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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Minutes May 2016Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 1 of 8 ASHLAND TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION MINUTES May 26, 2016 CALL TO ORDER Graf called the meeting to order at 6:03pm Commissioners Present: Danielle Amarotico, Dominic Barth, Joe Graf, David Young, Corinne Viéville, Alan Bender, and Sue Newberry Council Liaison Absent: Stef Seffinger SOU Liaison Present: Janelle Wilson Staff Present: Scott Fleury, Kyndra Irigoyen, and Mike Faught Staff Absent: None ANNOUNCEMENTS Graf thanked Amarotico for helping advertise the RVTD levy. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Approval of April 28, 2016 minutes The minutes were approved as amended. ADJUSTMENTS TO THE AGENDA None. PUBLIC FORUM Louise Shawkat, 870 Cambridge St. Ashland's recent greenhouse gases inventory identified transportation as one of our greatest sources of greenhouse gases. This is not a surprise. To help the city reduce this number has the transportation commission thought about working with city departments and commissions-like the police and the conservation commission to develop public education for our city that include sensible driving? In these times of enormous complex problems all commissions should be acting on a high alert status to help us all change behaviors. The CC should not be responsible for all education in sustainability. All of the commissions in the city should be thinking about their decisions and how they affect our GHG problem. Saving money is a strong tool for change. The citizenry have demonstrated they are willing to change behaviors as demonstrated by the large turnouts at climate related open houses (city -recent and geos- Fall). The city provides education in composting and North Mountain Park nature center provides many programs to support sustainability. So why can't this transportation commission step up and out and offer education in driving practices? While walking or riding my bike I see many instances of drivers not following the speed limit, not having care for pedestrians or bikers and practicing senseless idling. There are many venues the commission can use to promote sensible driving. You could use the city web site, its Facebook page, the circular that comes with our utility bills, public service announcements, and submissions to local publications like the Ashland Tidings. The Department of Transportation provides an Idle Box toolkit of print products, templates, presentations, and information resources to assist with idle-reduction projects. Bob Alessandrelli, 2281 McCall Dr. There are plans to extend McCall Drive and he would like to point out to the commission safety issues surrounding the extension. He provided a hand drawn map of the road. There are seven parking areas and two turns. He is concerned about parking and the sharp turn on the road. His complex’s driveway provides access to 16 cars. The road is narrower, in his opinion, than a normal road. His parking lot has 21 parking spots, of which would be backing out into the road, if the road was extended. There are 32 units in the neighborhood. He is concerned about egress and there are seven areas of parking feeding into the current dead end. He would like to be on the radar for the commission to look at before it is developed. He does not know if the plan was done before the condominium complex was built or not. Faught said he can have planning and Kim Parducci look at the road. Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 2 of 8 NEW BUSINESS Traffic Growth and Management Grant Application Fleury said the grant application is in process. The grant is due by June 10th. He is asking for a recommendation to take to Council and provide letters of support from the commission for the grant. We are looking at asking for funds to support the Transportation System Plan (TSP) update for the five-year cycle. We have $150,000 that was budgeted for the TSP update in 2017. We are asking for $150,000 while leveraging the $150,000 that we have to build on some of the studies we have in the TSP, such as a more in-depth refinement of the transit chapter and the Siskiyou Blvd. study. If we are unsuccessful in getting the grant, the budgeted money will go towards the update and not the studies or refinements. Faught said we chose these studies because the Transportation Commission has made these top priorities. Newberry asked if they were talking about the internal circulator, when speaking of transit refinement. Fleury said yes. Newberry asked, on the process of filing for these grants, how definitive are they as far as what you do in the way of public involvement, and the process. She wonders if we are confined by the grant applications. Fleury said they do not confine us; we can apply for what we think we need. Then you scope out the final project once you get the money. There is a scoring section, the last time this went through, the public outreach and the PCTC connections were included in those meeting discussions. We are pulling information off the last grant applications trying to make a substantial grant application for this year. Bender said the bond was successful for RVTD. He wonders if that has any impact for a more extensive proposal. Faught said he thinks the bond was used for extended services. The fact they have a successful bond helps with getting funds for additional transit in the future. The question becomes, if they are successful here, will we have any kind of dialogue in the future based on our planning documents to help them. Viéville said she thought RVTD could not do an internal transit route until the E. Nevada St. bridge was built. Faught said yes that is true, but this plan is going to re-look at our opportunities with transit. Newberry said we agreed that when we started discussing the internal circulator, we would be including an ad-hoc committee that will work with a consultant. Faught said this does not need to be included in the grant. Young said the internal circulator does not depend on Route 8 or the E. Nevada St. bridge, there are other options out there. Graf said Route 8 was designed in the current TSP assuming there is a bridge connection on E. Nevada St., but we are not limited on what plans are in the TSP. Young said it is not on RVTD’s radar to do a route here in the foreseeable future. Barth said maybe in 15 years they will have a route here. Young asked in terms of this TSP update, is this in essence another piece such as the downtown portion, because we did call the TSP update we finished in 2012 a marker and we have reiterated here that we would look at the SOU corridor. Faught said we update all of our master plans every five years. Fleury said we have some money to leverage and to gain additional funding to include the studies and other projects. The budgeted $150,000 will be used for a consultant, but cannot be used for staff time. Faught said we want to have a letter of support to include with the application. He added he thinks Fleury’s strategy is good. He would like them to support this so we can ask City Council for their support. Graf said these are items we have been wanting to do. Young said he is not convinced; he supports the strategy and thinks that chasing more money is good, but we have barely dug into the current TSP and with the $150,000 we could fund the Siskiyou Blvd. study because our current TSP is fairly updated. Faught said our master plans are routinely updated. If they are not updated routinely, it is harder to incorporate new items or regulatory issues later on. This budgeted money is forecasted for these updates and there are always new things to look at. It is an opportunity to look at new information that we did not have in 2012 such as the greenhouse gas initiative. Viéville/Newberry m/s that the Transportation Commission supports the proposal and will write a letter in support. Newberry agrees that routine updating is necessary to include new things. Viéville asked if we have to go through the entire TSP again. Faught said we will hire a consultant to look at the components to meet targets according to new information; we will not re-write and completely re-do the plan. All in favor. Motion passes. Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 3 of 8 Grandview Shared Road Faught said we will send out the conceptual designs for the Grandview Shared Road. We sent out a letter notifying the public about this topic and inviting them to a special meeting next week. The meeting will discuss the guardrail and the shared road concept. The shared road will give us 6 ft. and 5 ft. on either side of the road and an 18 ft. road width. It is estimated to cost $200,000 to fix this. He is recommending getting this done this summer. There may be controversy surrounding the proposed guardrail and the 15 MPH speed limit. A shared road only works if there is a 15 MPH speed zone, or else the pedestrians are at risk. The room on the side of the road is refuge, not where pedestrians should have to stay. When Mr. Chapman was a City Councilor, he led the charge for this shared road concept. Faught wants people to be conscious of how fast they are going with speed signs that flash the speed of the car. They will be working with the police department with enforcement in this area. He said there will likely be continued debate of the guardrail, but he is not prepared to talk about that at this meeting and there is no plan to remove the guardrail at this time. However, there are other options instead of the guardrail, such as a cable barrier option, but engineering recommends a guardrail be there for vehicle safety. Viéville asked about the guardrail cable design. Faught said it meets the objective of vehicular safety which is important, but esthetically it looks better. She asked how high off the ground the cable would be. Fleury said 36 inches from the top and will contain three cables. She said for someone with a cane, it is important that the cable contacts the cane. Newberry said the new design will have to meet ADA requirements. Viéville said she would like to talk to Faught about the plastic tape strips they use in construction zones at some point. Barth said what he does not understand, when this guardrail went up without permits, this road already qualified as a shared road status. In the process of evaluating this guardrail, for some reason a designation of a shared road, which already existed got held up in your expectation for some kind of agreement for the Normal project. It seems that if someone throws up a guardrail without a permit and it is permitted to stay there, that is setting a dangerous precedent, and because the shared road already existed here, possibly this guardrail could have come down, informing neighbors, and 15 MPH speed signs could have gone up. This could have been done with more time a year ago, with a more permanent solution like the one you are talking about for $200,000. Faught said the TSP designated these roads as shared roads. We did have a standard cross section. In the Normal St. process, it was adopted through the planning land use process, we chose to do this to be part of the Normal St. process and the standard was adopted as part of the Normal Ave Neighborhood plan. We also hired engineers to design the shared road. Engineering firms are busier than usual and it takes longer to get to our projects. He said we have worked with Legal through this whole process. The critical point is the code shows an exemption for a handrail/guardrail, but the interpretation from Legal is that this is exempt from permitting. He argued that that the code also says that if it interferes with a future design it would require a permit and it does interfere with the shared road design. We can still have a guardrail up there, but the legal interpretation and poorly written language caused a lot of confusion for people. Newberry asked if a guardrail is required for a 15 MPH street. Faught said our engineering consultant said to leave it up for safety. Young said what happened was that an illegal guardrail was thrown up to protect the house below, the fact that it just so happened in the eyes of the engineer to be good for protecting cars, was fortuitous. If something was put up illegally that our traffic consultant did not consider a safety enhancement, maybe the developer would have had to take it down. The developer should have taken it down because it was put up in the right of way, it has no public utility. To Barth’s point about establishing a precedence, there is some arbitrariness that is luck because in the eyes of the engineer is enhances vehicular safety, but this is a slippery slope. Faught said we have a traffic engineer working on it and taking advice from our Legal staff on how to interpret the code. Paul Rostykus, 436 Grandview Drive He brought pictures of the guardrail to display. He said he came and spoke at the December meeting and showed Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 4 of 8 pictures, he has been to a number of meetings, has sent a number of things to the City, and does not agree with Faught on some things. He has also spoke with lawyers and traffic engineers who have a different interpretation, so it is subjective. The guardrail was installed on the public right of way illegally. He thinks it is great that they are having a public meeting for this topic. His biggest concern is about safety. He said he has not heard any justification for this guardrail. There is nothing in the planning documents, the building plan, and he has not seen any documentation from the engineers. There are five options, one of them sort of makes sense, but all options leave the guardrail, there is not an option to remove the guardrail. He thinks there are other options to protect cars from going off the road and is only aware of one car going off the road in 15 years. Referring to the planned refuge area, he does not see how it is possible to have a refuge area for pedestrians while the guardrail is still there. There is clearly the issue of speed and there needs to be full access to emergency vehicles. School buses cause more of an obstruction. Looking at the Normal map, on Normal we have the neighborhood collector, which is the main drag going through, the blue lines are the local streets, and then the green lines which are the shared streets. It seems to him that Grandview is the neighborhood collector and how we fit the shared roadway into there will be interesting to see. David Chapman, 360 Orchard St He said this is not just odd, this is Alice in Wonderland. The developer, when we talked about right of way, the code that the lawyer ruled on is on public right of way, the city owns this land. The developer had to go through planning to get permission and get a waiver to build his driveway 70 ft. on our land. The developer had to get permits to take down trees on our land and a permit to build the retaining walls on our land, and yet he did not have to come to the city and he put a guardrail on our sidewalk. The city does nothing and we have been put in danger for one year. OLD BUSINESS Tolman Creek and Siskiyou Blvd. Stop Sign Fleury said Dan Dorrell from ODOT is here to speak on the topic and to answer any questions about the signs that will potentially go in. He received a few more phone calls and spoke with people who are in support of converting this intersection into a four-way stop. He spoke with a local property owner who has had issues with truck turning movements, from Tolman Cr. making the right turn onto Siskiyou Blvd. He sent some information to Dorrell who is looking into the issue. Dorrell said he suggested the four-way stop because of the long standing issues. There has been multiple things done here to make it safer, but it is not a major highway so it is not required to have a four-way stop here, but he thinks it would be wise because of the children in the area. There are a set of plans in the packet for a project that Ashland and ODOT did in front of Kokopelli’s store, which was in ODOT’s right of way. The intersection is skewed, causing bad sight distance, adding the four-way stop would increase the safety here. Young said he firmly supports this and urges everyone else to support this. Newberry asked if the light would change to a flashing red. Dorrell said yes it would change to flashing red. Newberry said she noticed there are a couple of corners that would benefit from a bulb-out and shorten up some of these crossings. These skewed intersections are really challenging for pedestrians because the crossings get quite long. Dorrell said he was already planning to do that because the island that was built there does not meet ADA standards. Newberry said the other side of the street too. Dorrell said there is not a curb and gutter there, but we always try to make the crossing distance as short as possible. Newberry said there is curb and gutter on one section and this is one of the problems for the sight distance, many of the cars park there. Dorrell