Video Description:
Transportation Advisory Board Meeting – February 14, 2022
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:01
Looks like it’s six o’clock. I’m going to call our meeting to order for the transportation Advisory Board meeting for Monday, February the 14th 2022. Let’s begin with the roll call. Andrew Stewart. Present.
Unknown Speaker 0:23
Liz Osborne. Your Courtney Michelle. Your David McInerney. Present. Steve laner. Present councilmember Yarborough?
Unknown Speaker 0:43
May I have a motion to approve the minutes from the January 10 2022. Meeting for the truck transportation Advisory Board meeting?
Unknown Speaker 0:55
I move that we approve the meetings from the last board meeting.
Unknown Speaker 1:01
Is there a second? Liz? Is there any discussion? Okay, so it’s been moved and seconded to approve the minutes from the January 10th 2022. Meeting. All those that are approved, signify by saying yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:35
Yes, yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:37
Opposed? No. Okay. It’s been minutes have been approved with 100%. Okay. I see that Diane’s here now. Okay. Is there any communication from staff? Tyler, Phil.
Unknown Speaker 2:04
I think Phil’s got a couple items he’s gonna mention real quick. Good evening, members of transportation advisory board. Appreciate your time tonight. Unfortunately, you got to hear me a lot tonight. So apologize for that upfront. But we’ll try to make this fairly quick and fairly painless. So but I do have a couple items from staff. One item is kind of benign. And it’s maybe not really important to this group. But we’ve been searching for an airport manager for the last couple of months. As you know, our last airport manager David Slater passed away he passed away unexpectedly a number of months ago in September. So we’ve been on a search for his replacement. And that’s going fairly well, it took a long time, obviously. But we will have a new airport manager onboard hopefully in the next two months. I only mentioned this, because part of my duties now are going to be to take over the supervisory role of that position. So that’s a new thing for for all of us, I guess. And so I just want to let the TV know, as you may hear more and more from the airport, there isn’t an airport advisory board that’s separate. But we’re really working hard with this, with this new person, as they come on board is to make sure that they are part of the city, and more interwoven into what we do at a city level than was typical of the last two managers. So you’ll see more and more things, I think, come into play with transportation and the airport. So I just wanted to give you a heads up on that. But any questions on that issue or that item. And I’d like to roll into the idea that I’m going to get this wrong away, I’m as Taylor to look up the acronym for me for Reyes, and he might know it off the top of his head. I’ve already forgotten. We’re going for a raise grant or a is he and it really is the new type of grants for larger federal projects or larger federal grants. And so I just wanted to give everybody on this board a heads up that we’re working with Boulder County, the City of Boulder, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Regional Transportation District RTD and CDOT are the acronyms there. And we’re all going after a grant for highway 119 between Longmont and boulder to get that bus rapid transit project off the ground. And so we’ve gone in the past we’ve gone for these grants, and we’ve not been successful because we’re going for a grant that was just a very limited intersection in the city of Longmont. And though we have the support of all these other groups, it wasn’t a very corridor ranging project it was very Longmont specific. And so we’ve learned through debriefs from these different groups that evaluate for these grants that that’s not They were looking for, they’re looking for more collaboration along the corridor. And so we’re not going to go for the grant this time. CDOT is which I think is a good start, first of all, just to have them at the front of this. And finally showing that kind of leadership that we’ve been looking for, for this specific grant. So just wanted to give you a heads up, and we’ll tell you more about that, as we kind of produce it and it comes together, we’ll make sure that you get to see that and make sure you have all the information at your disposal, if you have any questions, and Tyler was nice enough to help me out with the rebuilding America infrastructure and the sustainability. And then it disappeared. But anyway, an equity so Yes, ma’am.
Unknown Speaker 5:43
My question is, is it going to change the design or the plan of highway 119? Ross, bus rapid transit, it seemed like that was pretty well set, which you what we were planning on doing? So do you anticipate changes with CDOT taking over?
Unknown Speaker 6:01
Well, again, it’s going to be more of a corridor wide plan. And just corridors are our specific project. But our specific project does stay within the new racecraft request. So okay, so we’re asking for a lot more money for the corridor for the entire corridor. And with the infrastructure and Jobs Act that was passed earlier. That’s there’s some more money that’s available to projects like this. So that’s nice as well, for us to be able to go after some additional dollars, but our project will stay in the mix, which we’re very excited about. But there’ll be other projects, south of Longmont along the line as well. And that project has really transitioned from more of a bus rapid transit piece to more of a well was going to be managed lanes, which is what you’ll see on a 25. As you drive into Denver, you’ll see the lanes where you can either pay for them, or if you have a carpool of three plus three or more people, you can drive in those for free. Or if you’re on a bus, you can, you can obviously take the bus in those lanes for free as well. So we are not gonna be able to do that in the diagonal corridor, the state highway 119 corridor, because it’s all, you know, signalized intersections at grade intersections that don’t have interchanges. So to have somebody pay to get into those wasn’t viable, because you’re only paying to get to the next stoplight. And we can’t guarantee that a car can get through that without stopping. But we’re going to try to make it so the buses get through without, with minimal with minimal slowdown. Except that the stops obviously where they have to come to a complete stop and let people on and off. But so it’s gonna be more of what’s called a queue jump where the buses get to kind of slide past everybody in the left lane, go up to the signal and the signal should change for that bus. And everybody else has to stop. And so the bus will get to go through. And then the traffic the rest of the traffic will kind of do its own thing as it was before. But the benefit will really go to the bus buses in this new this new system. So it’s a little bit of a change. Yes, but it’s not. It’s still Bus Rapid Transit along the Gordon. Thank you. Yes, sir.
Unknown Speaker 8:25
Phil, is the raise grant money is that federal money that’s already been granted to the state of Colorado?
Unknown Speaker 8:35
No, it’s a it’s federal money that’s been allocated for all the projects around the country. And so we are we are going up against and competing with all sorts of other projects around the country. So every all 50 states plus territories, get to get to apply for this grant and compete. So yeah, it’s a it’s a tough, it’s a, it’s a tough contest. And we and we’ve not had a lot of money in the past in a pool. But this year, they’re actually breaking it into two calls for projects. So we’re going to do the spring call, is what it’s called. And there’s a full call. And so we will go for all of these until we hopefully get it or we’ll do whatever we’ll do whatever is kind of requested of us in order to I shouldn’t say it like that, but we’ll we’ll listen to the debrief. And whatever we can do to kind of make it a better project we’ll do but we think that this project upfront has a lot of potential. And Tyler, you might want to add something. I think the only thing I wanted to mention Phil and and you know this is well, that I think CDOT is only intending to apply for to submitting to applications. So I think they’re pretty selective as well and what they’re putting forward. And I think that bodes well for us and kind of the regional collaboration working together and nice to get CDOT support on this one. Yeah, we were not able to get that before we were able to get CDOT. The region support the region that is makes makes a Boulder County and Weld County and all the counties kind of on the East northeast quad quadrant of the state here, but we weren’t able to get the governor’s signature on it. So that’s what we’re looking for this time.
Unknown Speaker 10:20
What will the bike paths be included in the grant proposal?
Unknown Speaker 10:25
Well, the bike path is being looked at in a number of different ways. And so this grant proposal will, part of it will go to the bike the bike way. But we’re looking at some other grant opportunities that are more multimodal focus on, you know, alternative transportation only. So that will be that’ll be the focus of some other grant opportunities that we’re looking for as well. So a great question because the bikeway is going to be bikeway kind of gets piecemeal from everybody gets piecemeal, then by all sorts of different funding opportunities, but we’re going to try to get it all in there, with all the different grant opportunities we can look for. And I’ll be talking a little bit more about that in my next segment.
Unknown Speaker 11:12
Any other questions for Phil at the moment?
Unknown Speaker 11:15
All right. Thank you, Phil.
Unknown Speaker 11:20
Tyler, as it changed earlier, is there any public wanting to be heard tonight?
Unknown Speaker 11:25
I don’t see any public and ready to be heard on the call.
Unknown Speaker 11:31
Okay. All right, I see that we don’t have any action items. Unless things have changed. No. Okay. information items. So Phil, you’re gonna talk to us about Dr. cog.
Unknown Speaker 11:51
Again, I just wanted to update the group, because these are things that are going to kind of come in front of you in the next couple months, and just want to prep you and get you ready for some of this and get some questions that you might have addressed as quickly as possible. You may have some things that I I need to kind of go back and research and get information back to you. But every four years, it’s not every two years. I misspoke there. Sometimes it’s two years. But most typically, it’s every four years. In fact, it was during the last Olympics, we kind of joked about it today, that in the last winter Olympics, we were working with the Denver Regional Council of Governments also known as Dr. cog. I think y’all love that acronym. They issue a call for projects every four years, and this year, it’s gonna be a little different, where they’re going to, they’re going to do some other things because of that infusion of cash from the infrastructure investment and jobs act. So this year, there’s going to be four calls for projects rather than the typical. Two, what we did last time was, we split things into, they’ll be I’ll go back to kind of the beginning of time here is the Transportation Improvement Program used to be this this thing where we’d all just every city, every county, we’d all just kind of throw in our projects and compete against each other and the Denver Regional Council of Governments, Dr. cog would kind of judiciary, the whole thing and and make sure, you know, the project’s met the broader goals of the region. And if you if you met, basically the goals of the region, you would get picked, your project would get picked to move forward and get some funding. Four years ago, they changed it up on us a little bit, they decided that they would move it into kind of the regionally significant projects. And so 20% of the dollars went to these massive, kind of more regional projects. And 80% of that money was set aside for just the locals. And they really decided that for the locals to compete, every county should get kind of what they are allocated by population, and vehicle miles traveled and employment. And so they use those, those data sets to decide how much each each county should get from the poor because, quite frankly, Boulder County always pulled the most because we we had city of Boulder, we had Boulder County, and in Longmont, quite frankly the three of us were pretty good at doing these grants. And so there’s a lot of animosity, quite frankly, of boulders getting all the stuff and why don’t you know I want we certainly put money into this and we should get a share of it. And we have projects that are just important as important but for whatever reason we we had some savvy folks and mostly bullets city of Boulder and the city of Denver. I’ll be quite frank, city of Denver got a big, big, big portion of it. City of Boulder got a pretty big portion of it. And people didn’t think that was fair. So they said okay, let’s divide up by counties and delegate the shares of cash that way, and we, we divvy up the pot, and all go for it. And so four years ago, we started doing this. And so we were just competing within Boulder County for a set amount of dollars. And Arapahoe County was just competing within Arapahoe County, with all those jurisdictions for that set of dollars. So it goes on for the whole region. You know, there’s there’s, I believe eight counties now that that vibe for this. So that’s the way it’s been changed up. And we appreciate that that’s, that’s probably a good way to do it. And we we’ve, we’ve taken what we can, as far as you know, going after the pot of money, but we did apply last or four years ago, we did apply for 119 project. Again, you can tell that’s our focus, really, of the county is that 119 project, we threw that into the regional pot that 20% And we competed against all the other projects. And I do believe we finished first with that one. So 119 was kind of three projects put into one big regional project. And that’s really well how we got Kaufman’s feet busway. under our belt. And that’s why that project is moving forward, because we want that money through that regional process. Winning is not the best way to say it’s the best I’ve got for tonight. But I did want to let you know that. So then we also competed at the local level. So we competed within the, within the county, we did get some projects through there as well. So we were pretty successful, and we had some some good projects, but they were smaller, much smaller projects like
Unknown Speaker 16:41
Well, one of the projects, we I should also say that we’re not just in Boulder County, we’re also in the southwest Weld County, which is just a little portion of Weld County, kind of that goes out i 25. And just beyond, and only goes up to basically Larimer County line, if you were to draw that across Weld County could You could cut out that portion. And we are able to compete in that project in that pool as well. And there weren’t a lot of people applying for things. But we were able to get the same thing, Valley Greenway, but the St. Vrain Greenway as part of that project as well. So we’re trying to finish that piece up. That’s that last segment that goes into a st frame, State Park. And so that’s underway right now, as well as Kaufman street. So those are the kind of the two big ones that we got in those projects. So we just want to let you know that this year, it’s going to be even a little bit more different because of this infusion of federal dollars. And so they’re asking for for you for calls of projects, which is a little confusing. Two of them are regional calls. And then two of them are the more sub regional call, where the county level call for projects. And so we plan to compete for those projects. And so on the back page of your packet, just wanted to point you to some of the projects that we think are critical for Longmont. And they’re also something that’s on our capital improvement program or capital improvement project list. So these are things that have already kind of seen the light of day through the transportation advisory board already. So just to go through these really quickly we have state, Colorado is the new designation CO is the new designation for State Highway. So I had to kind of put that in there because you’ll see that a lot more often now. But the state highway 66, basically. And this is this got this was incorrect as well, sorry, from over to Main Street. It really is Pratt, and then we say Pratt, because that’s that’s kind of where the project. If you take 66, highway 66 west of Main Street, you’ll see that it’s very wide until about Pratt. And then it kind of narrows down back into two lanes in each direction, or one lane in each direction to lane total. So we say to prep, but it really is to Main Street. So state highway 66, from over to Main Street to widen that project. We’re doing the design right now. So a lot of work has been done to get the design going. And the design includes things like what we call side paths, very wide trails, basically there were more than just sidewalks on either side of that street so that we can have people walk and bicycle more safely on that street rather than just in the shoulders. We’re also doing sound walls for the folks but it looks like we’re going to be doing sound walls for the folks who live south of that roadway. Because right now the fencing and those things aren’t adequate to mitigate the noise that’s expected from widening that from a two lane to a four lane total. We’re doing that for safety reasons and congestion. But we’ve had the congestion out there for a long time. We’ve kind of lived with the congestion but now it’s more of a safety issue. So the safety piece is kind of the big, big piece there. And again, we’ve already done a lot of legwork on County Line Road from 17th. To state highway 66, we’re going to go for a project that really tries to widen out the shoulders on that one does doesn’t really widen out the road much for capacity, but widens out shoulders, again, for bicycles and pedestrian movement, to make it a little bit more convenient. For folks who are especially on bicycles in that in that section of the corridor, at some point in the future, we will look at design and construction for that to be a four lane in the in the in the in the longer term future. But for right now, that’s that’s what we’re looking out for that one. And then kind of one that’s been on our list for a long time is state highway 119, also known as cam Pratt Boulevard intersection from Nelson to South Pratt Parkway. And so that’s kind of the that’s really that, you know, place where we really funnel down and we have a lot of, you know, we have a lot of traffic that gets pushed into that little tiny area, because you have so many roads to kind of come together. And then people try to get through town on that. We have originally thought that that should be three lanes in each direction. But we’ve had some
Unknown Speaker 21:22
we’re seeing that that’s not going to be viable. And kind of the next phase of projects. That kind of goes against what he said about state highway 66. But state highway 66 has been on project for almost 20 plus years. And we’ve had, it’s got a lot of history that we can certainly go through if you’d like to hear it, maybe over a beverage at some time. But there’s a lot of history as far as deals that were made to kind of move dollars out of that project and into into other projects in the county over the years. And so this one’s been, it has some historical piece to it, the 66 project does. But the 119 project is newer, a little bit newer, we’ve done some design work. And we think that we it’s a very viable project if we make it business access and transit lanes. So that’s basically a right turn lane that the buses can go straight in, we have a lot of those in town already. But this is one where we would build it an extra lane in each direction on the outside of the roadway, put in brand new bike and walkway, facilities on each side of the roadway as well. And then add this as a business access transit lane or that right turn lane for businesses that the buses could keep going straight. So cars would be required to turn, buses could keep going. And that would be part of our bus rapid transit system as well. So that’s something we’re looking for. And really, that only works, you know, at the larger sub regional level, if we go for those different kinds of lanes on that one. I’ll just stop to see if you guys have any questions cuz I’ve been talking for a long time. And I feel like you might have some questions. Yes, sir. Yeah, thanks for all the information. So real quickly on the hover domain on 66. You’re saying just that area, that section is going to be go from two to four lanes. But it’ll still go down to two lanes when it passes the Walmart, right? Because that’s generally I think it’s two lanes through the rest of that there’s no way to correct is correct. We won’t be working on any portion of that roadway yet. East of me. So this is all going to be West’s to hoever. And that’s why we why we’re focusing on that. And I can see your point of you know, we’ve got traffic congestion and other areas along that corridor really. But what we see is that and what we’ve seen for the last 20 plus years ever since we kind of built over to connect all the way from 66 mountains down to Kim Pratt Boulevard, which has been a long time now. We’ve seen a lot of people coming from the north who want to get to Boulder for jobs. And what they’re doing, they’re coming down to 87 or Main Street. Okay, they don’t want to deal with downtown Longmont. So they’re deviating to the west. And right now they’re actually going to the west and then coming down over to get to the diagonal. And sometimes that’s too congested. So some people are going all the way into lions are almost Alliance and taking 36, the foothills highway down from Lyons to Boulder. So there’s a lot of pressure in there. And what we’re trying to do is, is alleviate some of that, but you know, it’s kind of the give and take just a real quick follow up. So the lights that come out of the Walmart development, the intersection the signals, I don’t think the city has much control over those verses mean and that is probably CDOT right? In other words mean and as Tyler to please answer that question because that’s a big backup Lights are not timed from left hand turn going north on 27. The Walmart light almost always turns red when an entire queue of cars is going through. So it backs up Main automatically, during rush hour, please type notice that I drive that a lot. That is something that we can take a look at and make some adjustments those if you remember better than most anyone, but they’re all on adaptive in that area. So we need to make some adjustments to our coordination pattern on that one, the one that’s not on adaptive is Erfurt. eastmain. And notice a lot of the Eastbound traffic often get stopped there for once that gets released. But I think we can definitely resolve some of those issues. Okay, yeah, the two Walmart’s just seem like they’re out of sync with the rest of that corridor. But yeah, I’ll shut up No.
Unknown Speaker 25:50
Any other questions.
Unknown Speaker 25:54
We’ll just continue on then real quick here, just to kind of get to our list as we’re working with that Southwest wealth group. And looking at doing a bigger path or a bigger trail system piece that takes into account union reservoir and the trail that’s planned to loop around that, which isn’t really much of a transportation, right, it’s more of a recreation piece. But using a portion of that trail on the southern piece to connect to st frame State Park, on what’s called the county road 26. So we’re, we’re trying to get it out there we’re working with the city of or the town of mead, and the town of Firestone to also get connections in with what they’re planning to do, which is to connect the high school that’s out of mead. As you’ll recall, there’s some pretty unsafe corners that the people take through there. And so there really isn’t the way to get to that high school from the south, especially by by bicycle or walking without a lot of effort. So you really have to be on the road almost to make that work. So we’re trying to get our connection that we want to go straight east to the state park, and work that in with me, it’s north south connection, and some connections that Tana Firestone is working on as well. So that’ll be through the st bridge, or, excuse me, that’ll be through the Southwest weld, sub sub region, that we work on that one. And then as many of you have probably seen, the North portions of Main Street don’t get a lot of love, lately, or recently. So what we’re trying to do is, look, how can we better incorporate those portions, when we see a lot of people walking across Main Street. And this does become an equity issue with a lot of low income families that live up there, and not being able to get to a signal very conveniently without deviating from your, from your pedestrian path, quite a ways to get to a signal. We always push people to the signals. But we realize sometimes that’s not not reality, that’s not the way people operate, they just need to get to the store. And so they just want to run across, you know, the four or five Lane six lane in some places, seven lanes in some places, set of lanes that make up Main Street. And so the idea is to put in to do an underpass at Main and 21st. And connect some of the planning that we have, for the, for the road, west of there 21st avenue west of there is plan to kind of be reduced to one lane in each direction, and then bike lanes as the other piece of the lane. And so that would connect in well, with our oligarchy trail that’s on the east side of Main Street. And you’ll see some of that there’s a trail back behind some of those new apartments that were built. And so this is gonna be a really good connector, I think, from the neighborhoods to get to Main Street from both east and west. Get you underneath Main Street in a more safe way. So we’re looking forward to that project. And putting that out there. We think it has a really good chance. Yes. Go ahead. Yes, sorry.
Unknown Speaker 28:59
We still have a concern that they do cross north of 21st street because the senior high rises there and I see people crossing all the time there and they’re all older people like me, but they’re older people and they don’t move real fast. And I’m afraid that you know, they’re just an accident about ready to happen. And I’m not sure that they’d go down to 21st across under the underpass. Even if you do put
Unknown Speaker 29:25
it there. I’m again gonna call on Mr. Steamy to help me out with this one. Cheers, Stuart. So you’re absolutely right. And that’s one that I see. Pretty much every time I drive through. There’s someone seems like someone’s on the middle of the road right there. Just sell at the bus stop just south of the King Soopers access. So a couple things we’re doing. I think we identified that as a need for that safety improvement through the Main Street corridor plan. I’m also working on a an application the H CIP dollars Highway Safety Improvement Program, which would be federal dollars to fund a hawk signal No, that would go with that location. Actually, a couple other locations for POC and or flashing beacons. But that one in particular is one that I’m putting an application in for here. Pretty quick.
Unknown Speaker 30:11
Okay, thank you, I didn’t know if it made a difference, because it technically is the state highway 287. And maybe they didn’t want to slow it down there.
Unknown Speaker 30:19
One of the great parts about the H CIP dollars on the state system is on doesn’t have to even provide the match, if we get a seat up provides the that’s a good bang for the buck, if
Unknown Speaker 30:30
we get it. Great, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 30:32
So we work with CDOT, we identify these issues, and sometimes they identify the issues as well. And then we work together to come up with dollars to fund them, even if it’s not in this necessarily in this tip program. But there’s some other dollars available, too. So Tyler talked about that. And then talk a little bit about 21st Avenue from hoever, to Maine to Alpine. And we just want to start designing that. What I just talked about is taking the lane away, in each direction, west of Main Street, and getting some of that unused capacity, quite frankly, it’s not being used a lot. And so we’ve we’ve checked the volumes, you know, year after year after year, there’s not a lot of I mean, I know there’s a lot of pressure about and a lot of discussion about growth in Longmont and I’m sure councilmember you hear this more than anyone. But really, in that area, there’s no plan to growth that’s gonna affect that street necessarily. So there’s some streets that yeah, there are some growth coming to those streets. And I can’t assure you, but I can tell you that the city staff works tirelessly to make sure that anything that’s going to be developed and is planned to be developed, the roads next to it have the capacity to be able to take on that growth. And what we’re seeing is, you know, some of the roads were over built, one of those is 21st Avenue. And so we’re going to take it back down to maybe more realistic level for what it needs for traffic, which is one lane in each direction, and give some of that capacity over to bikeways. And to make it a little safer for walkers to because they’re close to that edge of roadway in some cases. So by putting the bikeway we’re giving some more buffer to the walkers as well. So a couple things going on with that project. And again, that needs to go through design before it goes through construction. So when the task for those designed also building exactly what we need to know and being very prudent with with taxpayers dollars when we do that. The next one is Overstreet Long’s peak Avenue down to Allen, which is a short stretch. And I’m we’re still kind of wondering if we need to kind of pare this and maybe with some other missing sidewalks. But that’s a missing sidewalk that’s on hoever, we probably are talking about not just this sidewalk, but carrying it all the way down to the Home Depot on that west side, because there’s just no no sidewalk except for this short little piece that’s from the Greenway north to Allen. And then there’s that gap, we have that new project that was just built just south of ninth there. So there’s there’s some gaps in the sidewalk we need to look at. But these are all bigger streets bigger arterioles. So we think that we have some good cases to put out that these are arterial sidewalks, or what we call side paths to build and we and those do cost a lot of money when you start adding them up. So we’re gonna ask for some money for those. And Ken Pratt Boulevard, somewhere in between Nelson and South Park Parkway again, goes back to the idea that we had, I think those bad lanes, but we’ve got some pressure to find a place for a good underpass. So we’d like to do some design work to figure out is there a good place to put an underpass in that segment of Ken Pratt Boulevard, so we can get people safely who live south of Kampot Boulevard to the shopping and the jobs that are north of Kampot Boulevard. So those are some things we’re looking at right now. And then lastly, I threw this on there, because I like transit. We’ve always been talking about a circulator route in town. So what better place to kind of put this in a Transportation Improvement Program project that is looking at new opportunities for some transit. So I’m going to kind of shop this around a little bit and see if there’s any buddy who would be willing to help provide this like via mobility services, they have been very responsive to our requests to help with transit in the city. And they, they really were the ones who helped develop the hop shuttle in Boulder, when it first started, they were the they were kind of the ones who provided the service. And now that’s been taken over by RTD. So RTD saw the benefit and those things. So we’d like to kind of replicate that and see if we can get some something like that going in limbo. So that’s a lot to talk about a lot of projects. I’d like to hear if you have anything more to add, or if there’s something that we’re there’s gonna be lots of small projects on smaller streets. I understand that. But we’re, we have to compete county wide. So do you have anything that you can think of that maybe countywide we’ve or that we compete on a countywide level that we may want to think about?
