Traffic and Transportation Committee

COMMITTEE ON TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION November 13, 2017 A meeting of the Committee on Traffic and Transportation was held this date beginning at 3:11 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 (arrived at 3:15 p.m), Mayor Tecklenburg (arrived at 3:14 p.m.) Staff: Keith Benjamin, Director of Traffic and Transportation, Robert Somerville, Christopher Morgan, Josh Martin, and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Chairman Seekings. APPROVAL OF MINUTES On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the October 10, 2017 meeting. Speed Hump Approval  S. Lenevar Drive- Lenevar Neighborhood Chairman Seekings asked where they were on the budget and Mr. Somerville stated that they were fine and had a few more to install. On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the above speed hump. TO AMEND THE CODE OF THE CITY OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAPTER 19, SECTION 270(3)(A) TO PROVIDE PROPERTY OWNERS IN A RESIDENTIAL PARKING DISTRICT WITH TWO PARKING DECALS PER PROPERTY. Chairman Seekings said that Ms. Borden wasn’t there and there were some inconsistencies in the language that they needed to make sure was corrected. On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to defer the above item. Update on Citywide Transportation Plan Charrette Keith Benjamin stated that they had the Charrette on October 25-27. The goal of the process was to do their due diligence and to reach out to as many people as possible to get their input on the work. This was not just a planning opportunity, but it was a prioritization process to identify 10 intersections and 3 corridors that needed to be included in the long range planning process. They had 3 full days of Stakeholder engagement. On the 25th, they had students from the College of Charleston, landowners and developers, and a room of SCDOT officials together with county officials and City officials. They had transit and bike/ped advocates, senior elected officials, start-up tech and business officials, civil rights faith group leaders, and neighborhood councils. Mayor Tecklenburg arrived at 3:14 p.m. Mr. Benjamin continued and said that they gave these groups about a few hours to look through maps and bring their suggestions to the table. From that output, along with other plans, they began to whittle down what some of the intersections and corridors could be. The plan was to come back to the public in the Spring with both the suggested intersections/corridors, as well as some recommendations of how they should be approaching transportation in the City overall and what that should look like. Councilmember Wilson arrived at 3:15 p.m. Mr. Benjamin continued and stated that some of the possible intersections, tentatively, were Hwy. 17 at Wappoo Rd., Sam Rittenberg Blvd. and Orange Grove Rd., Morrison Drive and Lee Street, Lockwood Drive and Beaufain St., Fishburne Street and Hagood Avenue, Sam Rittenberg Blvd. and Ashley River Rd., Riverland Drive and Maybank Hwy., 61 and Ashley River Road with a bike crossing, Old Towne and 5th Avenue, Calhoun Street and East Bay Street, River Road and Main Road. The three corridors would be Rutledge Avenue, Clements Ferry Road, and Maybank Hwy. Those were tentative, but coming from the responses, they had started to whittle them down to look what they could look like. They had over 200 people show up to the evening event and the next steps of the process would be in the Spring. They would be coming back to the public with a road show of sorts. There were groups that had reached out for them to go and present. The hope was to publish in May 2018. They were excited and wanted to make sure that the Committee knew they were moving forward. Chairman Seekings said it was an amazing event. The evening event was interactive, so they had a facilitator who went through the audience and asked questions about their perceptions about what they should be doing. Councilmember Moody said that they had mentioned that the County and DOT were involved, and asked if the funding would come from the County Sales Tax. Mr. Benjamin stated that he purposely sent out invitations to various stakeholder groups with different times. The City Officials, County Officials, and SCDOT Officials were all in the same room trying to figure out where the collaboration could be. In terms of funding, the first piece was that being involved with a long range process helped. They could go to SCDOT and the County and they could ask if it had been prioritized by others and they could say yes. There were some of the 13 projects that they thought could be done short-term such as Lockwood Drive and Beaufain Street. There was an opportunity, without taking away any more right-of-way to dictate what that traffic looked like. They didn’t have to wait for SCDOT to do the work over there. Councilmember Moody said that he heard some things that were close to his district. Those things had been talked about through the County and others, and his concern was that everyone was talking about it and he didn’t know who was running the show and making sure that they weren’t just studying it and not getting it done. Mr. Benjamin said that the Neighborhood President had come with the original report that was done at that intersection and what the preferences were and so she was able to show them that they had been looking at it for a while and what they thought should be prioritized. That was able to be incorporated in the rendering. Councilmember Moody said he understood that, but the West Ashley Revitalization group was looking at all of this too. Mr. Benjamin said that was an envisioning process and there was a difference. There was technically nothing in the West Ashley Revitalization process that automatically got put in the Long Range Plan. Chairman Seekings said asked who was keeping an eye on all of the things. Part of the advantage of teaming up with the BCDCOG was that it would filter back through there and the fact that the City was part of that gave it a say in what the region would look like. When funding issues came up, they would be able to get in line with all of the regional planning. It gave the City a voice in something they had never had a voice in before. Update on Parking Meter Installation Mr. Somerville stated that they finally had boots on the ground. October 27th was when they started with the installation of the credit card parking meters, and to date they had 706 installed. Everything from Calhoun-South was updated to have a credit card option. They were working on the final upgrades for the smart card. This meter would allow you to pay with coin, credit card, or smart card. They would upgrade the software and get the smart card option up and running, hopefully, by the end of the week and they would start selling those. Mr. Benjamin asked if he could mention the part about the transfer for people who had old smart cards. Mr. Somerville stated that the current smart card system would not work in the new meters, so when someone brought their functioning smart card to them, they would transfer the balance to another card. Councilmember Moody asked if they needed to do anything else except put coins in to make them give you time. Mr. Somerville stated that was all you needed to do and Councilmember Moody said there was a problem with meter #4. He put coins in it and nothing happened. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they had the addresses of everyone who was previously issued a smart card. Mr. Somerville stated they didn’t have the addresses, but they did have names. Mayor Tecklenburg suggested that, when they started re-issuing, they should keep track of who has a smart card in case they ever needed to notify them of something. Update on Parking Study Mr. Benjamin stated they had put forth an RFP for moving forward on the parking study. That was put out on October 2nd and they received three bids. There would be a meeting on November 21st. Councilmember Seekings and Mitchell would be serving on that Committee, alongside the other chosen people to make the selections. They were looking forward to be able to move forward with that as soon as possible. They would come back to the Committee when they received the scope of work to get feedback on what it would look like. There were different Stakeholder groups they had reached out to and he made sure that public engagement would be a part of that. There were various groups already talking about how they could play a part. Chairman Seekings said they were having a meeting to go through the proposals before Thanksgiving. Park and ride Update Josh Martin stated that the group that had formed consisted of City Staff and CARTA. They had identified 995 Morrison Drive, which was the County’s property. A lot of the uses on that property were still active. 999 Morrison Drive was the City property that was currently under lease with the Charleston Digital Corridor. This was a short-term pilot program that was the lightest and easiest to find. They had searched a lot of different parcels to see which were available or not available. The deal was that the County had agreed to use a portion of their property. They had not brought an agreement before Council yet, as it was just theoretical. The CVB had paid for all of the preliminary design work, to date, because they were so invested in this process. This would give them almost 200 spaces for a short-term solution. CARTA had purchased 3 buses for the park-n-ride that would be dedicated just to this. It would be a circulator system with a continuous loop. The improvements they had been making on the City’s lot would be done just by City staff. SCE&G had agreed to do all of the lighting and CARTA was on board for the operation. Councilmember Moody asked what the time loop would be. Chairman Seekings stated they had CARTA put together a team which included Sharon Hollis, routing expert, to look at the routing. They didn’t have that yet, but they knew where they needed to go. Councilmember Moody asked what the target was. Chairman Seekings said it would depend on the time of day. The later in the night, the quicker they would like the buses to be there. Councilmember Moody asked when they would start and end. Chairman Seekings said because they were starting off with an inventory of around 200, the suspicion was that the demand would be far greater than the supply, and they would be servicing only a small portion of the demand. It would be a very extended service. It would be a circulator route with a few diversions. It would look something the DASH and to 20 combined. Chairman Seekings said that he had a conversation with Bobby Knight, head of Mason Lodge in West Ashley. Mr. Knight had said they had a lot of spaces that they wanted to talk to the City about to put a park-n-ride in West Ashley as well. They were meeting with them the day before Thanksgiving to see what they had. They knew there was a demand out there. Councilmember Moody said he had received a call from the Senior Minister at North Ridge Baptist Church and that church had 7 acres and they were trying to figure out what might be happening. Chairman Seekings said to send him their way. There was more to come and the objective was to have this up and running by the first of the year. Rethink Folly Road Christopher Morgan stated that this was an effort between the County, the Town, and the City. This would be a facility that would be, in most instances, on the western side of the road. This was an effort by the County, Town, and City to cobble together the money to put together as a match, to a complete streets funding from the Council of Governments, which could be well over $6 million for the facility. The County had committed up to $2 million and the Town had committed up to $400,000. The request coming to the City was for $400,000. That would go to Ways and Means, but they wanted to start with Traffic and Transportation because it was a Complete Streets approach to Folly Road. The Rethink Folly Road Plan was put together and utilizing funding from the Complete Streets category. It was moving forward in that same category to implement the recommendations of the plan. It would be extensive and this wouldn’t do the whole thing, but they wanted to get as much of the 4.5 miles completed as possible through this grant application. Mr. Benjamin stated that the plan was to bid out each section. Councilmember Wilson said that in the Steering Committee, which she was a part of, she had strongly suggested that they do as much multi-use path as they could, rather than sidewalk. It was more expensive, but it was the best outcome long-term. Councilmember Moody asked when it would come back before Council. Mr. Morgan said it could come as early as the next Ways and Means meeting. Councilmember Moody said it needed to be sent to all Councilmembers, and it could be a subject for the workshop on the 20th. Discussion Chairman Seekings said that morning they had a CHATS meeting and one of the items taken up was the redirection of funds from a project on Glenn McConnell Parkway to the Sanders Road Bike/Ped path that would be almost a mile in length. The Committee approved the transfer of those funds. That was something the City had already committed a 20% match to. It would be a good bike/ped project, that otherwise wouldn’t be done. Councilmember Waring stated that he would be asking for something to be put on the agenda. He showed the Committee 4 tickets that had been written while people were in church on Sunday, at St. Patrick’s Church. That was something they shouldn’t be doing as a City. He had been going to that church for about 50 years, and this had never been done. Some churches had signs that said there was no parking except on Sunday’s during the religious hours. Some had those signs and others suffered in silence. They had an Ordinance that said there wouldn’t be tickets written during the religious observation period. When people went to pray, they shouldn’t come out to a $45 ticket. Mayor Tecklenburg stated that he agreed. Councilmember Waring said he was asking for that to be put on the agenda, so hopefully the Committee took a vote on that. They had these discussions before. Chairman Seekings said that they would review the Ordinance, and they needed to get with Mr. Benjamin, because once you were in a parking district, the enforcement went to him. The Committee would put it on the agenda to take it up, but they should make sure they sit down with Mr. Benjamin to make sure they were all on the same page. Councilmember Waring asked how this happened and how the parking people went there during church services and wrote tickets. Mr. Benjamin stated that they weren’t supposed to enforce until about 1:30 p.m. on Sundays, and he had told them that as well. Councilmember Waring stated that just the four tickets were written before 11:00 a.m. Councilmember Waring said this had never happened and that the other churches had probably been issued tickets as well. He was suggesting that the tickets issued should be rescinded. Councilmember Moody said they could instruct the Enforcement Officers to not be over there on Sunday morning until noon. Councilmember Waring stated that there was a time when they didn’t write tickets on Sunday in the City. They shouldn’t be generating revenue like that. He asked what would happen, in the meantime, to the tickets that were written. Chairman Seekings said to give them to Mr. Somerville. Councilmember Waring said he didn’t have them all. Mr. Somerville stated that they could look at it. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 3:45 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary