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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-MATC-2019-01-28 MOBILITY, ACCESSIBILITY AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION MINUTES Present Chair Lerner Commissioners (6) Barden, Lyczko, Brouwer, Chang, Parkes, Powers Others Present: Common Council Liaison McGonigal Common Council Liaison Nguyen Information Management Specialist Myers Excused: Commissioners Roberts and Brylinsky Approval of Minutes: Approval of the November 26 and December 11, 2018 Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes – Resolution By Commissioner Parkes: Seconded by Commissioner Lyczko RESOLVED, That the minutes of the November 26 and December 11, 2019 Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation Commission Meeting be approved as published. Carried Unanimously Statements from the Public: No one appeared to address the Commission. Common Council Liaison Report: CC Liaison Nguyen reported on the following topics: possible earlier enforcement of odd/even parking to coincide with work shifts of plow drivers, the Transportation Engineer has sent a proposal to NYS requesting permission for the City to reduce speed limits all over the city from 30 mph to 25 mph, as Chair of TCAT Board he shared that they are exploring alternate sites because they are running out of space in their current location, the 2019 budget included one new crew each for Streets and Facilities and for Water and Sewer so the City hopes to accomplish twice as much work, the cost of sidewalk work has gone up between 20-40% which means less sidewalk repair can be done in 2019 than in 2018. CC Liaison McGonigal reported on the following topics: opportunities for grant funding are being explored to create additional and/or new sidewalk on Spencer Road as a result of the changes made to dead-end part of the road, and Common Council will be looking at a number of neighborhood plans this year, including the Southside, Waterfront, and W est End. Chair’s Report: Chair Lerner shared that Commissioner Brylinsky is no longer able to serve as vice-chair. Since no-one has volunteered to take on that role, he would suggest taking turns among commissioners on a monthly basis. Basically, the role would involve filling in for the Chair if he cannot attend a meeting, and be someone he meets with once a month to brain storm agenda items. Commissioners agreed to that suggestion; Commissioner Chang volunteered for February. Chair Lerner will make sure this becomes an item on each agenda so the assignment can be made at each meeting. Role of Commissions: Chair Lerner explained that Alderperson Mohlenhoff and the City Administration Committee are creating a referral form to make new assignments for the commissions in an effort to provide clearer direction on the work that each commission should focus on. Date: January 28, 2019 Time: 6:00 PM Location: Common Council Chambers, 3rd Floor, City Hall Mobility, Accessibility & Transportation Commission January 28, 2019 2 The City Administration Committee provided two referrals to Matcom; one related to sidewalk snow removal and the other for other bikes/pedestrians. A key role of the commissions is to provide opportunities to create conversations that aren’t currently happening particularly when they overlap departments. The topics of snow removal and park and ride fall into this category. What kinds of meetings would it make sense to have in addition to the regular monthly meeting? If meetings need to include staff thought should be given to daytime meetings which would not be mandatory for commission members. He will work on this idea, with more information to come. Bicycles and Pedestrians (Dock less e-scooter sharing): Commissioner Powers stated that she hopes everyone has seen their every other week updates. They now have a clear mission for this topic which is to gather information so a recommendation can be made about lime bikes for the City of Ithaca. They are talking with a lot of other cities about their experiences with lime bikes which has been very helpful. Their goal is to present their recommendation at the February Matcom meeting. It will then need to go to the March Planning and Economic Development Committee meeting, and then to the April Common Council meeting. Please let them know if there are concerns or if someone has additional information to share with them. ADA Issues (ADA Training Follow-Up, ADA Self-Assessment, and ADA Coordinator): Chair Lerner reported that Commissioners Roberts and Brylinsky are working to reschedule the ADA training, it may not occur until sometime in the spring. More information will follow. DPW Parking Analysis: Commissioner Parkes reported on recent seminars and meetings he has attended that include representatives from TCAT, the City, Bike/Walk Tompkins, and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance. The goal is to change the behavior of how parking and transportation are thought about. Businesses need to be encouraged to offer alternatives to employees that are using single occupancy vehicles. There is work underway to find remote parking lots to enable park and ride options. A sub-committee will be established to determine what lots are available and how the City can encourage people to park and ride. Discussion followed regarding how this might affect developers and their tenants, as well as residents of the city. They are also working on a Request for Quotes to hire a consultant to conduct a parking study. They will work to create stakeholder groups which would include commissioners from Matcom. Pedestrian Snow Removal: The City Administration Committee provided a referral to Matcom on what it wants the focus to be for sidewalk snow removal. There are three different aspects to consider. First, complaints, focused and coordinated public input meetings and working collaboratively on the public input aspect with the Public Safety and Information Commission (work is underway on how that will look). Secondly, there are issues about enforcement and processes within the Department of Public Works and the Building Department that need to be reviewed. The third item relates to what the city might do to expand its processes for snow and ice removal in neighborhoods. He thinks success needs to be defined; right now we know there is an issue but he is not sure if there is agreement on what the problem is or what the scope of the problem is. CC Liaison McGonigal noted, with respect to everyone here, that he has a different take on this topic. The majority of this commission agreed that there were a couple of things the city should do; one is a better job of clearing corners and, two, find out more about the enforcement issues. He further shared that he spoke with a Supervisor from Streets and Facilities regarding snow removal from curbs. There are things that affect those operations that include less experienced plow drivers and the new bump-outs that make it difficult to remove snow at corners. The extra crew included in the 2019 budget should help improve the city’s sidewalk snow removal efforts. There is a need for an additional grader because the Mobility, Accessibility & Transportation Commission January 28, 2019 3 city’s one and only grader has been going 24 hours a day to remove snow from streets and sidewalks as a result of the most recent storm. He and staff agree that there is room for improvement around corners. He stated that part of what the City Administration Committee tasked Matcom to do was based upon what information we have now; they may not have fully understood what that included (enforcement issues/waiving of fines by City Court). He doesn’t think they would object to doing something that they didn’t assign. Commissioner Barden expressed similar support for what CC Liaison McGonigal shared. However, when reviewing the charge from the City Administration Committee, it does not include those two items; it only includes obtaining public input first. CC Liaison Nguyen stated that Matcom does not have any control over the inexperienced plow drivers; however, if additional graders are needed the Department of Public Works should make a request to Common Council. Commissioner Barden shared that she would like to pursue the enforcement side of things. Currently, there is a law on the books that is not being enforced and Matcom should find out why, and why city court is not making violators pay the fines. She also doesn’t feel that there is anything stopping Matcom from recommending that city crews clean snow form curb cuts and charge the property owners for the work. 2019 Meeting Agendas: February - Discussion on the four topics for the first half of the meeting followed by a discussion on E- scooter sharing. March – Invite representatives from TCAT to meeting. April to June - not sure of the order of topics (Parking, Sidewalk Snow Removal and ADA) July – November - ??? December – Conversation with Mayor Meeting Wrap-up: The next meeting of the MAT Commission is Monday, February 25, 2019 at 6:00 p.m. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 8:05 p.m. Respectfully submitted by, Sarah L. Myers, Information Management Specialist