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03.14.22 TAB Agenda 2 - 02.14.22 DRAFT TAB Meeting MinutesDRAFT TAB Minutes February 14, 2022 Page 1 of 5 CITY OF BOULDER BOULDER, COLORADO BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS MEETING MINUTES Name of Board/ Commission: Transportation Advisory Board Date of Meeting: February 14, 2022 Contact Information Preparing Summary: Meredith Schleske 303.441.3204 Board Members Present: Tila Duhaime; Mark McIntyre, Alex Weinheimer, Ryan Schuchard, Robert Hutchinson Staff Present: Erika Vandenbrande, Director for Transportation and Mobility Natalie Stiffler, Deputy Director for Transportation and Mobility Gerrit Slatter, Principal Transportation Projects Engineer Devin Joslin, Transportation Engineering Senior Manager Mike Sweeney, Transportation Engineer Senior Project Manager Mike Koslow, Transportation Engineer Senior Project Manager Veronica Son, Transportation Engineer Jean Sanson, Transportation Principal Planner Chris Hagelin, Transportation Principal Planner Danny O’Connor, Principal Transportation Planner, Transit Program Manager Liv Lewin, Senior Transportation Planner Allison Moore-Farrell, Transportation Planner Gastonia Anderson, Budget Senior Analyst Meredith Schleske, Board Secretary Type of Meeting: Advisory/ Regular Agenda Item 1: Call to Order [6:00 p.m.] Instructions to Virtual Meeting Participants (not an agenda item) – Allison Moore-Farrell, technical host reviewed rules and technical operations on the virtual platform. Agenda Item 2: Approval of January 2022 Minutes [6:05 p.m.] Motion: Approval of January 2022 Minutes as revised: • Agenda Item 5, TAB Comments, last bullet – insert “council has asked staff to” be bold, get stuff done. • Agenda Item 8.A.3 bullet 2 – replace “service reduction” with “threshold” Motion: McIntyre Second: Duhaime 5:0 Motion Passes. Agenda Item 3: Public Comment [6:07 p.m.] • Sheri Garczynski – parents live on Upland, chicane installed at father’s driveway, neighbors are abusive because they think that he put it up. Those objecting to speed humps are those that speed. Spoke with Ryan Noles last year – he said it was supposed to be switched around. Cars now drive onto his driveway to go around the chicane. Parents are in their eighties, hard to get out of driveway because chicane blocks part of it. They also need a sewer truck to access and pump out the leach field but it’s too narrow to get the truck through. o Staff will follow up, planning to relocate chicanes 1st quarter 2022. o TAB comment that Noles is no longer with the city. • Stephen Haydel – excellent job clearing roadways in Broadway after snowstorms but pretty much every crosswalk is now buried in foot or two of ice, only option is a complaint via Inquire Boulder. If the city has any plan of clearing those after snowplow, let’s go through them. Common issue the past few years once they started pushing snow to the curb. It’s impossible for anyone pushing a stroller, in a wheelchair or using a walker or crutches. Will enter multiple Inquire Boulder tickets every single snow storm. • Sue Prant – TAB meeting link was not listed on the TAB web page, should be a little easier to find. • Gary Sprung – reinforcing that we don’t do enough snow removal. Property owners had not cleared sidewalks the day after the last storm and the official “Green Street” on 13th needs to be reviewed again. It had not been plowed. Not sure there has been progress. DRAFT TAB Minutes February 14, 2022 Page 2 of 5 o Chair question if we are still using our snow equipment and helping out neighboring communities that lost equipment in the Marshall Fire. Staff has also been asked to review processes and options within current budget. o TAB request for snow conditions and plan analysis, put Green Streets on par with arterial streets. • Lynn Segal – would like to see video restored and know who’s here. When riding the bike path to Marshall fire area, path ends at Darley and going across a major highway on bike. All this development – you must have a lobby against the Planning Board (PB). More and more growth and population diverts funds. There needs to be an integrated process with PB, nothing is happening, need a holistic view of Boulder and growth. CU South is mad to even consider – we can’t handle the growth that we have. Do you want to be New York City? Cut back on growth, no end to it. Agenda Item 4: Public hearing and TAB recommendation regarding Safety Stop Legislation [6:29 p.m.] Erika Vandenbrande made the report to the board. Executive Summary State legislation, designated as HB22-1026, has been introduced to allow persons not operating a motor vehicle, including pedestrians and operators of low-speed conveyances, as defined in the bill, to make a so called “safety stop,” rather than a full stop, under certain circumstances when approaching an intersection that is controlled by a stop sign or a traffic control signal. The Transportation Advisory Board (“TAB”) is asked to consider this bill and to make a recommendation to the City Council’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee on what position, if any, the city should adopt with respect to it. The options to recommend range from Support, Support with Amendments, No Position, Oppose Unless Amended or Oppose. Council’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee will use that recommendation to determine whether and how the city should attempt to influence the bill’s outcome. While the bill is scheduled to be considered in the House Transportation and Local Government Committee on the afternoon of February 15, the day after TAB’s meeting, there will nonetheless be future opportunities to impact it as its moves through the legislative process. TAB Clarifying Questions • Request to clarify comment that Vision Zero (VZ) has supportive and non-supportive evidence - conflicting data about the safest way for cyclists to go through an intersection. • Question if VZ supporters feel it’s safe/favorable. • Question whether the issue includes at what level of government it should be addressed. • Inquiry about number of tickets issued to cyclists failing to stop. Public Participation [6:43 p.m.] • Michael Le Desma – speaking for self and on behalf of Community Cycles. There is data to support the safety improvements resulting from safety stop. Is this the right place to fight for home rule, or support uniformly at state level? Reduction in crashes seen where safety stop is implemented uniformly. Useful to frame as a car problem not a bike problem, this moves in right direction, give cyclists opportunity to roll through stop signs, get out of the way more quickly and efficiently. • Gary Sprung – strongly support safety stop legislation at Colorado state level. Two points: 1. Need for uniformity – drivers need to expect/have clarity. 2. How does it conform with normal behavior? Law needs to change to be more adaptable. • Stephen Haydel – in favor, surprised Boulder has not yet implemented. Reduction in crashes involving bicyclists seen in Delaware after implementation. Negative is just PR (public relations). • Lynn Segal – I don’t pay attention to stop signs or lights at all, don’t trust drivers, looking out for my own survival. Safety stop should be statewide, national, international. Shame on us for not being ahead on this. Much more concerned about methamphetamine (meth) users on paths. What are you going to do? Have to go through PB. The more growth the more homelessness, the more despair, more people jumping out on the bike path. Poor innocent dog, I came within an inch of hitting it on my bike. Do something about meth users. PB is building as fast as they can. Rent is over $16 million in Aspen. Boulder can’t accommodate tiny houses, mobile homes – land is too expensive. TAB Discussion [7:01 p.m.] • Clarification of how safety stop law works, establishing cause in crash, what it would change. • Straw poll – all in support. o Schuchard – supports because of goal on non-car options, clearly in interest of cyclists, reduces friction. o Hutchinson – supportive for anecdotal reasons, sees cyclists struggling to unclip. In an unsanctioned race in California, he slowed down at a stop sign and was only unticketed cyclist. When laws don’t support the Idaho safety stop law, it’s very common practice. o Weinheimer - supports because it legalizes what is intuitive and likes idea of consistency statewide. DRAFT TAB Minutes February 14, 2022 Page 3 of 5 o McIntyre – support; law on books right now specifies uniform language if municipality wants to adopt safety stop. Many Front Range municipalities have adopted with good results. Home rule control is very specifically addressed in state law. We have a chance to make progress for cycling safety, equity, climate situation. Need to support this particular statewide change. Current system puts great burden on cyclist - Broadway/Rayleigh has pedestrian crossing, permissive left turning west into labs, auto detection doesn’t detect bike. o Duhaime – supportive; in addition, bikes are not little cars, don’t pose same threats. Drivers should be charged with higher level of care/more equitable. Decreases arbitrary treatment under law. Many demographics are more likely to use bike than car. Doesn’t change basic set points of who yields. Must assume some familiarity with rules. More effective, advances complete streets. Action Requested of Board - Suggested Motion Language: Motion to recommend to City Council’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee that the city adopt a position of Support with respect to HB22-1026. Motion: Motion to recommend to City Council’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee that the city adopt a position of Support with respect to HB22-1026. Motion: McIntyre Second: Hutchinson 5:0 Motion Passes. Chair request that TAB member attend to support staff if present at council consideration. Agenda Item 5: Public hearing and TAB recommendation regarding RTD Draft Service [7:19 p.m.] Optimization Plan Danny O’Connor made the report to the board. Executive Summary The Regional Transportation District (RTD) is developing a System Optimization Plan (SOP) to define RTD’s bus route network and service levels for the next five years from 2022 to 2027. The SOP recommends restoring service for some routes that have been suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, consolidating or discontinuing others, and expanding certain routes to improve service coverage and offerings. As currently drafted, the SOP indicates total annual service hours for routes serving Boulder will be restored to approximately 80% of 2019 levels. Six (6) of the twenty-four (24) routes that operated in Boulder are planned to be permanently discontinued or consolidated into other services, and there are critical transit markets in Boulder slated for diminished services. Furthermore, the planned decreased service levels and fewer regional route options will challenge efforts to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through 2027 and beyond. City staff has formerly provided RTD with comments and concerns specific to the draft SOP route recommendations. RTD’s public input period for the SOP is scheduled through February 9, 2022. The RTD Board is scheduled to review and approve the SOP in March 2022. TAB discussion and public comment tonight will provide additional opportunity for staff to relay TAB and community feedback and concerns to RTD as they finalize the SOP. TAB Clarifying Questions • Question whether staff has trade-off requests or suggestions. • Comment that staff seems to have a good handle on options; question if there is a lever that City Council can use, if there is reform that would be helpful in Boulder to support transit in the city. • Encouragement to call out to RTD that ridership trend is not just work from home; good planning with strong valid reasons should be considered. Public Participation – there was none. [7:37 p.m.] TAB Discussion • Question whether staff has further requests and if CU input was also solicited. • Comment that we are trying to preserve same service levels as rest of region, underscores need to look for other providers. Appears that staff has insight into how resources granted can be better spread out to serve the city. • Hope expressed for federal transportation funds and for city and county to work together closely to augment RTD to restore service levels. Denver International Airport travel numbers are close to pre pandemic. Hope we can work with, or work around, RTD. • Observation that trends show that people are traveling further into/out of Boulder. Council and state partners that care about vehicle miles traveled (VMT) should partner with us. VMT is only increasing – bus commute is one of the best tools we have to reduce it. • Comment that vehicle drivers have not gone away. • Appreciation to staff. Action Requested of Board DRAFT TAB Minutes February 14, 2022 Page 4 of 5 Consider public discussion and formulating comments related to the System Optimization Plan (SOP) for staff to provide to the Regional Transportation District (RTD). Agenda Item 6: Staff briefing and TAB feedback regarding 20 is Plenty Evaluation [7:50 p.m.] Devin Joslin made the report to the board. Executive Summary This memo summarizes the recently completed evaluation of the city’s “20 is Plenty” initiative. The change to lower the prima facie, or default, speed limit on unposted streets to 20 mph was made through City Council passage of Ordinance 8395, which amended the Boulder Revised Code section 7-4-58 and became effective on June 18, 2020. Concurrent with the ordinance passage, staff changed a total of approximately 465 speed limit signs from 25 mph to 20 mph signs on local streets, where applicable, and updated the “Welcome to Boulder” gateway signs at the city limits to indicate the citywide 20 mph default speed limit. The “20 is Plenty” evaluation included: review of background information related to the ordinance change; interviews with peer cities who had implemented similar initiatives; analysis of before/after vehicle speed data; and recommendations related to city projects and programs based on the data findings and analysis. The evaluation finds that “20 is Plenty” has not reduced vehicle speeds in a statistically significant way across key performance indicators: mean speed, 50th, 85th, and 95th percentile speeds, and percent of vehicles traveling above 30 and 35 mph. The evaluation found some correlation between roadway characteristics (street width, lane width, parking density, etc.) and measured vehicle speeds. Streets where measured speeds were higher commonly included a striped centerline and wider travel lanes. Roadway characteristics such as having a posted speed limit sign, dense tree canopy or high on-street parking density did not correlate with a decrease or increase in speeds. Questions for TAB 1. What feedback does TAB have regarding the “20 is Plenty” evaluation? TAB Feedback • Question about cost of study, suggestion to rename or rebrand to reflect more than data collection. Suggestion to consider deleting violations since speed limit was decreased, question whether speeding in general in the area or surrounding has increased. • Opinion stated that this council seems to want to help do things. This study shows that engineering makes a difference, as do enforcement and lower speed limits. Will be jarring to many. • Encouragement to revise design and construction standards (DCS) to use 20 mph, look for opportunities to build out intersections within projects, reduce turning radii. Make long-term systemic change through design. • Comment that the other piece discussed was, over time, changing the mind of city that in these conditions we do this in Boulder – requires systematic communications, dealing with naysayers and continued attention to marketing, of which TAB is a part. • Comment that 20 is Plenty sets community expectations, report gives impression that this was helpful and necessary to get us started; engineering needs to follow up/augment. The Neighborhood Speed Management Program (NSMP) is on pause currently, enables staff to develop other speed mitigation policies and tools not necessarily identified as NSMP, helpful to identify segments of local streets to join arterial streets. Good work done on functional street classification. Concern regarding halting work on Pine Street complex project - seems disingenuous, does serve as collector, fits many criteria in other areas. Agenda Item 7: Matters [8:18 p.m.] A. Matters from Staff/Non-Agenda 1. Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) Update (Sanson) - staff is working on identifying proposed projects to submit for grant consideration. Suggestion to include slides in record. 2. Department Retrospective Learnings (Vandenbrande/Stiffler) TAB Comments • Specific comments that learnings from projects summary could include cost effectiveness for Table Mesa multi-use path and earlier, more consistent engagement on projects like North Broadway. • Other learnings: include realistic costs, incorporate TAB suggestions, accept engineering suggestions if they advance Transportation Master Plan (TMP) goals, be more direct and clearer with each other, identify whether project advances TMP goals, update DCS to reflect TMP goals and produce a better design, update engineering practices to better address bicycle infrastructure. • Appreciation expressed to staff for doing the process, TAB member felt heard. B. Matters from the Board [9:04 p.m.] • Core Arterial Network (CAN) (Weinheimer) – derived from Vision Zero data including that 65% of severe crashes happen on 16% of streets that are arterials. Critical north-south streets are Folsom, DRAFT TAB Minutes February 14, 2022 Page 5 of 5 28th Street and 30th Street. Overlays show other sections, projects, potential projects and studies. Goal is to build out geographically from core are and fill in missing core connections, represents a temporary shift away from TMP study and update. • Appreciation expressed for assimilation, provides focus, strong positive step in right direction. • Next steps include more immediate studies, decrease frequency of TMP updates. • Stopped doing other things, direction from council to focus on CAN, orient bandwidth to new way of thinking. • Broadway bus lanes warrants modeling, use signage and paint, provide constantly clear lane, can establish as transit priority corridor. Staff identified Table Mesa and Broadway as transit improvement opportunity. Tweak lane assignments, create small time-savings. • Appreciation expressed for work, excellence in reading the room/interpreting council’s request, crowdsource engineering. Question about presentation to council concerning Broadway south bus lanes, if it represented clear dedicated bus lanes, if staff agreed to delay TMP update, what it means for NSMP and Vision Zero Innovation Program (VZIP) experimentation. • Appreciation expressed to TAB for input and to Weinheimer for leadership. • Open Board Comment • Duhaime - Community Vitality is or has presented to City Council about a pilot project extending the open streets and pedestrianization. TAB feedback was not solicited; it would benefit from transportation staff and TAB input. Registering discontent with lack of interface. • Schuchard - appreciation for work going into VMT, hope we can continue to incorporate focus on reduction. Would like to see staff’s work on VMT take life. • Weinheimer – due to pouring concrete for new fire station, Planning Board asked to update proposed cross section and transit village area plan. How could transportation assist regarding future decisions about public right-of-way? • Next meeting is Hutch’s last as a TAB member. Agenda Item 8: Future Agenda Items [9:45 p.m.] McIntyre appreciates staff items, proposes maintaining TAB-initiated or TAB concerns tracker, will email for TAB comment next month. Staff list will also be updated and circulated. Agenda Item 9: Adjournment [9:50 p.m.] There being no further business to come before the board at this time, by motion regularly adopted, the meeting was adjourned at 9:50 p.m. Motion: Moved to adjourn: Hutchinson Second: McIntyre Motion passes 5:0 Date, Time, and Location of Next Meeting: The next meeting will be a regular virtual meeting on Monday, March 14, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. unless otherwise decided by staff and the Board. APPROVED BY: ATTESTED: ___________________________________ ____________________________________ Board Chair Board Secretary ___________________________________ ____________________________________ Date Date An audio recording of the full meeting for which these minutes are a summary is available on the Transportation Advisory Board web page.