Video Description:
Transportation Advisory Board – August 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 0:00
All right. Welcome everybody to the transportation advisory board for the city of Longmont on August this is a call to order we’ll go to roll call Taylor Wicklund? Is Osborn I’m here Patrick Unterberger. President David McInerney, President Steve laner. President next item on the agenda is our 2022 election of officers for Chair and Vice Chair. I’m gonna let Phil Greenwald handle the nominations and counting.
Unknown Speaker 2:58
hurdles, sometimes people disconnect that stuff. Again, Phil Greenwald, transportation planning manager with the city of Longmont. Just wanted to let you know, we do need to do election of officers tonight. And so we are looking for nominations for chair and vice chair. So if you’d like to we can start with nominations for chair. Is there anybody who’s interested and would put their name in the hat or would select someone else?
Unknown Speaker 3:28
In recognition of his admirable work as Vice Chair, I nominate Steve laner to become Chair of long months transportation advisory board.
Unknown Speaker 3:42
Are there any other folks
Unknown Speaker 3:43
that would I just wanted to second that nomination?
Unknown Speaker 3:47
Sounds good. Thank you. there any other nominations as the as his time is still open? With that, we’ll close the nominations and go to a let with only one person out there. So all in favor of Steve being the chair Steve Wagner. To unanimous that we thank you very much. We will take any nominations for vice chair at this point. Anybody wants to throw their name in the ring for that one?
Unknown Speaker 4:30
Yeah, I would like to have a close. I’d like to nominate Councilperson Osborn for Vice Chair.
Unknown Speaker 4:44
I guess at this point, we’d like to see if you accept the nomination. Okay. Anyone else?
Unknown Speaker 4:56
I would accept the nomination.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Wonderful anyone else? With that will close nominations and accept a motion for Liz Osborne to be vice chair of the TTB. A motion a second would be great.
Unknown Speaker 5:19
Also submit that motion that is I was born be elected vice chair of the board
Unknown Speaker 5:33
I’ll second that motion.
Unknown Speaker 5:38
All in favor. And I’m taking Steve spot because he’s officially chair as well. So Sorry, Steve.
Unknown Speaker 5:44
That’s fine. Everybody voted as in the affirmative. So congratulations, Vice Chair.
Unknown Speaker 5:57
Okay, with that done, we’ll move on to the approval of minutes of the preceding meetings of both June and July. Can I get a motion to approve? Or I should first ask, are there any questions or comments about the prior meetings, minutes.
Unknown Speaker 6:16
And stuff, we just want to make the comment that even though if you were not at the meeting, you can still vote in the affirmative to approve the minutes. You just can’t make any amendments to the minutes. So just to be clear on that, because we have a little issue last time. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 6:30
No, thank you for the clarification. So any, any comment on the minutes?
Unknown Speaker 6:41
I have a few editorial comments on July. And it’s the first would be on page four. The third bullet item, sidewalk rehab. And under that the fourth open bullet should read right of way three words rather than right away two words. on page six, the fourth bullet item cost strategies. Beneath that the second open bullet spell bus with just one s. And finally on page nine, second paragraph in the last line. The last line should contain the word youth y o u t h naught u y o u. And that’s it for my comments.
Unknown Speaker 7:48
Thank you, Councilmember McInerney. Any other comments or? Anybody else? Okay, can I get a motion to approve the minutes from both the June and July meetings?
Unknown Speaker 8:05
I move that we approve the minutes for both the June and July meetings.
Unknown Speaker 8:10
And can I get a second? A second?
Unknown Speaker 8:14
Great. All those in favor? Raise your hand. Perfect. Okay, we will move on to communications from staff. Phil, I’ll hand it over to you.
Unknown Speaker 8:31
Well, first of all, I just wanted to let you all know that. We received Joe Long’s resignation this afternoon. He has a number of personal issues going on right now. So he has officially resigned from the board. Effective immediately. So we forwarded that on to the city clerk and we’ll wait to hear what she has to say about the future of that position and when we need to fill it. So as you know, we just went through the process not long ago. We have two new members. And that happened in July or that started in July. So we were interested to see what the next process is going to be and we’ll let you know how that goes. Second, just wanted to have Caroline Michael come up. She’s one of our civil engineers and have her explain or just give you a little update on the traffic mitigation program, as there’s a number of things happening this summer on that.
Unknown Speaker 9:30
Hello, I just wanted to give you an update on where we are on the traffic mitigation program because I know the board has expressed interest before. We currently have an ongoing project on Gay Street from Mountain View to 17th. I’m the most recent meeting we had on that is I met with some folks in person in the 1300 block which is north of Mountain View about a proposed speed table On your some of their properties kind of gave them the opportunity to voice their you know, gain a about that. So see if we need to move it if we need to which it looks like we might want to do end up doing that. So the next part in that process will be to the our process calls for a second public meeting where we present the final proposal, and then it goes to a neighborhood vote. Other than that project, and we have received a few more like applications, like the summer for future projects, and I don’t have the full list in front of me, but that includes Bowen Street, third to ninth, Missouri Avenue. Renaissance drive, Maxwell Avenue. Redmond drive east Fifth Avenue. And I think I’m forgetting the last one. But um, those are still in the data collection phase. So we haven’t made like any calls about whether or not we’re going to move forward with those to like physical mitigation or even if we can, or how many we might be able to manage because it does become a constraint with time and budget. So that was all I had.
Unknown Speaker 11:21
Thank you very much. Next will have been Artis come up and just talk a little bit about the zero fare for better air in August campaign that’s going on. Thanks, Ben.
Unknown Speaker 11:31
Certainly, thank you fell when it was better to use transportation planner. So as many of you may know, the months of June through August are Colorado’s high ozone season. And so in anticipation of that the Colorado legislature passed Senate Bill 22 Dash 180, which is for programs to reduce ozone through increased transit. So SB 22 Dash 188 earmarks approximately $58 million and with the intention of providing 30 days of new or expanded transit services throughout the entire state of Colorado, for those transit agencies that are interested in applying. So RTD are our local transit provider they are implementing the zero fare for better err program, and their intention is to incentivize transit ridership. And with that all transit services throughout the RTD district, including local bus, express regional Skyride services, as well as light rail, light rail service, they will all be free to all riders throughout the entire month of August. And, and so RTD is not the only one participating, I did look at the list of transit providers that have taken advantage of this application. And there are many all over the state. And that concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer those if I can.
Unknown Speaker 13:15
Any questions for Ben? Looks like we have one.
Unknown Speaker 13:22
Yes, thanks for the presentation, Ben Longmont already provides free RTD service within the city, I guess by paying a lump sum to RTD. Is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 13:36
Yes, that’s correct. The city bought up the farebox revenue for the local services. And those are those you can tell which ones they are they’re that 323-320-4326 and 327 as well as the flex ride service. accessorized services. Is it still okay, access I stand corrected the access rights service
Unknown Speaker 14:05
does zero fare for better air mean that Longmont will get a rebate of 112 of that money?
Unknown Speaker 14:11
It’s all answer that real quick. We will we will not it wasn’t in our original intergovernmental agreement that we’d get that those money monies back but we are going to negotiate for our next our next IGA negotiation will likely include that some in there as well and I should just correct the flex ride will be free under this program as well as the and that’s this Colin ride service that RTD provides. The excess ride was always free. People don’t really know about that. But that’s always been free. The local bus is also a part of that buy up that we have and actually Boulder County that’s sitting behind me tonight is integral in the pilot of that project. So without them we probably couldn’t have got it started but it did get the ball rolling. But also the bolts and then the LD three that goes to Den while it goes to Broomfield is also free
Unknown Speaker 15:00
A great thank you
Unknown Speaker 15:02
may add one more thing so the city of Longmont will be rebated 112 of what we paid for eco passes for the city employees for the next eco pass purchase.
Unknown Speaker 15:19
I had a quick question how are we getting the information out of zero fare to the ridership? public in general? Is it through just regular print media online stuff? Or is there a concerted effort to get that information?
Unknown Speaker 15:37
Yeah, all of the above. I mean, there have been a number of stories in the print media as well as online. RTD has made a concerted effort to reach out to all their partners. We have internally promoted the program amongst the city staff, as well as public information office has engaged in outreach to to all the city using their various venues. Great,
Unknown Speaker 16:02
thank you. Really briefly, I wanted to just chat a little bit about Carolyn and I have been working on what’s called the airport road project where we’re working with Boulder County and the Colorado Department of Transportation to realign the section of airport road that’s between the two sections of diagonals. If you think about the Longmont bound, northbound diagonal, or it’s technically northbound, but it’s more east bound. And then the southbound or westbound diagonal to Boulder, there’s a section of airport road that has two directions right now. It’s it’s bi directional today. In order to keep that operating safely and efficiently in the future with bus rapid transit, we need to change it. So it’s all one way northbound, and no southbound direction of travel on that. So we want to make sure we get that out to the public that you know about it. We’re trying to get it out to the public as well with Boulder County and see dots help to get that information out to the people that use that the most it’s kind of an interesting way of traveling. Because if you’re going south on Airport Road to then go north on the diagonal, it’s it’s almost like a U turn, but people are doing it. And people do need to access Ogallala Road, which is this the county road that’s across the highway there and that is a dirt road but to whatever ends the says it really does save us a lot of money in the project and saves us probably more crashes. It’s a safer situation not have a signal on that northbound leg at northbound airport. So just a couple of things. And if you want any more information about that, please let me know. And I’ll send that out to you. And we’ve got a lot more information on the traffic that’s going to be impacted and those kinds of things. But we wanted to get that out in front of you sooner than later. So just to let you know that that’s happening. So any questions on that stretch? Or do you? Would you like to see the full report, I can send that out to you tomorrow morning as well, if you’d like the bigger report, if anybody’s interested in kind of how many cars are affected, it’s I’d like to see it. It’s about 400 to 500 vehicles per day. If you consider there’s 10 To 10 to 15 times more than that traveling on the diagonal, but it gives you an idea of order of magnitude. That’s not a lot of trips per day, technically, but it is people impacted. So we’ll send that out tomorrow. Or tonight.
