HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-BPAC-2006-04-13*DRAFT*
Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Council (BPAC) Meeting
April 13, 2006, Thursday, 7pm, 2nd Conference room, City Hall
Present: Kent Johnson (Chair), Dave Nutter, Carla Shafer, Ron Chapman, David
McElrath, Jennifer Dotson, Jan Zeserson
Absent: Dwight Mengel, Ken Mudge, David Kay, Tim Logue, Nicole Tedesco, Michelle
Berry, Yael Levitte
Minutes of March 2006 meeting approved.
Membership: Nicole Tedesco has been appointed as newest member. One vacancy
remains for Parks Commission liaison position.
Lower Section of Cliff St.: City has started work on sidewalks. Nutter has raised some
concerns about utility poles and pedestrian passage during construction with Dept. of
Public Works (Rick Ferrell) and was told that consultants had been hired to design.
Johnson will contact the Dept. of Public Works to locate those plans for review by a
BPAC subcommittee.
Meadow Street Pedestrian Crossings:
Zeserson reported that City resident Vikki Armstrong has asked for our update on
City /StateOs plans to improve pedestrian crossings on Meadow Street (Rte 13) north of
the City. Her concern arises from being told by Fall Creek School that it is against school
policy for students to cross Meadow Street by foot on school trips.
Discussion: Armstrong's message is another example of how Meadow St. effectively
divides the City because of difficulty /danger to pedestrians wanting to cross. Should the
City concentrate on making just one intersection pedestrian - friendly? Or more than one?
The Phase 3 Waterfront Trail is slated to cross Meadow St., so short -term improvements
should keep that in mind.
West End Pedestrian Issues:
At Clinton St./Fulton St./ Meadow St. intersection in particular, pedestrians push a
button, get a walk signal, but during that walk signal period vehicles can still turn legally
into the pedestrian lane.
Nutter walked us through the problem, and presented his idea for an easy fix. We'll
revisit it again at next meeting when Logue is present. Similar problems exist at Buffalo
St. and at Seneca St. intersections with Meadow St.
More people will walk if walking feels safe.
Blog & Wiki update:
At our regular meetings, Shafer will continue to sensitize us little by little to using a
BPAC blog & wiki site with the ultimate goal of reaching a larger audience with the
concerns of BPAC. Shafer prepared and handed out step -by -step instructions on "How to
set up a personalized Google home page with the BPAC News Feed." If, while we're
learning, BPAC members want to post a message, send it to Carla or Kent for them to
post on our behalf.
Green & Seneca Streets (bicycle accommodations update): For now, negotiations
with the State are officially over and done. NYSDOT did not agree to make
accommodations for bicyclists.
Discussion: Is there any room for negotiation in regard to specific segments of these
roadways, not the entire stretch?
Considered whether it might be a useful switch in strategy to think of our tasks in terms
of ownership (state, county, city) instead of topics (e.g., bike lanes, pedestrian lights).
If we want to continue to tackle State road issues, we will delegate those matters to a
subcommittee.
In 1994, NYSDOT granted the City $80,000 with a $20,000 match for the bike lane plan.
How much is left? Can additional funds be found? Can we spend this money on City
streets? For example, might/can we apply this money to experimenting with shared lane
markings on Aurora St. or East State St.(City streets)? Kent suggested we replicate a
study done in other cities to observe patterns of mobility. Working on the assumption that
we can't make roads wider and we can't get rid of parking, what can we do with
markings alone? Studies in other cities have shown that markings alone do have an effect
on encouraging bicyclists. FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) is now
encouraging cities to try this. The question arose whether NYSDOT would let us try
these markings on Green and Seneca Sts. Kent would prefer to concentrate on City
streets because it's much less complicated. Furthermore, data from a City street study
could conceivably be used to convince the State to try similar markings. We'll revisit this
idea in future meetings.
Michelle Berry's class project: The class will make a presentation to Common Council
on May 3. The relationship of this class to City government is essentially as advertising
agency to client. Their assignment is to implement PACOs report on need for pedestrian
and motorist education. Shafer will contact Michelle about whether her class is going to
publicize the contact number for snow removal, and whether they will create a poster to
that effect for TCAT buses.
Thurston Ave. bridge crosswalks: to be updated at a later meeting
Visions and Goals:
An ongoing discussion in a continuing effort to focus our energies on selected projects
and to enhance communication between BPAC and other City agencies.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Zeserson