Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's get this thing started. Uh we'll I'll call the city council and planning commission joint work session agenda uh meeting to order at 5:38 p.m. and ask the secretary to call the role. Council President Briggs here. Councelor Barryentos here. Councelor Fitzgerald here. Councelor Holappel here. Councelor Jance here. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. Councelor Spivey here.

Councelor Blosser is excused. And then we have the planning commission. Uh President John Swanson is excused. Vice President Gro here. Commissioner Banford, Commissioner Kowash, Commissioner Newell, Commissioner Schulty here, Commissioner White here. Right. We have one item on the agenda and that's transportation system plan project status update.

Perfect. Good evening everybody. My name is, for those who don't know me, my name is Matt Bell and I'm a transportation planner with a private consulting firm called KDson and Associates. I am the consultant project manager on the transportation system plan update working with the city and folks at Oregon Department of Transportation to um you haven't to get your existing plan um up to date. So, as some folks probably recall from the last meeting, as uh we've been making steady progress over about the last year and a half or so, and really want to just share with you today some of that progress and um of course get your feedback on some of the materials. Um I I'll go through what we've prepared today um somewhat slowly. I got a present I got a fairly lengthy presentation because we've got a lot that we want to try to cover. I'll go through it relatively quickly, but try to preserve as much time towards the end for questions. I understand that you all have seen our um I've seen like a a brief summary of the memos that we're that we're talking about today and that you'll have access to the the longer versions of these memos here in the next few weeks. I'll just mention that those memos um much like a lot of things are always in process. Uh, one of the things I'll mention as I go through is that we got a significant amount of feedback from um from the city, from ODOT, from the um community through a recent inerson online open house and through a series of interviews. So, I'll go through some of that as as I go through the presentation. So, still trying to get those memos wrapped up and try to um get us on the path towards the developing the plan. So, with that um why here? Why today? And um so just sort of like as I mentioned just a moment ago um the project team has done quite a bit of work over the last year and a half or so um developing things like goals and objectives that guide the process evaluating existing and future transportation conditions. I'll talk about that for a bit today. Identifying

the all the gaps, deficiencies, needs in the transportation system at a relatively high level. Um and then um and then kind of di diving in a little bit deeper whenever we get to engage in the with the with the agency and the community. Then we also develop alternatives or solutions. We kind of use those terms interchangeably and I'll talk about that today. Um considered policies and standards um estimated future funding. So that kind of brings us to where we are right now. And I'm going to go through a lot of that here in a moment. But then looking ahead um where things start to get kind of exciting is when we start going through and selecting what we consider to be our preferred alternatives when we develop all the different policies and the programs and the projects that will make up the transportation system plan and then we actually create the draft version of that transportation system plan. So I'll mention this again here towards the end but when we get back together which we will have at least one more work session um we will be presenting to you those per those preferred set of alternatives the policies the programs the projects and the things that we're carrying into the final plan. So um it's a very step-wise process and we're just kind of stepping into that about twothirds of the way through the process. So there are as I mentioned quite a few folks involved. We have a first and foremost we have our project management team. This is consists of city staff, Oregon Department of Transportation staff and then the consultants. U we have a project advisory committee. It's um it's made up of city, county and ODOT staff as well as business owners and operators, residents, um transportation and emergency service providers. An example of that would be the folks at JariTS who have been fairly active and and vocal participants in this project providing input along the way. Um, in terms of the consultant team, we have KDson. We're a transportation and and um traffic transportation planning, traffic engineering firm. Um, we have 3J Consulting. They're primarily a land use firm for this project. Um, they also were supporting the travel demand

process or pardon me, travel demand modeling process. And then Coja, who's been leading a lot of our public involvement activities. So the first the first memo um well actually this is technically this is tech memo number five. So the the first few memos we'll we'll I'll go over those if you want to talk about those but really the focus today is on future on solutions on um different policies and standards and then on funding. And so this first memo, this is um this was this was the memo that sort of um has given us the most trouble uh because looking into that crystal ball and trying to see what the future entails can be a little bit tricky at times. And so we start off by like this this memo really covers a lot of different ground. It covers population employment projections. It covers motor vehicle traffic operations in that future scenario and it includes non-automotive transportation conditions. So, we are required to do population employment forecasts and look at things like Portland State University's population research center and all their forecasts for the city. It tells us roughly how many people we're going to have within the city um on in different time frames. We are going out to 2045 and so we want to know how many folks roughly are going to be here in 2045. So we start with that number and then we and then we look at census data and to understand like um how that population is distributed today. We look at planned developments and how much capacities in the system and we look at where that housing where future population future households can go what the break what the composition of those households are and we distribute that throughout the city. So all those little blocks you can see there we call those transportation analysis zones. These are essentially just trying to um represent where growth could occur. And for folks that might recognize the spaces there, we're looking at quite a bit of growth in terms of households in the Barbar node,

in the Lockreal node, um up there in the northwest there by James How and then the southwest corner there um along Fairview. So um quite a bit of growth in terms of population and households in the city. And then jumping over to the next map, we're we're seeing similar patterns there. quite a bit of growth in terms of jobs in the future. Much of that is occurring in that Lacriol node, some over there in the Barbari node and then in the southwest area where a lot of the industrial properties are. So we use this population employment forecast along with a um along with a regional travel demand model to then project future traffic volumes onto the roadway network and try to understand like how those volumes are going up and going down. So when we um we get to that. So the I know the one on the probably itty bitty on your in your printouts and whatnot, but when you see the memos you'll see that these are these are quite a bit larger maps. You can kind of see what we're talking about here. Um we see quite a bit of growth as you would expect on East Ellen on Kings Valley on um along a lot of the a lot of the streets that provide connections from those streets to like through the downtown and whatnot. And whenever we look at traffic operations at some of the key intersections along those corridors, that's where we start seeing some of our um intersections exceeding mobility standards in some cases exceeding capacity. So the ones there at Levens, the one at Kings Valley, the one at um the one all the way over for a villa, those are our three um most significant problem children. There's there are plenty more in in the city to consider. um up at Orchards over there at Lriel. Those are also some some challenging intersections. So again, really focused there along the East Ellenale Kings Valley corridor where we're seeing a lot of those operational challenges in the future. Um other intersections, they're shown in green, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to still experience

some congestion. Certainly on on um down here in the couplet area, we see quite a bit of congestion today at times. we see it and we're projecting to see some of that in the future. It's just that we have um like on Main Street, we do allow it to just about reach capacity before we start needing to um do some additional mitigations. So, I'm going to pause here in just a second, guys. Um, then as part of our future conditions analysis, oops, we also look at we look at transit service, we look at the frequency of that service, the speed time, the travel times, how how accessible it is for pedestrians and bicycles, and then we look at stop amenities. And again, really just trying to understand what are all those gaps and deficiencies in the multimotal network, which which includes transit. Um we do something very similar for pedestrian and bicycles. We look at um things like sidewalks and bike lanes. We look at how connected they are. We look at how comfortable they are. Um we do an analysis called a level of traffic stress analysis. You can see based on these maps that we're really focused on key corridors throughout the community. A lot of the higher classification streets and then a lot of the streets that provide access to different parks and um um recreational opportunities. We also incorporated in there some of the trail connections and and I'll get I'll go into more detail on trails here in just a minute. And maybe I'll pause there. This was a um this was a focus of our of our recent open house that we did both online and in person. Um we had a we got a lot of really good feedback. This is also combi when you combine this memo with the um existing conditions memo which goes back to tech memo number three. This is where this is sort of forms the foundation for what are all those again gaps,

deficiencies and needs in the transportation system both today and in the future in order to accommodate growth. So this is the world of issues that we want to try to address in in that future. So maybe I'll I know you guys haven't seen the memo um um but I'll just pause for a moment and see if you have any quick thoughts, comments on um on this information. I can tell you're eager to say something. So go. Yeah.

Um on the forecast traffic volumes and intersection operations slide uh with the intersection operations of on the intersection of Ellenale and Levens we have a exceeds mobility target red. Is that taking into consideration the traffic signal? It does not, but we did um retroactively and and and understood that you guys had a traffic signal in the works. Um similarly, and I'm glad you mentioned that. Similarly, there's uh over over there at Fur Villa, uh as you guys probably well aware, that's been an that's been a problem intersection for some time. It's had some safety issues. It has some operational issues. Oregon Department of Transportation has gone through and done what they call an intersection control evaluation to try to identify what the preferred treatment is out there. And so in this case, I should have mentioned this that our future conditions is a is a no build condition. So we really want to try to understand what all those gaps and deficiencies and needs are without um significant investment in the system. So we can more or less confirm that what we have on the books, what are the planned improvements are in fact the the right. So your future conditions are basically if nothing is done.

Correct. Yeah. There are some caveats to that where if we have if we have something that has already been planned and paid for and is on its way towards being installed like like the Levens signal for example, we may have taken that off the list. Um just the timing of when we completed this versus when we understood that to be true. um more than likely we just won't and carry that as a project into the transportation system plan because it'll just be completed. But we might still have depending on where they're at with um I'm kind of gesturing to my ODOT counterpart back there where ODOT's at with um with Furilla that may still be a project. Yeah.

Does it also not include the increased traffic that we will probably see on the 223? Not 223 spur, but the 223 to the north as the roundabout goes in because the bid opens on the 19th. It is a funded project.

Yeah, that has been an ongoing topic of conversation. Just I think a lot of folks are feeling the same way that with the roundabout we should see an increase in traffic coming from down Kings Valley. What kind of impact that's going to have? We haven't really tested the sensitivity of that as as much. I think at you know today we really use we use a combination of um of existing traffic volumes along the different roadway segments as well as the capacity of those segments to accommodate future growth to um to to inform our distribution. So that means if like Ellenale is approaching capacity today or let me say that another way if Ellen is approaching capacity entering and exiting the city um in the future then more traffic will shift over to Kings Valley. I haven't personally tested it to see what would happen if those were like more balanced out but really we're looking at what's available today, what's likely in the future and then making those forecasts. Um I can say just based on the operational challenges that we're seeing, based on um the you know the feedback that we're getting, we would expect um Kings Valley to I mean it's it doesn't have the same challenges that Ellenale has. Doesn't have the same access challenges, doesn't have the same um capacity challenges from like intersection perspectives and things like that. So it hasn't been as much of a focus. We've really been focusing more on East Ellenale and what the future holds for that. A lot of people are under the misconception that East Ellenale is the main route and according to ODOT it is not the main route. That's 223 223 is our freight route. 223 spur is not the freight route. It is a 223 spur which is people call it Ellenale or out to Rickal Highway. Lots of different names but 223 spur is a rural district highway I think or way. And so as development comes in that

road should slow down. So which will push more to the north up onto 223 from my understanding. Yeah. Maybe the spur, but it is still a bottleneck. I think that that's something that I can look into and get back to you on is in terms of like what is what how much growth we're anticipating in either direction. The um the challenge is is that our model is limited to the city. it doesn't necessarily account for the interchange or the future roundabout. So, we're really just going again based on what those volumes are today, what the capacity is in the future. And um yeah, making making some decisions based on that.

We are able to look at solutions to to alleviate on the map up there, the the big red dot right in the middle of at Safeway. Are we looking at solutions for bypasses around that intersection?

We are. and I'll so I'll jump into solutions. So, um, transportation solutions. This is tech memo number six. Again, um, look forward to collect. We've we got a quite a bit of feedback on this memo and I've been working on addressing some of that feedback. Um, one of the one of the first things we look at is is additional street connectivity. We look at intersection um, intersection treatments or opportunities to modify the configuration of different intersections. Again, we look at pedestrian, bicycle, and transit facilities. We also look at the Rick Rreel Creek Trail, pardon me, facilities. Um, I think this memo also covers rail and safety. We just didn't feel like we had enough time today to go into a lot of detail on everything, so we wanted to kind of hit the high points on some of this. So, for um, street connections, there are we have this um, map shows there's quite a few street connections that are being proposed as as part of the TSP. Um some of some of the more significant ones I think I'll I'll just kind of highlight for you here is of course Lock Real extending up and up to um Kings Valley. Um an extension of Fur Villa down to Monmouth Cutoff. Um maybe you know providing that connection for Barbar up to up to East Ellen. Um also making that relatively small connection along the southern end of Hawthorne. So there's just there's a lot of um there's a lot of projects that are being carried forward from the previous TSP. um some of those previous connections that um we felt like were no longer feasible are coming out. Some new ones are coming in. Um really just trying to address exactly the issue that you were you're you're getting you're getting at there is that we have um Kings Valley and East Ellenale Avenue. That intersection is is heavily congested today, projected to get worse in the future. And um there's really we don't know if we want to blow it up anymore. Do we want to add more turn lanes? Do we want to add do we want to do other things or do we want to try to

do we want to try to expand the roadway network to provide additional connectivity across Rick Rail between arterials and collectors and try to provide alternative routes um to get around in the community rather than focusing everything through that intersection. So again quite a bit of new street connections really trying to get to that point is can we can we offload East Ellen? Can we offload Kings Valley by providing additional street connectivity? So, so again, one of the key goals there. In terms of intersections, we do have a tendency to focus on the ones that are that are a bit problematic or that we're seeing exceeding we're seeing exceeding their capacities in the future. So, um Leven, although we have a plan out at Levens, Kings Valley for Villa, um there are others that we've heard quite a bit about through the engagement process. um things like you know Jefferson and um Uglow over there near the hospital a number of other intersections that are that are bit problematic and so beyond just the simply trying to address the capacity stamp um try to address capacity issues we're also looking at addressing um just safety related issues other concerns that have kind of come up through the process

I suspect the answer to this is going to be no but I have to ask for due diligence Um, does any of this take into account um some of the things we may be doing um in the industrial zone, particularly at the old mill site?

It most definitely does. Um some of the just backing up a half step, some of the new street connections that we're identifying here do build on that mill site redevelopment project. Um bring in bring in the project. I think some of the vision that was um some of the we're we're kind of catching up to what the vision was on that plan and and incorporating it into here considering how the couplet is inter interacting with that street connections. I don't think we're quite there yet. I think there's still some work to be done to show how we're going to make those things kind of work together. Feel a little bit more confident on the east west portion than the north south portion. Um but certainly we're on our way towards that goal. Um, jumping into PED facilities. So, this is a map you won't see in in the um in the latest version of the memos. This is something we've been working on based on some feedback we got from um ODOT and others about wanting to highlight how the projects um correspond with some of the level of traffic stress analysis stuff that we did. So, we've we've got potential modifications on just about every street. Sometimes it's maintaining that existing infrastructure. Sometimes it's it's like enhancing it in different ways. Whether it's, you know, providing um additional width, providing landscaping, um creating more of like a separated pathway along different corridors. I know you guys are experime experimenting with this in different different places. and then addressing other things like things like um basic amenities like um seating and trash cans and um things like that. For bicycles, very similar um where we're looking at a range of different potential solutions, everything from shared facilities to separated facilities to facilities that have um a little bit of buffer between the travel lane. And this um one of the things you'll see here in a little bit is our our revised street design standards that

shows the bike lane being separated from the adjacent travel lane set kind of behind the um the landscaping strip which is which has been um another big point of discussion most of this project. I'll just mention quickly though, the bike bike bike facilities are a bit tricky and this is something I know that we're going to be t talking about a lot more when we start selecting with those preferred alternatives for different corridors. Um there's a lot of corridors in the city where um they might be they may have um arterial or collector classifications where there are no marked bike lanes and currently are being utilized for on street parking. Not trying to open up a big can of worms here, but just recognizing that there does come a time when the trade-off between on street parking and bike lanes when you're going to have to make that decision. And that usually happens right around the time when those those street segments start seeing anywhere from 2500 to about 3,000 daily trips. At that stage, usually want to provide some separation, particularly on those higher classification um streets. And you know, a good example of that is, you know, Lockal is as it comes down south towards Miller. Um that is a is a big wide street goes alongside of a school alongside the aquatic center and um there's really no facilities on there for bicyclist. There is a separated path that they could use, but there's no on street stuff. So that's an example of a street that's a higher classification, has higher speeds, and those volumes are about to trip those thresholds. So, um, but happy to talk about it now, but h more than likely we're going to be talking about that as a trade-off in the future. Uh, next, Rick Creek. Uh, we're looking at a variety of different alternatives for enhancing the creek. I know this has been a long-term plan for the community. I'm wanting to provide that connectivity um both along the creek trail as well as to and from the creek trail from the street network. So, we've got some new um trail connections. We've got some on

street portions of of the the trail. Again, just trying to provide some additional enhanced um facilities there. For public transportation, um we're looking at we recognize fully that Chariots is the transit service provider here. There's a limited number of things the city can do for transit. Um, nevertheless, we look at where new routes and um could potentially be provided, where enhanced um where existing routes could potentially be upgraded. You know, things like um service schedules and um service frequencies, uh things like that. So, kind of both expanding it in time and then the frequency of the service, also providing some um new and enhanced transit stops. So, where we've heard from folks that they would like to see a shelter, they'd like to see some additional stops to, you know, enhance that access as well as park and rides and then something we call first and last mile connectivity. So, that's based on where the stop is, based on where the destination is, making sure that there's adequate bike and pedestrian connections. Um, kind of closing that gap. I think the Yeah, that's it before I jump into funding. Any any quick questions on transportation solutions?

Quick question on the rail creek trail altern. Most of the most of the items listed here in southeast side of town. Is there anything in the plan for this goes till 2045 for the southwest side of town along that creek trail in the plan?

I'll be honest with you, the my counterpart is our trail person has been doing a lot of the doing a lot of the trail work. So, um, I would might have to get back to you on on that one in particular. I know that, yeah, that southwest portion where we have some additional street connections, you know, we'd be looking at different design standards for those streets that could potentially, you know, provide that that connectivity, not off- streetet connectivity like you're probably talking about, but um, a lot of the a lot of times where we build for um, for things like off- streetet paths and trails, a lot of times what we're doing is we're bringing in existing plans. So if your parks master plan, your recreail creek trail master plan, um any other planning efforts that can help inform this, that's you know provides a lot of the backdrop for the transportation system plan. Um we try to enhance that by making additional connections to those things or and then of course identifying other off-street connections where folks are helping us understand that a little bit better. So if you have ideas, we'd love to hear about them and um love to get them incorporated in here. I don't know if this is the extent of what was going to go in the plan for the uh for the future or if there's other extens I know there there's been discussions about uh additional extensions uh on the west side of town for that trail. So just want to make sure that doesn't get left out if it's part of the next 20-year plan. They're missing stuff on both sides because the east side is not correct and the west side is not correct.

You're talking about this map existing the existing propos future connections is not not correct on either of them. We don't you'd have to go back to the maps. I've got a map in my office and it shows a lot more connection than that.

Gotcha. Okay. I will take a look. And it's it's in the uh Rick Real Creek Trails plant. Great. From my understanding, we'll be receiving these memos. Just talking to the counselors, we'll be receiving the three memos we're talking about in its full and we'll have a week to comment on them. So, make sure you look at them when we receive them. did they did not get printed and put into our packets.

Yeah. Yeah. The memos are significantly longer than the little four or five page version.

So I see something here about park and rides under transportation solutions. So it would be a great transportation solution. But in my training experience, that's a place where transients end up leaving their mobile homes or something like that and they end up becoming permanent residents in the pocket ride. So I would ask that you have something to mitigate that problem. Um, so people cannot uh just leave their trailers there or or live at the park and ride. You have specific intersections in mind?

Well, I I don't have specific intersection in mind. I just bringing up that that's a there's a transportation solution and parking rides are great where you know the average citizen can come and leave their vehicles there uh and then come back to it. But um I've seen in the past where um trailer homes or mo it becomes a mobile parking already. These two parking rides

cuz it looks like one's in Walmart and one's stops. Yeah, I think this is more this could be looking to formalize some some um some existing uh maybe nonofficial unofficial park and rides. These are like anytime that we're identifying a park and ride in a private in a private lot, usually there's some sort of an indication that there would need to be a um a deal worked out with that private retailer. Um it's I don't I think that most of the ones that we're identifying are in existing parking facilities of some sort usually for again private realers in which case not not that it's going to fully address the issue that you're you're raising there but we would sometimes look at those. So if it's in the Walmart parking lot, Walmart would more than likely be monitoring and um enforcing any sort of overnight camping rules within their own parking facility. good idea is put in like big concrete items somewhat something that mitigates that problem you know so you can't you know just live there for long periods of time certainly should be on the radar

is there any data on how many people are riding the public transport in and out of here unfortunately wrership information is not available won't give you Yeah, we have I think we have broader ridership information, not stop um like stop information is what we usually rely on to kind of try to identify that the um the level of stop um amenities that we provide. We want to know where it's happening. Yeah. Right. So short answer is the the information is more broadly understood. So like route 45 or 50 access has this many um writers

aggregates but they don't really drill it down. Correct. Yes. The population outlook for 2045 outlook. It's going to take me a second to pull that up, but I can pull that up. Assuming you use Portland State for that like everybody else does.

We do. Correct. And again, we use a combination of yeah, Portland State University's population research center does all that work and we're required to use it as a basis for population. We also do take into consideration census information and um how much like for for a combination of things. In some cases it's it's um people per household which PSU has similar information for that. It has um it has like a dist helps us with the distribution of that population and um

you already got it on page two of your new packet in which you 24,849 and 19 and 2045 page three bottom of paragraph three correct Yeah. 24849 in 2045 and that's about 9700 households and then um about 7,200 jobs.

That sounds like it's in the ballpark because we've added give or take a little about 6,000 in the last 20 years. So that sounds like it's in the right range. I should mention that um when we did this and this is this is typical of every um every plan that we work on is that they are PSU is always updating their numbers and every I think it's every four years they come out with like an official forecast and so we just we were doing our work right as they had their unofficial forecast but it's it's within a fraction of a percent of the official forecast so there's some some discrepancies there if you were to go back and look um but It's again minuscule. All right. So, moving into transportation funding and financing. Um, this memo just takes a look at what's what existing revenues and expenditures are and um goes into a little bit of it goes into a little bit of detail on where where that money is coming from, how that money has grown historically over um the last 10 years or so and then what like what we're seeing for the for the future. And um so we do the same thing with expenditures. We look at the the um where the money is going to both in terms of personnel materials and services and then capital outlay which does include some of the um some of the improvements that we would ultimately see in the TSP. And we do this um we do this 20-year projection to try to understand where um the money might where like what we might see. And what we're seeing here is a very we're painting a a fairly rosy picture, but but somewhere in between where we see fairly steady growth in in things like the um state highway appropriations and other things like system development charges that is that is also indexed to how much growth we're anticipating over that same time frame. Um a variety of

other things like different funding sources that are growing at different rates and and um under different assumptions. So, we're looking at about $17.92 million of available funding over that 20-year planning horizon. So, a little less than a million dollars a year that could potentially be going towards transportation improvements. I should mention that again that doesn't necessarily account for the capital outlay which you guys are spending today. Um, that's included in this as um as expenses and so there could it could be more than that. Um it's also again painting somewhat of a rosy picture in terms of like transportation funding um continuing on the same trajectory it's been on but from in the time that I've been doing transportation related work for about the last 20 years or so um has historically been fairly reliable. It's only really been the last few years where things have been a little bit little bit rockier. um not seeing as much of that um consistent growth, but the way that this is set up, it should we should be um still being somewhat conservative in terms of what that growth could look like.

Ask something. Yeah. Can you explain the um the difference in the revenue and the expenditure especially right around 2021 or 2022 I need to pull Jess up here to give us give you some detail but there was certainly a spike in available I think this may have been a grant that came in and then a grant that went out the door. Well, because of co so that was the outlier. That's for the big diff.

Yeah. Money,

right? And then and and so and I'll just mention that we use we use funding to kind of gauge roughly what how many how many projects do we identify like whenever we're trying to identify our top priority projects down the road. Once we've once we've identified the the policies, the programs, the projects, and we've h have them organized in a way that we want to include them in the transportation system plan, we use this funding as a as a basis for um for determining what we think we can actually accomplish within the 20-year planning horizon. We would um this memo also includes a list of potential local funding sources that you could you could lean on to try to boost this revenue. It includes a list of um state and federal grants that you could also be pursuing. And so whenever we get to identifying projects, we start to um also tie those projects back to different funding sources. Um one of the things that um I'm I'm I know that I'm supposed to remember going into this process is that a lot of the projects a lot of the issues that we identify on um on streets will be addressed through um through private development. So whenever a developer, as you you all know very well, um does their frontage improvements, those frontage improvements will be consistent with whatever we're putting out in the transportation system plan and and addressing those those improvements. So So there is a good number of projects that we would anticipate being addressed through those um developer contributions. All right, moving on to transportation standards. So this this memo also actually I jumped too far also covers quite a quite a bit of ground. These are this is um this is trying to capture a lot of different things all all in the same shot here. So we're looking at different ways that that we organize the streets in terms of things like functional classifications and we come back to the major street

connections, the local street connections. Um we we presented a number of roadway and um shared use path cross-sections building on what you have today but making some modifications. Um we looked at local evacuation routes, freight routes and a variety of other things. Just again given given the amount of time that we have today, we just want to focus on a few of the key items that are highlighted here. So access spacing standards. Um maybe coming all the way back to the conversation we were having about Kings Valley coming out of the north. Um, I I recall a conversation I had with the former mayor and he was talking about how important it will be to protect that segment of Kings Valley and um and how that um how we should be really mindful of of our access spacing standards along that particular segment of corridor just to just to improve the the connectivity um to improve the flow of traffic and um you know prevent a similar situation that formed out there on East Ellen where you have a lot of different access points serving um serving you know mostly private development and so just being mindful of what that access spacing standards are how they apply along these along these different roadway segments and how those impact development down the road. So access spacing standards um the big difference between what you have today and what we're proposing in the future is just providing a little bit more clarity on what um on the different facilities. I think today you have a fairly um fairly typical but it but um maybe a little bit less detailed set of spacing standards. We're providing just a little bit more detail there. And then in terms of functional classifications, this is this is something that that I I don't want to go unnoticed. Whenever we're making changes to the functional classifications of streets, we are essentially changing how that street will how that street will operate, how um it'll be designed, um

the types of bicycle and pedestrian facilities that would be provided. Um it it changes the form and the function and the anticipated like way that the the street will operate. Um, so we're not making we're not proposing a ton of different changes, but again, kind of getting back to this conversation about mil mills site and how milite will fold in here. Um, one of the things that we need to look at a little bit closer is how those classifications align with milsite and what the vision is for making those additional connections. So most of what we had proposed previously or what you'll see in the memos is there on the kind of like the eastern part of town, the northern part of town where we're really just trying to address um the connections there. Um also trying to change them a little bit so that they reflect how they're actually been designed, how they how they're operating. So um just a few changes there to the classifications. The major street connections, we talked about this in tech moment number five. This is showing what those connections would look like and and um with their functional classifications. So, uh you can see the list there with with the with the classification shown in the map.

A quick question on that. I still saw that you still saw a a bridge being built at the end of River Drive and connecting to Mil Street, making that a uh minor collector. Is that correct? Can you say that again? End of River Drive. that would be on the west side of town. Uh you show a bridge, possible bridge for making that a minor collector. Is that still in the plan?

That is still in the plan. And um that is a that is a surprisingly popular route in the travel demand model and um something that when we when we make that connection folks that are coming to and from the west which you know maybe they're coming down James how maybe they're coming from West Ellenale um anybody that would otherwise be coming all the way over to Kings Valley or maybe Levens and coming down or Kings Valley and coming down are using that that connection. At least that's what the the model thinks. Um and then coming into coming into the rest of the town from that one. So it is it is a um we mentioned this I think we mentioned this in the memo that introduces the map. Uh it is again a very popular connection.

Can you tell me um the difference of the major connector minor connector? Is it just the traffic flow or is it going to be speed based or what's the biggest difference?

Uh um one one of the key differences between the major and minor collector in particular is the is the design standards. Um minor minor collectors and I'm just going for the design standards here while we're talking. But the um the major collector operates an awful lot like a like an arterial in terms of providing like larger connections. typically has a three-lane cross-section with the center two wheel left turn lane. Um tends to be um t tends to be a little bit more like you say higher volume, higher speed. Um the minor collectors are almost like almost like a um almost almost like a neighborhood route. Like there there was a time whenever we used to use that term more freely. Um but the minor colle but neighborhood routes kind of went away and now we call them minor collectors. They're they they have a tendency to be um again slower volume, slower speeds. They don't have the turn center turn lane. They usually have on street parking on both sides. Um they are still a higher classification than a than a local, but um but again tend to have lower volumes and lower speeds than the rest of the collectors. You may or may not be aware of this and it and it possibly is is too um too tentative to to figure into the plan, but in case you don't know, um Bridalwood, which is a minor collector, that that's the there's only one way into or out of that entire subdivision. And there's an effort underway. Don't know if it's going to succeed, but there's an effort underway all the way up at the top to have us enex some land and put in a bunch more houses up there, which would stress that street even more. I don't know. Like I say, it's very tentative. Lot of unknowns may or may not h happen, but there is an effort of foot to do it. So if that's of any use to you, I don't know.

That's why you show show it connecting to Oakdale the top. They show it as a dotted line. Yeah. And they also do all that. Mhm.

And that brings me a little worried about the classification that we currently have for the spur, the 223 spur road being a major arterial. I don't know how we would ever make it a major arterial all the way through there. That'd be an extremely expensive I would suggest that we look at reclassifying it just down to a minor arterial instead of a major arterial. That's right. Mark, can you can we call Mark up? Yeah. I I would just like to hear I just want to make sure I'm not Is there any reason why because I mean that's a district.

It's a district highway. You're kind of singing my tune. Okay. Um, I just wanted to make sure when I say no, it's like, oh no, I'm saying something wrong. No, no. And and and for background, I'm sure you are all aware, but you may not be Matt. Michael is on the P County Planning Commission, too. So, he's he's got a lot of and MWAC. And on the MWAC committee also. Oh, so can you speak to the Can you speak?

Sorry about that. Yep. So um this is the the tension that you that is Michael brought up between uh capacity and available things like available rightaway and the built environment I think are are valid and and are in play. Um and I eastendale is a perfect example where you have numerous driveway uh conflicts. Those those drivways have been established for over 50 years in in many cases. uh there are roadside ditches that are are hard to relocate probably utilities in that uh right away as well. So it it makes a very uh challenging envir environment to uh increase capacity on the road. Uh and I understand there is and correct me if I'm wrong that as we have acknowledged these are all draft documents. We're we're continually their working documents and my understanding is that the the um travel demand tool that was uh created for this exercise uh does not show a necessity for that five lane cross-section. So it's a matter of um community vision uh capacity dealing with the the you know having uh adequate capacity to um to have smooth traffic oper operations and then retrofitting the the build environment. All those things need to be considered. How do you convince the general public to use the indirect main artery versus the direct minor collector or whatever you want?

Slow it down, put more more stop lightss in.

Well, I mean, this is just I I rely on my own driver behavior honestly in many of these instances. And when I encounter a highly congested uh road, I look for an alternative. And uh this just coming here today from Salem, I made a conscious choice to come down East Alenale cuz I did not want to make a left off of 22 onto North Kings Valley. If there's a roundabout there, then I probably do take the 22 to North Kings Valley and go down to the intersection of Ellenale. makes also perfect sense that that's a five lane nor 223 from 22 makes a lot more sense because it's easier to develop. It's better money spent for us because the city is the one there's not going to be redevelopment on East Ellen with all the houses in there. It's just not going to happen in my lifetime and probably my kids' lifetime. And so where do you that's where Mark was talking about where what's our vision? And I know that during some of our uh open houses, different things, they've talked about East Ellen is turning into a Lancaster Drive. You make it a five line, five lane road, it will be Lancaster Drive. So that's how you force it the other way and then you create the bypasses that they've been bringing up as far as I don't know if you want to call them bypasses, alternative routes.

So that's a lot better than a bypass. Well, and you know, just for reference, um there is 100 feet of available rightway on North Kings Valley Highway because that is that was I think the last state facility in in this uh community to be built and at the time ODOT purchased the access rights to that segment of the road. So any new connections would need to go through a process at ODOT to uh make that happen. he pointed out explicitly and you basically agreed um turning turning East Ellenale into a major collector would be a horrendously difficult thing to do. major arterial. Yeah, major, excuse me, the major arterial

and there's a big that's back to Carlos. I think the difference is the cross-section of the street. You're adding another 12t lane if I remember right. Well, it's a lot of things. It's that it's the accesses. It's all kinds of things. Technically, you're adding two more 12t lanes. So, another 24 ft of rightway all the way through East Ellenale as it stands today. And that's why when I didn't see it on the list of potential changes, I thought it we should at least look at it. And then having Mark shake his head, no, we don't want that. And then having him come up and say, "No, yes, ODOT agrees." So

staff, uh, Matt, Erica. So good observation. Thanks. and helpful to know that we've been on the right track so far with regards to that. Yeah, the the actual at one point we were considering eliminating the fivelane cross-section. At another point we were considering modifying the um classification. I think we still have options, but they're all kind of pointing in the same direction. All right. Yeah, please.

Is there is there any I didn't see any uh plans for a connection from Fur Villa over to Monmouth Cutoff. It's on page. If you go into your book, it's figure two. It's um it's kind of skirting along the edge here if you can see it and jog down around. We have this little jog in there because of the the um the UGB. It's quite a ways back. You got to go to the last green page.

If you go to the last green page and then go forward about six, seven pages on the front green page. All right, I'm going to um charge ahead here. Oh, what did I just do? Connecting the screen. Gotcha. Okay. To your right. Read it. Yes. Oh, yeah. It's just this one's bigger. It's important. So, we kind of touched we touched on this.

We good? All right. We touched on this a little bit already, but these are the these are the roadway crosssections. There's cross-sections for major and minor arterials, um, major and minor collectors, and then a variety of local streets and shared use pathways. And I think I would just want to like kind of roll back up here and talk about the major arterial again for a second. Um this is the one that's showing that five lane cross-section. There is an option for a three-lane version of this cross-section. Um just like the the minor arterial, there's some there's um we we've we've um we've tried to build on what you have today. We've tried to build in a little bit of flexibility. We've tried to build in a little bit of um um consideration to the the the the uses of those facilities. So the the popular thing these days has been to narrow up travel lanes. There's a variety of reasons for that. Um one one of which is that we can we can dedicate more space for the bikes. We can um tend to slow people down a little bit. Um there's there's a lot of really good reasons for that. Um the one caveat to that is is when we're starting to think about these routes as being potential freight routes in and out of the community as um transit routes in and out of the community as other sort of um you know evacuation routes. Um there's a lot so there's a lot of there's a lot of exceptions in general. We do want to try to narrow things up, slow things down, provide a little bit more um flexibility in that design, but we want to take into consideration all these other uses of of the roadway. So again, we've um kind of tweaked your cross-sections a little bit, staying largely consistent with what you have today, just making some modifications there and including some cross-sections for shared paths and whatnot.

Yeah. Yeah. If this is going to go into our document, can we add trees to the top left one? No, on that the one you were just on. Oh, to the local. Yeah, because we require street trees and it looks like you're not requiring street trees. and trees look nice. Perfect. Thank you. That's just

all right. So, I I mentioned a couple of these just a moment ago. Uh local evacuation routes. We we we put this together based on the county's evacuation plan that that more or less says that the the local jurisdictions should be taking consideration the um the the needs for evacuation within their own communities identifying both primary and secondary routes. So we've gone and taken a shot at that. I think you can probably guess which routes we're we're leaning towards in terms of like Kings Valley, East Ellenale routes through downtown as being the primary routes. um these other east west routes like Miller and Monmouth Cutoff and whatnot as this those secondary routes also taking into consideration how those where the crossings might occur in terms of crossing Rick Rick real creek um providing major connections to major intersections and whatnot. So really trying to um expand that. We did run this by the emergency management um officer over there at the county and he felt pretty good about what we put together. So, I'm feel good about that. The um freight routes, this is this is largely coming directly out of the city's code. The the code identifies how freight should be entering and exiting. Um there will more than likely be some some considerations to like the milite redevelopment project, other industrial related projects, and how they might influence these connections. Um the one um the one that's highlighted a little bit different in there is the 223 Spur or East Ellen. This is also a reduction review route. Um those are routes that we need to be careful about what we're recommending in terms of narrowing up travel lanes and modifying the cross-section or the hole in the air as they like to put it. Um in which case we would need need to go through a lot of additional scrutiny to make those those changes.

And I'll say it one more time. It is not on ODOT's freight route. Correct. Yes, that's correct. Question about the evacuation. Yeah. With the amount of future development that's shown in the uh um James How area and not has there been discussions with the county about making James How an evacuation route with all the development and housing that's going to go in there. Any discussion with the county about that?

Yeah. Again, the county was kind is kind of leaning on the city towards identifying what routes they would want to prioritize in terms of primary and secondary routes. And there wouldn't be any reason to um exclude something like James How. I think that makes sense. Um Dallas is unique in the in the way that there are, you know, a lot of communities that are built up around state highway system. Um in this particular community, you have a lot of portals in and out of in and out of the city. at least the ones that are highlighted on here if not not a few more including James How Road which could all serve that same capacity. The again the influence that this would have is on in my in my mind and and I'm probably overly simplifying this is on the design of the roadway and how um what specific facilities and widths of those facilities we'd be providing. I'm just thinking 20 years in the future for the plan wise as goes uh with the development that's expected in that area.

Switch chats for just a second. The county tsp was done in 2000 2009. So I'm sure it's time to look at it again coming up. I haven't talked to Austin, but I mentioned the freight routes. Um, this was something that we we threw in there as just a as a as a consideration. Um, the rubber tire trolley service. This is, you know, we mentioned this before, but transit service within Dallas is largely provided by Chariots. Chariots doesn't, as you you all know probably well, and Chariots does not provide a local circulator. We heard a lot of feedback along the way about wanting to have some kind of a local circulator. You know, getting from one part of the community to the the next. You you basically need to go um to Salem and back or down to Monmouth and Independence and Salem and back depending on where you're depending on where you're headed. So having some kind of a local circulator, we sat down with um big markers and a and a and a map and and identified where we saw some of the um key commercial facilities, some of the key residential areas, and then and then, you know, tried to just explore some different options, taking into consideration where some of that growth is occurring and um put this down on the paper. Um, not sure quite what we're going to do with this yet, whether this will this will get any traction as um into the process. It could end up as a um could end up as a recommendation to have some kind of a pilot program or some type of a further evaluation, something similar to what independents did before they went and put in their their trolley service. They had something similar at one time, just a kind of the vague idea of a of a rubber tire trolley that connected Independence and Mammoth. and they went through and did a study and now they've they did a pilot and now they've got the service. So, it's got to start somewhere and this

is kind of where we started with the big markers on the map. Uh, and that's that's it for the tech memos and um I know we're running up against our timeline here. I just wanted to share a couple more things. I mentioned a couple times that we um we had some community we've had quite a bit of community engagement in the last um last several months or so. We just we just wrapped up an in-person openhouse. The online openhouse actually wrapped up on the 8th and um and we got quite a we got quite a bit of feedback. I won't go into the statistics here just because there's there's um there's there's a lot to cover there. We also did a series of interviews. I don't think that's Yeah. We also did a number of interviews with different folks from around the community. Um just everything from business owners to some folks at the retirement place, some folks on the community development uh Pulk County Community Development Corporation, Dallas association, the parks board, the area visitors center, the school district, um Dallas Senior Center. So we we met with all these people. We had had a series of questions for them. had a really good dialogue with them and um took away like took away a lot of really great feedback. I think um I I don't want to again overly simplify it. A lot of what we heard from them was was a uh very similar to what we're hearing sort of in general and maybe just to hit the high points here. Ellenale Avenue is a is a concern. The the intersection of Ellen and Kings Valley of course is always a concern. um the concern that the growth is going to outpace the existing transportation network. Um there's a need strong need for new street connections. Um a strong need for new bike and pedestrian connectivity particularly filling gaps in that network. Um there's limited options for seniors. Um limited options for um

workforce folks getting around. Um freight street design must accommodate some of those larger vehicles. And then um the last one here, community identity um matters and transportation decisions. So um that's just some general themes we picked up on through those conversations. I mean, we're going to be providing more detailed uh summary of that feedback and incorporating it into our our memos. And then I'll just kind of skip over this. I talked about this before. We just have a lot of tech memos. You guys are going to get the next batch here in a little bit. Um, this is our schedule. Just uh we are moving quickly towards this um our springtime period is when we're going to or I guess it's almost spring. Um we're going to be working through the policies. We're going to be working through projects and programmatic stuff and developing the TSP. And we'll likely we're going to have another work session. Hopefully I have it in here. Yeah, we're we are going to have another work session sometime in late spring, something in probably towards the end of um March, maybe the early part of April. And then um we're going to be coming back in summertime hopefully looking for adoption for the plan. And that is the end of the presentation. Um and I know I'm just about used up all of our time, but if anybody has any additional questions, be happy to happy to answer them. more questions.

All right. Thank you for your presentation. We appreciate it. I'll just mention one more time. I would really appreciate your any feedback you guys have on the the memos with within the next week or so. We are um we we do a painstaking job of tracking those comments, how we're addressing those comments and incorporating them into something we call the comment log. Um the the log is quite substantial at this point just based on the feedback we just got from the open house um incorporating that all into our our memos and so happy to add your guys' comments to that log and and um keep track of how we're getting them addressed. What's the best way to give you those comments? Is it email or phone?

You you're it. Okay, that tells me. Yeah, that's that's the best way. And um yeah, and I I'd say that anything is still open and and I'm definitely as as Mark alluded to and I've mentioned a couple times, these are draft documents right now. Um we are moving towards um selecting those preferred projects and alternatives and solutions and and um again it's kind of where it starts to get exciting. So look forward to seeing you guys next time and talking more detail about specifics. So thanks you. Any other discussion among the counselors? Councelor Schilling,

just going to reiterate it and I've said this once before. This is a planning document that is of utmost importance to the city and its future growth and its management of its transportation systems. So take your time and go through this, mark it up, and send it to Brian so that we don't have to do this in spring and in June again. And so the sooner he gets information, the easier we can incorporate it into the plan. And the idea is that they can shoot us. I mean, your ideas can get shot down, but I thought mine did, but Mark said it was not. Sotos.

Yeah. Personally, I u I investigated probably a half a dozen fatalities right at East Ellenale. Any and if you're thinking about making that some type of a major artery, that would be a bad bad choice to do that. Yeah. A poor choice. Is it not a major major artery? Now, it is. Yeah, it is. But I think what he's alluding to is is widening widening it out to like five lanes. Discussion. Say it one more time. Okay. Go ahead.

I'll go on the record. It's since I've been here, you know, I'm a newcomer to the community. Moved here in '92 and seeing the East Ellenale and how it works. I've always This is not in the city's jurisdiction. It's in the ODOTs. It's in Pulk counties, but coming by Bowowersville Road and you're coming up the hill and it's 55 mph and then you get to the bottom of the hill and it's 45 has never made sense to me in my entire life living here. It's probably the why there was a rear ender there today.

Yeah. So, I'm going to go on record this has nothing to do with this TSP. It's nothing we can do. But if we could possibly look at moving that 45 to the other side of Bowersville or even on the uphill, we had a conversation. It's a lot easier to hit 45 on an uphill or 45 on an uphill than it is on a downhill. And so move it to just the Rickall hill coming out from the Rickall intersection to 45 and then move the the 45 and extend it to 35. This takes a whole study. it encompasses ODOT and their their studies, but that's just something as far as safety and all the congestion. Um, my parents were involved in a wreck right there on East Ellenale. They were headed about 50 m an hour from a rear end trying to make a left-hand turn into a driveway. So there there is that a statistic? I don't know. But it took year basically it took years off my parents' lives. So this is it is personal. These are our community members and so I'm just urging you anytime you have a voice speak up.

I'll hear her here to that because aside from everything else you mentioned um if you can slow down the traffic passing Bowowersville that's got to be a help because that is the one of the scariest intersections I've ever seen at fog and ice. I think to your point there was an accident there today. Yep. According to Pulse Point. Any more questions or comments from counselors? We have a little bit of time