Traffic and Transportation Committee

TRAFFIC AND TRANSPORTATION October 8, 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, First Floor Conference Room Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Seekings, Chair; Councilmember Wagner, Councilwoman Jackson, Councilmember Moody and Mayor Tecklenburg Present: Robbie Somerville, Janie Borden, Keith Benjamin, Eric Adams, Charleston County, Stuart Day, Stantec, Katie Zimmerman, Marijana Boone, and Bethany Whitaker, Council Secretary The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Councilmember Wagner. APPROVAL OF MINUTES On the motion of Councilmember Wagner, seconded by Councilwoman Jackson, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the September 10, 2019 meeting. To amend the Code of the City of Charleston Chapter 19, Sections 91 and 92 regarding motorized scooters Mr. Benjamin stated that they had come to the conclusion that it was not in the City’s best interest to identify the ways of scooters being able to be existing on the right of ways. They were part of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, and in late 2018, they had done an assessment of 17 of their member cities regarding micro-transit and shared mobility. There were three major parts that they were still working on, that they had in place. One was specifically to roadway design. They had people of the bike share that were concerned about what design considerations were in the public right of way both in urban corridors and outside the urban core. The second piece was about regulation. The vast majority of cities studied had very specific regulations around both micro-transit and shared mobility that Charleston didn’t have in place, including certain fees for use of the public right of way. The third piece was infrastructure. Even if someone used an app for the scooters, one of the first things asked was to wear a helmet and two to use a bike lane. That infrastructure for the bike lanes wasn’t in place. They would continue to have conversations about it, but it was important to know what worked for them as a City, and what didn’t. This was something that didn’t necessarily fit, and that was why it was before them. Ms. Borden had done good work incorporating it into the existing ordinance language they had and wanted to put it forward for approval. Chairman Seekings said on the scooter side, this would only apply to rentals. Mr. Benjamin said that was correct. On the motion of Councilwoman Jackson, seconded by Councilmember Moody, the Committee voted unanimously to amend the Code of the City of Charleston Chapter 19, Sections 91 and 92 regarding motorized scooters. Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee: FY 2020 Priorities Mr. Benjamin stated that this Committee had been meeting over the last year and they were obligated, as an advisory committee, to report to the Traffic and Transportation Committee as different developments occurred. They met together to, not only prioritize potential projects, but to also state where they felt investments should be made going into the next year and where some opportunities were. 1 Marijana Boone stated that they were facing a safety crisis in the City when it came to bicyclists and pedestrian fatalities or near fatal crashes. With that in mind, their committee had taken it as a number one priority for the work they were doing that year to focus on safety. With that in mind, they were proposing a list to be included in the City’s budget for fiscal year 2020 as recurring line items. That recurring piece was important because they would like to see the City have more dedicated resources to devote to the safety concerns and improvements that it could do on its streets that it could leverage as they went to the County and the State to negotiate projects. The items they proposed were: a dedicate line item for sidewalk projects, continuation of funding for the People Pedal implementation, a dedicated line item for the hiring of a multi- modal safety programs manager, a dedicate funding line for the Ashley River Bike/Ped bridge, and the dedicate funding for design implementation of the Lowline project. They felt all of those were important to continue to prioritize safety of cyclists and pedestrians within the City. She stated she lived in North Central, and she was a resident, a mother of two children, and a cyclist in the community, and a vice-chair of the Committee. Chairman Seekings said he also served on the Committee, although he had been absent the last few meetings. The Bike/Ped Committee existed by virtue of City ordinance and they had certain responsibilities to report to the T&T Committee and Council about their priorities. Of all the committees he served on, the members of the Bike/Ped Committee had all taken their job very seriously. They were well populated and they showed up for meetings. They were laser focused on mobility safety in the region, and he thought that was something they needed to take to heart. They had all heard about the issues brought up in the priorities. The reality was that Mr. Benjamin had to fight for every dollar he could for a number of things they were interested in. He thanked Ms. Boone for her service. Councilmember Moody sat on the committee for the budgeting process and that was well under way. Councilmember Moody said he commended all of the committees. The input was good. From his point of view, he wasn’t willing to adopt or recommend this to Council because he was part of the budget process and the priorities would be some of his priorities if they were funded in the right way. One of the things not on there was the bikeway/greenway in West Ashley and there were a lot of other things they needed to figure out. They needed to figure out to get people across St. Andrews Blvd. If, for example, they were going to fund the Ashley River Bridge, and it would be funded from the WestEdge TIF, he might be all in. But, if he had to choose between