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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03/10/2025 - Meeting Minutes SALT LAKE CITY JOINT TRANSPORTATION ADVISORY BOARD &BICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING Minutes of the March 10, 2025 Meeting TAB Members present were Daniel Mendoza, Greg Sanchez, Jon Larsen, Josh Stewart, Justice Morath, and Lt. Steve Wooldridge. TAB Members electronically present were Craig Buschmann, Julie Bjornstad, and Matt Gray. TAB Members absent were Isaac Astill, John Close, Miranda Bradshaw, and Suzanne Stensaas. BAC Member present was Matthew Morriss. BAC Members electronically present were Alla Chernenko,Ashley Lodmell, Ben Trueman, Greta Sommerfeld, Laura Lewis, Martin Cuma, and Sarah Johnson. No BAC Members were absent. Also present were Casey Carrigan, Greg Roth, Mark Stephens, Joe Taylor, Brent Crowther, James Aguilar, and Mitch Hansen. Also electronically present were Amy Lyons,Amy Simonek, Tyler Murdock, Kim Shelley, Jordan Smith, Chris Barker, Becka Roolf, JC, Blake Thomas, David Iltis, Jorge Chamorro, 801-5xx-xx13, 8oi-7xx-xx49, Kyle Irvin, Tyler Laing, Geoff Dupaix UDOT, Hugh Van Wagenen, and Mili Pioquinto. The meeting was held electronically and was called to order at 4:13 p.m. by Justice Morath. Welcome and Member Introductions — Sarah welcomed everyone. Members, staff, and guests introduced themselves. Public Comment Greg Roth introduced himself and feels passionate about keeping pedestrians and bicyclists safe. Casey Carrigan introduced himself as a student at U of U, S.J. Quinney Law School and is also in their Planning Department. He lives in District 2 and is similarly passionate and interested in pedestrian and bicyclist safety. He didn't know he was getting a two for one today with both groups, but is interested and knows there's an opening for District 2 on TAB. David Iltis said he's sure all the folks in attendance saw the incredibly bad news about SB195. It's an absolute joke of a bill that is going to prevent a number of street projects from going through in SLC because of legislative overreach. This was put forth by apparently some Salt Lake pushing legislators in Lehi and West Jordan. It's going to take away SLC's ability to do lane narrowing road diets and other things, he believes over the rest of this year and then depending on the Page 1 of G TAB/BAC 03-10-2025 Minutes outcome of the report, possibly more. However, there's probably some good news here if you look at the study area. It would allow the road diet on 2100 South to go through this year. If you look at the definition of lane, which doesn't appear to be defined in code anywhere that he could find, it might still allow at least outside bike lanes and/or parking reductions to put in bike lanes. That's the question here most likely as to whether she can push forward and push the 2100 South road diet to go through which would reverse Jackie Biskupski's silly mistake in 2017. He hopes the attendees get the breakdown from Transportation in this meeting, but it's truly an awful bill. They could ask Spencer Cox to issue a line-item veto on those particular lines of the bill. If they haven't looked at those, please do. Second thing is, Dave sees that Streets is attending this meeting, so just asking while they're on this call, to please finish the bike lanes that perpetually go unfinished on streets like 3rd Avenue, loth East, and other streets where they don't finish the bike lanes for a year or two after initial paving, so hopefully they can go ahead and do that. Anyway, there's probably lots of other things,but the really incredibly bad news is S13195, so Thanks. Salt Lake City Agencies Affecting Transportation Resources Jon thanked the folks from all of the Divisions and Departments that came to join them today. He's hoping to do this more; there's more than just the Transportation Division that has responsibilities in the transportation system. For the transportation network in SLC, it takes a massive team with a wide variety of skills and expertise. The Transportation Division thought it would be good to be a little more proactive about inviting some of their partners to build relationships; board members can get a better understanding of what the other partners do, what their roles and responsibilities are and help everyone get to know each other a little bit better. Justice also thanked everyone for taking their time to be at the meeting. Becka went through a quick representation of the Departments and Divisions of the City including Transportation and others represented in this meeting. She went on to do a quick ice breaker. • Public Services o Streets Division —James Aguilar introduced himself as the Streets Division Director. He also brought Mitch Hansen who is the Concrete/Asphalt Operations Manager for Streets. He shared a presentation on what Streets does, focused on maintenance. The Streets Division has 8 crews and 125 crew members who take care of Concrete, Signs and Markings, Traffic Signals, Streets Response Team, Sweeping,Asphalt, Surface Treatment, and Snow Removal. James shared detailed information on each of these items. Mitch provided information on the 50/50 program which is a cost sharing program to help residents replace their defective sidewalk or curb and gutter. This program helps encourage homeowners to replace the concrete in front of their house. Martin asked if there is a way to force residents to fix their defective sidewalks because in some places it's hard to use the sidewalks. Mitch said it is the property owner's responsibility to repair sidewalks, and many people don't know that. If the homeowner chooses to not participate in one of the replacement programs, the City will eventually get to it,but it may be several years. Page 2 of 6 TABBAC 03-10-2025 Minutes o Compliance Division — Jordan Smith introduced herself as the Compliance Director. She thanked the group for having her there today, she's excited for the discussion and collaboration as great work happens in these meetings. Compliance has about 112 staff and operates 6 programs. The main program is Parking Enforcement,with a day shift and a swing shift. They do long-term parking mitigations including occupied vehicles, all the new pay stations and all the spaces out for the paid parking areas downtown. They run the crossing guard program for SLC, an administrative Program, and parking for the library parking garage. The general mission of their division is keeping roadways and school crossings safe and accessible for everyone. All their programs are aimed at accomplishing that goal. As far as Parking Enforcement is concerned, their primary responsibilities are proactive enforcement in answering service requests. Those are things like blocked driveways,ADA, accessible stalls, enforcement of Streets for storage which is an ordinance that says on any street that isn't otherwise marked, you have to move your car every 48 hours. They respond to complaints about blocked mailboxes, no parking zones, permit parking, meter areas, etc. Most of the calls they get are about reports of violations/streets for storage and they get a lot of calls on how to pay citations. She said anyone can use the MySLC app to reach their office, e-mail sloarking(a)slc.gov or call at 8O1-535-6628. Greg asked what they can do about overnight issues. Jordan said they have enforcement officers from 7 a.m. until 11:3O p.m. every day except Sunday. If it's after those hours, the SLCPD can answer those calls if it's an emergency, otherwise if Compliance receives a request in the middle of the night, they will be out the next morning. Sundays they work from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Josh asked who sets the parking restrictions and Jon said mostly Transportation and if there are specific areas of concern,he can reach out to them. o Engineering Division — Mark Stephens — Mark Stephens introduced himself as the City Engineer who serves as the Engineering Director. Engineering oversees all of the final design and construction of public right of way projects, roadway and sidewalk, as well as building construction projects with oversight over the City Architect and their Architecture Division. With everything they do, they coordinate with all other Departments/Divisions within the City. For roadway designs they work closely with the Transportation Division. Transportation sees designs through to about 40% design. Then there's a handover to Engineering for the final design, final construction documents, and bidding. The City Engineers serve as the chief procurement officer for the City for all construction within the public way and for city-owned property. They then oversee the construction, either internal or with a contractor, handle construction permits within the public way as well as for public-way infrastructure whether public or private (utilities, driveways). Transportation Division issues traffic control permits (for blocking roads or sidewalks) and Engineering will issue public way permits for the construction aspect. Engineering works with Transportation during concept and preliminary design, and also works with Public Utilities and the Streets Division to make sure what they're designing is something they can maintain without causing too much headache. When they finish a construction project, they transfer ownership of maintenance to the Streets Page 3 of 6 TABBAC 03-10-2025 Minutes Division to continue maintaining the streets through surface treatments, sidewalks, curb and gutter, things of that nature. That's the succession from concept, preliminary design, final design and engineering, to construction. Mark shared the SLC Engineering website with the group and the type of information they can find on that website including current project information, a map showing all the roadway projects completed, and a map showing the pavement condition citywide. Greg Roth asked about the 6" coring