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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES Transportation Advisory Board 02-20-19 Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado, February 20, 2019 Minutes of a regular meeting of the Transportation Advisory Board of the Town of Estes Park, Larimer County, Colorado. Meeting held in the Room 202 of Town Hall on the 20th day of February, 2019. Present: Gordon Slack Tom Street Belle Morris Stan Black Amy Hamrick Ann Finley Janice Crow Linda Hanick Ron Wilcocks Also Present: Trustee Carlie Bangs, Town Board Liaison Greg Muhonen, Public Works Director Vanessa Solesbee, Parking & Transit Manager Megan Van Hoozer, Public Works Administrative Assistant John Hannon, Rocky Mountain National Park David Hook, Engineering Manager Absent: Chair Morris called the meeting to order at 12:01 p.m. PUBLIC COMMENT: No public comment. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: A motion was made and seconded (Slack/Hanick) to approve the January meeting minutes and all were in favor. TAB OFFICER ELECTIONS: Chair Morris announced the resignation of Member Hamrick from the TAB upon term expiration 3/31/19. Hamrick hopes to get involved again in the future but is unable to commit to the next term. Co-Chair Street indicated his intention to reapply for his TAB seat. Member Slack made a motion for sitting Chair Morris to be reelected for another term with Street continuing as Co-chair. Member Finley seconded the motion and all were in favor. PARKING WARRANT DISCUSSION: Manager Solesbee announced that the Shuttle Committee is aware of the current TAB seat openings. While she’d like to see the two committees work together, at this time the Shuttle Committee meets only as needed and this will continue until further notice. Solesbee will continue to bring information back and forth. Chair Morris would like more collaboration and engagement between the groups. Member Black suggested inviting someone to apply for Hamrick’s vacating seat. Solesbee stated that she may request more shuttle committee members apply to TAB in the future but not at this point. Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) representative, John Hannon is also a member of the Shuttle Committee and feels there would be a lot of value to merging the groups. Member Crow feels this is a great time for the groups to be combined. Solesbee will further discuss with the shuttle committee and will bring an update to the group next month. Transportation Advisory Board – February 20, 2019 – Page 2 Crow asked if Solesbee was planning to disband the Shuttle Committee now that the new Parking & Transit Division (P&T) has been created. Solesbee stated she’d not yet decided but is planning to have discussions with the committee in March. Crow stated that the Shuttle Committee performs outreach to all agencies, including the Town. Solesbee stated that the committee will determine their own fate and what they decide their next steps will be. To expand TAB membership seats, it would need approval from the Town Board. Solesbee provided a recap to the TAB on the topic of a Paid Parking Warrant process. This discussion is a result of what has been asked of Solesbee in her new P&T role with the Town of Estes Park. Solesbee is attempting to accomplish management of a public asset and identification of a revenue source (paid parking) for parking management and future goals. A revenue stream is needed for progress. All plans and goals came from the Downtown Parking Management Plan (DPMP) and all options are being considered, not only paid parking (i.e., paid parking, establishment of an assessment district, charging for transit, etc.). For 2019 the P&T Division will continue to collect data with occupancy study, real time parking availability (update next month), continued enforcement. This data needs provided to the TB for an informed decision to be made. Solesbee walked through the presentation created for the paid parking warrant process with the TAB. Case studies from other municipalities show their established criteria is relevant and important to their individual communities, to which they’ve also assigned ratings. Estes Park is attempting to do this with the individual parking lots. Solesbee requested the TAB provide the high-level categories of what is important to Estes Park, including what was provided in the DPMP. Solesbee provided questions to the group: What is important to the TAB? Is it land use; walkability; individual values of parking spaces? Member Hanick asked what outreach efforts are planned for 2019. In December, 2018 Solesbee started visiting with the individual business owners. Public outreach on this process is expected to begin in March or April with citizens. Discussion is needed to have the regularly scheduled TAB meeting in April host a community outreach event by inviting folks to come and discuss the paid parking warrant process. A presentation to the Town Board is scheduled for April 23. Charley Dickey plans to send out a survey related to the paid parking warrant process. Another series of outreach efforts are planned to occur prior to Fall. It is important to inform the public prior to Town Board presentations. Member Wilcocks requested further elaboration on the category definitions. Solesbee stated we’re looking only at individual lots and pulling pieces of data already collected. Discussions continued on needed metrics for the Estes Park paid parking warrant process. Member Slack stated the criticality of taking into account the seasonality of parking availability. Wilcocks stated the Town should use same metrics/measurements each year and watch trends. Solesbee mentioned the importance to also look at the customer experience for both residents and visitors within the measurement criteria. Other suggested categories include proximity to downtown, walkability/accessibility, transit accessibility, congestion, proximity/impact to private parking, and parking during high volume events. Hamrick suggested that a category for proximity to a “specific asset” (i.e. post office) which would be more citizen driven. Solesbee will think about getting to the bottom of ‘trip purpose’ preference for citizens. Solesbee confirmed that, if implemented, paid parking would be only seasonally enforced (May-October). Solesbee will provide a completed draft of what was discussed today to the n ext TAB meeting and will send out a week prior for review time. Transportation Advisory Board – February 20, 2019 – Page 3 COMPLETE STREETS POLICY REVIEW (D. Hook): Chair Morris and Manager Hook presented the Complete Streets Policy to the Town Board at a study session and received positive feedback. A question that came up was how much community feedback had been received. Since a majority of the feedback was provided during the Downtown Plan process, the Town Board suggested additional outreach occur prior to requesting adoption of the policy. Hook stated that the Town Board did account for the TAB recommendation being the citizen representation however additional outreach is desired. The goal for today is to come up with an outreach plan. This will not be presented at another study session but as an action item for a Town Board meeting once needed outreach is performed. For an outreach idea Member Finley asked about a potential piggy-back on other events, like having an informational table set up at an already established event as was done for the Downtown Parking Management Plan during the 2018 Farmers Market. Trustee Liaison Bangs clarified that the Town Board primarily wants an opportunity for the public to provide feedback on this policy proposal, not necessarily by hosting a big event. Member Crow also stated a preference for further public outreach. Muhonen stated the TAB request was simple. The TAB requested a checklist be required for future projects. Unsure about the community’s level of interest on the checklist but suggests scheduling a public meeting and recreating the presentation. The goal is to convey what the checklist is for and why it’s important. TAB wants to ensure the evaluation of projects continues moving forward. The request to the Town Board is for approval of the checklist and to provide an avenue for comments. The Public Works staff will assist the TAB in scheduling and coordinating the public meeting with the TAB to partner in the presentation. The group determined the best dates for this event would be either Tuesday, March 19 or Wednesday, March 20. Scheduling will be finalized and an invitation will be sent to all TAB members. TRAILS MASTER PLAN: Discussion on the Trails Master Plan is postponed until the March TAB meeting due to time constraints. PROJECT UPDATES (G. Muhonen – Public Works Administration) Muhonen deferred his project update time to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) Representative, John Hannon. Hannon reported the RMNP staff are 35 days behind where they would be had it not been for the government shutdown . The shutdown had a heavy impact on staffing, contracting and other timelines. Hannon stated that RMNP is still hoping to join in the construction of the Fall River Trail to connect to the Aspenglen Campground at the time construction begins. There are definite advantages to there being a contractor on-site and piggy backing on the chosen bid. The larger RMNP trail portion which extends Beaver Meadows is dependent on funding, priority shifting, and may need identified in another forum or slated as a new visitor entrance. It is off the radar at this time due to lack of identified funding and the capacity of the staff to perform the needed work. Cheri Yost is performing visitor use planning. Member Slack asked about coordinating DMS messaging. RMNP still plan for coordinated messaging on Town signs. Hannon will work with Solesbee moving forward to coordinate messaging. Master planning efforts on permanent RMNP dynamic message signs and how they work with to continue. Signage could potentially link all the way to I- 25. Muhonen shared with the TAB the Micromobility Device draft report and Ordinance with supporting links prior to today’s meeting. There is no intention of requiring a minimum age or helmets. Muhonen asked for discussion if there is a different opinion. Member Finley asked why these wouldn’t be required. Muhonen stated that this type of requirement would be too much government oversight and would require increased enforcement. Finley’s concerned that not only could the scooter rental business be sued but the Town Transportation Advisory Board – February 20, 2019 – Page 4 as well. In other communities there’s a limit to 15 mph for scooter business rentals. Co-chair Street stated the discussion includes bicycles and e-bicycles and that a limit of 15 mph is too slow. He further stated that scooters and bicycles are different and should be in different categories. The speed restriction should be stated and enforced by scooter vendors through their rentals. Enforcement would most likely only occur with a repeat offender and actionable enforcement would be applied when needed. A motion was made and seconded (Wilcocks/Hanick) to proceed in taking this draft ordinance and supporting language to the next Town Board Study Session and all were in favor. OTHER BUSINESS With no other business to discuss, Chair Morris adjourned the meeting at 2:06 p.m. Recording Secretary Megan Van Hoozer, Public Works Department