Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission Meeting

1 Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) 2 Meeting Minutes 3 Date: Tuesday, November 17, 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, Sarthak Prasad, Nancy Westcott 8 9 Late Arrival: None 10 11 Staff Present: Lily Wilcock, Tim Cowan 12 13 Others Present: Bob Nelson (IDOT), Deborah Liu, Girija Bodhankar 14 15 Members Absent: None 16 17 1. CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL, AND DECLARATION OF QUORUM 18 Bill Brown called the meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. Roll call was taken. A quorum was present. 19 *Chair Bill Brown was physically present at the meeting location, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801. 20 21 22 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 23 Audrey Ishii moved to approve the agenda. 24 Nancy Westcott seconded the motion. 25 Roll was taken on the motion to approve the agenda. The motion was approved. 26 27 Brown-Aye Adams-Aye Beranek-Aye Dudek-Aye Hoyle-Aye 28 Jones-Aye Marino-Aye Ishii-Aye Westcott-Aye Prasad- Aye 29 30 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM PREVIOUS MEETING 31 Susan Jones moved to approve the minutes. 32 Annie Adams seconded the motion. 33 Roll was taken on the motion to approve the minutes from the October 20, 2020 meeting. The motion was 34 approved. 35 36 Brown-Aye Adams-Aye Beranek-Aye Dudek-Aye Hoyle-Aye 37 Jones-Aye Marino-Aye Ishii-Aye Westcott-Aye Prasad- Aye 38 39 4. PUBLIC INPUT 40 Deborah Liu displayed an image of the Broadway and Park street intersection as she shared her concerns on 41 pedestrian and cyclist safety in this location. Liu noted that the north and south bound traffic of Broadway did 42 not have stop signs as cars approached the intersection. Liu expressed there was an increased safety risk, 43 especially given that a cross walk and MTD bus stop were also located at that intersection. Deborah also 44 inquired about the possibility of Park Street becoming a one-way street in the future. Bill Brown recommended 45 Deborah reach out to the city’s traffic advisory commission to also address her concerns with them. 46 47 5. NEW BUSINESS 48 a. Introduction from Public Works Director/Reducing zoom meeting schedule 49 Tim Cowan introduced himself to the commission as the newly joined Interim Public Works Director. Cowan 50 provided a brief summary of his engineering background with Municipalities and mentioned his participation 51 as a member of the DATS Board. This board focused on the Danville Area Transportation Study which Page 1  1 consisted of long-term planning for the city of Danville’s bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. 2 Cowan shared the City’s request to potentially reduce zoom usage among all boards and commissions. Doing 3 so could assist in mitigating scheduling conflicts going forward. Audrey Ishii posed the idea of occasionally 4 combining BPAC meetings with Traffic Advisory Commission. Discussion followed. 5 Tim Cowan also questioned if it were a possibility to reduce the frequency of BPAC meetings for the time 6 being. Discussion followed. 7 Chair Brown cancelled the December 2020 BPAC meeting. 8 Brown mentioned to Cowan that one of the assignments of BPAC is to provide input on capital improvement 9 projects and asked to keep BPAC in mind when planning begins for future projects. 10 Annie Adams voiced to Cowan that there is currently no interaction between commissions and that joining in 11 on other commission meetings periodically would be mutually beneficial. Discussion followed. 12 b. Prioritizing segments of rural highways 13 Bill Brown reintroduced the agenda item that was presented at the previous meeting on October 20, 2020 14 regarding rural highway improvements for cyclists. A visual was shared utilizing the STRAVA app which 15 displayed a heat map of Champaign County. Upon presenting high risk segments of roadway, Bill Brown 16 questioned Bob Nelson, with IDOT, if there were any programs in place that provided additional funding for 17 improving these areas. 18 Bob Nelson responded that historically, improvements of shorter segments of roadway tended to be cost 19 prohibitive which is why IDOT has generally made improvements to these areas as a part of larger projects. 20 Nelson mentioned that the STRAVA app was utilized when route 150 was reconstructed. The information 21 that was taken from STRAVA was considered when changes to the shoulder width in that location were 22 made. Nelson encouraged the commission to notify him of problem segments that are heavily utilized by 23 cyclists going forward. This was so that he may keep tabs on getting those areas corrected when future 24 shoulder work projects take place. 25 26 c. Vision Zero Update 27 Cynthia Hoyle shared a brief video from the World Health Organization which promoted awareness for roadway death 28 reduction efforts. Hoyle introduced University of Illinois student, Girija Bodhankar, who had volunteered to assist with 29 the Vision Zero initiative. Bodhankar shared a PowerPoint presentation that included the goals of Vision Zero along 30 with statistical data supporting the efforts behind this initiative. Also included in this presentation was the action plan 31 schedule which included a timeline of steps to be taken by the Urbana Vision Zero task force. Discussion followed. 32 Jeff Marino motioned for the Vision Zero subcommittee to work with the University of Illinois on developing 33 a communication strategy and move forward with the Vision Zero Action Plan schedule. 34 Susan Jones seconded the motion. 35 Roll was taken on the motion and was approved. 36 37 Brown-Aye Adams-Aye Beranek-Aye Dudek-Aye Hoyle-Aye 38 Jones-Aye Marino-Aye Ishii-Aye Westcott-Aye Prasad- Aye 39 40 d. Pedestrian Street Options 41 Cynthia Hoyle shared a PowerPoint presentation which explored various safe street designs. Hoyle explained 42 and differentiated between slow streets, play streets, open streets, shared streets, and neighborhood 43 greenways/bicycle boulevards. Hoyle shared the benefits of these safe street options and provided examples of 44 various cities that have successfully adopted these practices. Discussion followed. Deborah Liu provided 45 commentary on the presentation and shared her thoughts on how Oakland, CA successfully implemented these 46 concepts. Discussion Followed. Page 2  1 2 3 4 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 5 None 6 7 7. ANNOUNCEMENTS 8  Two letters were submitted on behalf of BPAC in support of two recent ITEP grants. 9  There will be a new method of traffic enforcement implemented over the next year by the 10 Urbana Police Department to address the disparity in traffic stops. 11  Deborah Liu asked the question of whether or not red light cameras were permitted and 12 commented on how they would be an effective way to mitigate racial disparity in traffic 13 stops. 14 o A website has been created to share information on our local community safe street efforts and 15 included data regarding Vision Zero. https://peopleforsafestreets.weebly.com 16 8. FUTURE TOPICS 17 a. Vision Zero task force update 18 b. Pedestrian Street Committee update 19 c. BPAC advising on CIP expenditure 20 21 9. ADJOURNMENT 22 The meeting adjourned at 9:00 p.m. 23 ***Respectfully submitted, 24 Shelby Mammano, Recording Secretary Page 3