holes in the pavement because while they probably aren't noticed by vehicles, they're hard on bicycles. Mark explained they do those for various reasons including checking to make sure the delivered product was up to standards,load rates, and dept along with several other reasons. They can make sure the placement of those are not in bicycle lanes and they are required to be backfilled within a specific period of time. • Department of Sustainability—Chris Barker from Waste and Recycle introduced himself and was particularly interested to be invited because he's also an avid bike commuter and really loves the work that BAC is doing. He runs the team of recycling bin checkers that are out every weekday checking to see that the recycling is not contaminated. The goal of their department is zero waste by 2040 per a resolution passed by City Council. As a cyclist he knows waste containers can create a conflict when they're left in bike lanes. His team has a set of flyers that they put out every day asking people not to obstruct the bike lanes. Other things that make waste pick-up harder and sometimes increase congestion are increases in delivery vehicles from e-commerce, certain traffic calming structures can be hard to maneuver garbage and recycling trucks around, and certainly the rising population of e-bikes and scooters. He thanked the boards for inviting him. • Department of Public Lands — Tyler Murdock introduced himself as the Deputy Director of Public lands and said they're fortunate to have Kim Shelley, their new Director as of last week joining, too. The Department of Public Lands has four Divisions that have some connection to transportation,bicycle recreation, or commuting within the City. First, the Planning and Design Division is led by Tom Millar, a former transportation planner. It is responsible for implementation of about $150 million of capital improvements in parks, and also some of the urban trials — such as the extension of the Folsom Trail. This team's work connects to both greening and improving bike connectivity throughout the City. Second, the Urban Forestry Division is responsible for the maintenance of all trees in the right of way. There are 91,656 park strip trees throughout SLC. They maintain, prune, remove, plant all of the trees within the park strips with a small team of 18 full-time staff. Third is the Trails and Natural Lands Division, responsible for maintenance of soft surface trails, particularly in the foothills natural area. This is a brand new program as of a year ago. Prior to 2024, the City did not have any dedicated staff maintaining trails in SLC foothills. They now have two full time positions that are responsible for that maintenance. This year they are rolling out a brand new stewardship program that can be found on their website and just went live last week. They have 12 applicants already in five days to assist with maintenance of the foothill trails and other soft surface trails throughout the city. If anyone is interested, please visit the website. Public Lands also post regular Page 4 of 6 TABBAC 03-10-2025 Minutes trail updates for all soft surface trails throughout the city--what's closed, what's open -- along with stewardship and etiquette information. The fourth Division is their Parks Division with an operations team of about five full time staff who maintain urban trails such as the McClelland Trail, 9-Line Trail — and every urban trail except Parley's/ Sugar House Greenway which is maintained by Salt Lake County and Sugar House business district maintenance, part of Salt Lake City's Facilities Division. On most trails, Parks does trash removal, snow removal,weed, and vegetation management. Kim expressed gratitude for Tyler and said it was nice to see everyone virtually. Utah Legislature Update: Senate Bill 195 Becka asked the group to keep in mind that this bill is now a done deal unless the Governor doesn't sign it. Transportation can tell them about it,but there's no action available currently for TAB or BAC. Justice said it's still of interest because there were so many versions, and no one knows what some of the things mean so an overview would be really helpful. Jon said SB195 was a transportation omnibus bill,with language changes at the last minute before the Senate voted on it. The substitute bill added some language that was punitive towards the city with a full-on moratorium on many City projects. This initial version included a wide sweeping definition of a new term that was invented specifically for this bill called"highway reduction strategies" being applied to many of SLC's safety projects. It's his understanding that UDOT was not the driver of this bill; it was a handful of private constituents that were upset by the inconvenience of some safety projects, the multi-modal projects that the City has been building. There were several additional versions,with negotiation and discussions back and forth. He said it's a poor precedent to have the state have that big of say on any city's transportation facilities; in legal terms, the word highway includes any local street, collector, arterial, etc. The final language ended with a moratorium, backdated to any project not advertised before February 25, 2025. The City is mandated to create a Mobility Plan looking at the past five years and upcoming projects, from the perspective of systemic impacts. This plan needs to be approved by UDOT before the City can proceed with those projects. Salt Lake City will need to present to the Transportation Interim Committee this fall with our finding. There is a sunset date for the bill in 2027 or 2029. UDOT was also asked to do a study; it's going to take a week or two between the City and UDOT to coordinate the two studies. He thinks UDOT's study is looking at transportation and air quality or congestion and air quality impacts of the Highway Reduction Strategies. Highway Reduction Strategies are defined as anything that reduces the number of lanes on a street or narrows the width of the lanes on the street. In the Highway Capacity manual, the difference between a io, 11, or 12400t lane on an urban street is insignificant. They move the same number of cars. Narrower lanes do lower speeds,but they do not reduce the throughput. The throughput is determined by the number of lanes and the green time at the intersection. Then there's another restriction on anything that increases congestion, reduces traffic flow, or creates an inconvenience to motorists. So, the City is still working through exactly what projects need approval. For example, does a bus stop count as a reduction strategy, does a new crosswalk with RRFB's because cars must stop for pedestrians. With a good working relationship with UDOT, he hopes that they will be good partners with the City. Geoff Dupaix from UDOT Region 2 said Jon gave a good summary. UDOT is also trying to figure out what this all means and how they move forward together. Jon said the bill applies from I-15 to Foothill and from boo North to 2100 South. Earlier versions Page 5 of G TABBAC 03-10-2025 Minutes included local streets, but the final language focuses on collectors and arterials. On a positive note, doing a study like this will alleviate some fears and concerns about the way SLC designs multi-modal infrastructure and will show the projects implemented over the last io years do work. Critical Connections: East West Connections Study 1. Joe gave an update on the East/West Connections Study which is a federally funded study in the U.S. Department of Transportation's Reconnecting Communities program addressing the east/west divide in SLC. SLC will define the problem of the divide, examine a broad set of possible solutions, evaluate those potential solutions, choose a solution or program of solutions, and then complete sufficient design to seek funding. This is very much a community conversation focused on those who are directly affected and will start with a Community Advisory Board. He went through the scope and budget of the 2-year study. Joe said the application for the Community Advisory Board is open and encouraged the attendees to share that with anyone they know who might be interested and helpful. These CAB members will be paid $35 per hour to provide insights on how this divide affects them. He said the website is thorough and anyone can reach out to him with questions. Greg asked how members of TAB or BAC could get involved. Joe said the best way is to spread the word and get involved in the public events. Joe will make sure TAB/BAC is aware of when those occur. Daniel asked if they had reached out to community councils or religious leaders in the area. Joe said they have reached out to the affected community councils, and they have a list of other religious institutions and other community organizations they will be reaching out to. Motion: Greg Sanchez motioned to adjourn the meeting; Matthew Morriss seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 5:30 p.m. Meeting Chat Becka Roolf 3/10/2025 4:09 PM •We are still waiting on quorum for TAB Becka Roolf 3/10/2025 4:18 PM• SB 195 is on the agenda later Becka Roolf 3/10/2025 4:38 PM•Always shovel downstream. Jorge Ch 3/10/2025 4:55 PM•Is he referring to valve access spots? Becka Roolf 3/10/2025 4:59 PM•I put SB 195 on the agenda by request.It passed last Thursday,so it's a done deal-there is no action available for either committee to take.If we do run out of time,we can tell you more about it next month or by email. Sarah Johnson,BAC Chair,District 5 3/10/2025 4:59 PM •Thank you,Becka! Becka Roolf 3/10/2025 5:14 PM This map shows collectors and arterials:TransportationMasterPlan 20181113-2-3.pdf Ben Trueman(BAC)3/10/2025 5:16 PM•do we know how SB195 came about? Ben Trueman(BAC)3/10/2025 5:30 PM•will the CAB meetings be open to the public? Approved by the Transportation Advisory Board 04-07-25. Approved by the Bicycle Advisory Board 04-21-25. Page 6 of 6 TAB/BAC 03-10-2025 Minutes