Traffic and Transportation Committee

TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION May 8, 2018 A meeting of the Committee on Traffic and Transportation was held this date beginning at 2:31 p.m., at City Hall, 80 Broad Street, First Floor Conference Room. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Seekings, Chair; Councilmember Moody, Councilmember Wagner, and Councilwoman Jackson Staff: Susan Herdina, Keith Benjamin, Robert Somerville, and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with an invocation provided by Councilmember Moody. APPROVAL OF MINUTES On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the April 24, 2018 meeting. Traffic Calming Speed Humps for Approval  Gadsden Street – Harleston Village Neighborhood On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilmember Wagner, the Committee voted unanimously to disapprove the above item. Application for Original Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity:  Jones and Son Limo Transportation (Limo) On the motion of Councilmember Moody, seconded by Councilwoman Jackson, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the above item. Approval of 2018-2019 Vendor Spaces Approval of 2018-2019 Bid Specifications for Street Vendor Spaces Approval of 2018-2019 Franchise Agreement for Vendor Spaces Ms. Herdina said while there were 16 space numbers, they were only bidding out 15. Space #5 was closed for construction, and that was at Meeting Street and Cumberland Street. It wasn’t bid out last year, and it wouldn’t be bid out this year. There were no changes in locations from the previous year. The second item was the bid specifications which would be available for the prospective vendors on Monday if it was approved. It described the requirements for each of the spots, the size of the carts, the hours of operation, the locations, etc. There were no changes from the previous year on the bid specifications. The bid specification indicated a minimum bid amount for each space, and those amounts had been historically set, based upon demand. Generally, they saw bids for most of the spots, but there were occasions when one or two were not popular. Each year, they did an assessment of the locations. The third document was the Franchise Agreement, and the bids would be opened on June 8th. At that point, the highest bidder would be notified and were expected to enter into a Franchise Agreement no later than July 31st. After the bids were opened, and the agreements were signed, they would come back to Council for approval with the final vendors, locations, and amounts. Councilmember Moody asked what the construction was at space #5. Chairman Seekings said it was the building on the southwest corner, and they had been doing all kinds of construction. There was scaffolding there that had just come down, and now the sidewalk was all torn up. It may be ready by the end of the year. Councilmember Moody said it had been shut down for a while, and it seemed like somebody should be paying them for that spot that they were using for construction lay-down. Chairman Seekings said that because of the nature of the construction, they closed it down to pedestrian traffic for safety purposes, and he didn’t think they could put a vendor there. Councilmember Moody said if they wanted that space for construction purposes they should maybe pay for some of it. He asked if someone didn’t bid on a space, if it was first-come first-serve. Ms. Herdina said that anyone could go in the spot, assuming they had the proper permits, with the exception of three spots. Councilmember Moody asked if they were advertised that they were available if they weren’t sold. Ms. Herdina said she didn’t think they advertised that. They had never done a subsequent bid and lowered the bid. They could take a look at that and come back to them. Ms. Herdina said that the previous year, she thought they had bids on all but two spaces. Councilwoman Jackson asked if it was usually competitive, to where there was more than one bidder. Ms. Herdina said it depended on the spot. They always took the highest bidder. On the motion of Councilmember Moody seconded by Councilwoman Jackson, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the above three items. Traffic Signal Retiming Report (Presentation) Mr. Benjamin said that they wanted to be able to give a full overview of the work that had been going on regarding the signal. They had a Signal Maintenance Agreement with SCDOT that allowed the City to do some specific work. Many of them had been asking about various areas in their districts that needed improvements. They had been working on it. Troy Mitchell, Manager of Signal Systems, and Stantec, had been doing in depth work in West Ashley, Folly Road, East Bay Street, the Crosstown, and the Medical District. Rick Bay, Stantec, said this was a challenging project. They wanted to make sure they were doing it the way the City wanted them to. They had started the project about a year and a half previous and were still working on some things. He wanted to talk about the objectives and the signal timing corridors they had worked on. They had been charged at looking at the operations through the City. The first objective was to look at specific corridors. They had looking at 7 corridors, five of which were completed, and two were still ongoing. He referred to a map of signals and stated that the ones in grey were not included in what they were doing, primarily downtown, Hwy. 61, and farther out in West Ashley. They first looked at the signals and counted traffic at individual intersections. They also counted the pedestrians. Then, they looked at existing signal timing strategies and developed a preliminary timing report. The standard practice was to time the signals every 5 years and the ones in Charleston had not been timed in about 10 years. It was time to refresh the signals when they had new traffic patterns and growth. They then conducted a travel time study, so they drove a car 6 times in both directions during peak times to understand what the existing conditions were. They implemented the plan fine-tuned them. Then, they did after studies and prepared the final report. On Savannah Highway, the traffic pattern went toward downtown in the morning and away from downtown in the evening. They needed the signals to favor the most heavily progressed need, but they can’t take eyes off the other way. They needed to pay attention to the side streets, as well. They also had some non-motorized issues, such as at Market Street and East Bay Street. There were a lot of different movements, and a tremendous amount of pedestrian traffic. They were looking at how to handle that. In some other cities, there were all pedestrian phases. However, to do that, it took away from auto traffic, so it was a balance. They were looking at Advance Pedestrian Walk’s. Mr. Benjamin said that in 2007, the department had done a study on 17 different intersections for Advance Ped. It was presented to the Mayor at the time and now they were trying to see what was viable. Mr. Bay stated that for US 17 and Coming Street they were looking at a Northbound Ped Progression. Councilmember Moody said there were some issues around the College of Charleston and at the other end of Market Street, at Meeting Street. There were grey dots around the College. Mr. Bay said that wasn’t part of the study yet. Mr. Benjamin said it wasn’t part of it because of the County’s project. It raised an opportunity to improve Calhoun Street, Coming Street, and St. Philip Street. Right now, part of the problem was with the old infrastructure that was there, that didn’t allow them to do things they wanted to. Mr. Bay stated he wanted to look at some of the results. They weren’t talking about removing all congestion, but cleaning it up to get as much efficiency as they could. Savannah Highway had been done the previous fall. They saw in the morning peak hour, average speed had increased from about 23 mph to 26 mph and in the evening it had picked up 3-4 mph. The average travel time had shortened a little bit and the average delay had gone down. They also had the program give environmental results, such as carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, and volatile organic compounds. When they started looking at the average benefits with an average interest rate of about 6%, they could calculate the Benefit/Cost Ratio. For Savannah Highway it was 38.1, so for every dollar they put in, they would get $38 back overall. For Folly Road, the speed had gone up on average, the average travel time had gone down and the average delay went down. The Benefit/Cost Ratio was very high, at 69.6. They also looked at Folly road during a summer weekend in the afternoon and evening. The average speed had gone up, average travel time went down, and average delay went down. They looked at the North Bridge System at SC 7 and Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and they did have a small problem with a slight increase in travel time and delay in the morning. The second objective they looked at was looking at today’s signal systems, and what would be the best approach to making them work. There were three main types of control strategies, Time Based Systems, which was what they had, Traffic Responsive Systems, and Traffic Adaptive Systems. Time Based Systems were developed off-line, had a predetermined schedule, and were based on trends or data. This strategy was reliable and was low-maintenance. However, if there were conditions that caused a dramatic change, the system wouldn’t pick it up. These plans required frequent updates. The second system was the Traffic Response System and these plans were developed off-line as well, but generally had more plans than the time based system. There was a ‘plan library’ based on current traffic conditions. They were chosen using thresholds or pattern matching. They needed to make sure there was good detection with this type. This wasn’t as inexpensive as the first one, but a lot more inexpensive than the third type. The third system was the Traffic Adaptive System, which was the most recently developed. A computer would be off-site that had a lot of detection over the entire system. It looked at main traffic flow and side streets, and would develop plans in real-time. A few cities had these, but they were very expensive. They didn’t want this unless, they needed it. It took an immense amount of detection and watching the system. Councilwoman Jackson asked if it would get cheaper over time and Mr. Bay said it would get cheaper and better with time. The Time Based Systems had served Charleston well. A Traffic Adaptive System had been placed down by Bees Ferry and it was being watched to see how it would do. At this time, they didn’t think all of Charleston needed the adaptive system. Mr. Bay stated that they had evaluated the existing equipment and facilities at the Traffic Management Center. They assessed the existing staffing levels and what other cities were doing. They developed some recommendations for the City’s Center. There was no one sitting there right now so there was a chance to be more proactive in managing the equipment and resources. They looked at the different peer cities by assessing the size, the number of signals, the staffing, communication, cameras and times. In Charleston, they were dealing with Twisted- Pair Copper wiring and some Fiber-Optic, which was something they needed to look at. Mr. Benjamin stated said that they were finally fully staffed in the Signaling Department. The type of infrastructure that was in place didn’t allow them right now to do the new things, from a technology standpoint, to enhance traffic flow. They needed to upgrade a lot of different areas. Though they may have time-based system, they had people to respond in real time. There was a lot of opportunity for how this could be used. Councilwoman Jackson asked if there were other things needed to get to fiber optic and Mr. Benjamin said they had a list of upgrades that needed to be done. Fiber-Optic would open up a lot of opportunities. They wanted to be able to upgrade Rutledge and the Crosstown to Advance Ped, but it would take a lot of funds, around $75,000. The Medical District had come on board to fund the upgrades they wanted to see. Councilmember Moody said that he had been talking about the flashing yellow lights at signals and asked if they had looked at those and the difference between the yellow lights and just a red and green light. Mr. Bay said that if they had a flashing light, the strategy allowed you to go when it was open. Councilmember Moody asked why they would have a red arrow and Mr. Bay said it would be when the traffic was flowing in the other direction. It was an emphasis to stop traffic from pulling out in front of free-flowing traffic and was for when the traffic count was high. Councilmember Moody asked in terms of the pedestrian and bike traffic, if they were looking at the intersections around Savannah Highway. Wappoo Road was a mess with the greenway. There was probably a better intersection than to have the bikes and pedestrians there with all the cars. Mr. Benjamin said that was one of the intersections that was on the city-wide plan. Mr. Bay stated that they needed to continue to upgrade the equipment in the field. It was continuing to be replaced. They should configure the MaxTime System and identify a priority listing of detection upgrades and to deploy advance detection at intersections. For Mid-Term goals, they could deploy the upgraded detection, and add staff to operate the Center. They had work to do on East Bay Street and the Septima Clark Parkway. Chairman Seekings asked how this would work if they didn’t have the center of the Peninsula included. Mr. Benjamin said there was about $108,000 left after the work off the Peninsula and on East Bay and they had gone to the Mayor to ask about the Crosstown and that’s how they started to look at that. Troy Mitchell said that the infrastructure was upgraded due to the agreement they had with SCDOT. That was over a 5-6 year period and a lot of it had to do with funding. All of West Ashley was done, part of the northern part of the Peninsula was being done right now. They strategically picked the areas to work in. For the traffic signal re-timing project, there was an RFP done and Stantec was brought in. Funding was there to complete certain intersections and there was a second phase, where the Peninsula would have to be done. The Peninsula was unique because there were corridors that crossed each other, that coordinated with one another, so they all had to be done at one time. To just pick one corridor and do it in that area would vastly affect the others. Funding was also an issue with that area. He was still continuing to work with SCDOT. Chairman Seekings left at 3:19 p.m. Councilmember Wagner said that Johns Island had some problems and there was a problem with the loop of West Ashley Circle. He was getting many phone calls about it. They knew what happened when On Demand Signals went crazy. Councilwoman Jackson asked if that was more about car volume than timing. Mr. Bay said it got to a saturation point and it happened on a regional level. Mr. Bay said they could go back and look at it. Savannah Highway should be getting the most flow, with the side streets getting minimum flow. Mr. Benjamin stated that it was a delicate balance. Councilmember Wagner said that the double left off of 526 turned into a nightmare as well. Councilmember Moody said they had a charrette to get some input on Magnolia to Savage Road. He assumed that Mr. Adams was there because this was important in their world and asked if it was going to the County. Mr. Adams, Charleston County Transportation Development, introduced Sunshine Trakas, who would be the Project Manager for the Savannah Highway Corridor. They wanted to coordinate with the City’s projects. They had two projects on Savannah Highway, one was a study from Avondale to I-26 which was a conceptual long range study. The second project was from Avondale to Savage Road. Councilmember Moody said they were all talking about the same things. Councilwoman Jackson said she thought people noticed the improvement on Folly Road. She asked about the pitchforks. She hoping that they were all aware that the pitchfork plans were paramount to this and whatever they could do to support the Mayor’s leadership in getting the pitchforks in place, they should do. Mr. Benjamin said that it would and was taking a lot of coordination between their office, County Staff, and City staff. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 3:29 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary