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11/01/2021 - Minutes SALT LAKE CITY TRANSPORTATION ADVISORY BOARD Minutes of the November 1, 2021 Meeting Electronically present from the Transportation Advisory Board were Courtney Reeser, Daniel Mendoza, Dave Alderman, David Parrott, Ellen Reddick, Jenn Diederich, Jim Espeland, Jon Larsen, Marjorie Rasmussen, Myron Willson, Paul Schulte, Reid Ewing, and Suzanne Stensaas. Members absent from the Transportation Advisory Board were Benjamin LaRiviere, Greg Sanchez, and Kerry Doane. Also present were Amy Lyons, Tom Millar, Russell Weeks, Dave Iltis, and Taylor Anderson. The meeting was held electronically and was called to order at 4:o5p.m. by Courtney Reeser. Welcome and Introduction of Guests — Courtney read the anchor statement and welcomed everyone. Public Comment Dave Iltis commented again on the loo South construction project. He said the Energy Department released statistics a couple of days ago that transportation in Utah is 31% of CO2 emissions and that there is little time to reverse the effects of global warming and to maybe even stay within 1.5 degrees centigrade of warming. Dave said SLC's decision on 100 South to not include a road diet is wrong from an engineering standpoint, from a carbon emissions standpoint, and from a safety standpoint. The Complete Streets Committee broke the law and created convolutions of logic to not put a bike lane on loo South. The FHWA says road diets are safer for emergency vehicles which is what Reid Ewing pointed out in a previous meeting,yet SLC goes forward with 4 lanes of traffic when traffic volumes do not justify it. This is only a 5-block section, but it sets a bad precedent and repeats previous mistakes on 2100 South and 10o South farther west where bike lanes should have been installed. There are a lot of bad designs here, especially at the intersection of University Street and loo South, and those will hopefully be remedied, but there seems to be little way to reverse course when they violate their own ordinance. He is glad this has been discussed in TAB, but sadly the administration isn't following its own climate goals and road safety goals and it should never happen again. The decision should be reversed on loo South, and it still could,by redoing the striping and not building the median which will possibly preclude the bike lanes forever. Suzanne asked if Jon could speak to this since it keeps recurring. Reid said Jon has spoken to it, but it is distressing. He was just driving along 1300 East where there was a road diet and the cross section north of 2100 South had narrow bike lanes. He knows it's frustrating for the City because they made design decisions, thought it through and got them approved,but it's also worrisome to him. He loves medians so having a median on loo South is a great idea to him,but road diets are so good at reducing crashes if you've got the right traffic volume and last time the Board Page 1 of 6 TAB 11-01-2021 Minutes talked about this, 10o South traffic volume was low enough to be an appropriate street for a road diet. Jon said they are not afraid to do road diets, they do them all over the city and that in the right context they make a lot of sense. The technical team looked at this 4-block section of 10o South and are trying to balance a lot of issues. It is the main east/west connection for emergency vehicles, and they felt 4 lanes were better than 3 in this case. Nothing is irreversible and there is no reason in the future, there couldn't be a 4 to Slane conversion after more in-depth analysis. They can evaluate that in the future but at this point, this has turned into a distraction. The Transportation team is trying to keep up with several projects within the city that are transformative. They have been putting a big emphasis on quality bike lanes so citizens will see many of the projects have protected and buffered bike lanes with actual curb protected bike lanes like what is going in on 900 East, on 300 West, and 900 South. There is a major corridor transformation planned for 600 North and there are many citywide conversations about traffic calming, livable streets, and neighborhood byway projects that are in the pipeline. One of the biggest challenges is trying to get as much good done as possible with the resources that have been allocated and again, 10o South has turned into a distraction at this point. He is happy to come back and re-evaluate it in a few years. Reid said the U of U would be happy to do a new study on the effects of road diets because it is important to see the impact of some of these changes that are being made on crashes, capacity, pedestrian traffic, bicycle traffic, etc. Jon said he totally agrees and would encourage them to look at 200 East as well. Just using paint, it has been completely transformed and he would like to know the impact of that road diet. Jon said they have also been talking about doing it on 2100 South. They are trying to align it with the timing of the surface projects. Motion: Suzanne Stensaas moved to approve the minutes of the October 4, 2021 meeting as amended by Dave Alderman. Myron Willson seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Typologies Design Guide Update and Finalization Tom Millar, SLC Transportation Tom said the Typologies Design Guide will be published tomorrow for final public review. The website is slc.gov/transportation/typologies and can be found in Spanish at slc.gov/transportation/tipologias. It will be open for review until November 21st and he asked TAB to help spread the word. One of the primary goals of this third and final round of input is to get a lot more feedback from the west side neighborhoods. In the first two rounds, feedback from the west side was roughly 4-6% of all comments and they know that folks who live in that area make up more than that percentage in population. The City wants to make sure they not only have the opportunity to view this transformative material but that they are able to provide comments on what they think of it. While this is the final public review, that doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to comment later. This is just the last opportunity to comment before the first edition of the design guide is published. The intent is that in the future as community plans, land use plans, and transportation plans change, the typologies can be updated alongside those changes. Tom went through the webpage showing the Board what is new, what order the guide is in and how they can make comments. Suzanne congratulated Tom on this work and said the Sugar House Transportation Committee has been very interested in knowing where TAB stands on 20 is Plenty. She told them the City was coming out with the Typologies Design Guide which has a designation for Page 2 of 6 TAB 11-01-2021 Minutes every single street and rather than a blanket decision on the speed limits, they should look at that design guide. She thinks it will answer a lot about everyone wanting 20 is Plenty if there are already rational reasons for the Typologies suggested mph on each street. CIP Project List for Upcoming Year Jon Larsen, SLC Transportation Jon said this is an important conversation and he shared a spreadsheet showing the Fiscal Year 23 potential CIP applications. He told TAB he appreciated them taking the poll that had been previously sent out to help prioritize the applications. Transportation is hoping to have these draft applications done before Thanksgiving. He briefed them on the applications including the locations, projects, and funding that will be requested. Most of the requested money is going toward making sure when a street is rebuilt, it is done with better bike lanes, transit and with Complete Streets in mind. The applications will be submitted in December and then they wait to see how much money Transportation will get. He told the members to reach out to him with any questions. Reid had an off-topic comment but wanted to let Jon know how well the lights are timed in SLC compared to where he has lived before. He said there was an intersection where there was a timing problem and wanted to know if that is somewhere in his budget. Jon let him know there are full time staff for that so all he needs to do is let Transportation know where the problem is. Reid asked about the funding for the Livable Streets CIP application and asked if they have been able to convert that into prioritizing the different neighborhoods. Jon said they have, and it can be viewed here: https://www.slc.gov/transportation/plans-studies/livable-streets/. Jim said he also drove down 1300 East and noticed the road diet changes and raised crosswalks. He wanted to know what the procedure to get some raised crosswalks on some of the west side streets would be. Jon said it would be to get the Livable Streets Program funded so Transportation would have the resources to do this in more neighborhoods. He said the west side has some very wide residential streets that he thinks really need some traffic calming. Suzanne asked who pays for the bus stops and Jon said the City is paying for the concrete work because they can do it faster, for half the price and that it is critical to getting bus stops ADA compliant. He said UTA does all the other amenities including ongoing maintenance. Suzanne said she realizes the city is going to do reconstruction on 2100 South and with very little expense, they could extend the bike lanes all the way to Parley's Way without reconstructing that part of the street. Jon said he can't guarantee that will happen at the same time; it may get done earlier. He said an analysis hasn't been done yet but during the last school year, some U of U students did some analysis in the heart of Sugar House and came up with some great ideas so he thinks they can do something special there. One of the big concerns with that area is if they restrict vehicular traffic, there will be a lot of spill over traffic onto the adjacent streets. Reid asked about improved bus stops and Jon said the analysis showed benefits of having ADA bus stops. Reid said it not only increases the use of bus stops to have a shelter and concrete pad,but it also reduces the amount that is spent on responsive door to door transit by making regular bus stops accessible. Jon said South Temple will likely be analyzed in 2022. Annual Elections TAB Members Page 3 of 6 TAB 11-01-2021 Minutes Motion: Reid Ewing moved that Myron Wilson be the new Vice-Chair. Ellen Reddick seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Motion: Ellen Reddick moved that Courtney Reeser remain as the Chair. Suzanne Stensaas seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. 20MPH Speed Limit Discussion TAB Members Courtney thinks the Board should submit their Typologies letter of support to City Council again. She said once that's adopted, they can talk about the 2omph letter and that can be included with the topic of the Livable Streets Program. She feels it's unreasonable to drop every road to 2omph in this car-centric society and easing into something would be more acceptable to a lot of the population rather than just dropping the speed limit everywhere. Suzanne wonders if with the Typology Proposal, the 20 is Plenty people should be looking carefully at that rather than a blanket speed limit change. She said they can be pointed to this design guide and they can look at the streets that show 2omph and see if that is where they want them and maybe this could become a non-issue. It may not be 20 is Plenty but it may be that the Typologies is enough. Courtney said she thinks that's a good way to approach this. Courtney said she's been thinking about how each community must fight for their own neighborhood and it would be better if the traffic calming, and speed reduction impacts were going on citywide instead. Myron said the reason 20 is Plenty is a general concept is that it helps define what the right speed should be when cars, pedestrians, and bicycles mix. It's a policy statement and if the Board remembers from last month, Tom said that often without policy guidance, things get stripped in implementation. He's fine with the decision to put it off but he also thinks having a general statement acknowledging what maximum speed should be, not that every street needs to be 2omph but where the conditions are there and where pedestrians are around, we should try to move to that. The 20 is Plenty people aren't going away, there's still a lot of initiative to have that move forward but he thinks the Typologies is a wonderful program to move forward with. Courtney said that for her, they go hand in hand. Dave A. thinks the opening sentence in the prior letter they prepared, where it supports prioritizing safety above convenience and the level of motor vehicle traffic, the fact that they are putting something other than cars as a priority, is a statement a lot of people are going to disagree with. Many think the roads are for cars and moving traffic as much as possible but some people will see that's a good statement and will agree with it. Reid said he and Myron had a conversation and agreed there is a way that this could work. Myron said he has a nice outline and perhaps he can put that together as a framework and share it at a future meeting. Reid said just to give the Board a quick idea, they would look at the 85t1 percentile speed on any given street and if it isn't too much higher than 25mph, one could propose 2omph. On a street that has 35mph traffic, it doesn't make sense to set a 2omph speed limit and that would relate back to design and perceptions. As more streets are traffic calmed, more streets will become eligible because it will slow down traffic so the 85th percentile speed will go down and that's the idea. Courtney said she can rework the first part of the letter to say the people are the priority and work forward from there. She will send that as well as some information from Myron to the Board members to review prior to the next meeting. Report Out TAB Members Page 4 of 6 TAB 11-01-2021 Minutes David Parrott said the BAC had an interesting guest from the Union Pacific Driver's Union. They learned a lot about trains and why they park on all the intersections. The trains are bigger than they used to be and can reach 5-6 miles long. The train engineers don't like it and have been lobbying unsuccessfully with the railroads to make them shorter. The railroads want to make them longer which cause traffic problems as well as pedestrian and cyclist deaths as people try to jump through the trains. The City doesn't have any power over the railroads and so BAC doesn't really know what to do with this information. He suggested it may be something that TAB would want to look at as well. Jim asked Courtney if it would be appropriate to post the Typologies link on the Next- door app to reach more people on the west side. Courtney said that is a great way to do it and there are a few other social media pages she'll be posting it on as well. Jim suggested she comment that there has only been 4% participation from their area and Courtney agreed saying she wants to make sure people understand this is their opportunity to give their voice. Suzanne asked about using the libraries in that area as well. She suggested something could be prepared by Transportation and placed on the library computers or someone could make posters and hang them in the libraries and multi-cultural center. She said Sugar House is going to be very happy to look at the Typologies Design Guide. They are also looking forward to the study on 2100 South that Lynn Jacobs told them about at their last meeting. There is a big concern over where the S-Line will be extended. Marge said she will be retiring from UDOT at the end of the year. She plans to start bicycling and is appreciative of all the projects and bike lanes within the city. Lynn and she have been working together on Foothill and she's been working with the City on a few other projects. She briefed the Board on some of those projects and what they can expect to see coming up. Dave A. said there was an article in the paper about an orphan street which is what people are calling private roads that the City doesn't maintain. There is a group of people from several community council districts getting together to look at them. There are 700 roads like this and while some of them are in HOA's or private communities, most of them are not. He thinks there is going to be more publicity on them, and it may become more of an Engineering issue if construction must be done but thinks they will be hearing more about this. Ellen said Marge and Lynn have been working together on Foothill and they can now visualize what will happen and they really appreciate their hard work, and they will miss Marge so much. Reid said clarifying on an earlier comment, the 85th percentile is widely accepted so it's not complicating, it's just making something more feasible that we all agree on which is that there should be streets that are posted at 2omph,but we must distinguish those streets from others. The U of U is doing a study for UTA on the effect of the S-Line on accidents, traffic speeds,volumes, etc. He'll report on that when he has more time. The bottom line is that a streetcar is not the same thing as light rail and while they may look the same, they function very differently, and their impacts are different. Courtney has had a lot of feedback on 300 North and woo West. The neighbors really appreciate the 4-way stop at that location. There was an awful drunk driving accident at 1200 West and 50o West. A local baker who did a lot of great stuff was killed by that drunk driver. One of the things that accident brought up is that there are very wide streets in the Fairpark area. She said a suggestion given to her was that it might not be a bad thing to have 4-way stops at some of those intersections. She likes the idea but at the same time, it feels like a band aid and she would like to look at different tools to make them all safer. The Rose Park Community Council did their biannual 600 North overpass cleanup, and it was successful. They have been doing it for io years now and UDOT commented that they are one of the most consistent groups they have with their Adopt A Highway Program. She said if other Community Councils Page 5 of 6 TAB 11-01-2021 Minutes are interested, she highly recommends it. It's very community-centric, neighborhood oriented, gets people outside and you get to meet people from your neighborhood. TAB WebEx Meeting Chat from Millar, Tom to everyone: 4:33 PM slc.gov/transportation/typologies from Millar, Tom to everyone: 4:33 PM slc.gov/transportation/tipologias from Larsen, Jon to everyone: 4:56 PM https://www.slc.gov/transportation/plans-studies/livable-streets/ from Taylor Anderson to everyone: 4:57 PM Speaking of signal timing, I'd love if the city could work with UDOT on having the signal at 30o East/400 South recognize people riding bikes. Currently, it doesn't. from Dave Iltis to everyone: 5:oi PM On the west side of California,with bike route, can Gladiola be pushed to the top? This would create a 5+ mile continuous bike lanes from WVC to SLC. from Taylor Anderson to everyone: 5:30 PM There was a great street activation project in western Avenues last weekend. from Taylor Anderson to everyone: 5:31 PM Here's a good article about the 85th percentile. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2 o 17/08/11/the-85th-percentile-rul e-i s-killing-us/ Motion: Jim Espeland motioned to adjourn the meeting; Dave Alderman seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 5:35 p.m. and the next meeting of the Board was scheduled for December 6, 2021. Approved by BAC 12-6-21. Page 6 of 6 TAB 11-01-2021 Minutes