Traffic and Transportation Committee

TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION February 26, 2019 A meeting of the Committee on Traffic and Transportation was held this date beginning at 2:30 p.m., at City Hall, 80 Broad Street, Council Chamber. Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Seekings, Chair; Councilmember Wagner, Councilmember Moody, Councilwoman Jackson, and Mayor Tecklenburg Staff: 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 January 22, 2019 meeting. Speed Hump Approvals:  Battle Trail Drive – Stonoview Neighborhood, Johns Island  Sugarberry Lane – Gardens at Whitney Lakes, Johns Island  Iron Bottom Lane – Daniel Island Park, Daniel Island  William E. Murray Boulevard – Carolina Bay Creekside, West Ashley  Betsy Road – Harrison Acres, West Ashley  Line Street – Cannonborough/Elliotborough, Peninsula Mr. Benjamin thanked them for the increase they had done with the Traffic Calming Program’s budget. It allowed them to cover a lot of ground. They wanted to be methodical about selecting where they did the work and come to the Committee on the front-end of the year with the ones that they were approving for both new humps and also maintenance. They were interested in looking at the original iteration about allowing the program to be exactly what it was intended to be with more than just speed humps. They would also love to follow the model of the County, with their sales tax process, where people made solicitations of areas they wanted to see improved and have an evaluation process, and then go to the Committee. Mr. Somerville thanked the Committee for the assistance in additional funding for traffic calming. Previous years, they had been getting about $62,000 and that filled up quickly. They weren’t able to come close to finishing the backlog, but this year, with the new money, they would be caught up. Traffic calming was mainly for residential neighborhoods and for safety. To date, they had 550 speed humps installed. That included the 12-footers, City Speed Humps, 14-foot which was State maintained and the 22 footers which were flat top or raised crosswalks. Battle Trail Drive was located on Johns Island off River Road and it was a new subdivision that was still being built out. They received a request in April of 2018. Battle Trail Drive was the first street where houses went up and residents were concerned about construction traffic. They had the Police Department conduct studies as well. They had done a 24-hour count and there were 690 vehicles recorded in that period. The 85th percentile was at 33 mph and the average speed was 26 mph. The requirement, per the traffic calming policy was 350 vehicles and the 85th percentile speed at 20 mph. Chairman Seekings asked how old the subdivision was and Mr. Somerville said they started in late 2017. Councilmember Wagner said they did it in pieces. Chairman Seekings said this was an example of how they should built the speed humps into the program when they came to get applications. Mr. Benjamin said they were interested in that conversation. Right now, the only thing they could stipulate was the sidewalks. Councilmember Wagner said that for the future, they needed to get with Planning. Councilmember Moody said he saw a few stop signs on this street and asked if it would be better to have stop signs at some of the locations and if that was allowed. Mr. Somerville said that technically, stop signs were not a form of traffic calming. Stop signs were supposed to be a controlled stop. The problem with stop signs was that people would start running them. They had that on Rutherford Way. Councilmember Moody said a rolling stop would probably be slower than the speed hump. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they made it a four-way stop, if it would save them from having to put a speed hump in. Councilmember Moody said then they wouldn’t have the maintenance part of it. Mr. Somerville said that their job in T&T was to keep traffic moving in a slow and safe manner. In a perfect world, the speed hump slows you down and keeps you moving. Technically, if they wanted a stop sign, they would have to look at the number of accidents or if there was a sight visibility issue. So, there were certain things that were required for a four-way stop, unless it was approved by the Committee. Mr. Benjamin said that they had the right as a Committee to say what they wanted and where. This was just a suggestion based off what was requested by the neighborhood. This was an example where other tools of traffic calming could be used. Chairman Seekings asked if they wanted to take these one at a time or all together. Councilwoman Jackson said if they were going to customize the decision, they should take them one at a time. She asked if they should defer this and ask them to come up with other alternatives. Mr. Benjamin said they would present and the Committee could make the adjustments, if necessary and vote up or down. Mayor Tecklenburg said the neighborhood requested it this way and he would hate to make a decision otherwise without asking the neighborhood how they felt about it. He wouldn’t vote to change it, but it wasn’t a bad suggestion. They should talk with the neighborhood though, if they wanted to make the change. Councilwoman Jackson said it sounded as though they were in an open-ended discussion and it looked like they could talk about all of these in a similar fashion. Chairman Seekings said that the request was for funding, and they should give the approval to do it. Staff could go back to the neighborhood and come up with a solution that doesn’t include more than three speed humps and if they came up with two and a stop sign, which could be what could happen. Councilmember Wagner said all of these had something to with connectivity. On the motion of Councilwoman Jackson, seconded by Councilmember Moody, the Committee voted unanimously to approve speed humps for Battle Trail Drive, Sugarberry Lane, Iron Bottom Lane, and William E. Murray Boulevard with instruction to staff to go to the neighborhoods to see if there was a better alternative but spend no more money than was allocated. Mr. Somerville stated that Betsy Road had three speed humps and a raised crosswalk. The last one, from 17 to the existing raised crosswalk was about 1400 feet. They didn’t treat it before, because there were no driveways that accessed Betsy Road between the Greenway and 17. Councilmember Moody said there was one house. Mr. Somerville said there was almost 1500 vehicles in a 24 hour period and the average speed was 33 mph. It was apparent that the northbound, headed towards 17, was where the violators were. They were the ones speeding out of the neighborhood. Betsy Road was State maintained, so they would have to submit the request to the DOT asking for the additional speed hump. On the motion of Councilwoman Jackson, seconded by Councilmember Moody, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the one speed hump recommended for Betsy Road, knowing it would be going to DOT. Chairman Seekings said he was interested in Line Street because it didn’t have the same traffic numbers and figured it was because of the conversion. Mr. Benjamin said this was part of the two-way conversion. One of the concerns they had, as the engineers were looking at it, was that as soon as someone came up to the intersection and saw the green light at Coming Street, they would try to catch it. So, they looked at this being a place for a raised crosswalk. That was the intention of adding this to the two-way conversion. There was an existing crossing there now, so this would raise it up. Chairman Seekings asked if they had a crossing across Percy Street and to the east on Line Street. Mr. Benjamin said there was a drainage easement. Chairman Seekings said that area would continue to see increased foot traffic. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they would be able to install this during the conversion and Mr. Benjamin said yes. They were aiming to have all of the markings done by March 6th and that would include the raised cross walk, and also the signal improvements. The only thing that wouldn’t be done would be the markings from King Street to St. Philip. On the motion of Councilwoman Jackson, seconded by Councilmember Moody, the Committee unanimously approved the speed hump for Line Street. Director’s Update Mr. Benjamin said there were speed humps that were almost twenty years old that had not been maintained. Increasing the funding allowed them to address some of the maintenance improvements on existing humps. Councilwoman Jackson said it would be nice to give the list of speed humps to be worked on to the neighborhoods so they knew they were expecting it. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they could explain what maintenance of a speed hump entailed. Mr. Somerville said it entailed stamping and recoating. They would put some asphalt in if needed. The working budget for 2019 was $111,540. With 18 speed humps installed ($73,666) and 40 speed humps that were $500, they were looking at spending $93,666. So, they had a remaining balance around $17,000 that they might use for future requests or maintenance. Councilmember Moody said that there were a lot of roots on the road and it was probably getting close to needing to be repaved. So, he was wondering if there should be some coordination with the County paving and the speed humps. That way, they didn’t do the speed humps and then the pavement would come in after. There could also be a 4-way stop at Sanford Road and a movement of some of the humps. Mr. Somerville said it was State-maintained, but they could look at it. Mayor Tecklenburg said that when they moved them, they would double the costs. Councilmember Moody said he was talking about if they had to pave the road, it might be cheaper to back in with stop signs and not as many speed humps. Mr. Benjamin stated that at the end of the meeting, he would have the lists of resurfacing that was happening. Betsy Road was not on there. There were off-streets that were on the resurfacing, but Betsy itself was not. They were able to give them what they wanted to see ahead of time. It didn’t guarantee anything, but gave them the opportunity to have the conversation. Mr. Benjamin stated that the County had done a list of all the projects that they had within the City and their current status. There would not be a TST request process for this year because they were trying to fill the funding gap for existing projects. They had new bus shelters beginning to get installed. Some would have double-benching. There were other locations coming online in the next few weeks that included at Fire Station 11, Sam Rittenberg and Woodmere, President and Line Street, Joseph Floyd Manor, and Ashley River and Spanish Oaks Apartments. They had done a road safety review that day for the Maybank Corridor in the aftermath of the pedestrian death, looking at how to rework the corridor. SCDOT would report out on that. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 3:12 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary