Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee - Regular Meeting

We'll have two minutes to present and any disruptive conduct will result in removal from the meeting. Agenda item A is EC 26, Mayor's appointment of Trula M. Howe to the Environmental Planning Commission. I move confirmation. Second. There is a motion and a second from Councillor Feeblecorn or Grout. Councillors, any questions or comments?

No.

I don't see anybody on for public comment on this bill, so that being said. Mr Salas, if you will please call the roll.

Councilor champagne. Yes, Councilor Feeblecorn. Yes, Councilor Grout. Yes, Councilor Rogers.

Yes.

Council Basant yes, passes unanimous.

Moving on to agenda item B, Councilor Feeblecorn 055.

Thank you, Madam Chair. 055, amending the Complete Streets Ordinance, Chapter 6, Article 5, Part 6 of the Revised Ordinances of Albuquerque 1994 to require that the city consider quick build safety treatments when planning road construction, resurfacing, reconstruction of sidewalks, or restriping projects on city streets. I move a do pass.

Second. Second. There's a motion and a second from Councilor Grout or Rogers. Council, people are going to open.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is really just kind of like a no-brainer to me. We have opportunities within the city to do some safety improvements to our roads through paint and bollards and things that are much less expensive and much less time-consuming than completely redoing streets. And I did ask for a couple of examples so that we can show what we're talking about here. If you could bring it up, Mr Cornelius. And so what we're really asking for is the ability to have DMD and the complete streets team when they are looking at individual roads for the complete streets ordinance to consider things like this. If you see on the bottom, it's kind of big and open, doesn't look super safe for folks to cross. But with simple bollards and paint on the top, they've shrunk down the road a little bit so that the crosswalk is narrower and the road is narrower at that section. And really, as we all know, when you bring in a road, people go slower. And so really just using this paint. And then what is the great thing about that is that if that paint doesn't work out, we can remove that paint. But if we've gone in and reconstructed the street, it's much more expensive. Next example. So this is a very, very small scale example of where we want to shrink in the road, slow people down. This is a residential area. So with just paint and bollards again and a barricade, we can try this out. If that works long term, we might want to go in and reconstruct the street. But for now, it's a great way to just slow folks down, ensure that vehicle drivers are staying in their lane, and that we can test it out and see if it works. Next example. So this reminds me of a couple of intersections in Albuquerque where it's just really big. If you look in the top, it's just big and open and people tend to go really fast. They're not really clear where their lanes are. But if you can just take paint, that is literally all that's in that bottom is painting onto the road to shrink it down a little bit and make the actual lanes much, much, much more clear. And so that would be really inexpensive. And again, if it doesn't work, we remove the paint. Next example. Same here. These are crosswalks. Those bump outs are just painted onto the ground, and so it's making those crosswalks much more safe, slowing people down, and making sure that nobody misses them. Next. Again, here's a creative use of planters, really much more inexpensive than redoing entire roads that would keep that bike path safe from cars and same thing with the crosswalk again using planters using paint to Try out new safety techniques next example Another one that was a very large wide street They painted it in and then made it into a little Plaza area and there are a couple of places in our town that we could try something like that with those big planters as kind of pretty bollards to keep people from going in there and and then I think there's one more maybe two more another example of a bump out we've all seen bump outs around town I would love to see ours look a little prettier like this and again it doesn't require all the curb cutting and complete remodel of the street and one more And this is in truth or consequences. And they just redid that. That's a bike path. And they just did it with paint to give the bike path some safety from the street. And so those are the kind of examples that we're looking at having the Complete Streets Committee consider when they're looking at Complete Streets applications. And if one works and we have the funding for it, we would go about implementing it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillors, let's go to public comment, and then we'll go to questions from each of you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Our first speaker is Carlos Michelin, followed by Ava Montoya.

