Good morning. My name is Marty Rivers. I'm the chair of the downtown economic development
committee. It's 833. We're going to call the meeting to order. And the first thing we will
do is a roll call. So when I call your name, let us know that you're present. I'm just
going to go around my screen here. Brock McKnight. Melissa Lindenburg. I need you to speak so
people can hear. You might have to join audio, Melissa. Melissa's here. Bob Moses. I'm here.
John Cartwright. Present. Monty Jensen. Here. Hank Dickinson. I am here. Beth Lewis. Here.
Did I get everybody on the committee? I think so. All right. Thanks for being here today.
It's nice to see some faces I hadn't seen in a while. And appreciate you logging in
this morning and bearing with us as we go through this meeting on Zoom. Our first item
up for consideration is EDP 20-021. Consider approval of the minutes of our March 5th,
2020 meeting. And I will accept any motions or comments. I'll make a motion to accept
that. I'm Bob Moses. Thank you, Bob. I'll second. We got a motion by Bob and a second
by Monty. Any discussion on our March minutes? All right. All those in favor, say aye by
raising your hand. Can you do the roll call because we can't see everybody? We've got
to do a roll call. All right. Brock? Aye. Melissa? She said a thumbs up. Aye. Bob? Aye. John?
Aye. Monty? Aye. Hank? Aye. Beth? Aye. I think we got everybody. Okay. Motion. Marty, this
is Michael Talley as well. Aye. Hello. We've got a unanimous consent to approve the minutes.
So we'll move on to the next item, which is EDP 20-002. Receive a report, hold discussion
and make a recommendation to the downtown TURS number one board regarding a downtown
reinvestment grant program application for 213 East Hickory Street, Hickory to Oak. And
we have a special guest this morning, Eric Polito. I don't know if staff is going to
make the presentation, I guess. Yes. Have everything in your backup as well. So I'll
roll through the slides and then at the end we'll give you a chance to ask questions and
then we'll talk about the scoring sheet, okay? Let me share my screen with you. There we
go. So this will be our charges to consider making a recommendation to the downtown TURS
board. Just wanted to quickly review with you all the parts of the project that when
we review it, that's what we're looking for. So we want to look at for an increase in property
valuation and sales tax, historical accuracy, improvements to water, wastewater, improvements
to health and safety. It results in a significant increase in downtown population and other
impacts that are not limited to partners with other businesses as a target business or promotes
development of arts and entertainment downtown. Additionally, we'll look at facade rehabilitation
and the new awnings and signs. That's where this one is going to follow is under the new
signs. We also consider impact fee reimbursement, utility upgrades and interior code improvements.
So this is the location of the property that we're looking at today. This is the proposed
mural. So the mural is, as you can see, Day of the Dead. And it's the day of the most,
I can't even say it today. I've been practicing all along and I can't say it, but it's for
Day of the Dead and it embodies the coffin races that traditionally happened during the
festival that happens on Industrial Street. They're also looking to add a metal and neon
sign to the facade of the front of the building there. So back in, sorry, let me do this.
In 2013, the property at 211 East Hickory was awarded a $10,000 grant for facade awnings
and paint improvements. And recently, the three addresses have been pulled together
and now part of one property. And so because of that, the current guidelines would allow
for up to an additional $1,500 in grant awards for the property. The expenses submitted for
the signs total $14,625. That's the estimated project costs and the grant request is for
$7,313. So these are our options to either make no recommendation to the Downtown Tourists
or make a recommendation to the Tourist Board in the amount equal to the scoring sheet guidelines.
And so I did attach the scoring sheet for you. I won't require them, but we're going
to try something different this year. But first, let's go to questions. So does anyone
have any questions for Eric? I have a question. Who is going to do the sign? Is it a student
or is it someone that's done other art around the city? I'd just like to know a little bit
about who's actually going to perform the art? Yes. The mural has already been completed
and it was done by Dan Black, who as you may know has done a lot of murals around town
and around the world now. So it's kind of cool that we're getting to use him for that
mural. I also, before we had done that, had talked with David Pierce, who heads it up
Day of the Dead Festival and they really celebrated us doing that mural on that street. So it
seemed like it was a really champion thing by those involved. Mural's up and the sign
was put up over the weekend. Yes, the sign just got put up and that was done by Mellow
signs. Okay, I'll have to get down the street and see what it is. I haven't seen it. Okay.
Any other questions? I have a question. When do you think you might be open for business?
That's a good question. It's a tough one because we're still now working to finish and get
a CO, but as a lot of you guys know, it's a tough one because opening might just be
more difficult than not being open. So we're kind of waiting to see a little bit more of
a light to appear. But we're excited to get it there and then we're going to do everything
to be ready to be open. There was a pause obviously, but now we've kind of dug back
into finish the inside and everything, get our CO. Any more questions? Okay. So what
I'd like for you to do is to go ahead and take a look at your scoring sheet and fill
it out and then text me your score with your last name. So I have my number listed up there
on the top for you. And then once you've done that, I'll calculate the average score and
then we'll move forward from there.
So you just gave your cell phone out to thousands of people watching this program this morning?
Yeah, sure.
No, that's actually not Christina's real cell phone number. That's a system that we have
set up for this exact purpose. So thank you. But Christina will respond to anyone who texts
that number, I think I will.
I'm still working on it. I had to go get a pen, but I'm going to be I've never done the
texting while I do this. So I'm going to be giving you an anonymous number in a minute.
Christina, where is your cell number featured here?
Sorry. Yeah, I got you.
Oh, do I just punch that text number and be able to punch in a number?
Yeah, text, put that number in to text to it and then just write your last name in the
message and your total score.
I guess I don't know how to go into text and not lose this connection here. So I'll be
a dummy and give you a number in a minute.
While we're doing that, I got a text from Alex this morning. He had something come up
all of a sudden that he was unable to make it
22. Gang, I got to get on the road again, but I should be back to a stationary location
shortly but I'm going to go off video for a minute.
I need my Michael Talley and there's rocks right there.
Thank you, Brock.
