Springfield City Council — May 10, 2021

0:03 now and mayor i will turn this over to you talk about throwing water on a fire all right with that i'm calling the work session for the springfield city council to order with roll call mayor van gorden here counselors pits here mo here rodley here woodrow here and pissionary present all right it looks like we have one item tonight which is the main street draft solution toolbox and recommendations with brian barnett and molly marquerian or just it looks like just molly [Music] we'll turn it over to you molly okay brian should be here

0:49 he was there okay i'm going to share my screen oops says i can't share while another participant so there we go okay so can you see my screen now okay good evening i'm molly markarian a senior planner with the city and um as you all know the main street safety project is a collaborative effort uh between the city and odot uh in the audience tonight is also bill johnston

1:35 odot's project manager and also the consultant project manager john basket and then as we all noted ryan barnett city's traffic engineer is here with us as well tonight i'm going to start with a brief um project refresher share where we are with the project and then review the draft solution toolbox and recommendations that we've developed i'll also highlight the key feedback themes that we have heard from the community and then as hopefully you saw in attachment one um we shared a number of discussion questions and so we're

2:20 looking for your feedback input on those questions and the key question is do the toolbox and recommendations meet your expectations and direction to date it should look familiar uh to all of you we'd like to start our presentations with the purpose statement to help remind us why we're all here the purpose of the main street safety project is to select infrastructure solutions that will make main street safer for people walking biking driving and taking transit over the past two plus years our project team has been refining the recommended solutions based on community input

3:06 technical analysis and city council feedback at this stage in the planning phase we're seeking feedback on draft recommendations to inform preparation of a draft facility plan that will guide future design and construction of safety improvements on the corridor the next step in our process is drafting the facility plan so your feedback on the recommendations presented tonight will inform our drafting of that facility plan what is a facility plan anyway well it uh pulls together the analysis outreach and design concepts that we've developed during this planning phase it is an expression of the community's

3:52 values it becomes a design framework for the project it results in a transportation system plan amendment and it leads to design and construction we've included this slide as a reminder of the community values and community priorities that were shared with us by the community early on in the project those informed are drafting of the goals and objectives for this project our draft solution evaluation criteria and then of course our draft recommendations and i'd just like to note that the feedback that we received from the community earlier this winter on the

4:38 draft toolbox and recommendations is tracking with the input we received early on in terms of values and goals and objectives the main street safety project is recommending changes to main street to help improve safety and address the specific type of crashes that occur on main street we see a high percentage of rear end and turning movement crashes on the corridor which is common on urban streets with a high number of driveways and intersections but 80 percent is particularly high our data shows that the primary causes of these crashes are failure to leave yield right of way and following too closely

5:27 we also received questions as to whether there are specific areas on the main street corridor that see more crashes than others as you can see in this map crashes occur throughout all of main street and thus why we need a corridor-wide solution overall we've heard from business and property owners the city council and the broader community that we need to address safety on main street while balancing safety elements with impacts to businesses thus our recommendation is a toolbox of safety infrastructure elements that includes roundabouts raised medians sidewalks and bike lanes the toolbox approach responds to the community's desire for simplicity

6:12 flexibility and phase ability if you recall the last time we met with you all you provided direction to simplify our analysis process and develop a comprehensive solution that could be adaptable to the varied context along the main street corridor thus the application of this toolbox is location specific it is not one-size-fits-all while the facility plan will serve as a blueprint for a long-term vision for main street given the length of main street and the total cost of improvements future design and construction will happen in phases along main street over the next 5 to 20 years as funding becomes available

6:59 this represents gradual change to main street as it will take many years for the long-term vision in the plan to be fully constructed the city will continue to coordinate with odot and ltd through design and construction and will do more focused outreach once a phase is funded we have short-term and long-term recommendations an example of how we have responded to the community's desire for gradual implementation of change on main street in the short term we recommend keeping the cross section much like it is today to allow for medians to be put in quickly raised medians would have the biggest impact on safety while having less

7:44 interruption to travel on main street in the long term we recommend improving the safety and comfort for people walking and biking most of the corridor would have buffered bike lanes and slightly wider medians resulting in an additional four feet of width on each side of the street for approximately four blocks from just west of 54th to just east of bobstock parkway where we have larger existing right-of-way and fewer driveway conflicts we recommend a cycle track next to the sidewalk

8:31 i don't expect you to read the fine print on the screen but we wanted to give you a sense of how we're tailoring those two base cross section recommendations for each segment on main street as i said before this is not a one-size-fits-all recommendation both of the long-term cross-sections would increase the overall footprint of main street to improve the bike facility but include flexibility for modifications specific to each segment along the corridor that could narrow the overall footprint in physically constrained sections of main street necessary modifications to the recommended cross sections would be determined during future design phases

9:16 another tool in the toolbox are raised medians or islands within the center lane because they can do the most to reduce conflicts and move turns to safer locations they can also make pedestrian crossings safer most of main street would get raised medians but we would adjust their locations so that people can still make some left turns and u-turns we would also phase their implementation in areas with the greatest safety problem and available funding the toolbox includes flexibility through guiding principles to help meet safety needs while balancing impacts to adjacent business and property owners twelve guiding principles reflect the input we've received to date to help a

10:01 future design team determine the appropriate location for breaks in the medians and these principles include considerations such as keeping openings at all major intersections allowing left turns and u-turns at minor streets where possible limiting the amount of extra time it takes someone to access property on main street to 30 to 60 seconds on average allowing left turn access to major traffic generators and allowing emergency vehicle access as i mentioned raised medians have the greatest potential to reduce crashes on main street use of raised medians when combined with roundabouts would reduce crashes by nearly half

10:47 and limit out of direction travel for business access to about 30 seconds on average community members told us this would be an acceptable trade-off when we did outreach the last major component of the toolbox relates to intersection control roundabouts are recommended as the long-term solution for main street we would add roundabouts in phases and will assess engineering trade-offs and design specific to each intersection during the design phase another example of location specific gradual implementation this winter we sought feedback in virtual format on the draft solution toolbox and recommendations from our

11:34 strategic advisory committee a range of focus groups and civic groups and the broader community we also invited adjacent business and property owners to local access forums to hear the latest project updates give their feedback on the range of recommended safety tools and to discuss their property access concerns we also shared how the city has worked in the past with affected business and property owners throughout the design process we heard varied opinions and preferences from different stakeholder interests on the toolbox and recommendations but some common themes emerged

12:21 on project and process we heard many anecdotes from community members regarding their experiences with main street being crash victims themselves and observing the safety problem overall folks shared that they are excited to see the problem being addressed and are thankful for the opportunities to be kept informed and provide feedback on the recommendations we have heard some frustration with the speed of the project and our outreach approach we also hear overall positive feedback on the toolbox and recommendations we definitely have heard concerns from many business and property owners on the corridor about possible access and site usage impacts but often after explaining the

13:06 toolbox concept flexibility phasing and ongoing opportunities to be engaged through design and construction their concerns are somewhat mitigated well we largely heard that roundabouts are a good way to improve safety some have shared observations of people not safely navigating roundabouts on foot or in car elsewhere in springfield but acknowledging that it takes time for the public to learn how to safely navigate roundabouts we also heard from many that pairing roundabouts with medians is critical and acknowledging that medians may require driving farther but are worth it to improve safety and save lives

13:51 some remain concerned with out of direction travel and freight delivery with mediums other themes we hear repeatedly but are not directly related to the focus of this project are observations of the correct use of the new pedestrian crossings on main street or lack thereof a desire to increase traffic enforcement for drivers bicyclists and pedestrians a desire to decrease the posted speed limit on main street where it has not already been decreased and the need for improved lighting in summary the community has reiterated that there really is a serious safety problem on the corridor

14:37 it's our duty to tackle this problem our approach is sensible and responsible and we do listen and we do care and we will make adjustments during the design phase as noted in attachment two of your packet there is a long history of planning projects on main street there are many business and property owners who engaged early on in those projects and have not tracked the evolution of main street planning decisions since then so through our outreach we've been hearing some rumors that we are working to dispel about our current recommendations you are aware of a lot of these but i'm going to just quickly run through how we are explaining what this project is not

15:23 with the community it's not a lane transit district project odot and the city of springfield are leading the main street safety project we are coordinating with the maine mcvay transit study to plan for transit elements so ltd is an interested party and is providing input in order to continue providing transit service along main street now and into the future it's not mx the maine mcvay transit study had considered mx which could have included dedicated bus only lanes on main street however the main street governance team formally removed mx from consideration

16:08 in july 2019 enhanced corridor transit will integrate with the main street facility plan under the enhanced corridor mode buses would primarily run in mixed traffic but upgrades could be made at bus stops to provide a more welcoming and safer environment for people on foot or on bike and street improvements could be made to provide safer and more efficient movement by all modes including more reliable and consistent bus service it would not prevent all left turns main street would have raised medians but not continuously throughout the corridor there would be gaps some intersections would have left turn

16:54 and u-turn pockets other intersections would have roundabouts that allow for all turning movements also raised medians would have mountable curbs so emergency vehicles could drive over them when needed there would also be no medians directly in front of fire stations on main street it would not need extensive new right-of-way in the short term we would focus construction primarily within the existing curb to curb along most of main street the proposed future street design would need four more feet on each side the toolbox as i mentioned earlier includes cross section variations for

17:39 location specific constraints and property impacts narrowing the street in physically constrained locations will happen during the design phase it's not one size fits all as i shared earlier during our most recent round of community engagement community members confirmed that they like the proposed solution toolbox and range of recommended safety tools as it provides flexibility to implement infrastructure that will accommodate different segments on the main street corridor instead of a one-size-fits-all approach it would not be built all at once design and construction would occur in phases over the next five to twenty

18:24 years as funding becomes available phases would be prioritized based on the project's goals and objectives including addressing the highest safety needs first phasing would enable people to see and experience results in early phases and it also allows community members to adjust to the new street design gradually before moving into your questions and discussion i just wanted to note that we got input on these same discussion questions from the city's planning commission and the main street governance team in april as with other groups we heard varied opinions but they agreed that we have the right tools to address the safety

19:09 problem what is key is that we emphasize the flexibility and feasibility of this incremental toolbox approach in presenting the draft facility plan to the community we also heard that we are making progress even though it has taken several years and that we have thoroughly engaged and responded to stakeholders those two groups provided additional outreach ideas for our next round of engagement and they discussed uh that the likely first phase based on likely available funding would focus on the highest crash and most severe crash locations

19:58 so now just open it up to questions and seek your feedback on the discussion questions that were in attachment one of your packet leonard thanks uh mayor molly thanks for this uh presentation uh the second phase that begins at 32nd on main street seems significantly more expensive than the first phase which goes from 21st to 32nd is that just a matter of area and asphalt port or are there other factors involved yes brian could could answer some of that but i just wanted to clarify that the first phase isn't isn't necessarily the western most segment along the corridor

20:43 okay yes just to reinforce counselor we we don't have any specific phasing plans but we have some priorities that the plan laid out but the phasing will really come about based on where the where the revenue comes from to do the projects the funding packages that will come about which are based on the benefit versus the cost so highest benefit at the lowest cost or where projects will be funded through the all roads transportation safety program and yes to your specific question the difference in cost on those different segments is strictly based on distance how many square feet how many linear feet or how many how many miles okay um

21:29 a couple of citizens approached me about the possibility of planting some trees on the median uh just to make it look a little more cheerful and a little less bleak have there been any kinds of studies done on what the cost of that might be well there's a there's a balance here between what odot as the owner of the roadway will maintain or whether or not the city would take that responsibility on we have not made that kind of decision at this point by any means um we certainly are open to it it's just a matter of are we going to be able to sustain that over time so in each project we would be able to make that determination and find out what odot is willing to do and what we need to do if they are unwilling

22:16 great um also i i've noticed um just as sort of a general overview of springfield traffic are our drivers tend to be defensive to a fault i mean they uh they'll after you know after you all day long and uh four-way stops just forget about it but it's bad enough at the uh the roundabouts and i um i wanted to just direct this to either one of you really um are the um are the roundabouts responsible for more non-lethal accidents than just having straightaways well traffic signals versus roundabouts roundabouts let me qualify this multi-lane roundabouts which is what

23:01 we're um considering here with uh on main street multi-lane roundabouts do have a reduced total crash numbers and they have a reduced injury and severity of those crashes so the number of fatalities the number of injuries definitely goes down the property damage only type of crashes they may be steady or go up slightly but in aggregate we have fewer crashes and they are less severe all right good deal well with uh with that i'll just say that i'm i'm generally uh happy with the direction that you're headed in and i'm uh i'm very much in favor of pressing forward with this thanks

23:48 thank you um and thank you for this presentation i have a couple of comments and then a couple of questions one um i just want to say i really like the sort of landscape buffers between the bicycles and the road um i understand that perhaps some challenges about landscaping in the middle but i echo what leonard said that it would be nice to be able to like add trees but i do like the part with the buffers between the sidewalks the bicycle lanes and the road um and i and while i hear this and i've been i haven't been at the table but i've been following along um wanting to just make it really clear around the transit but i am interested in making sure that we sort of hold a space for sort of integrating that bus transit moving forward even though we don't know

24:33 what's gonna happen um because i think that that it would be short-sighted not to and i i see that you've put little pieces in there but i just wanna like say that out loud and then one of my quest my main question is uh around the phasing of this and the fact that it could take several years over time knowing that sort of the best practices and things evolve and wondering how you know whether it's you know what's considered ada compliant that that changes and evolves over time and there will be new ways of doing this that increase safety and so i'm wondering in terms of when you say flexibility how we take that into consideration so we don't start on a 10-year path and by the time we get to the end of it we wish we could start over does that make sense

25:19 yeah so i'll be happy to respond kind of the technical side of that and ask molly to respond more to the the planned document policy side and you're absolutely right counselor that best practices do change we learn things and we do modify and i can attest to the fact i've seen that in my 23 years here at the city and there's been a lot of positive change and that will continue i hope when it comes to that kind of change i don't believe there's anything in our toolbox which is mostly principle based rather than absolutist based that would would preclude us making those kinds of changes and as we develop each project specifically we will have

26:06 an open mind to any changes in best practice and of course the council will always be involved with ultimate decisions of that nature and if you sense we're straying you can certainly bring correction to us and we can point out changes that we are aware of and that we would recommend and you can give us your view on that so i think there's certainly that opportunity going forward nothing precludes it thank you hey thank you um so i've got some questions so i'm looking at that that one side shot of the or the slice of the main street that has the

26:51 expanded view and you got 12 and a half feet reserved for pedestrians and bicycles and and i'm wondering is and it's been mentioned before and i'm still a proponent of mixed use pedestrian lanes slash bicycle lanes so bicycle sidewalk slash pedestrian sidewalks as opposed to putting bicycles down into the street and i haven't heard anything or any more conversation regards to that and i'm just wondering who put the kbosh on that idea well i'll take responsibility for that along with our consultants because we did do an analysis of the different choices and safety components that are associated with that and generally speaking counselor that best practices is not to combine

27:38 bicycles and pedestrians um particularly in a in a bi-directional sense for the bicycles what occurs is that as one is driving a vehicle and turning right into a driveway for example you're not necessarily expecting a cyclist to be coming from behind you on that multi-use facility it works quite well to have multi-use facilities when you have a very limited number of driveway crossings so for example we did that on bob straub parkway from main street south and that works because there's very few street intersections and driveway crossings the other challenge is if you're a driver coming out of a driveway or out on the

28:23 street first of all your stopping point is pushed much further back away from the center line of the roadway and so it's much more difficult to have good sight lines to see to enter or after you've stopped and if you look do look for cyclists and pedestrians again you may not be expecting that cyclist to be approaching on your right if you're pulling out because that's not where traffic normally is at and so um that's that's is a risk but let's say you do check the sidewalk mixed use area and then you creep out across it so you can get closer to the curb then you're blocking that sidewalk and mixed use

29:08 area so those are a couple of the reasons that we are not really in favor of that because the uh the potential for crash and the difficulty of sightline is higher in our view i was wondering you mentioned about the bicyclists approaching and you're saying automatically assuming it's multi-directional when bike lanes typically are not multi-directional that correct that is true so why would you assume that on the pedestrian sidewalk that it would be multi-directional well simply because that's that's the observation that the the industry has when you have a uh i forgotten what width we were showing in our 54 to uh

29:54 bob straub cross section molly if you could check that that'd be great six and a half and six okay so 12 and a half in total thank you counselor so what we find in those types of circumstances oh i'm sorry seven and six okay so 13. um what we find in those kinds of circumstances is that the cyclists simply will not choose to cross the street just to travel one direction and then cross back if their destination is on the same side of the street their origin was at and so with the 13 foot wide path the cyclists are going to say it's just fine and so they're going to use that path i mean candidly when i've when i when we've driven uh or ridden our bikes maybe at

30:39 sun river those paths are maybe eight eight maybe ten feet wide and we go both directions on them and then we have pedestrians there there are some their potential for some conflict but then this is a circumstance where we have vehicles crossing at driveways and streets and so that's it's the unexpected nature of some of those movements so that's why i'm explaining that i think it will be bi-directional just by their choice but not not by common sense so um the other questions i have so the um projected out what is it you're talking about the comment was made is that the raised mediums will be for safety and that

31:25 i i get that but how much safety is there has anybody done the numbers what kind of percentage do you expect to reduce in accidents over the amount of inconvenience for travel so i'm looking at like for example your percentage uh based on your numbers of rear end collisions for example makes up like 48 of the accidents and how our median is going to you know when when those falling too close and rear-end collisions make up the the majority of those accidents i'm not sure how raised medians are going to reduce that so you must be targeting other types of accidents and how much do you expect what percentage you expect those to be

32:11 reduced or is that just a guess the the percentages that we had in that slide well in fact this one right here so raised medians can reduce crashes by 35 percent on main street that is based on national studies where there's been before and after study of these types of projects it's included in the federal highway administration's crash modification clearinghouse which is just a fancy term for where all the studies have been deposited all the studies have been aggregated for a result so high low added altogether this is what we can expect is 35 percent of the crashes that occur on a roadway are going to be reduced when you add a median in and then there's a further

32:56 reduction when you add roundabouts in on top of that um so i think the the the the academic data is based on real world experience and study of that and so we can be very comfortable that there's going to be a significant reduction in crashes i will certainly not guarantee you 35 reduction but certainly a very good reduction right now that seems 35 percent is pretty steep um that's a shot in the sky i think oh in terms of your question about the rear end and turning movement the the right brian can address this more technically but with the raised medians we're going to be seeing um turns focused in safer locations and so

33:42 there's going to be less frequency of quick into driveway crossing you know the center turn lane turns and that's what the turning movement and the rear end crashes are yes that's that's accurate molly um a lot of rear-end crashes happen because somebody who gets rear-ended is facing some unexpected occurrence in front of them and so they hit the brakes and so the person who is following too close runs into them and so that could be a left turn in front of them could be somebody pulling out from a driveway either turning left or right and so that's what creates some of those rear-end crashes and that can be reduced um because of that unexpected behavior not occurring in front of the victim of

34:27 being rear-ended so there so from people that are not properly using the center utility lane is that correct well in part it could be not using the center lane correctly but it could simply be somebody turning right out of a driveway unexpectedly or left out of a driveway unexpectedly to the driver who ends up getting rear-ended obviously that unexpected movement in front of them causes them to decelerate quickly and the inattentive or following too close person may rear-end them gotcha all right well i'll be following this closely i think you know we there's some pretty cool ideas you know i'm not a an opponent of roundabouts i'm a proponent of roundabouts they make a lot of sense

35:12 to me so um i think it's it's a good plan so far i'm gonna again continue to question so i can just mostly reach satisfaction in my mind um in regards to if we're doing the best thing and not that i'm like an end-all but i like to get involved in this stuff as you know so um but i appreciate it it's very thorough and i think that's all my notes here so oh yeah maybe a completely side note is is the traffic out on east main street has gotten nuts just so you all know unbelievable it's it's tripled at least in the last three to four months and i'm really hoping that enforcement

35:57 is really going to stepped up there because i go down there and like just today it is absolutely insane down there when you see the traffic and the speed the traffic's rolling when you have uh overloaded log trucks that are traveling down main street at close to 50 miles an hour and uh through residential is is insane and i think that needs to be revisited very soon like they said it's just ridiculous i've see i watched entire blue clouds of smoke today um all the way from 60th place to 58th place of trucks locking up their tires because they're traveling way too fast with way heavy loads and we and again we need to really step up enforcement

36:49 hi happy monday first of all i just want to say happy mother's day to all the mothers and mother mother figures out there uh we love you all right two um i'm curious uh to what role or it is this even part of this plan where we have uh the audible pedestrian crosswalks as well as any type of ramp or indention that makes people in you know wheelchair-like apparatuses be able to cross the streets a little easier i know that i've seen some but i know that there are a lot of crosswalks where those do not exist and so when we think about pedestrians you know i think the audible crosswalks as well as you know some type of indention or ramp uh would make our streets a lot more uh

37:35 accessible to those who might need a little assistance is that a part of the plan can it be or is that somebody else yes it most certainly is part of the plan any sort of significant roadway improvement requires the modification of the curb ramps so that they meet the current standards for what ramps should look like for slope for distance etc an example of that is the work that you've undoubtedly seen on mohawk boulevard we have an overlay project there and the precursor to bringing in the asphalt grinder and the asphalt paving is to do all the concrete work at those intersections to create appropriate

38:20 ramps at all of the intersections and crossing points so that's the kind of behavior that you will see on main street and if there's an overlay or other significant work on main street that is not part of this safety project that project that uh you know an overlay project on main street would also be required to do that and that would be part of the scope of work that odot would do in some sort of project that they might undertake that is separate from one of our safety projects as far as um the the beacons you know we had a safety um plan pedestrian safety plan about 10 or 11 years ago that was conducted

39:06 by oregon d.o.t and that identified the highest priority crossing locations and i believe there's were about 10 included and we have just completed the last one which was the pedestrian hybrid beacon out around roughly 66 60 yeah about 66 67. and so that completes the crossings that were included in that particular plan it certainly would be a next step is to take a fresh look and see if there are other demand locations where crossings are happening on a regular basis and we could add some more in we would certainly want to coordinate that with lane transit district um so we know where they intend to have their stops

39:52 um in the future because transit users are one of the major generators of pedestrian crossings so damian did you have anything else so brian can you just extend on that a little bit in for anything outside of main street that we do from a transportation perspective under whatever that under that state settlement agreement we would have to redo the ramps correct well the state settlement agreement addresses odot and their past behavior the americans with disabilities act law really did require that all along

40:37 and the city has been pretty good at uh complying with that so i would say it's really our practice will continue in the way we have um and odot has upped their game so held all together it's a good outcome for providing better um access perfect um steve yeah roundabouts um there are still people afraid of that's because i guess we don't have enough roundabouts but they're much safer and 42nd street and maine around about there would make a big difference i'm getting the traffic close close through there and i've read some reports where the traffic goes through quicker in those situations so i really i really support this i've been overseas i've seen around the bathroom i don't even have traffic signals and

41:23 they just work wonderfully mayor merrily from out [Laughter] i had a couple comments um having been on the governance team now for what 10 years um the the only thing i like the toolbox i i understand everything that's been presented and uh going forward with it and the phasing and all that kind of thing the only thing i want to continue to emphasize is we had a huge meeting probably three to four years ago with the community out in the library meeting room and we had come we thought we had come to some conclusions as to what was going

42:08 to take place on main street and then it all got flipped back up to re regenerating the whole process i know that we have some business owners and and other people along the corridor that were upset confused frustrated at that point they carry on with some of their frustration and concerns um even now um even with the amount of input and the amount of um uh information that's been given to them along the way with all the outreach which is which has really been done well um my my biggest part of making sure that we remain um conscious of the fact that there's a folks out there that are very um

42:54 cautious about what's happening or what can happen um and that we make sure that every piece of paper that we have out there emphasizes the flexibility and the conversations that will be held with the numerous people along the corridor um one of the ways that we got the pedestrian crossings in the way we did was that i was out there ltd was out there odot was out there and our city staff person was out there when we went out for the initial meetings and we talked to all the people in the immediate surroundings of the of the crosswalk that was being planned to go in and because we had that conversation we got the crosswalks in without a whole lot of problems

43:40 um i see the same type of process very workable for the different phases i have going in and being discussed here in the toolbox and and headed into the design phase and i just think it's really important to make sure that that is front and center of anything any information that we put out there into the public eye that they recognize that say hey safety is first and foremost um and especially the highest safety needs being being a priority at the same time um in the midst of conversations and cooperation and flexibility with the business owners and the various tenants along the corridor because that's just that will um

44:25 that will make or break what safety occurs with that with the process if we have the cooperation and the support and the partnership with the people along the corridor um that will that will make that will make the project work so i just i just i can't emphasize that enough i want to make sure they feel like they're part of it i don't want them to feel like they're on the outside and not being heard so it needs to be part of every step and it is we're making it part of every step but i just want to make sure that that emphasis is there that they need to be feel like they're part of the of the safety um the safety concerns and the safety improvements i think that was [Music]

45:11 i think that was all i had written down um yeah just just so that yeah just so that that um and everybody out there and as a result of the outreach everybody out there is beginning to understand the different phases that we've been dealing with and that we're going with the toolbox out of this phase into the next phase um uh and and of course all of it is dependent on funding um as well so but yeah that was it all right thanks marley um i i can't echo merrily's comments enough i think it's really going to take a lot of sort of conversations i always think about that crosswalk conversation where you've got the

45:57 business owners you've got city staff you've got odot trying to figure out where in the right of way these safety enhancements are going to go and i think it's just critical that we keep uh keep that in mind going forward is that the resource like the right-of-way is a fixed resource for everybody and but it's finite it's got only so much space and to make this work for everybody it's going to take us taking it sort of one driveway at a time all there's like 500 driveways between 20 you know 21st street and in 72nd and really having that conversation to to get us over the hump um so molly could you help with uh with sort of timing so you guys are going to take this away then the next time we're going to see it is it's going

46:42 to be the actual facility plan yes after i just stopped sharing my screen the next milestone is that this summer we will be developing the draft facility plan and then we will go bring it to our technical advisory committee our strategic advisory committee um you know kind of through that process again with the planning commission and the main street governance team and the broader public outreach and then we'll bring it back to you all um we're start we're working we're trying to look ahead to our schedule and figuring out whether um we go through that stage and then bring it back again for the what would be adoption um

47:30 review or if there's a way for us to compress compress that um so that there's just you know one more um review with the counselor rather than two more so once the adoption's done does odot program the money for it or does like so when we get from this point to an actual design on a phase it you know we're gonna we're gonna go through a whole other public input process in regards to that to that phase to that specific phase yes so really at the end of the day all we're sort of acknowledging from odot is this is the stuff we want you to consider this is how we when we get to a phase yes we want to do it safety is important here's sort of our values and here's some of the public input so you can actually design you know get to an actual design

48:16 right and that that design process would be highly collaborative between the city and and odot too okay perfect and i know i know bill uh with odots out there i'm just gonna call this point out again uh safety questions are would be a lot easier with more availability from a data perspective the data on this if you look at the slides is from 2016. i know this is a it's a huge gap long term for odot i know you guys are working on it i just want to acknowledge that getting more timely data would help in in uh conversations about transportation safety all right i'm looking around steve oh i support the raised median concept

49:03 but if i was a business out there i would be scared to death and i understand that we have to realize they are the economic engine that supports thirst and we we i just hope we we communicate with them enough that they they become supporters yes so that's very important that's all leonard thanks mayor um i just wanted to second what counselor pictionary said about the trucks i know a lot of truck drivers who drive down maine they would much rather not get on maine at all they're terrified that they're going to hit a pedestrian and i know that it's the state's call to make on whether trucks are going to be allowed on maine but i'm going to continue to advocate for

49:49 taking trucks off of maine below bob's truck that's all i got thanks joe so just uh just for my own clarification my brains um how far will one travel i guess there's two different speed zones on main street i'm referring to so let's say let's use the middle zone about 35 miles per hour how far will the vehicle travel in in half a minute about anybody got a quick calculator brian's got one out yeah um 30 miles an hour is 44 feet per second so okay um 44 times 30

50:37 about 1300 feet 1300 feet or so so so 1300 feet is is base here could be as far as how many blocks to average block is what 300 feet it's it's so variable i couldn't get it i guess it's true i guess i guess in my brain what i'm trying to figure out you're talking about um same thing with with what steve was saying and my concerns is that you're talking about limiting the ability to turn left off of main street into businesses and into the side streets etc and i know you mentioned in a presentation that you would have those those uh turns available at major

51:23 intersections and so i'm i'm trying to figure in my head if i live on main street let's say in some random apartment and i go to the store how far past or how far how many blocks i have to travel beyond my residence and then attempt to turn around and then if those left turns will be permitted there you're going to allow u-turns and if you allow u-turns or you anticipated the amount of space needed to safely make u-turns to be able to go back to where you wanted to go into that's a concern i would have and and it's and i think part of that and like marylee was talking about partly part of getting the buy-in is trying to really

52:09 you know what do we how much of an impact are we placing on just people being able to get around and i agree you know on foot and on bike it's all beautiful it's rosy but on vehicles you can't jump those raised medians so how much how much backup traffic we're creating you know going two directions in one section of the of main street so you're increasing the flow but also how much more are you going to increase the potential for accidents with vehicles trying to make u-turns in the middle of main street to get back to where they're trying to turn into i mean there's a balance there and it seems like i don't know if it almost seems like we're creating potentially creating a bigger problem than what we have

52:55 well balance is absolutely what we're striving for and we in the plan we show around about essentially where every traffic signal is today except accepting bob straub parkway we're also showing one at 48th street i believe that's the one that runs up into the warehouse and then runs also south um and so that would be an added one so let's look at um you know the most likely based on crash data location that we would have a first project would probably be from 42nd to 54th and so if we were to do 42nd 54th and 48th with roundabouts and have a median in between them we certainly will have

53:40 places where we could have left turns occurring into streets and if there's a very high private property area that has a lot of turning movement in and out of it which we can predict that pretty well and we can also obviously count it for existing development i can certainly see us providing left turns into those sites one one concept that we didn't discuss explicitly is that what we call three-quarter access in other words left turn in but no left turn out is a really good way to get people into businesses because getting into it is the higher interest of the of the business and property owner than getting out of it because once they're there and by

54:25 then they're gonna go and then they're gonna find their way home um and so that that's just their perspective so i think that we will i i not think i'm certain that we will have breaks in the median that allow either residential streets or very high volume commercial properties being able to get access into them and so that i think addresses some of your statement about you're that apartment dweller who's going down the store how long is it going to take them um i i think another thing i would say is that um by both the roundabouts and the medians are going to help traffic flow to smooth and so it may not be quite as fast but it's going to be certainly more

55:10 consistent more steady and have less interruptions so less stop and go less abrupt behavior and so the travel is just going to be smoother it'll be more predictable because there's going to be less of those kinds of interruptions and mr mayor if i may there is one thing that i did not address with counselor pitts and he asked about audible crosswalks and audible signals and i'm not sure if council pitch you were referring to the existing traffic signals or new signals so all this i'll just address both the the the existing traffic signals are of course odot's responsibility and as they choose to they will make upgrades

55:57 so that could occur organically because they are just in a process of making upgrades to their traffic signals or it could occur consistent with the other projects that either our safety project or other projects that occur in in the corridor and so that would cause them to put the audible pedestrian signals in at that point in time now if we either with or without these these main street safety oriented projects if we choose to put a new crossing in like a rapid flashing beacon or in higher speed areas of pedestrian hybrid beacon those would be audible when we construct them so i think we're going to cover that base pretty well and one of the other

56:42 comments that was made is about data and that there's kind of a lack of data that seems to be current please be aware that the funding process through the all roads transportation program will be using the most current data that's available to select those projects and we compete on a region-wide basis for that money so we will have if we get funded then we'll have that data and we can use that in part of our public outreach efforts perfect all right all right before we wrap up here i just want to point out one one other sort of observation about safety we just talked about how much you travel when uh one second for when you're going 35 30 miles an hour is 44 feet and

57:30 in a world where there's distracted driving i just would encourage people to just keep that in mind the minute you look down at your phone you just crossed 44 feet without looking like without seeing anything that was happening and even though we're talking about safety i think it's also critical to remember that we can all look for you know put more space between vehicles and improve our own safe driving habits um before we adjourn i think we're off to see the executive session at seven o'clock so that is not gonna be on this uh link it's going to be leonard welcome back merrily thank you it's good to be back so it will be on the uh executive

58:15 session link that should be in your email and we are going to assemble at seven o'clock all right perfect i'm going to make an insurance and we'll talk to you guys at seven o'clock thank you we are adjourned thank you