Good afternoon, Chair Bassan, councillors. I'm here to support this bill as someone who wants a better city for the next generation. This bill will help us get a better city faster. And by faster, that probably means 10, 20 years instead of 100 years. This is not about what we'll do this year or tomorrow. It's setting up for a better city for the next generation. Albuquerque is often ranked the deadliest city for cyclists and pedestrians. I think most of us have known at least one person who has been killed in our streets. How did we get here? It took 80 years of this development pattern that just wanted more growth, bigger streets, bigger cars. And not just 80 years, but billions and billions of dollars. And undoing permanent infrastructure, undoing our built environment. If we do it the way we traditionally have done it, it will take another 80 years and billions and billions of dollars. That permanent infrastructure is expensive, but the emergency is urgent. So many cities across the country have embraced QuickBuilds. It has many names, but QuickBuilds seems to be the most popular right now. And it's just using paint, ballard, cheap materials that will allow DMT to quickly do a fix to a deadly intersection and infrastructure that's safer for children, for bikers. As some examples, New York City pedestrianized Times Square the first time with orange cones and beach chairs apart from the internet before they did more permanent infrastructure. That's a proof of concept. Cities like Tampa, Portland, San Francisco all have formal city-led programs like this one. And finally, even in New Mexico, the state just passed our first quick build guide that local cities can follow. So we wouldn't be starting from scratch. We would just be formalizing what the state just passed this year as a formal guide. Thank you.

Eva Montoya, followed by Michael Devon.

I'm just coming out here to support this amendment and just state that I think it's a really good idea. It's another tool in the toolkit for the government to use to just test things out. If they see a problem area, they could try to implement something quickly. And if it doesn't work out, it's cheaply erased as well. So it's like we could do something and have some sort of positive impact and, I guess, react in a way. But I think it's good overall. It'll be good going in the future that you guys will have this ability to do things positively. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Michael Devon, followed by Michelle Gaidelis.

Good evening, Chair Besson and committee members. My name is Michael Devon. I'm a resident of District 7, and I stand in strong support of O55 to require consideration of quick build projects for roadway improvements. I'm an avid bicyclist. I bike to work every day. I bike around town. I bike here. And one of my favorite city events each year is Sequel Vita. I love to engage with other cyclists in the city at it, visit booths, enjoy the music, and see Catherine Avenue just come to life for a weekend. And really one of the parts I look most forward to is seeing how the pavement of Catherine Avenue itself can transform in a matter of days to add bike lanes, protected barriers, pedestrian walkways, and clear signage to make an incredibly comfortable setting for people to explore outside their car. All of this with a group of volunteers with some paint and plastic. O55 is exciting to me because it's an extension of Ciclovia's ability to improve the comfort of pedestrians and bicyclists quickly in a profound way with simple materials. Biking around the city, I see little pockets of the city that can be improved drastically with just some paint and plastic without having to do a full-on reconstruction of the road. Add some cones along a road shoulder to improve or to protect pedestrians after a sidewalk abruptly ends, paint a box and add some bollards to make a protected refuge for bicyclists in the middle of a six lane roadway when a bike path intersects that roadway. Even just paint some lines on the ground to make a crosswalk for kids to use when they're walking to school. Just allowing these type of rapid improvements would make a massive difference for a fraction of the cost and time of a major capital project. And with Ciclovía, we've already proven that we can do that in Albuquerque. So street treatments can really go a long way like this, and the sooner Albuquerque can get safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, the more lives we can save. So I strongly urge your support for O55, and I thank you for your time.

Michelle Guidelis, followed by Grace Dukes.

Hey, everyone. My name is Chair Besson, members of the committee. My name is Michelle Gay-Delis, and I'm a District 6 resident, and I'm speaking in support of 02655. So I moved back to Albuquerque last year after 20 years away, drawn by real momentum. And when I saw the art project, growing attention to pedestrian safety, protected bike lanes starting to be built for transportation versus recreation, the city made genuine progress, and I don't want to take that for granted. But honestly, I'm still thinking about how I personally want to age. I want to stay active. I want to be able to walk to the grocery store. I want to bike to a friend's house. I want to be able to take the bus when it's treated like an actual essential service. And that depends on a city that's built for people around outside of a car and lately I've started to wonder if Albuquerque is really committed to that or if places like Portland and Seattle are just taking it more seriously. O2655 helps close that gap. A dangerous intersection doesn't have to wait years for a full reconstruction to get safer. Quick build tools like paint bollards and curb extensions can go in fast. And speed matters, because every year a known danger sits unaddressed as a year someone else could get hurt or killed. Portland's own evaluation found some of these treatments cut dangerous sharp turns by over 80%. So these improvements help everyone, every age, every income level, get around safely, save money, and also stay healthy. So I urge you to pass O2655 out of committee tonight, and thank you.

Grace Dukes, followed by Melinda Montoya.

Hello, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Grace Dukes. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Albuquerque chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. We stand in support of vote 2655 because this is a meaningful step towards bringing down the number of pedestrian deaths in our city. As you all know, Albuquerque is the deadliest city for pedestrians in the entire country. Too many people die on our streets because they have to cross sidewalks that are too long. Like San Mateo and Montgomery, I live right across the street from there. And you have to spend like 30, 45 seconds walking across eight lanes of traffic to try and get across that intersection. Things like this would help. Things like these projects, these quick build projects, this paint and plastic, they bring down speed. That is the number one factor for pedestrian deaths is speed. You put these plastics in there and people don't have to walk across active lanes of traffic for longer periods of time. There's less risk. There is mitigation of risk. And I think that we all support risk mitigation, mitigation of death. This is a meaningful step towards mitigating death and making the city safer for pedestrians. Please support this. Thank you.

Melinda Montoya, followed by Althea Atherton.

Hey, good afternoon, Chair Besson, members of the committee. My name is Melinda Montoya, and I'm here today in strong support of Ordinance 2655. Many of you know why I've become involved in this work. Last year, my then 19-year-old daughter, Kayla, was killed while crossing Carlisle on the Honoreo Trail. Since then, I've spent a great deal of time asking what we can do differently so another family doesn't have to experience what mine has. And one answer is remarkably simple. When we have an opportunity to make a street safer, we should take it. And this is really what I appreciate about this ordinance. Every time Albuquerque resurfaces, restripes, reconstructs a sidewalk, or undertakes any kind of road constructions, we are making decisions on how that street will function for years. So this ordinance asks us to use those moments differently. It requires the city to evaluate whether quick bill treatments can be reasonably incorporated, things like high visibility crosswalks, medium refuge, curb extensions, road diets, bicycle lanes, speed cushions, and flashing beacons. And these are not experimental ideas. New Mexico DOT's quick bill guide describes these proven safety countermeasures that can reduce speed, reduce conflict and crashes, and create dedicated spaces for each road user type. And importantly, this ordinance does not actually mandate that every treatment be installed everywhere. Engineering standards, feasibility, staffing, operations, and funding still matter, but it does require us to ask the question. And when the answer is no, it asks us also to document why. It creates accountability. It also changes our default from simply putting a street back to the way it was without asking, can we make it safer while we're already here? Major capital projects can take years, we know that, and people walking, biking, rolling, taking transit, and driving our streets need safer infrastructure now, and we know that we cannot build Albuquerque, rebuild it overnight, but project by project, resurfacing by resurfacing, and intersection by intersection, we can build a safer city, so I hope you pass on this.

Thank you. Althea Atherton, followed by Jackie Davis.

Councilor Bresson, I'm speaking today in support of 02655 as a local mother and a vulnerable road user. When I get around my neighborhood with my two toddlers, I load them up in one of those big stroller wagons with seat belts on both sides. We plot a path. And we take into account the hills in the neighborhood. We take into account where the shade's going to be. But most of all, the thing I care the most about is which places we're going to cross the street. Is that intersection going to be generally respected by motorists? Is it going to take a long time to get from one side to the other? And is it one where I've had a close call in the past, so I'm going to be anxious trying to cross the street? I find I have to compromise keeping us in the shade and having that flatter walk if it means crossing somewhere where I know that there's good visibility and where I can make sure my kids and I are in sight of motorists. This year, my son got a bike for his third birthday. And while he's still a few years away from riding independently, I'm already anxious about it. Just last Friday, our nation lost Max Curtis Rothschild, a Massachusetts seven-year-old. He was practicing riding his bike ahead of his family's vacation. Max loved chess, soccer, and had a notable sense of direction that was noted by his family and peers. And his death was preventable. I know that even the most conscientious bus educators, like Melinda's daughter Kayla, have lost their lives riding bikes on our own streets. And it doesn't require a major capital project to take a step in the right direction of safety. This bill would ensure that when we're already looking at a road, we're also considering these proven, quick, low-cost safety measures that will make the streets safer for everybody using it. Things like visibility, extending curbs, median refuges, and installing beacons. And it may feel like a Sisyphean task to fix the visibility of invulnerable road user protection at all street corners in our city, but little by little we can do it incrementally to make it safer for everybody who walks, cycles, or rolls. Please pass O2655 so we can start transforming our streets promptly and effectively so over time our families of little ones can have walks filled with joy and connection more than anxiety and fear. Thank you.

Jackie Davis, followed by Mark Bailon.

Good evening, Madam Chair and Councillors. I am here to speak in strong support of quick build options to make our streets safer. Not tomorrow, but now. I want to illustrate this using a brief story from my life. A few months ago, I came home to find my kitchen garbage can tipped over and trash strewn all over the house. It looked like a crime scene. There was plastic all over my bedroom. There was a lot to clean up. After cleaning up the mess and identifying my dog as the guilty party, I had two options. I could wait to thoughtfully examine the root causes of why she got in the trash. What was she looking for? What smell had I left in there? Or I could figure out how to keep her out of the trash right now while I figured the rest out. This is very similar to the situation with quick builds. We can hold committee meetings, we can hold studies, we can do all of these things that tell us consistently the same solutions. Or we can follow the New Mexico Department of Transportation's quick build guide and make intersections safer now. Vision Zero requires swift action to prevent further tragedies of a much greater impact than my crime scene at home. Safe users through education. This council passed the Stop for Everyone campaign that you've seen on the back of almost every city vehicle. That was quick action on the education piece to give us safer users of our roads. When there's issues with safe speeds, we do speed enforcement campaigns. You can see APD doing that right now around school zones. This is the infrastructure piece. We need to build safe infrastructure and we need to build it quickly after these tragedies occur to prevent them from reoccurring at the same locations. Please support O55 to allow quick build options for street safety, thank you.

Mark Bailone, followed by Brian Dombrowski on Zoom.

Good evening, Chair Besson and members of the LUPS Committee. I'm Mark Bailone. I'm here on behalf of the Mid-Region Metropolitan Planning Organization to speak in favor of O2655. As we all know, safety has become of paramount importance in our region because just from 2019 to 2024, over 700 people were killed or seriously injured in the region. Thus, policy leaders from across the four-county region have passed a resolution making safety a priority for the region. with the knowledge that these deaths are both preventable and unacceptable. As part of that decision to support the goal of zero deaths on our roadways, the MRMPO developed the Regional Safety Action Plan, which outlines many different safety strategies, such as quick builds. Codifying these quick builds takes an important step forward in being able to move fast and prevent tragic and costly fatalities and serious injuries. The MRMPO recommends that you pass recommendation of approval of 02655 and similar legislation implementing these proven safety countermeasures in the city. Thank you.

Brian Dombrowski followed by Aaron Thornton.

Hello. Good evening. Chair Besson and members of the committee. I'm here to express my support for 02655 quick builds. They're a great tool to have in our toolbox for road safety and transit efficiency. And I applaud the New Mexico Department of Transportation for outlining its own guide on how to best implement these types of projects. However, a tool does not do us any good if it sits gathering dust. The annual reporting elements of this bill is crucial. It's a well-known fact that New Mexico and Albuquerque have some of the deadliest streets per capita in the nation, and everyone here wants that fact to change. If there are ways our city could be moving government faster, saving more lives, and spending less money while doing it, I for sure want to know why we aren't doing it. Lastly I would like to say that while these improvements have highlighted the enhancements for protecting vulnerable road users even vehicle drivers benefit from safer roads. In my neighborhood the city has recently installed a flex post and paint style project to slow down speeds near a dangerous intersection. And while walking my dog I definitely noticed a decrease in speeds there and I would love to see more projects like that around the city. Thank you for listening. Please vote in favor.

Aaron Thornton followed by Sebastian Fierro.

Good evening, Chair Besson and members of the LUBS committee. My name is Erin Thornton, and I'm here to support O55 and quick build projects as a way to improve our streets and public spaces. Like Jackie, I'd like to offer an analogy from my own life. My home, like a city, is always a work in progress. And when my spouse and I are deciding how to arrange furniture in our home, we can talk about it forever. the orange couch should go right here. But my spouse would say, no, that's not going to be, that's going to be in the way. And we'll just keep bumping into it. And if we only talk about it, we'll just go in circles forever and ever and ever and never actually agree. But if one of us gets up off the couch, moves the couch, then suddenly we can both see the vision. And sometimes I'll say, oh, great. Yeah, I get it. That actually looks good there. And sometimes we'll both look at it and say, no, that doesn't work. But either way, we learn something. Quick build projects work the same way. When we put out planters, paint temporary designs, or make small changes to the street, we're not necessarily saying this is permanent forever. We're saying, let's just try it. Let's see what happens. And that's valuable because a drawing or a public meeting about a proposal can only tell us so much. Once something is actually on the ground, people can experience it. We can observe how drivers respond, how pedestrians use the space, whether the design feels intuitive, and whether the community even likes it.

And if it doesn't work?

We just moved the couch. I hope the committee will support this approach as a tool for better communication for good planning. Because sometimes the best way to decide if something is gonna work, you just gotta give it a go. Thank you very much.

Sebastian Fierro, followed by Hunter Dinkins.

Good evening Madam Chair and Council Members. My name is Sebastian Piero and I am a resident of District 8. So I'm here to speak in support of the Ordinance 2655 so that we can include quick build solutions to our street improvement projects across the city. I believe that this approach is very proactive and can allow proven and tried solutions to protect all of our road users across the city. Using low-cost materials and adjustable design can allow us to implement these safety enhancements without any lengthy proposals or drawn-out construction. And I believe this could be really valuable for protecting all road users across the city. And I've even seen one example of this, right, around where I live on Yubing and Guantanamo, where some plastic dollars were added to help control and calm the flow of traffic at that intersection. And I believe that's just the start of improvement that could be made in my neighborhood. So I hope to see this design philosophy adopted across all of the city's Complete Streets initiatives. And I would like for you to support this work. Thank you very much.

Hunter Dinkins.

Hi. I wanted to thank Council for considering this policy. I recently moved to Albuquerque about three weeks ago from Boston, Massachusetts. And Boston has very recently done a lot of quick build things to improve bicyclists and pedestrian safety. And while I lived there, I didn't own a car. And I walked, took the bus, and biked to get around everywhere. And it was great. I loved being a part of my community, seeing my neighbors on the bus or walking around. And that's something that I think is just so great and would be wonderful to have here in Albuquerque, too. The reality is that every day that goes by where the streets are locked as they are is a day where people are at risk and where people get hurt and killed way more often than anybody who would like. So I believe this policy order could be effective in decreasing preventable deaths and then making our streets more enjoyable to live in, to walk in, to take our kids out in. So I live in District 6, about a mile north of the airport, and my mom came to visit me when I first moved here, and my son and I, he's two, we were walking to the airport to go pick her up because we thought this is so fun, we can just walk to the airport and then walk home. And on our way home, we were crossing Gerard and Gibson. And I was chatting with my mom, just walking with the stroller. And right in front of us, probably two feet away from my son, a car turned immediately in front of us. And the truth had been that if I had been walking like half a mile an hour faster, my son would have gotten hit by the car and probably wouldn't be alive today. And to me, that was just kind of a wake-up call about just how dangerous many of the intersections are in Albuquerque. So I urge the city council to pass this policy order and continue making progress towards making our streets and intersections safer for everyone. Thank you.

Madam Chair, I'm not finding Jordan McConnell in Zoom. So that does conclude public comment. Thank you.

Thank you. We will move to councilor questions and comments. Councilor Champagne.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick couple of questions. The plastic bollards that are installed, what are the costs for them? And the reason I ask is because you drive throughout the town and even the intersection that the subject, the speaker said at Wantabow and Eubank, they're run over by cars all the time. Is it really expensive? I know the quick and easy replacement of a couple bolts, but are they expensive in that sense?

Thank you, Madam Chair. So they are not cheap. Nothing in government is cheap. They are much less expensive than the permanent structures that would be the alternative to having those bollards. But we do have someone from DMD, I believe, here. Jorge, are you here? Yeah. Sorry, I don't have my glasses on. But he could talk a little bit about some of the costs that we're seeing for some of these that are

much less expensive than permanent but still you know not not free thank you very much I appreciate it chair was on council members as council feeble corn has mentioned they are significantly cheaper the cost is dependent on both the quantity and also the specific kind that we need Yes, there's very cheap ones that can be less than you know a couple hundred bucks But usually we the the materials that we need to use in because we have so much heavy road use They're of significant more durable quality. So we are talking several thousand dollars I can't all park a number because it's really dependent of the geometry of the road in question and also the quantities that we're going to be dealing with and But as Councilor Fibicorna-Sootley pointed out, much cheaper than a concrete or other hardened surface solution.

May I just add one more thing to that? One of the things that was really exciting when I met with the director of DMD, Director Turner, she was excited about this bill. And one of the things she mentioned was, you know, if we know we're going to be looking at all of the Complete Streets projects and we know we're going to be using more of these, we could buy in bulk. We could buy certain numbers of these things that we know we're going to be using a lot in bulk and save money that way as well.

Madam chair, that's a great. I just was curious because I know that people take wide turns. They run them over. They break, you know, and then you have just that nub sticking out. So how, you know, I mean, we're looking and obviously the program getting the feel for it. It's like another comment was. If the bollards work or if they don't work, then maybe we do make an adjustment and put in a physical barrier sort of thing. I get that trial and error and how you adapt to the problem. So I was just curious. I don't know how much they cost. And I know that it happens. People make mistakes. They're paying attention to something else. They run it over. Is it going to cost us $10,000 each time someone runs something over sort of thing? That sort of thing. So, um Madam chair my next question and then they don't really seem to recall this but in the rehab construction So if we look at an intersection are we looking? Does this ordinance say that we have to look at this as the option of moving forward in the reconstruction or repaving of an intersection? Sort of thing.

Yes, and council people I'm asking Thank You madam chair So what this says is any project any part of the road that's being considered by the complete streets team is They will consider if quick build solutions are appropriate for that intersection and if we have the resources and the funding available to install it. And if we don't then they will report back to council once a year so that we kind of know you know it's just not feasible in a lot of projects or it's feasible in all the projects right.

Perfect. No, I read it and it's been probably four days and now so much has happened and my brain's gone. So in those days, the last question, Madam Chair, is there a set design or color that's going to be considered? And the reason why it's a couple of pictures had multiple colors throughout multiple things. And I'm curious if If there's a set design or color that would be used, you've thought about this by shaking your head, just because if you bank and want to bow is purple and yellow and central is green and blue. And is it something that's going to be confusing for drivers are going, well, that's just concrete design and it's not a don't drive on it. Design sort of, does it make sense? I mean, we have safety colors for a reason. Are we using universal colors on this?

Madam Chair and councillors, yes, we do follow national standards for colors, but we also do take into account that we work with communities. So if a community approaches us and they're a specific reason or a specific request, we try to find a way to get that solution implemented in whatever color or geometry is being requested. But overall, for the sake of cost saving and the sake of stockpiling materials, it's more advantageous for us to stay with our standard colors and do that as a default unless otherwise specified.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Councillor Rogers.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say I'm so excited about this ordinance. I was lucky to be one of 12 elected officials to be part of the Safe Streets for All Champions Institute. And this is something we learned about in that fellowship as a national best practice for actually piloting something as a lot of the speakers and some councilors said, before we spend the money doing big things. And I know in District 6 we've been using these and I think I brought up a picture from one of the quick build things for bike safety that had been wrecked by cars and served its purpose. And so I really appreciate Councilor Fibicorn for bringing this. This is on my to-do list. in addition to a couple of other things I learned as national best practices. I just wanted to ask one question in the ordinance, I'm sorry, yeah, ordinance talks about implementation follow-up. And so I wanted to ask Councilor Feeble-Corn, is that kind of what I was talking about where after these quick build, is there an evaluation of, Okay, this didn't work. Let's remove it and clean it up. Is that what you mean in the in the ordinance?

Councilor for implementation follow up, it says. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, yeah, I think there's a couple of things here. We want to make sure that we are taking a look at what gets installed to make sure it works. And so, you know, my conversations with DMD, they would be following up on that and making sure it's working. If it's not working, removing it, if it needs to be moved over. I have one example in my district that just got some bollards and they were in this slightly wrong spot. And so they had to go back and do that. So that was the initial kind of follow up. And then I do think there is a longer term follow up that we would work with DMD on as well to say, all right, you know, in six months, is it looking like the picture that you brought to council last time? And if so, what do we do? The other thing that I've had lots of conversations with DMD Director Turner about is just that they are really looking into more sturdy types of bollards and traffic devices because we are finding out as counselor champagne said we are ruining a lot of these and so director turner has been looking at really a lot of different options and is bringing forward some more sturdy options for us to consider for future ones

And thank you, Councilor Fiebelkorn. I think that's exactly what I'd like to see. I know the things that are more temporary don't always also protect the vulnerable, especially our bicyclists. So I think that's great. I saw some of the ones that they installed downtown on Broadway that were parking. you know, the parking concrete ones that were able to actually stop a vehicle from hitting somebody. So I think this is great. And always, I would love to ask to co-sponsor as well, just because it was, thank you for doing this. I'm so excited that it's here. And I would love your help on some of the other to-do lists that I have too, because this is one that can save us money. And I was excited to see the Department of Transportation also publish this in their quick build guide that had some really great examples and so thank you for bringing this forward madam chair i'm happy to have a co-sponsor thank you so much i appreciate it so if the clerk can go ahead and make note of that please

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is a great idea. I do have issues with the dollars when they're cheaply made, and they do break because we all see that. And so we need to make sure that they're not too cheap, because then I think it's a waste of money. So we have to make sure that we're doing it right. I do, I am concerned about, I think that it should be very uniform as far as colors on the ground. Having multiple colors, you know, and having rainbow, not rainbows, but, you know, I saw some swirlies and, you know, things in there. I don't know that that's the place for on the streets. I think that belongs on fences, but I think the street should be always the same. I have traveled in different cities as well and seen this type of construction for pedestrians and bicyclists, and it has a purpose, but it's all uniform, it's all the same as far as colors go. And so I would respectfully ask that it be that kind of a standard design of some kind but you know not not all lots of different colors because it will be confusing to bicyclists and drivers and everybody so it should be uniform but thank you any other questions or comments counselors anything from the administration further nope at this point

Okay. All right. Council people corner close.

Thank you, Madam chair. So just a couple of quick things on the color. I definitely hear that. I do think there are some options and all those examples were from other cities. Um, but there are some options that we might want to consider. One thing that's in my district is we're putting in some mini traffic circles. And in the circle part, there is an option to do some art. And so in this bill, it does allow DMD and the Complete Streets folks to partner with the arts and culture department for art when it's appropriate. So just wanted to make sure that was clear. I wanted to thank DMD for working with me on this. And I just want to clarify one thing for the record. Quick build is quicker. And it is less expensive, but it is not quick and cheap and so Just want to make sure that we are not setting any expectations because it's government work And it's still going to take a little time, but it's going to be a thousand times faster than having to redo complete streets Did want to thank the folks that spoke about the New Mexico Department of Transportation they do have a quick build guide that's now out and And so we would be building based on what's in that statewide guide. We have reporting requirements in this bill so that council gets a report back to know if this is working or not. And then I could follow up and close with something eloquent, but I don't think I would do anything better than what we heard from the speakers tonight. So for all the reasons that you heard from all of the folks that gave their time and energy to come out, I urge your support.

Mr. Salas, if you'll call the roll.

Councillor Champagne? Yes. Councillor Feeblecorn?

Yes.

Councillor Grout? Yes. Councillor Rogers?

Yes.

Chair Passant? Yes. That passes unanimous.

Seeing no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Have a good night, everyone.