So I have Margie, Melissa, oh, thank you.
Christina, did you get mine?
I did get yours. Thank you.
Okay, are we missing any scores? Is anyone still sending? If not, we'll have Christina
total it. Okay, I received Marty, Melissa, Hank, Monty, Brock, Michael and Beth.
Don, do we have yours? I sent it. 940-220-9015?
I think it's 51. Oh, is it dyslexia? Tell me the number again. 940-220-9051.
Someone got a fun text message from John.
Yeah.
I guess we need to all get some teenagers to come in and help us while we're doing this.
About now.
Okay, got it.
Thank you, ma'am.
So if we want, we can move on to the next presentation while Christina is totaling the
scores and come back to this item.
Let's do that.
Okay. Marty, do you mind going a little bit out of order and I'll allow Todd Essis and
Engineering to do their presentation before mine that way, which is agenda item D.
Yep, let's do that. EDP 20-028, receive a report, hold discussion and give staff direction
regarding one-way versus two-way streets in downtown Denton.
Good morning. We're actually going to have Brian Yahn, who is speaking remotely. I'll
move the slides forward, but if we get a little bit of a lag, then I'll jump in and we'll
go from there. Brian definitely explains it better than I do. And I also tell Brian, you
better tell them what you want to tell them because otherwise you're going to live with
what I tell them, which is never, never really a good thing, I think.
Never. It's never a good thing.
All right. I'll let you start the slide. Can you hear me, Todd? Okay.
So good morning, everyone. My name is Brian Yahn. I'm the City Traffic Engineer for Denton.
I'm here to talk to you today about one-way and two-way streets. And I want to clarify,
if you had seen the first slide, I had originally titled this one-way versus two-way streets,
but it's not really a competition. Both our tools and the toolbox, they each have their
place. And so we're really here today to talk about pros and cons, the characteristics of
each, and just have a discussion on the four streets, Oak, Hickory, Elm, and Locust, and
how they should, how the community wants them to function in the future. So this slide,
are two-way streets better than one-way streets? If you ask two traffic engineers that question,
you're going to get three answers. Next slide, please. Yes, no, and maybe. So it's this maybe
that's in the middle ground where it says it depends, but I want to focus today, because
it really does depend. Next slide, please. It depends on the goals of the community and
how they want these streets to function and live within the community itself. Topics we
really want to cover today are safety, economic vitality, mobility, and congestion. So we
want to look at how the pedestrian and bicycle safety is improved or are not improved, the
vehicular crashes. We want to look how one-way streets and two-way streets change the access
to businesses, affect the travel distances that customers and consumers have to experience.
City options. What are the bike-ped facilities options? How do they affect transit and how
do they affect parking? And then congestion, which is how most of us interact with our
city streets, and that's typically in our vehicle. Does it add delay? Does it improve
the flow? What are the speeds like? And if we have the congestion, does it force people
onto parallel facilities where we really don't want a lot of through traffic? It's that cut
through traffic that we often hear about. Next slide, please. So first topic is safety.
Next slide. So this is the format I'm going to pursue this entire presentation. One-way
streets will be on your left, two-way streets will be on your right. So one-way streets,
pedestrians have the advantage. If you're crossing the main street, you only have to
look in one direction because theoretically there's not supposed to be a car coming from
the other direction. So that's kind of an advantage. On two-way streets, if you have
a four-leg intersection with two-way streets coming from all directions and you've got
a few more options or requirements where you have to look left, right, left again, like
we learned when we were children. Next slide, please. On one-way streets, one of the disadvantages
is that as pedestrians cross a multi-lane one-way street, if you can see in the picture
on your left, pedestrian is stepped off the curb, but that second vehicle on the right-hand
side of the screen can't see them yet. So a lot of times that's a conflict where one
car will stop, the other car sees the car stop and doesn't know why and keeps going.
And then we have the potential for a crash with the pedestrian or cyclist in that crosswalk.
Two-way streets, you've got only one, if we're talking about a two-lane street, which most
of the four that we're looking at are typically two lanes, we're looking at a scenario where
you've got much better visibility, you've only got one car and one lane, so the pedestrian
is in a much safer environment. Next slide, please. One-way streets typically will have
much fewer conflict points, which leads to a lower crash potential. So a one-way main
street with a two-way side street, you've got 20 conflict points for motorists and ped
bike. On a two-way street, you've doubled that, you've got 40 conflict points, more
opportunities for crashes and mistakes. Next slide, please. One-way streets, because they
don't have that friction of head-on traffic, somebody coming at you, the potential for
the motorists coming in the opposite direction can lead to higher speeds and that leads to
the potential for higher severity of crashes. So you have fewer but more severe crashes.
On a two-way street network, typically we'll see lower speeds because you've got the at
least the potential for somebody to be coming at you in the other direction, lowers the
speeds and also lowers the severity of crashes. Now as a follow-on, because we saw the previous
slide, we've got twice the number of high conflict points. We've got, you typically
will see a 30% bump in the number of crashes. There'll be fewer, there'll be fender benders,
lower speed, less severe, but the actual number of crashes typically will rise. Next slide,
please. So this is just a little accident history on the two couplets that we're talking
about. Oak and Hickory on the top, west is on your left and east is on your right. So
you'll see that we've got fairly consistent crash. This is from 2010 to 2020, 617 crashes,
zero fatalities and 110 injuries and fairly evenly distributed east and west throughout
the entire corridor. Very few segments have really, really low. You can see a couple on
Oak and Hickory about two, three blocks west of Carroll, where we've got some lower crash
volumes, but throughout the corridor, pretty consistent. On Elm and Locust, and I apologize
for this, but north is to your right. It's just, there's no way I could format this on
the slide deck, but you'll see that downtown, quite a few crashes and when you get up to
university, quite a few crashes. But in that middle distance, and again, this is 2010 to
2020, this is 10 years where the data in that, you know, between downtown and university,
it dropped significantly. You get 1,087 crashes, so almost 1,100 crashes, two fatalities and
362 injuries. So that's just a little bit of crash history for these two corridors.
Next slide, please. Next topic we're going to talk about is economic vitality, and how
the characteristics of one-way and two-way streets can affect that. Next slide. So one-way
streets are harder for visitors to navigate. If we live in the community, typically we'll
know which streets are one-way, and if I need to go from point A to point B, I've got to
go here, take a left and turn right or turn left again. But for visitors, it's not nearly
as common-sensical. They don't know which streets are going to be one-way. Is it one
street? Is it two streets? Is it four streets? And that's taken away when you've got a two-way
street grid. So you can travel in any direction on any street, and it allows for just easier
access for those visitors. Next slide. The other characteristic of a one-way street network
is that it will typically increase the distance you have to travel. And I've just used if
someone's coming from the east on University and they want to go to Giuseppe's downtown,
this is my example. The orange would be the one-way street where you've got to come down
Elm, turn and come back north on Locust, versus if both streets were two-way, you would simply
turn on Locust and get to your destination. So depending upon the street grid and where
you're trying to go in that grid, it can significantly increase the travel distance, which is something
that we try to avoid. It's more emissions, it's greater opportunity for crashes. So if
we can shorten the travel distance, that's a win. Next slide. All right. We like to talk
a little bit about mobility. Next slide. On a one-way streets, one of the, and you can
see this as an advantage or just a characteristic, but if you're on a one-way streets, you only
need a bike lane in one direction. If you're on a two-way streets, the expectation is that
you have a bike lane for each direction. So it kind of doubles that need for bicycle infrastructure.
And just as a caveat, one of the foundation points of this discussion is that we're not
talking about reconstruction. So if we're talking about converting any of these streets
from one-way to two-way, we're leaving the curves in place. So we've got a finite distance
of pavement. So it's really all about what do we do with that pavement? What are our
goals? What's most important? If bike facilities are high on that list, then a two-way street
can impact the rest of the remainder of the pavement, because if that expectation is satisfied
of having a bike lane in each direction, we've used twice as much. Next slide.
So on a one-way street, if, and this is really talking about two different categories, deliveries
and then, and it doesn't seem like it would be the natural pairing, but transit operates
very similarly. If you've got a two-way, a two-lane, one-way street, then if a delivery
truck or a transit vehicle needs to stop to unload cargo or passengers, they're going
to block a lane. There's just no way we can avoid that. So if you've got a one-way, two-lane
scenario, you've got a bypass lane. So the vehicle will just, if you're behind that transit
vehicle, that delivery vehicle, you have the opportunity to change lanes and move forward.
On a two-way street network, where you've got that same amount of pavement, you've got
two lanes and now you've got one in each direction, if a transit vehicle or a delivery vehicle
needs to stop and unload, they take the entire lane and typically it's not safe or you may
not have the opportunity to get around it. So that's a significant consideration of how
we want to maintain our, or manage our congestion, because that can lead to some significant
additional delays if you've got a lot of deliveries or a lot of transit stops in a corridor that
you've converted from one-way to two-way. Next slide, please. So on-street parking may
limit or preclude on-street bike facilities. So this is just something that is, again,
and we'll talk a little bit more about parking later in the presentation, but it's just,
again, we're dealing with a finite amount of pavement. We're not going to reconstruct,
so it's the same curb to curb that we've got today. And it's all about the choice of what
we want to put in that pavement. Is parking more important? Is bike more important? Is
transit more important? These are all decisions that need to be made and weighed prior to
that conversion. So next slide, please. Congestion. Next slide. So one-way streets provide up
to 50% more lane capacity. A lot of that is due to the friction that we talked about.
You get more throughput when people don't have to worry about a car coming at them from
the other direction. You've got fewer delays associated with left turns, because all the
turns off of the main street are free. So you don't have to wait. If I'm on a one-way
street and I want to turn left, I get in that left lane and I turn left. I don't have to
wait on anybody. It allows for greater vehicle throughput, but again, that's that two-edged
sword. It can lead to faster vehicular speeds and that more intense, more severe crash history.
A two-way street network provides less, and I'll call this capacity or throughput, because
again, as we saw earlier, those number of conflict points are much higher. And if you
want to make a left turn from a two-lane, two-way street, you've got to wait for that
gap between traffic in the opposite direction to make your left turn. So very much like
a delivery or a transit vehicle, when that left turn is happening and there's traffic
coming the other direction, everybody behind that vehicle has to stop and wait. So that's
again, it adds to delay, adds to some perceived congestion. Next slide, please. Very, very
much a follow-on point. The increase in efficiency for vehicular flow, that progression, even
if you're in a corridor with signals, with one way and you can think about Elm on Locust
or Oak and Hickory, we can time those signals so that because there's no left turn conflict
there's nobody coming in the other direction, we can time them so that as you get to that,
as you approach the next signal, it turns green. And as you approach the next signal,
it turns green. On a two-way street, those left turns will typically hinder that progression.
Now, you can still achieve it, but not nearly to the same extent. Next slide, please. This
is an important concept for people who may not be using those roadways, but might live
adjacent to them. Because we've got this one-way configuration that's able to carry more efficient
flow of traffic, may have higher vehicular speeds, it's much more attractive for people
who are simply going from point A to point B to stay on those roadways. If we convert
those to two-way and start increasing that congestion, increasing that delay, the left
turns are kind of clogging stuff up, deliveries may be blocking lanes periodically, what we
see is that people will find, even though it may not be truly faster, it is perceived,
they perceive that they are saving time by cutting through. And a lot of times, unfortunately,
this is through a neighborhood. So a lot of the residential streets, there are a lot of
residential areas that are parallel or adjacent to these corridors, we'll see an increase
in what they call cut-through traffic. And that's something that we typically try to
avoid because those areas, we'll see a higher pedestrian, a lot of especially younger age
pedestrians, kids using the street to go from house to house, and it puts those pedestrians
at greater risk. So next slide, please. So these are some slides just from our mobility
plan, our 2045 model. And it just, it wants to show you what the impact of conversion
from the one-way grid that we have today to a two-way grid on those four streets. And
if you look at this, these are all one-way. And so about where the cursor is, you can
see where Elm and Locust and Carroll and then Oak and Hickory. We've got about, and I'll
start with Oak and Hickory, about 18,000. And Todd, if you can just, I'm going to do
Oak and Hickory and then we'll toggle to the next one and we'll toggle back and then we're
just going to jump back and forth so we can look at two corridors at a time. Yeah. So
there, okay. 17,900 jumps up a little bit to 20,000. And then, but in the middle, if
you'll look, so stop here for a second, this is two-way. You've got 3000 on Oak and 1300
on Hickory. Jump to the previous slide. And this is the one-way configuration. Those volumes
are significantly higher. And what that shows us is as we increase or as we convert the
one-way streets of Oak and Hickory to two-way, that introduced congestion, that delay associated
with the left turns is enough to drive a significant portion of those vehicles, those motorists,
two parallel facilities. In that area, that's very residential. So a lot of those houses
that are roadways parallel to Oak and Hickory are going to see an increase in traffic volume
because Oak and Hickory are no longer as convenient and comfortable and attractive to travel.
So let's look at all one-way. I'll stay on this slide. Elm and Locust. So you'll see
about 15 on the north side, north of University, 15 to 17,000 vehicles a day. And it's pretty
consistent through the corridor, 18,000 and down 17,000 in downtown. Carroll is about
40, jumps to 46, and then 47 to 48 south of downtown. So let's go to the two-way slide.
So here you see the migration. Elm and Locust are significantly down, up to 35%, 40% lower.
And they've all moved to Carroll. So as you see, the Carroll went from 44 and then 42,
which is again, we're seeing some migration off of Elm and Locust. May not make it to
Carroll, but may make it to some parallel facilities where we really don't want that
traffic. So that's really the point of this is I wanted you to see numerically the magnitude
of that potential diversion, that migration from the primary corridors where we really
want those vehicles, we can accommodate them, we can handle them, we can make the progression
work, and we can address safety issues, versus when we get them into parallel facilities
that may only have stop control, we may not be able to accommodate and manage that traffic
to the same level. So let's move on. Next slide, please.
So this is the last slide before I want to open it up for discussions. And this is just
a little bit about parking, because parking, again, plays that role of it serves the function
of a lot of the older parts of town that didn't provide a lot of off street parking, relied
on on street parking, but parking also limits what we can do with that existing pavement.
Again, we're not widening. So we're looking at the existing curb to curb distance and
how we manage that and what's the highest and best use for that pavement. Parking is
certainly one of those choices. So again, we talked about parking may conflict the bike
facilities. And if we have parking on both sides of a two way street, probably not going
to have room for a dedicated or separated bike facility. We're going to have the bikes,
it's going to be a shared lane, which is not really the level of safety that we're trying
to provide citywide. Just a little bit about different kinds of
parking. Parallel parking offers the greatest flexibility. It allows one way or two way
doesn't really matter how you enter that. However, it doesn't provide the same quantity
of parking spaces. So if we convert angle parking to parallel, we're going to lose significantly.
But we're going to get rain some we're going to one gain some pavement. And we're going
to gain some flexibility as far as how we use that pavement. Again, the angle parking
requires almost twice as much as one way and typically will limit it to one side. So typically
angle parking is linked to a direction of travel, like exception would be the reverse
angle back in parking that we have on McKinney, excuse me, McKinney Hickory, east of Locust.
We can we can convert formerly angle parking into reverse angle parking. However, the popularity
that is yet to be determined. And then the last point is if a roadways converted
two way operation, angle parking may need to be adjusted without current modifications.
And if we do that, so if we if we flip the direction and you look around the square where
we've got angle parking and it's it's set for like eastbound directions, if we converted
that to a two way roadway, we'd want to flip the angle if we wanted to maintain heading
parking on the north side of Hickory. And what that does is without if we're not going
to modify the way those curb islands are built, we're going to lose five to 10% of our parking
supply just in the restriping. So that's the last slide. I've got some some discussion
on recommendations, but what I'd really like to do and the reason we're here today is to
get your input before we really set our recommendations, we want to we want the feedback from this
group as to how you think the conversion from one way to two way would impact the downtown
area. And if there are pros and cons, if there are concepts or ideas, that's what we'd like
to hear from you today. So I'm going to open it up. I'll stop talking and I'll open it
back up to the group. And we'll just take your feedback from here. So thank you very
much. Thank you, Brian. If anybody would like to ask questions or give provide some feedback,
raise your hand and I will try to call on you. We might want to have that screen back
up and go go back to a couple of those slides if that's that that's possible. We can we
can do that. Everyone will be small on the screen. So it might be harder for you to see
him Marty. But if I see him on my bigger screen, I'll let you know. I think John had his hand
up. Yes, sir. Good morning, everybody. Full disclosure, we had a presentation of Main
Street Association, I guess around a month or so ago. A lot of the feedback that we had
was, everybody was kind of interested in it. But some of the comments were that it it,
it seemed like something to take on right now that we're just trying to get through
it and, and maybe put it off to next next year. But there was one interesting comment
that it does seem arbitrary, even to local residents, let alone visitors to downtown
about the one way and two way streets. It's it's two way on East Oak and East Hickory,
but it goes to one way on West Oak and West Hickory. But I think I love the idea that
changing Elm and Locust to an East, a West Oak and West Hickory to two way. Is it possible,
Brian, that if we were to make the all the all the streets that are coming to the square
two way and then when you get to the square, it's it's like a large roundabout where you
can only turn right to get on the square. We keep the square itself one way around.
So all streets leading to the square, you would turn right. And if you wanted to get
to the other side of the square, you would just like a large roundabout. We keep the
parking the same. We keep the two, the two lane one way for deliveries. And so we never
we don't have that option obstacle rather. But I just wanted to get your thoughts on
making the square itself a large roundabout and converting all the streets leading to
it two way. OK, so my response is certainly 100 percent. My parents grew up and still
live in a small town in south Texas that has a square just like that. All the streets leading
up to the square two way and then leaving the square two way. But the square is a it's
a counterclockwise roundabout exactly as you described. So that's that is a historical
example of how we can treat the one way interface with the two way. And I will say that I like
that concept better than the current way that Hickory intersects Locust. When you have in
that outside on the north side lane, you know, you're facing west as you're coming from from
East Hickory and then you've got a car facing you in the same lane that is eastbound coming
from West Hickory. That's just it's hard for the traffic engineering to deal with because
it's you've got two cars that want to use the same lane and it's not it's not necessarily
a safe. So what you're describing is something that is at least in Texas has been a historical
practice and certainly is an option we can we can look into. Yeah, we just the south
south Elm and south Locust Street are very wide streets. And I think having those two
lane to excuse me two way there's enough room for either putting parallel parking all the
way down or certainly enough room for two bike lanes coming from the from the south
to the square. And the the added benefit of having south Elm two way is that when you're
coming down Fort Worth Drive and you're wanting to get to the square, you turn right on I
guess that I don't know what that street is right there where the you turn right off of
Carroll to is that eat? Well, no, before Eagle, what's that where the day laborer pickup is
for work drive? Yeah, I guess you just turn right on Fort Worth Drive and then you can
go straight across Eagle on an Elm to get to the square instead of having to turn right
on Eagle and then left on Locust just get up north on the square. I think there's a
lot of benefit to that. But I personally I like the idea of just keeping the square one
way as it is. Bob. You're on mute. Bob. Bob, you're on mute. Unmute. Okay, can you hear
me now? Yep. Okay, I agree with john for another reason. We're already so congested around the
square. And, of course, we get the comments about no parking, etc, etc, all the time people,
the merchants and whoever has a business on the square. I think going to parallel parking
around the square and the dual lanes for the bikes just exacerbates that problem. I think
you need to stay with the diagonal parking, which gives us more parking. It's faster.
You don't have the congestion backup that you would. So I agree with the concept that
john just explained. Thank you. Monty. We'll start with a geometry lesson real quick. You
can't call something that's one way on the square a roundabout. It would be a square
roundabout. Just a little technicality there. I'm not a meteorologist or anything, but I'm
pretty sure you can't make a square round. I think the problem that we have with the
one way streets, and I think we addressed it as really as much as anything a safety
issue. I've been to a couple of the police downtowners meetings over the years, and I
think they've from I guess it's eagle to the square. They've clocked people 5560 65 miles
an hour on that road and people see, you know, those two lanes as basically a short term
Autobahn three lanes, three lanes, right? I think I've had Congress, Alex, Alex came
to what pain came to one of our meetings and I think, you know, he actually would be an
advocate on some of those roads is of potentially more congestion. And what I mean by that is
actually choke those roads down to fewer lanes if they're going to stay one lane and put
parking on either side of them. You know, his point is a lot of those places in there
inhibit business in that they're sort of a parking desert on a couple of those that's
not except for private parking. But I really think the state the heart the more people
go past a business on a one way street, the more people go past a business and they miss
a parking spot or they miss the address and they realize they have to go all the way around
the island to get back to where they came from. I think you start to get a frustration
factor. I think that frustration factor leads to a speed factor and that speed factor leads
to a safety factor. When I look at the stats on the one way streets, there's three times
as many injuries on those one way streets. There's a hundred and a little more than 150%
of the accidents. And there's two deaths and we can say, well, it's only two deaths. But
I'm pretty sure if you went back and asked those two people, they would say for them
it was fairly consequential. I just think I just think that the harder to get we as
a business owner, the harder you make it to get, you know, I always say the moon may be
a nice place to visit, but it's hard to get to. So nobody goes there. And the harder you
make a business to get to the more moon like it becomes. And I see all of the advantages
of the one way, but I think the harder to get to factor and the speedway factor for
me outweigh any sort of advantage that you get from the faster throughput, because I
think that faster throughput actually gets mitigated in a lot of ways, um, just by people
will be going fast. They'll miss where they're going, particularly those visitors. Now they
or they accidentally went right past the parking space and they've got somebody behind them.
And now they've got to go all the way around the block and they know darn well that space
won't be there when they get back.
Well, am I still alone or do I need to unmute? You're on. Okay. Well, Monty, I would agree
with what you're saying with exception of the square. Um, I would go with, with the
two lane, the two way traffic on, off the square. But I think on the square, we don't
have the problem that people going too fast on the square there. The problem would be
how to get into that parking place that you find and how much traffic are you holding
up as you find it. And so I think you want to stay with the, I'll, I'll still go with
a roundabout. I lived in England a long time. So that's easy for me to say, um, as opposed
to, uh, trying to go too way around the square. I a hundred percent concur. I'm going to weigh
in, uh, while we're waiting for other people to raise their hand. Um, I live and work down
here, so I'm on all these streets, mostly on foot and I cross Elm street, uh, south
of the square on Mulberry, a minimal of four times a day. And it scares the bejesus out
of me because I can't see when I'm walking across because of all the parking in front
of the church and out in front of Hannah's on the street. You have to peer around the
corner and people may be going 30 miles an hour, but it seems like they're going a lot
faster. Um, I think as Alex pointed out, that's a three lane road. We, we don't have three
lanes on our 35 in some areas. And so it's, it is really easy. And then, um, we took out
traffic lights on the north side of the square heading back into the square. And so that
sped up everybody on the north side so that they can come screeching down to the square.
So I would, to me, it's a safety factor. I think some of the discussions we've had in
the past have been, um, how do we slow traffic down around the square? I would agree with
everybody on the square proper. It's slow, but getting there, it's fast. And anything
we can do, I would say you divert people, you know, Elm and Locust used to be the way
you got across town. I mean, those are old highways and they really, if you're trying
to get from point A to point B and you're not going to downtown to shop or eat or live,
we probably need to be on Carroll. I mean, that's, we want the through traffic, uh, north,
south, east and west, I would say to go around the square too. And so if, if, if we can slow
those one way streets down or make them two way to, I would say, create more congestion
to make it easier, more pedestrian friendly and more bicycle friendly. Um, I don't know
that I'm, uh, dead set on two, two way streets. I think that's my preference. It makes it
easier for you to get to businesses. Maybe not the ones right on the square, but if you
go a couple of blocks or several blocks, north, south, east and west, um, I don't can't, I've
lived here almost 30 years and I still can't remember which street to turn on. If I'm going
downhill to get to something on locus, I have to stop and think about it all the time and
on the bicycle lane part of it. Um, if you really want to know what it's like on the
streets and with traffic, I'd say get out on a bicycle and ride around. Um, even if
we have, if we can't expand the streets to have two lanes each way, I would rather ride
my bike on a two way situation with slower traffic than down locust around or Hickory
on a one way where we have parallel parking and cars going 30 miles an hour. And it's
nice that we've been able to add bike lanes on Hickory and, and Oak on the, um, west side
of the square, but it, it's pretty scary. Just driving from downtown to Bonnie bray
on Oak at 30 miles an hour. If you're in that left lane and there's students parked up and
down there, I mean, I think I'm going to get somebody's side view mirror all the time.
It's just a kind of scary, not even going to speed limit. So I think the, if I could
some summarize our past conversations in this group and main street, I think safety for
pedestrians and slowing things down around the square is probably the overriding factor
whether we get that for two way or one way. I think, I think our goal would, we'd love
to make it. I mean, going down Hickory even that's two lanes. I forget, is it 30 miles
an hour? I mean, I feel fast. If I'm going 15, um, if you're going down on a Thursday
evening and it's a two way street back in parking or whatever, it's, it probably ought
to be a 15 mile an hour speed limit right there. It's, there's a lot of people walking
around and a lot of trees and back in parking and all that stuff. So I would love to keep
this conversation going. I think Bob said it, this may not be the best time to start
redoing streets, but if we start planning that now, by the time everything's back to
normal here in a couple of weeks, we should be able to get to work on them because I mean,
we don't really have enough streets under construction now, so now would be a good,
good time to start putting some more orange cones out. The work that's been going on on
Elm and Locust south of the square the past couple of weeks has made things safer and
it's made a one way street and it makes it easier to cross the street on all, all sides
and I know Alex would echo that if he were here. Melissa?
Yeah, I want to also give a thumbs up to the idea of let's look at traffic in the way pedestrians
move downtown, whether it's, I don't know, two way or one way, but like the crosswalk
that we now have on McKinney is, is pedestrian friendly and maybe there's a way to do that
better on a one way or two way, I don't know, but to keep that in the forefront of the decision
making process is to look at how pedestrians get around downtown.
Anybody else have any comments or questions? I would imagine that if we had something that
we think about later today or comments, we could send those into Christina or Jessica.
For input, Melissa? Yeah, the other, the other question is, because
we've been talking about that new outdoor seating concept and I don't know how traffic
will play into that or if there needs to be long term decisions based on what we're considering
doing on the new outdoor seating stuff. Yes, if you have comments or you think of
something and it may not come to you until you're walking down there or driving around
the square and you have an experience, please send us comments. I will share them with Todd
and Brian or if you speak, I know a lot of you work and live down there and so if you
think of something or you hear something from a neighbor, please share that. We want more
input than less input so that we can keep working on a solution.
Thank you, Brian. Appreciate the input and the opportunity for us to give some feedback
on the streets. My pleasure.
We want to get our results from our discussion on the grant so that Mr. Polito doesn't have
to stick around here if he doesn't want to and even though it's a lot of fun.
The total average score was 25. If you look at your score sheet, 25 allows a grant up
to $25,000. The request was for $7,314 which is more within that range.
The scores average 25 which allows for a grant up to the amount of $25,000. The grant requested
was $7,313. Anybody want to make a motion?
Marty, this is Monte. I would move that we grant them the full amount of $7,313.
I'll second that. All right. We have a motion for Monte and a
second from John. Any further discussion? I'm going to go around the board again and
ask for ayes or nays. Melissa? Aye. Bob? Aye. John? Aye. Monke? Aye. Hank? Aye. Beth? Beth,
you're on mute. I think there was an aye. Michael? Aye. All right. I think I got -- Brock,
I missed you. Do you hear me? Yeah. Say that again.
I had to abstain. He had to abstain. Okay. All right. We have -- everyone has
voted for it with one abstention. So the motion carries. Thank you for your time. And, Eric,
we're excited about the project. Look forward to things getting back to normal and going
over there and having a good time. So thank you for your investment. We appreciate you
being here. You're welcome to stick around and watch and play music.
I'm going to head out. But thank you all very much. It helps a lot. And, yeah, we'll keep
you all posted on opening. Thank you.
All right. We need to give some input. EDP 20-022, receive report, hold discussion and
give staff direction regarding a pilot program in downtown for Parklets and Streeteries.
So I will apologize to the committee. I am not Richard Canone, the director of planning
who did the majority of work on this project. So I'm going to do my best impression of planning
at this point. So if you have questions or anything that is beyond my expertise, just
let me know and I will get an answer for you. It just may be next week. So I'm going to
go through this is the presentation that city council saw on Tuesday. So essentially we
were getting feedback from a number of businesses requesting the consideration of possible extensions
of outdoor seating through what was called Parklets. So Parklets are the use of public
parking spaces for outdoor seating, microparks, all different sorts of uses. And it actually
came out of an initiative in San Francisco, but they have been implemented across the
country in varying degrees and different concepts and things like that. There's also a parking
day on the third Friday of September each year where cities temporarily transform parking
spaces into parks. And so that's something that was pretty inspirational as we went through
this. So in our proposal, we recommended consideration of two different concepts. The first is a parklet
and that's the use of a public parking space for an actual park function. It's available
for the use of anyone. So it's not limited to a specific business that might make sense
in certain areas of downtown. So we wanted to leave that concept as a possibility. The
second concept is a streetery. It's like a parklet, same general design and concept.
