Portland panel approves temporary mural for Pine and Brackett intersection

[0:00] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Just because I'm doing something in the background, all right, I won't take it personally. Sorry, you may have heard a bit of feedback, but I think we're good, Sean. [1:17] Betsy Boyd: Can you hear me? Yes, yay, the technology is working. Okay, books just [2:50] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): waiting for some other review panel guest. Looks like Jeremiah joined since I last looked at my screen. We also have John Whipple as a representative from the public art committee. He is sending me some correspondence, so hopefully we can get him on this meeting as [3:39] Speaker C (unidentified): an aside to put all this in perspective. I just got some photos from a guy that I'm communicating with in the Eastern DRC. And the pictures are about 30 young children who are the children of rape victims that he just purchased a bunch of cloth and made clothing for. And he wanted to post the photos. And this guy is living in the middle of his own controlled by the rebel group funded by Rwanda M23, and he's living right in the middle of where Ebola has just broken out, and he's sending me pictures of these little kids who are survivors of rape victims. He's got a lot more on his plate than we do, yeah. [4:35] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Sorry to hear about that, yeah. Well, this is, we do have this formatted as a public meeting, we typically have a live stream available, and our focus for today will be reviewing the temporary art application for the West End Neighborhood Association. I'm just looking at my participants. It appears we may have someone in the waiting room. All right, so we've started the webinar. I'm just gonna record this. If that's okay with the group, just for public record. Hey, thank you. We can begin. Thank you all for joining today. We organized a temporary art review panel to discuss and review applications received for temporary art based on the guidelines that are available in the city's website under the public art program. I wanted to introduce myself and then I can hand it over to our review panel. So today we are reviewing an application to temporarily paint a mural within the street intersections of Pine Street and Brackett Street. We have our applicant Gregory Ferrino who is a representative of the West End Neighborhood Association. My name is Sean King, urban designer with the planning department, and I'll be facilitating this review panel. I'll kick it off with introducing our review panel, followed by just, Gregory, your brief presentation about your proposal. So just for the review panel, feel free to introduce yourself. I'll start with Matt Grooms. [7:15] Betsy Boyd: Hi, everyone. I'm Matthew Grimms. I'm the Deputy Director of Planning and Urban Development, and I'll pass it over to Jeremiah. [7:25] Jeremiah Bartlett: Hi, my name is Jeremiah Bartlett, Transportation Systems Engineer with City of Portland Public Works, and I'll pass it over to Betsy. [7:37] Betsy Boyd: Good afternoon, everybody. Can you guys hear me okay with my microphone here? Yes. Yes, I'm Betsy Boyd and I work for Portland downtown where the downtown district improvement organization not for profit. My role here is I'm the community outreach and engagement manager, and [7:58] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): John Whipple can you introduce yourself. [8:01] John Whipple: John Whipple. I'm part of the Portland community, Portland Public Art Committee. And Sean got me to take a look at this. [8:13] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): All right thank you all so I'll I've already introduced Gregory Farino but I do have to accept this I do have the images of the application available Gregory if it's if it's okay I can bring those up or you could just speak to the review panel [8:41] Speaker C (unidentified): Well, you've probably all looked at the images, but we can bring them up or not. It's up to you if you want to see them while I'm talking about the design. [8:51] John Whipple: Yeah, I'll go ahead. I'd like to see them because they didn't make sense to me. [8:56] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, I'll bring them up. What was that, John? [9:01] John Whipple: The description didn't match the image that I got, so I was wondering, I had a few questions about that. [9:10] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Okay. All right. So is everyone seeing the screen, the image? Yes. [9:20] Speaker C (unidentified): All right. Go ahead. The image in the description may be slightly different because of my ability to manipulate the software and present exactly what it was that we were planning to put in there. Basically, it will be a circle as opposed to a hexagon. The idea is to have one of those images facing each of the directions of the intersection once the circle is painted on the intersection. intersection. Some background. I've been the coordinator for West End Neighborhood Association traffic calming for the past, I guess, two and a half, three years now. We started with two intersections in 24. And last year, we increased that to five. This year, we're hoping to increase it to 10, including this one. This is the only one that has a graphic design on it. There's been a growing interest and appreciation for traffic calming in the West End. In addition to these activities, we had a workshop in January and invited members of the city government, neighborhood associations, and special area experts to come to that workshop. up. I believe there were 10 other neighborhood associations that came, which sort of demonstrates the growing interest in traffic calming and, to that end, the effectiveness of traffic calming in slowing down traffic and increasing pedestrian and, to some extent, bicyclist safety. The idea of this particular design was basically to draw attention to the intersection for drivers. drivers. I felt that the intersection was too narrow to put up, for instance, yellow traffic cones in the middle of the intersections. That would be an impediment to traffic in a number of different directions. I did mention to Jeremiah that if there was an ability of the city going forward to put four-way blinking or flashing red lights, that would be helpful, but that might take a lot of time to get approved. So in the meantime, I came up with the idea of having this design in the middle of the intersection. Keep in mind, it's a four-way stop. So in theory, traffic is stopping at this intersection in every direction. Unfortunately, they don't always completely stop. And so the plan was to have a silhouetted picture of a young family in one direction, a bicyclist in the other direction, in the direction of Reiki, a silhouette of a small classroom, and then in the direction toward Pine Street down that way. I can't remember what that picture is. Oh, it looks like somebody in a mobility chair. But the whole idea, at one point, that was a man walking a dog. It looks like it's a mobility chair, but the whole idea was to just get the drivers to think about the number of different uses of this intersection and the need to pay attention. There was a member of the association who pointed out this intersection in particular. She lived nearby. She felt it was fairly dangerous. When I was over there talking with the crossing guard, the crossing guard said he's a little nervous on crossing hours because even when he goes out there, he's not sure everybody's going to stop in every direction while he's trying to help people cross the street. So it was, it was felt that some additional attempt to draw drivers' attention to the importance of this intersection was necessary, and this design is what came from that. Any questions about that? [13:33] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Yeah, we can follow up with questions from the review panel. Gregor, is that basically the last of your description of the project? [13:45] Speaker C (unidentified): Because we can follow with questions now. Well, I can also just point out that if you see those rectangular areas off to the sides, those aren't taking away any existing parking places. Those are basically reminding drivers that those are no parking zones and they're not supposed to park there anyway. By making sure that they're protected with some paint and bollards, the idea was to increase daylighting for all of these crosswalks. Again emphasizing the to the drivers the use of this intersection by all of the pedestrians and bicyclists and students who go through here all right that's that's it and then the focus of [14:28] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): today's meeting will be specifically about the mural painted within the intersection so the areas that are indicated adjacent to the curb will be a part of a demonstration project. So we don't we don't need to get into the weeds on that. It's just about the of the mural itself in the within the street. [14:55] Speaker C (unidentified): That's it. So, right. So [15:07] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Typically, at this time, we are. If there's any members of the public. public, we can go ahead and take public comment. It appears that we do have one member of the public and I believe that hand is raised. So I would remind anyone to provide public comment to limit their time to three minutes and then I'll enable you to speak at this time please state your name and where you're from [15:55] Jamie Parker: This is Jamie Parker special projects director with Portland Trails can you hear me yes great well thanks for taking the time to review this and I don't have much to add again if the focus is on the mural itself so you know I think Jeremiah already knows that the image kind of shows covering of the crosswalk bars but those will not be covered so really that's that's you know we're we're Portland Trails is playing a supporting role in this and we'll very likely you know be on hand to help out With you know traffic control and safety and then anything else we can do to help we obviously support this and commend the West End neighborhood for keeping this going so that's that's all I have thank you [16:43] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Thanks so much. I think we're good. I don't see any other members of the public. So at this time, we can follow up with any remarks or questions. So just raise your hand. Hi, John. [17:16] John Whipple: Okay, I have a few. The crosswalk rectangles, I guess the crosswalks are not going to be covered as shown. That's correct. The description said the color was heather and the picture shows purple. Which of those it's, it's well, different paint stores have [17:42] Speaker C (unidentified): have given it a different name. It's sort of a purple sage. It's a light purple. We try to keep it consistent with all of the traffic calming bump outs that we have in the West End. [17:52] John Whipple: Okay. And the figure is actually going to be a circle. I wonder if the little figures in it might be traveling around that circle, like the bicycle and the wheelchair chair, and the groups, if they might actually be in touch with the perimeter of the circle and looking like they're traveling around it. [18:22] Speaker C (unidentified): I hadn't thought about traveling around the circle. The goal was just to make the driver think about all of those different participants using the intersection. [18:34] John Whipple: So how will you come up with the images? [18:37] Speaker C (unidentified): We're going to use cardboard, make some silhouettes, and then paint into the silhouette. [John Whipple: Yep. Okay.] As Jamie Parker had kind of mentioned there, we've worked together on some projects where we've had to do partial paint jobs, letting each section dry so that traffic can continue moving through the area. So we don't envision any stoppage of traffic and we'll have enough volunteers with some of the DPW yellow vests out there. Just making sure everyone's safe and traffic continues to flow. [19:17] John Whipple: Right. Well, I think it's a great idea. I like it. I'm there every day. I go through that intersection. So I'll be looking for it. If you feel inspired to have things running around the edge like a squirrel cage, that would be great. From I think do you live in that area yes yeah a couple blocks away for the last 50 years ah [19:40] Speaker C (unidentified): Well you may be interested in knowing that there'll be two temporary crosswalks going in down the street on Bracket Street bracketing Carlton and bracketing Neil okay I [19:59] Betsy Boyd: have a question, Greg. My question is about the durability of it. So I know we've done some of these projects as well. And in the areas where the traffic just consistently goes over that spot, they tend to wear pretty easily. I'm wondering about what you guys are thinking for that. Are you planning to refresh it every couple of years or? [20:29] Speaker C (unidentified): It's designed as a temporary installation, and I believe our permit says it's good for a year unless we're told we need to remove it otherwise. Where we have other bump outs using the same paint, as you've indicated, where there's a lot of wear and tear, it tends to wear out. We expect it to happen here as well. And it's going to be, unfortunately, it's going to be the case with these temporary installations until the city takes them on and makes them more permanent, whether it's bump outs or informative murals. They're designed to wear away, and all the bollards have to come down every November, unfortunately, until those things are made permanent, and we'll just keep plugging away way until that happens. [21:22] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): So just to follow up on that, Gregory, it would be upon install, if it were to be within the next couple of weeks, your preference would be for the permit to last a year? [21:38] Speaker C (unidentified): If it's, I mean, if it's possible for you to have a multi-year permit, that's fine. I would imagine we'll also get feedback during the year from residents, you know, as to whether they like it, they don't like it, whether it should be modified or not modified. Assuming that it's as well received as the other installations we've had and people want us to renew it, we would certainly try to renew it. As I may have mentioned earlier with that other issue we had, WENA has to find funding for these activities every year because they're funded by nonprofits and not by the city. The city would have to find funding as well. But to find funding every year to repaint the same design would become problematic if we had to refund it every year. Although, as I said, we would like to continue doing this and all of these for as long as we can with the funding available. [22:42] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Yes, thank you for that. Yeah, there is the ability to request an extension in advance of the permit expiring a year from now. So you would just reach out to myself or planning at PortlandMaine.gov, and that extension request can be done on a staff review level. [23:12] Speaker C (unidentified): Okay, thank you for that. [23:13] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): But any feedback from the residents is also very good to forward along if you happen to receive those. And they can also be directed to the city's public comment at maine.gov, portlandmaine.gov. [23:30] Speaker C (unidentified): I did just speak to one of the managers at Rosemont the other day, and she thought it was a wonderful idea. [23:41] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): Are there any other questions from the review panel? [23:51] Jeremiah Bartlett: Actually, I did have one other question. With this, I just want to confirm, because maybe you already said it, but maybe I missed it. Is this proposed to be deployed at the same time as the demonstration project work that DPW has already approved, Gregory? [24:12] Speaker C (unidentified): I think it would have to be done in a second phase. [Jeremiah Bartlett: Okay. So after?] Yes. We'd like to get all of the bump outs and bollards done, and then we will come back and work on this project. Okay, thank you. I [24:40] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): can't hear you. Yeah, I know, I was, I was, I just saw that in terms of the, silhouettes for the, for the figures that would be painted on the street, so those are, those are illustrated to show kind of in their proposal individuals attending class, someone in a mobility device, potentially a family walking and a bicyclist. Those would, looking at avoiding any confusion with the transportation standards that have kind of a template for bicycle to indicate bike lanes, is there, is there a way to avoiding any of those, confusions for motorists in how you create your silhouettes? [25:52] Jeremiah Bartlett: Do [25:55] Speaker C (unidentified): you have a suggestion about a type of design for bicyclists that we should not use and we can and avoid? Well, [26:05] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): typically, and I can let Jeremiah speak to this, the bicycle symbol that's utilized throughout Portland is standardized. I believe the side view bicyclist, that would be the only one that I would, I would probably flag, and we can, we can talk about that one specifically, but we wouldn't, we wouldn't want to have confusion about the bicycle symbol, and I think I should bring this up just so we can, we can all look at it [26:42] Speaker C (unidentified): together. That's a good point. When I was talking, when I was responding to John's question, I mentioned that one of the silhouettes that we had envisioned early on was a person walking a dog. If the bicyclist is problematic, we could swap out the person walking the dog silhouette with the bicycle silhouette, Gregor. [27:10] Betsy Boyd: I'm not trying to solve the problem, but it, when you guys first started talking about this, I was like, oh, what if you went with like an old-fashioned bicycle, like something that's still recognizable to people as a bicycle, but a little more artistic, like, I don't know if the artist has other, you know, ways of rendering a bicycle, but I was like, old-fashioned bike would be recognizable, but yet not a bike. [27:37] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): One with a large wheel in the front? [27:39] Betsy Boyd: Yeah, like something funny like that. Right. And a dog riding it, that'll be, we'll confuse it. [27:50] Speaker C (unidentified): That may surpass our artist's silhouette ability. Yeah, I'm, I'm open. I'm opening to changing that if that's problematic. I [28:07] John Whipple: think that would work, actually, and it would catch people's attention. It doesn't have to be contemporary. I'm not sure they even use blackboards very much anymore with electronic media out there. [28:20] Speaker C (unidentified): There, okay, so how about, depending upon what we can do with the silhouette, how about if we agree that it will either be an old-fashioned cyclist or a person walking a dog? It's [28:34] John Whipple: okay, John, that works for me. Okay. [28:47] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): I would agree that provides distinction between, you know, what we've seen for bicycle lanes and provide some thoughtful interpretation. Thank you, Betsy, and John, for your feedback related to those silhouettes. So if there's not any other questions, we can move forward with a decision. If there's any conditions at this time, I would just allow the review panel to discuss those. Typically, we would require that the applicant gets any street occupancy permits to actually perform the work within the right-of-way. I know you've discussed your traffic management plan and the ability to keep the intersection operating and then using volunteers to help manage traffic flow. It would, we do have a street occupancy permit which allows Department of Public Works to understand just the scope of the work and potential time, timing on those, on the work, so that's available on the city's citizen self portal and you can just, once we, once we send you a letter with a temporary art permit, you can attach that and then just indicate your dates of painting. We had also discussed modifying the silhouettes so that it doesn't – so the symbols are clearly identified as a street mural and don't conflict with the transportation standards or symbols that are painted in the street, particularly for bicyclists. So at this time, is there a motion to approve the application with the two conditions? [31:58] John Whipple: I move to approve it if that's what you'd like. Yes. I'll second. [32:12] Sean (Chair/Presiding Officer): So I'll do a roll call vote. With the review panel, I'll start with Betsy Boyd, approved. Jeremiah Bartlett, [Jeremiah Bartlett: approved. Matt] Grooms, proved. John Whipple, approved. And then Sean King, myself as moderator, approved. [John Whipple: Great.] So it passes unanimously. Thank you, Gregory, for your time and your proposal. We appreciate your focus in the West End, and we look forward to following up with our temporary art permit. It will include details, and then you can use that and we'll have it for the duration of one year. If you're comfortable with an immediate start date, we can go ahead and populate the first of the first Monday in June as a start date. Otherwise, please let me know if that should adjust. [Speaker C (unidentified): just. All] right. Enjoy the rest of your day. And thank you again for everyone's participation. We really appreciate it. Thank you all. Thanks all. Best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Sean, we're still here. Can you hear me?