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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/21/2024 - Meeting Minutes SALT LAKE CITY BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE Minutes of the October 21, 2024 Meeting BAC Members Present for this meeting were Alla Chernenko, Greta Sommerfeld, Martin Cuma, Matthew Morriss, and Sarah Johnson. BAC Members Electronically Present for this meeting were Ben Trueman, and Laura Lewis. BAC Member Absent for this meeting was Ashley Lodmell. Also Present were Becka Roolf, Lt. Steve Wooldridge, Mary Sizemore, Jon Larsen, and Dallon Witt. Also Electronically Present were Julianne Sabula,Amy Lyons, Jamie Dansie, Heather Mclaughlin-kolb, Dede Murray, and Patrick Casey. The meeting was held both electronically via WebEx and in person and was called to order at 5:01 p.m. by Sarah Johnson. Sarah welcomed everyone and everyone introduced themselves. Approval of Minutes Motion: Greta Sommerfeld motioned to approve the minutes of the August 20, 2024 BAC meeting and the September 16, 2024 Joint TAB-BAC Meeting. Alla Chernenko seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Bob's Rules &Meeting Approach — Sarah Johnson Sarah said they will start making it clear at the beginning of each agenda item what the expectation and outcome of that topic is, and Matthew will be partnering with her to keep track of time. She also went over BAC meeting decorum and "Bob's Rules". Member Report Out Matthew wanted to commend the city for the new pavement over the railroad on goo West just south of North Temple and on the g-Line work. He said you can now bike right across the railroad with no more zigzag. Jon said the kudos goes to Engineering on both of those. Matthew has been biking on North Temple a lot and noticed many construction cones when there's no construction going on. He knows this is a constant problem but said there's plenty of space for the cones to be moved out of the bike lane and onto the park strip now that there are no trees. Martin said there is a similar situation with construction on Guardsman Way while they're building a new ballpark there. There is encroachment of the bike lane and closures of the bike lane so cars can move through, and it would be nice to do something about it. He has another issue with connectivity which is that recently, instead of taking Foothill to take his child to school, he experimented with 21oo East going from 1700 South and Foothill to Research Park. He said it is very difficult at one point to get onto the sidewalk going northbound Page 1 of 4 BAC 10-21-2024 Minutes because there are so many cars streaming from Foothill onto 21oo East. He thinks it would be nice to have some sort of connectivity to that sidewalk so cyclists can continue onto a quieter street and then onto Sunnyside. He said it's kind of choke point for reasonably comfortable cycling. Jon said that would be a good area to add to the bikeways gap map. Becka said she will resend the bikeways gap map to the members as they definitely want to pursue bike way gaps as part of this upcoming CIP application. Ben said he echoed that the goo South railroad tracks thing on the bikeway is amazing and he really appreciates it. Martin said if you cycle around with your 6-year-old kid, you'll see more bikeway gaps. Becka said places where they can use paint and delineator posts is the type of improvement they're going to try to do with the bikeways gap map. Greta lives on 200 South and though she could complain about construction, the bike lanes that are finished are coming together. Alla said she did watch somebody fully drive over some of them, and not by accident; they were just going. She would like to bring it up for a future meeting topic, but she often finds herself outside of city limits encountering bikeways gaps or odd infrastructure. SLC has an app, but she doesn't know where to report things that are outside of the City. She's wondering if they can leverage the knowledge of the system that the Transportation people have to make a list of suggestions to find the right entities to pursue stuff on the County or other municipality level. Becka said she had compiled a list of the right departments for other areas, she will see if she can find that list. Martin suggested the county have some sort of app and just send it to the right city instead of citizens trying to find a contact, like the SLC app only for the county. Sarah got out mountain biking for the first time this year and went on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail at Hilltop Road near 18th Avenue and it was a great trail. The other thing is that on her commute here, she takes 20o East and from 1700 South to 1300 South, the quality of the pavement was not great, there were a number of potholes, and it was a little bumpy. When she got to 500 South, there was zero connectivity the rest of her route. Laura was thinking of discussing outreach for cyclists regarding safety on the roads. She read an article two weeks ago about a woman who was hit going the wrong way and was critically injured. She hates hearing about preventable stuff like that and she runs into it quite a bit in her commute. There are cyclists coming into her lane going the wrong way and she doesn't have any solutions, but she'd like to discuss is at some point. Sarah said she's also encountered that a fair amount and tries to kindly and firmly let them know they're going the wrong way. Public Comment— Dallon lives in Poplar Grove and cycles downtown every day. He said cycling is super important to the community and he came to get a sense of BAC and if this is a way he can direct some of his efforts to advance cycling as an option for more people. Becka said there are some open seats on the Committee for people on the west side. Mill Creek Canyon Road Improvement Project — Salt Lake County Jamie Dansie came to give some background on the Mill Creek Canyon Road Improvement Project. She said the upper part of the canyon which is 4.6 miles from the winter gate to the very end of the road has already been given money and will start in May of next year. Originally the lower part of the canyon was included with that scope of improvements, but there just wasn't enough money to do it. A letter of support they're looking for from BAC would be to continue with the lower part of the canyon from Wasatch Drive to the winter gate. The Federal Highway Administration is doing the design and sending the project out to bid, the County is facilitating getting the money. The upper and lower have the exact same purpose and need. She went over Page 2 of 4 BAC 10-21-2024 Minutes project details and answered some Committee questions. Grooming for cross country skiing will stay open, but it will be closed to vehicles and cyclists for two years during project construction. Sarah said she does think they need another speaker come back to BAC with more details about this. Motion: Martin motioned to write a letter of support for the lower canyon construction while trying to keep as much trail access open as possible, Greta seconded motion. The motion passed unanimously. Motion: Alla motioned to write a letter to the relevant entities to urge maintaining trail access throughout construction of the upper canyon construction, similar to what was done during the City Creek construction. Martin seconded motion. The motion passed unanimously. Committee Input on Bikeway Designs There was a discussion in August where the Committee talked about going out in small cycling groups to talk through what they were seeing within the City as far as bikeway designs. Since the weather is getting colder, Sarah suggested the members instead provide pictures of both good and bad designs for discussion at a future meeting. Becka said there is a list of places they previously discussed in the August minutes. Capital Improvement Program (CIP) Scoring Process The BAC spoke about CIP scoring in depth at their previous meeting and agreed to have a more focused conversation about the evaluation criteria. The last round of CIP applications was the first time the evaluation criteria was used. Becka had previously sent them the matrix definitions that discusses what things mean included in the scoring decision tree. Martin said this scaling leans heavily towards existing infrastructure and doesn't really promote improving the infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians. Sarah said it doesn't incentivize innovation. Martin suggested having two pots of money, one towards the preservation of existing assets and one geared towards innovation. Jon said one way to look at it is to emphasize rebuilding streets and putting them back to better accommodate all modes, not just cars. Maybe there would be fewer street rebuilds and we could retrofit more existing streets. Martin felt the City should spend their money on fixing things, and CIP should be a different thing that is for new projects or community improvement projects. Jon said one thing that is being considered is a Transportation Utility Fee. It would be on one of the utility bills and be based on the projected number of trips for your parcel. For example, a fast food restaurant would pay a much higher transportation utility fee. There would have to be a io year rolling plan for how that money would be spent. It's something that's being explored and would be used solely for maintenance of existing assets freeing up CIP money for new projects. Jon suggested this be a future agenda item. Martin said they can phrase their recommendations as they feel like the CIP is more used for maintenance than new innovative projects. He feels this is detrimental to their goal of making transportation safer for cyclists and they should encourage the City to explore other ways to fund maintenance and spend more money on the innovative stuff. Alla wondered if this possible new use tax along with other ways to get more money for maintenance would be a good discussion at a joint meeting. Becka said her understanding is that the process for this year is that they are planning to use the same scoring criteria, and they are in the process of starting their CIP applications. She said the ultimate goal is to create a io year lookout for capital and it's moving slowly because Page 3 of 4 BAC 10-21-2024 Minutes it's a citywide goal, but they have made great strides taking a Complete Streets approach. Sarah said the last time they met, one area that was discussed was incorporating the climate change resiliency and she wants to reiterate that point. She also noticed that sustainability has the lowest rating, and she would recommend increasing the weight on that one. All the weights should be reevaluated. Motion: Martin motioned to write a letter outlining the results of their discussion including the following: 1) Innovation is not being promoted by this current scoring. 2) Encouraging the City to explore options to fund maintenance through a different funding mechanism other than CIP. 3) Consider re-evaluating the different items to make sure they are weighted correctly. Alla seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. BAC Impact Assessment Sarah said this segment is regarding how they want to share their impact going forward. She wanted to call out City Creek and said they did have a voice that resulted in a reversal of the trail closure. Going forward this is going to be on their agenda to take a look at the work they've done and the impact it's made. She said this is also a time to ask for updates about previous discussions or projects. Motion: Matthew Morriss motioned to adjourn the meeting; Alla Chernenko seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 6:30 p.m. Meeting Chat Roolf, Becka 10/21/2024 5:29 PM • could we please go back to the map?just for a minute? Roolf, Becka 10/21/2024 5:35 PM • so it has not been bid yet? When do you expect this to go out to bid? Roolf, Becka 10/21/2024 5:37 PM • To clarify, is November 5 the bid advertising date, or is it the bid opening date (date that the bids are due)? Roolf, Becka 10/21/2024 5:40 PM • Salt Lake City Bicycle Advisory Committee and Salt Lake County Bicycle Advisory Committee have the same letters. 10/21/2024 5:41 PM • SLCBAC (pronounced slick-back),vs SLC B-A-C. Jamie Dansie 10/21/2024 5.49 PM •https://www.saltlakecountyov/regional- development/planning-transportation/plans-projects/upper-mill-creek-canyon-road- improvements-prof ect/ Roolf, Becka 10/21/2024 5:59 PM • Thank you, Jamie, and nice to "meet" you. Approved by the Bicycle Advisory Committee 12-16-24. Page 4 of 4 BAC 10-21-2024 Minutes