Unknown Speaker 18:33
Quick question. Somebody who’s used the dirt road on Alala to get over North 95th? Or is 95th part of the city of Longmont? In other words, I know that there’s a there is a small kind of community over there. And I would imagine they’re probably the ones who access that the most probably to get to, you know some of the things either off of airport and otherwise. So I didn’t know if you had any Yeah, I should
Unknown Speaker 19:01
mention I should mention that they’ll still be a right in right out for Ogallala road onto the diagonal. So people coming from Boulder will still be able to turn right and still access Oglala road and people from Oglala will still be able to turn right and go north into Longmont. So that won’t be affected, but the other other ways will be affected. But there are within a I think it’s within less than two miles each direction, there are opportunities to make u turns on the diagonal. 95th Street technically isn’t in the city of Longmont, it’s in Boulder County. This whole section of street that we’re talking about is actually in Boulder County as well, and it’s CDOT controlled except for the signal, which is the city of Longmont signal, which is so it’s an interesting, cross jurisdictional thing that I don’t think anybody knows about but we just maintain it correct. Sorry. We do not own it, we maintain it. Thanks, Jim. So that’s kind of it for that one. And I will send out that information to tip later tonight. And I just wanted to finally do one last transportation. Oh, did you want to say, oh, wanted to say one more thing about Transportation Improvement Program. We’ve been talking about this almost every month now with this group. Just wanted to let you know that we did get approvals from the southwest weld, sub regional forum for our project on County Line Road from 17th, North to 66. I probably should have told Tom, that because he’s the project manager. But we did get. We did get formal approvals from that from that board. But we don’t have we don’t have formal approvals from the Dr. cog board yet. So once we get those approvals, then it’ll be official, I’ll tell Tom about it. So So Thanks for your time on those if you have any questions about the tip, updates to I’ll be happy to take those but otherwise, we’ve got a full program for you tonight. Three items on the agenda that will take a little bit of time. But any questions so far?
Unknown Speaker 20:52
Yeah, we were going to, I think number six is we’re going to do we do have somebody from the public here to speak, and then we’ll jump into the the information items, if that’s okay. So Steve Nicks is here to speak.
Unknown Speaker 21:10
Thanks. My name is Scott.
Unknown Speaker 21:12
I’m sorry. That’s okay.
Unknown Speaker 21:14
So I’d have to say it was 30 years ago, right now, I was a TA B member. So I live at 10694. County Road one. So I’m on the east side of town. I’ve always lived on the east side of town. So we’ve, back in the day, we had issues with all kinds of different transportation things fact, I was on the group that came up with sales tax. And I’m so saddened by how it’s morphed into something totally different than what we ever expected, you know, as well, it became permanent and, and that was just nothing that the group and by envisioned, so I had a lot to say, I don’t know how much time I got, but I don’t know why I picked this meeting to come to you. So much more efficient than meeting upstairs in a conference room. You know, when we used to do it of course, we didn’t have City Council membership and, and it was always pretty, pretty low key, but we’d have some people from the public show up and it’s amazing how how they got their stuff done by showing up to meeting so I thought set it just call it into people I know at the city I chill up and and try to voice my concerns this this, see if they’re even on the radar. My wife, she jumped at me because there was no painting at the Eco center for parking. And I don’t know who you talk to, to, to get them to paint parking spaces. But everybody parks crazy when they’re going to the Eco cycle. So so I thought I better bring that up. Maybe that’ll help. The The other thing is out. I think what fired me up was the painting on Third Avenue going eastbound. So I actually talk to all in the city engineer that’s in charge of the project. And basically 80% of the people all go east. But the way they’ve got it stripe now, they stripe it to go into that subdivision. So if you’re in the right lane, and you don’t get in the left lane quick enough, you ended up getting shut off and getting over. So I talked to many people that end up going into that subdivision accidentally, because they can’t get over and get in that left lane to make the double turn. So I just wanted to bring that up. The other thing was, is bypass the name of the name of these paths are bike paths, right? So why would they have a bike lane painted on the edge of the traveling? Because I would think that you would want to move the bikes off the travel lane onto the bike paths. We don’t have a lot of bicycle traffic on Third Avenue on the road itself, from my experience. And it just the striping is, is quite different than it’s been in the past. They give that three feet buffer, they painted it up and I think the old way was better. So one of the other things. I mean 35 years ago when we worked on the sales tax, one of the issues was overpasses over the railroad tracks out for us to live on the east side of town. We’re always waiting for trains. If you do anything on the west side. For people that don’t live on the east side of town. It’s really not an issue. And I think politically, you guys have so much power when it comes to persuading the public or elected officials. I didn’t realize that when I was when I was young, because I was I was just learning. But if I could go back in time, you would you would really use your position to Get these projects. In a sense, they’re more public generated than staff generated staffs got their own projects and and for whatever reason, you know, and sometimes it doesn’t line up with public but but I think overpasses on Third Avenue, you know on Main Street. Some of those when the trains are traveling faster like 78 or 66, you’re not sitting there waiting as long. But when they’re doing the switching and some of those other issues, it’s really a long wait. And I do know that
Unknown Speaker 25:39
trying to think of the engineer Nic, Nic was always working on trying to get a Switching Yard north of town. But you know, if we, we talked about it, but we never see anything happen. So it’s actually I mean, it’s been 10 years and talk, probably, you know, so patient says I’m getting closer to that old age. It’s it’s like, the stuff takes forever anyway. But so. And then the other thing is, Longmont is probably the only community that doesn’t have four lanes going on 52 and 66. And of course, everybody pushes it off to another jurisdiction. But I think politically, I don’t know. Everybody’s been repairing bike paths and doing other modes of transportation, whether it be RTD, or whatever, and they’ve just ignored the traveling public and the traveling public is what we deal with every day. So somehow, I am hoping that it’s on your guys’s radar. And if it’s not, if you can give it some thought, because it takes so much political will to to get the other counties and state involved. And I know it’s probably on the radar, but, but the radar is going to run out of batteries. So anyway. I think that was it, I have a lot of respect for you guys. I know it’s a monthly meeting and leave your families at home, my kids were little, you come to these meetings and you wonder what you’re actually actually accomplishing. But you really are making a difference. So I just hope that you get enough thank yous, you know, for your position, but, but I would say you guys get some of the things that they throw at you. In my sense, somebody else is telling them it’s not their idea, but but if you guys you guys are running the show, so So make it your priorities. And and I think they’ll gladly deal with those. So anyway, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 27:42
Thank you, Scott. We’ll move on to the information items, starting with the transportation operational budget review.
Unknown Speaker 27:56
Good evening, Chair leader and board members. I’m Jim Angstadt, director of engineering services. This evening, we wanted to provide you just some quick information regarding one of the components of our budget process. Tom St. in our era, today, we’ll be talking about the CIP capital improvement program budget for 2023 to 2027. Later, I just wanted to give you a quick overview of the operating budget, kind of you can think of in ways of, of the CIP is kind of what we do. The operating budget gives us the tools to actually do that kind of a general overall statement. But you’ll kind of see, hopefully, as this unfolds, and I’ll try to sell a few slides. Try not to hold up too much. I know there’s a lot more on the agenda. transportation funding, for the most part comes out of our three quarter cent sales tax to serve the street fund. We normally in a year to year basis, see about $22 million come into that fund. Mostly through our our street fund sale and sales and use tax. There’s a little state highway use tax, automobile tax and miscellaneous dollars. Usually miscellaneous is some developer driven dollars as well as maybe some grants. So that changes from year to year. For our operating budget in streets, in 2023, we’re looking at around a $13 million budget. I’ve broken it out kind of some major items administration engineering, operations, traffic signals, and the transportation system management program. There’s also a TSM item in CIP. So I don’t want to confuse you with that when Tom speaks about it later on Oh, this is basically the the dollars we use to to make things kind of go. So what are the budget items, usually you’ll see salaries, insurance, office supplies, safety, expenses, uniforms, training and conferences, equipment, repair items, leases and rentals, telephones, materials and supplies, which is very critical, and particularly in our operations group for items like snow removal. And then we also a portion of our budget goes into the fleet budget, because they are responsible for purchasing vehicles and then maintaining our vehicles as well. And General Administration, there’s an item we have in our budget. That’s usually mostly salaries for the come out of the street fund for other employees whose help and assist street fund it’s usually at the director level. We see the who is now the wanna say the acting, or interim Deputy City Manager used to be the public works director, he is thought of that is his budget, salaries, there’s some goes to communications and there’s some parcels and land management we also helped to fund engineering. This is kind of I don’t think it’s the brains of the outfit, but fill me question that statement, transportation engineering, our survey and tech team construction inspection, we have a team of inspectors who serve for our CIP, as well as some of our development projects, street improvement, and street rehab. Those are all coming out of the that help serve the engineering team for our work. And then operations. These are the guys who are actually boots on the ground, who do a lot of the field work, street and alley maintenance, street cleaning, snow and ice removal. A large chunk of that is the materials they need to actually when they are out. Prior to storms and during storms. We do some concrete repair and then siding and pavement marking. There’s quite a number of signs in the city, we have a program that goes through and looks for reflectivity in accordance with standards. We replace signs signs get knocked over, as well as every year we do in conjunction with some of some of our CDOT roads in funding from CDOT. We do refresher haul a lot of the pavement markings in town.
Unknown Speaker 32:34
Another item that falls under engineering, it’s kind of between engineering and operations is our traffic signals. We have three staff members that serve that. We also have a lot of contracted services. We contract with a vendor who is who provides a lot of our maintenance. With oversight from our staff, equipments a big number, we get a lot of every couple of months one of our signal cabinets gets knocked over. We keep basically we keep to spare cabinets year round so that with ones are knocked over and damage we can replace it almost immediately without loss of service. utilities, supplies fleet and repair and maintenance or other items that we we include transportation system management, this is one it’s a little bit different in our operating because it has a large chunk of it is professional and contracted services. Salaries are noted there most of those dollars are for our crossing guards. We have a crossing guard program in conjunction with the school district that we have crossing guards at a number of crossings throughout the city during the school year. They work like an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. And then our supplies I noted that because that’s what is assisting some of our bike programs. We buy some bike racks each year, as well as our bike or Bike to Work program and printing of bike maps. Ben hadn’t mentioned earlier eco paths. For every city employee we provide an eco pass that runs at about $70,000. As indicated we will see a rebate for the month of August dues and subscriptions. For some outside vendors we have as well as and then going into our professional and contracted services. This is where our transit dollars are. We spend $250,000 to Viet help support their program. Special Event traffic control is for events in town. We cover those for help with LDA on their events when we close Main Street or there’s a parade. The flex bus coming out of Fort Collins is 138,000 a year. And then our free ride which is our TD and the accessorize runs over 500,000 A year So this is just some of the dollars we wanted to provide show you kind of were another aspect of kind of what the city does with our tax dollars. With that, I’ll open it up and any questions?
Unknown Speaker 35:27
Jim, what’s the source or the sources of the operational budget? Where’s the money come
Unknown Speaker 35:33
from? That comes from the back to the first. It goes, it comes into the out of the street Fund, which is funded through the three quarter cent sales tax about 14 million, we get some state highway use tax dollars, about 2.8 million. Some automobile tax, and then some miscellaneous dollars, miscellaneous dollars changes year to year depending on on whether we get grants. That’s where we’ll see grant some of that dollars from this year is I think we got an H CIP grant Highway Safety Improvement Program grants and then some CDOT stuff.
Unknown Speaker 36:13
Thank you. I was wondering, the new Colorado delivery fee? Will that change this funding next year? Where’s that money going into the 27 cents for every delivery? That is such an accounting nightmare?
Unknown Speaker 36:34
Feel says we’ll see some of it. I hope so. I we this is I laid this out from 2022. We have not in our 2023 budget have programmed that in at all yet. So when we get more information on that we can provide you an update. Thank you. So you want to tackle it?
Unknown Speaker 36:57
I did the presentation. I was wondering, I have two questions. How does the 22 point 1 million compare with last year’s budget? And then? Secondly, since since a lot of this comes from the three quarter cent sales tax, how does that coincide with the revenue projections for the year and? And is it going up by the same amounts and stuff like that. So when
Unknown Speaker 37:24
we we program our budget, what we usually look at is is a three to 5% increase in revenues. As there’s growth in the city, the three quarter cent sales tax hasn’t changed from when it was originally initiated. I think in the mid 80s, I want to say, well, we’ve seen an increase steady increase of that as population grows as we add commercial entities, you’ll see that those taxes go up so we fat they factor that in, and then we track it. So this is a projected budget. This numbers are actually what we saw in 2022, those numbers would have changed, as we saw those revenues come in. And I think Jim Goldin, finance director sends out a monthly report that notes the the budget and the revenues that have been coming in. So we track that usually where our three or 5% that we know is usually well below what we see. So there’s, we’re we’re we’re not at a loss later in the year. And I get both questions.
Unknown Speaker 38:24
Do you recall about where last year’s budget was? Are we are we in the 10%? Where inflation is? Or? Where do you think we are so
Unknown Speaker 38:32
far operating? We we really haven’t seen you don’t really get it except for supplies get hit with a lot of the inflation, the inflation we see is is sort of in our CIP, when material costs going through the roof. But in the operating budget, it hasn’t impacted nearly enough. And then we always put in a little bit of factor of safety in some of our budgets. So for this year, we usually see about 20 to 22 million coming in, in the in revenues. And then, as I indicated of late we’ve, I think last year, we had about a $12 million operating budget next year is going to be 13. So that’s what we’re seeing some of those increases. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 39:22
I mean, there are no more questions, we’ll move on to Lloyd County’s just 37 yards at phase one, and support of recommendation. So they’re going to do their presentation on the BRT project and have a question for you for your support at the end. So with that, I’ll turn it over to Kathleen Brockie who is the director of and I was Forget it
Unknown Speaker 39:52
Oh, thanks fellas helping us get set up for those wanna say hello Oh, and thank you for having us tonight. Kathleen Brockie. I’m the Deputy Director for boulder County’s community planning and permitting department and lead our transportation planning team. And with me tonight is Jeff Butz, our transportation planner from Boulder County and he’s the project manager for our US 287 Corridor planning. I want to say a great shout out to Phil for all of the work that we get to do together with the city of Longmont in Boulder County. None of the projects we work on together would be possible without these partnerships and all the work that we do side by side working on all of these different projects and a while this evening, we’re here to talk specifically about the corridor planning for us 287 We work together on all of the different corridors and safety and bicycle and pedestrian and transit and the list goes on and on. So I just am very, very thankful for the work and the partnership with Boulder County in the city of Longmont and working with Phil so thank you. And I think that’s a good example of you know how we got here with the US 287 Corridor planning process. This project came about through the Northwest Area mobility study that we are communities all worked on together over the years and it’s really been a planning partnership with Boulder County city of Longmont, Erie, Lafayette, Broomfield, RTD, and the Colorado Department of Transportation and computing solutions. We do a lot of work together with our local agency partners as well as commuting solutions, our Transportation Management Association for this area. But what’s also unique about the US 287 process is that we partnered with the communities to the north when we look at City of Loveland and city of Fort Collins. And there’s many reasons for that. But really, it comes down to how people travel, people just need to get where they need to go. They don’t think about what geographic boundary they’re crossing, or what jurisdiction or what county they’re in, for that matter. They just want to get where they need to go. And so this multi agency partnership was really an example of that of trying to focus on where where do our customers need to go? And how do we work together across our agencies to figure that out. So it’s been a lot of great work together. And we can go the next slide, Jeff. Great. So do you want to take over from here if you want me to, I can give a little bit more background on this. But again, I think many of us know what we’re facing on 287, the traffic congestion, the safety concerns, and we’re and our air quality issues. And we know we’re facing a growing region, we have more and more people traveling along to 87 for more types and purposes. It was interesting in Boulder County, we just updated our transportation plan back in 2020. And the highest growing area of trips between Boulder County, it it was Larimer and weld counties. So yes, there’s a lots of trips that are continuing between Boulder County and the Denver Metro area, the growth area for us is in this area. So I think what that Q I’m going to turn it over to Jeff to take it from here.
Unknown Speaker 43:05
Great. Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you members of the transportation Advisory Board, for having us here. Thank you, Phil, for your continued partnership and great ideas. And he has a keen eye when it comes to this and a keen. He’s always looking out for the community here. So we’ll take Phil building off what Kathleen said, this area is not only growing, but it is expected to grow faster than the entire region at 75% versus about 50%. And so with that, we look at the slides here and we can see that the population is along to 87. And when we look at the US 287 transit route, people aren’t getting there by car fewer than 20% of people are getting there by car. Most people are getting there by transferring from another bus or they’re walking or bicycling to as Kathleen mentioned, this comes from the Northwest Area mobility study, which was another large study done back in 2015 RTD led the charge them and it created a network of routes that you can see on the map that really helped people get to and from everywhere that they want to go. And after that there’s been a lot of planning that has happened including a couple of plans here in Longmont the downtown plan and then the main street plan. So we’ve we looked at those and we took those into account. And now we’re moving into the bus rapid transit plan. And so talk about first off really what our What was our objective and what we were trying to achieve. And so, as Kathleen mentioned, and as we all know, people travel beyond jurisdictions and that is certain important feature of this region. And so we looked at connecting services with transit from Fort Collins into Denver. And then we had a core area, we were looking at transportation, the transit, and then also capital investments in the roadway between Colorado 66 in North Longmont and then 36. At Broomfield. We had a lot of community engagement, including coming to the transportation advisory board a while ago, probably have some new fact I know we have some new members now. I spoke with some of them back then. And we also talked with technical staff, members of public elected officials. And we heard a lot of themes come from the public and from the technical side of things, and the elected officials, which you could see here, a lot of it beyond transit, there was safety, there was connectivity, bicycles came up. And so there was a lot more than just the transit on this quarter that people were talking about. And so focus right now on the transit and what we did. First thing that we did was we looked at the stations and est we develop the stations area toolkit on that’s applicable elsewhere. And it includes four different areas and includes intersections around the stations themselves, it includes multimodal connections such as like bicycling, bike, parking, long term bike parking, the stations themselves, making them comfortable. Some enclosure signage, where you wait, there’s a whole lot of ideas in this. And then finally building up to placemaking and transit oriented development, which is, which I’ll build to. And this map shows the recommendations, it could be a little bit confusing. It’s sort of like a subway map, the the North is on the left. And so that’s where Fort Collins is at. And there’s real feet. The real thing I want to highlight here is that there’s a long route from Fort Collins into Denver, which is long or which is really an express route with limited stops. And then there’s the core BRT between North Longmont and Broomfield 36 station. And then there is the shorter one between Lafayette and Broomfield, there’s the hospital there. And so there’s excess demand. And these layer on top of each other to get you’re looking at about 1510 minute intervals is what we’re
Unknown Speaker 47:37
looking at for this area. And then we looked at different capital investment. So we had an idea of what the routes are. This is where the demand is after the rascal What about the Capitol? First thing was do nothing at all. Next thing we could do is operational improvements and do nothing but operational modifications. And then after that, we look at the stations and look at the intersections. And then finally bus or the bus and turning lanes or bat lanes, business access in transit. This is not these were modeled scenarios, it’s not necessarily an implementation plan. So Longmont may want to go with bat lanes prior to doing intersections, or these were the model. And sort of walk you through the data here we looked at the morning, we looked at the night, we looked at the northbound and southbound directions here. And then we found the baseline travel time for the bus. And then we found that we could significantly reduce the travel time by optimizing the the operations of the route itself. And then once we get into capital investments, we see that we are able to reduce the travel time even more and more. And with that, we see increased ridership. For the operations side of things we’re looking at just under 4000 is what was modeled to give you an idea of scale that’s just under triple what there is right now. And then we as soon as we get up into capital investments, the bus starts going even faster and it becomes more competitive form of transit transportation for people to use, and so we see more people using it. Looking at the different routes within here. That blue again is the long route from Fort Collins Denver. Read in the middle is the core BRT between Longmont and Bloomfield, and then you could see the Lafayette to Broomfield portion at the bottom there. The largest section of ridership is really coming from that express service into Denver that drives a lot of the ridership, which I’m sure you’re all aware of. That’s a lot of people going there. Looking at the costs hear it when we do the operational costs, that’s changes, there’s no capital expenditures. And so that’s operations and maintenance only. And then we get into scenario one, which again was stations and intersection improvements. And we’re looking around 180 to 200 million in $21.20 $21. And then scenario three, where we do the stations, the intersections, and then include the bus and turning lanes, that lanes, we’re looking to 15 to 230 is the estimate there. An important thing to call out here, this is the operations that I put below here. And the reason I put it below here is because it shows that as we make one time investments in capital, it reduces the ongoing operations means we have to have fewer buses, fewer drivers, fewer fewer hours of service paid out. Looking at the next steps, as I mentioned at the top, we are continuing to move along we’re going to be opportunistic, looking at multiple different opportunities to implement this. So there could be some going in in Longmont some going in and Boulder County, some in different areas, as opposed to rebuilding the whole Highway at once. So be a phased approach and try to meet multiple objectives. So we met up top safety that came up huge and bicycling came up huge businesses consistently talked about so much so that it’s led to a phase two that we didn’t know was going to happen when we started. What’s now phase one, the BRT feasibility study and phase two is vision, zero safety and multimodal mobility. So how do we reduce crashes looking from on us to 87 from
Unknown Speaker 51:55
the county line, to us, 36 we’re gonna have funding partners, of course, Longmont is part of it. So thank you city of Longwood for your continued partnership. The emphasis, of course, will be on safety for people. And whether they’re driving, walking, bicycling, getting to from the stations, and then we’ll be following a federal planning process. That way we get ourselves set up for those federal dollars. And the recommendations from this study will feed into that next study. And so we’re looking for overlapping projects where we can find some win win. So that’s the overview that we have, if you want to go to the website, it’s boco.org/ 287. Planning, if you want to stay up to date boco.org/ 287 News. And with that, open it up for discussion. And Phil, I believe you said this, it was an action item where we’re asking for support to continue on this process for towards federal funding for Yeah, he wrote it.
Unknown Speaker 53:05
Yeah, the recommendation, the staff recommendation is listed in your packet. And it’s listed as provide general support to the 27 BRT phase one plan and support the continuing planning work needed to bring federal dollars to this corridor.
Unknown Speaker 53:23
And so I’m happy to take any questions.
Unknown Speaker 53:30
I have a couple, um, kind of a question on the BRT. And how we’re going to be able to decrease I should say, increased safety with the traveling public, not really being familiar with BRT kind of protocols and methodology with the buses, is there going to be a fairly long term, let’s say education plan for the commuters, because you’re still gonna have obviously cars on this corridor. And as we all know, some of them are going to speed up and do other things to try to get in front of a bus when even a bus has a dedicated lane and or these these bad lanes. So I was just curious if you guys have done either any modeling on that? Or is it been past studies on this to kind of talk about the safety value on that?
Unknown Speaker 54:26
Thank you for the question on travel behavior, I believe, and how do we educate the public? And this is exactly why we’re here is to hear from you and to listen from you. And that was that will be an important part when we get into implementation. And that will be something that I think everybody will need to work on together. And individually. So that’s, that’s really important point that you bring up. Thank you for bringing that up.
Unknown Speaker 54:51
And then the last other question that I had was in regards to I saw the termination down in Broomfield and obviously points along So we’ve been talking about last mile providers as it relates to Ghen. Coming from let’s say you’re you’re at a station, let’s say, in Longmont and you either electronic scooter electronic bike, we feel we are. And David, we’ve talked about the having Uber drop off those sorts of things. Is that also something that’s part of this plan?
Unknown Speaker 55:25
Again, great question. And you’re thinking along the lines of where we are and the questions that came up as we moved along. And the one thing that we did in this plan was we developed that stationary toolkit that looked at this safety between getting to and from the stations themselves and the intersections because the intersections is where it’s really important for predictability. As far as the rest of your question, we’re moving that into the phase two study. And so that’s going to really highlight safety for all users. And that’s going to highlight as well, those connections into the stations and into different areas where people may go and cluding bikeway connections and trails are mentioned earlier. So those are things that came out of this study. We’ve learned that we need to look at more, let’s what we’ve heard from from multiple people. So thank you for your question. Chair, thank you Chair, or ex chair, hurry to chair now.
Unknown Speaker 56:36
Any other questions from the board? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that
Unknown Speaker 56:59
there’s an extra item. There’s actually I’m Phil. Oh, if the board would so entertain the staff recommendation to again that’s to provide general support to us 37 BRT, phase one plan and support the continuing planning work needed to bring federal dollars to this corridor so you can or you don’t have
Unknown Speaker 57:22
to but we should ask for a motion I suppose. And a second
Unknown Speaker 57:37
I move that we provide support for continued study on this
Unknown Speaker 57:49
I will second that motion.
Unknown Speaker 57:54
Great. All those in favor? Raise your hand. Okay, we’ll move to comments from board members. We’ll start down. Oh, I’m sorry. I jumped ahead. I apologize. Oh, the CIP.
Unknown Speaker 58:39
Chairperson Lainer, members of TA B. My name is Tom street and I work within the Public Works and Natural Resources Department and tonight I’m here with Arielle Rita. And we’re here to present the city’s proposed 2023 to 2027. CIP as it relates to transportation projects. As far as tonight’s format, we’re going to start off with some background information on the city’s CIP process. We’ll move into presentation are the projects and then at the end of tonight’s presentation, we’re going to be asking ta B for recommendation, there’s going to be two options option one would be recommendation of the CIP as presented by staff. Option two would be recommendation of the CIP as presented by staff, but with revisions as recommended by the tip. As far as the city’s CIP process, first and foremost, our CIP is a planning document. It identifies the city’s capital infrastructure needs over the next five years. A capital project can be different types. We could have a new project, we could have a project that replaces existing infrastructure, and we can have a project that modifies existing facilities. Our CIP identifies met and unmet needs and that projects are grouped as funded, partially funded or unfunded. And it’s important to note that our CIP is a dynamic document. It changes each year in response to change in city wide priorities changing funding levels. One other item to note is that even though our CIP is a five year planning document, the expenditures to budget is only approved one year at a time. So when City Council meets this October to approve budgets to approve our CIP budget, only the 2023 expenditures will be approved at that point. Staff uses a variety of information to determine which projects go into the CIP at the highest level is envision Longmont. This document has dedicated sections you know for transit needs roadway improvements pedestrian bike needs. At the next level, staff will use a variety of master plans and studies such as the 2014 long mountain roadway plan. This plan identifies the various arterial and intersection needs throughout Longmont. We also use asset management plans on a regular basis. We have a five year pavement management plan that identifies pavement rehabilitation and pavement preservation needs for the next five years. We also have detailed bridge inspection reports we receive every two years, and these reports help guide our improvements needed for our bridge bridges within town. And of course, funding is always a constraint when selecting projects. As Jim mentioned, we have our most critical funding source in the city is our three quarter cent street fund sales and use tax. And we have two funds in Longmont that are dedicated to transportation needs. We have our street fund and TCF our transportation Community Investment fee. The street fund was originally set up in 1986, and it was set up to maintain and improve Longmont street system. At that time, it required Renewal by the voters every five years, and through the years it had been extended six times until 2019 When this tax was extended permanently. Our TCF transportation Community Investment fee. This is a fee that per Municipal Code can only be used on arterial Street and intersection improvements. And this fee is levied on new construction and these fees are collected when building permits are issued. But again, when it comes to the most critical revenue funding source for transportation in Longmont, it’s a three quarter cent street fund sales and use tax.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:05
In 2023, we have a variety of projects, we have asset management projects, we got projects that will improve our intersections. We have roadway capacity projects. We have bridge improvement projects, we have many different types of multimodal projects, we got projects that will improve our sidewalk systems, our multi use paths, we got projects that will improve our bicycle infrastructure. We also have projects that will construct pedestrian underpass improvements. As far as the total appropriation needed in 2023 for these projects from the street fund is coming in at about 21 point 6 million. And tonight staff will be presenting information on these projects. Our first project we want to talk about is TRP 001, our pavement management program. Each year within this program, there are five, six, maybe seven different projects. This is a city wide Asset Management Project program. It’s a program where we contract all out all of the construction needs all of the construction services, and projects can range from concrete repair concrete rehabilitation to pavement preservation needs, such as crack sealing and Chip sealing. And to the lower right, we have some of our goals for this program. We want to optimize city resources in a fashion that meets our needs and the lowest long term cost. We want to make data driven decisions. We use automated data collection methods to collect our pavement data. We use pavement management software to help guide the selection of pavement projects within this program. And one of the most important goals for staff is to build credibility as good stewards of public public resource system. Asset Management truly is a cornerstone responsibility for staff we have over 355 centerline miles of roadway in Longmont and the lion’s share of maintenance and rehabilitation for our entire street system. Our entire transportation system is completed within this program.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:31
TRP 11 our transportation system management program again, this is another Yearly Program. And within this program we design and construct a variety of improvements. We have improvements that will improve safety we have multimodal improvements, we we may install traffic signals with this program alternative mode projects, intersection projects, projects that would improve high accident location so a lot of different type of work and projects is completed within this within this program. In 2023, we plan to move forward with our Sunset Street and state highway 119 project this project has two primary components we have an intersection component, and we also have a road diet that will be implemented on Sunset Street from Kansas Avenue up to Nelson road. Also in 2023 We have to alternate mode projects on County Line Road first project on County Line Road will be from 17th Avenue up to state highway 66. We plan on widening County Line Road to accommodate on street bike lanes in each direction. And currently we expect will be in the design process for this project for all of 2023 are a second project on County Line Road will be a similar project. It’ll make improvements to County Line Road from Slate and drive to the st Vrain Creek to accommodate on street bike lanes in each direction. And we expect this project will go to construction in 2023. grp 92. Our Boston Avenue connection project is a project as located at Boston Avenue and price road. This project will provide a new East West arterial connection within the city. This project will not only improve connectivity for vehicles it will also improve connectivity for peds and bikes. This project will support BRT as Boston Avenue is a preferred route that will provide connectivity to the future transit station at First Avenue and Main Street. Probably the most critical aspect of this project is the coordination that is needed with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. In order for this project to move towards construction, we need to have approval from the Colorado PUC. For the proposed a new at grade crossing with the with the railroad tracks. Current status is we’re in the design process. In 2023. We expect to wrap up the design process and acquire all needed right away which would clear this project to go to construction assuming we have PUC approval in 2024.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:33
One of the goals of Envision Longmont is is the need to identify missing sidewalk segments throughout the city and to fill those gaps. tarp is one of our projects that will help fulfill that goal. This project will design and construct gaps in our sidewalk system. But also this project will rehabilitate and reconstruct existing sidewalks throughout Longmont in 2023, our focus is going to be on their relatively large 17th Avenue sidewalk reconstruction effort. This project will replace the deteriorating asphalt sidewalk along the north side of 17th Avenue from court to near Lincoln Street. Currently, this project, the design has been completed. We’ve made significant progress on the acquisition of right away needed for this project. And in 2023, we expect to go to construction. At this point, unless there’s questions I’m going to hand it over to Arielle Rita
Unknown Speaker 1:09:50
Thank you, Tom. I’m Arielle Rizzuto, I’m a civil engineer that works in Tom’s group. So Moving right along we have TRP 122 hoever street improvements. This project came straight from the top priority list cited in the Longmont roadway plan, which was delivered in 2014. The chief goal of this project is to expand vehicular capacity of Overstreet. That would be from Ken Pratt Boulevard, up to Boston Avenue, through road widening and adding both travel and designated turning lanes wherever possible. I’ll note that this is a corridor that contains two of the highest crash rate locations for signalized intersections, which is why it was prioritized so heavily in the planning document. In addition to easing traffic, part of the design is also expanding bicycle, pedestrian and public transit facilities along this corridor, while making safer those that are already existing through slight modification. So over the last few years, the entire corridor has been under design. In one single design effort however, construction is to be divided into three different phases, and constructed as funding becomes available within the city. So as prioritize with staff consensus phase two, which is the Nelson road and hoever Street intersection, pictured in this rather busy figure that I’ve included, but here you can kind of see where we’re planning to add travel lanes, turning lanes and increased ADA accessibility and pedestrian facilities. This project was broken out into a new CIP project which is listed in your in your handout TRP 124. Right now we are undergoing right of way acquisition and negotiations with Boulder County. We are planning to take that 90% design effort through the finish line and then we are hoping to construct this phase in 2025. grp 132 is our enhanced multi use corridor or E MCC plan the MCC plan which was finalized and delivered in 2018. Proposed designs for each of the selected e mux. At a higher planning level. Considerations for design included buffered bike lanes, detached sidewalks, and modifying roadway lanes to mitigate traffic wherever possible, depending on existing and projected traffic loading in these areas, to areas that were identified to most improve connectivity to key destinations such as parks, trails, schools, and the like. shook out as 21st Avenue and Mountain View Avenue. Both roads spanning from Francis street all the way to Main Street to the east. So design for 21st Avenue is slated to start next year and 2023 with construction in 25. Following that Mountain View Avenue design, which is there’s a slight error in my slide. Apologies is slated for 2025 with a construction goal tentatively in 26.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:35
The Main Street corridor plan which has been cited a couple times tonight. This plan similar to the MCC plan provided preliminary engineering a conceptual high level planning for a five mile stretch along Main Street from Highway 66 capping the North to plateau road capping the south that’s shown here on the left. The plans objective is to highlight transportation needs centered on safety, mobility, connectivity and and access. In general this meant throughout the entire quarter identifying optimal locations for median and mid block crossings, as well as sidewalk connections and bicycle infrastructure where possible. So North Main and midtown. The two northern areas highlighted in red are slated for further evaluation to help inform actual design efforts. Part of this design is a pedestrian underpass at 21st Avenue. That is on the docket for 2023. And along with that we’re hoping to incorporate a coordinated wayfinding effort as well as traffic signal modifications throughout those are also in the pipeline. And I will mention that the spirit of this effort is shared and connected by the previous project to your p 132. You earmark project providing this great separated crossing under Main Street at 21st Avenue and then also progressing the muck that will be on Mountain View to Main Street and through the intersection progressing to the east so this is an a new one tarp 138 P street retaining wall reconstruction. This project came to us by the patrons of the U Creek Golf Course and the golf course staff reported a failing wing wall adjacent to the underpass located on 70 Excuse me Pei street between 17th Avenue and Windermere circle. This is nearly identical to an underpass wing wall failure that we saw which was designed and reconstruction reconstructed in 2018. It is currently posing a safety hazard to the public. So we have already designed the reconstruction to this wall and we are hoping to construct it in 2023. Part of this design includes an underdrain system to avoid drainage loading behind the walls, layered reinforcement within the walls which is currently not present as shown in the picture and sidewalk improvements to the east side of Pei Street. While we’re there. In the interim, we had our our operation staff temporarily secure the wall so it is not currently posing a safety hazard. So rest assured. So yeah, 2023 we’re hoping to construct this one Springfield’s number two Greenway, this would be phase three, which is pictured in color above in the slide. This is the last leg of an over two and a half mile Greenway trail system, which will complete a north south connection starting at you Creek Golf Course, to Union reservoir, and then eventually under 119, connecting with the sandstone ranch nature area, eventually to connect with the St. Vrain Greenway trail phase 13, which is currently under design, much like phase two, which is now complete. Phase three incorporates drainage improvements and a pedestrian underpass under the Great Western Railroad. I’ll echo Tom’s words about coordination with the Public Utility Commission and the railroad to notoriously schedule busting entities. This project, the construction of this project will be contingent on negotiations and approval by these two entities. Specifically, the PUC design is well underway if everything goes smoothly, we are hoping to commence construction in spring of 2023 To finish off the spring Gulch number two Greenway project. Last but not least, we have pbf 192 operations and maintenance buildings site improvements. This project addresses the final phase of the city of Longmont public works campus master plan, which was produced back in 2023.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:33
You can see what was completed Part of this plan in gray and then what is proposed is shown in green in the triangular figure. These new installments will house equipment, personnel and materials that support significant Street and transportation operations and maintenance activities throughout the year. So for this reason, the transportation fund has a seat at that table, about 30% 35% Have a seat at that table for this budget for both design and construction. Phase four of this plan which is the last phase includes general paving, drainage improvements on the site, the construction of a drying bed, vehicle wash bay, material bunkers, storage, building and also vehicle and equipment storage building. So designed for this phase is anticipated in 2023, with construction tentatively in 2024. So that concludes our presentations on all of those CIP projects. I will open up the floor to any questions.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:50
Thank you that was really fascinating, and I enjoy thank you for all the work you did. The question I have was about TRP 137 The main street improvements especially Midtown in North, when we were looking at the information for the BRT plan from the previous presenters. They noticed that there’s a lot of changes that they’ll be doing to the turn lanes and some of the things we looked like Reid, just done recently. Is there coordination between both groups to make sure we’re not making changes now that have to be undone to do that, or vice versa?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:35
Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of coordination going on between the two efforts. I believe Phil would probably be able to expand upon the type and amount of coordination that is happening. But definitely the different groups involved with the different projects are talking on a regular basis.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:01
So I think it’s important to note I’m sorry. Remember, Osborne cheerleader. It’s important to note that the Main Street corridor plan is really doesn’t adjust a lot of the the areas between the curbs on Main Street, it focuses a lot on on other components of the transportation system trying to move trying to do some improvements, improve landscaping, improve bicycle and ped conductivity, to start driving some of the development. On that those areas of Main Street, what we’re tying it to mostly is we’re starting to see a lot more development or redevelopment along the corridor. So as part of the development review process, we are requiring developers to add improvements from the curb line to their building that is in accordance with the Main Street corridor plan. But as that BRT plan unfolds, we’ll be coordinating with them on and try not to, there shouldn’t be too many conflicting items that are that are going on within like the curb to curb area of the roadway.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:18
Well, I’ll just carry on to that, because the BRT plan really does not do much north of Ninth Avenue, in Longmont on 27th. For either the 119 or the 27th corridor, we are looking as at the intersection some signal, I mean improvements that would help with the bus operation. Also looking at some Bike Ped improvements, again, beyond the curb line, or outside that curb line, but still within our right of way. But they’re all working together with these different opportunities to move forward. As you’ll see the 21st Avenue underpass design. That’s one of the two projects that we brought forward to you. And it’s looking very promising as as receiving funding. So that will be incorporated with the planning piece. But then the engineers will take that over as the design piece and work it into that pieces as it moves from planning to implementation.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:17
Thank you what I would think I noticed that answered a lot. What I think I noticed that was concerning to me was the previous slide, previous group was showing us information. And in their packet, there was information that indicated some bus lanes, right there at 17th Avenue. And I don’t know how that’s going to work, especially with all the things that were just done to upgrade 17th Avenue.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:44
That’s a great point. And the idea would be that you could probably have the bus use the turn lane to carry through those intersections, but just at the intersection, so we could do a bus bypass piece. But that’s still very preliminary. In nature. We don’t have that designed. At this point, it is something that the county included in their planning process. We’re going to certainly try to implement as much as we can, but the reality is some of that may not show up and not be feasible.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:13
That addresses what I was thinking not be feasible. That intersection is a nasty intersection to begin with and trying to imagine a bus pass lane, I do the southbound left turn from Maine to 17th daily. And I can’t imagine a bus pass Lane happening there at all. And so I guess I’m just want to make sure that everybody is aware of what can and can’t be done without taking more land I think. Thank you
Unknown Speaker 1:24:49
i Thanks for the presentation. My question was about the pavement management program that TRP 001 And maybe I missed it during the presentation, but it is a large chunk of money the $8.2 million, I believe is is slated for this, can you just go over some of the major areas of the city that that $8.2 million is going to hit?
Unknown Speaker 1:25:16
It’s a city wide program. And again, the project selection is based on the pavement data we receive use of our pavement management software, along with staff judgment. At this point tonight, I don’t have the list of streets that are being proposed for 2023. But typically speaking, they’re spread throughout the city. And there’s typically a good balance between local Residential collector and arterial type roadways.
Unknown Speaker 1:25:55
My question is TRP 122. Overstreet. My last two questions. My main thing is wondering, are there going to be ped pedestrian underpasses plan to make that safer for separation? Or no? And then? And then secondly, I was wondering, because I feeling like adding widening three lanes just doesn’t follow. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the down Thompson paradox. You know, improvements in the road network will not reduce congestion if improvements make public transit, less convenient. So I’m just wondering if we’re going to try to improve congestion shouldn’t should we focus on just public transit network. That’s that’s my concern.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:56
I’ll take a shot at it. I appreciate that. The The idea with Hoover is really that that’s the primary corridor for our bus rapid transit from 119. So you saw a previous slide of Boston Avenue crossing the railroad tracks just north of the same frame, Greenway. closer to downtown, this is actually the segment to the west, we’re on Nelson, we have a BRT that comes up airport, north on airport, and east on Nelson, and in north at hoever, right here. And then we have the one nine team portion of the quarter that comes up 119, a separate bus route, becomes up 119 At overturns north on hoever. And then it uses Boston avenue to get across to the first and main station, the other bus will go kind of on the west side of town and then jog over on 17th and go north up to 66 on Main Street. So that one kind of serves the whole west side of town for bus rapid transit. It’ll be especially effective in low more commuting times. And then this other bus is meant to go down Boston and use that crossing. So the widening does actually enhance what’s happening with buses as well in this corridor, what may be a potential is that we could provide more bus only operation or bus operation for that third lane in each direction. But right now we’re just it’s been designed as a through movement for all vehicles, but it does help us.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:29
And my point is if we just make it easier for a car, then who’s going to take the bus rapid transit. Thank you for that.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:50
Thank you, Mr. Street and Mr. Trudeau for your presentation very informative. I’ll start off with a question for you, Mr. St. I was looking through the project sheets that were included in our packet. And some of them are more puzzling to me. For example, P B f 080, which is titled, municipal building boiler replacement. A sum of next year’s funding for boilers would come from a source identified as leet. So what is fleet? What does it have to do with?
Unknown Speaker 1:29:39
Good question. I think I think this question is really related to pbf 192 That Arielle spoke about. And it’s really related to our financial policies. And when we have a Building a facility that needs improvement that needs modifications, It’s up to that service that’s within that facility to pay their fair share. So my assumption on that particular CIP sheet, that fleet has skin in the game, and they need to pay their fair share. And the intent to be honest with you, it wasn’t really to, you know, point out fleet’s responsibility in that project, it was really meant to show the street funds responsibility for that facility for that project. A lot of times people ask, Well, why is the street fund paying for boilers? Why is the street fund paying for a new roof? And that’s the reason why.
Unknown Speaker 1:30:43
Okay, up in other projects, I won’t go into the details of the project numbers, so forth, I noticed that fleet funding and also street funding, which I assumed refers to the sales tax revenues, were also being appropriated for flooring replacements, and HVAC replacements and so forth in some of the buildings listed I, I was really hard pressed to make any connection to transportation.
Unknown Speaker 1:31:21
Yeah, you know, again, it goes back to those facilities that they have a street or transportation service housed out of that building or that facility. And the street fund needs to pay for that portion of those improvements. So, you know, it could be it could be replacing the carpet, it could be replacing a roof, it could be modifying that structure. So all of these projects are related. But we really wanted to have full disclosure and make sure it was apparent that street fund funding is going towards some of those efforts.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:00
And to the best of your knowledge, have revenues generated by the street improvements tax been appropriated for these projects that are seem to be tenuously related to transportation ever since the money started to be collected in probably 1987. Or is that something that’s happened more recently?
Unknown Speaker 1:32:27
To be honest with you, I can attest that it’s been this approach from day one from 1986. I can attest that over the last five or 10 years this has been consistent with city policy.
Unknown Speaker 1:32:43
Okay, thank you. I noticed that the project justification for the Kauffman street busway improvements indicates that center running bus lanes are the fastest, most efficient facility for buses are center running lanes proposed for Kaufmann.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:07
No, they are not what what happened was there was a revaluation of the whole corridor. That was the original scope of the project. That center running line center running lanes were considered the best for bus rapid transit. That was in more like corridors, like Colfax and Denver. Also along US 36 In between Boulder and Denver did not apply for Kauffman street. So it was considered the standard, the gold standard. But with Kaufman Street, we took a reevaluation of a two lane road with a center turning lane, and parking. It was a completely different type of facility. So it did warrant that we do the outside lanes, because there were stops along that outside lane, too. We weren’t gonna put stops in the middle and then try to have people across the street from there. So
Unknown Speaker 1:33:57
right, that was my recollection that the preferred alternative was side running. But I was puzzled to see that
Unknown Speaker 1:34:05
those those CIP projects once you get the scope in there for the very first one, regardless, it seems to just unless we go through and do a really, my my job is to edit those down better. And I didn’t I didn’t look at that one specifically, but that one was probably one that we could have. We could have changed but it does stay. You know, once you put it down, it stays that way throughout its history.
Unknown Speaker 1:34:31
Okay, thank you. I’m gonna move along to Nelson road and Hoeber. And this is kind of a follow up to the comment earlier about pedestrian underpasses so I’ll ask you Ms. To to explain to us how you believe that expanding an intersection to eight lanes enhances the pedestrian and experience
Unknown Speaker 1:35:06
I’ll say that I myself was not part of this design effort. I’m moving it along, as we had some staff move away from our group. So I’m going to phone a friend and turn it over to Tom.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:30
Difficult question. And you’re right. When you add Laneige, the you know, there’s always trade offs. But well, I what I will note on this project is that it has taken a balanced approach as far as trying to incorporate transit needs. On street bike lane needs vehicular needs. So we’re trying to promote, you know, the best balance for all modes of transportation. But to be honest with you, there is some trade off.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:01
Okay, so Pedestrians will be allowed to cross over at that intersection. Is that correct?
Unknown Speaker 1:36:06
That is correct. It’s a signalized intersection.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:09
So the be demand actuated pedestrian signals? Correct. So how much time do you have to allocate for a pedestrian to cross eight lanes?
Unknown Speaker 1:36:24
I’m looking all the way in the back to Caroline. How many feet per second? It’s a significant amount of time, obviously, going from two lanes to four lanes to six lanes to eight lane, it takes additional time and there is an impact on capacity at that point. Right. That
Unknown Speaker 1:36:45
was going to be my next question, would you? Would you disagree? If I said that having to put in a pedestrian crossing time for eight lanes, significantly reduces any capacity improvements that would otherwise entail four cycles that include a pedestrian in the intersection,
Unknown Speaker 1:37:10
there certainly will be an impact. But again, it’s going to be based on the actual demand for pedestrian movement across that intersection.
Unknown Speaker 1:37:19
So my question is,
Unknown Speaker 1:37:21
can I just add real quick sorry, we’ve also spent a significant significant amount of resources on a pedestrian underpass just south of this location. So we really are trying to work people to move closer to that bent way. It’s just south of bent way. That crossing as well. So that a lot of effort was put into that underpass a number of years ago to get that built to help alleviate some of these issues that you’re seeing at the intersection here at over Nelson. So I won’t say that there’s anything close, very close north of this, but we are planning a new signal north with the new development near home depot that will also facilitate pedestrians across this roadway. So we’ve got a couple opportunities, but I don’t think that’s the exact answer you’re looking for. But it does help with underpasses for over
Unknown Speaker 1:38:13
and you would use some kind of signing to try to direct people to the underpass.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:20
That’s part of the whole bus rapid transit program is to do a Wayfinding program to get people both to different transit stops and there is one just north of Nelson on over planned so a transit stop there would be would be critical and they’re not only that but to get people over in this case under Overstreet just south of this location and basically point people to the safest crossing point as well and the different different new facilities that we’ll have out here for bicycle and pedestrians we won’t have the on street on Hoover, obviously, that’s going to be mostly anything for bicycles and pedestrians will be beyond the curb, I should say are within the within that curb, curb use outside of the lanes of traffic, the on street pieces, the Nelson section so there is on street there. It is about getting all these different and we talked about this I think a little earlier about how do you get all these kind of Micromobility pieces and and in the last first and last mile pieces to the bus rapid transit corridor. So it’s it’s all a system along this whole corridor, and this is one aspect of it.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:36
Okay, thank you. That sounds like a good approach. And finally, I’ll turn to be our tea on Boston Avenue. Now Did I hear correctly that the extension of Austin Avenue will utilize ad grade railroad crossing?
Unknown Speaker 1:39:56
That is the current proposal.
Unknown Speaker 1:39:58
Okay, and my follow up Question is, isn’t it somewhat antithetical to put Bus Rapid Transit over an at grade railroad crossing, considering that roadway traffic always has to stop for a train?
Unknown Speaker 1:40:17
I will answer that one as well. Because I can feel the heat coming from these guys. There is a there is an issue. Obviously, there’s a couple of issues actually, by locating first in Maine where we did, we do have to cross the railroad twice. We do have South Pratt Parkway, the overpass, and Scotland will remember this one. Any issues with that? That overpass does provide the relief that we need. So we can have buses. It’s it’s a little longer way to go. But it is going Boston to price road if there’s a train block, blocking, and then use the South Platte Parkway overpass to get around that. But we we were pushed quite hard by the folks who are doing the marketing and redevelopment is to really put that station where we planned it and that southeast southwest corner first and main street. That type tucks us into that corner of being surrounded by railroad tracks. So you’re correct. And we’ve looked at the idea of how do you do underpasses for Main Street, under the railroad tracks and how you do underpasses for Austin underneath railroad tracks. And they’re both. They’re just so expensive. And they basically take away all the access for the businesses nearby because of the amount of space that you need. So we’ve, we’ve looked at those two years, I’d say that every five or so years, we get another request for Main Street underneath the railroad tracks and we look at it again, costed out and and figure out what the impacts are. But those are both tough intersections. And we’re going to have to live with kind of what’s happened with all this historical consequence for our for where we need to put these things. For redevelopment purposes, and for the bus purposes.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:07
Got it. Thank you. That’s all for me.
Unknown Speaker 1:42:13
I’ve got one question, but a comment. First off, thanks for all the information. Very comprehensive. Thank you. And thank you, board members for all the questions in the comments as well. hoever hover, I was just curious, as we’re talking about the widening. And with the redevelopment of twin Twin Peaks mall, I’ve noticed his a lot more pet traffic that goes across almost mid, you know, mid between Nelson and that way that overpass that’s pretty common. I know Littleton? They did that quite extensively to a remodeled shopping mall, they put out overpasses, I think it was Wodsworth and can’t remember the streets. So I’m just curious if there’s been other alternatives to alleviate some of the pet issues that would happen at the signalized intersections to be able to allow them the ability to get over to, you know, let’s say you want to get over to Whole Foods, right. But you parked over? I don’t know why whose fish tacos? Right. So I was just curious if that was anything that was even looked at in terms of a plan. I see some nodding.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:23
I think it goes back to Phil’s earlier comment as far as the Dry Creek pedestrian underpass that was designed and constructed several years ago. It’s just south of Bend way. And I think it provides a lot of the benefit in fulfills a lot of the need that you’re talking about with a possible overpass at that location.
Unknown Speaker 1:43:44
And I’ll just add that none of those things are in our current comprehensive or envisioned Longmont plan at this time. But certainly, as we come back to this group, we’ll want to talk about how we get those different items, those different projects into our plan. If those are things that we need to start looking at, and evaluating.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:02
Yeah, I mean, I appreciate what we’ve done with the underpass. However, how many folks that are shopping in either those spots, you know, on hoever know that there is a pedestrian underpass that south of that way. So I realized that some of this is, you know, the onus is on the city to communicate this and let folks know about that. But let’s face it, I mean, in the day to day, we know that not everybody’s going to see that or no that. So just a comment about that. Thank you. And I think we you gave us two options.
Unknown Speaker 1:44:41
That is correct. First option would be recommendation to the CIP as presented by staff. Option two would be recommendation of the CIP as presented by staff but with revisions as recommended by the board
Unknown Speaker 1:45:03
I guess I’m open to how would we tackle this? In regards to the second option? What revisions from the board? Does anybody see that they would want to? I guess, discuss further.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:25
So I think maybe what we should do then is get a motion to move to option one as an approval. Does that sound like it’s the right course.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:41
I move that we approve the CIP plan as presented by staff.
Unknown Speaker 1:45:51
I’ll second
Unknown Speaker 1:45:53
all those in favor? Raise your head. Okay, I think we’ve wrapped up the action items. And we have comments from the board members start down with the Vice Chairperson, pause for
Unknown Speaker 1:46:30
this one want to thank everyone that worked. So very hard to present information to us tonight, we value the time or I should say I value the time that you put in and, and it was it was very informative and explained a lot of things. I want to thank Mr. Nix for speaking, giving us some historical background on some things that I hadn’t realized. And I really appreciate the work that he has done in the past. And his willingness to come here and tell us what is important in his eyes and the people he speaks to because we don’t get a lot of feedback from the community and and I really value you coming here tonight. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:47:20
Oh, good evening, everybody. Um, I’d like to thank everybody, like Nick’s Mr. Nick said everyone, taking time away from their families on a Monday night isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially public servants, like yourselves, that come here. And so thank you for preparing all this and giving. Giving your presentations for us. I really do appreciate it. That being said, I don’t know if I get in trouble for this. But I there were a couple things that you know, I would, is it appropriate that I could ask staff to address Mr. nixes? Comments, or I counted for on here about? I don’t know if you kept notes or anything, but
Unknown Speaker 1:48:10
I think that’s okay. Well, we took that we took the note we took the note, Chair and member into burger. We took the notes that there is no paint at the Eco cycle for the striping of the parking lanes. And so that needs to be addressed. So we’ll, we’ll move that forward. For the Third Avenue striping. I think we heard that there was maybe maybe Jim has a better idea of kind of what’s happening here. But for eastbound, bike paths versus lane, are we really talking about? There’s been a very big push lately. And I think a lot of you have heard this from us before is that the bike paths are wonderful. And they do a great job. There’s one on the north side of Third Avenue in this location, where Mr. Nix was talking about. It does a good job of carrying two way traffic for the most part, but it’s a little narrower than we would build today. So we do have issues when there’s people walking dogs, strollers, or even bicycling on that. And that’s really for the lower stress bicycle, folks. So we are building lanes in a lot of these locations where we already have sight paths that seem to be adequate for all bicycle users. But but we’re finding out that that’s not the case, we’re seeing that there’s a lot more need and a lot more desire for the people who are more much more confident bicycling to have a bicycle lane on street because they’re going to use the street anyways, what we’re finding out and so we’re trying to provide that space to be safe. And so we’re putting the new standard is to do the the buffered bike lanes and so we’re seeing that those are much safer than what we had out there before which is no bike lane, right our shoulder and the shoulder was fairly adequate but it is not very inviting. So those are some of the issues there. We have been talking about overpass This is for railroad tracks for a long time. And this, I think the regional sales tax was really meant to start looking at those things. But as we’ve evaluated these over time, we’re seeing that the over the underpasses for the railroad track, or the railroad tracks are just not feasible or realistic, especially when we start looking at the local businesses that will be impacted by what we’re doing. I mean, you really do have to provide a frontage road system plus the underpass, a lot of these businesses to still have access. So you know, how much we go through with just loss of parking in front of some businesses for some different ways of trying to mitigate some of these issues. So those are the things that I have for that. I’m not sure about the the comment about the access into neighborhoods. I’m not sure if you’ve driven it more than I have, Jim, but I’m not sure. We’ll have to we’ll follow up with Scott and just try to find out a little bit more about what that means. What am I missing? 66. We do have PL or plant? Oh, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:07
There is one additional item that will take some follow up from staff, Mr. Nix reference, their striping changes on eastbound Third Avenue as you approach State Highway One night team. at a staff level, we’ll sit down and we’ll have a more in depth discussion about both those changes.
Unknown Speaker 1:51:27
And Mr. Nix did mention, why aren’t we doing four lanes on 52 and 66. So both of those state highways have had planning and environmental linkage studies which is almost it’s good. It’s kind of like an environmental evaluation. But it’s just a little less than that. But it sets us up for all the environmental work that has to happen. And 66 has been looked at as a four lane facility at least from basically Overstreet on the west side, all the way through into Weld County type 25 and then probably beyond as a four lane facility into Firestone and Mead. So that is being looked at on State Highway 6652 is a little different animal. It’s it is something that we’re boulder counties had more saying and they do not want to see a widen, they don’t. They don’t they don’t have wide road widening projects per se unless it is for transit or for other means. So they do subscribe to Mr. Wilkins. Thought thoughts with as far as widening and only for transit, making transit better. But east of County Line Road I do believe that Weld County has some ideas of how to add some additional language for that roadway. But it’s all in it’s all online, we can send you those links.
Unknown Speaker 1:52:48
Thank you, everyone. That’s great. Just one last comment on on State Highway 66. The city has been working with CDOT. And Boulder County, for a project for widening of state highway 66. From Main Street to the to the west or to the to the west to over that is currently in design. We are working our way through the process is not funded for construction at this time.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:21
Thank you all just you know, everyone. Well, thank you for being here the presentations. Really I don’t. I don’t have much comments. So you know, thank you for your time.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:43
I will add my thanks to everyone who’s presented to the board this evening. But I’ve made my comments and have asked my questions and appreciated the answers you’ve given me.
Unknown Speaker 1:53:59
And I’ll wrap up just I concur with everything that’s been said here and again Monday night coming here, giving up this night to show up and as well as Scott Nicks for showing up and giving us comments in your input. And obviously the historical lesson was was very, very well taken. So I’ll leave it at that and we’ll move to comments from councilmember Yarborough.
Unknown Speaker 1:54:28
Thank you Well, I hate I miss the historical piece. The key um, I just want to say thank you as well. Thank you for the comments. I know Sorry, I missed I was hoping that a one board meet into another and unfortunately that’s the story of my life. So thank you for being patient with me. First of all. You know, I’m still learning a lot about transportation and I’m learning about the city and how it operates. What are the things I really want to focus I myself is education. You know, as you all were mentioning, that area on hoever underpass, I don’t see very many people taking that, you know, and I think a lot of people really don’t know that it’s there. Um, unless they are coming from over there by let sprouts or elevations or something, and then they go under, but what I’m finding on City Council is that a lot of community members are not educated on the how accessible the city is and where we’re going. So I think it’s important that while we are ahead of a lot of things, that we figure out ways to inform our community as to what we’re doing. And also to get a lot of their input as well. What will benefit them, I love the idea of the overpass to walk across a lot of cities have that. But then you talk about those with disabilities who may not be as mobile to walk upstairs. I don’t know how we would do that. But that’s an awesome idea. So my, all the comments was, were amazing. I just want us to really focus on educating our community because you all do all of this amazing work. And no one knows about it. And so think about when we put in all this together when you have the consultants and how are we going to inform our community because that’s one thing that council hears over and over again, in our emails, no one knew about it, after you completed it. So let’s put some extra effort if we can to make sure that we are intentional, and how we deliver the message. So thank you all. Appreciate you.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:08
Okay, items for the upcoming agenda. I guess our next scheduled meeting is going to be September 12.
Unknown Speaker 1:57:17
Yes, and here, I failed to put in some items underneath that category. So I apologize, I was kind of going through the meeting, trying to figure out what we’ve been talking about, see if you guys have had any breaks yet. And I’m seeing that you’ve not had except for maybe the main meeting, where some of you still had to work and help with recruitment here for the TV board. Otherwise, we’ve had meetings every month this year so far. So we’ll take a look at what what’s coming, we had some things that were supposed to come up, that aren’t going to be ready in time one being the crash report, just because we’re missing some data. And we can’t put together a good report until we have that for you, we usually put that together for you in September. So give us a little time on that. That’ll probably be fourth quarter. Before we bring that back to you. We also had, we wanted we do want to get a formal tip recommendation from this board to city council on the two projects that we do know about one being the 21st Avenue Main Street, underpass design, study what’s going on there. And so we we do want to now that we know that there’s a high probability of us getting approval for that, we’d like to get your recommendation, the board’s recommendations is to take the city council to get their recommendation to spend the money on it and provide that level of funding so that in the county line road projects that I spoke about earlier to to add the the shoulders and the bike lanes to that piece that it’s under, under I guess the reviewing the consultants at this point to find out which consultant will actually get the job to do the design work on that we are going for funding on that. So those are the two things that we’ll need from you. September, October. And I’ve just been going through the other list just to make sure we’re hitting all your work plan items for this year. And we typically have that annual meeting. And sometimes we say July, but it doesn’t seem to make sense to have an annual meeting in the middle of the year when we kind of set your work plan in January. So just making sure we’re working through that work plan for you. But those are the two Oh, and then there’s the sugar mills steam project that I think the project manager for that project wants to come back in front of this board, either September or October. So again, we’re thinking about how we give you a break. But we want to certainly get the work done. So we’ll let you know. As soon as we can get the items together whether what’s going up in September. Thanks for my lengthy conversation. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:59:51
And I guess we would need a what a motion to adjourn our meeting
Unknown Speaker 2:00:03
I will move to adjourn. Second.
Unknown Speaker 2:00:08
I’ll second.
Unknown Speaker 2:00:10
All those in all those in favor? Raise your hand. Great meeting adjourned. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai