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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-06-17 Minutes MINUTES OF THE Edina Transportation Commission Work Session Thursday, June 17, 2010 Edina City Hall 4801 West 50th Street Community Room MEMBERS PRESENT: Tom Bonneville, Jennifer Janovy, Paul Nelson, Josh Sprague, Jean White, Geof Workinger, Nathan Franzen MEMBERS ABSENT: Usha Abramovitz, Julie Sierks, Michael Schroeder STAFF PRESENT: Jack Sullivan, Sharon Allison Chair Janovy opened the meeting and explained the purpose of the meeting was to talk about scope. Bonneville said the ETC needs to look at why we do what we do; need to advise citizens so that they may have opportunity for input, e.g. The Colony and public notification; Planning issues that come before the ETC do not get publicly noticed. Janovy said they could invite Director Teague to attend a session. White gave an overview of how the ETC started. She said it started with the Traffic Taskforce that identified issue areas and in 2003 a decision was made to create the ETC and they began meeting in 2004. Janovy elaborated on the issue areas - northeast, northwest, high school area, community center area, W. 70th Street, France between crosstown & TH-494 and Southdale corridor was looked. She said the issue areas have been looked at. Franzen asked what triggers something coming to the ETC. Bonneville said Sullivan’s team does not tell them what’s coming up regarding road reconstruction projects. Sullivan said everything is online. Sprague said the ETC is contact for public; if information is limited online, then limited information is seen by the public. He said issues come in to the Traffic Safety Committee (TSC) and the ETC does not have an opportunity to discuss because they do not have a role with the TSC. He said this is disjointed for the average resident. Janovy said they are advisory to the Council so they need to look at scope from this view and send useful information to the Council. She said the ETC is charged with looking at speed and volume. She said when residents approach TSC, they generally supply their own solution to problem, e.g. stop sign to deal with speeding, and they are told no because warrants are not met and so they are still stuck with the problem. She asked why aren’t residents coming to the ETC? Workinger asked if this is a real problem. Sprague said yes, when you hear the same complaints. Workinger said they do get the TSC’s report, so he does not think they are missing information. Sprague said need to delegate certain tasks given to TSC. He said they should be 2 empowered like city of Bloomington to be able to discuss items from TSC report on camera. Workinger thinks process works and staff must have latitude. He said if they see pattern developing they can review. Janovy asked about the process for dealing with speeding on a street. Sullivan said when the call comes in it goes to Boyd, the traffic safety coordinator. Janovy said if ETC is charged with speed and volume on local streets, why aren’t residents being referred to the ETC? Sullivan said because TSC requests are usually tied to regulatory signs. Janovy estimated that nine out of 10 requests are denied because they do not meet warrants. She said the ETC can then maybe focus on education. White said she relies on staff for expertise. Would response be delayed to residents if the ETC had a role in reviewing TSC reports? Sullivan said TSC reports go to Council to review and approve and Council can ask staff to take another look which could require a speed study. All said and done this process could take three or four months. Sullivan explained TSC’s process – Boyd gets call, data gathered, TSC meets, resident notified of TSC’s decision and told they can come to Council meeting if request is denied. Regulatory signs must be approved by Council. Removal of signs is the same process. Janovy said she knows residents are communicated with because she has been through the process. Workinger asked if the role of the TSC is working appropriately. He said he would support an ETC member being on TSC because there would be too many items to be added to the ETC agenda; or, pull item for discussion. Sprague agreed with this as long as ETC can have discussion and then advise Council, if it relates to speed or volume. Janovy said when residents make contact she would like the ETC to be an option instead of automatically going to the TSC. Sprague suggested that TSC reports be on the ETC consent agenda and pulled off for discussion if there is an item concerning speeds, volumes, congestion or traffic calming on local streets, especially if there is a pattern of similar type concerns. Workinger asked what can the ETC do that Council cannot do. Bonneville said TSC has devices that can be used such as speed humps, etc., if so choose. He said it goes back to his memo of 1000 ADT, busy streets, etc. These are large scope items that ETC should give input on then on to the Planning Commission (PC) and then to Council. Janovy estimated they could miss over 90% of Edina if the ETC limits its involvement to streets with 1000 ADT or higher and they would often be looking at streets outside of their jurisdiction (i.e., arterials). Sullivan said he does not know if 90% is accurate. Workinger asked if there are measurements that shows ADT. Sprague said they should focus on system-wide network, maybe on streets with less than 1000 ADT, and let ETC exercise discretion. He said Bloomington has great examples. They merged their Transportation Commission with Planning Commission and created a defined scope and policies to integrate scope. He read their ordinance Sec 2.98.32. Bonneville said Bloomington has fine procedures that are worthwhile studying. Sprague said they developed a collector street restriping policy to fit a more Complete Streets approach. He said they meet with staff at beginning of year to integrate and conflicts go to the body to decide. This allows them to meet strategic goals. ETC does not have a way to do this now. He said if the State passes Complete Streets, it will apply to State Aid roads but not to other local roads. For County roads, he said the County allows staff to come to them with their idea/plans and then the County signs off. Janovy said they could invite Steve Elkins from Bloomington to attend a meeting to explain their process. Sprague suggested (Josh please provide name) 3 Janovy summarized discussion so far: 1) TSC, 2) Road reconstruction - ETC does not have a role. Bonneville said they should not get involved in the detail of the day-to-day stuff which is why he made the recommendations in his memo. He referenced 44th Street as an example:. 44th Street peaks in the morning; road is beyond 80% of capacity – too many parents taking kids to school in car at Cornelia. Sullivan was asked if 1000 ADT is high for local streets; he said 300-1000 is typical for residential road. White asked about the cost of fixing these issues. Response was this cannot be answered at this time. Janovy suggested education and enforcement instead of being so focused on engineering. White said she recalls meeting with the Police regarding enforcement and they have done some marketing campaigns with the communications department. She suggested creating a toolbox that would include enforcement, education, and communication. She also suggested changing up what’s being done so residents do not become bored. Sprague’s noted example of Bloomington’s policies online that explain why they need curb and gutter. Janovy said education could include stop sign function. When would the ETC discuss problem areas identified in the Comp Plan? Would it be at the beginning of the year? Sprague said their responsibility is first to inform self, second is to inform public, and third oversight. He said the City engineer could use TV to explain. Sullivan was asked if staff does similar planning like Bloomington does. Sullivan said yes. He said they generally look at 5-yr plan and generally relates back to the Transportation Plan. Sprague asked if staff do such things as asking Mn/DOT for example, to look at Xerxes where a reliever is needed. Janovy asked what the ETC needs Council’s approval on. She said the ETC is not advisory to staff. Franzen said it’s their job to make Council’s job easier. Janovy said all policies must be approved by Council. It was noted that Council is not getting ETC minutes. Does this undermine their role? Janovy said they will be getting minutes from now on. Council becomes involved in the following: ETC policy – yes - approved Traffic Impact Analysis – yes, but it was not approved by the City Council Comp Plan – yes, approved Local Area Taskforce – yes, approved, and all areas in report have been addressed in some way. Traffic Signs – yes 4 Petition - yes TSC – yes (Janovy said a variety of traffic policies are in the engineering department as handouts) Street Maintenance – approved in CIP Signs/Striping – yes Budget discussion about maintenance dollars, asphalt, commodities bid, fiscal year. Bonneville said there are level of projects: 1) mega project; 2) medium (3-4 blocks long); 3) small (1-2 blocks long); and ETC would get involve with mega and maybe medium projects. Traffic Controls – police enforcements and State Statutes Crash Statistics - no Grants – Council approves acceptance of funds. It was noted that funds were given back for Interlachen bike lanes that would have run from Vernon to city of Hopkins limits. Residents did not want it because it would cross their driveway. Suggestion that maybe there could have been a way to work with residents. Bike Taskforce – yes Metro Transit – yes, though they have final say, but ETC can put pressure on them White said Metro Transit is taking public comments for a route in Edina and suggested that ETC submit a comment. Regional Traffic News – on the web Hennepin County Roadway – yes Statutes – yes, if resolution required, e.g. resolution showing support for Complete Streets Bonneville said ETC could apply for a grant from City to ask Mn/DOT to do traffic study to look at a particular area. Chuck Rickart, City’s consulting traffic engineer’s time is hourly. As a matter of practice, ETC can comment on issues and then they could become agenda items said Janovy. Or, Bonneville said Janovy could assign members to work on certain issues. Franzen asked if the list can be put into a matrix and show for example, trigger points for TSC when issues would come to the ETC. Janovy said extra meetings could be scheduled to continue discussion. She said tonight’s discussion was of scope and what Council weighs in on. 5 Nelson likes idea of matrix; concerned with delving into everything. Likes idea of knowing what’s going on with restriping, etc. so he can talk with residents in community - this is part of our charge he said. If they can get TSC reports earlier, especially if it’s a neighbor, but may not need to do anything unless the issue is big. He asked if there is a master plan that shows all ADT. Sullivan said yes, dates back to 1975 but there are some gaps. He said State Aid roads are done because of requirement and in recent years they’ve been filling in gaps. Data is electronic but not very user friendly. Sullivan was asked if there is a policy for doing traffic counts, speed study. He said not in writing, just general practice – knows days to avoid/include, do not place too close to turning movements because this gives artificially low speeds. And generally count volume and speed at the same time (two tubes). W. 66th St. currently being measured; will be completed in two weeks. Capturing speed before speed reduction goes in effect and then again after and also capturing pool and school traffic. Will put down again in the summer and after the pool close. Final comments: Workinger asked what they are going to do when they get to what “it” is. He said PC’s discussion is to cut out the ETC. Bonneville said they’ll review minutes, modify and send to Council. Sprague said will need to flesh out more. Janovy said whatever they do will go to Council. Sprague said to continue having discussion on TSC and be able to discuss on camera; where do we fit regarding road reconstruction? Bloomington synchronizes with staff annually. Franzen said matrix would be good, especially for new members. Bonneville said he liked Franzen’s idea. Will consider resending his 1/22 memo. He said it would be good if they had better knowledge of what streets are to be worked on so ETC can participate; not trying to infringe on budget. Electronic communication: Janovy said they to need to follow Open Meeting Law and League of MN Cities guideline was emailed to everyone. She said all emails could be sent to Jack and he would then distribute to everyone, but they cannot communicate with each other (for example, cannot email entire group, should not “reply all” to emails that contain ETC business, and should be careful to not email a small group about ETC business because email could end up being read by a quorum of members). And they are not to talk business outside of scheduled meetings with a quorum of members and should be mindful to avoid serial communications with a quorum of members. Sullivan said he has spoken with Heather about doing a presentation on Open Meeting Law. Janovy said 4 people can meet because this is not a quorum and they do not have decision-making power. Regular scheduled ETC meeting: Sullivan said he is only aware of the YMCA project, nothing else. Bonneville asked if the chair could ask members to work on projects via email. Sprague said his approach would be to use the list as a matrix along with Bloomington’s ordinance and discuss using it as a scope. Janovy asked how busy members are to meet bi-weekly. Consensus is to meet again in two weeks. 6 Workinger asked about the chair advising Council of what they’re doing. Consensus was that Workinger would be seeing the Mayor in the morning and could mention it to him. Meeting adjourned.