Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission Meeting

1 Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) 2 Meeting Minutes 3 Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2020 4 Time: 7:00 p.m. 5 Place: City Council Chambers, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, IL 61801 held virtually via Zoom 6 Members Present: Bill Brown* (Chair), Annie Adams, Shannon Beranek, Kara Dudek, Cynthia 7 Hoyle, Audrey Ishii, Susan Jones, Jeff Marino, Nancy Westcott 8 9 Late Arrival: None 10 11 Staff Present: Lily Wilcock 12 13 Others Present: Brianna Lawrence, Gabe Lewis, Ashlee Mclaughlin, Christopher Hansen, 14 Deborah Liu 15 16 Members Absent: Sarthak Prasad 17 18 1. CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL, AND DECLARATION OF QUORUM 19 Bill Brown called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. Roll call was taken. A quorum was present. 20 *Chair Bill Brown was physically present at the meeting location, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801. 21 22 23 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 24 Susan Jones moved to approve the agenda as amended. 25 Cynthia Hoyle seconded the motion. 26 Roll was taken on the motion to approve the agenda. The motion was approved. 27 28 Brown—Aye Adams—Aye Beranek—Aye Dudek—Aye Hoyle—Aye 29 Jones—Aye Marino—Aye Ishii—Aye Westcott--Aye 30 31 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM PREVIOUS MEETING 32 Jeff Marino moved to approve the minutes. 33 Nancy Westcott seconded the motion. 34 Roll was taken on the motion to approve the minutes from the September 15, 2020 meeting. The motion was 35 approved. 36 37 Brown—Aye Adams—Aye Beranek—Aye Dudek—Aye Hoyle—Aye 38 Jones—Aye Marino –Aye Ishii—Aye Westcott--Aye 39 40 4. PUBLIC INPUT 41 Christopher Hansen provided feedback on a previously approved ordinance (Ordinance No. 2020-09-049) 42 amending Urbana City Code regarding public input rules for electronic virtual public meetings. 43 Chair Bill Brown provided brief clarification on some of the concerns Christopher Hansen addressed 44 45 5. NEW BUSINESS 46 a. KRT Extension Study 47 Gabe Lewis from the Regional Planning Commission presented an update on the Urbana Kickapoo Rail Trail 48 Extension Study Area map which showed the current phase of this study. He mentioned the alternative routes 49 that were being analyzed within this study and encouraged participation in the survey under the comment 50 form on the RPC website. Discussion followed. 51 Deborah Liu, a member of the public, also participated in discussion and provided input that she would like to Page 1  1 see a grade separated crossing for Vine Street as it was currently a challenging street to cross from a cyclist’s 2 perspective. 3 b. Temporary Pedestrian Streets 4 Brianna Lawrence, a member of the public, shared ideas on implementing temporary pedestrian streets. This 5 proposal advocated using the city’s current block party system for street closure so that children may utilize 6 the city right-of-way as an area of play during designated times. Temporary pedestrian streets was a practice 7 that Lawrence experienced while residing in Belgium and had also been adopted by neighborhoods of some 8 large US cities. Discussion followed. 9 Member of the public, Deborah Liu, also provided feedback on this matter. Liu addressed the question of 10 how vacant houses would count towards the 75% majority vote for participation. 11 Annie Adams, Susan Jones, and Nancy Westcott volunteered to be on a sub-committee to investigate how to 12 move forward with this effort. This idea would be further researched, discussed with public works and Mayor 13 Marlin, and with BPAC as a whole. 14 Cynthia Hoyle indicated that grant funding might be possible and mentioned “America Walks” as a 15 recommended grant with proposal being due November 5th. 16 c. Youth Representative on BPAC 17 Bill Brown discussed the proposed changes to the BPAC bylaws which would allow for an additional non- 18 voting commissioner, such as a high school student. This person, between the ages of 14 and 18 would serve 19 for a one-year term without voting privileges. Discussion followed. 20 Jeff Marino asked for clarification on the verbiage included in the bylaw changes. 21 Audrey Ishii moved to amend the bylaws. 22 Jeff Marino seconded the motion. 23 Roll was taken on the motion to amend the BPAC bylaws. The motion was approved. 24 25 Brown—Aye Adams—Aye Beranek—Aye Dudek—Aye Hoyle—Aye 26 Jones—Aye Marino –Aye Ishii—Aye Westcott—Aye 27 28 d. Resolution to IDOT on prioritizing short segments of rural highways for infrastructure 29 improvements 30 Bill Brown shared a visual utilizing the STRAVA app which displayed a heat map of Champaign County. This 31 map color-coded highly traveled segments of local rural highways via bicycle. Brown emphasized that more 32 data should be made available to IDOT so that they may make more informed decisions when re-constructing 33 rural highways. 34 Cynthia Hoyle referenced a recent letter from Ride Illinois to the Illinois Department of Transportation. In this 35 letter, Ride Illinois was requesting modification to IDOT’s shoulder and rumble strip standards. The 36 modifications requested would allow for additional paved shoulder space without rumble strips along state and 37 federal roadways making travel safer for cyclists. Discussion followed. 38 39 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 40 None 41 42 7. ANNOUNCEMENTS 43  November 15, 2020- World Day Remembrance for road traffic victims 44  Light the Night even held on September 24, 2020 was a success with roughly 430 sets of bike 45 lights distributed. 46 47 8. FUTURE TOPICS Page 2 1 a. Vision Zero task force 2 b. Pedestrian Street Committee Report 3 c. BPAC advising on CIP expenditure 4 5 9. ADJOURNMENT 6 The meeting adjourned at 8:46 p.m. 7 ***Respectfully submitted, 8 Shelby Mammano, Recording Secretary Page 3