Brunswick bike committee backs CIP project slate, prioritizes McCoy-Mere Point

[0:00] Zach Champ: Okay, I'll call to order the September 24th meeting of the BBPAC. We'll do introductions and then start with our agenda. I'm Zach Champ. I'm a co-chair. We'll go to my right. [0:14] Speaker B (unidentified): I'm just barely a co-chair. [0:19] Pat Miller: Pat Miller is now Bloom's member. [0:24] Eric Funderburg: Eric Funderburg, member. [0:26] Jason Starris: Jason Starris, member. [0:27] Pat Miller: Susan Piedman, member. Staying in the room. [0:37] Eric Funderburg: Jamie Eckerd, council member and liaison to the committee. [0:40] Jason Starris: And online? [0:43] Pat Miller: We don't have, we have Kathy. There's Kathy. [0:49] Speaker F (unidentified): She's not on the committee. Let's see. [0:54] Zach Champ: Any additions to the agenda? I think we have a kind of a tight agenda today, but any late-breaking changes or things like that. We might have some housekeeping at the end, meeting timing, and some other things, but [1:10] Eric Funderburg: we'll see where we get. [1:14] Jason Starris: We'll go from there. [1:16] Zach Champ: Approval of minutes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Kathy makes the motion. A second. Eric second. All in favor approve. Unanimous. All right. Last month, we talked about September being sort of a jam-packed meeting, looking at the network map and CIP proposals and some other things, and here we are. So I don't think we have much of a recap beyond that. The first item on the action item is the network map. I don't know what the committee would like to do. We can either maybe do a little bit of discussion informally and then we can make a motion if that's appropriate. I'll start, Chrissy. So the network map, we had set this as the time to hopefully approve the map and send it on for greater public comment and feedback and then eventually getting it to the town council for their review. So you all have looked at it. It's a tool that took some learning and appreciate everyone kind of running through it and adding those things I would [2:30] Speaker F (unidentified): say that yes like big picture I'd say like the most immediate next step though is for me to take that take your feedback I think the most immediate thing is we agree that this is the deadline for your input so that I can take it and incorporate it into it and then start to work with you to design that next phase of the community input okay does it feel pretty complete in your I think so I had I think I need written comments from you still oh maybe you did yeah okay let me check again for that and then Jason I don't know I have comments here I didn't have anything [3:09] Jason Starris: negative to say about it okay I really like it I think it's really cool yeah a lot of things that [3:15] Eric Funderburg: I've you know kind of viewed I saw that it already marks in there yeah a lot of notes it's pretty [3:20] Jason Starris: Intuitive once you start playing with it. But yeah, I didn't have any negative comments. [3:24] Pat Miller: All right. Okay. [3:26] Speaker F (unidentified): Katja, did you get a chance to? [3:28] Pat Miller: Yeah, I did. I'm still trying to figure out everything exactly, but I didn't have any [3:35] Speaker F (unidentified): comments. No comments? Okay. And it's not like the deadline-deadline. I mean, you guys can give me feedback as we keep going, but I just wanted to put the end point for this phase so that we can now design the community input phase. [3:51] Eric Funderburg: Was there anything that stood out in the comments that was a revelation or new? [4:02] Jason Starris: No, actually. [4:04] Speaker F (unidentified): No, I'd say actually the biggest sort of thing, the biggest sort of light bulb for me was actually one of Jeri's that she put in a while ago about the recreational routes and how, because I had very much taken the view and lens of this out of the sort of the commuter day-to-day business sort of network and not a recreational network, even though obviously there's a lot of overlap there. And so that was sort of like figuring out how to, I think that is still sort of. Yeah. [4:37] Zach Champ: I don't know which sort of mode it takes for public comment on this, like a big printout with stickers and things like that. [4:44] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, it might be a workshop, it might be a survey. I think we have to kind of figure that out. Maybe the subcommittee gets back together to talk about that, but I also know that I can talk with people here and figure out what a good format for that is, and it's just me and Jerry, that's right. [4:59] Speaker B (unidentified): On the subcommittee, so if we meet in subcommittee, we should probably add one more person. [5:06] Pat Miller: I'd be happy to. Okay, because then that might help me understand better how to use this. [5:12] Zach Champ: Yeah, so okay, but the one technical thing, if for some, if the community gets to use the actual online system, kind of like just as a, like the little dots that we made, if there's any way to change the size of them or what they looked like, because I know I was like adding like six of them. [5:32] Jason Starris: I'm like, yeah, and sometimes they snap to the grid, so I don't think we'll go that way. Okay. [5:48] Speaker F (unidentified): I was thinking that it would be a one-time event that would maybe hit or miss. [5:59] Speaker B (unidentified): And I would think that how some wasn't comments on, this was a major bike group, it was more that do have comments about problem areas, so you could go click and you could see other people may or may not have commented about something, but it was the same system. Okay. [6:17] Speaker F (unidentified): And then I know that Jamie's brought up the point that this community input period could be a good way to sort of back it with some data. So there's a survey to go along that supplements what's in the bike headmaster plan, that survey data, we can use this public input process to do that. [6:40] Speaker B (unidentified): And I wonder if there's someone in the bike coalition of Maine who has expertise or some other organization about how to collect data like that. And then also, you know, a long time ago, we talked about using Google-ish data on bikes and cyclists. [6:58] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, I think Trey has access to something like that because that's that's really just saying [7:04] Speaker B (unidentified): this is what's already happening maybe it's called Strava well certainly there's Strava which [7:11] Jason Starris: is a certain category of people but not I don't use Strava but it's like it's like a running app [7:19] Speaker F (unidentified): or a cycling app like a more serious it has it for traffic though I don't know like there might be like professional grades that I'm sure he has because I think he's mentioned it before [7:31] Speaker B (unidentified): I feel like we talked about Google Strava you have to be a member of and [7:37] Zach Champ: what's most useful here I think we can make a motion to say we're kind of done and transmit [7:41] Speaker F (unidentified): it to you or is it any formal but I don't know if it's necessary if we all sort of very good because it's just really online and pass it and everybody's comfortable with me moving on with it so maybe we need some team or subcommittee to do that sort of public process planning [8:00] Zach Champ: Is there a sort of a timeline to like the kind of circle around it because like to hold a workshop this fall this winter let's try this fall [8:10] Eric Funderburg: or winter is there any chance that this could merge with the complete streets policy coming together. [8:20] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, that would be great. You know, it's important to meet with Jimmy about it when we could go, but then he left for France, I believe. Oh,, oh. So I'll meet with Jimmy in the back. I was hoping to do that stuff sooner, but we couldn't put it together. [8:42] Eric Funderburg: It's probably too big a crunch, but I've heard that there's other engineering infrastructure stuff coming in the November agenda maybe that's something you could take back talk about [8:54] Pat Miller: the [8:57] Speaker F (unidentified): map I'll be ready that soon yeah there's some other [9:03] Eric Funderburg: road ordinance stuff I think that's coming up I think that was tentative and I suggested to the manager that maybe this could be on the same agenda so we're kind of doing a lot of road related stuff the same evening. I don't know if that's possible or not. It [9:27] Speaker B (unidentified): Makes sense to put the network map and community instruments together. They have to come together. Yeah, it's preferred. [9:37] Zach Champ: It's a placeholder at the moment. [9:39] Speaker B (unidentified): But they wouldn't put one putting them alongside each other even though Fleet Streets also includes pedestrian and other. [9:51] Speaker F (unidentified): That's my, that's my hesitation with it, is that it would cause that confusion. [9:56] Speaker B (unidentified): Or you can companion, you could reference what we already have. We already have a pedestrian plan in Brunswick that [10:08] Zach Champ: already exists. Okay, so unless there's a sense of the committee that we should do something official, then we'll, we'll look to work with you. The subcommittee will fire up again, and we'll look for something this fall and see how to pair that appropriately. Okay, so the next, the next item we had was the CIP [10:32] Jason Starris: proposals. I don't know if you have it decked up. Oh, I'm sorry, I totally don't. Let me navigate to that. [10:42] Zach Champ: I'll just start. So this is, this is my sort of synthesis of what I've heard in a lot of my sort of opinions and in there, and certainly it's starting off branching off point for the committee to look at where and how it wants to focus. So overarching, like I [11:07] Jason Starris: let's share it or not. Here you go. Did you share your screen, or is it? Oh yeah, I do, don't. Okay. I [11:21] Speaker F (unidentified): don't think I can get a bigger screen. I think I'm just going to have to stay like that. Yeah, all good. [11:30] Zach Champ: So you can go to the next slide. Yeah. So there's a lot of text here. Overall, I've been on the committee a little while, and I'm looking to see if and how it's appropriate to move to larger sort of projects and sort of pipeline that anticipates more of the needs you know what i've kind of seen in the past is you know sometimes projects come up because there's like an opportunity we know we're doing this resurfacing we're doing this rebuild there's money there's a pot of money here there 's like some critical infrastructure change that's needed and that's great it's actually a big part of like complete streets complete streets is supposed to consider whenever something touches this comes up but you should look at all The active transportation aspects, if some of the things I don't see, and it's kind of looking at the lens of BBPAC is some of the big sort of projects. I mean, we should, I my opinion is we should, we should throw them out there. We don't have the power to vote on funding. We don't have the power to really choose what goes year to a year in actuality and issue bonds. But when I walk around town or cycle around town, there's infrastructure gaps that I see that may not be politically or financially ripe. You'll see that sort of in the deck today, but I think it's imperative in this committee to kind of like put those out there and look at that annually and say this is like these are the things that the town could build towards and the elected votes and the staff have the hard choice, harder choices of weighing constituent needs and budget scarcity and all those different things. But I think our job, at least as I see it, is like what are the gaps and where should we be looking for that? So the next slide. [13:40] Speaker F (unidentified): And I was just like, I just wanted to like, yeah, just like, since we're start kicking off with CIP, I did want to like, just like put the CIP like this. I just wanted to let you know, the Biden committee is making a good, like good progress as far as getting projects in CIP. I just did like a little number from before the meeting and, of the infrastructure projects recommended for funding, which is like the big category where all money goes those pretty much. 65% of those had bike pad infrastructure improvements on them. And then the other 26% were culverts. And then the last 9% were a parking lot and a grant match. So pretty much all of the road projects, with I think the exception of one or two, have bike pad infrastructure improvements in them. So as far as the town making sure that their police search policy is being implemented. Like, it's happening, it's in the CIP. Now, to Zach's point, yes, like, we don't have something that's been worked out, so it does feel a little bit piecemeal, and there are major gaps like downtown, and it could be that if we can throw them in there, they might end up in, there's two other categories for those of you who live in the CIP. It's, there is projects, so these are projects recommended for funding, but then there's projects in development, and there's projects that are proposed but not recommended, and those two other categories, like Main Street for example, might get put into those other categories for now, but that still gets on council's radar and they can be bumped up in the future. Another example is in this, in this that we'll go over, but is the Mirror Point design study that we put in last year, we're going to bump it up to fund it recommended for funding this year because it's not currently in that phase. So just wanted you to, like, I think I know that, like, the CIP can be a really daunting document, and if you're not in it every day, even for me it's hard to navigate sometimes, but like Bike Head is getting a lot of attention in our city, and give kudos to the council and staff and you all for making that change, because it was always that way [15:44] Eric Funderburg: Yeah, two things I'd say, I've said it before, but it is a daunting document to look at. I don't recommend just going into it. What would be good is only for staff, there's like five pages out of it that are worth this committee looking at, like in the spring when the passes in the summer as you're thinking about stuff for the fall, because the fall is when we start doing the CIP planning for the next year, and it's a five-year plan, so I have, I think I might have [16:16] Speaker F (unidentified): those five pages already, like it's just those three patterns, so I can, and you know while Zach's talking we can, we can see what I want, but I didn't need to. Yeah, no, just want to set the [16:29] Zach Champ: stage for that. I don't mean to minimize the work of Chrissy here, the staff, or the council, like I think things are happening, I've definitely seen like in a very short window more happening. And honestly, like, if we put everything on the board this year, like the obvious things or next year, it'll be in the book and we'll flip through it and it'll be elevated or not in future years. My main thing is, like, it should be in the book. There's some gaps there that seem obvious, at least to me, that could be in there and they get raised. so i just again like if you're new to the committee or the cip like the town and sort of it 's it's leadership and whatnot like there's there's a lot that's already out there that says that these things are important right there's a comprehensive plan newly adopted last year that's that's updated it talks about active transportation and network maps even and all that sort of stuff. There is a complete streets policy for 2016. When we talk about it here, we're talking about being one week, meet on the boats, phones there and modernizing it. There's a bike and pedestrian master plan. And then this committee was, I think like from what I've found we chartered years ago and has been re-upped and kind of like refocused since then. [Jason Starris: So next slide.] So just like really fast on this one. I think this is something that is more conversation later, but at least I think there's things in the pipeline. I think there's a discussion we had when Trey's back and those sorts of things. How do you get things ready to jump to new projects when something falls apart or something gets delayed? How many things do we have ready to be nimble on, if that's even possible you look at some recent projects that have kind of been delayed but and then there's been a year of no or of lesser fewer bike veteran projects even though something was funded so like Jordan Ave itself and not breaking news but like it's not happening this year it didn't happen last year I think it was two years ago but it didn't happen and I saw some meeting where we don't have any plans for bike vestry and stuff. Can we do more paving or not? There wasn't something, I don't think, again, I don't have the benefit of the trade here, but did we have something engineering ready to move folks on to another project that the council could meet on quickly and just reposition and redeploy resources? [19:10] Speaker F (unidentified): I don't know. It is a longer conversation. I think that when that opportunity arises, that does jump on it like I see that happening but it's not always that's not always the case because it depends on so many so many factors but I know that we [19:28] Jason Starris: do that one when there's the opportunity absolutely and so maybe it's just [19:35] Zach Champ: something like we I would benefit from more education how that happens what does you know we see like 60% engineer and 20% like what is actually something where you can say like okay here's go do this like so I don't know these ones kind of focus on network gaps network map will help with that intersection safety corridor buildouts pedestrian safety those sorts of things the next slide so that is impossible to read what I propose I'll just go through these really quickly and then we can all flip through back where we want to. But just to give you a quick overview, just because timing is going to be tight. So there's somewhat of a sense of order here, but not real prioritization. The first one here is Main Street, Park Row, active transportation length. This is like sort of my idea, like the billboard of like, if we don't put it out there, the timing will never be right. We just redid the sidewalks, they're gonna last for two generations. I don't know the political will. The businesses had some issues, and like we're still going, there's still more to be done. However, as I define the problem, and this tries to look at what that CIP document looks like, kind of it has like sort of department head, which I love, like left blank, and as funding, which can be filled out, but it has a problem statement, the scope, what engine, what sort of pairing there is, and then alternatives for consideration, and then sort of what authority kind of it's under that should get it further along. Like it's a good start, it's not the perfect sort of format, but like it's trying to mimic what folks should understand. So yeah, well I'll just add [21:40] Speaker F (unidentified): too, like throughout this presentation there are there are some references to like some numbers, cost savings and costs, and I just want to make every sure everyone knows that those are just ballparks by Zach, they're not vetted by staff, I don't, you know, so they're not really based in what we know. So don't, I would, I would just ignore those for the benefit of this presentation, and really what the BB pack needs to do is focus on sort of the vision, visionary aspects of this, and then we'll bring in the experts to hammer down the numbers of [22:17] Jason Starris: top savings and work with Council on the budget, that kind of thing. They think the [22:21] Zach Champ: only sort of number I thought of really was the hundred thousand, which is the baseline for a CIT program. Is under hundred thousand, then it shouldn't be here, and many of these I can safely assume are over that. But the details of that, absolutely, I'm not an engineer, I'm not a factor, and so that'd be great to have a committee, but as a member, but we'll go from there. So a problem state statement as it's as Main Street is today, like there's no dedicated space for bikes, you have conflicts with Streeteries and pedestrians and signage and benches and the roadway travel way, as we've learned is called, this is on unsafe for cycling. It's four legs wide in many ways. There's no bike path there. It's back out of parking. There's a number of intersections. So even with a like fantastic pedestrian sidewalk, bikes are choosing to be on the sidewalk because it's safer, but it creates conflict points with pedestrians and, like I said, the back out parking just inherently is tricky. Even as a driver, you're kind of like take the wheel sort of as you back out. So the proposed scope is sort of engineering. And for this, I was looking at a center cycle track, which would go back and forth in the middle lane. Something for engineering to sink its teeth into. [24:08] Eric Funderburg: Can I bring up something? Was someone speaking there? [24:14] Speaker F (unidentified): I was going to say something. Are we going to talk about his point? Because I just wanted to say it really quick. [24:19] Eric Funderburg: I was going to make the point that in the CIP, it has, I believe, Main Street being repaved in fiscal year 27. So either next year or early the following year, that's in there right now to be repaved. So I would just draw number one is maybe you won't get everything that's on there, but this is maybe a great time to engage engineering on it and town staff on that one, because that's that's in there as an MPI project. It's a shared project between DMT and about the town, so we get we get one of those a year. So that's the one that's for the fiscal year, not the one we're in currently, but the one that starts next July 1st. [25:14] Speaker F (unidentified): And my point was going to be that we wouldn't probably say to the CIP that we're proposing a cycle track. What we could say is we want money for the engineers to figure out what those alternatives, the viable alternatives are. So that's kind of like an alternative analysis, which is what we did during your point. The Muir Point intersection, that's what we propose, is that just have engineers study what model of alternatives are. I don't know, since MDOT's working on this with us, that we would need to fund that piece, but that is definitely what we need to leave room for, is for the engineers to figure out how to fit that right infrastructure on Main Street, knowing that they can. [25:57] Zach Champ: Okay. That's helpful. I'm not trying to be prescriptive in this. [26:00] Speaker F (unidentified): So just like, yeah, that's all I wanted to say. So it's not prescriptive about like the actual treatment that gets put in, but let's basically direct the engineers to figure out how to put like infrastructure safe, like infrastructure quality, like infrastructure on energy because it is that high volume. So I don't think we should just talk about bike lanes. I think we should talk [26:19] Eric Funderburg: about something safer than that. Yeah, if I can just interject again, these, there's a great analogy here with what happened with Main Street. We just got done, not analogy, but parallel, because there were some plans for improving the striping, but I think the interjection of this committee and others to say we really need to look at this corridor and improve it, and as things happened, that project got delayed, so it allowed a little more time to do that. So you know, it's much better than it was from that from Bathrobe to McCoy and these empty, there's one MPI project a year in here over the next five years. It's in the CIP, you know, the year after they have federal, the year after that it's River Road, the year after that is Union Street. Those three, those are in there right now. They're not like cast in stone. Those are the ones that are on the map for sure. Those are good ones to like to really just sink its teeth into to interject, and sometimes these [27:33] Speaker F (unidentified): things get delayed and switched over. Right, and I think actually like yes, the community will interject and everything, but I think like actually one of the bigger hang-ups before that was the lane sizing. Ever since we shrunk the ordinance for the lane sizing, I feel like things have, things have been a lot easier. [27:51] Eric Funderburg: Plus one of the big hang-ups is it involves another party besides the town, it's DOT. So, but we've got good relations with them and but there's, there's [28:03] Zach Champ: five right in a row right there. Yeah, those are big, those are big stretches of green on the draft map. Okay, so I'll just flip through. So the next one is, we've talked about this one in the committee in the past. This is Harpswell Road to Watson Drive. There are like phantom or sunken sidewalks, a wide, travel way, wide road. This is near the Bowdoin Athletic Facilities. There's sidewalks on one side and then there's sidewalks on the other side that stop. So this is a proposal to, and I've heard this from members of the community, is like extending the sidewalk to town commons for recreational use and safety use. So looking at what can be possible there. I've heard that's another road that's on a resurfacing plan as well. [28:57] Eric Funderburg: It's not on the MPI projects and I don't, I don't think it's in the five-year plan. There's a big culvert there that's going to get done, which is harder too, but yeah, that's a, that's a great, that is a really important one. That's, I don't think it's on the planet that sidewalk off. Remember the next one. [29:25] Zach Champ: Is, oh, what we, what we discussed sort of last year on our ride and everything like that, McCoy Road and Mere Point Road. This is the intersection. There's high speed. This goes losing one of the high school rides. So looking at what sort of traffic or other changes can be made to improve this area. And this is on the CIP. It was a recommendation on this committee last year, but it was, it's in sort of yellow mode. [29:59] Speaker F (unidentified): It's put in, yeah, it's put in projects in development. [30:02] Eric Funderburg: Yeah, we've got an engineering project. [30:05] Speaker F (unidentified): So then I think that this one should be our highest priority to get into the recommended time. Yeah. [30:13] Zach Champ: That's one of the sort of like the equations of the committee is like, you know, where to kind of influence and rank and things like that. So next one is Jordan Avenue corridor safety audit. This might also go with Federal Street as one of the main intersections there. So this is looking at one of the safe first to school areas and the narrow corridor there and what could be done to make that route safer. Very big setbacks there, so that's a tricky one. And a very busy intersection. So Pleasant Hill Road, off-street parallel access trail, and Baseball Connector. This is another one the committee's talked about in the past. The farmers market is doing a lot of great work in making a new educational center. They have both sides of the road now. They have, you saw the piles of dirt I'm sure, they like parking and all sorts of pedestrian access and better traffic flow for parking. There's not a perfect great way to get there by going on Pleasant Hill Road. It's, it's very steep. The sight lines are not great and there is, there's speeding there. This one looks at investigating whether there's some sort of easement or other opportunity to make a trail that's parallel to Pleasant Hill Road, which would then. Also, there's an opportunity potentially to go across the Blueberry Barrens into and connect into the high school so students could stay off the road and sort of commute that way. That is currently across private property. Currently across, yeah. That's that one. Cook's Corner Community Connection, this one is looking at, and this goes to like what the A2K and all that sort of thing, also like anyone trying to walk