said there are no parking signs there now. Newberry said if there was a bulb-out that did not extend into the bike lane and only covered the corner would improve the sight distance. Cars tend to pull up passed the crosswalk because the crosswalk is set so far back. It just seems these two corners have the potential to shortening the distance of the crossing and adding bulb-outs. Dorrell said he will talk to Fleury about this. Faught said we need a motion recommending this conceptual design. Young m/s Viéville to approve the conceptual design at Toman Creek and Siskiyou Blvd. and recommend to council to make the change to a four-way stop. Viéville said does the conceptual design mean it is not finished. Faught said if the commission wants to include the bulb-outs, ODOT will need more time to gather money for this request. Newberry said if it is feasible, but it is better Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 5 of 8 for all pedestrians. Faught said he thinks this is possible. Barth said based on the public’s comments, it would be better if this was firmer, not just feasible. Faught said it will have to meet engineering and ADA standards. All in favor. Nevada Bridge Connection Project Faught said we have a long list of recommendations from the public testimony and more clearly to look at creating just a pedestrian/bicycle bridge option. He would like to create a website to include these questions, answers, and research. We will also talk about the reason this project has been proposed. Until we finish that research, we do not have the “next” steps. He would like to do multiple neighborhood meetings to walk through the “whys” of this project. We are going to walk through every concern that was addressed. Young is asking what our role is in this. Faught said at this point we are looking at another option. This is still a high priority project, but at the end of the day if you would like to recommend something different to council, we can go that route. He thought he heard a lot of support for a pedestrian/bike/emergency bridge. He said he also needs to look at will happen to the funding if this is not built. Young asked if this will be an action item for the Transportation Commission to recommend to council. Faught said yes. Young said he wants clarification, if this is a done deal or if there will be a set of alternatives, or will it not happen, or if we will lose the grant money. Faught said he does not see a format where a bridge is not built, we can look at alternatives. There could be an option to have phases for the bridge, begin with a pedestrian/bike only bridge and phase into a vehicular bridge. The commission could vote to not build one, but it has to based on our connectivity codes and requirements. If we are required to have connectivity and you make the recommendation to do nothing, there would need to be a finding about how you think you could get around the current codes. He would rather work through viable options and choose a viable alternative if that is what it leads to. Barth said he drove E. Nevada and Fair Oaks, he thinks that E. Nevada is a candidate for a shared road. He said twice he had to stop because there was not room to pass. Faught said he talked to planning about this. When this was approved, when you do a land use process you cannot make someone build the whole road if it does not benefit them. Generally, you build a ¾ road. This road was built, not intending to have parking. Barth said a couple of cars were parked here. Young asked if this scope will include flooding issues. Faught said yes it will. Graf asked if the public meeting has been scheduled. Faught said he has decided to step back, start the process over with the public for the project, and hold more neighborhood meetings that have not been scheduled yet. He wants to talk about the plan in detail with them. Graf said he would like to emphasize what Fleury has in his memo about the neighborhood trip generation and the N. Mountain Neighborhood plan because he thinks that is important to understand what this neighborhood is going to look like – how many homes and cars will be there. How does this set up in terms of traffic pattern? Faught is asking planning for the traffic impact analysis. Public Forum: James Flint, 355 Fair Oaks The Transportation Commission and the City of Ashland are to be commended for their efforts to provide residents with convenient, safe, and economical inter-modal transportation within the city. However, sometimes proposals are made with the best intentions that are revealed, upon further examination, not to be in the best interests of the community. And it is no failure on anybody’s part to withdraw or modify such proposals when it is determined they don't achieve the desired effect, or aren't affordable. The proposed bridge across Bear Creek at Nevada is a prime example. Downtown bypass? One reason given for the project is to relieve pressure on downtown traffic by offering Nevada as a downtown bypass. Let's take a look at that rationale. People coming into Ashland from the north on I-5 can avoid downtown four ways: (1) those whose destinations are west, north, and south of downtown can take the Valley View exit to 99 and North Main, which feed those neighborhoods. That's what arterials are for. (2) Those whose destinations are in the Oak Street neighborhoods can take Eagle Mill Road to Oak. (3) Those whose Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 6 of 8 destinations are in the North Mountain neighborhoods and areas just east of downtown can take Eagle Mill Road to North Mountain, just a half mile further. And (4) Those whose destinations are in the eastern half of the city can take the second Ashland exit ofi-5. So, in practice, the downtown bypasses already in use-Eagle Mill Road, Hersey-take much more pressure off North Main than a bridge across Nevada would. I would argue that a Nevada bridge would divert few to no cars from North Main. People who want to leave town who live in the neighborhoods west of Bear Creek can simply use Oak and Eagle Mill Road. And those on the east side of Bear Creek can use Eagle Mill Road or North Mountain to East Main or Siskiyou. And what about traffic already in the city traveling eastward on North Main? Is Nevada a good downtown bypass? Using Nevada as a downtown bypass is a long detour, not a convenient bypass. No motorist would exit North Main at Hersey, drive to Oak Street, then take three half-mile trips down Oak, then Nevada across the bridge to North Mountain, then south to Hersey. Why drive one and a half miles through neighborhoods when you can drive a half mile just by continuing on Hersey, an arterial, to get to the same spot? Better access to Helman? Helman Elementary School Principal has said few students come to Helman from neighborhoods east of Bear Creek (much of which is retirement housing), and that the established bus route does a good job getting those few students to school. Buses are green and economical. Pedestrian friendly? There is a sign where you enter the city limits on Oak after coming into down from Eagle Mill Road that touts Ashland as a "Pedestrian Friendly Community." Encouraging more vehicular traffic through quiet neighborhoods is not friendly to pedestrians. For the good of the community? A bridge will benefit only a few people who live in the locality of the bridge and who want to visit somebody on the other side of the creek. But the majority of those in the Nevada Street neighborhoods say, "Please don't; we don't need a vehicular bridge. Such a bridge certainly wouldn't benefit the majority of Ashland residents. To help extend the greenway? There is much to be done before the Greenway can be extended from the Dog Park to North Mountain Nature Park, but a vehicular bridge over Bear Creek does nothing to help that cause. There are two other options: a bike pedestrian bridge only, or extending the Greenway along the west side of Bear Creek to where it meets Mountain and the North Mountain Nature Park. Giving better access to emergency vehicles? Police, fire, and rescue vehicles have a more direct route to the neighborhoods in the West Nevada area, via Oak Street. Much more direct than turning on Mountain, driving up the hill to East Nevada, then down that steep, narrow, and jogging street to a bridge to West Nevada. And if the emergency is in the neighborhoods near Mountain Ave., emergency vehicles would go directly up Mountain, not make a detour over to Oak, down to West Nevada, and then across a bridge and up into those neighborhoods. Encourage transit to serve mountain Ave. Areas? There is absolutely no evidence that would happen. If there were a market for transit customers in the Mountain Meadows area, transit could be there today, without a Nevada bridge. As a matter of fact, the transits own website notes that its priorities are in this order: extension of service hours, then express routes between Ashland and Medford, and at the bottom of the list: additional routes in South Ashland. Finally, the costs of the bridge. Estimates continue to rise for the cost of the Nevada bridge. Now it's over $6 million. But nobody is talking about necessary improvements to Nevada, which could add substantially to the cost. Then there is the inevitable: costs continue to rise. There is considerable urgency for this project based on losing the $1.5 million grant if construction doesn't start until 2018. The city doesn't even have all the money it needs. How to finance the rest? Reportedly two other grant applications have been turned down. Their advisors, Kittleson & Associates, list a variety of other sources of funding, including fees tacked onto vehicle registrations, local fuel taxes (unreliable as use of fuel and miles driven change), a local sales tax, more parking fees, etc. In other words, the citizens of Ashland can pay for this unneeded bridge. Finally, in summary, in 1996 a Nevada bridge may have seemed like a good idea, but with Eagle Mill Road and Hersey already serving many of the purposes of such a bridge, it's time to rethink things and have the city master plan reflect today’s reality. That is not to say a pedestrian/bicycle bridge is inadvisable, if it is affordable, but clearly a vehicular bridge is unnecessary. A nagging question: Why did the city offer several variations of building a bridge, but no option to not build a bridge? The city should not spend more time, money, and energy on a Nevada vehicular bridge. Instead, it should work on improving existing infrastructure-including Hersey. Elizabeth Oehler, 215 E. Nevada St. Since the last meeting, she has looked at the TSP and looked at the language. The point of the bridge was to avoid downtown. If we change the TSP from E. Nevada St to Hersey St. it could work. Hersey St. is wide enough. It has bike lanes, parking, does not have 90 degree turns, it already connects to N. Main St. Hersey St. is largely industrial, at least half of Hersey St. has warehouses and industry vs. E. Nevada St. that is all neighborhood and housing. Rather than losing the $1.5 million funding, we could improve Hersey St. and gain $3 million by not building a bridge. FOLLOW UP ITEMS Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 7 of 8 Downtown Parking and Multi Modal Circulation Study Update-Improvement Projects Faught said last month we discussed the options for downtown. A lot of downtown business still have concerns, based on the fear of losing parking spots, even though the project never envisioned losing parking spots. We are going to displace parking spots. He encourages the Transportation Commission to join the June 1st meeting at the community center at 8:30 am with the downtown business owners. Young said a lot of downtown merchants said they will be prepared for the regular downtown committee meeting. Newberry said she has been asked many times what we are doing and people are not clear on what we are fixing. She thinks the problem has not been very well defined. She has told Viéville’s story about waiting for the bus in downtown and a truck can come up and unload, while the truck completely blocks her from being able to get on the bus. She does not think that some people do not understand these problems. Another problem is that people think Ashland is trying to function just for the bike riders. There are many benefits to bike lanes, beyond getting a bicyclists in them, including you open your car door and you have enough room. What we are doing is not clear to everyone. Faught said we were not prepared for the information to be out on this project yet, so we are still working out the details. He wants to come to the best solution to get support from everyone. Faught said the two lane to three lane will bring in some major construction, bringing curb and gutters in. Just to say we are going to do the bike lane regardless, is not what we should be doing. We should be thinking what it will look like at the end of the day if we construct, do we build widen sidewalks, what do we want it to look like? Young said the idea can be a phased approach; before tearing up street and pouring concrete. Faught said the problem with doing a pilot project is that it will still cost $2 million, the signals will have to go in, you cannot just put a bike lane in and let it roll. A pilot project in the downtown area is not the same as doing the pilot project as we did for the road diet on N. Main St. because more people will be affected by it. Painting a bike lane would confuse people, by creating excess right of way. We need to be careful how we construct and build this project. We need to keep in the mind that what we do affects the livelihood of the people down there. Young said there are other ways to look at this, there is a cheaper alternative. Graf said he keeps evolving on this issue. The committee is looking at a number of transportation issues. All of them are competing with each other; we have the bike lane, sidewalks, pedestrian issues, parking, loading, transport, and through traffic. Different people in the community and the committee have different things that are non-starters for them; all of these will have to have some give and take. How can we find a way where people are willing to support what is a non-starter for them, such as putting in a bike lane? Some people are not willing to do that if they lose a parking space. Some people are worried about the loading zone and some people want to have a beautiful sidewalk in front of their business, but no one wants their business disrupted by the construction of the sidewalk. Barth said that two years ago, Faught presented the downtown flows and it was clear. Faught’s ideas for a multi- modal sharing of the space; changing of traffic lane assignments, moving stop lights, pedestrian changes, and it was not just about a bike lane. He said all he hears now is talk about bike lanes. He really appreciates how bikes, pedestrians, the disadvantaged, the ADA compliance, the consideration for vehicles parking, has all been addressed and it would be a shame to lose momentum on this project. Faught said we are listening to the downtown businesses and people who live and work there on their concerns and how to minimize construction. He said he was in Glendale, CA last week and he saw a brand new sidewalk project. He asked the business owners how this was done and they told him construction was done at night with very little impact to business. This is a real life example of how construction can be done to minimize the effects on businesses. Faught said everyone thinks we are going to remove 19 parking spots, but this is not the plan. Newberry said we need a list of concerns from the people effected by the downtown plan. We need to know the concerns and address them – what are the benefits, the misconceptions. INFORMATIONAL ITEMS Action Summary Accident Report Making and Impact Newsletter (May) Transportation Commission May 26, 2016 Page 8 of 8 COMMISSION OPEN DISCUSSION Newberry asked what happens when someone sends in a letter or speaks during public forum about a topic that is not on agenda. Faught said staff follows up on the matter and then if there something the commission needs to know, staff brings that back to the commission to report. Fleury said he follows up with people who send in emails. All letters and emails are included in the commission packet so they are on the public record. Young said Oak St. has still not been added to the agenda and there has not been any action on the street. It is not ADA compliant. There are electric boxes and mailboxes in the middle of the sidewalks and overgrown trees. He would like this be addressed. Faught said he spoke with the street supervisor today about this issue. He has had a staff change and needs to train the new hire. The supervisor will come to the commission to talk about the program for talking to residents about overgrown landscaping. He will add John Peterson to the agenda to discuss this topic. ADJOURNMENT Meeting was adjourned at 8:15 pm. Respectfully submitted, Kyndra Irigoyen Public Works Administrative Assistant