Athens in Motion Commission

Athens in Motion Commission Meeting Minutes October 22, 2019 – 4:00 - 6:00 PM Planning Department Auditorium 120 W. Dougherty St, Athens, GA 30601 Approved at 11/26 Meeting PRESENT Carol Myers Mark Ebell Teresa Friedlander Roswell Lawrence Jake Maas Lauren Blais James Barlament Craig Topple Hillary Essig (Bike/Ped Coordinator) Stephen Bailey, TPW GUESTS Elliott Caldwell (Georgia Bikes) Scott Long (Bike Athens) Allen Jones (Timothy Forward) Katie Goodrum Todd Miller, Park Planning Ben Salt 1. Call to Order Meeting called to order at 4:03 PM. Sign-in sheet was passed around for James’s info and guest info. 2. Approval of minutes Minutes were approved with typo corrections. 3. Report from Bike Ped Coordinator - Hillary Essig [Commission and guests congratulated Hillary by acclamation on her successful wedding. She was still married at the time of this meeting.] [Bound and printed copies of the AiM Plan were distributed to the Commissioners, who expressed their appreciation to the Mayor & Commission for the quick turnaround on this request from last month.]  Barber Street forums have been postponed until February.  TPW will find out about the North Avenue BUILD grant on November 12th.  November 12th at 5:30 is also the Work Session to explain the Riverbend Rd., Cherokee Rd., and Jefferson River Road.  The West Broad Area Pedestrian Improvements Public Forum will take place on 10/24, 5:30-7:30 at Rocksprings Park and Community Center. Free dinner!  Bike and pedestrian count: Hillary is creating program guidelines and coordinating partnerships.  No updates on open streets or wayfinding audit.  Tracking crash data (cars, peds, and bikes). The data included are for “serious injury.” o Hillary is creating a program/process to get bi-monthly data related to vision zero. o Internal process/program to track all of these crashes.  Vision Zero Action Plan o Hillary is working on a timeline. o Hillary is auditing data for serious injuries and fatalities against police reports. o Hillary is creating a “data dictionary” for public consumption of data.  Road safety media campaign o This will be tied into vision zero.  Summer pavement improvement projects: Hancock, Oglethorpe, Baxter.  Lexington Road: no update. GDOT is starting on the Loop interchange project in April 2020, but it is unclear whether this will consist of traffic rerouting or actual construction. This project will take 2-3 years. Plans are fully designed, and Hillary is trying to get them from GDOT. 4. Complete streets policy - what, why, how - Elliott Caldwell, Director of Georgia Bikes [For general information about what Complete Streets is, go here: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/program/national-complete-streets-coalition/] Complete Streets is a policy and design approach asks that streets be planned, designed, operated, and maintained for all roadway users. Over the last century, road and street design has been autocentric. Complete Streets attempts to even this out. It started with “Smart Growth America,” and there is now a national Complete Streets Coalition that includes partners such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, the American Planning Association, AARP, and the American Heart Association. It prioritizes the safety of all users; the expanded definition also looks at individual health, human health, environmental impact, and economic impact. Complete Streets has improved over the last decade, including elements of equity and other features. Per Elliott, Complete Streets is the ‘recipe’ for the Athens in Motion ‘meal.’ Policy alignment and refinement are addressed in the Athens in Motion Plan. ACC’s Complete Streets Ordinance passed in 2012 in Athens; Alice Kinman was the primary sponsor. It involves no capital expenditure, just cooperation and coordination. It consists of a 2- page resolution and a 4-page policy, at a very high level. It is available here: https://www.athensclarkecounty.com/DocumentCenter/View/11362/Complete-Streets- Policy?bidId= Our CS policy does not apply to resurfacing projects – but TSPLOST does, and TPW does; we have different policies affecting the same issues. The policy needs to outlive TSPLOST. Our CS policy is a good start but has a number of areas for improvement:  Implementation steps within our Complete Streets policy are unclear.  It is unclear who is responsible for implementing any given measure.  It includes no performance measures.  It switches between “will” and “shall,” which confuses the level of authority it has over design and implementation decisions.  There is no mention of equity within the policy itself. The Commission needs to use the AiM Plan to bring this up to date. TPW has existing policies regarding such design features as mid-block crosswalks and the ‘4 to 3’ lane transition – The ACC CS policy needs so align with this. DISCUSSION: Mark: How has this been operationalized/implemented? Does TPW look at this? Hillary: CS requires before and after data. The repavement schedule comes out in April and has to be done in August. Because this process is so hurried, and CS consists of a large and unwieldy suite of considerations, this has meant the CS has not been taken into consideration during repavement season. Going forward, Hillary/TPW are creating a prioritized list a few years in advance, which will set the stage for CS directives to be incorporated into resurfacing projects in the future. Complete Streets includes design standards. Are these in conflict with TPW design standards? Per Stephen, design standards could be clearer with regard to bike/pedestrian use. The upcoming M&C Work Session will be used for this. NACTO (National Association of City Transportation Officials) guidelines need to be used for this – some former TPW officials have asserted that CS won’t work in Athens, current TPW administration believes that there are plenty of places where CS design standards are appropriate within ACC. Do AiM guidelines carry policy weight? The Appendix to the AiM plan is a cut-and-paste of NACTO. National Association of City Transportation Officials. Elliott pointed out that we can get experts to come in and evaluate where CS could and could not be applied in Athens. Athens can learn a lot from other places and would benefit from gaining exposure to ideas nationally. With so many cities facing similar issues, there are many that are ahead of Athens time-wise in addressing them. Barber Street is one of the first projects where we can apply Complete Streets. But the Barber Street plan stops at Boulevard (going north to south), which baffled the Commission, since the most heavily traveled and conflict-prone area is between Boulevard and downtown. It was suggested that we can consider this “Phase 1” and get public support for “Phase 2.” What are the next steps for Complete Streets in Athens? We need to work on rewriting the Complete Streets policy. But M&C want to be the first ones to see it. We can work on this after the Work Session on 11/12, and help shape the resolution that will be presented to the M&C by TPW following that work session. Land use is at the center of transportation issues – what is the public right-of-way (let alone private rights-of-way) actually being used for? Athens in Motion Plan doesn’t really touch land use, but the work of the Commission needs to include an understanding of land use. 5. Chair’s report  WUGA interview: Carol and Lauren were interviewed for ~45 minutes by WUGA about the Formation and mission of the AiMC. The interview will be presented on News Matters this Friday at 1 PM, and will be available on their website. This was instigated by press release Teresa wrote.  Hillary is working on getting us nametags  Carol emailed all of the ACC Commissioners offering to present about AiM at their town hall meetings.  Carol is meeting with Erin Barger, Program Coordinator for Envision Athens, on October 31, 10 am, Dondero’s.  Melissa Link and Tim Denson are holding a town hall on 11/20 to deal with sidewalk closures related to Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center renovations.  Jake suggested that business cards would be useful for some members. Hillary will work on this.  Branding stuff will be coming from Toole Design with AiMC input; this is in process. 6. Hancock Bike Lanes Follow-up – Carol  The Commission took a field trip to evaluate the Hancock bike lane striping. Notes are available here: Notes from field trip  Per Hillary, most of our recommendations are consonant with TPS plans, it’s just not done yet.  Guest question: on Lumpkin between Baldwin and Baxter, there no bike lane – is this a liability issue? This is one of the top ones on the repavement schedule. This is a Tier 2 facility and we should consider bumping this up. The Commission will consider making another field trip to this location to evaluate bike/ped facilities.   Lauren: what’s the deal with the thermostriping on Hancock? Stephen: there were a lot of issues with the contractor and we will not be using this subcontractor again. Hillary now has input into these contracts and will ensure that the specifications are clear and correct, and that contractors are appropriate for the projects. 7. Public Input Sessions and our role - Carol and Teresa  Teresa and Craig reported back about the Cherokee Road and Jefferson River Road public meetings. Feedback was to make the information more accessible by non- engineers, and to make the documents and diagrams available online prior to the meetings. Stephen agreed with this assessment.  Craig asked how we could be better prepared for those kinds of meetings? What is our objective? This is an opportunity for us to address the Education element of the AiM Plan.  Plans are not available prior to the public forums; Stephen is working to change this. Mark suggested that surveys should be at an 8th grade reading level in order to be more fully accessible to the public. Stephen says that changes are on the way.  Craig noted that some members of the public wanted safe walkways; others were concerned about the impact on private property. Some members of public were dismayed that there weren’t bike lanes, and that the engineer didn't think or consider bike lanes for the future.  Carol's comments - can contractors/engineers be made aware of our AiM plan?  Hillary noted that it is hard for engineers to plan for a Tier 3 project that may not come into fruition for 30 or 40 years; this would add to project cost. Hillary’s strategy is to push hard for Tier 1 or Tier 2 projects. There was a conversation specifically about bike facilities on Jefferson River Road. The Commission discussed details including types of riders (conflicting needs of casual, hard-core, and commuter cyclists), methods of using color to denote different uses (paint, colored concrete), minimum ideal width of multiuse paths (12’). 8. AiMC Organization, Needs, and Next steps - Carol and Teresa a. AiMC Needs b. $$$ available? c. Committees [Note: these links are all to publicly viewable Google documents the AiMC is using to brainstorm.] Proposed committees are:  Communications and Education o Teresa, Carol, Lauren, Roswell  Teresa is going to create and develop a glossary of relevant terms.   Current Projects and Policy o Erin, Craig, Lauren, Mark, Allen o Non-commissioners: Elliot Caldwell  Budget and Fundraising o Jake, James, Mark Meeting was adjourned at 5:50 pm. Next meeting: ● Tuesday, Nov. 26, 4-6 pm (Do we need to have a meeting sooner to get things set-up and moving along?)