Unknown Speaker 35:23
So Phil, I have a question, if you could explain the difference between via an RTD.
Unknown Speaker 35:30
Oh, yeah, sorry, um, via via isn’t? Well, they’re both nonprofits, but via is more local. It’s more of a Boulder County based nonprofit transit service, which really caters to people with disabilities and people who are older. So it’s, it’s really for people who can’t drive anymore. And what they’ve done is they’ve, they’ve kind of catered the program. So it’s, it’s open to everyone still. But it really is working to move people who can’t move themselves as easily or don’t own cars, or don’t have access to vehicles, those kind of things, people will need to get to medical appointments, people will need to get to shopping, and need to do their shopping, and don’t have the ability to get to some of the shopping centers in our town. But the medical appointments is probably a big one.
Unknown Speaker 36:22
And door to door type service.
Unknown Speaker 36:25
Yeah, sorry. It’s a it’s actually a call the call the door through door service for people who are older and people with disabilities, but they’ll provide the curb to curb service for other people who have have more ability to to be mobile.
Unknown Speaker 36:43
Okay, thank you. I also have a question about the 21st 21st Avenue, you say it’s over built in places what? Specifically, where do you think it’s over built?
Unknown Speaker 36:56
Well, I’m just I guess I’m just basing that on volumes. And we’ve, you know, we really kind of shoehorn four lanes of four lanes of, of roadway into that. And, you know, when you drive it, it’s pretty, pretty tight on one side to the curb. And on the other side, you’re pretty tight to the curb, and there’s not much wiggle room for the cars. And in our, in our kind of research for that of that facility, we’ve seen it kind of the traffic grew and grew and grew in the 70s. And then kind of plateaued off later, probably in the early 90s, middle 90s. And so we saw a plateau effect. And we said well, that those number of vehicles don’t really justify a four lane road, all day every day. And so there might be some times we did the same thing on on Francis Street, where we had a four lane facility up there. And it just wasn’t being used to the full extent of the four the four lanes. And so we changed it to center, turn lane, one travel lane in each direction, and then bike lanes. And so we’re trying to take that same model. And we really, I think the only we got one call that said maybe Tyler remembers more of the history. But we had one call that said, great job. He did a great job. And I think we had one other call that just said what are these bike lanes doing? Here are some something to that effect. But nobody ever complained about. Oh my gosh, there’s so much more traffic we can’t get through. You know, you really messed up the road. Nobody really noticed and thought most everything was better than it was worse. So yeah, I feel I think we’ve had a handful of success successes on the streets of that similar type of conversion, I think of Sunset between pike road, and Kansas. Our next step would be taking that up through Ken Pratt. But that’s one section where we definitely had a four lane road. There was some concern about taking capacity away. But with the time we did that, I think by and large, it’s been a success. I’ve not heard any. I had maybe a handful of complaints right out of the out of the gate when we first did the change, but it’s been relatively successful. And maybe once last year, we did Ninth Avenue, more or less between over and Kaufman’s another section is similar treatment on portions of and I think by and large it’s been a relatively successful project. So that’s kind of the when we talk about repurposing capacity on 21st Avenue that’s really what we’re looking to do. And we don’t do this without you know, a lot of research and a lot of thought we don’t we don’t do this in kind of a haphazard manner. We made sure that we were really checking these different roadways out first, and really checking to see where the if they have the capacity and what time of day, do they get busy and those kind of things so it’s just it’s we’re kind of on a tight rope a little bit here, but we we think we’ve done a pretty good job so far to identify those roads. That was it was called is it It’s called a roadway, road diet, or complete streets. So completely, if you look up any of those terms on the internet, you’ll see that there’s a lot of desire these days to take that extra capacity not just have cars going much faster than the speed limit on with the excess capacity. But we’ve kind of ratchet down the capacity just enough so the cars can make it through. But they’re not going high speed. And we’ve really noticed that on Ninth Avenue, quite frankly, lately is the places where we’ve, where we took out a lane in each direction, the traffic moves much more commonly, I guess. And people like the ideas that they can bicycle and walk next to this roadway that used to be fairly, fairly high speed, I mean, you can set your speed limits or whatever you want, people will basically go the speed that they think is appropriate, you know, just in their mind, they feel comfortable. So they go that they go speed, they go faster maybe than they should. And we just don’t have the people to enforce. So big long explanation. But that’s what we’re looking at, for the city.
Unknown Speaker 41:04
And so you’re talking about the area between West of Maine on 21st, as it goes to hoever, that’s all for Lane in there. And you’re looking at that will actually reduce speed on those areas. But if you go east of Maine on 21st, it’s mostly two lane one each way, and pass the railroad tracks that widens a bit. So there is room for a bike lane and parking. But I hear a lot of complaints there about parking on 21st. Because the traffic moves swiftly. And there’s it’s close. And so people worry about their mirrors, I guess there have been a lot of clippings along there. And there are homes that face 21st That that’s the only parking they have in front of their home. So I’m just I’m just curious if that’s going to be a problem. And I know it’s more commercial west of Maine, but I’m just wondering if that’s gonna be a problem for the people that live on, say, the south side of 21st. There.
Unknown Speaker 42:03
Yeah, about five years ago, we did what’s called the enhanced multi use corridor plan. It’s not a great name, I don’t like it, but we shorten it down to em up, because that’s what we do in transportation. Right, we have an acronym for everything. So the enhanced multi use corridor plan took a look at 21st Avenue for the whole stretch. And so we have a planning document that kind of starts to lead us was and this was obviously adopted by council. So it’s it’s part of the policy of the city. And this document leads us to improvements in that area that really helped pedestrians and bicyclists while trying to preserve as much parking as possible, but safely and not in a, you know, like you said, there’s some issues with some of that street. So the the piece east of Main Street on 21st Avenue, I would say is really is really about doing a higher level design work, we kind of know what we need to do, west of Maine. So that designs can be pretty quick, I would imagine and then we go out to the public and get public input on that. But the design efforts east of Maine are going to be a little bit more intense. And we’re really gonna have to do some more outreach to make sure when we’re impacting parking, we’re doing it in a in a prospective manner or respectful manner.
Unknown Speaker 43:16
Well, I can throw it out, there’s been some suggestion that we would take that bike lane and actually maybe put up. And I don’t know, it’s called maybe a little bit of an island where people park on the other side of a curb, if you will, just so there’s that gap between the, you know, the, the traffic that’s shooting by and the people that are parked, and then just last chance to click the cars that are there. And I don’t know if there’s enough space there, it seems like maybe there might be now enough space. And then if I can just impose a one more question, you were saying about four lanes on highway 66. And you wanted to add in room for bike paths and walk paths. And I wondered about the bike path if we would actually be on highway 66. Or it would be a separate path, separate submitted path like the pedestrian path.
Unknown Speaker 44:10
Right, the the vision at this point is that it would be one pass on each side. That would be wide enough to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians at the same time. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 44:24
And so what do you think about the 21st Avenue idea of putting some little barrier between the parking is there like a pull through parking situation?
Unknown Speaker 44:33
Well, that’s really why we go out for public outreach on these projects is sometimes for a consulting firm that we hire, you know, we have to go through that whole process of hiring consultants. And they’ll come up with basically three three options or four options. And we take those out to the public. Then we kind of see which one they can which one is most palatable, which one offers the best bang for its buck, we’ll say but also keeps People want to make sure that they are getting what they need from the system as well. We don’t want to take things away, especially parking is a big issue in the city, we realize that so what we’re trying to do is make sure we’re working with them to make sure they get what they need from the project. But we also get the safety that we need. Oh, as as city wide, you know, city wide safety basically, is what we’re going for. For bicycles, pedestrians and people driving cars.
Unknown Speaker 45:30
And okay, so west of Main Street, on the south side, there are homes there that just haven’t had parking in front of their homes, and they do have a challenge getting out on the 21st Do you think that will improve their availability out of their driveways? And then will they also have a little parking in front of their homes?
Unknown Speaker 45:47
Well, we’ve talked about how we could design this to be to work with them, I know they do have driveways to go into garages, so there’s a lot of driveways to contend with. And that section of 21st. So there is parking technically behind the behind the garage. But that’s not ideal, right? When you’re visiting. So then you have to back into 21st. What’s kind of nice about that, is that yeah, we could we could work with her, whoever is going to be doing our design on that project. To make sure in that section, we maybe provide a little bit of space for people to have a safe maneuver, and not impact the bicycles that are going to be there too. So but there is a really wide sidewalk on that side, too. So we’ve got a couple things in play, but it’s all going to be kind of fine tuning the design and making sure we’re making, not making that we’re keeping people happy. And making sure that our design doesn’t negatively impact people and their quality of life. So we’ll be we’ll be working through that.
Unknown Speaker 46:47
I know when I bicycle on that side of the street on 21st that I tend to use the sidewalk, it is wider as you say. And I feel that it’s easier for people backing to see the pedestrians and bicyclists on the sidewalk. Also, there isn’t room right currently in the street to bicycle. But I was wondering if you move the bicycle lane into the street, if it might be a little more dangerous for those who are backing out, you know, in terms of hitting a cyclist? So I’m glad you’re thinking about it. All right, thank you. I’ll pass the baton to whoever else has a question. Anyone else? David? Yes,
Unknown Speaker 47:25
Phil, is it accurate to say that this funding process is set up to reward cities and counties that can demonstrate that their VMT is increasing?
Unknown Speaker 47:42
We have we have argued that case, it makes us especially in from the Boulder County perspective where we’re trying to decrease the empty makes us pretty makes us a little wily and a little set when we have to compete against those who are getting rewarded. You’re exactly right for for increasing their vehicle miles of travel. And so we have had those conversations at Dr. cog. And this is kind of where we’re at because the the counties that really, you know, Boulder County and maybe Denver, maybe Broomfield county are the three kind of outliers. And the rest of the counties are really excited about getting more dollars for their vehicle miles traveled. But that being said, a lot of these dollars are contingent on how you control greenhouse gases, how you accelerate or increase people on alternative modes and active modes. So a lot of the dollars, especially in this first and second call are really what’s called multimodal dollars. And so you’re gonna have to come up with some really good multimodal projects to get that money. So it’ll be interesting to see, it kind of forces those other counties who have a bigger plot of money to look at their alternative mode plans, and really make sure they’re getting dollars for those facilities. Now, three and four will be a little bit more traditional, calls three and four will be a little bit more traditional, where they come out of more of the highway dollars, but they’re still gonna have to prove that they don’t increase greenhouse gases, which again, VMT is a great measure of if you have more VMT you typically have more greenhouse gas production. So it’s gonna be an interesting little game that’s gonna get played here as far as the politics involved.
Unknown Speaker 49:33
Yes, what occurred to me is that a lot of the projects for long month that you’ve presented to us as this evening by encouraging walking and bicycling and possibly even transit shuttle riding, they have real potential to reduce VMT so if if they’re implemented, it seems like unless the process has changed, it would hurt Longmont chances in the future of getting additional dollars for projects like that.
Unknown Speaker 50:05
Right. And again, we’re following the policy of our city council is to lower the greenhouse gases and really work on these alternative modes of electric. We’re working on electrification of, of, you know, having Evie chargers, electric vehicle chargers, and more public parking lots. And so a lot of different things going into that. But first and foremost, on my mind is how do we make alternative modes modes more attractive to people, so they don’t need to drive everywhere, in Longmont, or outside alone?
Unknown Speaker 50:38
Is there any indication that the tip criteria will be changed to encourage VMT? Reduction?
Unknown Speaker 50:49
Not in the near term, but possibly in the longer term? Yes. Councilmember Juniper um,
Unknown Speaker 51:04
as you all were speaking, and I know, you’re trying, I mean, I’m new to this. So you all know that. But um, this all sounds like an equity issue to me. You know, and you know, Boulder County is talking about trying to be more equitable, and in every aspect of every division, every department, our transportation, it, we need to make sure we have our safety is equitable, we need to make sure, I mean, everything that you’re talking about are equity issues, from our seniors who have to walk across the street, and from Why didn’t our bikers and walkers? I mean, that’s a safety issue. So I mean, why can we and maybe you all have already brought it up. But I would definitely think that it makes sense to talk about the equity part of transportation or lower income areas, safety issues for people who do who are lowering the, the footprint, right. And so, I mean, we talked about sustainability. And so I think we could maybe have some type of equity thing with it. And maybe that way it can trigger and people say, Oh, look at Longmont, they’re looking at it from an equitable lens. So I don’t know, when you were just going through all of these calls, or this calls or projects, I just really believe all of this is about equity, and even the highway 66, west of man, all of that to me. And people running across the street. I mean, who wants to walk with a stroller, if you’re taking your kids to, you know, all the way down to the light weight, you know, what I’m saying all of those things, and that’s a safety issue as well, too. I don’t know, maybe there’s the thing that the long like I have, and I just for me, everything that you talked about was equity. So
Unknown Speaker 53:06
just I appreciate you recognizing that because that is kind of what sits behind all of these projects is we look to it through we say equity equity lens, but we really are trying to broaden out where the projects go and not be as you know, before, maybe downtown got a lot of different different grants. And it was pretty easy to get those grants for downtown. Well, now we’re trying to go with this one, we’re really trying to get kind of north and south of downtown and east and west of downtown and try to you know, put those resources where they’re needed. And not not just where project looks good or, or you know, we can do different kinds of projects, we’re trying to do projects that again, we’re always using that equity equity lens to be able to see and it’s been a big piece that’s on our on our on our mind when we look at these projects is making sure we’re thinking about equity when we’re looking at the projects and we are reminded of that at every level. So I appreciate that. Yeah
Unknown Speaker 54:18
in also with via you know, when I think about you all collaborating and partnering with via that’s very good. And I mean, we we are growing, we are about to we’re going to grow is inevitable. So how can we continue on thank Me Myself, I think about the UC Health, the hospital, there’s no transportation that COVID out there. And those workers are essential workers. So are we We’re going to use via like the hop from Boulder. I mean, until we can get something I mean, we need to start thinking ahead of The game because we know that that side of campus or when 19 is about to blow up. And so we know that how are we going to be prepared? What modes of transportation? Are we going to have to prepare us for that? We have to start thinking about that now. And I know we got these small projects, and they’re really small, big, equitable projects. But then here we are, again, we expecting this influx of people to move here. We’re building all these apartments, okay. And then we don’t want them to drive. That doesn’t make any sense. They can’t hop on a bus. There are no bike lanes on 119. You know what I’m saying? So we, I mean, I know we have the trail. So I just want us to be thinking about that as well. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 55:47
I wanted to add to and thank councilmember Yarborough when she mentioned something and I just want to put it on the record, Longmont lacks public transportation opportunities for shift workers is a huge problem. And via can’t get people to work on regular, reliable basis. They can get you to a doctor’s appointment once a week or something. But if you need to go every day, and even go later at night, so you’re working the one to nine or something. We don’t have it. That’s something huge that is missing from the transportation aspect in long line. Thanks. Diane.
Unknown Speaker 56:30
Thank you, Councilmember Yarborough, I want to piggyback on that, because I agree with you that safety has a lot to do with your economic standing. I don’t know if you all knew Lawrence Shafer, who was on the transportation board in Colorado Springs. He was he was a good member of that board because he worked in a parking garage, he was a pedestrian or bicyclist, he did not have a vehicle. He was very instrumental and sort of enlightening how the bus service was working down there. And I don’t know if you all are aware, but he was killed in a pedestrian automobile accident around Christmas. And he was crossing to go get breakfast early in the morning, and was hit by a motorist. Probably the sun was maybe behind him. And, and it was a young driver, and it kind of ruined both lives there. He was killed. And, and, and she was devastated. You know. So when we create these solutions, were solving a problem of transportation for people who don’t have other choices, as councilmember Yarborough mentioned, and also, we’re protecting the motorist as well, because it can be devastating for them, you know, to be involved in a fatal accident. So, so thank you, Phil, for all your work with all this consideration on these projects. And I agree that we need to be pretty careful how we implement them. And I do see that on Weld County Road that’s highlighted also as one of your projects. And that’s, that is a direction that people from the north end of town get down to UC Health. But But councilmember Yarborough is correct. Now on 119 How did they get to it from you know, coming from central part of town in Longmont. So
Unknown Speaker 58:28
I just wanted to let you know that I just put in a chat, excuse me, um, a connection to argies latest endeavor to figure out what we want as different communities within RTD for the bus system. And this is kind of a shorter term. Look, it’s like a five year plan. And you’ll see there’s a bus that’s planned for, basically, from downtown to the UC Health, and the Walmart, and, and the other businesses and households down there. But it’s, it was one of those things we identified when Walmart first kind of came out of the ground is you’re gonna have a lot of people who need to work here. RTD started thinking about this, well, they started thinking about it, then we saw UC Health come to our door, you know, come to us with their proposal, and we said, okay, RTD here’s some more people that are going to be out in this location, you need to start providing bus service. And unfortunately, it doesn’t happen overnight with RTD. It doesn’t happen overnight with the city, quite frankly. But talking about bureaucracies, I’m sure we could compare and contrast bureaucracies. But it’s been really tough with them. And I would encourage you this is a really clunky site. But I encourage you to go to this site and make comments about where things could be improved. What kind of things we need to really get transit in the city to work because we don’t have a we, we put resources into the right free bus system and I’ve talked to this group a number of times about We’ll probably talk again about it in the near future, especially with RTD coming next month. So RTD will be coming next month to give their annual kind of, you know, annual report on kind of the state of the bus system in Longmont, Colorado. And so I really hope you can all make it. And I hope you have lots of great questions for RTD, about, you know, their services in our city. But the first thing, they’re gonna come back to you as we don’t have money, right? So you’re going to hear about resources, you’re going to hear all these things, we need to be creative in the way we kind of work our way around those comments. Because it’s always gonna be a money issue with RTD. And with the city, quite frankly. But with RTD, it’s, it’s why can’t you provide more? Or what could the city do? You know, to maybe change the way we allocate resources for the ride free program. If they were to come up with a more equitable fare box system that works for everybody? Could we then shift our resources that we’re paying to buy up that fare box? Could they move those? And could we move that into like, we’ll pay you for more service, then along this along this major route, where we see a lot of people taking the bus. And we think that if we increase the service levels, more people will be attracted to that bus as well. And kind of work in partnership. We’ve been trying that for a number of years. And you can kind of see where that’s where that’s gotten us all. But I think we’re all saying the same thing. So I’ll stop.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:37
Any other questions of Phil? Yes, time.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:45
Now, what is the name of the site where you would like us to put our questions in,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:51
I put it in the chat, there’s a little link in the chat. And if that doesn’t work for you, I can send the link out to everybody. It’s through the sewer group called FAQ, which is an engineering group that’s doing the consultant work for RTD. But it’s basically a mapping program where you kind of have to take your comment and plop it on the map and then put your comment in there. It’s a little like I said, it’s very clunky. It’s not as user friendly as we had hoped it would be. We didn’t really get to design it. But we’ve been kind of reacting to RTDs. You know, here, here’s this way of commenting. So we’ve made a number of comments. The the, the comment period was supposed to end, February 9, we got them to extend it to march 9. So please, send people there some people out there if you know, folks who’d want to have comments about the bus system in Longmont, it would be great to really fill up along a portion of the map with lots of little dots that say, here’s where an improvement could be made. Here’s something you’re doing well, RTD or something where you’re not. So I mean, we can give them good, good and bad. Feedback, I guess, or feedback that’s both positive and negative.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:06
Would you please send that in to us that
Unknown Speaker 1:03:08
Yeah. Okay. I will. Great.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:10
Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, Phil, I guess you get to talk to us about the transportation.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:27
Well, we’re gonna try something new. This has not been tried with this group before. So this is kind of my fault. And Tyler and Jim and Ben can give me a hard time for how this turns out that I really think and other other cities have been doing this is with these bills that are released by the legislature, you know, that kind of go out. I think it’s important for the gap to maybe look at these, especially when they have such a huge impact to the city. Some of them are just off funding, and maybe you don’t really care too much about those, maybe you do and maybe we should bring the funding ones, maybe we should bring everything that’s transportation related. Back to the scoop. I don’t know if we’d have time through the legislative session, which usually goes through what July or June. So but there is one out there that a lot of us have comments on and I just wanted to kind of let you know it’s more of one of the more controversial bills this year and it’s really about statewide regulation of controlled intersections. So what it’s about is because back to a rule that’s called the Idaho stop wall. And it really talks more about the idea that you can go up to a stop sign as a bicyclist and right now you’re supposed to come to a complete stop, put your foot down to show that you’ve stopped and then you can go on your way regardless of where the stop sign is and the first thing on my mind is you know California stop with cars, you know, cars kind of roll through right and don’t really come to a complete stop and stop upside. So this is kind of the same idea, but for making it legal for bicyclists to do the same, there’s a lot of stipulation to it. And I think I sent a link, but I’m not sure if everybody was able to download the rules. But the basic idea the rule is, as you approach a stop sign, and in our minds, this is a little fast, you know, it says, After slowing to a reasonable speed of 15 miles per hour or less, can be 10 miles can be 20 miles per hour, depending on what the jurisdiction decides, which, in my mind, 20 Miles is not 20 miles per hour is not less than 15 miles per hour, so I’m not sure if the wording there. But anyway, after slowing to reasonable speed of 50 miles per hour. And yielding the right of way to any traffic or pedestrian in approaching intersection. Continue through the intersection intersection without stopping. And there’s a very similar rule for stoplights as well for signals. When approaching illuminated red traffic control signal, the person must first stop at the intersection yield to all other traffic and pedestrians. And then when safe to do so may proceed straight, or make a right turn through the intersection, which I think it’s legal. Anyway, if you stop, you can turn it you can usually turn right on red. But you can’t make a left turn, which makes sense as well, we want you to hold and wait for the green light to turn left. But it’s giving permission for people to go straight through a red signal. And in the stop controlled intersections, if it’s safe to do so if there’s nobody coming in either direction. And I think what this is trying to address as many times with the old magnetic loop zoom systems that were in the inside a roadway and Tyler knows 1000 times more than I do about this but the loop, there’s loops within the roadway roadway, which are magnetic loops and your car triggers them pretty easily. And says okay, there’s a corner waiting here. Now the other signals can go for a while, but they need to turn red at some point, let me go through as the car might have a hard time triggering these things, because you really have to hit a certain point on those loops. If you’re in between if you’re in the middle of a loop. I mean, think of the loop is about, you know, eight feet wide or eight foot in diameter. If you’re a bicyclist in the middle of that none of that is catching the metal on your bicycle. And there’s not very much metal on a bicycle. But what Tyler has done really well in this city and other cities have done this as well as started to incorporate camera technology rather than using the loops. He just kind of infrared cameras and if you ever want to know more about it, Tyler’s your man, but they, they can see that the car is sitting there, they can see if a bicycle Assist is in the, you know, in the area that they’ve defined for triggering the signal. So we only have a few loop systems left in town. And so we’re really thinking that, you know, cameras are really working well to to make sure that a bicyclist is seeing how the pedestrian still has to do their thing at the signal where they have to push the button. And it’s kind of called the big button at this point where you have to beg for for the signal to change for you. And you have to push that button. And that’s unfortunate. Tyler’s also worked at downtown and in other places around was there’s lots of pedestrians up north, and typically on Main Street, where
Unknown Speaker 1:08:24
you don’t have to push the button to get the walk signal, you’ll get a walk signal regardless. So that’s been really nice in some of these more higher pedestrian areas. And they’re starting to work on technology that can kind of figure out if the pedestrian standing on the corner. It doesn’t really say which way they’re going to go. So that’s the hard part of that one. Pedestrian stolen these to signal where they’re gonna go. But we wanted to put this rule in front of you this this proposed bill, and get you to just maybe tell us, is this something that you want to see? Do you feel like this is the right way to move forward? Or do you feel like this law might be a little, you know, has some other issues with it, we just kind of wanted to get your sense, and maybe in future ones. If you think this is a good idea, we’ll come back and get your action item to give counsel, some idea of what where this board stands on some of these items in the future.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:19
Steve? Yes. So
Unknown Speaker 1:09:22
I kind of know this, this area a little bit better from Idaho stop. personal friend of mine was an attorney in Idaho that actually helped pass this this law. But I guess the problem with it as a whole, as it’s kind of done is is that the perception from the motor side is just it’s always been very kind of a hot button kind of issue, if you will. And I believe and I could be wrong. There’s a couple other states that tried to pass it and they weren’t successful. And I can’t remember what the states are. So in other words, I think Colorado might be wading into one of those hot button issues in general and so the assumption of what it’s there for. And studies have been done and Tyler feel you may have those that actually show it’s, it’s actually safer than when you have it the other way. Right. And so that’s the big thing. So when we talk about safety, you know, and that’s really should be the main reason why we have stopped signs and stoplights and what have you. The Idaho stop, as it’s called, is generally actually safer for for almost all cyclists in all situations. Yeah, you’ll have some knuckleheads, but we have knuckleheads driving cars, too, right. So the point is that this is actually a safety issue, and it gets perceived as something else, like entitlement and or, you know, unfair to the motorist, if you will, even though it’s done when usually, there’s no cars there. So yeah, just my, my, my two cents on that, if I may chair, offer just a little bit more information. And then are Jesus really the expert on this? So if we need we’ll have Ben chime in here and, and give you some background, but the rule is really right now. And this is kind of the feeling of the rule is that I think it was last legislative session or the one before where it was passed statewide that you could allow the, it’s called safety stop, it’s called Idaho stop. So you can allow the safety stop rule to apply as the cities wanted to to so now now in Colorado, you have a bunch of cities that have said, okay, it’s okay to do the Idaho stop, or the safety stop at some of our different stop signs in town, but one of the towns was Thornton. And if you know, Thornton at all, you know that it’s just surrounded by a bunch of other different jurisdictions. So people don’t know, really, I mean, only us, you know. Bureaucrats know where the actual edges of the cities usually are in those in those places, what, what road and all that. But most people just think I’m driving on the street, or I’m riding on the street on my bicycle. And I live in Thornton, and I’m going to, I don’t have to stop it all these stop signs, well, then you get into Westminster, which is right next door, don’t realize you’ve crossed the boundary. And you’re going through a sub site and you get you get pulled over. If that happens, but you get pulled over and you’ll say, Well, you weren’t following our laws. Well, okay, now the law is different in each city. And that’s really what we’re trying to avoid. Here’s some of that with this with this statewide law. But again, it gets into the perception of bicycle, it’s already kind of have a bad rap, as you mentioned. You know, bicyclists don’t like the perception that bicycles have some kind of, you know, they get to get some kind of benefit. Because they’re on a bike, they get to ride on bikes on sidewalks, and they get to ride on the street, they get to cross it weird places that don’t make sense to motorists. And so there’s already this perception that bicyclists are getting away with something. So that’s part of this as well. We’re trying to talk about
Unknown Speaker 1:13:04
council member Yarbrough.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:09
And if you bring this to council, I know what I will ask is, how are you going to communicate with the community members? That is key number one, like just to even thought about the thought about it? I mean, education, education, education, like, you have to let them know. Because what’s going to happen is a motorist may in a hidden someone or hurting someone, without Of course not with it, you know, not being intentional, but they will say, I didn’t know, I didn’t know nothing about, you know, the safety stuff. I didn’t know that that existed. So I mean, even if that we did want to do something like that, we have to educate the community about it first. I mean, you have people who, who still really don’t respect bikers, you know, cyclists out here. So whenever we try to do something like that, we have to make sure we provide education, and maybe show him the other cities where have you know, it has worked, and it’s very successful. The benefits for both the motorists and the cyclists if there aren’t any, because people like to feel like that they’re getting getting something out of it, too. And they’re benefiting as well, not just to cyclists. So I mean, that’s my two cents of it about it. I don’t have a problem with it. But I do think that it’s very important that we educate those motorists, before we even put something in place like that there are people that understand what the what does this mean moving forward, right.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:51
Just to be clear, the center staff is not promoting this as as change but this time around But we just wanted to get your feedback. As you know, is this a good long as it’s one of the benefits? What are the? What are the drawbacks? How do you? How do you react as a board to? If we were to say, take a position on this? What would the board position be? Again, this is just kind of a, we’re just kind of playing with this right now we’re not, it’s not an action item. But it could be if you guys wanted to make it a next item, we could do that at the next at the next one, if it’s not already gone through. That’s the problem with these things, too, is they’re very quick. This one’s taking a little bit longer, because it’s controversial, but they’re typically very quick through the, through the house in the Senate, the State Senate. So we just wanted to get this in front of you kind of get your feedback.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:50
David? Yes, I can see the advantage of doing this statewide if it’s going to be done. For the reasons that Phil explained, I have consistency for someone who unknowingly goes through municipal boundary. But I was surprised that the legislature, you used safety and reducing the number of collisions as the rationale for proposing this. Yeah, I think it clearly the benefit of this is to the energy expenditure, bicyclists really don’t want to lose momentum. So anytime they can slow down and proceed through an intersection, rather than come to a complete stop, especially if there’s a hill involved. That’s a big advantage to them. But I can see at least one situation where I think it it reduces safety at the intersection. So think about a four way stop with a cyclist and a motorist approaching at right angles to each other. And the motorist is to the right of the cyclist. So the motorist is accustomed to not stopping at stop signs to turn right. So just rolls on through makes the right turn, the cyclist is assuming that the motorist will stop at the stop sign, and therefore intends to go straight through without stopping. So it ends up with the motor vehicle pulling out in front of the cyclist. Wait, which could result in college.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:49
I just want to point out that that’s I’m sorry, but that’s not accurate. So the law states in an Idaho it was not. Cyclists can just blow through a stop sign. Even if there’s cars present, you have to slow down and stop. But there’s cars there. The idea is, is that if it’s an unintended intersection, with a stoplight, you have to stop completely. It’s not about momentum. For the cyclists, it’s actually safer for a cyclist not to have to stop than to stop. All cyclists consider that consider a child riding a bike stopping or somebody who, who who might have some sort of disability, whether it’s vision or otherwise. So the point is, is that going very slowly through an intersection, when it’s clear, is the whole intent of that law. It’s not about blowing through when there’s a car there. That’s that’s breaking the law. And so that’s, you know, if you read the original language that kind of was the precursor to this. And Phil’s right. It’s like the the municipalities kind of did it happenstance. And they want to make this a state law and try to make it I think, as digestible as possible. So everybody could sign off on it is what it sounds like to me. But it’s a safety issue. And Councilperson Yarborough is exactly right, that we’re not communicating the benefits of this particular thing is about safety. That’s the most important function of it. It’s not about the advantage of one person to get ahead of the other like, you know, slowing down cuz you don’t want to slow down. So I’m just saying that the law states that if you hit there, and you’re a cyclist and there’s a car there, you got to stop. You can’t just blow through the stop sign.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:31
I guess I’m thinking more about what happens out on the roads rather than what’s written on the legislation
Unknown Speaker 1:19:36
will absolutely no, you’re absolutely right. And I think that’s where the education is key. Yes, Diane.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:49
I guess I’m not as clear. Steve as to why rolling through a stop is safer for a cyclist You can explain that to me further, I tend to agree more with David McKinney is that in my, in our last session I talked about if you look in the notes, it’s on page four, it talks about an incident that I had. And it’s almost exactly what David described, in that a motorist was coming southbound. I think it was on Gay Street from 21st. And there’s a stop sign there as you approach the northbound lanes and on 21st. And I was on the south side of 21st, heading west, okay. And I stopped and looked at him. And I knew he had another stop sign there before he entered the the south two lanes, okay. And I advanced into the road. And he didn’t stop very long at that stop sign. And he also did not look left and see me and he, if I had rolled through that even, you know, 15 miles an hour, not going full throttle thing, expecting him to stop again, I would have been squashed because I stopped just before the line. And he was shocked to see me there in the middle of the road. And there wasn’t anybody coming northbound. So I’ve got to say that when it comes to a pedestrian or bicyclist versus an automobile, automobile, the cyclist and the pedestrian is always at a disadvantage, because we don’t accelerate to the degree that other cars do. And 15 miles an hour, is just going to put you in a more precarious position. Even though and in that situation, I felt confident he was going to stop you did not so for my safety, I feel that the Idaho stop or the full stop is a safer alternative. But Steve, you could explain to me why why you think it’s safer to continue to roll through?
Unknown Speaker 1:21:51
Well, again, you don’t roll through occupied stop sign. So in effect number one, a pedestrian has a right away at all times at a crosswalk at a stop sign. So a pedestrian should have so the motorist is breaking the law now. I think David nailed it when he said that we know in practice out in the real world, motorists aren’t necessarily going to follow the laws of the rules. We know that from rolling red, red, rolling stop signs and what have you. But I do know I could dig it up. There have been some studies that have been done on this. Because Oklahoma and California, Idaho, there’s about I don’t know, then you might know how many states have passed this law. There’s been a numerous studies that have been done on it, talking about the safety factors, as well as the safety of damages to it. So I’m partly speaking from personal experience, as well as I know that there’s studies that are involved with that. But but in almost all cases of this law, when it’s an occupied intersection, meaning two vehicles, a bike and a car, you know, gets there at the same time, the cyclist doesn’t just blow through the sign they have to stop. They have to it’s about yielding as well. So again, I think it remains to be education that’s going to help maybe educate drivers as well as cyclists. Don’t get me wrong. Again, there’s knuckleheads out there that would blow through a stop sign. And they need to be also counseled on the law and what it really means. But I know I’m not completely answering your question. And I can dig up those studies and send them to the group if everybody wants to read them.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:28
Yeah, Steve, if, if this comes up before our board again, and you have the time, maybe you could point us towards some studies that actually show a causal link between the Idaho stop law and a reduction in bike vehicle collisions. I’ve read about a number of studies, safety studies that were done, after laws were passed, and they didn’t show any increase. But they didn’t prove that the reason for that was the passage of a law like the auto stop. Thank you, Diane
Unknown Speaker 1:24:11
Steena I’m still not sure why roll through is safer. And in in my particular example, the motorist was actually had a different he wasn’t up to the stop sign where I was, he was a stop sign behind. So he actually had to stop signs to go through and still beat me to that side of the road. And and I’m just feel, I’m not sure you know, and I’m a cyclist, and I understand that I like to keep momentum going too, and it gets harder and harder on some of those hills to get moving forward. However, I understand also when I’m cycling in town, that’s a lot different than cycling on open road or on a trail where there is an easy pass through for cyclists. So I think we should play the long game and do this right and create safe scenarios for everybody. Because even though the motorist would have been wrong in hitting me, I would have been dead. So I’d rather be alive than right. And also to address council member yarborough’s concerns. I think a lot of people that ride bicycles every day, do so because they cannot afford a car. And that puts them at particular risk for injury and life threatening injury especially.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:40
Thank you. Anyone else? Any more questions for Phil.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:48
Thank you so much for this feedback. It’s very appreciated, because it’s good to hear what other people are thinking about this beyond our city staff. So appreciate.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:57
And is this something that we think that staff should continue to bring up to us? House bills, Senate bills that may affect transportation? Are you interested in knowing that Phil? Yeah. Okay. Yes, please. So, please let us know any anyone has any comments if you think this is a good idea? Or
Unknown Speaker 1:26:22
we can try? We can take comments next month as well. Okay. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:28
Yeah, so give some thought to what?
Unknown Speaker 1:26:32
Yes, Steve? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:34
I just posted three things. So there’s a DePaul study. There’s a study done by Jason Max in Portland. I gotta say the fact that Arkansas, Oklahoma, Utah, Idaho have all passed this law out of Colorado is is actually kind of surprising to me. But they also cite that they were actually able to show a lower percentage of safety increase in lowering and injuries because of the passing the law, Idaho initially and then I think the Arkansas article cites the other studies as well. So just to give you a sampling of some of the stuff that’s already out there. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?
Unknown Speaker 1:27:21
Okay. Now it’s time for questions from I mean, comments from board members. Liz, would you like to begin?
Unknown Speaker 1:27:35
Thank you. I don’t have any comments. It’s been a great evening.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:40
Thank you, Liz, Steve.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:45
Yeah, it’s been great, Phil, great information on on all the projects that are coming up in front of Dr. cog. Interesting how they’re separating it. I agree with David in regards to hopefully VMT is not the only criteria that’s used. Multimodal equity, equality to access to transportation, I think is also key, hopefully, would be key factors that Dr. cog would take into account. So all in all, I think it’s been a very good night. Thank you, David.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:17
I would just thank staff for the interesting presentations. I’ve already asked my questions and made my comments. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 1:28:25
Dan. Well, thank you all for stimulating discussion. I agree that I would like to hear more about these bills as they’re, they’re coming forward. I agree with David about consistency in the laws helpful and share concern about safety. And thank you, Steve, for posting those up. Copy them. I’ll read them. And council member Yarborough for continually making us think of the equity situation as it applies to transportation, and fail. Thank you for your presentation and a better description of what VA is doing the niche niche that they provide, versus RTD. Yeah, it’s been a great session, I think.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:16
Thank you, Courtney. Yes, I
Unknown Speaker 1:29:21
think it’s been very informative. And I would definitely be interested in state laws that might change coming to the transportation board, how they might affect our local situation and whether we would have comments to counsel to make sure that it is applied well within the city is as long as sounds like something we have a choice about. So that would be interesting to keep up on as a transportation board. So thank you for all the information
Unknown Speaker 1:29:51
Yes, filler eyes. Well agree and I’m very interested in hearing about More of House bills or Senate bills that pertained to transportation. And I think that we’ve had really very thoughtful discussion. And I know that we probably could talk longer on how we view things. But people were very respectful of one another. And I appreciate all of that. And councilmember Yarborough I really appreciated you bring up the equity issue, as well as safety is paramount and everything that we do, and thank you. So now I’m going to ask you, Councilmember Yarborough? Or do you have any additional comments that you’d like to make this evening, I
Unknown Speaker 1:30:40
know, you all are wonderful staff is great. I’m so happy to be a part of this, this board, learning so much. And I just keep doing the good work. And I’m so excited for the future, because the creative people like you are on this board. Who would have thought the transportation will be so exciting. So
Unknown Speaker 1:31:09
thank you. Okay, is there any coming information, transportation related information that we need to know about filler, Tyler, that is happening between now and our next meeting.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:23
If anything comes up, we will certainly send it to you via email. We don’t have anything at this time. Pending, but things come up all the time. So we’ll let you know.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:35
Keep hitting something here.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:38
Thank you. So our next meeting is March the 14th. It’s a month from today and you have on the agenda that we’ll have our annual RTD update and appreciate the link that’s going to be coming to us to make some comments to RTD before we meet because it’s an interesting meeting with them from past years. So anyway, with that, is there anything else anybody needs to bring up? Tyler,
Unknown Speaker 1:32:09
I’ll share my information this this will be my last EAB meeting here. Unfortunately, like many others that have come before me they’re usually retiring but I’m leaving the city of one baht. So I’ll be I’ll miss a lot of Longmont for the for the time being and never say never. But it’s been a pleasure working with this board. And so you’ll be seeing Hartville here for the next few months. Sorry, guys. And then you’re in good hands.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:36
So may we ask where you’re headed? I’m going to be working for City
Unknown Speaker 1:32:41
of Fort Collins. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:44
Not far away.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:45
As the city traffic engineer for Fort Collins.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:47
Well, we wish you well. Yeah. Best of luck to your time.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:52
Thank you for your work.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:53
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. May I have a motion to adjourn? Anybody want to move?
Unknown Speaker 1:33:04
I move that we adjourn for the evening for our meeting.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:09
Second, second. The motion.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:10
Okay, everybody seconds. All right. We’re adjourned. We’ll see you next month. Thank you. See ya.