or bike to businesses, to work, or get anywhere somewhere in Cook's Corner in that area. It doesn't have a safe way of doing that. There are a ton of social trails there. People do it all the time. This looks at investigating whether there's private property that could be made available to make a multi-use off-street trail. Some of it goes on, could go on main health land. Some of it would need communications and a relationship with Walmart or others to do something sort of in the back of that road. [33:14] Speaker F (unidentified): I'll just make a point about that. So I talked to the town manager's office and they just reminded me and wanted to emphasize that the CIP isn't for projects on private property. So that type of project would come out would be funded and developed in a on a different pathway kind of like the way the perimeter trail so is being developed so there's you know so that there's a little bit of nuance there and then I'd also like to say about this one like this is sort of happening in multiple ways there is the CIP we have for economic development we have a project for putting in for placemaking on the north side of the path road that's like they're going to include a sidewalk recommendation a small very small piece but there's that but it's also being largely funded with TIF so that 's sort of a jigsaw to figure out and then on the private side there's the funding of the extension of the Allagash Trail so east of the Martins Point fence it has been a project that we've been working on with MDOT for a while it's hardly solved because of them not funding but in there something but it's still been work it's been in the works so this sort of bigger bucket of cook's Corner community connection has been, we have been working on it. I didn't say piecemeal, but it's been a little bit piecemeal, but yeah, we've been making progress on it, and so it's good to continue, you know, keep your foot put on the gas or put on the platform on this. So I think that this is a good thing, and I think that for a project to be, it would go in there, but we would want like a scope, like so all of these projects have to have like a start and then they start point, this endpoint, and so the Council can find the specific scope. So we, this is like a general bucket, and then after work with being packed to sort of figure out, okay, well, for this year, what's the scope going to be? What's the scope going to be next year? Because we can't do from Federal Street all the way to Maine Health Road, Maine Health Drive in one CRP. So just, that's my really long-winded way of saying this is a very large scope and we would have to break it up. [35:40] Zach Champ: Is it useful to circle back on a segment that would at least to at least meet the CIP eligibility criteria? [35:49] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, I think that's something that could be thought about. I think there's a little bit of time. I think that we also can just sort of put our weight behind some of that sidewalk that I was talking about with the economic development for this year, and then next year it's maybe a different scope. But it's tricky out there because a lot of the bike pad is on your land and that is outside the cip funding planning, yeah [36:24] Zach Champ: It's how it's written, because like the Jordan Adeline was CIP, but that some land from here was donated for it [36:32] Speaker F (unidentified): It can be mixed, I guess. Yeah, okay, yeah, the alley is down the trail though. I mean, it's just, I mean, it's a, we know what it is and we've explored that it isn't [36:45] Zach Champ: Okay, the next one is Route 1 pedestrian bridge and river access. This one I believe it's near Otto, so the swinging bridge, right? Is that the one we're talking about? There's a related project going on right now for that. [37:04] Speaker F (unidentified): When I thought of this, I thought you were talking about Old Bath Road for some reason. [37:08] Eric Funderburg: No,, you were talking about, it's corn. [37:10] Speaker G (unidentified): Oh, okay. That's what that bridge... [37:14] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm just talking river cat [37:15] Zach Champ: Oh yes, no, you're right [Jason Starris: River walk] Okay so the screenshot is wrong but that could be anywhere. It's also stretched and really low resolution so yeah. This is the one where it is. This is near the lows right and this committee has recommended that in the past officially but not an actual bridge. We talked about improvement there. So that's that one if you're familiar. [37:47] Speaker B (unidentified): And that one really depends on what's happening with the H-U-K, which I, when, yeah, [37:53] Speaker F (unidentified): Dakota said that they're working on creating a safe-loading meeting for that, which should be good because we don't have any updates. [37:59] Zach Champ: The last one here is just an active transportation network program reserve. This is like a catch-all. I don't know how this would work or function but there are there are things that you know may not rise to the 100k they that there's potentially it's I think worth investigating is if there's something that could be created to like quickly work on these sorts of projects there is there is [38:30] Eric Funderburg: In the CIP a place and it's in one of the couple pages that we've recommended. There's a reserve for sidewalks and it's $150,000 rising up to $200,000 a year. Okay. And there's a reserve for [38:49] Zach Champ: street resurfaces. But not beacons and things like that? No, there isn't. So maybe there's a way to amend that and include that in the definition of how the funds could be used. I don't know how this [39:08] Eric Funderburg: if there's specific ones like was done a couple years ago that the committee thinks should be prioritized then I'd recommend those through staff through this process. So they're like, you know, I know we're working on, I'll give you an example just quickly, like, we've done all this great work on Main Street, trying to get down to the high school, and the sidewalk on Main Street then crosses over New York Point Road to McCoy, and there's two pedestrian crossings, so there's a crosswalk, but that could really use RFPs or something there. It's like a missing link at the end [39:53] Speaker F (unidentified): of the road. I know. I think the thing about RFBs though is I think, and that's pretty good giving them away. Yeah, so I think it's like in December we were like hey, we need some RFBs. Yeah. [40:05] Eric Funderburg: But if this committee says hey these like three things are priorities for RFBs that's like a thing to like talk about right now with I mean not right this night but next meeting to get on a plan for staff to hear about and see if they agree and see if we can make sure it gets in. And there is a CIP threshold in terms of dollars, but I wouldn't want that to stop you from little wins too. [40:41] Speaker G (unidentified): That's pretty much [40:42] Zach Champ: It. That's trying to synthesize what we've heard in the committee. I've heard in