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Video Description:
Transportation Advisory Board – October 2024
10:58
Okay Calling to order the transportation Advisory Board meeting for october 21 into a call. Roll Call
11:08
board member Wicklund,
11:09
Chair laner,
11:11
board member a
11:12
call coffer,
11:18
okay, since we don’t have a quorum, I guess we will contain this to information items, since we can’t vote on anything, we can’t even approve the minutes. So I guess we’ll move to communications from staff. Yeah, thank
11:33
you. Phil Greenwald, transportation planning manager with the city of Longmont, just wanted to update you on some things. First of all, I wanted to introduce our new transportation planner, Kaylee Fallon, I’m going to have her come up and just kind of introduce herself for a few moments and tell us her background a little bit. And I think that’s about it. Thanks.
11:57
Hi. Good evening. My name is Kaylee Fallon, like Phil said, I’m the new transportation planner here at the city. Prior to coming over to the city, I was the emerging mobility and transportation demand management planner for Dr cog. I was there for about four years. Prior to that, I was getting my master’s degree in Sustainable Planning management. So happy to be here and put names to faces. So thanks, Phil, thank
12:23
you. And we all only lasted. Dr cogd, for four years. That’s kind of the rule of thumb that’s in the record now. So Vision Zero. Task Force, I’m going to have Kimmy now come up and talk a little bit about Vision Zero. Task Force, you have some items at your desk tonight to help you prep on some of these items that are coming up, also world Remembrance Day for victims of traffic or traffic crashes. So thanks CAMI for helping us.
12:54
Yes, hello, board members, you should have the hard copy. You got the electronic copy sent you at about 515 this evening, and I think it’ll be follow up in the post meeting minutes. So if you have an opportunity to share about either option, our task force is kicking off next Monday night, and I just want to clarify what we’re going to try to do is for boards that are pre existing, such as this one and other local advisory groups. You don’t have to feel like you’ll bring you don’t need to bring a member to the task force. This is more for individuals and members of the public who would have no other way to interact. You’re more than welcome to come as board members. But if you come and want to just represent yourself instead of the board member will bring, obviously, Vision Zero to you, officially to the board, and then World Day of Remembrance. You may have heard about this. It’s an international event that happens worldwide to recognize those that we have lost to roadway violence. So being now that we are a Vision Zero community, we wanted to make sure in our first year that we pulled off an event. So it’s going to be on Sunday, November 3. We promise it does not interact with the Broncos game. We made sure to schedule around that, but it will still be light enough that people and families can come and hopefully enjoy some snacks and foods. We’ll have some guest presenters. We’ll kind of talk about what the current state and condition is in Longmont and where we plan to go. We’ll have a call to action. It’s going to be centered around safer speeds in long months, so a lot of the same information you’ve been hearing in other places, but it’s going to create a space for those families and friends and loved ones to come and commemorate the people they’ve lost and or recognize the survivors that are in our community. So just creating space for this kind of opportunity, we’re excited for next year, we’ve already been talking about partnerships to connect it to Dia de los Muertos, being that communities and culturally appropriate are already honoring those they have lost. So I think we’re excited for what this could become in the future as well. So you, of course, are all invited to both, but just know for the formal task force any conversations or any planning or feedback. We will bring that to you, so don’t feel obligated to have to come to this version. We will keep you in the loop. But thank you.
15:10
Any questions Bucha before she goes. Great. Another update from staff is that we have the micro transit going fast and furious. As far as trying to get it planned and implemented, the plan right now is to have it implemented in early December of this year. That that’s due to a number of reasons, but really it’s because we have to, we had to restructure the contract to make sure that we could get the new mobility hub at I 25 and 119 which is outside of the RTD district, into our micro transit model, even though it’s funded by RTD. So I don’t know if the pieces are coming together, but the idea that RTD funded this made it so that they didn’t want to fund anything that was beyond their boundaries. So we have taken on that role of separating the contract into two different pieces here. So we could do the RTD version and then the extension through the city only version. So we are going to be doing that again in early December. Early December, you’ll see all the different advertising and marketing campaigns for that coming out, probably within the next month here as we start to gear up for that, but we’re very excited for that. And then last thing on our list was ta be in November. We’re just wanting to let you know that we think we’ll be fine not doing the T, A, B, on November 11, which is our veterans day and day off or holiday for the city. So we think we can get all the things, especially if we can get the crash report done today, we can get all the things in December that we need to do, and we can talk about that at the end of the meeting. But, uh oh, what’s on the list for that? That’s all we have right now from public or from staff. Thanks,
17:04
great. Thank you. Phil, okay, any public invited to be heard does not look as we do.
17:20
Oh, bring up the crash report, and then I guess we’ll move to the action items, the crash report.
17:32
Thank you. Chair Lehner, board members, Jim angstad, director of engineering services, this evening, we are here to present the city of Longmont 2024, annual roadway crash report. It is in draft format. We have a it was provided to you, I believe, Friday, with another draft version. And we just want to provide a brief presentation to go over some of the highlights for that, and then we can, we can dive into it, answer any questions or and see where you want to, want to take that. There we go. Report structure. It’s divided into a number of sections, and then appendix. It’s got an intro crash information. And then our sections that we have been collecting data on and involve yearly trends, individual injuries, time trends, the fatal crash comparison with other cities and highest crash locations, fatal crash details. And then our appendix is basically the intersections and the street segments. And basically just the listing of of the the kind of the number of crashes, alphabetically, some of the highlights. Just want to go over real quick yearly trends in 2023 the population obviously continues to increase. There were 2051 total crashes. When you look back into previous crash reports to look at previous years, those numbers will be different for the total crashes. We have now started to include, we’ve gone back and we’ve included the state roads, namely 66 which had not been included in previous reports. So we now are including those. So the trend, we’re still seeing a trend up for total crashes, not A, not A, you know, huge increase. But it is trending up, although it is lower than pre COVID numbers in 2019 pre COVID Before kind of people got off the roads in 2020 and we saw our accident crash history drop. 2018 had over 2300 crashes, so we’re still lower than. Pre COVID numbers, which, you know, when you look at data, you can look at it a dozen different ways to comparison. And, you know, sometimes I’ll look at it in a favorable light, and I think we’re well, certainly 2000 crashes seems to be a lot. You know, we’re covering 356 miles, 100,000 people and miles and miles, hundreds, let’s say hundreds, millions of trips a day on our let me say millions of trips a year on our roads.
20:32
Do we calculate the empty
20:38
Yes, we have a estimate based on our arterials, but we’re trying to integrate more of our daily trips in our city as well to our vmts, but we do have a VMT number for presentations.
20:49
Did we use the VMT numbers as a proportion against the crash report? So we know that COVID VMT was extremely low as we know what the VMT numbers were prior to COVID as what they are. Now
21:04
we didn’t dig that deep into some of the data. So we also have started looking at fatal and serious injury crashes, 68 in 2023 that is trending down in 2021 there was 80 in 2022 72 so you know, the trend is going down, and still, that is also much lower than some of the pre COVID numbers we saw in 2019 with 111
21:38
We also have a section on individual injuries. I wanted to distinguish this is different than total crashes. This is a kind of a provides us data for the overall fatalities and injuries for the period of the study versus the number of crashes. So some in some crashes, may have two fatalities or two to three serious injuries. So we started summing those numbers up the age group 2025 to 29 is the highest. 413 fatalities, injuries overall. And then you can see the breakdown of pedestrians, bikes, motor vehicles, and then motorcyclists. We have a section on time trends as well. October still remains the highest number of all crashes. Not sure why. The data is not going to tell us that we’d have to dig a little deeper into investigating some of the reports. But could be that times the it’s starting to get dark earlier. It’s after school starts, we start to see maybe more activities in the in the fall. So it is, it is still a October. I can’t figure it out, crashes of minor injuries. The highest. Month is July, with around 143 on the average, all crashes for day of the week. Friday, about 1500 and then FSI crash, crashes and minor injuries for day of the week. Thursday is the highest, although we’ve thrown in Wednesday and Tuesday as well, midweek seems to be have relatively high numbers, and then overall time of the day. The report has the five year trends. I only noted time of day for 2023 in this presentation is five to six. You know, people get out of work, seems to be the when we might see the most cars on the road. This. This slide is a little difficult to get to, so I need to ask, if you look at the report itself, we’ve had this a number of years, it’s a comparison with other cities. Five year average is still around 7.6 when you base it on 100,000 population, we threw that in as a column. We’re about 7.7 accidents, you know, or fatalities per year. The ranking seems to be about the same. We may have moved up a little bit higher. What I do want to note that in our history, in long month, fatal crashes in 2023 dropped by half. Previous years were eight. It’s last year. We had four to date. This year in Longmont, in 2024 we’ve had four fatals, one of which was in the last two weeks. But if that trend continues, if you look at earlier in the in the report, we had a high year of 12 fatales. That’ll drop off in the future report, and we’ll probably see a pretty good change. Digging into a little more into the some of the meat of the report. We also have some some tables with. The high crash locations, we have listed the top 25 intersections by total crashes. Not a big surprise that highway 119 and Main Street tops the list, as it has for a number of years. Little bit of a surprise that 17 in Maine is the second highest, although that 117 is down from previous years at that intersection. More than likely, we’ve done C dot came in a few years ago. Did some some access management, put some medians on Main probably reducing some of the cross traffic, and has helped, but it’s still a high intersection. We’ve broken out the intersections with five or more fatal and serious injuries. Ninth and main is of concern with 10. And then we also listed the intersections with at least one fatal serious crash. 21st in hover as four. And then there’s there’s others listed. We’ve also included top 25 segments of roadways by total crashes. So we’re seeing a lot in highway 19, between South Pratt Parkway to Main Street segments with five or more FSI crashes, hover Nelson to Boston is a little bit on the high side. And then we have one fatal there in the last five years. So there are, you know, it’s a higher speed as it gets off of Nelson, a lot of cross traffic going into Home Depot. That could change in the future, because we’re going to be making making that driveway right in, right out. There’s also a signal going in just north of fair, or just north of Home Depot at the fair, new fairgrounds, marketplace, the extension of mountain Brook. And then the last one is segments with at least one FSI crash, which is highway 66 and it has basically four in that area. Some things to note about this. One of the items we look at is with our crash reports, is what where we need to focus on work. So on at least two of these intersections that are listed here, there are future projects being worked on 21st and main is, they’re looking at it for as part of the Main Street quarter project. And we’ve been working with public