Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission Meeting

APPROVED 1 Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) 2 Meeting Minutes 3 4 Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2020 5 Time: 7:00 p.m. 6 Place: City Council Chambers, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, IL 61801 held virtually via Zoom 7 Members Present: Bill Brown (Chair), Annie Adams, Shannon Beranek, Kara Dudek, Cynthia 8 Hoyle, Audrey Ishii, Susan Jones, Jeff Marino, Sarthak Prasad, Nancy Westcott 9 10 Late Arrival: None 11 12 Staff Present: Charlie Smyth, Lily Wilcock, Kevin Garcia 13 14 Others Present: Gabe Lewis 15 16 Members Absent: Leonardo Covis 17 18 1. CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL, AND DECLARATION OF QUORUM 19 Bill Brown called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Roll call was taken. A quorum was present. 20 21 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 22 Cynthia Hoyle moved to approve the agenda. 23 Jeff Marino seconded the motion. 24 The motion to approve the agenda carried. 25 26 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM PREVIOUS MEETING 27 The minutes from the April 21, 2020 meeting were presented. 28 29 Sarthak Prasad made a correction on page 3, line 38 of the April 21, 2020 meeting minutes to the spelling of 30 Everitt Lab that was misspelled. 31 Nancy Westcott moved to approve the minutes as amended. 32 Annie Adams seconded the motion. 33 The Commission approved the minutes from the April 2020 meeting. 34 35 4. PUBLIC INPUT 36 There was no public input. The Recording Secretary noted that no input was received via e-mail. 37 38 5. NEW BUSINESS 39 40 a. Impact of Pandemic on Transportation 41 Chair Brown asked for any thoughts about observations and changes that might be made. He stated that since 42 the Governor issued the Stay-at-Home Executive Order, there had been fewer crashes and of those crashes 43 fewer injuries. He reported that for the months of March and April of 2020, there were 13 bicycle crashes with 44 injuries compared to an average of 21 and for the first quarter there were 27 crashes compared to an average of 45 42 crashes. He noted seeing more people walking and said that bicycle sales had increased nationally. 46 Susan Jones said that New York City had closed some of its streets to vehicles to provide room for pedestrians 47 to maintain social distances. She said that News-Gazette had suggested closing some streets in Champaign- 48 Urbana. Page 1  APPROVED 1 Mr. Brown said that many of the closed streets were restricted to local traffic in neighborhoods. 2 Ms. Adams mentioned that in the city of Milwaukee, the park district had created active streets around the local 3 parks where vehicular traffic was restricted but deliveries were allowed. She recommended that Main Street in 4 downtown Urbana be shut down to vehicular traffic. 5 Ms. Hoyle expressed the need to obtain grants to buy tactical urbanism kits. She explained that the tactical 6 urbanism kits used plants, paint, old tires and other items to calm traffic. She added that criteria should be 7 developed to aid with the implementation of traffic calming. She expressed concern about closing Main Street 8 in downtown Urbana with the bus routes going through there. She thought some of the other streets might be 9 closed to allow seating for restaurants once they were allowed to open. 10 Ms. Adams suggested some routes to take for bicyclists who normally commuted to work, but who were 11 working from home during the Stay-at-Home order. She suggested riding High Cross Road and Crystal Lake 12 Park. She recommended closing Crystal Lake Park to vehicles and presenting a plan to the City for closing 13 streets and creating active streets that would provide connections to city parks. She believed that more people 14 would be riding bikes and walking instead of riding the bus. She would like a plan in place in the near future. 15 Audrey Ishii said that more people were outside. She suggested creating a plan for closing streets before 16 students returned. 17 Ms. Jones said that government needed to create infrastructure that reflected the needs of the public. 18 Ms. Adams pinpointed some areas that she felt needed more help with infrastructure enhancements. 19 Ms. Hoyle said that she had posted off-road route maps for bicyclists on the Bike Month website under Fun 20 Rides and Events. She said that sidewalk capacity would need to be addressed when students returned. 