the committee recently, some other things. I don't know if it's just open enough for discussion. I know it's... [41:01] Eric Funderburg: Can I make a comment? I would pursue those pages and the annual resurfacing plan that's in there and the one that shows the MPI ones. Those five or six pages out of CIP, many members should look at that and just study it. Is you'll see what's already gone into planning for like the next five years and you'll be able to see you know where there may be opportunities to inject to improve projects that are already you know in the plan but also see how things get in like Chrissy was saying you know in one of these tiers like not recommended but it's on paper and it's in front of council and then how they move up because there's there's a lot in there that's like this committee it's worth [41:51] Zach Champ: Worth interacting on these things so when we read it and it's like yellow or whatever money's already [41:58] Jason Starris: Been spent and engineering's already happened no when you so when you say so you're talking [42:06] Speaker F (unidentified): To the project pages yeah so that is that means projects in development so that could be a stage of development yeah but it should say in the description sort of what it needs or where it is [42:18] Eric Funderburg: Yeah the only thing that gets actually approved and funded is that next fiscal year next you know May will approve what's in the silo for 27 28 but you can see the pipeline projects out the following five years and it's really it's not that daunting if you just look at those five or six pages and you'll recognize a lot of the roads you'll see what's going on in there but I think that would be a really productive thing also to your point earlier to see what's already in the pipeline that in Terms of I have had improvements or places for you know didn't inject I had a question about there would be money allocated for different from years and it was like different amounts for different projects and it's sort of like a preliminary thing that needs to happen sometimes with repaving roads and kind of give an example it's in the it was on this spreadsheet that you did yeah so like so like two like two years later [43:28] Speaker F (unidentified): To be more money trade so the project page trail I put it in, put in estimates for what those very rough estimates of what the costs are. And then when we sort of get to the time when we're actually ready to work on the road, that company is the contractor or the consultant, so like actually get either put it out to bid or get those actual quotes and those actual numbers, because those numbers are changing all the time. They're actually just going up every year, so lots of materials, so it is like you know it is a five-year estimate, but the five by the time you I guess the year five, things changed a lot as far as costs go. [44:05] Eric Funderburg: Yeah, Eric, to your point, which I think everything beyond the next fiscal year that's approved, even if it's a project recommended for funding, actually isn't funded. But it's risen to the tier where we think we're going to fund it, but we only fund it a year in advance. [44:26] Zach Champ: That means a public hearing and all that, right? Yeah, for each individual one. Well, no, not [44:33] Eric Funderburg: for each individual, only ones that get, it depends if it's bonded or not, but it's that it's that it's that next fiscal year that's actually locked in, that's kind of what you look at first. Yeah, but you can see out the pipeline what's what's coming, so like the perfect example Chris brought up was when we appoint Main Street and McCoy Road intersection, that's that's funded for engineering right now, but on the they haven't announced here like four years later a million dollars to actually do something. They don't know what it is, but they put a million dollars in there because we know something needs to be done, but that actually isn't approved the fund that we have. Just see that it's a place for it. If that [45:21] Speaker F (unidentified): makes sense. We'll put in a plan, a capital improvement plan. It's a plan. It's not a budget, it's a plan. It's just us trying to do our best to figure out what we're spending our money on in the future, given all the sub-changes. [45:36] Eric Funderburg: Just name the projects. Just have everything you can think of in there. [45:41] Jason Starris: That's the angle I'm coming from. [45:45] Eric Funderburg: Yeah, I think if you're willing, Chrissy, to snip out those six or seven pages just so that people can look at them, that would be great. And the painting schedule. All right. I keep having that in the painting schedule because the painting schedule is important. Pay attention to it because, you know, lane striping or potential crosswalks or, you know, pay attention to that because it's the opportunity to adjust things. Is that like May or right before the budget? So the first draft of this, we may be getting a first draft like in October, we'll get a first draft to see how people, we'll get like three drafts. We'll comment on them in public, and then it gets voted on in May. [46:35] Speaker F (unidentified): And staff whose departments these touch will do the presentations to the council, so you can go and you can do public comment and usually let you guys know when that happens trace usually the one who delivers most of your projects and it's usually in november or december [46:54] Jason Starris: to present them to the council and you can have it presents them to like because then elections [47:01] Zach Champ: are in november and the new there's new counselors in january so like the presentations are to folks that aren't necessarily in the council. Only a third. Only a third, okay. We spoke for an election this year, but yeah, typically a third term is over. [47:18] Speaker G (unidentified): Well, it doesn't necessarily come over. Sometimes they get re-elected. Right, so that's been a third, right? So it [47:28] Zach Champ: might be more, there might be more education next year than previously. Yeah. On some of these details. [47:35] Jason Starris: I can [47:44] Eric Funderburg: get with you give you my two cents on what pages yeah that would be good yeah because there's a lot of pages [47:51] Zach Champ: any other questions feedback other sort of projects gaps things we missed [48:05] Speaker G (unidentified): yeah I'm just out of curiosity going back to main street and you know we did the sidewalks why didn't we redo the streets at that time just as a member of the public it wasn't necessarily going along but it was kind of fierce but why did we buy the lanes why did we not did not redesign the streets because i mean at least in my opinion four lanes is kind of wild the way it is now and always have the downtown yeah why wasn't that attempted then at that time it was a well [48:36] Speaker F (unidentified): Well, the Downtown Sidewalk Project was a long saga, and I know that it started and predated us. [48:45] Speaker G (unidentified): I know it's a lot, and you're convincing a lot probably, but I just ask. [48:47] Speaker F (unidentified): The scope of the project started out as just a sidewalk, and that was a cost, and political, for political and cost reasons. Also, MDOT controls the road. so you know there's that high volume of traffic and that's what was decided by leadership at the time and there were people who advocated for it at the time that was a decision by the town planner who's not currently here well it wasn't no it wasn't just the town planner it was a lot of people it was town council leadership town manager's office town engineering main dot it was it a group of people who decided that would be the scope of the project at the time and there was advocacy for the bike infrastructure. I know that I personally, as a community member, was advocating for them before I was, worked here, before I was a committee member for this committee. So there was that advocacy, but it just didn't go that way, unfortunately. Yeah, there's a lot of, there's some, there's a lot of complicated engineering things to do about it. You know, downtown businesses are very attached to the parking down there, and you get maximum amount of parking with the angular parking that's down there, but in order to put bike lanes on the sides, which would be kind of the minimum, you have to remove that, but parallel, which reduces the number of parking. And so, and there is, we hear all the time with staff that there's no parking downtown, and that's a perception, whether it's a accurate or not, is it's a perception. We have a parking study that shows actually there's plenty of parking down there. I've never had trouble [50:24] Speaker G (unidentified): finding it. You may not be able to park where you want to 100% of the time. On a Saturday night even, [50:28] Speaker F (unidentified): yes, I agree. But there's still that public perception, and there's a lot of work to do as far as part of that aspect of it goes. So it's a complex piece, but I don't disagree that we shouldn't still advocate for the bike lanes down there. Or if I say lanes. We're closing in on it from either end. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. They don't have that. I don't think people like driving with the two lanes. Like, it's chaotic, and it's, it's, people are backing out, and there's people changing lanes. I just don't even think people like driving down there. So, if you could take some of that space out to, like, straighten out what driving's like, [51:06] Jason Starris: then I think you can benefit everybody. [51:07] Speaker F (unidentified): But, again, sometimes that's just time. [51:11] Speaker G (unidentified): Sometimes it's a little more, a little more complicated. Yeah. [51:15] Pat Miller: Yeah, just and I don't know where this where to put this, but just to pay some attention to winter walkability and safety issues. And you know, for the most part, I think downtown Main Street is clear and safe and easy to access, but any of the side streets are getting to Main Street is not really accessible in the winter for people who walk. So I don't know where that would fit, if that was a priority. That is a really [51:51] Speaker F (unidentified): important point. Can we have the screen so that I can see you better? Sorry about that, Stephanie. It was hard keeping track of who's saying what. That's all right. I think increasing the sidewalk reserve is a good thing because it is the goal of the town most of the sidewalks in town are between four or the older sidewalks are between four and five feet and it is the goal to increase whenever we reduce it six because of the sidewalk climbing equipment and how proud of the sidewalks are so you know I can sort of fix the staff on the equipment for climbing sidewalks and staffing you know like just seeing like is there any reason that the beauty pack should or should not advocate for more resources to go to winter plowing for sidewalks, [52:39] Pat Miller: or some other type of community involvement, or some other infrastructure for that. [52:56] Jason Starris: I think there's a chat or something. [52:59] Zach Champ: Might be a chat. There's a chat bubble there. [53:03] Pat Miller: No, that was me. [53:04] Zach Champ: That was you, okay, great. All right, so timing-wise, I don't know if folks wanted to entertain a motion to sort of adopt the slate or make them like changes to this or timing wise and those five pages we should prioritize but there's so there's a October 5th is [53:30] Speaker F (unidentified): our deadline so the committee won't meet again but we could always follow a special meeting or whatnot if you had to but I think if we could figure this out [53:38] Pat Miller: now that would be ideal okay so the CIP I think I read somewhere that it will prioritize one to three of our recommendations so like what you presented is that what you're I think [53:55] Zach Champ: my like historically this committee gave one two or three kind of a year and they were kind of like ground up top down bottom up sort of how they went that way we can do more than that we could do this all year long if we wanted but the process is like the timing is there we can talk about projects up until then so we can do more and we you know we could prioritize what we send up if we wanted to rank those here the other ranking happens at so staff will digest these and put their Recommendation on this and they'll give it to council, which can then accept or reject that ranking, and then you prioritize and then decide whether they want to fund or not. So I think, like, the options before us is, I think, like, we can just give a slate, we can and give a rank slate, if we can come to consensus on that in a timely way, or something else. [55:07] Speaker F (unidentified): I think your number one, if I may make a recommendation, should definitely be the mere point intersection, just because you want to bump it from development to recommended for funding. I think you always want to prioritize your projects that went in last year [55:25] Speaker G (unidentified): that didn't get recommended for funding. Yeah, it would be really good if the committee were [55:31] Eric Funderburg: advocating for that, and I know that intersects with school department's desires as well, [55:38] Zach Champ: something like, something along the lines of understanding the, like, the window of opportunity for this project, the, this committee would prioritize that project and sends these other projects as other priorities this year, some version of that. I like that. You like that? No. You told me to make it official. I didn't... Maybe, yeah. I would vote on that. Okay. Any other discussion, or I'll try and rephrase more succinctly. So I would motion that the committee recommend the slate of projects as presented, prioritizing the, prioritizing the McCoy Road and Muir Point intersection given the window of opportunity for funding or [56:44] Speaker F (unidentified): for... I don't think given anything. I think just covered it. Okay. [56:52] Zach Champ: Whatever you need. I think, yeah, so [56:55] Speaker F (unidentified): you recommend the slate and prioritize the point, Muir Point [56:59] Zach Champ: as you're prioritizing this year, for this year's, for this year. Yeah, okay, yeah, like we say that, or is there a second? Yeah, [57:12] Jason Starris: yeah, our discussion, yeah, discussion. Do we have to do anything [57:19] Pat Miller: about the whole Cook's Quarter proposal, for lack of better words, because we get, as we've spoken, that doesn't fall under CIP or no. [57:32] Eric Funderburg: And maybe remove that one. [57:35] Speaker F (unidentified): So it's a different one. It's going to get attention through economic development, like that scope. Or that, like, Cook's Corner just always, every year we put in something to make it better for economic development. And it almost always includes, like, the bike head side of things. I've been talking with my director, and this year it sounds like we're gonna put in something for a sidewalk improvement on North Bath Road near, kind of near where the Hayes Dairy Bar is, like connecting that to this park that we are developing for placemaking. So that could be, that's an example of something that's kind of already in the works that like it's probably timely for the CIP process, and then you know later on, you know, as Zach said, you can be thinking about CIP projects all year long if you guys want to like define a scope in addition to that for the next CIP. Let me do that. [58:42] Zach Champ: There's also, there's a hundred ways to cut that idea of Cook's Corner that would be CIP eligible. Yes, yeah, so maybe like [58:53] Eric Funderburg: i think the idea the concept of cook's form improvements kind of sticks with what you got [58:59] Pat Miller: generally right and what you were saying, but yeah, we have had that in for years [59:03] Speaker F (unidentified): and there's always a little bit of play playing for to take opportunities to do those improvements. So it's not like a specific BBPack project, but it's still improving by pen in sort of that broader way. [59:23] Pat Miller: I just personally wanted to make sure that we didn't like muddle all of our other their hierarchy is with something that didn't make sense from a specific, but I think that I'm comfortable with what it is now. [59:42] Eric Funderburg: Okay. Any other discussion? All [59:52] Jason Starris: those in favor? All those opposed? [59:57] Zach Champ: So, any on this? [Eric Funderburg: So, great.] That's kind of a heavy lift and a short highlight. [1:00:05] Speaker F (unidentified): Thank you, everybody. [1:00:06] Eric Funderburg: [1:00:08] Zach Champ: We're at time so I don't unless there's any pressing items I don't think yeah [1:00:17] Eric Funderburg: please very quick things one is i'd like to advance the idea of a of a audit or lessons learned on the striping on main street with dot i spoke with dakota you learned about that he would be the point person and i think it'd be great to have bb pac in some way involved in that make 200 improvement over where we were there's there's a couple little lessons learned i think that'd be good to go over with the engineering department but that's something that this committee's in favor of i 'd really like to see happen. And the second is a school board meeting that's in October. [1:01:09] Zach Champ: So this walkout sort of, or the busing stuff? [1:01:14] Eric Funderburg: Well, I think they're saving a slot for maybe a subgroup should work on that. You're on point for that? [1:01:26] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, they invited me to do a presentation on Safer to School project that this committee has done. [1:01:32] Eric Funderburg: Yeah, so this committee should have an awareness and maybe a presence there at that meeting. And it's later in the month. [1:01:40] Speaker F (unidentified): It's not their normal. [1:01:43] Eric Funderburg: But it's a really good opportunity to tell the school department what the town's up to and for the school to say where their feedback on their pressure points. [1:01:58] Speaker B (unidentified): It's a one-state meeting [1:02:00] Eric Funderburg: It's a for some reason they're board meetings that push out from the moment [1:02:05] Jason Starris: I can look it up real quick, but [1:02:11] Eric Funderburg: that's just two things I just wanted to mention. [1:02:14] Zach Champ: Yeah, I think that'd be great if we could join for that, and I think the Main Street upgrades are great. And I'd love to learn sort of more how it happened and, you know, if we're doing more of this, it'd be good to know what sort of things happened or didn't happen and how we [1:02:34] Jason Starris: can make that, you know, routinized. [1:02:39] Speaker F (unidentified): I just would love to give a brief update about the Stephen Drive meeting with him last night. It went really smoothly. A great group of people there were very supportive of it. Stephen Drive is, we'll connect here and that road, Thomas Point Road out in Foote's Corner, it's kind of an example of how Complete Streets are operating or getting built out in Foote's Corner for that bucket conversation. We are building a 10 foot multi-modal path on the south side of [1:03:10] Jason Starris: the street to connect the two roads and [1:03:12] Speaker F (unidentified): connect the neighborhood to the new church that's going in. Really no negative feedback. A lot of people did get up to speak about Thomas Point Road and how there's really a need for my pet infrastructure on Thomas Point Road, especially the type of housing being there now, and we know that it's in the CIP. That's another example of how the Cooks Corner connectivity is being worked on, and yeah, I think that's going to be elevated too because of [1:03:38] Jason Starris: some of that feedback. Was there comment like getting [1:03:40] Zach Champ: out of it on the bathrooms or [1:03:42] Speaker F (unidentified): comments about that, but they were just saying in general that there's more people walking on Thomas Point Road, trying to navigate through Cook's Corner. And there's more development in general. Yeah. So that was a good meeting. And then just also, at the last DBPAC meeting, there was a lot of people from the Spring Street neighborhood responding to reports that the speed bumps are installed. [1:04:05] Speaker G (unidentified): Great, I think, right? [1:04:07] Speaker F (unidentified): It's pretty amazing. I don't know how it's going. [1:04:13] Eric Funderburg: School board meeting is the 28th, I have it. [1:04:16] Speaker F (unidentified): It's the last week. [1:04:18] Eric Funderburg: Wednesday the 28th. [1:04:20] Zach Champ: It's off their calendar. [1:04:23] Speaker F (unidentified): I know, should we all show up in our costumes? It would be good to have it there. [1:04:33] Eric Funderburg: They even have it on the calendar. It says Town Biking Pedestrian Committee. Great. It's well [1:04:47] Zach Champ: thank you everyone it was a very compacted meeting with some homework and whatnot so if there's a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn back in all right all those in favor adjourn all right thank you thank you