safety on the the segment on 119 to put in some access management. C dots said, go ahead. Let’s show us what you got. And so we’re, we’re working on getting consultants to start laying that out. I and then we’re closing out with kind of the final items. We have a section on fatal crash details, which we’ve been before. Has some more detail on some of the fatals. It’s taken directly from from the crash reports that we we get from the state that are on the set form, and then the appendix, which has all of our intersection crashes. We’ve listed them this year alphabetically, so it’s a little bit easier to read than just, you know, starting at the highest number of crashes and working your way down. In doing some analysis on this last week, it’s a lot easier to read than if you if you know what kind of the intersection first, then you can see the numbers. So I closed out this presentation with just some information on reporting traffic issues as you could report on almost anything in the city. You know service works in the email are online, or call the Public Works. Service works or police non emergency, and is there always if it’s an emergency, 911, and with that, just a couple of notes, comments on the traffic report. We utilize this report as one of our tools to help us identify where we should be utilizing some of our limited resources. It can be utilized as a measure of success in comparing it to previous reports of work we have done, and I’ll cite a couple of examples in that in 2018 at Clover basin and airport, we had some incidents with some some school kids getting hit. We made some changes to the signal, namely, that we made it on the left turns. We made it a permit per protected versus permissive. I was confused those. And so in this report, last year’s user report had 20 showed 28 incidents, accidents, crashes this year down. 21 so it takes time to see the results of that, but we do see that. And another example would be highway 66 in Maine, similar situation in the north and southbound direction. We put in permissive, took out the protective, and 20 threes report, there were 125 crashes there reduced in this report to 110 still high, but we see some improvement. The biggest change we probably saw was south of 119 on Main Street at Grand Avenue C, dot came in, and we work with them. They identified a number of crashes in that area, put in the concrete median, made grand avenue, right in, right out in both, both on both sides of the road. In 2023 there was 45 crashes total over a five year period. And now in 24 on that five year report, we’re down to 23 the opposite is true. Also. We have some some increases and some intersections. So that would would lend us to what we can focus on in the coming years. I’ll point out ninth and main we were down at 85 and 20 threes report this year, we’re up to 97 so there’s some concern there that we see those swings or changes. We’re gonna we’re gonna pay some attention to some of those areas, and some of those, you know, some of what we do can can be quick fixes. It can be additional signing that signalized intersections could be eliminating right return on reds. It’s adding more signing. Could be some striping changes.
31:39
You know, on on Main Street, we’ve had median enhancements that has appeared to help so to help with with access management, and then, you know, futures, looking at larger scale CIP projects as well. One of the projects Kyle’s trying to line up is at 17th and airport. We’ve had some some issues there. So we’re looking at traffic signal roundabout. We changed a grant earlier this year. We were not successful, but we’ll continue with that. And so with that, I’ll open it up to any questions and turn it over to Phil. So
32:14
I just wanted to add one last thing, or maybe we should have added it at the very beginning. Is so you’re going to see lots of numbers today, and you have, but we recognize as a staff that, and I think you do too, that each one of these numbers is a human that’s out there, one of our citizens, or somebody who’s part of the fabric of our society and being impacted. So we don’t want to go past and say that, you know, obviously we have to announce and analyze the data, and this is how we do it, with numbers, but we do recognize that each one of these people has been affected, especially when you talk about serious injuries and fatalities, that’s their families and and, you know, it’s a broader sense of the community that’s been impacted by that. And unfortunately, a lot of us know people who’ve been affected by these, I can say that. I think one of your Tav members, for sure, has has been impacted by this. So it’s not just numbers on a page, but it does represent something bigger. So we just want to recognize that and just hope, hope you understand that. We also have to look at the data and how it, how it, you know how we approach these things as we move forward, especially with Vision Zero. Thanks,
33:32
Taylor. I’ll start with you. If you want to ask some questions, I’m sure you do. Yes, I’m
33:40
gonna wait a moment. Okay,
33:47
Phil, thanks for saying that. That’s really important for us to humanize the data, but also knowing that we have to look at the data as well, I have a couple questions. So with that new development that’s going in north of Home Depot. Is there? I know you said that there’s going to be a new light that’s going there. Is there going to be changes to the Rogers Grove, Boston hover intersection as well? So when you’re turning left going towards home depot with that additional traffic, is that also in the plan to to change either the lighting or timing just north of Home Depot.
34:26
Yeah. So when we do install that new signal, we’ll be re timing the signals. It kind of coincides nice with our new traffic signal upgrade project on hover Street, which will begin beginning of the year. So we’ll be changing out that traffic signal system from basically pike 266, on Hoover. So we re timing everything with brand new detection and way more advanced features than was currently available.
34:48
Super great with that, serviceworks, dot Longmont, colorado.gov, if we hear people coming to us with complaints, should we fill those out on. Their behalf, or should we direct them towards that? Like this afternoon, somebody was like, Hey, what’s going on with Pat Parkway in 119 the new striping and signage is really confusing, and we don’t know how to navigate it. Do we direct them to make complaints on that? What? What are some of the things that you want people to go to that service works out Longmont, we
35:20
would recommend that you steer them to service. Works perfect. They they can choose to make a, you know, to put in a request anonymously. If they give us your name and contact information, they can elect to, Hey, listen. I’d like a response for what the what the solution is. We’ve done that a number of times, perfect. So what we always, always recommend that if residents got a complaint, sometimes it gets lost in translation, we recommend that they go directly to service, work order, call. Now the call, the call center is only open eight to five Monday through Friday, but online is you can go in anytime.
35:58
Perfect. Awesome. Thank you. Bye. Okay,
36:09
I’m curious if, and I know it’s hard to do, but with the crash reports, are we looking at contributing factors and starting to chart that?
