Athens in Motion Commission

Athens in Motion Commission Dec. 18, 2019 – 4:00-6:00 pm Pound Street Conference Room 315 Pound Street, Athens, GA 30601 PRESENT Carol Myers Teresa Friedlander Jake Maas Lauren Blais James Barlament Craig Topple Aaron Redman ABSENT Mark Ebell Roswell Lawrence TPW REPS Hillary Essig Stephen Bailey GUESTS Scott Long, Bike Athens Allen Jones, Timothy Forward Kendell Turner, Timothy Forward Claude Lett, Timothy Forward Todd Miller, Park Planning ACC Commissioner Jerry Nesmith ACC Commissioner Mike Hamby Mayor Kelly Girtz Assistant City Manager Josh Edwards 1. Carol called the meeting to order at 4:05. 2. The minutes from the monthly meeting on November 11, 2019 and the ad hoc meeting on November 26 were presented. Teresa motioned; James seconded; minutes approved unanimously. 3. Mayor Girtz spoke to the AiM Commission to provide guidance about the Commission’s role in project development, particularly related to the varied “pots” of funding available, and also to policy development. • The Mayor and Commission appreciate the work of the AiMC so far. • As it is the end of the year, various transportation-related projects are anticipated to begin soon. So: who’s on first? • Among the array of bodies in and out of house: elected officials, citizen committees; who does what and what order and sequence.  • Mayor Girtz told us that the letter on project prioritization that was presented to the M&C on December 3rd was helpful in terms of getting the vantage point of the AiMC. • Kelly looked at the Bylaws. He will provide a memo that lays out the big picture of transportation development in ACC to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the AiMC and enable us to work smoothly within that process. • General bike and pedestrian funds are available according to the regular budget cycle and through SPLOST and TSPLOST. • Corridor expenditures: $4M each for Lexington, Atlanta Highway, Prince, West Broad However, these corridor projects include a vast number of different sorts of expenditures within each corridor, not all of which fall under the aegis of the AiMC. These include median improvements, culvert replacements, turning lane modifications, etc. A large buffet of potential expenditures. • With every SPLOST and TSPLOST project there is a user group. Our role here is to put items on the buffet for the user group; our list will go in with all the other buffet items for the usergroup’s consideration. We provide feedstock. o [Jake: we have gone from a buffet to a trough, I see. Kelly: that’s how I approach my buffets, especially the all-you-can-eat variety.] • The user group will determine whether a given expense is TSPLOST-eligible. o Lauren: They are not just looking at the $4M. o Kelly: the user groups are really focused around the $4M. o Lauren: But the Corridor study is more holistic. o Carol: how will we know when the user groups are meeting? o Staff will coordinate with us. Hillary is on the Atlanta Highway Corridor user group, and Stephen is on the Lexington Road user group. The process for user group projects is: user group will make their recommendation, then AiM will see their recommendation and voice theirs back to the user group; then it goes to M&C. o Carol: so we are the user group for all of the SPLOST/TSPLOST Bike/Ped stuff, effectively. o Kelly: yes. • Kelly reminded the AiMC that there are a lot of moving pieces in ACCUG, with 1700 employees. Thus, the most functional way to pursue policy work is to set up workplans for big picture stuff. Draft what this bullet -pointed work plan would be, then have the M&C bless this as a work plan for the AiMC. This will help the M&C consider everything in sequence and in relation to other activities (such as GDOT, e.g.). o Lauren: the AiMC has an action plan; is this our work plan? o Kelly: break off a chunk you can do in a year. What do you have the person-hours to do? o Carol: Is this policy, or events or actions that are part of a plan? o Kelly: The M&C wants to know about code changes, etc.; stuff they would need to think about when they go through resurfacing, or when requesting funds from GDOT. o Jerry: consider money and staffing – two precious resources. 4. Timothy Forward - Presentation on Hamby/NeSmith sidewalk proposal Allen Jones of Timothy Forward presented on the ‘Pedestrian Loop’ concept. Allen Jones presented details about Timothy road. o Ingress and egress are extremely limited. o Timothy has 5,000-6,000 residences; Mitchell Bridge has 4,000-5,000 residences. o For many residences, there is no way to get out of the neighborhood without using a car. o There are 3 schools and 7 churches on the map. Chestnut Grove and Timothy Baptists are two 1800s historically Black churches, and are still serving these neighborhoods. In talking with them, they’ve been asking for sidewalks for decades and the city says they can’t have them. o Many of the neighborhoods were formed in the 1960s, and the residents are also aging. Their only active transportation option is walking around the block, because they can’t get out of the neighborhood except by car. o People are making agreements to walk through their neighbors’ backyards because there is no other way to get their children to school. o A “Talking Timothy” meeting was held with the Mayor and Commissioners Hamby and Nesmith in early 2019, and attracted 92 attendees. The main concerns expressed at that meeting were 1) lowering speed limit, and 2) adding sidewalks. • The Pedestrian Loop would be a 15-mile loop around Athens (see presentation for details). This is less outlandish than it sounds, as it is optimized around existing pedestrian infrastructure: right now the ped loop is 70% walkable and rideable. o One reason the west side of Athens lacks sidewalks is because it was part of Clarke County and not Athens until unification. o Historic racial and socioeconomic inequities. No bus service on Timothy Road because it is too narrow. o There are a lot of historic sites that would become easily walkable on the ped loop. • Teresa made a motion to endorse the ped loop as described here and add the 3 miles of sidewalk to the top tier of priorities in the AiMC plan. Craig Topple seconded the motion. • The AiMC discussed the motion. o Lauren thanked Timothy Forward for their efforts, and stated that they are a great group and this was a great project. Each section of proposed sidewalk is in the Athens in Motion plan. The Tier 1 project that will come up first is a sidewalk along Macon Highway from Milledge to Timothy Road: Project #81 in the Athens in Motion plan. (Timothy Road itself is Tier 2; Atlanta Highway to Mitchell Bridge is Tier 2); But everything is a priority; we have to narrow it down and decide what comes first. Lauren stated that she is reluctant to endorse it because she feels like it is redundant; there is a plan for most of this and Lauren has trust in the plan, especially since it is only a year old. Lauren wants to follow the prioritization here and not change it to follow the ped loop plan.  o Aaron asked how much the Timothy Road sidewalk would cost. Per Allen, it depends on the concept: there is one with a 5-foot sidewalk and one with a 10- foot multiuse path. o Carol feels uneasy changing the prioritization of Timothy Road (and other sections of the Ped Loop) as the first recommendation that this commission makes. A lot of time and effort went into the plan, and Carol does not want to vote on it in the same meeting at which it was presented.. Carol opined that if the Commission was going to make changes, we should have a discussion about making changes in general. o James asked: what are the standards for changing priorities? James would feel uncomfortable acting on it now. James is just now digging into crash data. o Aaron noted that Project 81 is in Tier 1. He is open to shifting some things around and o Allen: Timothy has twice as many crashes as Athens average. o Jerry: we have $4M for ATL Highway transportation; he doesn’t know whether there is additional money, but it is something to look into. o There is a question about how much of the proposed Ped Loop would fall within the Atlanta Highway Corridor. Jerry and Mike believe that much of it could be construed as being within that corridor; ACC legal is looking into it. Various Commissioners expressed their skepticism that sidewalk improvements on Mitchell Bridge and Timothy Road could be considered part of the Atlanta Highway Corridor. o Currently GDOT is building sidewalks from Five Points Bottle Shop to the Racetrack gas station. o Jake: To play devil’s advocate: why a loop? No one except Mayor Girtz is going to walk a 15-mile loop. o Allen: No one is going to walk the entire loop, but it would afford points of connectivity all along it. To parks, grocery stores, schools, churches, etc. o Carol: There ARE Tier 1 projects along the Atlanta Highway that should take priority for use of the Atlanta Highway Corridor funds. o Teresa restated her motion: which is to endorse this concept, not reprioritization. • After a straw poll indicated that the motion would not pass, Theresa suggested tabling the motion for further discussion. The Commission agreed that, in order to lay the groundwork for future similar requests, we would discuss a process for examining and changing the priorities of concepts on our list. The Commission will also continue to consider the possibility of the Pedestrian Loop. • Though the motion had been tabled, the Commission and guests continued to discuss the Ped Loop idea and broader issues around the Athens in Motion plan. o Kendell asked how the Toole Surveys were promoted – they did not come out to Timothy Road. Various Commissioners explained that while the Toole Group did come out to certain venues and did a certain amount of outreach (e.g., Farmers Markets, UGA events, etc.), public input was taken online for several months.  • Jerry and Jake discussed how neighborhood design was according to a car-centric 60s/70s mentality that ended up producing the social isolation we are dealing with today. • Allen mentioned that Timothy Road has 50’ rights-of-way on each side, which would make it ideal for a multiuse path. • Lauren: help us advocate for a sidewalk-building line item in the annual budget. • Jerry: we can get this done; talk to me and Mike. • Craig: The focus for Timothy Road is on pedestrians and not bikes? Yes, it is a Tier 1 ped project but not a Tier 1 bike project. Costs are uncertain here; Timothy Forward would like to have multiuse paths but sidewalks are the priority. Due to speed of traffic bike lanes are not ideal. Consider the elderly people who won’t be able to drive cars: what are their options? • Commissioner Hamby mentioned that per Commissioner Link, the ordinance about riding a bike on a sidewalk could be flexible • Jake made the argument that the ‘Pedestrian Loop’ could have good branding and marketing potential. Allen agreed, saying that it would be a framework that all projects could connect to. We would be doing what Atlanta couldn’t do. • Finally, the Commission reiterated that it would table this and put it on the agenda for a future meeting. 5. James Barlament - Crash data analysis James presented on the early stages of his crash data analysis. • James noted that you have to read the narrative that the police have written. This is labor-intensive, but can provide good, rich information from these reports. • With the help of BikeAthens, James has accessed the Georgia Electronic Accident Reporting Service (GEARS). • James wants to look at crash data on a regular basis. • James noted that we are not as interested in vehicle-vehicle crashes, but Hillary interjected that Vision Zero requires consideration of vehicle-vehicle crash data. • Hillary has an intern and can start with baseline data. Hillary is working with her intern on nomenclature; she wants to get something published on the website that provides public access to crash data. • James has started building a dashboard. He and Hillary will meet to develop this further. • James has significant prior experience analyzing crash reports and offered his expertise for support and consulting. • Stephen: finding the historical data is a great first step; we need to standardize how it is reported with the future. We need to coordinate with the Police Department. • James stated that he has a heat map. [Lauren made an excited noise.] James showed us his heat map. The group learned how to read the heat map. ‘Severe’ crashes involve someone leaving in an ambulance. This could be chopped up, too – there are some cyclist crashes that should have been coded as severe. • The Commission looked at crash data for a while.  • Hillary is reclassifying the data to show accurately who is turning where, from a bike/ped perspective. Per Hillary, it is actually left-turn crashes that are most dangerous for bicyclists (not right turn hooks). • Lauren: how often should we look at this data? Every three or 6 months? James recommends making this some sort of standing agenda item. 6. Policy committee – Update • The Policy Committee is working on Complete Streets Policy, and wanted to know if this needs to be part of the work plan? • Carol: the Policy Committee should create a work plan to present to the M&C. • Hillary: should get TPW Director on board prior to presentation of Work Plan to M&C. • Josh Edwards introduced himself and stated that one of the Managers will try to be at future meetings. 7. Communication committee – Update • Carol: The Facebook page is up. We will all invite people to like and follow it. Jake invited 259 Athenians. [JAKE WINS.] • Open Streets event: There is a meeting coming up to discuss. Carol will take one other person, not everyone on the Commission. A Board member from Bike Athens wants to go. Teresa will go as the second AiMC rep. • Look at list of terms. Can materials we develop be posted on ACC website? Hillary is having ongoing discussions with PR about how to expand our website. 8. Grant committee – Update • The Grant Committee is developing a rotating list of relevant grant opportunities. 9. Other news/issues • ‘Beg button’ discussion moved to January. • Ella Salt, who is a teacher at Clarke Central High School, would be a great person to have at the table. Craig made contact. Students to advocate for bikes. Lauren will email her in January. Her students could come too. 10. Meeting adjourned at 6:00. Next meetings: ● January 28, 4-6 pm ● February 25, 4-6 pm ● March 24, 4-6 pm