21 Ms. Hoyle mentioned the Bike Project and C-U Cycle as two groups to people could join for biking resources. 22 Chair Brown said that these groups might try to implement activities that make people feel more comfortable 23 as bicyclists. 24 Ms. Westcott asked about sources for free or inexpensive bicycles for people. 25 Ms. Adams suggested that establishing an active street route from Crystal Lake Park to Meadowbrook Park 26 similar to the program in Milwaukee. 27 Shannon Beranek said that Public Works did not have sufficient staffing to monitor barricades on an active 28 street route. 29 Discussion followed about establishment of active streets. Ms. Hoyle stated that grant funding would be 30 necessary and it could not be done immediately given financial limitations. 31 Mr. Brown said that it would be helpful to demonstrate how traffic calming would work. 32 Ms. Beranek mentioned that there were speeding vehicles recorded by the Police Department’s speed trailer 33 located on Stonecreek Boulevard. She asked if anyone knew of funding resources to assist with traffic calming 34 techniques to slow traffic in that area. 35 Discussion followed on next steps. 36 Ms. Hoyle felt that the completion of MCORE should be celebrated. 37 Chair Brown thought that the participants would want that to happen. He thought a props demo would be a 38 good first step. 39 40 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 41 a. Bicycle Wayfinding Plan 42 Ms. Ishii expressed her appreciation for the thoroughness of the plan. She complimented the Regional 43 Planning Commission for incorporating her suggestions into the plan. 44 45 Jeff Marino asked when the plan would go to the City Council. 46 Gabe Lewis said that he usually would present at a Committee of the Whole meeting in June. 47 48 Page 2  APPROVED 1 b. Pedestrian Master Plan 2 Kevin Garcia said that the Bicycle Wayfinding Plan and the Pedestrian Master Plan would be incorporated 3 into the City of Urbana’s Comprehensive Plan and sent to Council. He suggested taking it to the Plan 4 Commission meeting first. 5 6 Mr. Marino moved to forward the Bicycle Wayfinding Plan and the Pedestrian Master Plan to the June 4 7 meeting of the Plan Commission with the recommendation that the plans be incorporated as an element of 8 the City of Urbana’s Comprehensive Plan. 9 Ms. Jones seconded the motion. 10 The Commissioners unanimously approved the motion. 11 12 Mr. Garcia said the Comprehensive Plan would go to City Council. 13 c. Weaver Park and East Urbana Kickapoo Rail Trail Study 14 Gabe Lewis recapped the presentation given to BPAC at a previous meeting. He said that the document had 15 been presented to the Champaign County Forest Preserve, Urbana Park District and BPAC and was scheduled 16 to go before the Urbana City Council. He mentioned that there was a Kickapoo Trail Study going on presently. 17 Chair Brown stated that it was already reviewed by BPAC a couple of years ago. He asked if Mr. Lewis could 18 comment on the current state of the KRT when he presented it to City Council. 19 20 Mr. Marino moved to support the use of the Weaver Park and East Urbana Kickapoo Rail Trail Study prepared 21 by the Regional Planning Commission as a resource for guiding future connection between Weaver Park and 22 the Kickapoo Rail Trail. 23 Ms. Hoyle seconded the motion. 24 The Commissioners unanimously approved the motion. 25 26 7. ANNOUNCEMENTS 27  The City of Urbana did not receive the Community Research Partner Program grant. 28  May 20—Ride of Silence (Send a picture of independent ride and honor those who have fallen.) 29 7 p.m. 30  Safe Routes to School extension approved until the end of the year; rescheduling training with 31 Danish representative until October. 32  July 15--workshop 33  SRTS Non-Infrastructure Grants will be available on the Illinois Department of Transportation’s 34 website in the fall. 35  Stacy Delorenzo or Morgan White would be representing the University of Illinois in Sarthak 36 Prasad’s absence. 37 Page 3  APPROVED 1 2 8. FUTURE TOPICS 3 a. Vision Zero – Bill Brown, Audrey Ishii, and Cynthia Hoyle 4 b. Bicycle Friendly Community Report Card – Shannon Beranek 5 c. Truck Parking on Street 6 d. Regional Bicycle Registration and Fees – Stacy Delorenzo/Morgan White 7 e. Tactical Urbanism 8 f. Curbana Alternative – Lily Wilcock and Shannon Beranek 9 10 9. ADJOURNMENT 11 The meeting adjourned at 8:26 p.m. 12 13 *** 14 Respectfully submitted, 15 Barbara Stiehl 16 Recording Secretary Page 4