36:21
Yes, through Vision Zero, we’re working on more of an interactive experience when it comes to our dashboards. And instead of any wise report shows just injuries, possible injuries, what we’re trying to bring is something internally with staff where we can really see what causes these accidents through the police reports. So rear ends, broadside side, swipes parked vehicles, single vehicle, multi vehicle, as well as suspected as impairment on alcohol, marijuana, other illicit drugs. And then intent with Vision Zero is bring that information to a dashboard for residents to be able to click through and, you know, get their information more readily available through there instead of asking staff, so you can really filter those out on a what you’re interested in looking at basis
37:10
and we are tracking then contributing factors such as excessive speed, Yep,
37:15
yeah, we have speed improper equipment, as well as violation data, right,
37:22
right? And I’m imagining, because I know it probably be very difficult to do the innotative in it, inattentive driving factor is always, I know, fairly difficult to either prove, unless somebody goes far enough to get cell phone records and that sort of a thing. Do we even track any of that? If it’s something that is either admitted to and or apparent,
37:45
there is the data report is possible with our new reporting system that started in 2022 it’s not always filled out, so it’s kind of a wishy washy metric, but a lot of the causes for the accident and then correspond it with the violation, given it’s little easier to kind of suspect out if distracted driving was part of that.
38:07
Is there any any way that that information, not just in a dashboard? I think that’s very valuable, don’t get me wrong, could be used at a point of contact with drivers, and the effect of, you know, even if it’s public safety saying your excessive speeding, and last year in Longmont, at this intersection, we had three fatalities, and three of them were, you know, speeding. I realize they don’t have a Rolodex of that information, but the point is, is that if we provide some context to the offenders about the causes of accidents and the severity of these accidents and some of these intersections, possibly we could stop maybe one accident. That’s what I’m thinking. Yep,
38:50
I think it’d be a part of what camis team is doing, Vision Zero. Part of ours is engineering and enforcement, but a really large portion of the education, not just education for putting out flyers or Facebook posts. It’s for informing those drivers who are getting crashes, getting citations and how to correspond with just because it doesn’t sound like an issue to you, these are the issues we have on a macro scale of just because you’re doing it. There’s 1000 other people doing it at this area too, and we need to start reducing that number down to get these crashes down, sure.
39:21
I guess the other thing would be, if we’re talking about engineering and design, you know, that’s pretty important to me. So have we looked at any of the segments and talked about things like road diets, adding trees, adding dedicated bike facility? That’s separated those things, obviously will bring down speeds, and I know some of these segments can be fairly dangerous, is that even a discussion point when it comes to some of these segments?
39:59
Thanks for asking that. It’s a big component of the transportation mobility plan, and we’ll be talking about that in probably around February of next year. So we’re finalizing that plan, and a lot of that has to go has to do with how you implement the road diets as part of a priority aspect when everybody’s looking at the CIP capital improvement program for various projects. So how does that rank? Can we over? How do we use crash report? Yeah, how do we use the crash report to to
40:28
justify or Exactly, exactly? Okay, that makes perfect sense. I think I’m good, although I will note Clover basin at airport, you’ve got to add more green on that left hand turn. I’ve, I’ve seen so many near misses in that intersection. It’s just waiting. And I know you say that people are either on their cell phone or they’re in attentive and they’re not getting through the life fast enough. I’ve counted it. It’s not enough seconds for the people that are that are queuing up, especially during school, school, from three, 330 to about five or 530 that left hand turn is notoriously bad. And I see drivers, kind of, you know, gaming the system, if you will. I’ve actually seen a Rhode Island, uh, left, if you know what that is, right,
41:20
yeah. So just that, what it’s called a Rhode Island
41:24
left, that’s what I’ve heard it what, what direction it would be, the southbound airport to Clover basin
41:31
to go over basin to go east, yep. Okay, and it’s usually in the afternoon,
41:36
definitely, the queue, the storage. It goes past the, you know, the curve of the, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty dangerous. Yeah, that’s one
41:45
of the intersections we have a camera on, so we can, we can look at and we can check it out tomorrow, yeah, and see so we’ll get some, we’ll some better data, but we’ll look at it certainly. Thank you.
41:58
Thank you, Chair Lehner, for, you know, bringing up kind of the design of roads. Because I think, ultimately, I think when we approach Vision Zero, we should also be looking at our, you know, our, what is our theoretical design speed of a roadway? So, you know, it’s, it’s one thing to say, oh, there, the crash was caused by excessive speeding. But is the road too wide that promotes excessive speeding type of thing? So even though I want everyone to, you know, slow down and pay attention and look at the actual speed limit, I think sometimes we have actual opportunities to slow people down via road diets, etc.
42:41
Ask if they could use the crash report as part of the design criteria.
42:47
There we go. Did you hear that use the crash report as part of the design criteria for roadways?
42:55
Yep, and we do on we have several design projects in the works right now, mostly with some state agencies, and there is a shifting attitude, especially it’s hard to get c.to agree. It’s more but starting to move now in the right direction where design speeds are starting to come down to actual driving speeds versus leaving that factor of safety. So when we’re discussing these future projects, we’re talking about making the design speed, the speed that is posted, versus design and road for, say, 45 and then post it for 35 or for 40 so that’s definitely a changing attitude in kind of transport, transportation industry, and that’s something that we’re we’re fighting for of lowering speed limits, lowering that, you Know, connect energy when it comes to accidents, trying to reduce the serious injuries, as well as being able to navigate through intersections at lower speeds. When you do tighter turn radiuses, faster cycles, so it gets traffic moving more efficiently but also more consistently,
43:58
all right? And then, and then, kind of, you know, I think I brought this up every year so far is, kind of, how do we use these numbers? Because I think of projects that we, we have talked about, is like the Third Avenue improvement projects, you know, we narrowed the lanes. We added a stop sign at Sherman and Francis, but I would like to note that on the crash report, you know, third and Francis had two crashes in the last five years. Third and bowl and had 17. And I did ask during that conversation is, how come we’re not doing improvements? So I’m just wondering, how do we how do we prioritize certain, certain improvements, but then not others, where maybe there’s a higher number of crashes, maybe higher risk for people, but we’re not doing anything there?
44:54
Yeah, so a lot of it is going to be changing areas. It’s kind of like the switch this. With cheese fix, where it’s not gonna be one fix is gonna fix the entire roadway system. So we make these improvements, like road diets, Lane shifts, it may direct traffic one way or another, or could also affect the cross traffic as well. So we’re looking at Third Avenue. Is when this last section is getting paved, I believe, this week and next. So finally, get out of your guys’ hair. We do have speed radars at several locations along that street that are actually collecting speed data throughout there and then, through our Vision Zero process, we’re changing, or at least evaluating our criteria and standards for stop signs, crosswalks and other street furniture for appropriate locations. So through a task force, we can establish those standards and be able to provide an equal approach to every area, every park, every school, just so it’s on a very consistent basis, and not because the loudest squeaky wheel is in one area versus the people who don’t really speak up get neglected year after year after year. Okay,
46:02
and yeah, there’s a lot of squeaky wheels over there. So, but I, you know, I it comes back to that question again, is, why did we choose not third and Bowen when there is higher crash reported there?
46:16
So that area, we did provide extra cross bars, as well as adding better ramps, Ada ramps for their directionalized Now, as well as delineating the parking lanes and reducing the dry lanes through there. So that was done in 2020, last summer three. So we’re coming off a year, and the hardest part about that section is it’s been continuous utility work, water work, gas work. So once this work is done, we can see how the roadway truly functions on a daily basis and be able to really evaluate what additional fixes are needed for that area.
46:55
All right, so
46:56
the work’s not completely the work’s never not done. We’re continually evaluated, and we’re seeing those trends year after year. And
47:04
I’m not arguing against not having a stop sign at Francis. I’m just making the point that there was higher crash at third and Bowen rating. So I’m just wondering, you know, I’m still wondering why we didn’t really do much actionable things there, but, but we’ll find out when the whole project is done, and hopefully the data will come through. And then, I think it was mentioned by another board member of Pratt Parkway, all the new striping. I’ve heard a lot of comments about that from members of the public getting confused. And I even, you know, I, part of me, there’s the forced right turn heading when you’re heading south on Pratt Parkway into like the Safeway, where the fire department is right there. You know, there is a flashing sign. I see a lot of people not following this. There’s bit confusion. I’m wondering if we’re just waiting for an accident to happen. I don’t know if there’s enough room like we did here, out on Third Avenue of delineators to actually direct people to turn. But, you know, it’s a thought, because I like what we did here, and I think it’s an experiment that we could try elsewhere, because, again, it’s a matter of physics instead of a flashing sign.
48:29
Yeah. So the changes that intersection weren’t necessarily new. Intersection changes stemming from a project, and I believe it’s 2018 it started, and that project brought extension of the center meet concrete medium, as well as basically adding a bike bike lane on the west side to line up to the intersection before it was not a bike option. So that bike option was added, and in the plans, it showed that lane dropping off. But in the final approved plans, there was never any signage or delineation of which lane goes where. Those kind of brought to my attention through a times call inquiry. And so what we did was we reflected that change that was intended in the plans to make that right turn a right turn only, and then through Lane would go through the intersection. It’s been an error process. We added signs. We added two actually flashing LED right turn light, lights to get some compliance. There’s been better compliance, but still not where we need it to be. We talked with PD, that intersection does provide a lot of different groups needing to use that as well as the fire department, and so we’re currently evaluating and trying to see if there’s a better configuration that can satisfy all needs of transportation. But you’re correct with the being too tight with the bike, and then two large cars end up squeezing that bike really more than I’d prefer. It. So we’re looking at what’s the best way to get all modes of travel through that intersection. Okay?
50:07
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of confusion from the public of what’s going on so, and I just hope we’re not waiting for an accident to happen. No, that’s all I have for now. Thank you.
50:20
I’ve got a couple more concerning design are you still using 85th percentile as part of the design process
50:36
in studying speed limits or just evaluating speed limits, just generalist speeds in the area.
50:42
Still,
50:45
we take as a factor. As you know, it’s been at least standard, but it’s not the only speeding criteria we actually take account for. So
50:52
okay, and then I’m curious on the driver feedback units. Is there any studies that show whether they’re effective or not.
51:03
Yes. So they’re pretty good at informing drivers who are maybe just coasting going about their day, you know, long day at work, or long ago going to work, you’re just blanking out and driving and let you know, hey, you’re going a little fast, where you see a little less effectiveness is just the plane speeders who are going to speed so there is a reduction in overall speed with those feedback signs. But they’re not going to solve the high end speeding problem, sure.
51:35
And then I guess the last thing would be, would this crash data be effective in regards to looking at these segments that we have excessive speed, and starting the conversation around speed cameras.
51:51
So there is a ordinance, or resolution, ordinance going to council tomorrow, tomorrow for the approval of speed and red light running cameras. So working with PD, with G Satter and then CAMI as well. So working all three together to possibly implement that technology in the city.
52:13
Great.
52:14
So that second reading is tomorrow evening for the approval for kind of the setting, the legislative requirements for the city to move forward with with both red light cameras and speed enforcement cameras, great.
