Traffic and Transportation Committee

COMMITTEE ON TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION February 14, 2017 A meeting of the Committee on Traffic and Transportation was held this date beginning at 3:33 p.m., at City Hall, First Floor Conference Room, 80 Broad Street. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Seekings, Chair; Councilmembers Moody, Wagner, and Wilson, and Mayor Tecklenburg Staff: Robert Somerville, Interim Director of Traffic and Transportation, Rick Jerue, Robert Ballard, Councilmember Waring, and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Councilmember Wilson. APPROVAL OF MINUTES The minutes of the September 27, 2016 Committee on Traffic and Transportation meeting were deferred on the agenda. On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wilson, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the January 24, 2017 meeting. CITY-WIDE TRANSPORTATION PLAN SCOP OF WORK (DISCUSSION ONLY) Chairman Seekings stated that he was going to let Mr. Somerville lead the discussion. Mr. Somerville stated that the BCDCOG was doing the overall regional study. The Citywide Transportation Plan was reaching out to Stantec to perform a thorough study that the City could review and would focus on major intersections within the City of Charleston. Berkeley County was doing the overall plan and the City was pulling Stantec in to do additional study that focused more on the City. Councilmember Wilson asked if there was any involvement with James Island. Mr. Somerville said there hadn’t been any intersections identified right now but their plan would cover James Island, Johns Island, West Ashley, Mount Pleasant, and the peninsula. Chairman Seekings stated that his understanding was that the City would partner up with the COG to be a major contributor and driver of a regional traffic and transportation study that would focus heavily on the whole City of Charleston. There was an outline that they could distribute to the Committee of all the areas that they would like Stantec to take a look at. It was pretty comprehensive. They agreed that they would be a partner with the COG to merge resources. Councilmember Moody asked what resources is the City looking at and how the City would come up with this. He also asked how the City was getting ready. Chairman Seekings stated that the COG had already set aside money and so had the City. It wouldn’t go beyond the 350K for this year. Mayor Tecklenburg said that the City would be saving money. The City was going to spend 350K for the transportation study. They put another 350K in for this year and that was intended to be split between the contributions to the COG for our portion of the Master Plan and then have some money for planning. He was amazed that the regional plan was over $1 Million. He said that they would be happy to contribute $100,000. They didn’t fuss. The City had saved $250,000. They could meet with Rick at Stantec and ask them to look into other intersections. The point of the regional look was to acknowledge that this didn’t end at the City’s borders, and how the City related to the area. He thought it was a good use of the funds. Councilmember Wilson said that this was what the City had been waiting for. Chairman Seekings that the shifting of the money gave the City an opportunity to get a much better look at what was happening regionally. The COG had done a lot of things. The City was a partner through this and would have an open door to push the study that they felt it needed to go. If the City needed to supplement, it would have the resources to do that because it had saved so much money. Councilmember Moody asked if this would be reported to City Council and Chairman Seekings said yes. Mayor Tecklenburg said that he would ask Mr. Somerville to check when they needed the $100,000 and on the timing and coordination. DISCUSSION Councilmember Waring said that when the Councilmembers received tickets, they would give them to Mr. Somerville and he would take care of it. He said that they needed something to let the meter officer know that it was a City Council person’s car. They were told to put their name tag on the dash and that hadn’t worked. Mr. Somerville said that he was working on something with Josh Martin. They had talked about it the day before about something they could do for City employees using their personal vehicles as well as Councilmembers. Hopefully, they would have something soon. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 3:44 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary