Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-12-09 MinutesCORRECTED MINUTES 1 MINUTES OF THE Open-House Meeting (Public Comment) of the Edina Transportation Commission Thursday, December 9, 2004 Edina City Hall 4801 West 50th Street Council Chambers MEMBERS PRESENT: Fred Richards, Marie Thorpe, Jean White, Warren Plante, Joni Kelly Bennett, Les Wanninger, Dean Dovolis MEMBERS ABSENT: STAFF PRESENT: Wayne Houle, Steve Lillehaug, Sharon Allison Chair Richards called the meeting to order and thanked the residents for attending. Commissioners and staff were introduced. Chair Richards explained that the Transportation Commissioners were appointed by the Council to address six issue areas and they developed a draft policy as a framework for dealing with the issue areas and other such areas in Edina. He said the Commission is advisory in nature and the Council will make all final decisions. Chair Richards explained that the purpose of tonight’s meeting is for the residents to voice their concerns as they relate to traffic/transportation issues and the draft policy. Chair Richards said the Commission will meet again on January 6th to finalize the draft policy for Council’s approval. Residents can continue to give feedback in writing until December 30th. Lillehaug gave an overview of the draft policy, including the background, purpose, vision; action plans: short and long term; sources of funding; process and schedule; criteria for screening, etc. Lillehaug said approximately 70 emails and other correspondences have been received to date. Public Comments Jennifer Bunkers, 4209 Scott Terrace  Plan Development – be inclusive as possible; disenfranchisement based on one block radius; burden shifting from one to another;  Speed at which plan is being pushed through; terms such as impacted area not defined; consistency of definition needed. CORRECTED MINUTES 2 Mary Porter, 5120 Halifax Avenue  Too much traffic; cut thru traffic is necessary to get from point A to point B;  50th & France at Halifax – intersection is blocked though posted signs state not to block intersection; can only turn left onto France – why? Change timing of semaphores to prevent backups;  Applauded Commission for taking on the task. Ken Bolinger, 3924 12th Ave. So, Minneapolis  Travels through Edina for work; if Crosstown becomes a toll road he would use Edina’s local streets;  Discrimination because he contributes to gas tax funds;  Violations are due to lack of police presence; sees police presence in Edina. J. C. Beckstrand, 4386 Wooddale Avenue, St. Louis Park  Policy would limit voices of people;  Neighborhood by neighborhood decision-making tears apart fabric of community;  Sidewalks at Country Club side of 44th & Wooddale installed only after his daughter was hit;  Crosswalk requested but was not approved. Julia Beckstrand, 4386 Wooddale Avenue, St. Louis Park  Work together to make streets safe. Laurine Ford, 3936 W. 44th Street  Good vision statement, with the exception of closing streets with one block notification area, arbitrary decision-making;  Has learned to live with busyness of her street;  Enforce the laws instead of closing streets.  Major arteries need work. Mary Rogers, 4215 W. 42nd Street  Has learned to live with her busy, cut-through street; no sidewalks;  Use policy to unite the community, including Minneapolis and St. Louis Park;  Do not pit neighborhoods against each other; consider regional significance of decisions. Wendy Simpson, 4229 W. 44th Street  A policy that excludes residents’ opinions will be detrimental;  St. Louis Park’s residents are her neighbors and she will speak on their behalf;  Crosswalks are needed;  Do not divert traffic; opposes street closings. Molly Kapsner, 4221 Country Club Road  Spent one year on Country Club Traffic Committee, looked at what would happen if certain streets were cut off; should have looked at the region instead of neighborhood;  Concerned with the 300 ft. minimum distance; inform area within surrounding arteries; Jonathan Gross, 4208 Grimes Avenue  Concerned about the negative definition of cut thru traffic; CORRECTED MINUTES 3  Did illustration of how he’s impacted by cut thru traffic but this is necessary being a city dweller; also used map to show all the areas where traffic cannot currently travel thru due to various reasons (ponds, lakes, highways, etc.);  Concerned about limited definition of study area;  Methods listed for traffic calming actually restructure the roads;  Volume control. Tim Rudnicki, 4224 Lynn Avenue  Commended Commissioners for work done, but more is needed;  Does not harmonize existing city codes, land use, air quality, etc.  Referring to “the properties” instead of to people reflects a disconnect;  Shifting traffic creates burden for one and ease for others;  Use police to reduce speeding;  Process has been a failure because not publicized properly. Brian Fogelberg, 4632 Bruce Avenue  Good framework; good first step;  Remediation/changes is included in policy;  Neighborhoods north and south of 44th is for or against the plan;  Draft policy creates an excellent forum;  Impacted area should be looked at since many people are speaking about it. Dolores Dege, 4012 Kipling Avenue  Objects to limited area for impacted study;  Objects to ‘anyone requesting a study’; how many studies will be done;  Reduce traffic at 50th & France by opening Bridge Avenue  More education, polite drivers and enforcements;  Lack of notice of public comment. Mary Carte, 4208 Branson Street  Policy has put into writing what is general practice already;  Look at other areas in the city; do not allow a neighborhood to hijack the process. Diana Cooper, 4005 Natchez Avenue  Greatest concern is 50th & Wooddale: not safe for children biking, drivers goes through the red and yellow light every day even with police in the area;  42nd and 44th are very busy and should be looked at closely;  Lives on a high traffic street, many school buses;  Concerned that driving her children to activities or school is seen as cut thru traffic;  Country Club is getting surveyed while Morningside is not. Hosmer Brown, 7104 West Shore Drive  Do not stop the residents from commenting because they may have some good ideas;  Need to move people quickly and safely “traffic calming may not be the issue”, look at other options such as mass transit;  Some areas already intense with traffic so try to limit land use that would exacerbate the problem such as building high rises.  Appreciate what the Commission is doing. CORRECTED MINUTES 4 Brady Halverson, 4211 W. 44th Street  Good start;  Traffic volume vs. velocity; calming is needed; strike argument against volume and residents will buy-in;  People are always going to cut thru; Country Club area is appealing because there are several ways to get thru.  Moving volume from one neighborhood to the next is the major issue;  More streets closed, worse congestion on arterials. Penelope, 5000 Summit Avenue  Keep in mind Interlachen and 50th; a left turn signal onto eastbound 50th would be helpful;  Cut thru traffic increasing on Interlachen as drivers tries to avoid Hwy. 100 when going to Hopkins. Allen Beers, 6045 Wooddale Avenue  Traffic getting worse and worse;  Lots of speeding and police is never around;  Drivers failing to stop at stop sign at Wooddale and Valley View;  New sidewalk made a difference, but still speeding. Robb Webb, 4516 Drexel Avenue  Likes that the policy puts neighborhoods as focus;  Everyone wants to give input but traffic is mathematical; requires a traffic engineer to figure out how to get traffic back on the arterials;  Create threshold that defines a problem objectively. What is an appropriate amount of volume? Need to collect and analyze data to state objectively that there is a problem; need to determine an appropriate amount of volume on street;  Concept of living in the city near other cities so must deal with traffic;  Concerned about voting instead of analyzing traffic data; Bright Dornblaser, 4630 Drexel Avenue  Very clear and necessary for Edina to work on this issue;  Put emphasis on collectors streets first instead of neighborhoods streets;  Emphasis on calming devices vs. volume; would be less concerned about volume if not for speed;  Supports what has been done thus far. Art Heim, Highland Neighborhood  Moving traffic on 50th going east is a big concern, maybe no left turn at Halifax;  Minneapolis uses directional arrows to discourage turning on certain streets;  Roundabouts are accident prone;  Traffic problems are not going away, getting worse;  Traffic not worse in Country Club than in other neighborhoods;  Favors speed bumps. David Farmer, 4612 Casco Avenue  Created a toolbox to solve traffic issues – good first step;  Quantifiable traffic numbers identifies problems such as speeding;  Lacking in the definition of impacted area; CORRECTED MINUTES 5  Inconvenienced – try to quantify what this will mean;  Great framework overall;  Significant diversion not defined. Mark Johnson, 5007 Arden Avenue  Disappointed because he found out about meeting on the local news;  Continue to hold forums, but not in the media. Roberta Castellano, 4854 France Avenue  France Avenue is a bottleneck at certain times of the days;  Drivers use alternative routes because of bottleneck;  Problem will continue as population increases;  All drivers here tonight; we are someone else’s perceived nuisance;  All seems to tolerate amount of traffic but speeding seems to be an issue;  Impacted area – be more inclusive. Lee Marks, 4602 Arden Avenue  Streets were designed 100 years ago and are no longer adequate;  Changes will not happen overnight;  Disappointed in residents’ behavior in meetings such as Morningside and Country Club pitting against each other; references made to process being a failure, us vs. them, an eye for an eye attitude;  Policy takes the emotion out of the process; it is fact based; includes all the options; working within confines of available tools;  Appears to be objective, takes out subjectivity. Tom Steel, 5057 Ewing, Minneapolis  Not understanding or ignoring traffic signs is a law enforcement issue; increasing fines will get their attention;  People living closest to impacted area should have more say than someone living say a mile away;  Language of property vs. people: the changes stays with the property long after the people are gone;  Notification of meeting: medium used seems to be quite effective based on attendance tonight. Chris O’Brien, 4627 Drexel Avenue  Have friends in many areas that are having problems;  Freeways are getting worse; 2 lane highways causes people to cut thru local streets to avoid congestion;  Speed/volume are both problems, not separate. Helen Burke, 4246 Grimes Avenue  Read letter on behalf of her daughter, Julia Silvis  Definition of cut thru traffic is too flimsy and subjective; improve efficiency of legitimate traffic;  Include as many opportunities for public disclosure and debate;  Serve the needs of the entire city rather than those of one (vocal) neighborhood. CORRECTED MINUTES 6 Chair Richards thanked the residents for participating and told them that their comments will be taken into consideration. He assured them that citizens’ input is very important, however, this does not mean that their input will always be adhered to. He said it is obvious they need to revisit the definition of impacted area and he emphasized that the Commission is not proposing street closures – this is listed as one of the options available. Residents were reminded to continue to submit written comments until December 30th. The next Transportation Commission meeting is scheduled for January 6th. Regular meetings are held the 4th Thursday of each month, 6:00-8:00 p.m. in the Community Room and are open to the public. Meeting adjourned.