>> Okay.
Welcome to the Monday, November 9th, 2020
traffic safety commission meeting.
It looks like we have a quorum of, I think, five of our commissioners
are here. So we'll go ahead and get started.
Are there, Rachel, are there any comments
in the virtual white cards or anyone by phone commenting that we should know about as we get started?
>> No, we have no comments today. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Okay. If there's no
comments from the public, then we can go ahead and move to our
first item for consideration, which is item A,
TSC20-020.
Consider the approval of the minutes of September 17th, 2020.
Are there any corrections needed for the meeting minutes from any of the commissioners?
Okay.
If there's no
corrections to the minutes, which I'm not seeing that there are any,
we will need a motion to approve the minutes
from the last meeting. >> I make a motion to approve.
>> I second the motion. >> Okay. We got
Commissioner Thurmond made the first motion and
Commissioner Carr made the second motion. So that
if we can go ahead and get a vote, everyone in favor
of approving the minutes, yay? >> Yay.
>> Anyone opposed?
Okay. I think that's all for the record. I think all of our commissioners approve
the minutes. >> Daniel, excuse me, Daniel.
In the virtual environment, we have to have a call out on the vote, so each
commissioner can announce their name and their vote. >> One by one?
>> Yes, please. >> Okay. No problem.
So we'll go -- I'll go in order from
the council place. Commissioner Carr?
>> Yes, approved.
>> Okay. King? >> Jeff King, yay.
>> Thurmond? >> Clay Thurmond, yay.
>> And Baker?
I believe you're muted, Connie.
Although I saw him say yay.
>> There should be a little microphone image
in the lower left-hand corner of your screen.
I'll let you know when we can hear you, Connie.
It should be on -- if you make the
zoom screen full screen, you can see it sometimes when you just
see the small screen. It can be hidden from you.
But on your own video, if you can see your own -- there you go.
>> Ah. >> Yes. >> Yes. I approve the minutes.
Yes, thank you. >> Okay. And I also approve
the minutes. And so that is a 5-0 vote.
Okay. All right. Moving on to item B,
TSC 20-021, receive a report, hold a discussion,
and give staff direction regarding the continued development of an ordinance allowing golf carts
to travel on city streets. >> Thank you, Chairman.
And good afternoon to Brian Young, city traffic engineer.
So let me share my screen.
And --
So can you see the presentation?
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. So if you'll remember
the last meeting, we had a brief discussion about whether or not we were going to consider
an ordinance allowing the use of golf carts
on city streets. We agreed to do so. And so this is the
next step in that, as you may remember,
I think the general consensus of the commission was that we wanted to limit it
to certain streets and maybe not every street that is
35 miles an hour or less, but actually
craft a more restrictive list of streets. So that's really what our
focus today is. We also want to talk a little bit about the type of vehicles.
So just some quick review.
The code, the transportation code allows us as a municipality
to pass an ordinance to permit the use of golf carts
on city street other than the default, which is your
two miles from a golf course, et cetera, et cetera. So
we do have a draft ordinance. And with us today is Stephanie
Berry and Brian Coase with our PD. Stephanie
is our lead prosecutor. She crafted an ordinance.
And the ordinance that she crafted was specifically
limited to UNT. However, we've had discussions with TW.
They also want to participate in the
consideration of golf carts or other slow-moving vehicles
on city streets that meet certain criteria. So I have
and I don't think I can get to it. Let me try it real quick. Yeah, I can't open that file.
So I figured. We have an ordinance that's out there and I think
it was included in your packet that allows
golf carts to utilize roadways adjacent
or through. And I've modified it to say the two campuses, UNT
and TWU. So what we need to decide or what you need to decide
as a commission, is that language acceptable or do we want
to broaden that or restrict it even further to certain, basically
craft a list of streets that allows, on which
we allow the use of golf carts. So that's the first question in front of us today.
Here is a side-by-side comparison. UNT
and TWU, where they currently
utilize the
golf carts or slow-moving vehicles. So UNT is on the right and TWU
is on the left. Those roadways in yellow at TWU
and the roadways in orange for UNT basically
would be the facilities that are in the ordinance as it's drafted
now. Adjacent to or through the university campuses
both UNT and TWU. So that's our
starting point.
So here's a map of all the roads that are 35 miles an hour or less.
Obviously, we've got a lot of facilities
that are not adjacent to UNT or TWU. However,
the code allows us to include any or all of these roadways
as long as the speed limit is 35 miles an hour or less
and the golf carts are outfitted with brakes and lights
and seatbelts and all the bells and whistles that are included in the requirements for the code.
This is a list
of those same roadways. So
here are options we can allow on currently... Could you go back to that
list just for one moment, Brian? Yes.
So there are segments of all of these
roadways that are 35 miles an hour or less. So obviously
not the entire length of any of them, but there are pieces of these roadways that
are in fact 35 miles an hour or less.
I was just verifying. I think some of these roadways are
pretty diverse, aren't they? I was just thinking about that.
That's the pitfall, I think, of just picking that category of 35 miles an hour
or less. Some of them are two-lane roadways, some of them are four-lane roadways.
Some of them could very well be divided roadways. Very, very
different context based on the roadway segment.
So that's the discussion we have is
which roadways are appropriate.
Again, the way the ordinance is crafted right now, it is limited to
roadways that are adjacent to or through the university campuses.
That may be a good starting point. If we want to grow this sometime later,
we can come back and revisit it and add streets.
So I'm going to go back a little bit further.
I just wanted to make a note of one street as an example on there. Fort Worth Drive
is 35 miles when you come off of 35, if everyone knows
that, right? If you come off 35 east
onto Fort Worth Drive towards the core of Denton, that's 35
miles. But really, the road is designed closer to, you know, it's like three lanes
both sides. It doesn't feel like a 35 mile per hour road at all. It feels
like a 50 mile per hour road. And people go
a lot faster than 35 on it. And that's exactly the discussion
we want to have is just because it's posted 35, that feel may not be
35. It may be 55 or 45. And is it
appropriate just because the speed limit is 35 to allow the golf carts or
slow moving vehicles to utilize those roadways? So that's kind of what we
that's where we are. So let me go back to that. So again,
we can utilize the maps
that were submitted to the universities. That's probably
a pretty good starting point. We can expand it to all
or some additional 35 mile an hour roadways.
Or we can, again, create the smaller subset
of that 35. We can incorporate
characteristics like only a two-lane undivided roadway, et cetera,
slower than 35, only roads that are,
we can come up with any kind of criteria that we want. It's really just a matter of
what the commission, there was a specific voice
opinion that we wanted to limit
only on certain roadways. And so that's where we are today.
There is another question that we need to identify
and maybe it's for another meeting. I'll ask Stephanie if we're off posting.
But the question has come up from, and I haven't heard it from
UNT, but TWU also uses
mules and other golf cart type vehicles.
So I've seen other ordinances where they define, they call
them SMV, a slow moving vehicle. And so those types
of vehicles are described and categorized. And so even if it's a gas-powered
mule or a gas-powered golf cart or an electric golf cart,
we have a list of vehicle types in the ordinance
that we allow. So it's not just a golf cart, and that's
kind of a loose, broad definition, but we actually are, we try
and reflect those types of vehicles that the universities
use. And I think this ordinance is really intended to address the needs
of the universities, but we may grow
that in the future if DISD, which we have not had
conversations with the school district, or
other entities want to use golf carts on city streets.
I think that's the phase two where we come back
and add those streets or categorize
those roadways somehow to allow those users.
So,
I think we need to have a discussion today
to talk about what the preference of the commission is.
We will incorporate those comments if there are any changes
into the draft ordinance that Stephanie's created.
We will bring it back to you one more time just to make sure that, alright, here's where we are,
and here's what we've included, and these are the roads, and this is the approach
that we're taking prior to taking it to council for adoption.
