Athens in Motion Commission

Athens in Motion Commission Wednesday, April 28, 2020 – 4:00-5:00 pm Via ACC WebEx due to COVID-19 PRESENT Jake Maas Carol Myers Aaron Redman Mark Ebell Lauren Blais Teresa Friedlander Craig Topple James Barlament Roswell Lawrence TPW Hillary Essig Stephen Bailey GUESTS Todd Miller (Park Planning) 1. Call to order Lauren (who is serving as Chair temporarily while Carol focuses on the election) called the meeting to order at 4:04 pm. 2. Welcome Lauren thanked Hillary and everyone at ACC for setting up the WebEx meeting. 3. Public comment There were no public comments in the form. 4. Approval of minutes – February 25 (last meeting; there was no meeting in March due to COVID) Minutes approved with discussed additions (Carol motioned to approve, Aaron seconded). 5. BUILD Grant Support Letter for North Avenue Project TPW is resubmitting the federal $25M BUILD grant they first submitted last year for bike and pedestrian improvements to North Avenue between the River and the Loop, due in mid-May. Hillary is requesting a letter of support from the AiMC. Hillary will share the Oconee River Greenway Commission’s support letter from last year. Hillary discussed what is needed: a letter saying how the BUILD grant would move forward AiM’s goals and objectives, including improvement of active transportation infrastructure, development, and equity. Lauren sent a link to a document we can look at – the Commission agenda item for the BUILD grant application. Hillary will send keywords and the RFA. They don’t have a draft ready and won’t until right before it’s due. Jake offered some general advice about support letter strategy, but is unable to commit to writing the letter due to impending surgery. Teresa will get it going and others will contribute as needed. She will share something by May 5th for feedback/edits, and the AiMC will get the final letter to Hillary by May 8th. Jake asked about the shift from bike/ped (TIGER) to car (BUILD) focus. Hillary said that based on the reviews from last year’s proposal, it’s not an issue to emphasize bike/ped infrastructure. 6. Bike Pedestrian Coordinator Update Riverbend Road, Cherokee Road, and Barber Street are on track to go to the M&C work session on 7/14; AiMC will discuss these projects in June meeting. Will give a good idea of budget for the other three. Multiuse path will come out of TSPLOST bike budget. Vote in August/September Jefferson River Road will go to the M&C for 6/9 work session, but the M&C will not vote on it until July or August. They will try to get it to us before the work session but we can provide feedback at any time prior to the vote. Seeing the budget for this project will give a good idea of budget for the other three. Lexington and Atlanta Highway usergroups are ranking/prioritizing projects, with a primary focus on pedestrian and median safety. They are working on determining what costs will fit into their set budgets. Prince Avenue usergroup is still in formation process. Repavement – Hillary is looking at streets from a wide perspective for bike and ped safety and also traffic calming. She will have something for us to review in May or June. A representative from the Police Department will come to our June meeting (COVID permitting) to review bike and traffic safety. The Planning Department had planned to talk to us about coordination and more progressive bike planning; this is now TBD due to COVID. We have a new Public Works Director! Steve Decker. Stephen enumerated his qualifications (especially around traffic calming and safety management). See press release for details. Hillary and Stephen are excited. 7. Todd Miller’s (Park Planning) Report. The Winterville extension of the Firefly Trail is under construction, with anticipated completion in August 2020. This section is from the little 5 points area almost to the county line. The Murmur Trestle replacement is in design. Construction will start in September 2020 with an anticipated completion date of December 2021. Phase II of the Firefly Trail will go under the Loop, then bridge over the new on-ramp that DOT will be building. Firefly Phase III – Hancock to downtown Winterville section: survey work has wrapped up; preliminary design work should start soon. Public presentation of this concept will be in August 2020. Oak/Oconee Street bridge: the first public meeting happened, with strong participation. Anticipated construction begin date of summer 2021; completion date is 2023. Oconee Hills Cemetery Greenway extension – ACC attorneys have the easement agreement from the cemetery, and they are in final easement acquisition. The timeline for construction is still to be built. Lauren asked about whether the TSPLOST projects they are working on were fully funded – Todd says yes. We are in year 2 of TSPLOST collections, coming in over time. We have follow-up questions for Derek Doster. TSPLOST will end after 5 years, regardless of how much is collected over that time period. A few months ago we were ahead of schedule on collection, but everything is up in the air now due to the COVID recession. 8. How best to support community and continue with commission work during shelter-in-place Usership of the Greenway trail, as well as bike and pedestrian activity generally, is up throughout ACC. Carol noted seeing more pedestrians and bicyclists. Teresa is seeing more peds on Timothy; biking is still too dangerous even with reduced traffic. Jake suggested an Instagram account. Mark noted that more people are looking at signs. Why don’t we close some roads? Carol suggested Prince Avenue. Someone suggested Milledge. Mark suggested North avenue. Hillary brought us back down to earth – we don’t have the personnel to close roads right now. Hillary suggested maybe neighborhood streets – this would be more doable when taking into consideration all of the requirements for access by for EMS, Fire, PD. Lauren suggested that maybe we could ignite people’s imaginations about this. Hillary advanced the idea of a TACTICAL URBANISM MICRO PROGRAM, and demanded that the Secretary record this in all caps. Carol concurred with Jake’s Instagram suggestion, noting that it could be an opportunity to take off and use imagination. Jake suggested doing a tactical urbanism series on Instagram. Carol will create Instagram and link to FB page. (She did this during the meeting.) Aaron noted that COVID has presented yet another with beg buttons – potential disease transmission. 9. Next meeting date -- Plan for online The next meeting will be 5/26 at 4pm, again via WebEx and broadcast on Youtube. 10. Meeting adjourned at 4:59pm.