However, that the streetery is reserved for specific use of a particular business, the
business that holds the license and they can limit occupants in the streetery during their
business hours to their customers. With the streetery, businesses would also be able to,
if they had the proper food and alcohol permits, be able to serve customers in those areas
as well. Whereas a parklet, because it would be deemed park space, there would be no alcohol
allowed. So it would follow the same rules as a city park. So we provided to city council
a parklet manual and in that manual, it included addressing drainage and accessibility, landscaping,
furniture, signage on parklets, design and safety, obviously safety being at the forefront
of these. Anytime that we're introducing seating into an area that's normally reserved for
vehicles, we want to make sure that we protect the individuals that are in those spaces.
And then a consideration of the materials that can be used. So based on council direction
that we received on June 23rd, we also provided information to Denton Main Street and made
a presentation to them and took that information to city council. Then on June 30th, we city
council approved a pilot program. The pilot program will last for six months. It goes
into effect on July 14th and it goes through January 14th. And so one of the things that
we want to continue to do is get feedback during this pilot program. Certainly this
is something that's new. And so one of the things that Richard and I have talked about
throughout this process is we're not going to just step away for six months and come
back and see how it goes. We want to continually get feedback. And if we need to tweak something
or make an adjustment, we want to make sure that we have the flexibility to do that, which
is why we wanted to bring it to this committee, even though it's already adopted. So going
through what city council approved on Tuesday, the pilot program will not include Elm, Hickory,
Locust or Oak streets. So that's for the entirety of the streets within the purple and pink
areas you see there. That's the downtown zoning designation. The areas you see in kind of
the pink color just have the overlay. There's a max of two parklets per block face. We know
that there are some different sizes of block faces, but certainly that's something we'll
look at as we go through this. Amplified music would not be permitted. As I mentioned, smoking
wouldn't be permitted in either, but alcohol would be permitted in a street streetery,
as long as the permits to allow that. There are some very small fees associated with this.
There's a permit fee of $50. And then if you apply for a streetery, there's an additional
license of $50. And then furniture that would be allowed. Obviously, businesses could have
tables, chairs, benches, as well as shade structures. The only thing that we would ask on the shade
structures is that they be taken down, especially in a streetery, that they be taken down or
that furniture that could be removed at night. So that there's not a risk continuing in that.
And then as I mentioned, the pilot program is going to run for six months, July 14th
to January 14th. And at this point, we have the approved manual and license agreement.
And so starting next week, Richard and I will be working through how we process these and
we'll be reaching out to some of the businesses that requested this to let them know that
we're here to work with them through this and through their application so that we can
see if we can get some parklets or streeteries in downtown Denton. And that's all I have.
Anybody have any questions or comments? Bob? I was just wondering if you're able to say
who has requested that so far. I think it's a good idea. I'm interested who's involved
with it. We have had a number of requests from different
bars and restaurants in downtown. And so they no one has applied directly, but I believe
the owner of the loophole spoke at a council meeting requesting one. And then we've been
in discussions with a couple other businesses that have been interested.
But as an example, loophole wouldn't be eligible, was that?
They wouldn't be eligible for one on the front of their business. They could consider if
they found a way to make it work on the back side, yes, on the new streets. The same with
John's restaurant. And Monte's, I believe as well.
What about something more semi-permanent on the square to allow for the ones that are
excluded from this to have an outdoor, like more of a static outdoor seating space. So
as opposed to letting people sort of congregate on the square sort of willy-nilly just to
have like tables and chairs set up in that the county sets up or the city sets up.
That's something that we can look at. It would be separate from this program that did come
up in our conversations of would it be possible to do a separate public seating area? Obviously
there are limitations in terms of permitting and locations and is it taking away from parking.
But if it's just something on the courthouse lawn, we can ask the county what their interests
would be and have that discussion.
What is the difference between a streetery, I mean is that on the street? Has to be on
the street. Where I'm kind of going with this is what is to prevent somebody from just putting
some chairs out on the sidewalk. We have a couple of restaurants downtown that do that,
some that don't.
Yes, this is the specific use of a parking space.
Okay.
It would be separate from the sidewalk cafes.
Has the council considered or has anybody considered maybe having a instead of it was
raised a little fairness issue. Some people kind of first come first serve got it and
then they had to wait because there's only a max per two per block. If we were to have
something on the square that was a shared streetery that would be available only for
not so much table service, but it could be shared for restaurants for delivery. Like
they would deliver a food to go takeout, but a shared streetery for eating takeout that
could be delivered to the table that we could all share instead of first come first serve.
I think that we could think through the logistics of that. One of the challenges that we were
dealing with was the service of alcohol. Obviously the rules are a little bit different right
now than they are typically, but what would be allowed if it was sort of a shared public
space and it was considered a park, then there would be no alcohol allowed. So that's the
challenge of a central space.
Isn't it just no alcohol on a park, excuse me, on a parklet, not a streetery?
There's no alcohol. So the city's park rules would apply to a parklet, which would mean
no alcohol.
Well, could we designate it as a streetery?
So under the definition that we've been adopted, the streetery is for a specific business.
And then even if it was a, so if it was a shared space, it would fall under the park
rules. The way that the code is the way that you're currently have defined it. Okay.
I think the one advantage to what John's talking about, I understand it's a different definition,
is let's say you wanted to, let's say I wanted to eat at Mellow Mushroom and Bob wanted to
eat, you know, get ice cream at Beth Marie's and we were going to sit together, we're friends,
we're going to meet down there, we're going to sit together and eat, but maybe I want
to have a cocktail and all of a sudden I'd be precluded from doing that. And then he wouldn't
be able to eat with me. I just, I think there are some advantages of that shared space that
John's talking about.
I guess they would have to redefine the streetery. So it's a shared, shared space for, I don't
know if you can offer the full service piece because it might be difficult, might be not
even close to your restaurant, but let's say I had one in front of Cartwrights and Leupold
could also use that space. And I guess we could deliver food for them. It would be kind
of difficult for full service, but they can certainly deliver takeout for that. And I
think that would, I mean, takeout delivery around the square that you're eating outside
on a great day and somebody wants Leupold, somebody wants Dick's Coneon or somebody wants
JJ's Pizza or Mellow Mushroom or what. So shared space might have some advantages.
Yeah. I just think if I pay for the permit, I absolutely wouldn't want people bringing
in outside food and drink. And I would, if I paid for the permit, I've paid for the furniture
and I've built the streetery, I would say you can't bring in outside food or drink period.
But if it was a common space, it would allow greater flexibility of people that are meeting
there safely outside to be able to share a meal together with different food requirements.
Maybe someone's vegan or they want Thai and I want barbecue.
John's wanting a couple of parking spaces, maybe on each side of the square that was
to go order pickup only that everybody could use. So you could, if you were on the south
side of the square or whatever restaurants there, there were designated spaces for people
to pull into. So that really isn't any of the things that we've talked about. That's
just a preserving parking spaces. Marty. Yes, Hank. Quick clarification though.
We're not talking about the main arteries of the square. We're talking side streets
with the streeter is right now. Correct? What was approved was that John was just asking,
is there, is there a way to do something a little different for the restaurants on the
square or something like that? Yeah. And I'm on the square, but you know, I could do something
on Cedar street. It's got a little bit of a slope to it. So, um, and it just, it doesn't
seem logical. I don't, you know, I don't know it, you know, I could be wrong, but there
could be wild success on Walnut street. I don't see how, but, um, but I was just, Hank,
I was just suggesting maybe we, if we, if we redefine streetery, we can make that work.
You know, it's, we have, we don't have any open container. You can drink beer outside.
And I have a Cartwrights and I think Suzanne has one chestnut tree, a BG license that they
can walk out with a bottle of beer if they want to. And, uh, and that kind of thing.
Yeah. It just, the thing you guys consistently bring up is that the conflict with the trash
pickup and the dumpsters and all that. I'm just trying to visualize how all that would
work on streets like Walnut. But you all know better than me. I just go down there as a
consumer. I don't live down there. So I will agree that, you know, through this process
and we've really made, made sure that we want to learn from this process and listen to what's
working and what's not working. And, and we have had to take into account, and I, I don't
want to speak for the city council, but I know that a lot of comments that we received
back, the reasons that the square and, or Elm and Hickory and Locust and Elm were removed
were concerns for parking and then concerns about the travel speeds, which again is something
related to what you were talking about in your last item. And so, um, definitely we're
trying to balance as many interests as we can. Um, but nothing stops us from continuing
to get feedback and make adjustments as, as we're hearing from, from the businesses and,
and the community.
Hey Jessica, this is Michael Talley. What has been the discussion internally and maybe
y'all had some, some businesses present at council as well on, on the differences between
a park with streetery and utilizing some of the sidewalk space or do y'all see that as,
you know, the restaurants, most restaurants are already utilizing that space and there
just wouldn't be enough space for, um, basically patrons to, to walk back and forth in front
of the restaurants.
So we didn't talk specifically about the, these in relation to the sidewalk cafes or
any of the outdoor seating that restaurants have. Our primary goal was just providing
extra, um, space to restaurants. Um, when we were on the limited occupancy levels for
COVID and so that was our, that was sort of the impetus to this and how it came to us
and the requests were made from businesses themselves simply to allow them, um, especially,
I believe it first came up when the very, if you think back a few months ago when reopening
was very first starting, there was this outdoor only, um, seating allowed in that first phase
and that's when we started this process.
Okay. I know we, we have reached out to, um, well, there's many cities that have done different
things, but I know one of the first ones we reached out to was Southlake. Um, they did,
they temporarily sort of, you know, allowing their restaurants to utilize more sidewalk
space just because of that outdoor requirement and that, you know, the indoor dining percentage
is obviously much lower and there were, there were some issues with that.
There any other questions? Um, certainly, like I said, this is, we are learning right
alongside with you and we're going to be on this journey with all of the businesses in
downtown and all of the patrons who are experiencing this. Um, so let us know what the experience
is or let us know ideas that you have or ways that we can make this better. Um, our goal
is to support, support all of our downtown businesses to the best extent that we can
and give them every opportunity to succeed.
All right. I guess, uh, we'll move on to the staff report.
Okay. Um, under openings, you've had this Denton Sports Chiropractic, which is in the
former.
Hypnotic Donuts.
Hypnotic Donuts. Thank you. Um, Red's Yard did open, but I haven't seen them open since
their initial opening and that's in, uh, Ken's Produce location over there on the go. Cookie
Crave opened, Salon Indico. And then after the posting of the agenda, Three Wishes opened
in the former Market on Oak location, which closed. Um, Nift closed, Scrap is closed,
Freaks and Geeks, Source Gaming Lounge, Cryptozoology, Escaping the Square. And then additionally,
since a posting, we've seen, um, announcements from Mad World Records, Wine Squared, and
the Juice Lab.
Um, coming soon, we still have Oak to Hickory. I mean, sorry, Hickory to Oak. Um, Caskey's,
which has been under construction for several months. I have not been able to confirm their
location or not the location, but their opening at the new location. And then on the downtown
Grants, um, the Movement Lab has successfully completed construction and received their
grant. And if you have an opportunity to drive by McKinney, um, Mr. Dow has really been moving
along on his project. So I expect him to finish pretty soon.
Um, next meeting date is August 6th. And that's my report. Nift was, um, a second hand, like
vintage clothing. They were on Austin Street there in a small space.
And I'll have one correction on the meeting date. You normally would meet on August 6th.
Um, we do have limitations. This is our only room and our only ability to host all of the
remote meetings. And City Council, I believe, has a budget workshop scheduled for that day.
So we will be bumped. Um, so we'll send out an alternate date for August, um, to the committee
members as soon as we find an available date. Okay. Anything else? Anybody has for the good
of the order? Happy Independence Day, everybody.
Thank you for being here today. I appreciate everybody's input. And, uh, I think it'll
be okay if I say this out loud, Alex family dog died in the middle of the night. So he's
dealing with that with his family this morning and rough times and best wishes to him and
his family. And, um, thank you for being here. We'll see you all soon.
Okay. Adios. Thanks. Thank you.