So, the discussion for today is
which roadways in Denton do we want to allow
golf carts to utilize? And with that, I'm going to stop sharing so we can
have that discussion.
And just a reminder, we'll try to use Robert's rules, so if you can
indicate when you want to speak, either by using the
virtual raise your hand or just kind of put your hand up, I can try to call on people.
It looks like Commissioner Thurman has a comment.
Yes, I like the
idea of starting just with a university since this seemed to be initiated
by them, and I'm around T.W. quite a bit, so I think the
expansion of the vehicle types would be good for that
of the mules as well. I don't see any need right now
to expand it out in the city. I think if we did, we'd probably be
creating more headaches for us, and right now I don't think we need those, but I
think it would be good to later go on and look at
the criteria that you had on the bullet point, the third bullet
point. I think those would be good. Just one
observation, during election day, I was out
at Lifeline Church just off
Teasley, and there was one person in a golf cart driving
to and from the neighborhood and around the area, and I didn't particularly
have a problem with it. That's not a big traffic through
a neighborhood, but I can see how that could maybe be expanded
in the future to include smaller neighborhoods like that
that don't really have as much through traffic, but at this
point I'm in favor just of limiting it to the universities.
Commissioner Carl?
I would agree with Commissioner Thurmond. I don't see any
point in extending it beyond the universities. My only other thought was
we haven't included NCTC, and they have a campus now downtown,
so I'm kind of wondering if they would have a use for it, but
downtown traffic usually runs pretty slow,
but I would agree. Keeping it to the
UNT and TWU for now.
Brian, what do you think about the possibilities of narrowing
those criteria a lot? I mean, I think 35 is clearly too high
in my opinion, but if we narrowed it to 25
and narrowed it to two-lane roads, which would consider more neighborhoods,
that would allow potentially more people.
What are your thoughts on just making the criteria a lot tighter
so that it would only fit certain neighborhoods?
I would have to, one, I would recommend not using
25. I would recommend using 30.
And the next presentation is going to explain a little bit about
why my hesitancy to use 25.
I don't have a problem with that. I just would want to make sure
that all the roads that the universities have on their maps,
I just want to verify that those are all less than 35.
So if there's a 35 mile an hour roadway that's adjacent or through the campus,
one of the campuses, I would not want to preclude them from being able to use that
roadway unless, of course, we could find a parallel. But it really depends on
their facilities are, you know, they're on every block, every block face.
So I would just want to verify that we would not eliminate
a major opportunity for them to use
the roadway just because it's 35. And that's kind of why
I brought the maps and I asked the universities to provide those. Where they
currently operate is people are already used to seeing
slow moving vehicles, golf carts or mules or whatever,
on these roadways. So it's kind of, I mean, it's a starting point.
But we can, I can verify, I can't do it right now, but I can verify
that all the roadways that are shown on the TWU map and the UNT map
are 30 miles an hour or less. That's not a problem.
Would it be possible to,
you know, set the criteria but allow for, like,
people to, I don't want to say appeal, but, you know, apply for certain
roadways that maybe don't meet the criteria for exceptions.
And then those would be, for example, like added to a map. And so that would
allow us maybe, I'm guessing that's why you don't want to tighten the speed limit
because that would affect probably around the universities. Could we
have a process like that or would that be too burdensome, you think,
for the city to maintain and keep track of? I don't think it would be
too burdensome at all. I'm going to defer to Stephanie and I'm not sure
how often we want to update this ordinance.
Because people could petition for a street
at any time. And then we would be basically
obligated to consider it and then take it to commission
and then to council. Just really depends on how often do you want to do that.
Or should we,
well, I'm not sure how we want to, that's a good discussion point,
is how do we want to update or continue to grow this ordinance
if we start small and want to add to what that process is?
I think if you did it piecemeal with streets, like by application,
it would maybe not, it wouldn't create a burden for the ordinance
writing per se, but it would create a law enforcement burden
for Sergeant Coase and the officers
knowing, wait, this street, it's allowed, this street, it's not, so it would
sort of, it would, from
a police enforcement standpoint, it would be better to have it by
okay, if you guys want to do TW and UNT
and then maybe at some point bringing in all the streets under 35
or whatever, a set criteria, because
I don't know
how police officers would keep track of, oh, this
street is legal and this isn't
anyhow. I don't know if Sergeant Coase has any thoughts on that.
No, I would concur with
that, that any ordinance, ideally it would be easy to enforce,
easy to understand by the officers, so if it's
changing a lot, we would have to produce new maps and constantly be
pushing out that info to officers.
For example, right now there's already some confusion
as to what a master plan community is. I don't have a good definition
for that, even though the transportation code refers to it in the golf
card ordinance. So that already creates some confusion that
hopefully with this ordinance we can get some clarification
that's easy to push out to not only us, but the TW
officers, UNT officers that work the city as well.
And one other
thing, not just for the police, but also for our citizens, if we start
adding in a street here, a street there, there could be some
confusion and someone might think they're allowed to
drive a golf cart in their neighborhood, because
some streets can and some can't, so we
definitely want to, there's a fairness issue and a notice issue to our
citizens also. So Stephanie, that begs a question that I had.
I think the way the ordinance is currently written, it simply says
you can operate a golf cart on a street that is adjacent to our
neighborhood, passes through one of the two campuses.
Do we want to limit that to university personnel or just anybody
who's got a golf cart can run up and down those roadways?
I can see some college kids having a golf cart.
So I have thought about that and I'm not sure how we, if we want to
roll that into, you know, basically define who the
allowable operators are. I think it says
university of business and is that strong enough so that
a student can't say, well, I'm going to class, that's university of business.
I think the language is
probably adequate, yes.
Any other comments from commissioners?
Yeah, this is Jeff King. I had to just
go back a little bit regarding the speed limits. I mean,
the streets that you listed on that big list, I mean, you had multiple examples.
I know that you mentioned Fort Worth Drive or Carroll. I mean, you have Mayhill,
Lilliam Miller, Fort Worth Drive, Teasley, and then Teasley turns into Wind River.
All those under 35 at some point and obviously those
are not places for golf carts. And then when you take a look at lower end
the speed limits to say 25, I mean, most of your neighborhoods, and y'all correct me if
I'm wrong on this, but just from experience, my neighborhood itself,
Southridge, if you look at that, I believe all of those speed limits
may not be posted, but technically are 30 miles an hour.
And so if you're driving around the neighborhood, I mean,
you're supposed to be going 30 obviously, and most people do because of the kids around things like that.
So, you know, limiting those neighborhoods
where there might be, you know, whether it's just a handful of cases
of some, you know, maybe some elderly people driving down the street to a friend's house or something
like that. I mean, obviously, are they going to get ticketed for that?
Are they going to get caught for that? Or is that going to be an issue? Probably not.
I mean, I would assume. So I think that those situations
in those types of neighborhoods, using Southridge as an example,
you know, I would have no problem with somebody driving a golf cart down the street. You know,
you see a lot of it at Halloween, things like that.
But, you know, that's just my two cents on those bigger streets.
I haven't mentioned just a handful of them that I read briefly. There's no way I would want to see
a golf cart or slow moving vehicle on those types of streets.
But I would not have a problem with the type of neighborhoods or, I don't know,
if you call them master plan communities or whatever, however they're defined,
having access to them.
So I want to follow up on that because we talked about
lowering the, possibly, lowering the allowable speed to
30 miles an hour or less. There are portions of McKinney that are 30 miles an hour.
And it probably would not be an appropriate place for a golf cart either.
I agree. And Dahlstra? We will talk a little bit about speed
zoning in the next presentation, but
the reason I'm hesitant to tie it to a speed limit, I like the geographic,
the mapping. It's easy to understand. It's easy to enforce
adjacent or through a university. As we may be in the next
12 months, we're probably going to be updating a lot of our posted speed limits
just because of some of the complete streets and Vision Zero
policies that we're trying to enact. And so if we wanted
to consider a speed limit as a criteria, I'd say let's wait
until we get that speed limit update, that ordinance update, so that we know which
streets we're talking about and something doesn't change midstream. So if we
picked 30 now and then something changes and that roadway is
no longer 30, but we, you know, I just, I mean, one of
my recommendations, if we wanted to apply a speed limit
criteria, let's wait until that speed limit ordinance is adopted.
The update is adopted.
So this item asks for
staff direction, give staff direction regarding the continued
development of the ordinance. So Brian, what do you need in regards
to this from us? Do you need a motion or do you just need comments?
I probably just need a consensus. If everybody's on
board with utilizing the way the ordinance
is crafted now, and that's adjacent to or passing through one of the two university
campuses, and if you wanted to, we could go back and revisit
North Central Texas and see if they utilize golf
carts or want to. And we can bring that back as a
third map or something. We can do that. So it's really just
which streets and if we want to go that geographic base that we've got in the ordinance
now. And then the second part is, and
Stephanie, let me know if I'm off posting because
I think we've got, I know I've at least heard it from
TWU. I've not heard it from UNT, but they want a little bit better
definition than golf cart as far as vehicle type. I think we
would be going off posting. We'll bring that back next time.
But it's something to think about.
So it seems to me like
there's at least a consensus on the campuses
using golf carts or similar.
The NCTC to me, I
understand why it's not included because it's just one building, right?
So I don't know where the golf carts would be going to except to the parking garage.
So I think at this time, I don't know if it makes sense to do that. That would actually maybe open more
wormholes than the kids driving them on campuses, right? And then now you can
ride them around the square.
So commissioners tell me what you think, but
I'm good with going forward with the plans for the campuses.
I think that makes a lot of sense and considering
whether that should be expanded or there should be further guidelines for opening it up to other
parts of Denton in the future, I think seems like a
wise approach.
Excuse me.
Thank you. So I'm just trying to understand. So if we just limit it
to the appropriate personnel on the
campuses and then leave it open for further discussion or
examination down the road for
say neighborhoods or something like that. I mean, what's going to be the indicator? What's going to be the
you know, the trigger that's actually going to open up that
discussion again? How are we going to get back to that down the road? I mean, is that something we just
don't know or something that we can plan on looking at down the road and make a date
or something like that?
So is that question directed to me? Yes.
Okay. So my recommendation would be that we start with
these two geographic areas and let's see what success we have.
And my concern about as we grow
this thing, how fast we grow it and how big we grow it is what
Stephanie talked about is that's the enforcement and
how much of a challenge are we creating for our police department
to try and enforce? They have, like Brian said, they've got to, you know, every time we
change it or add a street or add a region, we got to update the map and all the officers
need to know and is it just in residential
because that's the real, if we don't use speed limit
as a criteria, then it really becomes a mapping issue and
the officers are just going to have to know
where they can enforce that and where they can't. And is it
every subdivision or is it just those that apply and then
that leads to the, well, why not our neighborhood? Well, because you didn't apply.
So I think, my recommendation would be let's see how this
goes and then let's see where
the desire is from the community is, hey, we want golf carts in our neighborhood.
We may not ever hear that. I don't know.
But I think it would certainly be something that in
the future, six months from now or six months after adoption, if the commission
said, you know what, that's working fine. So let's think about
expanding it and offering that to different users.
Certainly in the purview of the commission is
let's talk about expanding the scope.
Well, and I think Commissioner King's point is pretty good.
Would it make sense to like return to this issue like in a year, right?
Like after this policy has been in place and can we do that? Can we make a note to return to this?
Sure. So that we know that it actually-- We can put it on that.
Commissioner King, would that
meet your concern, right, that we actually do bring
it back to the commission at some point? Well, I mean, what's going to be the
evaluation process for the universities? I mean, what is y'all's plan as far as
are you looking at two months, three months, six months, a year? I mean, as far as
what's working, what's not? So right
now, they primarily utilize sidewalks. I think they do use the streets
sometimes, but they know they're not legal.
So the indicator that I'm going to use is crash experience.
If we start having crashes with either pedestrians in golf
carts or vehicles in golf carts, that's, to me, that the safety
issue or the safety aspect is the-- That's the big issue.
Is it safe? If we don't see any crash history or
crash experience increase, to me, that's a successful program.
You know, I quite frankly think the golf carts or the
slow-moving vehicles of any kind belong on a street more than they belong on a sidewalk.
So-- But it brings
an inherent conflict between a 3,000-pound piece
of steel and a 500-pound piece of steel. So it's just--
or fiberglass, or whatever they're made of. So it's a new--
exposure that we don't have right now. And so that's
really what we're going to look for. We're going to see how safe we can keep it.
-
Yes. If we could set a date down the road, yeah, that would be my recommendation
as well, in conjunction with the safety information.
- And maybe we could get feedback from
the police department, from, you know, crash data, anything-- anyone else
that has comments about how this is playing out. And of course, part of the
safety is-- I think the streets around the campuses tend to be safer and slower
streets, fortunately. And so that'll be a good sign. But this will allow us to make sure
that that's the case. So, yeah. So, Brian, if we could
add that to the kind of our direction
and staff direction is that we would like to have an update. I think we--
whatever a reasonable amount of time for that would be, whether it's six months,
would that be a reasonable amount of time to return to this in six months?
Will we have enough information? - I would recommend a year because we've got to get this through
council and we're going to bring it back to you one more time when we do that. So
it'll probably be three or four months before this is adopted. And I'd like to give us at least
six months worth of experience. - Well, what if it was six months
from implementation? What if that was our-- - That's fine. That's perfect. - Right. So that would-- okay.
So six months from this going into effect,
we want this to come back to council for an update on how it's going. - Okay.
- Okay. All right. If there's no other-- are there any other comments from commissioners
before I move on?
Okay. All right. - I think Becky's got her.
- Do we need-- sorry, Becky. - You have to have a consensus
from the committee by vote again. - Okay.
So if I can-- - I think it's by vote. Sorry. - Okay.
So if I can summarize, I think our consensus is that
the commissioners are
okay with the current plan of golf carts around universities on
university streets, but would like an update six months after implementation
so that we can better understand how that's working
and consider whether it should be expanded. Does that
reflect our sentiment?
- I would like to-- - Okay. All right. - Yay. - Go ahead. Okay.
So if you are-- - Commissioner Carr.
- Yep. We'll go down the list. Commissioner Carr. - Yay for that.
- Commissioner Thurmond. - Yay for that.
- Commissioner King. - Yay.
- And Commissioner Baker. - Yes.
- I also vote yay. And so that is a 5-0 vote in support
of that recommendation. Okay. We will move on to
our next item, which is item C, TSC 20-022.
Receive a report, hold a discussion, give staff direction regarding the process
of establishing speed limits in the city of--
- All right. Thank you.
Once again, Brian John, City Traffic Engineer.
Screen go.
Can you see the presentation?
- Yes. - Okay. So this is really an informational
item. It is tied to the speed limit
that you saw several months ago
where we basically codified all the speed limits--not codified--well,
we put them all into one ordinance. All the posted speed limits, all the
codified speed limits. And what this presentation
is all about is giving you some background
and some exposure on how we're going to go through the update
process for speed limits. So
a little bit of background on speed zoning in Texas, what the law says
we can do, what it says we can't do. And then we're going to look at some emerging
and alternative speed zoning methods. NACTO's got some,
ITE's got some, FHWA's got some.
