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HomeMy WebLinkAbout8/15/2022 - Meeting Minutes SALT LAKE CITY BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE Minutes of the August 15, 2022 Meeting BAC Members Present for this meeting were Daniel Houpt, and Greta Sommerfeld. BAC Members Electronically Present for this meeting were Ashley Lodmell,Joshua Poppel, Matthew Morriss, Raymond Reynolds, and Sarah Johnson. BAC Members Absent for this meeting were Gabriela Knudson, Martin Cuma, Patrick Casey, and Rachel Manko. Also present were Lara Handwerker, Julianne Sabula, Kyle Cook, Ben Trueman, and Dave Iltis. Also present electronically were Amy Lyons,Tom Millar, Eric Daems, Clint Campbell, Jenn Diederich, and Dallin. The meeting was held both electronically via WebEx and in person and was called to order at 5:04 p.m.by Danny Houpt. Danny welcomed everyone and the Committee members introduced themselves. Approval of Minutes Motion: Daniel Houpt moved to approve the minutes of the June 13, 2022 meeting. Sarah Johnson seconded the motion.The motion passed unanimously. Public Comment—There were no public comments. Committee Announcements &Updates Danny saw a news article that said across Utah already this year,there has been a higher rate of bicycle fatalities than over the past decade and the year isn't over. He thinks it is important to reflect on that when they look at what they do in BAC. Safety should be a priority. It can deter other people from getting out on the road and leveraging the infrastructure BAC helps build. He thinks it's an important thing to keep at the top of their minds when they reflect on their purpose and being members of a community of avid bikers. Matthew said there were several public comments at the last City Council meeting about biking across the railroad tracks on 80o South and goo South. It's a constant issue and a lot of people are thinking about it and frustrated with that intersection. The trains take a long time to pass through and if you need to commute East to West, it can be really challenging because there are only a few routes that go over the railroad tracks. Sarah said she used to commute east/west, and she had to cross at 1700 South and the train was a challenge to her commute. The alternative was going a mile out of her way to 1300 South. Ben Trueman said he's also encountered this challenge. Lara said the east/west connections are something Transportation thinks about all the time and are bigger than just their division. She said that Joe Taylor,who is redoing the Transportation Master plan, is thinking a lot about that and the long-term Pagel of 4 TAB/BAC 08-15-2022 Minutes plan. He should have an update in a couple of months and an opportunity for refinement. Julianne said they applied for a grant to study solutions in more detail including looking at varying trains. Transportation needs to evaluate the feasibility of that and crossing improvements. They didn't get that grant but will keep pushing and have been advised that there might be some other programs that will be a good fit to help with this issue. Sarah said there are a lot of opportunities for more bike commuters out on California Avenue but unless you take 1700 South out, it's treacherous. Clint said the work on 1700 South is a massive improvement to the area but like Sarah mentioned, California Avenue is awful. He also said if anyone ever sees someone crossing the train, tell them to stop. Many times,there are double trains and as they go through one,they could get hit by another. He asked about the feasibility of adding a pedestrian bridge over 1700 South or 800 South. Lara said there is a ped bridge going in over 3oo North now. Julianne said that crossing is on their list for a study and when it gets funded,they would look at all the options like a pedestrian bridge. Lara said the City Council has the CIP budget on their agenda tomorrow. Danny said a discussion came up in TAB about the lack of bicycle parking and TAB asked the BAC to investigate it. Lara said they will be having that discussion today and Danny will then report back to TAB. Ben said he recently discovered there are a lot of businesses that will let you take your bike inside. Staffing Update Tom Millar, SLC Transportation Tom announced he is leaving the Transportation Division on Friday to take a Planning Manager position in the Public Lands Department. This means that new park projects, golf projects, natural lands, and trail projects that come under that Departments purview will come out of the team that he'll be leading. He recapped his current Transportation projects that are relevant to BAC and gave them the contact information for Jeff Gulden for any questions they might have. SLC Parking Ordinance Update Eric Daems, SLC Planning Eric gave a background on the parking ordinance update which is now on to the City Council for final adoption. The proposal included basically wiping the current ordinance clean and starting over with new minimum/maximum parking requirements, permitted alternatives, parking lot design, etc. In many areas,the parking minimums are decreasing quite a bit shifting the focus from automobile while increasing bike parking. The old plan is all percentage based and if you lower parking requirements, you are in essence lowering bike parking requirements, so this was an outdated way of looking at things. In most instances,the bike parking is around double of what was required before. If developers build in bike storage to their projects,they can reduce their required stalls. City Council is debating whether they will do another briefing or a follow up public hearing. If anyone has any concerns, Eric said to share those with the City Council right away. They are trying to increase bike parking and make it a little bit more meaningful. He said anything that's already there is grandfathered into whatever regulations were there when they were built. A question arose about the quality of bike parking and Eric said those are in a design guidebook and can be changed at any time without going through the Planning Commission or City Council. Danny said TAB specifically asked about buildings and institutions that are being grandfathered into this but want to enhance their bike infrastructure. He asked if there is a program that helps split the cost for them to do this. Eric said there is nothing through Planning. Lara said a business owner can submit a request to have a bike rack installed in the right of way Page 2 of 4 TAB/BAC 08-15-2022 Minutes outside of their building. There are also bike corrals that can be seen out in summer and are seasonal and dependent on how many are available. The Streets Division installs those on a request basis and requests have been increasing every year. Julianne said the BAC can make a statement that this is a valuable thing, and the Transportation Division would probably be who applies for funding for additional bike racks and corrals. Dave Iltis said the new parking ordinance is worse for bikes than the existing one in a lot of areas. There is no minimum for bikes which is easily solved with a change of the language to round up rather than rounding down and he doesn't understand why the city is taking steps backwards rather than forwards in requiring bike parking. Eric said Dave's comments have gone to the City Council several times and said it's just a different approach. He said the Planning Commission and the City Council voted on this and they have had all of Dave's a-mails and recommendations in their transmittals and since Eric didn't vote on it himself, Dave will need to speak directly with those who did. Main Street Resurfacing Kyle Cook, SLC Transportation Kyle is involved in the Life on State Bikeway Study and although UDOT has jurisdiction over the State Street route,they have given the city permission to do some things to make State Street more inviting. Since those improvements won't make the roadway good enough for travel,they decided to look at some parallel routes such as 30o East, Zoo East, and Main Street. An asphalt resurfacing project is getting ready to be done on Main Street which presents an opportunity to see how the road is working and possibly restripe it from 700 South to 2100 South. Kyle said they are seeking to make that section more like other sections which are single lanes of traffic with parking and bike lanes. He went over the plans to reduce the traffic lanes, support improvements to crosswalks,bike lane improvements and plans to reduce speeding traffic. While people are excited about an investment on the Main Street corridor, there are challenges to having a continuous protected bike lane due to driveways, parking places, and old drainage infrastructure. Kyle said the city hasn't done a great job cleaning parking protected bike lanes in the past and that as an advocacy group, it's an area BAC could continue to advocate for. There is also no underground storm water drainage system on Main Street which occasionally causes flooding so there are very wide gutters which is a challenge to make the crosswalks work better. There isn't an immediate opportunity to fund fixing this,but they do want to rebuild the street and gutter at some point. He went over some of the crosswalk improvements that are being looked at and two medium term projects that include the Kensington Byway project and the 1300 South bypass. Kyle was asked about the timeline on this corridor and said they've been successful in getting some recent grants,but he is guessing 1-2 years for any of the projects to begin. In the meantime,they are doing little projects,trying to clean up some areas, and carving out space now to be able to do more in the future. BAC Member Roundtable Discussion BAC Members&Lara Handwerker, SLC Transportation Since there are a few new members, Lara wanted to ask the Committee to think about things that have really caught their interest lately and that they would like to see on future agendas. Due to time limitations, Lara asked the members to give this some thought, she would like to hear their input and interests,but this is something they can do through e-mail. Page 3 of 4 TAB/BAC 08-15-2022 Minutes Public Comment — Dave Iltis was not able to join the meeting earlier as the link wasn't working so he was given time for a public comment. He filed an official complaint to SLC on ioo South because they didn't follow the Complete Streets Ordinance and basically have falsehoods on the website regarding the Complete Streets Ordinance. He received a response from Jon Larsen after 2 months that basically implied,they didn't even read his complaint, so he's taken that complaint to the City Council. As of Friday,he didn't have a response from Council,but the city did not follow best practices or anything that made any sense whatsoever on ioo South. He also met with UDOT this morning on 300 west and 400 south. BAC should also be planning for their June or July meetings to go over funding because that's one of the main duties of this Committee that hasn't happened. Both last meetings for TAB and BAC were cancelled, and they should have been doing this stuff and it hasn't been happening. Motion: Greta Sommerfeld motioned to adjourn the meeting; Raymond Reynolds seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 6:31 p.m. Approved by the Bicycle Advisory Committee og-16-22. Page 4 of 4 TAB/BAC 08-15-2022 Minutes