that and something else, he might be all out. So, he was having a little bit of a problem with how they were going forward and what they would recommend. He didn’t want to recommend something to Council that he might not support. Chairman Seekings said his understanding was that the way the Bike/Ped Committee worked was that they put forward their list of recommendations. The T&T Committee accepted for information purposes and then, as they went through the budgeting process, they would report it out for information and include it as part of the record. He didn’t believe they were being asked to adopt them as the T&T Committee’s absolute recommendations going through the budgeting process as priorities. He was hoping that each individual member of the Committee, as well as City Council, would review it and incorporate it into their thinking through the budget. Mr. Benjamin stated that the Bike/Ped Committee decided they wanted to have sub-committees, and they might get an ordinance change about the frequency of when they would meet. Right now, they only met every other month, and they were interested in meeting monthly. They wanted to be able to provide reports on what they were suggesting. The recommendations came out of a sub-committee. Councilwoman Jackson stated that she wanted to thank the committee. She knew some of them individually and knew how 2 enthused they were about being in a capacity that was helping to educate the City in growing into a more vital region for bike/ped. She said it would be helpful to have Mr. Benjamin state if these recommendations were in the budget that had been presented to the budget committee. She also wanted to be on the record to say that she appreciated them focusing in on safety as the number one priority. She knew they weren’t calling for a resolution out of T&T, but she thought they should at least voice their appreciation that safety doesn’t just end on bike/ped. They believed in safety in every way they were trying to put money together to improve connectivity around the region. She thanked the bike/ped committee for being a voice that was joining into that mission. It was critical. On the second page of the memo, it showed why they had probably recommended funding for the bridge because that was where a lot of fatalities had occurred. It was great to have the bikeway and greenway, but those kept people more safe because they weren’t out on the street. Councilmember Moody said as far as North Bridge, there was almost no way to get across that and almost no way to get across Wappoo cut. Mr. Benjamin stated that to be very fair, the bike/ped committee had been very adamant about getting as much information as possible. They had done a slew of presentations on previous plans and budgeting. They had taken that information and made determinations about what their recommendations would be. The two that were prominent in his thought process was one, the Multi-modal Safety Programs Manager. They needed to have someone in the City that was focused on those issues day in and day out, and not just bike/ped, but all multi-modal issues. The second was the opportunity for sidewalking. When the rankings of the projects, through CTC or TST, the priority was raised when combined with funding. For City owned streets, they had an opportunity to get projects done right away. They had examples on Grove and President. They wanted to see safer bridges and they were crossing their fingers on what would occur with the Build Grant. All of those pieces were a priority. The greenway and bikeway were priorities as well, and there were pieces they were able to move forward on that they were excited about. Councilwoman Jackson asked if there was a number for each of the recommendations. Mr. Benjamin said for each of the ones he had mentioned, yes. Councilmember Wagner referenced the Connector and asked if it was federal and if that was why they threw them off to begin with, because it was a federally funded bridge with a 55 mph speed limit. People had been riding bikes for years there, until a person had gotten hit, and then they were told they couldn’t go that way anymore. Mr. Benjamin said they had looked at that. Stantec looked at the possibilities of what that could be. The decision to allow cyclists on the Connector sat with the City in terms of the decision making process. The City could make that decision at any point in time. The concern he had and had talked with engineering, was that once someone attempted to get off the Connector or get off, there weren’t many safety pieces on the on and off ramping. That hadn’t been answered yet. Essentially, if you got on the Connector, if you weren’t a superb cyclist, they would have to stay on the Connector, because it was dangerous to get on and off the ramps. If they could figure out a way to make that safer, then they could look into it, but that was what concerned him about the City saying the Connector was open to cyclists and not necessarily having an answer with the on and off rampings. He didn’t think it was appropriate to allow that and not have the answer for the safety concern. They had a document that showed what it could look like, but one of the pieces was the pricetag of the railing and that price was in the millions. They were happy to talk about it more, but those were the concerns. Councilmember Moody asked if that study had been published and Chairman Seekings said it was. It had been delivered to their committee, but basically put on a shelf because it was feasible if they had an unlimited budget, but they didn’t have that. 3 Chairman Seekings said he wanted to add his thanks to the Committee. Focusing on safety was immensely important. The memo had some very stark information on it. South Carolina was not a very safe place to be a bike/ped enthusiast and they needed to be better. They were in the budgeting process, so they could probably get some advocates and see where they could go. Presentation of Maybank/Riverland Traffic Study- Information Only Mr. Benjamin thanked the County and Stantec for being there. The Maybank/Riverland intersection was one of the hot spots identified in the City-wide Transportation Plan. The County, in collaboration, had gone through and studied that intersection. Many people had something to say about what should happen there. Stantec had looked at all of the options. All of the options were hard and it was important to give them a sense of what had come out of that study and get some input about what the preferred approach should be to make the intersection safer. There were interim and long-term opportunities for what that should look like. They wanted input into the process. Stuart Day said they had taken a look at the intersection, had collected the A.M. and P.M. turning movement. There were a lot of people waiting to turn left at the intersection, and essentially, they end up turning left on a red light which contributed to the safety challenge. At the intersection, they observed a small number of westbound left turns that impacted the thorough traffic and similarly, a small number of right turns from eastbound traffic. They also saw very heavy northbound left turns out of the relatively short left turn lane and heavy east bound right turns. Mr. Day showed a video and explained what was happening with the traffic. In the P.M. peak hour, everyone was lining up in the lane to turn left. Essentially, the road was restricted to one lane because of the high number of left turning vehicles. The north bound lefts were over 300 and the east bound rights were over 500 which were substantial volumes. Mr. Day said they started off looking at standard left turn lanes to get them out of the other lane. They looked at adding a five section signal head so they would have a green arrow at the beginning. They also looked at doing a jug-handle, where everyone would turn right to make a turning movement off of Riverland Terrace. They also looked at restricting lefts. They did an analysis on each of those. When they developed the standard left turn lanes, they started with the DOT standards, minimum spacing, and widening. That had a lot of tree impacts. So, they brought it down to the federal guidelines and still found that they would eliminating about 43 trees and half were considered grand. With the five section signal head, they analyzed it from an operations stand point and it helped the intersection a little bit, but this was a non-starter for the DOT. They didn’t want to install them without left turn lanes as part of the intersection. They looked at the jug handle, and if they did it, they would be impacting the green at the golf course and reshaping the course. They would also still have significant tree impacts. As they looked, they saw Golfview Drive going around that hole that could act as that jughandle turn. That movement was about 30 vehicles turning left. They also looked at restricting the left turns from Maybank. They would still allow turns from Riverland Drive, but they anticipated this would have fewer crashes. There were other available routes that people could take and it would have no impacts to the trees or the golf course. There wasn’t any option that really rose to the top from an operations standpoint, but they recommended restricting the left turns because they thought that would have a significant improvement on the number of crashes. It would operate at a similar level of service as the existing condition and would have no impacts. Long-term, the north bound left had very heavy volumes, so they may want to consider dual lefts at some point, and a dedicated right turn off of Maybank onto Riverland Terrace. 4 Chairman Seekings asked whose decision this was ultimately. Mr. Benjamin stated that there wasn’t dedicated dollars specifically allocated for that yet, if a project would need to occur. Eric Adams, Charleston County, stated that the City had requested the CTC to fund the project, but as far as the implementation, they would bring it back to the City and get some consensus. If the City didn’t accept their decision, they wouldn’t progress any further. The County would have to contract it and the City would have to approve it. The thought process was that if the City approved of the eliminating left turns, they would proceed with that, take the construction contract and give it to the County. Mayor Tecklenburg asked why they couldn’t do the no-left turn off Maybank, but also include the jughandle. Mr. Day said that was essentially how it would operate. The question was whether they wanted to sign it as that, or allow people to find their own routing. They may get push back from people on that road if they told people that was how they needed to turn. Councilmember Wagner said that the golf course would probably be upset if they had to alter the course. Mr. Day said that was with the other option. Councilmember Wagner said that coming down Maybank at night, everyone was trying to go so they didn’t have to worry about the left, unless it was November-December, because that’s how everyone went to see the lights. Woodland Shores was closed, so there was no other way to make a left onto Riverland Drive to go see the lights. Mayor Tecklenburg said they could take the Golf View Drive or Woodland Shores. Councilwoman Jackson asked if they considered closing off the turn lanes only in the rush hour. Mr. Day said they did look at that, but when they looked at crash data, the crashes weren’t restricted to just the peak hours. Based on that, they recommended restricting it all the time. Councilmember Moody asked if the residents along Golf View Drive were City or County. Mr. Somerville said he believed it was a mixture. Councilmember Moody asked if they could send this presentation to them. He would like a copy of it. Mr. Benjamin stated that this came up as an issue about a year and a half ago. Elected officials at every level were trying to figure something out. Because of that, they didn’t feel like this was a decision that only staff could make. They wanted to get input to identify what the preferences were. He was concerned about Woodland and Riverland’s intersection. They wanted to do their due diligence. Because they had the precedence of the five section signal heads, it may be that they need to talk to SCDOT about that. The five head signal would still allow the left hand turn during the phasing. It wasn’t that it wasn’t permitted, but it was the preference of SCDOT to move away from that type of signaling. Councilwoman Jackson asked if he preferred the five signal head and if he thought that would be the most practical. Mr. Benjamin said he wasn’t sure what choice would be appropriate. The recommendation they had was to move forward with the restriction of the lefts, but they wanted to get the input from the City first. Councilwoman Jackson stated that if that was the recommendation, they could start with that and see how it goes. If it got to be crazy, and they heard from Woodland Shores, or people were upset about endangering the Golf View Drive, then they could go to the State and say they needed the extra green arrow. It could be an incremental improvement. Mr. Adams said that this was a safety issue, not a traffic flow issue. If they did the five signal head, people would still try to go on the red light. The issue with a trial was how they would know if it was successful and how many complaints it would take. Councilmember Wagner asked how many of the accidents were rear ends. Mr. Day said there were a good deal of rear ends, but the most severe crashes were the left turn collisions. Mr. Benjamin said he didn’t think they needed a formal vote, but they wanted to get input from the committee. Chairman Seekings said it was on the agenda as information only, and Mr. Benjamin was the director, so he should direct them. Mr. Benjamin said that they just wanted to make sure they had a formal 5 presentation, so they had information on how the decision was made on restricting the left turn lanes. Chairman Seekings said to make sure that they talked to the Councilmember whose district this was. Councilmember Moody said that one of the options had trees being taken out and asked if they had to be taken out in both directions and if they could just be taken out on one side. Mr. Day said that based on the design parameters, that would have them widening to 12 feet on one side instead of six feet, so they would end up taking more trees on whatever side. Councilmember Moody said that the green on the course was always in bad shape because it never got any sun, and losing the trees might help the golf course there. Director Updates Mr. Benjamin stated that they had received notification from Congressman Clyburne’s office last week that the Federal Transit Administration had officially adopted the Lowcountry Rapid Transit into their new section of their CIG grants. That was major and made this project all the more a reality. They wanted the process expedited. The BCDCOG pushed it but he had to give credit to the congressional delegation for making calls on their behalf and pushing it forward to what it needed to be. Also, they had notification the day before at the Executive Committee meeting that the HOP lot, which will eventually be the transit hub location north of Mount Pleasant street, that they got the approval permits from DHEC and would be looking to go out and bid in November for that location. Mayor Tecklenburg asked if they had indicated any new information regarding the environmental matters on that site. Mr. Benjamin said he hadn’t asked that, but he could get that information. The last piece was that the COG had to get through their transportation alternative program funding ASAP. They had to get that money allocated by September 30th, and that included some requests that the City had. That included some improvements along the Greenway and sidewalking on Sanders Road. Both of those were fully funded and there were some City matches that they had for those. A few weeks ago, they had presented the pedestrian intersection improvements that they were doing around the City at 17 different intersections. Many of those were moving forward. In the next few weeks, they would see improvements at Broad and Ashley, Broad and Rutledge, Calhoun and Rutledge, Rutledge and Huger, and Rutledge and Beaufain. They would pay for the signal improvements, but DOT was paying for the rampings, the crosswalks and Ped signals. A vast majority of the signals downtown were still copper and had not been made fiber, which would allow them to connect to the management center and do retiming. But, there are some areas they were moving forward on that they had some dollars for. Some of those included Courtenay Drive, Bee Street, Calhoun, Ashley Avenue, Spring Street, Cannon Street, and East Bay Street. The vast majority of that was coming from previous signal maintenance dollars. The reason that was important was because it allowed them to do some innovative things at intersections like the ‘all-ped’ signals. Finally, the City was invited by the Federal Highway Administration and the Office of Safety to go to Little Rock, Arkansas, with a number of other cities to talk about the STEP program (Safe Transportation for Every Pedestrian). They asked for an SCDOT representative to be with them. He was excited about that process. That would be October 23-24. Councilwoman Jackson stated that there was an item to at Council to vote for the Folly Road Overlay amendment. That would require anyone who redeveloped property up and down that district to build out a 12-foot path and was a big accomplishment. They were doing that in conjunction with the Town. It was important for them to amend and stay in sync with their partners. 6 Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 3:27 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary 7