illumination.
So there can be, but it would have to be a deal where the entity that interacts, it has
to enter into agreement with TechStat.
Sometimes TechStat will help pay for the installation, but the maintenance and cost of electricity
is on the third party.
Okay, so that probably sounds like that might be the county.
I'm just saying what people are thinking.
I will tell you right now that in the 30 years I worked for Denton County, we have never
put one stick of continuous illumination on any road, because if we did, that's all we'd
spend our money on.
We wouldn't be able to build any roads.
I was going to say, I don't know that we want to say everyone wants continuous illumination,
especially over core property and wetlands.
Well, you can't do it on the core, that's a dead end.
Even if they would let it happen, I'm not sure I would, that would be a thing I would
push for.
Just saying.
Well, the county won't help you on that.
Okay, thank you.
All right, Yalook 28 West Frontage Roads, we continue to move forward on this project.
Chain Patel is in the design phase and we're still moving utilities and we anticipate being
done with all of the right of way at the end of this year.
We made changes for the city and the developments on the southern end at 288 or 2449 right now,
but 288 in the future in Underwood, I think we got all that worked out.
Had to do a mini reeval for that and the dollar amount for frontage roads for the segments
combined is 227 million and the intent is to do, we were going to do from 288 down to
380 so that the city could then restrict trucks through town and make them go all the way
around.
But then Hunter Cole popped up and we're hard charging so we decided instead of doing two
frontage roads from 288 down to 380 plus the grade separations over the railroad and the
380, we'll just do one frontage road northbound, make it one way in each direction, grade separate
288, I mean 380 in the railroad.
So you can go the whole loop, it'll be a two lane road, one in northbound, one in southbound
and then as the development and the city picked the northbound because what that allows is
everything to develop inside the loop to the exact corner edge of the frontage road where
it'll be in the future and then as the developments warrant we'll build the other frontage road
and so you'll have two lanes going north, two lanes going south, kind of like what we're
doing on the toll road and then ultimately there will be a main lane freeway through
there.
Any questions?
Ultimately.
I told you a joke on this, when I started on this project I was single and skinny and
handsome and I've got three kids out of college that have been married for 31 years and I'm
still not done with it.
I'm going to be buried out here somewhere I think.
We'll pick you a little spot over there on the corner for 35W and 288, we'll put you
at the verge.
There you go.
Down that floodplain.
There you go.
No because that would be THC and we couldn't build the road there because you'd be buried
there.
See?
No you can move dead people because they don't complain, you can't move a park.
That's what I heard just yesterday on the project.
I don't want to hear that now.
Federally speaking.
Okay so we're working on the 288, I call it the 288 north section and the connector
to 380.
I think we've got most of the kinks worked out on this.
We are looking at having a, we had our second public meeting in June, 52 attendance so what
happens is, remember how we had a lot of people torqued because we were showing multiple alignments
further out, as soon as we pull into a more unified area that we're working in, the number
of people involved drop.
Councilman Mc?
There were some questions brought up at that meeting, there was access for a business on
the south side near Giesling and it wasn't clear how they were going to have access because
that's where the bypass cuts off.
Do you know the name of the business?
East of the flea market, relatively new business, kind of where we're making the transition
from elevated.
If they made that comment in the public meeting, it has to be addressed and we'll get it addressed
and then come back and bring it to the mobility.
I mean I don't know there will be a problem, it's just people were commenting that, I think
Scott was there.
So the point I'm making is, during the public meeting process, if anybody brings up anything,
we have to go study it and tell them why we can or can't do it, right?
So that's how you go from 17 alignments down to four, down to two, because you take everything
anybody says and you study and go well the Corps won't let you go there or too many displacements
or you've got a cemetery, stuff like that.
So whatever they ask about, it will be addressed and we'll get that information back to you
when we know.
And the other one I want to check on, it's the same, not necessarily been long enough
to answer this question, but the Texas U-turn there at potentially at Deerwood, did we go
forward on anything there in terms, and the only reason I ask is because it seems like
this is a combination of text out in the city and that is shown as proposed and is going
to continue to be there.
So no change.
Those are easy to do.
All right.
I have a question.
She has a question.
So me and somebody else met with Farhan and a former staff member several months ago and
you may not be able to answer this question, but looking at the initial designs, it looked
like the side path they just built on 380 might get interrupted and create like a two
mile detour.
Do we know if that sort of direct access along 380 is being maintained for a bike path on
the north side?
Well, if you're walking, don't you want to walk farther?
We can look at that.
The intent is to keep the out-grade traffic to go continue on 380 to the 288 intersection
and the only part that goes to 288 through that cut bypass are the main lanes, so they'll
be elevated areas.
So it shouldn't have to be that much of a detour just to get under and around the bridge.
It's going to be elevated.
But I will tell you that trails and shared use paths, if they're there, the state has
to accommodate them.
And if they're not, and you'll ask for them, we have to accommodate them.
The FHWA has a multimodal view of all roads.
So however you want to walk, drive, pedal, or whatever, rickshaw, the roads got to allow
it.
And then segment seven, I just do this separately.
It's part of the 288 job, but I leave this on here because you all are committed to Bonnie
Bray section six and south with various partners.
Cognitex decided they'd pick this up in its entirety.
So whatever it ends up costing, it won't cost us anything.
It just has to be consistent with what you all want and tie it into Bonnie Bray segment
six.
Airport Road, we are ready to let about this time next year.
And I just got to come up with $34 million right now and then, could happen, it'll happen.
In 1173, we are in the process of again, doing the utility relocations, right aways acquired.
We got to go meet with Crum on Hopkins.
They've got some drainage issues related to Hopkins as it ties into 1173.
But generally speaking, we're moving forward with the railroad agreements, and we seem
to be on track to be ready sometime next year.
And this is a project that Tech Stop Dallas District asked the county to initiate, because
the volume on 1173 is significantly higher than that road can handle.
So we're fairly confident that even though, because there's a lot of drainage issues
out there, we're fairly confident once we get it ready to let that, you know, it's a
big number, but we'll find it.
I believe we have a question.
So remind me the configuration of Bartol, the new 1173 Bartol on the east coast of the
freeway.
It goes up.
Yeah.
What's that profile going to be like?
It'll be the six lanes ultimate that we're proposing, and it'll go down Bartol because
it matches y'all's thoroughfare plan.
And then we're building that interchange with the 35 job already.
And so that when 1173 comes in, it'll be able to go right across the 77 and move down.
And if you look, we're talking about coming down right here to 288.
So you'll be able to come 1173, go up, hit 35 where 77 hits, and then come straight down
into town without having to do that janky move that we're having to do now.
Okay, I appreciate that.
And all of this part right here, all that improvement for the project will be built
with the 35 job.
Okay, the outer loop, it mostly impacts the city of Denton.
So I mean, it goes through the area, but Mylam and 35 is generally speaking where we still
have to carry two alternatives because it's in EIS, EIS requires you to carry two.
The red alignment is Rector.
Blue alignment is Mylam.
Blue comports with your thoroughfare plan, and it comports with Aubrey's thoroughfare
plan.
So we cut it into three segments, east, green belt, west.
And there's a red and blue in the east.
There's only one place across at the green belt, and there's a red and blue in the west.
And the main part of the outer loop that we're working on in this Denton area is Mylam has
a Mylam Road north that ties in and then Mylam Road south goes west.
156 is out here, you can't see it here, but it's right here, 156.
And so COG has told us in 2050, 156 is going to be a super arterial, which means six lanes
at minimum.
And so there's a desire on the part of the COG to see some connection between 35 and
156 on one of those Mylams.
Mylam is the county that just bought all that land for an expo.
And Andy being a long-term planner, he's not planning for 2050, he's planning for when
somebody comes along and says, "Why don't we just punch the freeway through the expo?"
So we're trying to figure out the best way through that.
Techstop's given us a 1,200-foot hole, you call it a bridge, a great separation so we
can hit anywhere in that Mylam North, Mylam South, to whatever makes the best use of funding
from 35 over to 156.
And once we get the geometry fit, because what happens is there's direct connects and
wherever we decide to hit, that direct connect slides up and down to wherever those main
lanes are, and then that has a ripple effect on your interstate access justification report,
so you got to move all these ramps, and so it's a moving target, but we got to know what
the expo's doing.
And so we met with the county yesterday, and they've got to get us some information.
That's the only big deal.
Everything else is pretty much settled.
But you're going to have to go across the green belt, 500 foot, it's probably a no-go
for them, 350 foot still gives us future expandability and redundancy.
They want us to stay in 150 feet, and 150 feet would be frontage road main lanes.
No redundancy, no future capacity, and if it's a mile-long bridge and if anything happens
under the frontage roads, fire or whatever, the main lanes would have to be shut down.
So we're going to win the argument, but we got to have to have the argument with the
Corps on why we can't stay inside there easement.
But we'll do what we always do with the Corps.
We'll surrender early and pay what they ask, and we'll get through it.
So the people that are coming to the meetings to discuss this particular thing, is there
any comment from the community?
Absolutely.
Do they want to do 500 feet or 100, you know, what do they want?
Okay, so that's a perfect, what I think we ought to do is have LJA scheduled to come
over here and just make a presentation for you all at the Mobility Committee, because
they've got the comments granulated for all the meetings they've had by east and west
region by mood, intent, concerns, environment, location, type.
They got all these questions they ask, and it's very granular.
So we know exactly what they feel, but the reality is, is that we meet Denton County,
Collin County, Rockwell County, and Kauffman County, meet with COG and TXDOT every month
on the outer loop.
The outer loop will be a freeway, the Mobility 2045 calls it as a freeway, and the feds require
you to match whatever the Mobility Plan calls for.
2050, we're going to exceed, Denton County is going to exceed in the 2050 plan population
in Collin County for the first time.
And the reason is, is we've built all of our roads from county line to county line, county
line to north of Denton, Collin County has only got a third of their county developed.
So we're going to bypass them, and the freeway for the outer loop is already in the plan
as a freeway.
So we're talking about where the freeway goes, not whether it's a freeway, and that's what
the EIS is going to do.
Did I answer your question?
Is it hot in here?
I mean, you did, you answered the question, but I guess I'm just a little bit more simpler
than that.
You mentioned something about 500 feet, and then 300 feet, and then 150 feet.
So only at the, only at the green belt, so the green belt has not only flow adhesements,
but the whole green belt corridor has got what's called conservation.
Yeah, the conservation part.
And they literally require an act of Congress to do anything inside those conservation areas.
So we're, the feds are telling us, the Federal Highway Administration is telling us, plan
for the future, redundancy and expandability, the Corps of Engineers is saying, don't touch
my property.
Okay.
So the two feds have got to work it out.
And typically what happens is the Corps can't say no, they could just make it hurt real
bad.
And we're used to that.
So just before we get too far down the road on this.
Five years ago, 2016, whatever that is, that's a whole lot longer than five years ago, shoot.
The county knew the green belt was going to be the linchpin for this project.
So we've done two things, one is cockpit $50 million in the 10 year plan, just for the green
belt crossing.
So that's to make it as environmentally sensitive and is compatible.
And what we're going to do is whatever the court tells us for, we're going to go beyond
the norms.
So everywhere the 23 mile outer loop crosses any kind of a flow adhesement of any type,
we are going to just accommodate the freeway crossing.
We are also working on this thing called TSI transportation stormwater initiative, where
we're going to go vertical up and down those floodplains, widen out the ability to detain
or retain.
It'll look, it'll be a detention pond, but it'll look like a retention pond because we're
going to be using those flowage areas to capture that water and then to use natural means to
not send it down the river to Dallas, but to recharge the aquifers.
So the road's going to act as a filter.
So that 500 foot is needed for things that you would not necessarily do on a freeway.
Aesthetically, so in other words, another thing we're doing is all the other corridors
have about 24 feet back a curve for parkway.
We know we got to be aesthetically pleasing going through here.
So we're close to 50 feet back a curve for parkway for aesthetically pleasing for the
environment.
There's a lot going on on this.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
If it's possible, and not to take John off the hot seat because I like putting him there,
but maybe if John could coordinate with LJA, we could have them come present, I think it'd
be useful for the group.
Absolutely.
That'll be nice and that'll be helpful to the people that are not making it to the meetings.
Yes, and it is very, the information that I'll bring to you is mind-boggling.
Okay.
Yes, I understand.
Thank you very much.
If you can get them on upcoming agendas, let them know the date, that'd be great.
Yes, sir.
Let them know that we'd like to meet with them.
Yes, sir.
I was just going to say, if there's a possibility to not have it in July or to have some sort
of static report that couples with it, that would be helpful.
Yeah, I don't think I'm here in July.
I'm going to be in Wisconsin.
We'll get out of vacation season.
Thank you.
Appreciate that input.
Susie, do you have anything?
Okay.
Okay, y'all see what's going on with Alma Locus, raise the roof.
Raise it up.
This is where somebody else besides me talks, so I'm just going to pass it off unless somebody
else talks.
Oh, okay.
You can finally pass it off.
November of this year, we're supposed to be done.
It'll be beautiful.
And then glossaries.
There it is.
I'll go back to the top.
Oops.
Sorry, y'all.
Do y'all have any other questions for me or anything?
I don't have any other questions.
Does anybody else have any other questions?
No.
All right, it sounds like you are good to go.
I don't know how to undo that.
We'll turn it off.
Appreciate that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Polster.
Okay, we're going to move on to CMC 24-018, receive a report and hold a discussion regarding
accommodating bike racks with a focus on land, landfills, why would I say landfill?
In-field locations.
Landfills locations.
Well, maybe.
There may be bike racks at the landfill.
So I'm going to introduce myself a little bit.
So I'm Greg Scott, and I was told that I could choose my own title for today, and I choose
as my title for today the guy that has lived in many places, some of which have tried to
chase the car, tried to build their way out of congestion, and other places that have
not, that have succeeded in resolving congestion or living with congestion and kept their character,
kept their quality of life, and I hope that I can help you all do exactly that.
I don't know if that'll fit on a business card, but we are going to try to fit that
on a business card.
Okay.
And today, I'm going to talk about bike racks, okay, a piece of the puzzle, and also about
speed cushions, okay?
So first, bike racks.
Based on your questions.
These are based on your questions, right?
Hold on just a moment.
I'm going to fix the screen, but are we, oh, there you go, okay, beautiful, okay.
So the agenda for that is to first start with the big picture, talk about the key characteristics
of successful bike rack program, emphasizing infill locations, meaning places where the
city wasn't able to ask a developer to put bike racks in, okay, simple samples of innovation
and a recommendation, then we'll open it for questions and answers, okay.
So big picture is bikes have a surprising ability to improve the situation.
They, we all know that they help our health.
I didn't know about immune system, but they can help our health.
They can help our community, quality of life.
Maybe we don't understand that businesses, when they look to locate anymore, they are
out there trying to attract employees, and that quality of life is very important to
them to getting their employees.
And when they consider relocating, they're looking at that, okay.
Bikes generally are attractive to maybe a three-mile distance for most people.
Most of Denton is within three miles of the A train station, 52% of the nationwide of
all trips, all trips are within that three miles.
This is something not well known, and that is when you start up your car, before you're
a catalytic converter warms up, you're spewing out a lot more pollution than after the three
miles.
So it's disproportionate what a bike can do for air quality.
So those are some of the advantages of bikes.
However, the challenge is uncertainty for a new rider, they go, well, how do I do this?
I've always been driving.
How do I do this?
So what's a safe route?
What's a direct route?
What if it rains?
And what do I do with my bike so it can be safe?
So that's where bike racks come in.
Our job is to simplify the decision.
Key characteristics are that there's ample bike racks, they are visible and identifiable
as bike racks.
These are the areas that we can put bike racks.
These are examples of ample bike racks and visible bike racks.
You have the little sign up there, parking.
You have a lot of bike racks there.
This is in one block of Portland.
All these pictures.
Well, not the last one.
The last one isn't.
Ample and visible.
Okay.
Here's a grocery store and that and over on the left side.
Is there ample and visible bike racks?
No, I notice those are ample and visible bike racks, but it doesn't say anything.
You're right.
It just looks like something.
Right.
And to improve that, we should put a sign there if we do that, yeah.
All these examples are not going to be perfect.
And there's trade-offs, but we should strive for perfection.
Okay.
The other characteristic is context sensitive.
Think about where the bike racks are going to go.
What are the needs?
So I'm asking, how might bike racks be different at a commuter rail station versus a grocery
store versus an employer?
Any thoughts on that?
Oh, you're asking that right now?
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I have thoughts on that.
But I'd like to see bike racks at the commuter rail station because the commuter rail station
is next to a lot of resources.
So it'd be nice to be able to have bike racks there, walkable.
These places are walkable and then, so that'd be good.
Grocery stores?
What do y'all think?
Yeah, how might they be different than a grocery store?
I mean, commuter train, if you're leaving your bike at the station, let me make sure
I'm on, you're probably leaving it there for longer.
I would be looking for something more secure that's even harder to steal.
So I know Dart has the little covers, for example.
Something like a grocery store, you're not there as long.
So you don't need like special stuff like a cover or anything.
And then for an employer, I would hope I had indoor bike parking because that's like the
ultimate security so that my bike doesn't get stolen while I'm at work.
So that's kind of what I'd be looking for for those.
Yeah.
What about the idea of stealing bikes?
Is there just like a big massive stealing bikes, like stealing cars?
Especially at UNT, it's really bad.
Downtown to some degree, so where there's a bunch of bikes, there's going to be more
bike theft.
That's where the bike thieves go.
And it's really easy to steal most bikes with those really, those coily locks.
Super easy.
Big, big, big, big.
So the demand is going to be greater at the A train, right?
How long?
How long you're there?
You want some kind of protection?
And I add a destination, meaning not everybody just goes to the A train and that walks off,
you know, in Louisville or whatever and their office is right there or wherever they're
going.
You got to have some on the train, okay?
So we can ask those same questions about, you know, shopping trips, right?
This is geared towards shopping trips, right?
Go to Home Depot, get your big load of cement and we'll let Susie do that.
Okay.
And daycare, right?
Quick in and out, but you still want your bike safe, right?
And you've got to have your kids with you, I suppose, if you're going to daycare.
Okay, so identifiable.
Now we're going to buzz through the rest of these slides and if I go too fast just let
me know.
Okay, so innovation.
They're very identical.
These are bike racks.
These are called secret cycle loops and you can hook them to a bunch of things, right?
So it's right there.
You don't have to put anything new in the ground.
Hey, how about this?
You've got benches with bike racks hooked to them.
If you have limited space, put it up on the end.
But actually there's a lot of secret space here that virtually every intersection, every
driveway has what's called visibility triangle, okay?
So but the secret is, is cars can't park there, but bikes can park there.
So those are great places to put bikes.
So in this case, this is another Foreman picture from that same block that I walked around,
okay?
They put it in the visibility triangle.
They put it in the middle of the visibility triangle.
They put it on the driveway visibility triangle, okay?
Then there's innovation, like if you don't, if you don't quite have enough bike racks,
why don't you just show where, you know, in one spot, right?
Show how to get to the next one.
And if you want to test out a location, you put them on little rails or whatever.
It doesn't work one place.
It's more desirable in another place.
Pick it up.
Move it.
Hey, and then there's innovations for comfort, right?
Keep it out of the rain.
Have a small group of folks that have a spot for secure parking and out of the rain.
Or your individual locker.
So the recommendation is that we, as a city, have standards that show that bikes can go
in the sight triangle, that we pilot as pilots, right?
And test out the cycle loops.
See if those are hoops that we work with DCTA to make sure we have plenty of bike parking
at the station, on the trains as best as we can, on the buses.
And we really capitalize on the wayfinding so that people can know where to go, get rid
of that certainty.
So with that, I can take questions.
Yes, ma'am.
Oh.
Sorry.
I followed the rules.
So I really like the -- actually, can you go back one slide?
Do you have recommendations?
I really like the sight triangle use idea because it's otherwise basically dead space.
And I believe the reason you can put a bike there and not a car is just the car is taller
and the bikes are shorter so you can still see.
I know there's at least one spot at Hickory and Fry Street just north of UNT, sort of
a commercial area.
And there is a space that is no parking, but people frequently park there.
That could be a good location where there's consistent infractions at that location.
And I know at -- in front of Harvest House on Hickory Street, we do have a bike corral,
so the racks on railing basically.
And I think they requested it a long time ago, like they volunteered to have it there.
And then we do have some cycle hoops if anybody wants to go look at them along Hickory Street
in the Fry Street area north of UNT, they used to be parking meters and they put those
little circles on the old parking meters.
So I did have a question.
Do you think it would be possible to start some sort of small program where maybe a small
business could request a rack?
So for example, I think I have the most trouble with bike parking at older strip malls, places
like that where there's not really a street nearby, so there's not really that many poles
to walk to.
So that's kind of where I've had probably the most trouble.
I think I've seen grant funding for that, but, you know, I know the reality of our staffing
and that kind of thing.
So what's kind of your feel on like a small program where we had a small number of racks
where maybe a business requests one or applies for one?
Off the cuff, I would say it really is staff time, but I mean, they're relatively cheap.
And if it's a program and they're subsidizing and working together, it seems like a reasonable
approach.
This is more of a comment I'm going to say than a question, but in 2018 Denton applied
to be a bicycle-friendly community through the League of American Bicyclists.
So in DFW, some bicycle-friendly communities that have the designation are Frisco, Richardson,
Plano, and Fort Worth.
So whenever we applied, we got honorable mention.
We haven't applied since then, but, you know, sort of in between applications, we should
be trying to make improvements.
The things you have to do to get a designation are actually a really good blueprint for encouraging
and enabling more people to get around by bicycle.
And one of the things is bike parking and what it looks like.
And I know our development code already has standards that meet the requirements, things
like supporting the bike in two locations, allowing people to use a U-lock.
So they need to be able to lock the frame of the bike to the rack, otherwise people
just pop the wheel off and take off with the rest of the bicycle.
So definitely, you know, whatever we do, I would want that to match those requirements.
So I know the wave racks are not, they don't meet the requirements.
It only supports the bike in one location.
School yard racks that I've seen Denton ISD putting in, those don't meet the qualifications.
Like I tried locking my bike to it with a U-lock, and that didn't really work because
you can't get your bike up to the rack the right way.
But definitely like staple racks, inverted U-racks, and I believe also the cycle hoops
also hold it in two places and allow you to use a U-lock, so those match as well.
So just encourage us to make sure that we're following those standards.
And then one final question.
So there's so many things that we can do to encourage and prioritize or enable people
to get around by bicycle.
But we have to sort of prioritize our time and efforts based on funding, based on staffing.
So in your opinion, kind of where would bike parking fall in the priorities in terms of
impact of getting more people to bike, enabling more people to bike?
If you can sort of rank that, Ian?
Yeah, that's a challenging question, right?
It's going to depend on the bike, or right, on the cyclist, sorry.
Because each has their own priorities, but certainly bang for the buck, this is a pretty
good one.
Yeah.
Just wanted to quickly add to our answer.
Farhan Bhatt, Deputy Director of Transportation Services.
So both your questions, the last one about getting recognized as a biking community,
as well as this one where the strategic locations could be, we are conducting the shared mobility
study.
Greg's staff is developing scope for the study, and many of these guidelines would be part
of the study and recommendations.
When I said in past meetings that there are voids that we are identifying when it comes
to bike or active transportation, this is exactly what I meant, that there are things
that we are identifying which are there, and we would try to address through the study.
Okay?
Thanks.
Yes.
So I had a couple of similar questions, I'm going to leap off of Susie's.
I mean, the hoops look really attractive because of the flexibility and installation.
My question is, generally it looks like those are one, and maybe if you pushed it two bikes
on either side of the loop with one connection like Susie was referencing.
So I guess what's the pro, I'd be interested in the pro-con of that flexibility angle and
cheapness of installation versus racks that are higher density, and what's in the sort
of cost per bike spot kind of argument, what's the best bank for the buck on cost effectiveness
and efficiency for the planning and transportation divisions to kind of look at, your department
to look at?
Yeah.
I mean, the most expensive bike rack is the one that's not used, or that doesn't encourage
use.
So you put them, they need to be ample, meaning many of them, okay, and they need to be visible.
So I think the answer is really all of the above.
Yeah.
I mean, and you're going to hear this from me, well, hopefully I'll be employed with
you guys for a long time, but you know, for many years is flexibility is important, okay?
We don't sacrifice the good for the perfect, okay, we don't.
We need to be flexible.
If I could paraphrase, then what I'm hearing your suggestion being, and correct me if I'm
wrong, is on sort of recommendation number two, that is sort of those in many locations
and then larger density racks in specific locations, is that kind of what I'm hearing?
Sure.
I think that would be a pretty fair assessment.
Okay.
Then my second question related to this is, again, related to something that Commissioner
Rumer said, and that was in some of these places where, you know, city parking is city
parking on city streets, but we already do have, we have sort of already tried to pilot
the parklets in parking spots and there's been other opportunities to put, you know,
rack stations in parking spots.
I think you had a demonstration of two racks in the parking spot on the square, if I'm
remembering correctly, and 20 bikes or something in there.
I don't remember the exact number, but for, she was talking about businesses requesting
facilities, do we have opportunities where that partnership can be, we provide or subsidize
or fully subsidize a rack if we could get people to request one?
So A, that's one question, and then B, if those kinds of opportunities are available,
is that then more, is the barrier to adoption more the business or the city coming up with
bike racks?
So that's a two-part there.
I'm going to jump in just to say, from a budgetary standpoint, we can evaluate.
I know that Farhan's working on, you know, and with Greg, you know, somewhat of a strategy
of what we're going to do and where we can go.
Ultimately we'll present whatever those concepts are for incentives or that partnership, and
we can come back to you with that information.
I'd be really interested in, you know, figuring out whatever the, what's the best way to lower
the barriers to adoption, how much business, how much city, what's the ratio, because if
we had a warehouse with 10 racks just waiting around, then it is community leaders convincing
businesses to adopt if that's the barrier.
Otherwise, if it's the cost of the bike, then that's a different barrier kind of thing.
Yeah, and I think transportation services has a great deal of passion in this area,
and they absolutely want to do, and then there's budget constraints, and then ultimately what
it is that we go through the budget process this year and what it is that we're going
to be asking for and where that's going to fall our rank.
I appreciate that, Scott.
Thank you.
And my last question on this was sort of back to the number four, the wayfinding.
And I take it from the presentation that this was mostly informing people where other parking
opportunities are.
Yes.
So, but do we, we have a little bit of a cart before the horse.
We have to identify where we want them in the first place and find high occupancy, our
high desire spot so that they are well and truly used, so then we have the problem of
needing secondary parking so that we can apply signage to, but if we don't have primary parking
bike racks, then we don't know what our high use society, so it's a little, there's a little
bit of an order issue in there, is they, it is a little bit of, if you build it, they
will come, but they won't know to come until you build it, so, you know, there's an order
dependency that's happening there.
Yeah.
I'm going to step out on the ice here with Scott and say, look, let's put this in perspective,
okay?
We've heard TechStat and how they're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on
the latest road.
These bike racks are pittance relative.
Let's put it in perspective, right?
We have the principles, the principles that they're ample, that they're visible, they're
readily identifiable.
Stay with the principles.
They're not that much money, okay?
But you have to, having said that, there are silos, okay?
TechStat money is TechStat money, okay?
But there are ways to, you know, work across silos, and I hope we can find that.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Well, I have a question, particularly, so I understand that we can, as a community, you
know, kind of help decide where they're going to be and how they're going to be.
So we are looking at a variety of types of bike racks in particular places.
Are we going to be able to decide, like, the color of the bike racks?
I'm just looking for consistency, and we have new people coming in.
Can they see something pink over there and know that's our color?
And it takes me back to just the bike paths, in my experience with bike paths in other
cities.
I'll use Denver as an example.
I said something about going there last month and noticed that all their bike paths are
kind of like a lime green.
Everything that's green, I recognize as a path for biking.
Are we going to, are we looking forward to that conversation, Susie, anybody, on what
we want, you know, the consistency of color means a lot to people.
We have bike racks downtown right now, and they're red.
I can't really see them.
I just know they're there.
I'm not, you know, color blind, but it doesn't grab my attention.
Like, oh, if I had a bike, there's a bike rack, you know, without having to just look
for it or know it's there.
Are we going to, are we going to do that as a community?
Are you all going to decide for us, or is there a decision to be made in that regard?
Some colors are national standards, like the green, okay, and we will need to follow those.
Street markings, that's very important.
There are standard colors, but there are certainly opportunities that when we get down the road,
we can cover that.
So let us know what we'll have, be able to do.
You can be the chairman of the bike color committee.
Okay.
Very quickly, yes, when we kick off this study, shared mobility study, standardizing bike
facilities within the city of Denton would be one of the priorities as well.
So standards, not only the standard, what kind of bike lanes and where the colored markings
would be and what type, all of those would be addressed through that study as well.
Okay.
Thank you, sir.
I appreciate it.
I mean, some things, business owner, if they're a sponsor, may not want, but we need to balance
this.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
I think that's it.
Okay.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah.
You haven't got rid of me yet.
Okay.
Let's see.
I'm sorry.
At the top.
To the left.
There's a shortcut.
From the beginning.
There it is.
There you go.
Okay.
This is a...
Yeah.
She has to call the next time.
Oh, I have to call the next time.
Sorry.
Just going to go along with the flow.
DMC 24-09-019, receive a report and hold a discussion regarding speed cushions.
The basics.
Okay.
So we're going to start with the basics on this too.
Well, I got ahead of myself.
So the agenda is big picture.
Okay.
What are they?
What they are not, give you a sample that I'm personally familiar with, emphasize that
speed cushions are not the solve all by themselves, okay, and give you a recommendation, similar
to the last presentation.
So we have and are developing our cars to be little cocoons that we can drive around
in.
Okay.
We're going to have all these great things, right, to divorce ourselves from our environment
when we're driving, okay.
Historically, we've also done that with roads, okay, big wide roads, big wide corners, all
this good stuff to divorce ourselves, to make it mindless.
And guess what?
Me, you may have driven someplace you didn't intend to drive to because you just got in
the car and you drove to work when you meant to go someplace else.
Oh, thank God every time.
Well, there's unintended consequences for that, okay.
When driving is mindless, we end up with an epidemic of fatalities and severe crashes,
okay.
And in the last five years, within the city of Denton, we've had 83 fatalities.
That's on all roads, okay.
That's TxDOT and our roads, okay.
22 of those have been pedestrians or cyclists, 67 incapacitating injuries, 262 minor injuries.
We have other unintended consequences that we can't measure, is a whole lot of folks
that are afraid to bike, afraid to walk, feel like it's dangerous.
Sometimes it is, but they feel it.
They get big, they have heart attacks, yeah.
We have a quality of life.
People pull into their car, houses, into their garages, don't say hi to their neighbors.
We have higher transportation costs because people don't feel comfortable being out there.
And so when they have to have a car and they will drive because they feel like they have
to because we haven't made it easier.
Now we're changing this, okay, slowly but surely we're changing this, we're recognizing
the unintended consequences, but we still have a situation where like this place where
I actually lived, fun fact, my house is on the right side of that, you know.
We lived in, I lived in a neighborhood with a narrow street.
You couldn't pass two cars by each other.
There was kind of wavy roads a little bit.
So we could have, you know, our little safe little cocoon in our house, but then when
you want to go out on your major road through other people's neighborhoods, guess what,
you want to go fast, okay.
That's expected, speed is expected, okay.
But some of the, some of the other friction with these changes, one in particular that
you asked about that the city's trying to come to terms with is emergency vehicles,
okay.
The fire department is saying that they don't want to be slowed down, right.
And they, there's risk to their vehicles, right.
And so, you know, how do we, how do we resolve that, right.
Well one resolution, one resolution is speed cushions, okay.
So what are they?
This is the side view, one to 25 to one to 10 slope, three to four inches tall.
This is the standards, these are the NACTO standards, okay.
And you have up to five feet of flat spot on the top, okay.
And if that's not enough compromise on this, you have channels, two channels for fire engines
and emergency vehicles, so they can, they can go through those channels, so if that's
an issue, okay.
And so these, this is from DMERS, they make ambulances, right.
And these are the wheelbase from the center of each wheel.
This is, they make three basic types of ambulance and so, and there's a speed cushion on there.
So that gives you some sense of what a speed cushion is relative to that wheelbase.
So it's pretty smooth.
But what they are not, they're not a speed bump, they're not even a speed hump.
And I will tell you also that what you have on, I think it's Greenwood, that's not speed
hump.
It does not, it does not look like that.
It's closer to a speed bump than a speed hump, okay.
And now I'll give you the sample of what I'm familiar with, as I told you, I came from
Portland, Oregon.
And what you have here, and I told I wasn't supposed to bring this with me, is you have
downtown up here, a freeway here, freeway there, freeway here, and when people are coming
out of the downtown, they come on these arterials, they hit Mount Tabor Park, and they go one
way or the other.
Well, many of them chose to go this way, and here's our project right here, okay.
And this is what it looked like before, pretty fun, I bet, when they went through that.
And this is what it looks like afterwards, and you can see the channels on there, I'm
afraid to walk away from the microphone.
Okay.
So you see the channels there, and you see how long that is?
Describe that bottom picture.
Are we looking at speed bumps?
You are looking at a speed cushion.
Oh, a cushion.
Yes.
Which is smaller than a hump.
Longer.
Longer, so from here to here, you know, it's a good distance, okay.
So you're going over a rise, but you're doing so pretty gradually.
Okay.
So that space at the, like, I'm looking at two triangles.
Yeah.
And both of those triangles.
That's a notice for the driver, that's coming up.
Okay, but the cushion is the width between, you know, from one side, one back side of
one triangle to the back side of the other triangle, all of that whole space is one big
cushion.
Yeah.
I think they call it a cushion, not because it's all that soft, but because it kind of
looks like a cushion, you know, between the channel and the beginning, and kind of looks
like a seat cushion, I guess you could say, maybe a couch cushion.
It just appears to me as though the cushion is in the middle of the road, and then there's
some, the regular road is on the outside.
Oh, no, no, no.
That's what I'm looking at.
No, there is cushion here.
Oh, okay.
Cushion here.
Yeah.
Cushion here.
Oh, okay.
It just depends.
So there's four cushions, I guess you could call it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, but let's look at what the results were.
So what it did is instead of having some fast people at the very fastest, it scooched that
down, right, so that everybody was going about the same, much closer to the same speed.
That's what they did.
Okay.
So why say this is part of a package?
It's like the old commercials, you know, the cereal is part of a balanced breakfast, right?
It's not just the cereal.
You got to have the orange juice, whatever, okay, to really make it balanced.
So a speed cushion by itself is not the end all, okay?
You got to have some enforcement.
You got to have some education.
You got to look at other parts of the road and what's going on with that.
I mean, just down the road from this, they took this, and I'll speak really loudly, this
really big turn, which people could go very fast, and now you have to go like that, okay?
So it's part of balanced speed calming.
Okay.
So here's the recommendations, that we do more research, I know everybody hates that,
but with other departments, with the fire department, that we're all on the same page,
we all see the same things at the same time, okay?
Visits to comparable communities, we're not the only ones that's run into this, okay?
Evaluate, replace problematic bumps, okay, replace them with speed cushions, and clarify
city guidance, okay?
So at that, that's the end of my show.
Two questions come to mind.
HOAs.
Yes.
And they're independent, whatever it is that they can do, because they will do it, and
I'm particularly thinking about the Villages of Carmel, is that the name of it?
It's my neighborhood.
And then, you mentioned Greenwood, which is, I don't believe that's a HOA community.
The conversation around, you know, the authority that HOAs have, you know, in this regard,
speed bumps, cushions, does the city have the authority, what's the level of authority
in regards to HOAs deciding that they want to put their own speed cushions, bumps, or
whatever you want to call it.
I might likely need to get back to you on that, but I would say that if it is in the
international fire code, I think they probably don't make houses of matches anymore due to
the fire code, and so I suppose we have some authority there.
We'll just have to have some conversation around HOAs and speed.
I think those are bumps.
But I know that there's some narrowing of the roads on a particular road that I'm thinking
about in a particular community, so that'll have to be, you know, part of the question,
HOAs.
Indeed, in the other communities, other parts of the communities don't have HOAs, I can
just assume that, you know, we're going to, you know, work with those communities to either
get something different or not have anything at all.
Obviously we have a problem in neighborhoods, many problems in neighborhoods with speeding,
what appears to be speeding.
I know cars, when you're seated on your porch, the cars look like they're going 100 miles
an hour, but I do understand that, you know, that's all relative, you know, depending on
whether or not you are in the car, behind the car, or in the car, or you're sitting
on the porch watching the cars, there's different speeds for that.
At the risk of sounding like Ferhan, I'll say we should put that in the mobility plan.
Put that in the mobility plan.
But you know, it makes sense that streets that are straight and for a long distance
and wide are more likely to have speeders than those that aren't, because the streets
tell us how fast we should go.
Yes.
Oh, yes, sir.
I'm just going to say our streets that are public streets, we control and we'll deploy
whatever traffic calming devices are necessary and not necessarily, not that we're looking
to do speed cushions, this was just kind of one of those presentations related to speed
bumps versus speed cushions, not necessarily encouraging the use of, and then HOAs aren't
necessarily allowed to do things, when we talk about private streets versus public streets,
and if there are streets, then we ultimately control what goes in and doesn't go in.
Thank you very much for that clarification.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
I had a couple of follow-ups, so it kind of relates to both the comments.
Do we have a feel for what are the kinds of speed characteristics that lend themselves
to different control devices, so like what lends itself to speed cushions?
Is it long straightaways?
Is it this use next to that use?
This is more of an educate me kind of question.
The answer doesn't have to be now if we don't know it, but I would be interested in knowing
what the, Google for me if you will, Greg, what's the good characteristics for speed
cushions?
This is my first question, and it goes to my second question, which I'll ask in a second,
which is effectiveness.
Yeah, I spoke to the effectiveness in the one case, right, but we would look at other
cases too, right?
The suggestion is more research, so look at other cases, but in the one case I presented,
it did have a discernible and-
It's about a minus six, as I recall.
What?
It was about a minus six miles per hour.
Right, but that by itself may not seem significant, but when you think about everybody going together,
this is not in peak.
85th percentile is, that's 85th, well, I'm going too technical.
Okay, basically it's not during congestion periods.
This is in the middle of the day, okay?
The point is it is having a real effect on keeping everybody at about the same pace,
and that's actually more important than it is the actual six.
The compression you mean, yeah, no, I got you.
Yeah, I'd be interested in both those.
Just the general description of the characteristics and then general effectiveness of these, because
there has, the community has been communicating with us and council in general about, we want
speed control devices, and I've passed that along to your colleagues over the years, but
lots of road diets, lots of striping, lots of everything to get to the speed studies
that we just finished and make them effective instead of dangerous.
I would probably advocate for, I mean, to really again include that in the mobility
study because so they can be done on a more uniform method, right, is there are characteristics
of streets that lend themselves to speeding.
Well, and speaking of that, then my last question is there's been some interest, and I don't
know again the validity of this, but about raised crosswalks, and so the previous talk
and this talk, what is the potential interaction with raised crosswalks versus speed cushions
and the interoperability of those, and can they be the same thing, or they really can't
because there's a channel in there, so you can't really do that.
So I'd be interested in that interplay, because there's some advantages to raised crosswalks,
but then how does that play in this whole public safety, EMS argument at those kinds
of intersections?
Exactly, yes.
Do you think that in terms of a broader strategy for traffic calming, does it make more sense
to sort of put that within this mobility study we're talking about, or does it make more
sense to kind of lump that into Vision Zero or maybe some sort of freestanding thing,
because definitely I support us having it like a broader criteria strategy application
so that we're doing traffic calming in a way that's effective, so where are people
getting injured especially, but also that's equitable, so it's not just whoever yells
aloud us gets traffic calming.
I'm, just because some of these studies predate, so I wanted to make sure that, basically yes,
Vision Zero would be addressing a lot of things related to speeds and traffic calming, in
a way complete speed as well, and then we are, I mean for that matter we'll have to
coordinate with a lot of stakeholders, but by functional classification we'll have to
look into how, what measures we will take to look at speeds as part of Vision Zero,
and maybe mobility, shared mobility study as well.
Yeah, Vision Zero is going to, as I understand it, cover, and this is nationally, okay, covers
the high injury network, okay so there's specific places, and also systemic fixes, okay, so that
could fall into the systemic, and I'm using a big word, so, okay.
Okay, any other questions on that, oh yes, we have one question.
Yeah, I just, just to kind of put in for a little more emphasis for all the staff, is
I, I think that you're hearing from many folks, and I, and I don't think there's any resistance
to this, but the, the, the status quo of sort of being in a, in a standoff of, of, of safety
versus EMS safety, and those are valid safety concerns, but we, we, we can't sit in that
Mexican standoff, we've got to find an alternative that, that allows both sets of criteria to
go forward, and, and no, nobody wants somebody, some patient in an ambulance hurt, but at
the same token, we've, we've got to find some, some ways to kind of find a middle ground,
or not even a middle ground, an alternative.
That's why I'm proposing or recommending this, that we find out together, make sure that
we're talking about the same thing.
I don't think we're talking, when we say speed cushion, we're talking about speed cushions
by the definition, by the actual definition.
Okay.
Nope.
Okay.
I cost it.
No, no, I just remembered.
I'm sorry.
That's okay, go ahead.
Okay.
I just remembered, I recently was biking through somewhere that's not Denton.
I think it was Highland Village, and there was a connection, an on-street connection
between a trail and maybe another trail, and I saw all sorts of traffic calming, so I took
photos.
I'm going to go find the photos, figure out where that was.
If it was Highland Village, it might be useful to go look at, because they're real close
to here.
Excellent.
And you'll send those directly to...
Yes.
By the way, speed cushions aren't just for emergency vehicles, bikes.
I have a question.
A speed cushion, when we decide to use a speed cushion, will that speed cushion extend over
to the bike lane?
I mean, does it go through the entirety of the street?
Right.
And we have a channel for bikes as well.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then the other thing before you leave, I'm thinking about bike racks.
I did write a question here.
You had mentioned something about the possibility of bike racks being at the end of a street,
you know, at the corners.
Oh, yeah.
Corners, driveways, too.
And so connecting that with large vehicles like a fire truck that need to wheel and turn
into a corner.
Something like that, is that a trauma piece for that emergency vehicle that got a lot
of bikes over there on the corner and the truck is trying to wheel in?
Right.
That's a really good point, and it is something that you need to address on a case-by-case
basis.
Okay.
Depending on the width and the size of your lens.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thank you very much.
We appreciate it.
If you don't have anything else, we'll move on.
Appreciate it.
We're good?
Okay.
I'm not going away.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
I'm looking forward to going to Portland.
I think that's going to be my next travel agenda to see what's going on there.
We're going to move on to EMC 24-020, staff memorandum.
Oh, I think we were waiting for a staff.
Who's going to ... Are we going to go ... Eagle Drive update?
We got updates on Eagle Drive.
What's happening on Eagle Drive?
We've seen the construction.
It was smooth.
Last time I went on it.
Well, just for the confusion.
I was waiting for an introduction.
Ethan Cox, Director of Streets.
We have been coordinating with TxDOT.
What we found as a result of the road buckling out there was it was drainage infrastructure
that had a fair amount of debris.
We have concerns that maybe folks were living in the culvert, mattresses, bicycles, ladders,
a lawnmower, so TxDOT coordinated with a contractor to winch out all of the debris.
There's about 20 feet of debris wedged underneath there.
That was cleared earlier this week, and so the intersection should be open to traffic
from here on out.
I believe the question last time was, "Does the city bear any financial responsibility?"
The answer to that's no.
Both the drainage infrastructure as well as the roadway, right-of-way, all of that is
TxDOT facilities.
They handled it from beginning to end.
Okay.
Questions?
Well, we're all so happy.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Just beyond what you can imagine.
Thank you.
Traffic calming measures on Greenwood Street.
What's happening over there?
Good morning, Chandra with Transportation Services.
So we did have a question in the last meeting to find out about the speed cushions or speed
humps that's on Greenwood.
Our current policy as per the transportation criteria manual, it will be removed when the
street is overlaid or micro sealed or reconstructed.
And unless if it's on a primary route, we have to consult with fire to remove or put
it back if the citizen issues of speeding or anything that comes back to us.
So...
Do you have a time frame on that?
It depends on when the streets department goes for or if it's under their plan to do
over seal or overlay or micro seal or reconstruct, then it will be removed.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
You have a question?
Yeah.
Okay.
So because we're micro sealing it, it becomes an opportunity to remove it and staff are
likely to remove it?
Is that what I'm hearing?
Yes.
Okay.
I just want to make sure I understood the order of events.
Thank you.
Okay.
And so does something like this go to the community?
Do you all connect with the community and say, "Community, we're going to be removing
your speed humps."
If you want, we could update you back in those...
We don't have several of these devices only on select streets over the time that was put
in.
Okay.
But if you want, we could provide you an update for you or...
That would be great.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
Background information on stakeholders for safety and mobility.
I know we have all of that.
We have speed humps.
We have the fire department, all of that, all that goes together.
This is just for the folks that are out there.
Okay.
Anything else we need to know in this regard?
Stands on fire, marshal, transportation, design.
Okay.
Well, it sounds like we're doing good.
We've got a chance to take a look at that just for the community.
We've received this information ahead of time, got a chance to take a look at that.
Just wanted to give you an opportunity to speak on that.
So we have some attachments.
Here is the...
Back.
That's the way we need to look at it.
Can we...
Who's going through that?
There was one more thing.
Oh, you have one more thing.
Oh, there's one more thing on that document.
What?
Right down here?
Yeah, that...
That's right.
The numbers there.
Oh, we can have someone come and talk to us about the index of cost of crash fatalities
and serious injuries.
This cost index is provided by...
Is developed by TextDOT and is a typical...
It's not rooting from a federal document or federal standard because they have not updated
that yet.
They still have in 2019.
So this is the latest that we have from TextDOT.
And apparently, the cost of fatality, crash fatalities and severe incapacitating injuries,
they are pretty much same.
And then it boils down to a large number.
If we go into the aggregate level estimates, it reaches beyond, I would say, the cost could
go in more than close to a billion dollar if we aggregate total costs.
If you have any questions, I can address.
Yes, ma'am?
I have a comment.
When I saw these numbers...
So I've seen the 2019 federal numbers and every year I go look up on the TextDOT crash
database, I'll go pull all of our crashes, fatalities, all that and add those up.
So I like to add things up when I see these.
So when I saw this this morning, I went to the TextDOT crash database and I pulled the
number of fatal crashes, incapacitating injuries and not incapacitating for Denton in 2023.
And I added it all up.
And this doesn't include just crashes, which cost people money, too, even if they're not
injured.
So just including injuries, it was in 2023 in the city of Denton was 518 million.
So almost a half billion dollars, or actually more than a half billion dollars in injuries
every year that we're having in Denton.
So that does not include fatalities.
Oh, I included fatalities in that.
You did include fatalities.
Yeah.
So that's just these three.
That does not include just crashes or maybe nobody was injured.
So half a billion every single year.
So in this minor differentiating factor is welfare costs later on, the community costs.
So that's why I said a billion dollars, roughly, because when I look into aggregate cost levels,
this is what it entails.
Right.
But I mean, just that basically I'm low balling it there.
So if you take that number and you assume we're a population of one hundred and fifty
thousand, I don't know what our estimates are at this point.
So I did one hundred and fifty because I wasn't sure.
So that's about three thousand five hundred dollars per Denton resident annually.
So then I said, OK, so we often look at the cost of congestion.
And I found in twenty twenty three a study from INRIX looked at DFW drivers.
And so they're being through congestion or paying about nine hundred fifty three or nine
hundred fifty three dollars annually versus injuries just in city of Denton.
We're looking at thirty five hundred dollars per person annually.
And so we're putting a lot of money towards fixing congestion when really we're losing
more costs to injuries and traffic crashes than we are to lost time and congestion.
We're losing a lot more money to injuries than lost time and congestion, but more of
our money is going towards fixing congestion, not reducing injuries.
I just kind of wanted to make that point.
It seems like they're all wanting the same, though.
I mean, the congestion seems like it contributes to the injury in the simplest term.
So we've got to relieve ourselves of the type of congestion that leads to these injuries
or are these injuries just across the board on a variety of type of of roads and typically
typically, you know, traffic condition would drive to get into fender benders because of
the condition, because of slower speed, relatively slow speeds.
And these fatalities and serious incapacitating injuries are high impact, high velocity locations
and usually off peak hours.
You know, within our city, we don't have many spaces that we can do.
I mean, I don't know what the speed rate is that's considered high speed.
I don't know if it's 40 miles per hour is considered the high speed where you get the
numbers wrong.
But most of our high speed areas are not even city roads.
They're county, oh, they're county and state roads, are we are we at those numbers are
adding up?
Please.
Well, I think I think to Susie's point, and again, so we don't get too far off track here.
When we're going through the Vision Zero piece, that's exactly why we're doing that.
So we're going to look at how it is that we reduce injuries, fatalities, accidents.
And so this will all be part of that.
So appreciate the information know that we are working to really to focus our efforts
on how we reduce all of those types of things.
Again, transportation services will be highly focused on all of the things we've talked
about here today and to continue to make those improvements.
Okay.
Thank you, sir.
And then we'll go to future items for mobility committee meeting.
We have any, any cleanups anything you want to take off the list, but on the list.
Talk about bike racks, bollards.
I'm particularly concerned about bollards, but you know, it's not a it's not an emergency
concern.
Yes, sir.
No, I was fine with that.
But I was going to ask, you know, we had the bike rack, sort of basics.
So I'm okay with removing that, but I would like, you know, and I don't think there's
generally any barriers for something coming back, but as we get more, I don't want there
to be any barriers to having that reporting coming back as you know, as these initiatives
move forward, I don't expect there would be any barriers.
So I feel like, you know, yeah, we probably can't take that one off.
But I just want to make sure that for for that one in particular, just because there's
more information expected that, you know, we encourage that information in the future.
And again, the same with speed cushions.
I think the other one is, is pretty much done.
Speed cushions and bike racks.
Anything else for you?
In terms of just taking stuff off in terms of taking things off there, we can look at
their recommendations.
So we're talking about number six, taking off number four, taking off, we've heard from
all of that in the number one, that's going to leave our bollards are cross concerns between
Ryan high and dollar general traffic calming measures on green with that one might be able
to be taken off as well, right?
Talked about that a little bit, are you all okay with removing that?
Greenwood Greenwood number four, I mean, number five, they've given us, they've updated us
this take off number five, and then we'll go to citywide downtown parking study that's
gonna stay quarterly construction report that's gonna stay DCT a presentation we looking looking
forward to the DCT a presentation, is that going to be presented to us at the city council
meeting or is it, are they coming here to the mobility committee.
How are you all scheduling us, oh, they're gonna come here.
And then we have the quarterly transportation services division report from a CMO office
that's just kind of stays on.
So what do you all think about the removal of their recommendation to remove the good
question.
We got a question.
Did we need to act on so we received recommendations on two presentations today did we need to
act on those like a motion or.
No.
Okay, this information, just information should separate information only.
Yes, can this committee provide, I'm like, this is a legitimate question counsel is direction
versus votes.
I don't know about the role of this committee, directions versus actual action items can
can someone speak to that whether we should provide direction, because there wasn't really
a vote asked for.
I'm not trying to get us bound up I'm just trying to make sure we do it properly.
I guess, to that question, the posting would govern an action item if, if it was posted
as such to take an action if you wanted to maybe propose an action.
I think you can not on this I'm not I'm not saying the posting would govern that that's
my answer.
Okay, that's what I'm not saying this post.
I'm saying the posting would govern any action that you would take.
So in this case, if I could restate a little bit, because that those prior items were not
posted for action if we wanted to take action and provide some sort of direction now in
the matrix or in the next section, concluding items either one of those locations would
be the time to do that.
Depending on the topic I think the topic which is state what you want to happen, and then
the board would take it up and up or down voted up or down.
If I'm actually, did you I'm sorry I'm taking the chair's role I was just saying that her,
I was following up from Susie and that was a, if you if you have particular actions you
want to take them, let's, let's do a recommendation.
Did y'all did y'all want to take action on any of them.
I don't know if they were necessarily actionable items in terms of the recommendations, but
I guess, let me just, I guess, clean it up.
It would be a future in this, in this, in this instance, you would be adding something
to the agenda item, or you're asking staff to add it for a future agenda to do something.
And do we want to do that.
But, and I guess, in this instance, like, the way that we run it from here is, you say
what you want to do and take it.
So that's how it runs.
And just to throw another piece in this and I think what Susie was asking and I'm not
speaking on your behalf I just think I understood it this way.
This was not crafted for any action to be taken by this body.
So we were providing the information did hear at least a recommendation for the four items
to be removed from the matrix, with the exception on item number one to continue to report back
was the ask, which again would be appropriate in concluding items that we continue to report
back on the bike rack initiative.
Staffs going to continue to work through that as part of this report will be coming back
with other thoughts ideas recommendations through some of the strategies that that transportation
services working for.
So because they're removed from the matrix doesn't mean that we're done doing any work
there we're going to continue to work and report back.
So non action items on the agenda.
The motion or what I heard was, you know, the recommendation to follow staffs request
to remove these items from the matrix, and then the one added which was number five of
use of tracking copying measures to be removed.
So did that help, Susie?
Is that accurate?
So the recommendations we received into presentations today will just sort of happen.
Is that kind of we're going to continue we're going to continue to work through that.
Absolutely.
So no action needed.
No action.
Okay.
Good.
Thank you.
They're going to come back to us when it's time for us to be incorporated like the color
of the bike rack.
Correct.
We're going to we're going to be making recommendations.
So today was not the thing to say for us to determine a color, but it may be contact sensitive.
So you heard the term contact sensitive, right.
And then you also heard that a business owner may want to have something different.
So we'll come back with whatever our recommendations would be just to kind of edit through here
and some of this may have to go up through into council, whatever it is that we may create.
So don't know what that is.
As of now, we'll continue report back.
And you know, with that being said, the quality DCTA presentation to the committee, you know,
at some point, they were coming to us routinely.
And then it was moved that they would go to directly to the council.
And now I'm noticed recognizing that it's back here.
So for them to come back and address us, that is where the this is where this question comes
in as to if we would like the city to work with DCTA on a particular thing or item or
an action item that will come here and then it has to go back to the to the council for
approval or do they work directly from here with us and then report back to us rather
than council.
So how are you all doing, how are you all working with DCTA for months because it was
here.
Then it wasn't here.
Oh, sorry.
And now it's back.
We're not.
We're not for that.
Okay.
We're not posted for that.
So that is what is in the atmosphere right now.
It's in the universe.
I put it out there, but it says quarterly DCTA presentation to the committee.
Well, that we have so we have we have what it is that these are items of interest for
future staff report updates, agenda item presentation.
So this is going to occur and it's coming to you on July 31st.
Right.
And so that's what's going to happen.
If there's interest to add something, then that's this is the time to if you're going
to add something or ask staff to do something.
But otherwise we're not we're not changing or creating what hierarchy DCTA reports to
the city.
So is that is that where we come down here to concluding items and that's something that
I can put in there as if there is an ask of this committee of staff, then staff can come
back to you and present.
What do you all think about that DCTA presenting?
I know it's not am I missing up when I ask these what do we want to do in that regard?
I think or I just think you need to just ask staff to present what the process is.
Is that the question?
Yeah, we is.
That's the question.
I think what is the process?
That's what we want to ask or discussion on that discussion on DCTA reporting to Mobility
Committee and Council or Mobility Committee or Council.
That's that's the clarification I need.
Yes, I would like to go first on this one.
Thank you.
As as a non council member on this committee, I am okay with it just being City Council.
Otherwise it's kind of redundant for both of I'm sorry.
So the discussion on this is there's not okay.
There's no discussion on the contents of what's happening.
What you're asking for is information to come back the next time so it can be posted and
then be discussed.
Okay, that's what we need.
And let me add one piece in Cassie has asked that this come before this body.
That's why they're presenting here.
So I don't know and probably at that meeting after it's presented, you can have that conversation
if need be so and certainly you can visit with Cassie offline.
So, so I think I can solve this.
Okay.
You know, I'm channeling my inner Paul Meltzer on that one.
So how about an action item that can be incorporated with the current one or a separate one.
I'm requesting that the process by which the CTA information is presented to the city oversight
boards is addressed in some future meeting and it can be this one.
I will say as part as part of this staff will make sure that we're incorporating we don't
need to add an item.
So that duly duly noted not go back to that I think we have the four items that the four
items that were requested to be removed.
I don't know that we finalized whether that was going to occur.
So just to take us back to center of where we started this yet for items that you were
looking to be removed.
I know that that you know Brian Beck had provided the indication that he was supportive.
I just don't know that you concluded that we're supportive.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Any other.
Is there any other new items?
Yeah.
This one we add stuff.
Yeah.
This one we add.
I think we add stuff right here.
Okay.
Yes.
I'd like us to have a future discussion over how we can be more strategic as a committee
in the discussions we have in this committee.
So right now you know having been on this for a few months it kind of feels like it's
just based on we see a problem, we ask about it, we see a problem, we ask about it.
We have this mobility plan out there and I haven't really seen that brought up that often
like how are we doing on that?
How does this problem fit into that?
So it feels kind of like we're more in the weeds when I'd like us to have a discussion
about do we want to kind of stay in the weeds?
Do we want to be a little more strategic, talk a little more broadly like what values
are we looking at like quality of life, safety, efficient use of city resources, things like
that.
Just kind of talking about on this committee how do we want to be tackling things?
Kind of big picture or do we want to be down in the weeds?
Do we want to be tying into big ideas or kind of doing what we're doing?
So just kind of having a discussion about what that looks like.
Okay.
Yes sir.
Ironically just I think it's a fabulous idea.
Staff has been working through that so if staff can present kind of what a strategic
plan might look like sometime maybe August, September.
And we do that annually anyway we go back and take a look.
I just happen to be on this committee for you know my time.
And so I know that that is something that does occur but then we still have to you know
we still have gone back to tackle some of those.
Some of these things are like engaged in types.
Oh yeah for sure.
And so and I recognize that but that's just the makeup right now of the committee's responsibilities.
So if you want to work with if we want to work with our staff to elevate that in some
kind of way to meet her questions.
You know how often do we do that?
Is that every meeting?
You know we'll have to look at restructuring again if that's what you're looking for.
Thank you.
Yes sir.
Yeah no I was going to say I would support I hear a slight distinction from what was
requested as a future item and item for discussion on the sort of large policy role of the committee
versus what I heard the response was and everybody correct me if I'm paraphrasing wrong and that
was this is staff's vision for mobility planning.
I see daylight between those two and so I would support even just a brief discussion
about how this committee envisions its role and staff can do with that as it would but
I would support a future action item to discuss the role in the larger picture of this committee.
If I think that's a good paraphrase of Susie's request I would support that as a future action
item.
I don't know the particular time but not forever because you'll get out past the mobility planning
if you're not careful.
So that would be something I would support.
But I think if I'm correct Ben don't we have to have unanimous agreement because there's
only three of us here.
If you're talking about policy is that what you're.
This is a request for an item on the matrix.
I think you can have a majority here.
Staff is supportive and would already be bringing that forward and you paraphrased sort of close
so I'm closer to Susie than I am to you so we're good we're good.
We'll bring that forward.
Okay thank you very much we certainly appreciate you all's hard work.
Please don't think that we're not appreciative of anything that you all do.
We're very supportive of you all in your work your hard work.
Everybody sitting over there thank you very much for the from the community.
Do we have any concluding items.
Well if you don't have any concluding items then we are going to close out the meeting
at eleven fifty one.
Thank you all very much for being here.
Thank you all.