3/6/2023 - Meeting Minutes SALT LAKE CITY
TRANSPORTATION ADVISORY BOARD
Minutes of the March 6, 2023 Meeting
Present from the Transportation Advisory Board were Greg Sanchez, Jon Larsen, Myron
Willson, Steve Wooldridge, and Suzanne Stensaas.
Electronically present from the Transportation Advisory Board were Daniel Mendoza,
Dave Alderman, Ellen Reddick, John Close, Julie Bjornstad, Justice Morath, Leo Masic,
and Paul Schulte.
Absent from the Transportation Advisory Board were Jim Espeland and Johnnae
Nardone.
Also present was Kyle Cook.
Electronically present were Amy Lyons, Dan Bergenthal, Martin Cuma, Julianne Sabula,
Pat Casey, Bill Baranowski, Becka Roolf, and Brent Crowther.
The meeting was held both electronically and in person and was called to order at 4:01
p.m.by Greg Sanchez.
Welcome and Introduction of Guests — Greg welcomed everyone.
Motion: Suzanne Stensaas moved to approve the minutes of the February 6, 2023
meeting with one name correction. Myron Willson seconded the motion. The motion
passed unanimously.
Public Comment — There was no public comment.
BAC Monthly Update
Martin Cuma,BAC Chair
Martin said BAC co-endorsed a letter of support for the Transportation CIP applications
and they wrote their own letter of support for the transportation related constituent CIP
applications. They are hoping to elect a new Vice-Chair soon and voted to reinstate the
vision and mission statement on the BAC website. Someone from the Streets Division
spoke to them about plowing issues in bike lanes and why they cannot get closer to the
cars next to the bike lanes. The Streets Division is willing to improve things but have
their hands tied by the fact that cars are parking there. Martin would like to see an
ordinance or something that temporarily prohibits cars from parking in certain areas so
that bike lanes get plowed in the winter. He spoke of the challenges faced with the lack
of plowing the Foothill Drive sidewalks, suggesting possibly finding another
organization to do it. He mentioned the need for better cooperation between different
entities plowing sidewalks, such as the Parks Division plowing near parks. The sidewalk
along Mario Capecchi Drive, owned by the University of Utah, is not getting plowed in a
timely manner. Suzanne said this is an issue, that has to be changed with a city code,
and she thinks it would take City Council action. She feels an ordinance change would
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begin to get people conscious of this issue and maybe half of them would comply. She
would like to see people park only on one side of the street on even and odd number
days corresponding to even and odd house numbers when it snows. This was done in
the past,but Streets had no way to enforce vehicles that were parked on the wrong side
and it is difficult to have a concrete form of action due to differences in snowfall per
season. Suzanne asked what the next step for BAC should be. Martin said he contacted
the City Council to see what could be done but he hasn't heard back yet. Jon said to
change an ordinance, the administration must make a recommendation and put it in a
transmittal and send it over. If TAB and BAC feel strongly about this, Transportation
can begin working on an ordinance with the Mayor and City Council and then bring
draft language to TAB and BAC over the spring and summer. Lt. Wooldridge said in
2013, SLC attempted to make this an ordinance and it was not very successful because
constructing an ordinance that creates illegality creates complicated enforcement
strategies. Martin said they agreed to table the concern of plowing until a future meeting
as they will not be able to change the outcome this season. Myron would like to have
more information about what options are possible.
SLC School District Updates
Paul Schulte, Transportation Advisory Board
The School District just completed a feasibility study of rebuilding West High School
and Highland High School,both of which are adjacent to critical roadways. They will
likely reach out to UDOT . If 3ooWest is rebuilt, the School District would hopefully get
them to build a bridge over the road. The School District's preferred recommendation is
to rebuild West High on the east side of 300 West where the ball fields are now, and a
bridge would allow them to keep the students in the current buildings while the build is
happening. The proposal for Highland High School is to build it to the north so it would
be closer to 2100 South where the parking and soccer field are currently located. There
were four pedestrian accidents involving students this year and one involving faculty
and they are working closely with the schools to review the safe walkways. There are
always challenges with the best place to put crossing guards and which intersections are
most effective. The Salt Lake City District Office rebuild is delayed a bit due to all the
snow this year and they have been challenged with finding enough bus drivers resulting
in two routes that go to West High School being collapsed into one. Paul said if anyone
knows someone who might be interested in working part time as a bus driver, to please
have them apply. Leo said in the last few years, UTA has restructured a lot of their
routes. Some of those have better connected the east and west side of the city and he's
curious if Paul has heard any feedback since that happened. He thinks the students may
have been able to start riding the UTA busses more compared to before this restructure.
Paul said more research would need to be done to answer that question. He said all the
students and employees in the School District now get UTA passes which is great. He
doesn't have specific numbers for who is riding the bus, but he believes West High
School students use it more often. It was a challenge for his students at Highland High
School since the busses didn't run late enough for students participating in after school
activities. Paul announced that he is retiring, and the June TAB meeting will be his last
meeting.
Livable Streets Program Update
Dan Bergenthal, SLC Transportation
The City Council approved $2.2 million in funding and four staff positions to get the
Livable Streets Program underway, and those four staff members were hired last fall.
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The program is described in the Livable Streets Program document which was
completed in 2021. This document divides the city into 113 zones which are prioritized
based on crash data, speed data, and demographic data. The City Council has given the
Livable Streets Team direction to proceed with the program by addressing the zones in
the order as prioritized. Dan explained how they are addressing these zones,what type
of public outreach has been done, and said they are currently collecting additional traffic
data for the next zones they will be addressing. Transportation is also working to
reinvigorate the Crosswalk Flag Program and checking with the current sponsors to
either eliminate non-sponsor locations or find new sponsors. They are working with the
Streets Division to help reduce the cost of the flags which are currently$2.10 each.
Transportation is currently working on a Livable Streets project that was previously
funded as a Constituent CIP project and is a roundabout at l000 West 700 South which
will hopefully get constructed later this year. Dan went through a list of multiple Quick
Build projects being planned at specific locations where problems have been identified
and quick solutions are needed. He said the Livable Streets priority map will be added
to the Livable Streets webpage soon. Dave asked what type of feedback Transportation
has received from the Capitol Hill neighborhood and Kyle said they have had Zoo's of
statements of support and a few dozen statements of concern. The majority of folks he
has heard from are very supportive. Suzanne said it may be worthwhile to look at
Constituent CIP projects first because these are projects the community is asking for
and are already supporting. Jon believes TAB standing up and supporting this program
helped with it being created.
Life on State Bikeways Study overview/wrap up/next steps
Kyle Cook, SLC Transportation
Kyle explained the Life on State Bikeways study which is being funded by SL County's
Transportation Choice fund. This study is looking at making a more people friendly
corridor,better serving the bicycle market, and making better spaces for people which
has positive implications for economic development. Part of this study is also looking at
how to make corridor connections between city boundaries. Kyle said since they are not
putting bike lanes on State Street, they have been looking at creating high comfort
facilities on roads that are parallel to State Street and that there are good options on 200
East, 30o East,West Temple, and Main Street. He went through the options on those
roads, explaining some of the things that have already been done and some things they
are considering doing. He talked about many possible improvements in these areas
including upgrades at crosswalks. Lt. Wooldridge asked for crosswalk signs at a specific
intersection. Suzanne asked how they decide between crosswalk flags and a crossing
guard. Kyle said it depends on how many people are crossing, traffic volumes, traffic
speeds, and other factors. Julie felt like the design is more important than the crossing
guards and gave an example of a bad design where children were hit while in a
crosswalk with a crossing guard. Kyle gave a visual summary of what they would like to
accomplish on Main Street along with the estimated cost and their estimated timeframe.
In the short term, there are some options to remedy the big, wide, deep gutters with
median refuge islands, curb extensions that cover all four corners and shorten the
crossings, or bridged gutters. The bridged gutters are beneficial to drainage and
pedestrian ease as they can walk or roll from the sidewalk level right into the street.
They also work well with crosswalks and curb extensions. There are some maintenance
challenges with this,but Kyle is hoping TAB would like to advocate having some put in
and getting this design more broadly adopted. He would really like to deploy these on
Main Street and perhaps standardize this practice throughout the city. Greg likes to
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bike on Main Street and thinks it makes sense as a beautiful parallel corridor. Pat likes
riding on Main Street and likes this idea as well. Myron wants to support the areas of
refuge that can be implemented and provides slowed traffic and safety for pedestrians.
Vision Zero Task Force Meeting Update
Jon Larsen, SLC Transportation
Due to time constraints,this update will be scheduled for a future meeting.
Motion: Myron Willson motioned to adjourn the meeting; Suzanne Stensaas 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 April 3, 2023.
TAB WebEx Meeting Chat
from Ellen Reddick to everyone: 4:21 PM
Thank you Paul agree
from Sabula, Julianne to everyone: 4:22 PM
I plan to circle back with Joe on the Transportation Plan, and I know the
interdepartmental working group has been working on the plowing discussion.
from Lyons,Amy to everyone: 4:23 PM
WFRC
from Sabula, Julianne to everyone: 4:32 PM
Paul talked with us about the student passes during the development of the transit plan!
from Sabula, Julianne to everyone: 4:33 PM
Route 9 and Route 21 serve East and Highland, respectively. They operate 4 am to
midnight, every 15 minutes during the hours that students would typically be riding.
from Ellen Reddick to everyone: 4:54 PM
Thank you Suzanne you are correct
from Roolf, Becka to everyone: 4:55 PM
We'll see if everyone in "the community" agrees. Sometimes that doesn't happen.
from Roolf, Becka to everyone: 5:21 PM
It was just chip-sealed. It's not poor enough to reconstruct.
from John Close to everyone: 5:25 PM
Has MMA been applied anywhere else in the city and proven successful in terms of
service life? Is it more or less expensive than thermoplastic?
from Roolf, Becka to everyone: 5:26 PM
Yes, our green bikeways in some places are MMA. It is about 1/2 the cost of
thermoplastic in my experience.
Approved by Transportation Advisory Board 04-03-23•
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