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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-MATC-2019-09-23 MOBILITY, ACCESSIBILITY AND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION MINUTES PRESENT: Chair Lerner Commissioners (7) Chang, Brouwer, Lyczko, Powers, Barden, Roberts, Parkes OTHERS PRESENT: Common Council Liaisons – McGonigal and Nguyen Information Management Specialist – Myers Transportation Engineer - Hathaway Approval of the August 26, 2019 Mobility, Accessibility, and Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes- Resolution By Commissioner Barden: Seconded by Commissioner Roberts RESOLVED, That the minutes of the August 26, 2019 Mobility, Accessibility, and Transportation Commission meeting be approved as published. Carried Unanimously Statements From the Public: No one from the public appeared to address the Commission. Commissioner’s Comments: Commissioner Roberts shared thoughts on recent comments regarding Lime Bikes from people with disabilities and the recent incident on The Commons involving the Ithaca Police Department. Commissioner Chang reported that access to Neptune Bridge over Cascadilla creek by the new development on Hancock Street was repaired. Now everyone can easily access the pedestrian only bridge. Ithaca Transportation Plan and Vision Zero: Transportation Engineer Hathaway explained that the goal of “Vision Zero” is to bring down the number of fatalities from vehicle crashes to zero which will, at the same time, provide improvement in quality of life. Towards that goal, Common Council has made this a priority since it is a public health and a huge issue nationally. They determined the focus areas should be intersections because it’s where the most conflicts occur with vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists especially for people making left turns. The City will be working to obtain public input and outreach to different neighborhoods, as well as neighborhood walks that will allow for interactivity between staff and the community. It has been determined that changing the speed limit to 25 mph, through an independent study, significantly improved the safety of everyone. He has been traveling to different area communities to get support as the City of Ithaca submits this request to New York State. The City is applying for a grant to obtain video detection tools that can tell the difference between vehicles, people and bicyclists to assist in the collection of data. Discussion followed on the floor regarding how this change will positively impact the community, minimum speed limits in school zones, costs and problems with current traffic signal coordination and timing. Date: September 23, 2019 Time: 6:00 PM Location: Common Council Chambers, 3rd Floor, City Hall Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes September 23, 2019 2 Transportation Engineer Hathaway explained that the City of Ithaca is in the process of replacing all of the traffic signals in the City. Once that is done he can, through the computer at City Hall, make all the needed changes at different intersections all around the City at once. Currently, any changes have to be made manually at each individual signal. Waiting until all the signals have been replaced will result in a more comprehensive and city-wide signal timing and coordination which will improve traffic flow and to some extent speeds. CC Liaison McGonigal expressed his full support for the Vision Zero initiative because feels that reducing speed limits throughout the City to 25 mph is a great idea. Transportation Engineer Hathaway stated that he has met with experts and representatives from Syracuse, Elmira, Albany, Buffalo and Binghamton and the reception to the idea has been good. There is more support for the initiative in the urban locations rather than the rural ones. The City is working with Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton for assistance in gathering further support from other communities as well as working with New York State Conference of Mayors and Cornell University on this vision zero initiative. He is starting work on a white paper that will show why reducing the speed limit is so important. The hardest part in doing outreach about the initiative to the public and other municipalities is that this is a boring topic so he is trying to find ways to change that to help engage the public in conversations. The next step is to develop an action plan and budget for short term improvements that could be made to improve safety. This part is where input from the Mobility, Transportation and Accessibility Commission will be sought and he is very open to feedback, especially on the best ways to reach out to the community. He will keep Matcom in the loop and look for ways that the commission can provide support for the initiative. Ithaca Transportation Plan - 5 Year Plan: Transportation Engineer Hathaway stated that the Transportation Plan is not as far along as the Vision Zero initiative at this point. There is funding for the study and what remains to be done to start work on the plan is chose a consultant. He shared that he met today with Director of Engineering Logue to talk about the plan and they believe that the Transportation Plan and the Parking Plan will use the same consultant; but result in two separate plans. They feel that community input is very much needed in order to know what the community really wants and how the City can develop a plan that incorporates that information. This most likely will be accomplished through surveys, public outreach, and determining ways to interact with the school district. He has received complaints about school drop-off areas and speeds. The Parking Plan will need to include information on the condition of the city’s garages and what is needed to keep them in service. Chair Lerner voiced his opinion that the Vision Zero Initiative, the Transportation Plan, and Parking Plan focus on five to six different topics and each has roots that go in a lot of directions. This commission will be interested in how its issues play out in transportation plan. This will require ongoing discussions and meetings; however, communication between this commission and the Department of Public Works has been problematic because evening meetings are an issue for staff. He is wondering if there are ways to schedule meetings during the daytime. Would commission members be open to that idea? Transportation Engineer Hathaway responded that he would be very open to that idea and would welcome commission members input discussions with staff. A question was raised about how the transportation plan relates to other transportation issues such as buses, taxis, etc.; how is it going to fit in with other transportation plans from other agencies. Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes September 23, 2019 3 Transportation Engineer Hathaway responded that a lot of traffic comes in from outside the city so based on information available now he can’t answer that. This is where the feedback from the community, including the view of people outside the city, is so important and will provide direction going forward with work on the plan. Commissioner Roberts stated that he is interested in certain things that a transportation plan should do for the community. For example, getting people who are poor to medical appointments both within and outside the county. How will the City’s transportation plan dovetail with the county’s plan, and it would make sense to include the human service aspect? Transportation Engineer Hathaway stated that he was the one who has been pushing for the City to develop a transportation plan. He receives a lot of individual thoughts and requests and without taking a step back to take a good look at the whole picture the smartest decision is never going to be made that will use staff time and city funds in an efficient and cost-effective way. Commissioner Barden shared the fact that Matcom has two commissioners that attend the meetings regarding the City’s parking study; however the process for bringing questions to and from that group back to the commission needs to be clarified further because of the timing between meetings. She is hopeful that going forward with the two plans that commission members roles as representatives can be made clearer and provide more direction to those members. Commissioner Lyczko, who is one of Matcom’s representatives on the Parking Study committee, responded to Commissioner Barden’s comments. She explained that both she and Commissioner Parkes received an e-mail form Superintendent of Public Works, Mike Thorne that informed them that the consultant for both the parking and transportation plan would be Stantec; however no other information shared. She did write to ask Supt. Thorne what their role is as representatives from Matcom and he has not responded yet. There is a meeting on October 7th that she plans to attend and she is hoping they will have a better sense of what is going on to report back on at the October meeting. She also stated that Supt. Thorne informed that the Parking Director was no longer with the City; she’s not sure how that will impact the work on the plan at this point. Chair Lerner stated that he has felt that Matcom has not been provided with clarity on what the parking study will entail; a question for Matcom is want do they want that connection to be. Transportation Engineer Hathaway responded that now is an opportunity to get engineering staff to start thinking about Matcom as a resource that can and is willing to help with the study. Chair Lerner recommended that Matcom be involved as early as possible in the process so it can contribute better. Surveys and public meetings are good but have drawbacks. A potential role of Matcom is to get public input that is slower and more thoughtful rather than input that you get from surveys and public meetings. The question to answer is how to do that so it will be useful to staff working on the plan. He would like to, as quickly as possible, have two Matcom representatives meet with staff to participate in conversations about the plan. CC Liaison Nguyen left the meeting at 7:30 p.m. Commission members thanked Transportation Engineer Hathaway for coming to the meeting and providing the presentation on the two topics. They are pleased that there might be opportunities for members to meet with staff directly to offer input and feedback as work on the plan proceeds. Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes September 23, 2019 4 Chair’s Report:  Vice Chair for the month of October – Commissioner Lyczko  Matcom still has a vacancy and he has no new information at this time  Chair Lerner hopes each topic will continue to move forward throughout the fall. CC Liaison Report: CC Liaison McGonigal reported that Common Council would meet next week, and confirmed that the City no longer has a parking director. The Board of Public Works had presentation from Bike/W alk Tompkins (Center for Community Transportation) at their last meeting. There are a number of retirements looming in the near future for the Department of Public Works. One of the most important is Ray Benjamin, Assistant Supt. of Streets and Facilities and the other is the City’s Fleet Manager – both have years of experience and institutional knowledge. For the Fleet Manager, the City has decided to hire someone to replace him before he leaves so there can be overlap and training. DPW Parking Analysis: The latest information about the Parking Analysis was provided by Commissioner Lyczko as noted above. ADA Issues – ADA Coordinator Proposal: Commissioner Roberts reported that the sub-committee has met twice so far. He has put out a request to members to set up a third meeting in the next few weeks. At that meeting they will be reviewing other comparable cities ADA Coordinator positions so they can make use of what they’re doing without recreating the wheel and to determine what the City of Ithaca’s ADA Coordinator position should look like. They will also have opportunities to meet with city staff about what they think a useful job description would look like. This information will be shared with Common Council as they review and meet about the City’s 2020 budget to determine funding for the position. He is also very happy that Sarah Brylinksy will continue her role as an advisor on the sub-committee. Pedestrian Snow Removal Public Input: Commission Chang reported that he and Commissioner Brouwer met to work on the two requests that were made at the last meeting – one was to develop a firm timeline for the survey and the other was how to incorporate feedback into survey. They will share the link to the survey with commission members to review again; however, the survey is basically done pending minor comments from commission members. As far as the timeline, they hope to meet with the Clerk’s Office within the next two weeks as City Clerk Holcomb and Public Information Specialist Faraday both expressed interest in helping with the online survey. Three to four weeks after that meeting they hope to determine ways to distribute the survey after it goes live online, which would be after the October Matcom meeting. They will plan to provide a summary by the November Matcom meeting and would like to have more time on that agenda to review and discuss the topic. Mobility, Accessibility and Transportation Commission Meeting Minutes September 23, 2019 5 E-Scooters Follow-Up: Commissioner Barden reported that a meeting has been scheduled for October 10th which she plans to attend. The City asked Jeff Goodmark, from Like Bike, questions about how Lime would interface with changes at the State level. He will report on that at the October meeting. The Gov. has not signed the legislation yet so it could be kept on hold indefinitely. Once signed, there is a certain time before it can before can be implemented. The length of time that takes could be lengthy as cities wait to see how each moves forward with implementing a program and what issues or problems might arise before implementing it in their municipality. She asked if commission members had any questions she should ask at the meeting relating to what should be included in the memorandum of understanding with the City. What are various problems and recommendations that need responses? Commissioner Roberts responded that there are people with disabilities complaining about Lime Bike so Mr. Goodmark could be asked what he is hearing from people with disabilities and how people on the ground are responding to them. He noted that, nationally, the disabled population is very unsatisfied. How is Lime Bike dealing with negative feedback from those communities? Meeting Wrap Up: The next meeting is Monday, October 28th at 6:00 p.m. Adjournment: The meeting adjourned at 8:07 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sarah L. Myers, Information Management Specialist Vision Zero Ithaca September 19, 2019Eric Hathaway, P.E.Transportation EngineerDepartment of Public WorksCity of Ithaca