Everett Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC)

TAC MINUTES November 20, 2014 In attendance: Members Staff Guests Robert Strickland Corey Hert, Public Works Keri Moore (Sno. Health District) Tom Norcott Jeffrey Marks, Public Works J.T. Dray Ryan Sass, Public Works William Weber Euneka Richards, Public Works Victor Harris Trevor Townsend, Police Shawn Smith Ken Dorn, Police Kris Hausmann Sabina Popa, Transit 8:15 a.m. Victor Harris called the meeting to order.  M/S/P approving the October 2014 meeting minutes. Announcements & Requests to Add Agenda Items  Ryan announced the invitation to the Mayor’s Holiday Reception on December 9th, from 4 – 6 p.m.  Ryan thanked Bob Strickland for his years of service and gave him a token of appreciation. He briefly talked about Bob’s history with TAC – how he came in 2006 at the tail end of the comprehensive plan at that time. Bob was appreciative, and stated that the committee does make a different in how people approach issues. Citizen’s Comments  None. Engineering Report  Ryan announced the pre-construction conference with Interwest Construction on the Broadway Bridge project had taken place, with a December 15 start date. Work is to start on December 15th to start preparing the detour routes. It is about three weeks worth of work, but could be longer based on weather. The bridge closure will follow the implementation of the detour routes.  Bob asked if visibility was going to be improved with the new bridge. Ryan stated that when it is finished, visibility and sight distance will be improved.  Victor raised some concern with manhole and utility covers sinking around the Comcast Arena area. He felt they have not been addressed, and that barricades weren’t adequate. Ryan talked briefly about soil consolidation contributing to the issues, and that he would refer this to the Streets divisionfor investigation. Police Report  DUI holiday patrols have started, with lots of police out. Sergeant Townsend stated that additional patrols will be going through parking lots for major business from Black Friday through Christmas. Sergeant Dorn stated that official media kickoff for added patrols will begin in December. He also stated that Washington Traffic Safety Commission provides a grant to help increase the patrols. Transit Report  Sabina Popa updated the committee on ridership statistics, stating that October had the highest ridership, with 182,000 boardings. However, overall, ridership is down from last year. Her outlook was that by the end of the year, it should even-out and be near last year’s totals.  Sabina addressed the concerns from last month regarding signage at bus stops for the Everett Transit Arrival system. She also updated the committee on the lack of signage for a marathon brought to the committee last month. She said Alverson was originally planned to be open, but unfortunately it wasn’t and so the signage was missed. She stated that this was an exception and not the rule for these types of events. In addition, she stated that when a stop is closed, ETA info will not be available for that location.  Sabina updated the committee about the ETA system. She stated that in August, phone users amounted to 1050, and texts were 983. By September the numbers increased to 5000 phone, 2100 texts, and October 8800 phone, 3700 text.  Tom Norcott asked if there was going to be a reduction in the Transit workforce. Sabina stated she had not heard anything about that, but that Transit does evaluate personnel when someone retires; it’s a case-by-case basis.  Sabina also reported a full-time position had been created to help clean the buses in the maintenance department (Maintenance is different than MVD).  J.T. asked about a position for someone designing the bus schedules. Sabina said there was already an administrative secretary involved with the design of the books. If J.T. was referring to service planning, Sabina stated that a transit inspector has been transferred to service planning.  Some additional discussion ensued about the adequacy of public notifications regarding buses being “off-route.” There was also some discussion about the use of zip-ties for the notifications placed at bus stops that alert to upcoming closures.  J.T. requested that the TAC be notified about the cuts in routes. There was also some question as to determining what bus stops provided the most ridership. Sabina stated that Transit was working on getting better reports that would aggregate ridership at the bus stop level; current reports do not do this. Agenda Items: Item 1: Update on Trinity Industries ET-Plus Guardrail Terminals  Corey Hert explained that Trinity Industries had changed the end cap of their guardrails, which has resulted in a lawsuit. He demonstrated via YouTube video the type of guardrail and the potential effects. He stated that these guardrails are, for the most part, a non-issue for Everett as we do not have them. Item 2: Actively Managing the Broadway Bridge Detour, A Traffic Management Center (TMC) Tour  Euneka Richards gave the committee a tour of the new Traffic Management Center, showing multiple video cameras and screens for monitoring traffic issues throughout the City. The cameras were able to show congestion levels and signal status in designated parts of the City. She stated that the City has 176 traffic signals, and that 40 were connected to the system (primarily through the SWIFT corridor), with 25 traffic monitoring cameras. There was a brief Q&A session regarding the usage of the Center and its technology. Meeting adjourned at 9:46 am The Next Scheduled Meeting is January 15, 2015 (No meeting in December)