Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation

Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation/ City Interdisciplinary Transportation Team Meeting Wednesday June 11, 2014, 7:05 pm to 10:10 pm Meeting Minutes Attendance CACT Members Present 1. Paul Baldino 2. Hal Morgan 3. Andrea Caumont 4. Addison Heard (arrived at 7:08) 5. Steve Knight 6. Kent Taylor City Staff Present 1. Mike Collins (arrived at 7:07) 2. James Mak 3. Kirsten Munz 4. Paul Stoddard Council and Planning Commission Liaisons Present 1. Karen Oliver Agenda 1. Resident Petitions 2. Meeting Minutes Approval – May 2014 3. Downtown Small Area Plan a. ACTION: prepare final comments 4. Neighborhood Traffic Calming (NTC) Program a. ACTION: approve report to Council on NTC Program status b. Discuss what the City wants to achieve with its NTC Program c. List problems with the existing NTC Program 1. Resident Petitions None. Page 1 of 4 2. Meeting Minutes Approval – May 2014 The CACT approved the May 2014 minutes by a vote of 5-0-1 with Knight abstaining. In reviewing the minutes, the CACT and staff discussed the current status of the Pennsylvania Avenue traffic calming case. Much of the discussion revolved around issues of fairness, how to be fair to the neighborhood by providing sufficient opportunity for input while also being fair to other neighborhoods by administering the Neighborhood Traffic Calming (NTC) Program in the same manner for all cases. Taking into account the mandated steps of the existing NTC Program, the CACT decided on the following course of action: 1. Direct staff to provide an updated traffic calming solution at the July CACT meeting 2. Do not hold another community meeting either before or during the July CACT meeting as this is outside the bounds of the NTC Program 3. Allow for resident input through the Resident Petitions portion of the July meeting 4. Recommend a single traffic calming solution to be distributed to the community for survey and vote 3. Downtown Small Area Plan Morgan walked the CACT through the draft comments on the Downtown Small Area Plan. The CACT suggested minor editorial changes. The CACT approved the draft comments by a vote of 6-0. 4. Neighborhood Traffic Calming (NTC) Program Update 4.a. Report to Council on NTC Program Status Stoddard described the draft report on the status of the NTC Program. The CACT agreed with the content and message of the draft report. The CACT suggested numerous wording changes to clarify the meaning of several passages. The CACT approved the report by a vote of 6-0. The report will be presented to Council at the July 7, 2014 Council work session. 4.b. Discuss What the City Wants to Achieve with its NTC Program The CACT reviewed the vision and goals from the existing NTC Program then discussed concepts for updating them. Visions and Goals in Existing NTC Program Vision: Provide shared, safe access on neighborhood streets for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and drivers in the City of Falls Church, Virginia. Goals: • Promote a culture of “people first” for the use of neighborhood streets. Page 2 of 4  • Improve environment for walking and biking in the City of Falls Church • Provide a forum for citizen concerns about traffic on neighborhood streets. • Slow traffic where speeding exists on residential streets • Identify residential areas that are in need of traffic-calming measures. • Assist the City Council in establishing effective, fair, and consistent policies for implementing traffic calming measures. • Provide feedback to the City Manager to make informed decisions about traffic calming • Foster collaboration and a shared sense of purpose between City residents and staff in addressing traffic problems. Concepts for Updating the Vision and Goals • Rename the Program, to call it the “Neighborhood Transportation Safety Program” • Safety: Replace references to speed with references to safety. Speeding in the traditional sense is not always the source of the problem, sometimes it is visibility, intersection design, or lightning. Thus, safety should be the focus, not speed. • Residential: Expand scope to consider all residential areas, including residential areas on collector and minor arterial streets. Currently streets such as S West St, Hillwood Ave, and Little Falls St cannot be considered under the program because of their road classification. • Responsive: Stress that the program is responsive to community concerns at that it is a neighborhood driven process. • Neighborhood: Address concerns at the neighborhood level as opposed to the street level. • Focused: Focus the program on issues of residential neighborhood safety 4.c. List Problems with the Existing NTC Program The CACT listed problems encountered in administering the existing Program. These includes procedural problems with the Program as well as substantive problems. Process • Suffers from resource (staff and budget) limitations • Fails to set timing expectations (typically 3 years for a project) • Lacks a process for prioritizing cases (how to identify cases with greatest need) • Does not include a mechanism and guidelines for handling smaller scale requests administratively (which would speed up response times) • Fails to coordinate overlapping programs – NTC, sign requests, enforcement requests, etc. • Application process does not sufficiently gauge public interest, places too much of a burden on staff and CACT resources in response to a request from a single resident; a block captain or block committee should be more involved throughout the process to keep the neighborhood more engaged and reduce outreach burdens on staff Substance • Ignores traffic volumes in assessing traffic calming needs • Typically operated at the street level instead of the neighborhood level Page 3 of 4 • Lacks guidelines for setting study area boundaries (what is the right area to study?) • Does not define how to handle situations in which commercial uses are adjacent to residential • Cannot address issues on collector or minor arterial streets, should it address everything outside the Planning Opportunity Areas (POAs)? • Includes references to a “Park Connectivity Plan” and “Primary Routes to Metro”, which were part of the draft Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan but were never adopted as City policy • Scoring is out of balance, giving to much weight to certain factors • Does not include preferences or guidelines for selecting among different techniques • Does not include guidelines for non-engineered solutions, such as enforcement, education, signs, or striping • Does not include guidelines for use of temporary measures followed by a reassessment of data The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To request a reasonable accommodation for any type of disability call 703 248-5041 (TTY 711). Page 4 of 4