Neighborhood Districts

Neighborhood District 5 Meeting December 14, 2023 13 neighborhood members signed in as attending plus on Zoom. District executive members included Laura Leavitt, Sariah Hillam, Shannon Bingham. Rachel Whipple was also present. Four neighbors attended on Zoom, which included Leo Lines and Daniel Friend. 1.Department Topic A. 700 West 100 North traffic concerns (Vern Keeslar) Laura Leavitt was excited to hear from Vern Kessler, Provo City Traffic Manager. He noted that the improvements on Center with the raised sidewalks have helped tone the speed down. With that finished, he was able to turn attention to the problem of speeding on 100 North where there is free flow between 500 and 700 West. He walked us through the crash data SLIDES and noted the 7 crashes over the last three years were all in daylight in good weather, so any issues arose from the design of the street itself. Teri McCabe asked whether they could have been affected by the drop-off time at Dixon, but redhead was able to confirm that the two she directly knew about were during other times. Vern then went over the definitions slide. He did a three day/80-hour study and mentioned that he couldn’t get a good mid-block reading because parking on either side meant he needed to put the monitors at intersections instead on the northeast corners of 700 and 800 West. The overall average was with 85% of people going 26 mph at 700 West, but by 800 West that had increased to 38 mph, while there were 4 who went 61-65 mph—of these, one was at 4 am, one at 7 am, and one at 6pm. Redhead mentioned that most of the near misses she witnessed were at 600 and 800 West. People want to go fast to bypass Center on their way to and from the freeway. Glasses mentioned that she rides her cargo bike there and that there are often cars speeding around her. She said that the street is wide so people go really fast around. Vern replied that the wide streets are a blessing and a curse. It is inconsiderate that cars do not give more space to go around, especially when the space is available. He thinks that people are going down the street looking over to see if they can easily turn onto Center at 600 and if there are cars waiting, they go to 700 and if that isn’t easy, they get ticked and start speeding to get to 800—not wanting to have to deal with the two stop signs and left turn onto 900. Vern was planning on sharing the data and discussing possible solutions with the police department in their meeting the following week. The fact that Dixon is closing at the end of this school year and moving over to Shoreline may merit another study after the change from that traffic settles down. It may be possible to apply for a CDBG grant for a bulbous at 800 West. Vern is testing a temporary bulb out in another and wants to see how it works through the winter before possibly testing it at this location. Susan asked whether speed bumps would work, and Vern replied that it is a Provo policy not to have them on public roads, and that they pushed the envelope of what was allowed by putting the raised crosswalks on Center. Vern said that he could put more speed limit signs up and asked whether we thought that would help. It is illegal to put in a stop sign for speed issues, and he has noted that doing so actually increases accidents because it ticks people off, so they blow through them. He will look at crashes going back through a longer time. Sometimes with criteria outside of speed alone you can justify a stop sign if there have been so many crashes in a 12-month period. Roundabouts are VERY expensive—about $2 million to build and design. Accidents in those intersections tend to be safer as they are usually sideswipes. It was noted that the reflective bumpers to temporarily widen the roundabout at 200 E 200 N were removed for snowplows and will be back in 4 months. The temporary solution will continue until it can become permanent. Several neighbors mentioned that the wider roundabout significantly slowed traffic and made that intersection safer and that they were grateful for the trial and want it back. Vern mentioned that he is new and hasn’t gone through the first budget project yet. He is very grateful for the snowplow drivers and the work they do clearing lanes for emergencies at all hours. There was discussion of using “candlesticks” to create temporary bulb outs the way one intersection is set up in Springville. Vern may be open to trying something like that. Susan Keller asked if it would help if we wrote out grants for cement, and Vern replied that a lot more than cement is required. His job is to present the needs and see what can be done. B. Q&A with the Provo City Traffic Manager (Vern Keeslar) Laura read some Q&A that had been sent in asking about 800 N and 700 E from Alice and then Carol Hurst, who saw someone hit on 800 North. Vern mentioned that he has met with Carol three times as well as the mother of the student hit. There are 4000-8500 students crossing that street each day and this has been a longstanding issue without significant change for over 30 years when he was a student crossing there. There is some funding coming out in February he would like to propose using. If the Federal funds fit, he will submit for $15-35,000. So far, he has submitted to the state twice and not been successful because we aren’t “real” enough in Utah County to get the grant. They are hoping to put flashing lights at 500 East, which has become a more popular place to cross since the science building was built there, and they are working on signage and enforcement to try to curb the jaywalking from 600-700 East. Someone asked about putting in a temporary solution until funding can come through and suggested plastic bollards, but Vern said those are more expensive than you think and we will be told they look ugly. Laura asked about an injury on 200 East. Vern said that there is a grant coming up in two years where he is trying to include some safety improvements on 100-200 East on Center. Glasses suggested that there should be raised crosswalks on 800 N because it has more pedestrians than Center. Vern said they need a full plan from 100 to 700 East on 800 North. Not much has changed and they need to do something. Vern referred to the MUTCD as what engineers use and sometimes hide behind. He must follow all its guidelines. The latest edition is from 2009. They have been working on a new one for three years and expect it to come out next year. Shannon Bingham referred to the crosswalks on 500 North for the Rec Center and North Park, asking what we can do to get people to stop when the lights are flashing. Just within the past week her husband was in the crosswalk when a car passed him close enough for him to slap it. Vern said it comes down to enforcement and personal responsibility and would share her comment with the police. Those lights are pricey, and 500 North already has two of them. Teri McCabe mentioned we do have a traffic cop, but they have other responsibilities. 500 and Freedom they put in crosswalks and all four legs. Redhead thanked Vern for actually listening. He said that the only way he can know if there is a problem is when people report it in. He doesn’t have time to drive all around the city but does have the time to look at issues reported. Slate Canyon has a speed sign showing drivers their speed that District 2 used a matching grant to get, and he suggested 500 West could use a matching grant for that as well. They cost about $3500, and he can get a full year’s worth of data on it, and hopes to be able to use it long term to compare data over multiple years. 2.Additional Topics A. Update on Fresh Market park strip matching grant proposal (Rob Slater) We can use volunteer hours from anyone cleaning up or helping with things seen from the street toward the hours needed for matching money to buy plants for the parking strip. Rob set up a google doc to share for people to log hours. We want about 500 hours and the doc has about 50 so far. Fresh Market has offered the use of their employees at the first of next year to help with the project. Money matching for service hours has been increased to $15 per hour (from $10 per hour). B. Update on toy library matching grant proposal (McKay Lenker) We haven’t heard anything back from McKay Lenker since the approval to go ahead with the project in our last meeting. C. Changes to the Neighborhood District Program in 2024 (Rachel Breen) In the September survey (Slide 2) of board members and city staff, board members felt that the opportunity to interact with city staff was extremely important. Instead of having the mayor attend each neighborhood district meeting, there will be one Mayor’s Meeting for all the neighborhoods that will also have all Provo Department heads in attendance. This will be held at 6:00 on January 3, 2024. District meetings will be held quarterly going forward on Wednesdays at 6:00 (versus once every 6 weeks in 2023 on Thursdays at 6:30). This should give time between District meetings for individual neighborhoods to hold their own meetings under the direction of the District Representative from that neighborhood. In these meetings, neighborhoods can brainstorm ideas for matching grants, cleanups, etc. There could also be an optional District Board meeting between District Meetings. There will be board training meetings on January 10 and September 18 in 2024. The first District meeting of the year will have an election for officers. There are also some changes to be proposed in January, including perhaps having two board members per neighborhood, 1 elected and 1 appointed.