52:31
Has there been any sort of conversation within staff in what segments and or arterials would be identified?
52:42
We have an initial list, but we’re still finalizing that with PD, so, but there will be advanced signage and notice of those areas that are going to be enforced
52:52
perfect and and public safety, obviously, is involved in the conversation, of course, because they’re the ones who would
52:57
have to public safety is taking the lead on it, yeah. So they, they’ve, they’ve been collecting data as well. They’ve got a couple of the flashing radar units. So they’ve been building a database sharing with us. We share our data with them, and they’ve been building that for some of their higher, higher speed areas, as to look as to where we may want to start, on sun, on instituting the use of the speed cameras. We’re also looking at, they are also looking at, well, we’re all one big team looking at portable radar units to do that as well that can be moved around the city. Some will be fixed. Some will be able to move. And then there’s also red light cameras as well. Perfect. Thank
53:41
you. Appreciate that.
53:47
If approved by Council, when would the first speed cameras or red light cameras go in place?
53:53
More than likely, it’ll probably be in early next year. We’re looking at, is there an opportunity to fund some of those this year with with certain dollars, but it is in the budget for next year, so more than likely, I think the red light cameras would be next year. Might get some trailers this year still. So we’re working at that biggest thing was getting past the legislative components and getting the ordinance approved
54:21
is that is, excuse me, is that some sort of a project or CIP that would be safe streets for all funded, you know, federal dollars that are available for that,
54:34
not for speed enforcement. At least we’re not pursuing it at this time, we’d have to look to see for the future, whether there’s there’s a where there’s funding available, the challenge was seeking some of those grants. An example you’ll see is we, we said, hey, we got awarded a grant for $1.2 million those grants take, can take up to a year to develop a grant agreement. So if we waited for some of that funding, if it is. Is available. We’d be in the probably by next year sometime, looking at at purchasing but there is some other other funding mechanisms that I think public safety is looking at to fund some of their items. So not necessarily safe streets for all. But there’s other other funding mechanisms that can support and leverage, leverage the city dollars.
55:21
No, I’m aware of that. I just figured if there was a way to obviously extend the funding out that would give us even more, let’s say bang for our buck. If this was a program that we could, you know, really leverage that. That’s why I was asking that.
55:36
Real quick. I’ll just add, since they are a proven safety counter measure, they are fully fundable with federal dollars and other dollars. So between the feds, the states and local dollars will be able to leverage any or all of the above to support our pending Yeah, not accepted tomorrow night that program. So looking at starting, obviously, with the dollars now, but yes, fully, fully fundable. Yep,
56:17
so originally, we’d ask for your recommendations. We’ll wait till December for that. We’ll send this out to the all the members, and just make sure they have a chance to review it and any comments, we’ll put this on for December meeting. Thanks.
56:35
Okay, we’ll move to any information items. Number seven, no, okay. Comments from board members.
56:47
Well, sure, you know, less than an hour in, I think, you know, I think the crash reports gotten better and easier to comprehend over the last three years now, for me, or three session, I don’t know. So, you know, I commend the report, you know, as I talked about, just add, add those titles at the top of the table, so I remember what column I’m reading. But then I do have a kind of a interesting question, because I, you know, with some repaving projects happen around town, and then restriping, an example, on a road that I bike on all the time or drive on west of Kaufman fourth was just done and repaved, striped just one block section. I just wonder, what’s the what is the process of figuring out how much space we give to different modes? So I went out there and measured it. It was 13 foot lane. The bikes did get a buffered lane. But you know, what could we have done with three more feet type of thing? And could it? Could we have also, you know, I know the lane gets really tight once you get to the elementary school over there, if you continue west. So I’m just wondering, could we have some consistency, or are we just trying to update for present standards when we should be, you know, it’s a, I would say it’s not a commercial road with heavy trucks that need wide turns. So So I wonder what 13 feet means.
58:28
Yeah, so specifically, the area in Fourth Avenue is one we’re looking at when we’re doing like chip sealing or kind of that re surfacing, try to update the striping, and the goal is to make it consistent through the area you’re talking about. I think it’s over by Main Street to I think Kaufman.
58:48
Kaufman to Terry was just recently done. I know, I know the the main street section was also kind of done, but then it’ll get a little bit torn up with Kaufman Street.
58:58
Probably, yeah, yeah. And that area has a little bit of irregular Wisp when it comes to the existing parking stalls for the businesses, as well as the concrete islands that kind of pop out. So that area, it would either be an option of installing subpar bike lanes or installing the sharrows, which I believe are right there currently. But the goal is, if we could fit bike lanes or any delineated facilities, try to fit those in where we can but avoid doing one block of segmented and also get dumped off into shared use lanes, then back to normal, then back to that. So we’re trying to create a consistent experience through so drivers aren’t surprised. Of a bicyclist, it has to merge with them or not,
59:43
yeah. Well, I’m just curious, of you know, the three feet that kind of bugs me, as I we could have done a 10 foot lane and then had three feet of extra space for something else. We have the, you know, it is shared a sharo on the south. Side if you’re if you’re going east along that section, but, you know, I’m just talking about one, one little block. That’s kind of annoying me so and but, yeah, so the South, the south side of fourth, if you’re going east, is a sharo. The north side has a bike lane, but the North travel lane is a 13 foot wide lane. And again, I just say, What could we have done with three extra feet?
1:00:28
Yeah, I will definitely revisit it. But one thing we do try to consider when we’re designing these bike lanes, and if they have delay in facilities, is the physical width of the biker. Instead of saying a three foot lane for bikes when the bicyclist itself takes up at least two and a half three feet, and you’re supposed to give another three feet for a passing realize a lot of people don’t do that. So when we’re trying these bike lanes, we’re trying to get bicyclists that built in buffer space, instead of just trying to crunch them in as much as we can. Just to say, we put a bike lane in,
1:00:59
and I know it’s just paint, but, you know, we we have proven research to show the narrow lanes slow down traffic. So, so again, that that three extra feet, you know, I’m a little bugged, so that’s all I got. Well, I’ll try
1:01:15
to debug you a little bit. So one of the challenges I think we face is, is when we take on some of the these, these smaller scale paving jobs where we do, like a block at a time, it can tend to be kind of difficult to provide consistent facilities along the whole corridor. Now on Fourth Avenue, that was a project we had looked at last year, there is a striping plan, and we Kyle and I would have to look at that and try to understand why we did put in 13 foot lanes, because that’s something we would have probably said, yeah, not something we normally would do. If we have an opportunity to prove to reduce some of the lanes that we wouldn’t have made them 10. Tell you that it’s not a corridor that that is conducive to a lot of speeding block to block as you move further west. Yes, we get some one of those reports, but we’ll take a look at it. We do it. We did have a striping plan created because there was the discussion about whether we, you know, provide better, better bike facilities by eliminating parking. We have those discussions we are currently, this year, starting, at least right about now, starting to look at next year’s paving program to see what, you know, what, what is we’re going to be our priorities? What are we going to have to R stripe? The example uses like last year on Fordham. That’s when we decided, hey, let’s make it, you know, eliminate the center turn lane, provide additional facilities for bikes, two lanes each direction, or the road diet for one long block. We did, we looked at fourth we I just have to look back at the plans to see what, what we had, had decided on. And, you know, while we do our best in our field staff to make sure they comply with the plans. There are times when contractors screw up. May have put 13 foot lanes in not 12 foot more than likely we would have called for 11 or 12, or they would have gone back to match the previous which may have been where there why they were 13. So we’ll take a look at it and see if we can get you some more
1:03:19
information. All right, I’ll just, I’m a little concerned of not doing 10, because, you know, research from Natco and other organizations, and then, as well as around the country, is starting to advocate for that 10, potentially even a little less so. So I’m just wondering how ahead of the game are we going to be, and then also, if we really want to change that paradigm, we got to slow down the two ton machine while
1:03:47
we’re looking through Vision Zero. We’re all talking about additional standards, but netco is not one we’ve adopted. So our staff in streets is not looking at that, which is why we have a committee that basically they bring a bunch of people together to look at what we can and can’t do and what we do, but we’ll, we’ll bear that in mind as we move forward, and we’ll look back to see what, what we may have been, what we can do better. All right,
1:04:09
thank you.
1:04:16
Who Dick takes the the width of the road? Is it us? Is it the fire department? How do we get to that? You know, 10 foot or less, with, where does that? Where does that come from? Basically,
1:04:28
the city has a development standards, which we also we utilize for new, new projects. But we also draw from the ashto Green Book for for streets, we look at C dot standards, so we can draw from a number of places, for roads. We want to look at some of your higher traveled roads with higher speeds are going to have wider roads or highways, but most of our city streets are our local city streets are usually 10 foot lanes. We’re. Collectors, maybe a little bit wider. It depends on the use what we’re seeing, for seeing more trucks on the road, and maybe a commercial area, we may extend it to 12 feet wide, but we usually, you know, as part of our plan now, we’re always looking for collectors, arterials. How do we fit in? In better bike facilities?
1:05:17
And sorry for the naive question, but what is the width of a tractor trailer truck,
1:05:27
probably about nine and a half to depends what they’re quick with. So anywhere from like nine and a half 10 feet nears, and then also accounting for possible sway
1:05:39
got it. And then going back to that Pratt Parkway and and 119 has there been a lot of complaints about that, because I drive that Monday, Wednesday and Friday, five o’clock in the morning, and those, those signs are blinding, and they’ve they’ve annoyed me, and the striping also annoys me. And sometimes I’m in the the lane and have to kind of merge in to turn right on to 119 so I’m hearing other board members complain about it. Have we seen a lot of complaints about that intersection? And what
1:06:13
we have received comments about the intersection from various residents and business owners and PD as well. Gotcha. Okay.
1:06:20
And then for kind of changing gears a little bit, sidewalks on on Longs Peak, and the ramps on that. Have you all had a lot of complaints, complaints about that as well, because there’s new ramps on Longs Peak, on the west side, kind of towards the golf course, there’s new ramps that were put in, and there’s some tripping hazards, and some some residents have complained to city council about those, and haven’t been addressed. So I don’t know if you all have heard those complaints about the new ramps we’ve
1:06:55
received. Some of the residents have vocalized their concerns on those we have responded and addressed them, whether we I don’t know that we physically changed anything out there, but the ramps were installed. They are in accordance with standards, and they are installed in accordance with American with Disabilities Act. Changing ramps from what we’re we’re traditionally kind of the ramps in the middle of the the kind of the radius, two directional ramps. Basically, when you have the ramps, and we have a lot of them in town that are on the radius, they tend to push people into the Lean of traffic. Is the, primary reason why we’ve made changes, I would have to I know that that the staff who worked on on that decided to depart and head over to the water utility group. So I’d have to revisit to see what, what, what we came up with. Think we were going to have our the ADA. We’ve got an ADA on call now. Take a look at them and see if there’s any issues I’d have to revisit with our streets group on that. Yeah, because
1:08:05
if you walk them, they’re not very consistent. There’s a fire hydrant in the way, and then some of them are set back pretty far. It’s just not consistent.
1:08:12
And part of the challenge is the is the road, road isn’t consistent either. It’s on a hill. It did those that was a pretty challenging project when we took it on this year for resurfacing. So again, you know, staff meets on those we talk about them. I again, I’d have to look back to see where it where it landed. Okay,
1:08:35
great, thanks. And that’s all I had. Thank you.
1:08:42
Um, I just had a couple comments and maybe some feedback, but it’s great to see that we had a decrease in fs eyes. I applaud that the whole efforts by public safety traffic, the whole group. I think that’s great. Of course, you know, still the number with the R Us, 71 I wish that were lower, of course. And Jim, you had mentioned, you know, October, and you know why we’re seeing the highest number in October, and what’s the reason behind that? And I get all that, have we thought about doing a PSA on October, on the website, you know, something that would push out this information to residents, rather than having it on a dashboard, I think, actually trying to reach them as much as we can to say, hey, October is coming up, and it’s the highest crash month, you know, in the city of Longmont. So be aware, there’s kids out on the street or whatever. I
1:09:37
think, as we start utilizing the data and seeing it, I think we’ll as Vision Zero starts to unfold, those programs will start to come to light. I think it’s excellent suggestion. I think there’s, you know, some other areas, you know, we can look at as well to get to get education, get that out to the public, yeah,
1:09:53
and, and, you know, it sounds like you’re interfacing with public safety the PD, which. I think is great as well. Day of the Week information they’re doing stops on, you know, Friday they let somebody know, hey, this is the highest crash day, you know, so slow it down, you know, that sort of stuff. I you know, any little thing we can do to reduce even one crash, I think, is helpful. And then I guess the last thing, in regards to data is when I look at the comparison with other cities, and I know I’ve asked this before, I think I don’t want to date myself, the last two times we’ve looked at the crash report, the last three times, are we interfacing with cities like Arvada Boulder, Fort Collins, Centennial Castle Rock and Greeley, and I just noticed that they’re all cities about our size that have a much lower Greeley, not as much. And I know that there’s certain personalities to the city. So arvad Boulder, we could argue that they have narrower streets, which they honestly do, and possibly that has the ability to lower speeds. And I noticed that some of the cities that have the higher crash rates have the wider streets. Hate to say that, but I think it’s true with town like Colorado Springs. So I’m just curious if there’s any sort of discussions with these other cities to say, hey, is there anything you know, secret sauce special that you’re doing? You know? What are you doing with PD to collaborate? Because obviously Boulder, Castle Rock and arvat doing something right? Because they’re literally less than half the number 3.1 so I you know. And since boulders a neighbor, I think, you know, I’m sure you guys have conversations with them, you may want to say something. Yeah, we
1:11:36
actually do meet with several cities. And c dot has some regional kind of engineers. Get togethers once or twice a year. We talk about projects we’re doing completed, and just general questions for communities. So we get what with a lot of neighboring cities, Loveland, Fort Collins, superior, Lafayette, Lewisville, as well as part of Dr Codd. We talked about a lot of different cities through there, and they give updates on projects they’re doing. One city that we talk to, at least I talk to very often, is Littleton. They’re doing a lot of the same technology and dealing with some of the same socio economic issues when it comes to transportation and highway deaths. So we’re kind of collaborating ideas and seeing what updates we have from a year to year basis.
1:12:21
Yeah, Aaron’s a good guy. I was just curious in regards to, you know, crash data crash reports, because I know that every municipality generally does it is, could there be a conversation with c.to say, why don’t you do some sort of a crash data report, kind of meeting seminar where we do have this collaboration and talk about these things, because I don’t think that’s something that’s on a regular kind of rhythm with C dot, and I think it ought to be, especially with Vision Zero being adopted by so many municipalities. It would make a lot of sense, at least. That’s just my thinking, and I get it’s hard sometimes, but I think it would be valuable information to share.
1:13:04
If you look up, they just released a new crash dashboard through Dr cog. It’s actually a combination of C dot data as well as a lot of different cities. I think we’re the first North Dr cog city, but they actually did bring a bunch of crash data and options in a brand new dashboard that’s accessible from either private or public. So I’d recommend checking out through the DR cog website.
1:13:29
Yeah, I think I’ve seen that, but I appreciate all meetings about
1:13:32
I think those are either monthly or BI monthly meetings for just crash data brainstorming. Great.
1:13:41
Yeah, I appreciate all this information. I know it’s a big lift for the entire staff to do this, so I do appreciate all that. So I guess with that, you have something else you want to add, of course,
1:13:54
sorry, I just wanted to add a fun little note, just Google, you know, the width of a Ford f1 50 with tow mirrors is 8.8 feet with normal standard mirrors is 7.9 so thank you.
1:14:14
Okay, let’s move on to the items for the upcoming agenda. As noted, we will not be having a meeting November because it falls on Veterans Day, which is a city holiday, as it should. So we will be meeting December 8, and it looks like we’ve got 21st and main update, Vision Zero update, as well as the 2025 work plan. Phil, is there anything else you want to
1:14:39
add? We’ll add the crash report just to kind of finalize that, and then you’ll have your minutes from last month and this month. Thanks.
1:14:49
Okay, do I need to do a motion, since we don’t have a quorum, or we just kind of, yeah, all right, we’re adjourned. You.
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