And then we'll look at some next steps and some timeline. So
speed zoning in Texas. If you'll remember, we talked about
the prima facie speed. And this is, I think, Commissioner King said
that even if they're not posted, he thinks their roads are
all 30. Well, in fact,
if there is no sign, it's 30. And so that's the prima facie speed
on anything that's not a freeway or a highway with a number or not a
number. All city streets start out at 30 miles an hour.
And if an alley starts at 15. So that
first one, this is our purview for
truly modifying speeds. We have the right to suggest a speed limit on
I-35. Typically we allow the transportation
commission to establish those speeds, TechStop.
But we want to focus on city streets
that don't have a number. And we can raise
or lower that prima facie speed by conducting an engineering and traffic
investigation. It applies to all city streets. So this investigation
is something that was developed in the 60s
and it's all based on how fast drivers are
comfortable traveling. So if you've got a flat,
straight road, how fast are you comfortable driving? Well,
pretty fast. So the process is established to,
and let me get to this next, is established to recognize the
85th percentile as that speed, you know, that
normal and prudent driver would drive. And it's based on
some research from the 60s
where you can see the average speed, the normal curve, and then this crash
curve, and they identified, it's really
close to 85, between 85 and 90. This point is
your least exposure to a crash.
People don't drive like they did in 1967 or so.
So most professionals are
beginning to understand that the 85th percentile is a little outdated.
So the administrative code says that we have
to use this 85th percentile to establish our speed. We've got
two codes. Let me back up a little bit. We've got the transportation code, which
establishes the prima facie speed and gives us the right to
lower the speed or raise the speed based on this study,
and then we've got the administrative code that tells us how to conduct the study
and what we can do once we get the results. So we can adjust,
based on the information in the Texas administrative code,
we can adjust that 85th percentile, typically it says
within five miles an hour, up or down, to reflect for
site distance restrictions, crash history, driveway density,
and a number of other factors. Anything that we think makes it unsafe
or
unsafe to drive that speed, that's in a lowering case, or
if we don't have any driveways at all, we can go a little bit higher.
So I want to focus on lowering the prima facie speed because that seems
to be the biggest area of request
where everybody wants their speeds to be 20 miles an hour, and this is again, we're going back to
the transportation code now. It says we can lower that prima facie
speed of 30 if we do the investigation,
and the investigation says it's unreasonable or unsafe
to drive 30. And remember, not remember, let me point out that
this method strictly focuses
on vehicular traffic, does not address pedestrian traffic,
bicycle traffic, transit, strictly on a
single occupant vehicle. And so if the driver
feels, the study shows that it is unsafe or unreasonable for a driver to drive
30, that's one way we can lower. This roadway
that we're going to lower has to be two lane undivided, and it cannot have a
number on it, so it's got to be off system. So we can't, a four lane roadway can't
be 20, a three lane roadway can't be 20. They used
to have a width, I think of 35 feet, that was the most, the widest road, but
they continue to modify. And then even if we,
all of this is true, the lowest we can go is 25.
So we can't sign, with the exception of a school zone,
we cannot post 20 miles an hour, but we
do. So if you'll remember, we had quite a list of streets
in the city of Denton that in that speed limit ordinance that you saw
previously were 20 miles an hour and less. So we even had some
15s in there. When we're working through with our
legal team on how we got to
that point, it happened obviously quite some time in the past.
So here's a list of the roadways with non prima facie speeds.
Some of these are below 30, some are above 30. But this just gives you
an idea of the number of streets that
we have from day one to now
that we've modified. We've done the speed study, we've lowered,
we've gone below 30, we've done the speed study, we've gone above 30. So anything that's
40 or 45 or even 50,
technically we have somewhere in the past performed a speed study
and shown this to be the 85th percentile or within five miles an hour
of the 85th percentile. And we set those, we post those speeds
based on that approach. So now let's talk about
some of the emerging methodologies and what
elements they take into consideration that might allow us
to vary more than five miles an hour from that 85th percentile.
So we've got a couple of different approaches. Target
speed limits. This really comes into play
with design. You design the roadway to
basically allow the speed you want to post.
So it calls for tighter centerline curves,
little narrower, on street side friction, which is parking,
or other elements. Context sensitive speed
zoning. So if you're in an urban district, 45
miles an hour around the square, it doesn't make sense. If you're in a park
area or if you're adjacent to schools or if you're adjacent to a lot of commerce
where we've got pedestrians and transit and cyclists, if you've got
an on-street bike lane, those kind of context sensitive characteristics
are what we want to be able to use to pull that speed limit
down or take it up or however we want to use it.
Slow zones and sensitive areas. And this is very much, it's just a
kind of a hyper context sensitive. So if
you've got, and I'll use, I know they're
private streets, but I'll use Robson Ranch as a
context or a sensitive area where you've got
possibly an elderly population, you've got a lot of pedestrians.
This is really what we're looking for is
is there a geographic area, maybe not just
one segment of a roadway, but is there a geographic area that is sensitive
in nature to really desiring lower speeds.
And then there's one that kind of puts all of this together. This is the ITE
road risk method where it looks at land use
and driveway and
on-street bike and ped facilities. So
what we're going to do is use these
approaches to modify that 85th percentile speed.
More than the five mile an hour guidance
that's in the administrative code. The administrative code doesn't say we can't go more,
but you have to justify it somehow. And so this
is the, these are the methodologies that we want to use
to modify those speeds. However, we can still go no lower than
25 because of that language that's in the transportation code.
So there has been a push and a number of
in past years and a number of different legislatures where large
groups have asked to lower the prima facie speed to 25, but it has not
yet been successful. And I have a feeling that it's going to be continued to be
pushed. And if we adjust or if the state adjusts
the prima facie to 25, part of that burden
for the city is that any 30 mile an hour speed limit we have
unless we have a speed that shows it's not, you know,
it justifies a higher speed, we've got to resign that.
And so it can get expensive. But the goal of
this approach is to
really put down what we think are appropriate speed limits and what are reasonable
for either the geographic or the characteristic
of the area in which that roadway passes.
So next steps and timeline.
In July, the city council approved a
contract with a vendor for us to collect speed
and volume data across the city. Again, because the administrative
code and the transportation code both say we have to use the 85 percentile,
we still have to collect that volume and speed data for vehicles.
But this contract is all video based, which allows us to pick up pedestrian
and cyclist volumes as well so that we can identify those corridors
that have higher ped volumes or higher cyclist volumes
and then justify, use that to justify
a speed reduction. So we're going to look at speed and volume for sure,
but we're also going to look at the road characteristics. Is it a narrow roadway?
Is the roadway surface in bad shape? Is it
divided? Just basically bringing that
context, that characteristic element of the roadway into consideration
on, and I'll use Carol as an example,
if you looked at the roadway,
it's six lanes, it's divided, it probably shouldn't be 30.
So based on that. So we just want to bring all the data
in or look at road classification. One of the key
for me, one of the key considerations is driveway density. If you're just talking about
vehicle on vehicle, the more conflict points, and
I believe we saw that in the one-way, two-way
presentation several months ago, the more conflict points,
the more opportunities we have for crashes. And so if we've got
an area of town, and again, I'll use the
town core, and even Elm and Locust as an example,
those are older developments.
It's a lot of very closely spaced driveways. We've got people turning in
and turning out, so that can be a justification for a lower speed.
And then do we have traffic control in the areas that a lot of all-way stops? Is there signals
in the corridor? And then the adjacent land use.
If you're adjacent to schools, churches,
any of these areas that have the high potential for pedestrian
and bicycle traffic, that's what we're going to try and grab and pull into this model.
And really do a much more thorough
examination and justification of what we're going to post
as a speed limit. So
the next step, and let me back up real quick because I want to talk about the timelines.
This data collection, if you remember
the street list for the non-prima facie speeds,
there's about 60 or so, that's going to be the speed limits that we
re-evaluate first, because those are already non-prima facie,
they're already established. We want to validate those and make
changes to that list as the first step.
So we're going to collect that data as the core, and then
expand as our budget allows, and it's not a huge budget, so
we want to make sure that we at least capture
the data for all the existing non-prima facie speeds.
And that's going to take six to eight months. So
after that, once we have that data in hand, then becomes the manipulation
of the characteristics of the roadway, the adjacent
land use, the driveway density, and we will
look at how much we can justify
as a variance from that 85th percentile speed, because
again, on a flat, straight roadway,
what are you comfortable driving? And that's why people, typically
why people speed is because we have built roadways
that are very comfortable to drive fast. So
we have to pull that down slowly, a lot of education,
a lot of modification, we've got a traffic calming program
that's in its infancy, we're still pushing that through, so bringing those tools
in on those roadways that are already built to try and
accomplish. If we recommend a speed that's less than the 85th percentile,
then how are we going to
bring some kind of compliance into that roadway?
And then after that, we'll bring that back
for an ordinance update, we'll take it to this commission,
we'll take it to mobility commission, and then ultimately to council, and that's going to take several
months in itself just to be able to get on everybody's calendar.
We're talking about the administrative code says that
speed limits that are non prima facie should be
updated at least every three to five years.
So with that list and with our budget constraints,
we will bring back, and I'd like to do this at least once a year,
and maybe twice a year, a handful of roadways as the city
changes characteristics of the corridors,
change, we need to be responsive and
say, okay, this used to be on a fringe area, now it's, you know, you're totally
surrounded by single-family homes with school-aged children, you've got a brand new school
that wasn't there when the speed limit was established, or you know,
we've got new commercial, or we've got a new bike facility
on street. As these things change, we want to be able to bring those back
and recommend a modification if the modification is
supported. So with that, I'll stop sharing, and we can have a discussion.
There's not really any guidance. This is really an informational
item, but if you want to ask questions or just have a general discussion,
I think that'd be fine. And I'll defer to Council if we're
off posting with a general discussion.
I have a couple
questions, Brian. Well, a couple questions and comments.
I, you know, as you mentioned,
I'm very curious about whether the formula's right. You're saying people
have addressed this formula, addressed in the '60s, but I'll
address one thing you brought up. You mentioned Carol as an example.
Carol clearly can allow for high speeds, but I
think it's because it's designed wrong, right? Carol, to me, is designed
inappropriately for where it's placed, and so that's the challenge of not
just looking at this right, which historically has happened from the perspective of drivers
and cars and how fast they move to safety. And if I live on right off
Carol, and you see people run for their lives across the street, it's awful.
All the time, I see it every week that people sprint
across the street hoping that no cars hit them.
And so, you know, but if you look at it just from the driver's perspective, the street,
you could say, we can go 50 on this street, and it would be fine.
So then that brings me to my second suggestion, and I'm primarily talking about the stretch of
Carol closest to the square, closest to the core, right, particularly
for example, streets like Hickory and Mulberry that are
more pedestrians and cyclists going between places like UNT and the square
and the downtown transit county authority.
Did I say that right? DCTA, downtown where the A train
is. I've suggested this before, and I know some cities have implemented it. Have we
looked at potentially having like identifying boundaries of the core
that we define? I would suggest something like Belle, Carol,
Eagle, and what am I missing, McKinney,
potentially is like boundaries of the primary core and having
a single speed limit for all of those streets. And I know some cities, what they've done
is they have special signage that kind of both serves as a marker for where you
are, right, it says like square or something like this,
and then has a common speed limit. And while, because in most cases from my understanding,
people tend to drive as fast as the road tells them. If you have wide
lanes, they drive fast. If you have skinny lanes, they tend to drive slower, right.
Like you said, if it's straight, they drive fast. If it's curvy, they drive slower. So they tend
to indicate it. But from what I've read, there's been some
success when you have like a unified kind of
speed limit approach in like a certain area, because people then tend to pick up
on that. It also is a signal that they're entering a different type of area.
So would that be a possibility about looking at justifying
the core where there's increased pedestrians, bicyclists, a lot of that
activity as markers for justifying a 25 mile per hour
speed limit which is lower than the prima facie speed that you mentioned?
Sure. And that would be, that would really fall under the category of that sensitive zone.
You identify the urban core and call it a sensitive zone.
However, and this is a caveat that Texas has that a lot of states don't,
the administrative code still says we have to use that 85th percentile.
And so we have some procedures that we have
to follow. What we're looking for with this new approach
is additional justification for
reducing that 85th percentile speed.
So I would totally agree with you that, you know, Carol,
it was designed back in the day when bigger was better, man.
We didn't need six lanes. We can zip up and down.
So now that the neighborhood has maybe changed a little bit,
and we've got some more, a little bit more urban character, that's the kind of,
that's exactly the approach that we're trying to do, is take some of those
non-vehicular characteristics and plug them into the formula,
the equation, as justifications that it is unreasonable or unsafe
to drive that 85th percentile. So if
we've got a lot of pedestrians or we've got an on-street
bike lane, then to me, it's
unreasonable to be able to drive as fast as you want to drive because these are
very much at-risk populations. They, you know, again,
you have 3,000-pound pieces of steel versus a bicycle or a pedestrian,
we know who's going to win. So if we can justify
and quantify those characteristics, then we can justify
that lower speed limit. Now, I will say that Texas does not have
a blanket speed limit. Other states do.
We don't.
We have to go through street by street and do that study and
determine those characteristics. And some of that may help us decide where
that boundary is. If we see a drop of, you know, drop off in pedestrian
or cyclist activity four blocks from the square, it's really just around the
square in four blocks each way, then maybe that's the natural
geographic boundary. But that's exactly what we intend to do.
And I'll also point out that maybe even the
built geographic boundary is a better way to say it because sometimes people don't walk
in areas because the roads are unsafe, right, because they feel unsafe. And so
if we redo any of those streets over time,
potentially we could see pedestrian and bicyclist activity increase
in those areas if they were built better. Correct. And that's the challenge
on the built environment is how do you morph that into
what you want. Here's what you've got and what are our tools to change it
to provide the facility that we really need now versus what we needed
30 years ago or thought we needed. City of Fort Worth
is a great example. They've got six-lane roadways everywhere.
And it just, they don't need it. But that was
I mean,
I may have been part of that problem, but because I was a consultant 30 years ago,
but everybody wanted
this high density of, you know, a lot of cars,
a lot of traffic, and it just, it never happened. And so especially with
now everybody's working from home, we've, you know, we
will see lower volumes than we had a year ago.
So, and that may not change. People may continue to work from home. Now that we know
we can, and we can do it quite successfully as we are right now,
that environment may lend itself to
allowing us to change some of those built environment roadways.
Comments from other commissioners?
Questions? Commissioner Carr?
I'd like to add on to this last discussion.
I ride bikes with
a group of women, and we often get people who join us who
feel frustrated that they
want to ride, but they can't because they feel fear
for their life when they get on the road. So I appreciate
you guys looking at ways that we can lower the speed limit
so that people might feel more comfortable riding on
the road with a bike. Because as much as, you know, they want to, they get on the road
and, you know, you get a car that gets too close,
they get run off the road. I've heard numerous stories.
I really appreciate us looking at these speed limits and trying to see what we can do to lower them.
Thank you.
Other commissioner comments?
I had
one question on,
it was, I believe, that roads that are
divided or multiple lanes cannot be
prima facie or non prima facie. You mentioned three lane.
Does that include road diet areas like Eagle and Malone?
Well, so that's just basically the transportation code says it has to be
a two lane roadway. If we want to go below 30.
So we've got two thresholds that we're working against. One is that
85th percentile, which is the measured speed, and then
the other is that 30 mile an hour, that's the prima facie speed.
To go below the prima facie,
we have to have that unreasonable or unsafe determination.
It has to be a two lane roadway and we can only go to
25. That's clearly stated in the transportation code. The administrative
code is much more vague and really more process oriented.
So a three lane roadway technically wouldn't
qualify. So if we had a, and we're looking at one right now,
Mingo, and based on our
traffic studies that we've done with our mobility plan update,
we think a three lane roadway is more than adequate because you've got the railroad on one side
and you've got a lot fewer crossings. So you don't, without all those intersections,
you know, you just don't need that turning capacity, which is where typically
you widen at an intersection. That also allows us to put a side path,
which is kind of a win-win because it gets the bike facility off the
street. But technically that roadway couldn't be less than 30
because it's three lanes. These are just
some of the challenges that we're up against as we work through the transportation code, which is
kind of archaic and the administrative code, which is kind of vague.
It's, we're
looking, we're just looking for ways we can get creative on really lowering that
going more than five miles an hour
and I'm going to say below, that measured 85th percentile speed.
Just because people feel like that's appropriate speed,
if we've got extenuating circumstances or characteristics that
show otherwise or should show otherwise, then that's what we want to be able to plug into that equation
and pull that speed limit down. Even if we go out and measure a speed of 45,
that's the 85th percentile, that's too fast.
I mean, it's just too fast for any kind of corridor where you've got
the potential for pedestrians and cyclists, so personal opinion.
But that's what we're trying to do. So yeah, the three-lane roadway wouldn't
technically qualify for
the 25. And that's marked lanes, not just, I mean, it
can be, like I say, they used to have a width limit on it, but
if you have a 36-foot wide roadway, you know, technically
you could have three or four lanes in there, but if it's
a residential street with parking on both sides, it's marked for two lanes.
So it's a functionality
test versus really a width test, which I think is why they took the width
criteria out.
And to piggyback on to Daniel's talk about the core, I would
suggest that Parkway or Congress be considered the northern
boundary, because that would pull in Emily Fowler Library in Quaker Town.
Right. Good.
Other commissioners with comments
or questions?
The
clarification real quick, but it does, the item
C does ask us to give staff direction
on this. I mean, would we, I know that generally what I get, I get your
point, Brian, that you guys have a process that you have to follow, right, for this
anyway, but is that, should we give
just a kind of brief overview of what we talked about? Is that
or am I reading the agenda wrong? No, it's fine. When we took it to
council, we made the same presentation to council, we took the
give direction out, and so it just snuck back in, because that's our
standard caption. You can give whatever direction
you'd like, yes, go forward, but you kind of have given direction
about, hey, let's look at identifying some geographic
areas like the core.
I'll leave that up to you, whatever direction you want to offer staff.
Okay, I think based on this conversation, and please commissioners, correct me
if I'm wrong, the commission would like to, so I'd like to
propose that the commission would like to see
consideration of possible urban zones
that could be, where these speed limits can be looked at,
potentially in uniform, and this could, when we consider
clearly how this affects cyclists, and how these, you know,
how far this should extend out, as Clay pointed out, Commissioner Thurman
pointed out, you know, potentially looking beyond just that immediate area of the core, but other
streets that make a lot of sense, like Oakland and others.
So, if that's, does that seem to represent the
commission's viewpoint?
Okay, if there's no additions, all right, no additions,
then we can kind of move that forward as a item, so we
can just, for all in favor, and I'll go, we'll go down the list
of that recommendation, Commissioner Carr?
In favor? Aye. Commissioner Thurman?
Yes. Commissioner King? Jeff King, yes.
Commissioner Baker? Yes.
And I'm also a yes, so we have a 5-0
vote to recommend looking at those items as you all move forward, and we
look forward to hearing about it in the future. Okay,
on to our last item on the agenda today, item D,
TSC 20-023, staff
reports. One, we have a staff update memo regarding bollards for closing downtown
streets. Also, Alice University pedestrian access,
senior transportation planner, bicycle pedestrian, and ADA coordinator, and
then also an item on identified items of interest for future staff reports.
All right, thank you very much, Chair, and this is Brian Jahn still,
city traffic engineer. Let me share my screen.
Okay, so can you all see that?
Am I muted?
We can see it. Okay, all right. I just, I always ask because
sometimes it doesn't work. So the
first item on the update is something that we discussed at
mobility, and we thought it would be of interest to the commission
closing downtown streets, specifically
around the square. Right now we use vehicles,
fire engines, police squad cars,
and there has been a statement of interest of
can we find a better way, can we use bollards,
because there's a lot of different types of bollards out there,
and they come in four main types.
The embedded bollards, those are permanent. So that's the permanent bollards
around the federal building. The surface-mounted bollards are
removable. So you have either a base or a
receiving sleeve in the street, and you put this bollard in or
bolt the bollard down. You've got rebounding bollards, and this is
typically what we use on our bike lanes, and then retractable
and removable bollards as well. So the retractable is that
what you've seen on even
wealthier federal buildings where they have the little hydraulic
systems that can come up and down to allow traffic. So we're really
only looking for something that is either retractable or removable because
most times we want traffic to be able to circulate on those roadways.
So we're a very limited number of days, truly,
that we want to be able to block these off from a vehicular standpoint.
And also one of the issues that we need to look at is whether or not
these bollards will be designed to stop a vehicle. So
it makes a difference on the type of bollard, but that's another
consideration that the mobility committee has voiced.
So here's some examples of removable and retractable.
Upper right-hand corner, those are the hydraulic.
That's an installed view.
And then the yellow bollards here, basically
you'll see there's a little receiver where you
flip the thing up and you put the bollard in and then you
bolt it on. City of Fort Worth uses these around
Will Rogers Coliseum, specifically during the stock
show and when they have events. They don't stop a vehicle, but they're easy
to install and remove. And then here's an example
of the hydraulics or those much more
permanent bollards going in. Very expensive process to install
something that is going to be permanently in the
roadway, retractable when you want to. They're also high maintenance and cost
more. So our recommendation
would be, and we're still in the preliminary stages,
is that we don't really consider the hydraulics.
We think the cost benefit for the City of Denton
at this time is probably not there.
We would suggest something more along the lines of
more along the lines of the surface mounted or
if we want to be able to stop a vehicle
there's a type of bollard that is just a
steel pipe, heavy pipe that you slide down into a receiving sleeve in the
street. Still requires some coring and some excavation and
some serious road work, but the removable factor
saves you a ton of money. It's really just a matter of
do you have to have a bobcat to install them, or can
somebody pick them up. If they're going to stop a vehicle,
an individual is probably not going to be able to pick them up.
We want to look at as we get into this a little further, we now know that
we would recommend we don't go with the hydraulic bollards, the retractables,
but what characteristics
of these bollards do we want to have? Do we want to have total vehicle protection?
Do we want to have something that's firm, but it's not going to block a vehicle,
or something that's really just topical in nature, and a visual barrier
instead of a true permanent barrier. This is just
our first blush as we move into identifying
where these want to be. Is it just the block around the square? Is it two blocks away?
Do we want to put these in other areas
in the square? That's a bigger discussion.
We have not had that discussion yet, but we will bring this back for
your input as we develop this topic of conversation.
The next one I know is of interest to this
group, and that's the Alice University Pedestrian Access.
Here's the current condition. We've got a crosswalk, and we've got a landing,
and then we've got a curb. It goes nowhere.
Don't tie into a sidewalk. It ties into the top
of a storm drain that goes nowhere.
I know the Commission has been asking for quite some time
for us to pursue a remedy here, and we have in fact
met with TxDOT. We've met with the property owners. We have a plan in
place right here that allows us
to ramp down, create a landing, and then
allow a pedestrian to proceed into the parking lot.
One of the things we're probably going to add to this is some
markings, some striping to create a buffer zone so that
we don't have that vehicular traffic zipping through here
adjacent to this curbway. There's a lot of room to push the vehicles
out a little further, and so right now
we've got this plan.
We're ready to move forward with construction. We're looking for some funding,
and then the construction that you see here is probably less than
$5,000. Most of the concrete's there. We're simply going to
remove part of it and ramp down. It's not a lot of curb work.
It's not a lot of flat work, so we're excited about getting this
knocked out in the next few months. And then the last one
is something I think is also of interest to this group.
You'll remember that Mark Oliphant, our bike ped coordinator,
left the city this past June, and so we are
currently, the position is posted
as a senior planner, bicycle, pedestrian, and ADA coordinator.
So we've rolled a bunch of new roles and responsibilities into this.
We've beefed the position up. We may be looking for a unicorn.
Some people have said that, but we've got four applicants
already, and it's only been out I think a week or so. So we're excited
about the possibility of bringing this person on board to help with
ADA issues, bicycle issues, pedestrian issues,
but also transportation planning issues, which bring in
that whole context-sensitive, complete street, vision zero,
and the mobility plan update, all of those different aspects of
non-vehicular travel that we're seeing
such an insurgence of. So we're trying to be
reactive and proactive, actually,
and trying to get some good staff experience on board
so that we can move forward with some projects that we've
identified that are pedestrian or bike-oriented.
So hopefully within the next month or so, we will have
hired this person, and we'll bring him
to--I'm being very hopeful--our next meeting in January, we'll
have this person on board, and we'll all get to meet him or her.
So with that, that's the end of the staff update. I'm going to
stop sharing. We can have a discussion on any of those topics if you want to,
and then if not, then you can proceed into items for future meetings.
Regarding ALICE, has there been any discussion with the property owner about
striping a pathway from that sidewalk
up to the businesses? We have, and
they were--
they said they would consider it. They were not--
that's a long way, and
that parking lot is just--typically,
you would have a--
bless you--a little bit safer pathway.
The city--I'm uncomfortable doing that with city forces
because it's so much, 100% private property.
So we will continue to encourage them to consider
some kind of a pathway, but
I cannot make any guarantees. Our goal was just to get the barrier
out of the way, because it just didn't make sense that we have a crosswalk
to nowhere, or to an island, basically.
So we just want to take the barrier off the next side.
I realize that would be on the property owner to do that, just if they--
I was wanting to gauge of how amenable they were to it.
They didn't say no, so that's always
positive. Okay. Yeah, there's plenty of
area to accommodate that. Also, on the
new transportation
planner, you mentioned that they would be one of three ADA
coordinators. Who are the other--what departments are the other two?
So we have HR, and
we have Becky Davini, who is--the city engineers,
there's an HR ADA coordinator in
Facilities. Well,
no, I take it back. Becky is currently
an ADA coordinator, and she would be transferring her role
in the right-of-way to this position. We have a Facilities
HR--I mean, a Facilities ADA coordinator and an HR ADA coordinator.
And I used to know all three names, but I think
the Facilities person left,
and I'm not sure who it is in HR, but that's the three--the
stool, Becky likes to say.
So we've got--this person is responsible for right-of-way,
so a lot of PROAG, and
but not so much in buildings and facilities. That's the Facilities person.
But anything in a public right-of-way would be accommodated
or overseen by this person. Okay, how would any
request be filtered to these three? Who would be doing
the filtering? There is a process, and I don't know
it off the top of my head, but in our ordinance that identifies
the ADA
coordinators, there is a process by which people can petition
action.
I can send you a link or--I've seen it, I know
I've seen it in a presentation a year or so ago,
and I remember seeing it when I was looking for the list of--
I think it's on the website, in fact. If you just go to the cityofdetton.com
and look under ADA coordinators, it'll have the list of the people,
and it'll have the process by which you can petition action.
Okay. Is this transportation planner
going to be liaison to the committee like Mark was,
as well as ADA? I would
suspect so. I know that
Ryan probably would voice that same
hope. I have no reason to doubt that because the ADA
coordinator is such a large portion of this job description, that
would be the staff liaison for COPWD.
Right. It's going to--the ADA is going to take a very large
amount of their time, and so I'm a little concerned how they would be able to
do the bicycle coordinating and all of that,
as well as, you know, one thing we're lacking is public outreach
that we used to have with Julie.
So those are my comments.
I'll just second Commissioner Thurman's comments.
I mean, I think because initially this position didn't even include the term
bike or pedestrian, and it did it when it was re--so it
very much felt like we were de-emphasizing
pedestrians and bicyclists by the changing of this position,
which I'm concerned with, so I don't know if that's something that we could
send forward to council for further consideration about
how much dedicated time people are going to have towards these issues in the
city, because it does seem like this is being reduced, and I'm not
sure this--that's the right move as we continue to see density and
pedestrian and cyclist needs. So Commissioner
Thurman, I don't know, would you--I mean, would you want to make a, you know,
add a report or something on the amount of time
that this position is going to be dedicated towards these issues, so that
we can understand more fully where the city's moving on these?
Are there any historical records of how much time
Mark spent on pedestrian traffic issues versus ADA?
Not that I'm aware of. Yeah.
And technically, Mark was not the ADA coordinator.
Right. But he was liaison to the committee. Yes, yes.
And I understood that the coordinator was HR, capital projects,
and facilities. Yeah.
So would that be--could that be something we could get a report on about the
changing of these positions and how much time is going to be dedicated in these
people's jobs to do the work that previously Julie and Mark had been doing?
I think we can get an estimate. I don't--
the one I don't have a real handle on
is the ADA. I'd have to go back and look and see how much time
Todd spent on the right-of-way ADA stuff.
So I think some of the pathway forward
has been clarified with our ADA transition plan
being completed. So we now know where our
shortfalls are, and we have a
list of--basically a list of projects
to remedy all that. So--but this
position also will be looking at ADA for all new development.
So they'll be part of that development review that the
development team that surveys and
examines the new construction. So
I know we have planning people that do that as well, but I think that's going to be
part of this person's role. So we can prepare what--
basically what we expect. It's always
going to be dependent on what the workflow is at the time,
but we can certainly come up with what we think is the
expectations of how much
time is going to be dedicated to the bike, the
PED, the ADA, and the transportation planning. So the transportation
planning is really the new--well, I guess both ADA and transportation planning
are new elements.
So the planning portion will probably start off small
and--because we've got an established bike/ped
need and we've got an established ADA need. So those
will probably take the forefront, and then transportation planning is like
the mobility plan, where it's every five years, or
looking at--one of the things I--
something that Chandra and I do, and this person will do as well,
is revision. When we have a CIP project
and we're going to rebuild Carol or Elm or Locust,
then we need to have the opportunity to revision that roadway
for a complete street approach, a vision zero approach, and
a context-sensitive approach. So that's a natural function of
I think this position, because they'll be looking at ADA issues, they'll be looking at PED
and bike issues as we go through our reconstructive corridor.
Mitch or Car, do you
still have a comment or question?
I guess I was just--I haven't looked at the job
description yet. I have not downloaded that to see, but I was
curious. I mean, clearly--I don't know any
job descriptions that generally say percentages, but
I mean, it's got bike/ped on there, right?
I don't know.
It's in the title now, but it wasn't--the thing we know is it was not, right?
That was only added after there was community feedback
or committee concerns, is that if I'm understanding it correctly? That was not in the title.
So my understanding is that the
term "bike" or "bicycle" had to be added
for funding purposes. The job description is the job
description, and it's got three very clear--
you've got bike/ped oversight issues,
you've got ADA oversight issues, and then transportation planning,
which primarily right now is mobility plan type stuff, those oversight issues.
The reason the word "bike" was specifically added back
was so that we did not preclude ourselves from receiving grant funding
that wants that in the title.
For me, I'm fine with
bike/ped in there. I have no problem with titles.
For me, I'm much more concerned about the job description and what we're asking
this person to do.
We are about out of time, and I think I have a couple items I'd like to address, but
I think one thing I'm hearing is just making sure
I think the committee has some concern, or the commission has some concern that
people will have dedicated time towards that, because the previous job seemed to be solely dedicated to it,
now that seems to be a partial component of their work. So I don't know if that's something
that we could be interested in moving forward.
I'm hearing that from commissioners Karin Thurman.
Is that something we'd want to maybe get a report on, or just
give direction on? Is that something we can add for the future?
I think just get a report on.
I don't think we need to give any direction.
One of the things is that this person is going to be
pulled in two directions, and it's going to
one month it's going to be pulled one way, another month it could be pulled the other way.
So it's kind of hard to anticipate that, but
one of the things that we've been lacking since
Julie left is a public outreach.
There were Bike with the City in May for Bike Month.
There were quite a few things where
we showed off what we've been developing, and now
is kind of left for people to just kind of discover on their own, or have
other outside sources do that. Perhaps that's something that
communications could help with.
So if we could request, is this, and I don't know if this is the proper, could we request a future
item that maybe looks at both what the previous job descriptions
were, that Julie and Mark held in this new position, and how we think
they'll be, what is going to be gained and lost specific to
bike and pedestrian interests, which those previous two jobs had.
So could we get a report on how that's, we see that'll be changing
going forward with the new position.
And I just wanted to add, this is Becky Davini. I'm the City Engineer and Director of Capital
Projects. I'm not sure I've met all of you, but as we are going
through this project of actually working on trying to hire
this individual, and through this, you know, overall
posting of this position, I'd like to mention that we
really would like to see what type of applicants we receive along
with the job description that's currently posted, because it may
be that what we are trying to do through the job posting,
you know, is not something that is possible, or we're not going to get the type of candidates, and we
may have to go back to the drawing board and try to relook at that overall job description.
We're in hopes that we have an individual or can find an individual
who can do, you know, the multiple jobs that are within this
specific job description, but it may be that
timing, it would be best to wait until, obviously, if the next meeting is in January,
that might fall into play, but I'd like to just mention that as we're working through
trying to hire that individual, it may be very difficult to try to bring forward
something back until we kind of have that opportunity to review the applications
and see if that type of individual is even out there for us.
Thank you, Becky. So could we add that
to the agenda for after that point in time that Becky identified?
And I am concerned, Becky Owens,
are we allowed to go past 2 o'clock or are we limited? Because we are
almost at, we are, okay. Commissioner Carr, I saw your hand.
So I just want to say really quick that, you know, maybe we don't
pursue, you know, advertising
or trying to get people to understand the new bike facilities, much
maybe through this position, but maybe we seek out the
part of the city that does recreation and
we just refocus that energy on a different part of the city
and let this position be more targeted
towards streets and
understanding how they interact with the other traffic for bike and
ped. That's all I have to say.
Commissioner Carr's point, I think that actually
is a great point for getting a report on how the job's right, because if we see something that
was done in the previous job descriptions and is now not done in that position, we might see
could that be done elsewhere, like she's saying. I think that could be a great part
of a report. Commissioner King, did you have a comment or did I?
No. Okay. Okay. Becky, yes.
Hope you're muted.
Sorry, we can only go
over slightly on our time, so we need to move along with our future items
list. Well, I have a quick question. This may be for you, Becky.
I'm not sure. Just really quickly, I had made some requests
to have some things added to the agenda to get reports, brief reports on them that
I didn't see show up and maybe I'm incorrect on my
notes for our July meeting. One of the
things I requested report on was the feasibility of a common speed limit around
the square, which is something we discussed today, but I didn't see it on the agenda.
Am I understanding the process when we make these requests
for future items, how that happens or when that shows up on the agenda?
Because for the last point, if we wanted a report on this, how does
that process happen? Because I didn't see that on the agenda.
It can happen in multiple ways. As a staff report, as Brian
has prepared and presented today as part of the
speed study, that agenda item was a bit inclusive of that.
Or we can bring it back as a special, if you want to see it as a full-blown agenda
item. Depends on how the request was entered
or interpreted.
We'll push that towards Brian to see how we want to, or
how to incorporate that in the future agendas.
Well, I think that item was addressed tonight, but I was just more concerned when we
asked to add agenda items that they're added to the agenda, because I just
didn't see that happen. Because I think I had
also brought up asked if we could get a report on the design of the barley
the new ramp and
lack of crosswalk at barley and board that's right on the side of that building.
And I think I'd requested that the last time and I didn't see that come back up.
And then I'd also made one request about potentially getting a report about the
city blocking sidewalks with signs for road closings
and road construction, which has been a practice I've brought up. And so I asked
if we could potentially get a report on whether that city policy to block
sidewalks with with signs for road construction
or whether that is something that is just being done without
direction. I think I've been bringing that issue up for about six years, five or six years now.
And it seems like nothing has happened. You can walk around the city and
see it. So I don't know if that could be an agenda. That's an agenda item I requested in July that I
didn't see added anywhere. Can we add that as a formal agenda item?
Those items are, excuse me, sorry.
Those items are shown on the list that Brian's
fixing to speak to. It's the items for future consideration
and requests for agenda items. That report's been retitled.
It does show that you requested that in the meeting in July.
And those are
at the purview of the staff liaison, be it Becky and Brian,
for when we begin creating the agenda topics and
allowing for those items that need to go on to counsel and
staying within our time limitations for this particular meeting.
Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. I actually didn't notice that those items were on that list
there, so that is very helpful.
And so I would just like to add one last thing
or two quick items. One, do we know why Commissioner Sample is not here? I'm concerned
whether we're able to address whether these
meetings are excluding some people, whether it's to work
issues or other things, and I don't know if you need to publicly share it.
Are we able to address that to make sure that there's not
technology or work issues or anything that are excluding certain commitments?
The attendance policy was attached to this meeting invitation
as a reminder of how your attendance is to be reported. It goes directly to
the city secretary's office. I can say personally that
Commissioner Sample was invited. He did respond and said he was going
to be present today. I had provided his telephone
as well as his email address as points of contacts,
and I haven't seen him come on. So his
report will again go directly to the city secretary's office on his attendance.
I do know when we were meeting on Thursdays
as an alternate time during the workday,
he did have a work schedule conflict,
and we have to be mindful and respectful of that since we've moved our meeting from the
evening time slot to the daytime time slot, but that's
the only report I have available, but he is included.
You all can see on the meeting invitations and the distribution of the information
that everyone is included. It's a group invite
and all listed commissioners are covered.
Okay, thank you. I was just concerned about that.
And then the last item, I just want to hickory the bike bollards on hickory.
Citizens in the community have started to bring up that cars are parking between them.
That was part of our discussion when those were put up. So I wondered if we could bring that
back up about whether additional bollards are needed to
prevent those bike lanes with bollards now from becoming parking spaces
and delivery drop-off zones for people, because I think that's already
happening. And from what I've heard, it's just being framed as an
enforcement issue, but I think it's a design issue. And so
I was wondering if we could actually get a report on whether the bike
bollards are, at whatever future meeting, whether the bike bollards are working
or whether cars are just driving between them. And that's on the
hickory by UNT.
Any other items or agenda items anyone would like to add? Any other commissioners?
Okay. If we do not have any
other items, then I believe we can
adjourn this meeting. So thank you, everyone.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.