County Council - Session - workshop

So I think we're ready to go now. So I wanna welcome everybody to the 05/12/2026 County Council Work Session, and we're here at the fire department in White Rock tonight. So tonight's meeting will be in hybrid format like all of our meetings are. So we have people here in person, and we also have people joining us remotely using

Zoom.

So you can use Zoom via computer or other devices. We also have phone lines available. So we'll be having couple public comments accepted at the beginning of the meeting for items that are not on the agenda. I believe we do have some people interested in making comments tonight during that time. This coming up very shortly.

And just ask that people making comments limit their time to three minutes or otherwise directed, and please address their comments to the the chair and focus on whatever issue they wanna be have considered. So during public comments, miss Spray, I'll be looking for commenters on Zoom. And if you're on Zoom, please, I if you can use your full names and you're properly addressed, we appreciate that. I think the other thing is we want to try to conclude the meeting no later than 10PM tonight, so we'll be checking our progress at nine if we're still meeting at that time. So now we're on to item continue on the item one, opening and roll call.

So I think we have actually all seven counselors here in person. So let the record show that all seven counselors are here present at the fire station. Then if you are willing in April, please join us in the pledge.

I will make one sentence to this file on The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay.

With that then, we're on to public comments. So if you're interested in making a public comment and you're present, please come up to the table here in the middle, and you'll have to press the the button that looks like a person on there. It's like same day. Please come forward and just yeah. If you wouldn't mind stating your name, and then when when you get up to the so the the clerk can record your name for the record.

That's right.

Yeah. And make move the microphone a little bit closer.

Hi. Okay. I'm Katherine Born with the Dusama Foundation here on behalf of the community who is upset with the closure of the labor and delivery maternity ward in Los Alamos Medical Center scheduled to close 06/30/2026. This means that when a person goes into labor, the drive will be one hour to Santa Fe, more in traffic, or forty five minutes or more to Espanola. On behalf of the community, I would like to thank Nicole O'Daniel for starting a petition regarding LifePoint, and Marie O'Neill, of Los Alamos Reporter, for writing in the article about the petition and sounding the alarm.

But I'm also here as a person who, eighteen years ago, gave birth to my second child in less than fifteen minutes. I would have not made it to the hospital in time if it was that far. Although the closure is a decision of a private company this county does not control, our research shows us that there is a tremendous amount the county can do about the situation, and we can discuss those options. They range from pressure tactics to subsidizing a competitor at life point. When we think about what a maternity ward costs, compare it to what could become a PR disaster, I apologize for framing a roadside childbirth tragedy as a PR disaster, but it's what it would be.

It would destroy our country our county's reputation for a decade. It's a massive liability in Lantel's quest to hire 1,300 people. And take a moment to consider the financial implications of what it would look like if Lantel had 1,300 fewer employees in one year than it has today people who simply fed up with the commute, the traffic, the health care desert, and the $30,000 helicopter ride the patient has to pay for. The attrition of this one issue alone has a measurable impact, far beyond a few million dollars for a maternity ward. In closing, I will say there are things we can do to fight life point health, and we do have the money to do it. We just need to row in the same direction. Thank you for letting me comment.

Okay. Thank you very much for being here. And we we can't comment back because it's not on the agenda tonight, but thank you for being here. Please just come up and state your name when you're ready, and you can limit your comments to three minutes. We'd appreciate it.

My name is Nancy Worden. I'm a White Rock resident. I may be a grandmother, but there's some things you don't forget. And that is the first time I gave birth in Santa Fe. And the excruciating ride, over the curves, begging my husband to go slow because the seat belt was pressing on my abdomen. My water had broken. We had towels on the seat of our brand new car, hoping we didn't ruin it, and an hour's ride to get to Santa Fe to give birth to a child. It was excruciating. It was terrible. Twenty five months later, I gave birth to my second child at Los Alamos Medical Center.

Within a half an hour, I had flowers and visitors. It was a five minute drive from North Community to get to the hospital, and it was a wonderful experience. I didn't have the panic, didn't have the terror of the baby coming on the way down. And I hopefully pray that something can be done to keep labor and delivery in this town. Five years ago, my grandson was born in Santa Fe because they weren't taking new patients in Los Alamos. Something needs to be done. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone else present that wants to make a public comment tonight? Is there anyone online, miss Riel?

If you're online and you'd like to make a public comment, please raise your hand. Not seeing any chair.

Okay. Thank you. So now we're on item number four, which is approval of agenda. Is there councilor interested in making motion on the agenda? That's a call.

I move that we approve the agenda as presented.

Second.

K. So I think that was a second by councilor Admin. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So motion by councilor Cull, second by councilor Admin. Not seeing any discussion. Can all those in favor raise your hand? K. Looks like it's unanimous.

So let the record show the motion to move the agenda pass unanimously. So now we're on to item five, which is, presentations, proclamations, and recognitions. Five a is 21151 dash two six. It's a proclamation declaring the month of May as motorcycle awareness month, and I believe we'll have Joseph Beavergard here accepting it on behalf of the Hermes Mountain Hermes Riders Club. And we'll have council Herman reading the proclamation for us. Thank you, chair.

Proclamation declaring the month of May as motorcycle awareness month. Whereas motorcycles are used as a regular means of transportation for commuting and touring in and around Los Alamos County, and whereas the scenic Pajarito Plateau and Jemez Mountains are popular destinations for motorcyclists from around the country. And whereas safely operating of a motorcycle requires skills developed through training and experience, the use of good judgment and the thorough knowledge of traffic laws and licensing requirements. And whereas a motorcycle aware community that shows motorcyclists consideration and shares the road improves everyone's safety. And whereas the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, has declared the month of May as Motorcycle Awareness Month to highlight the importance of looking out for motorcyclists on our roadways to prevent accidents and most importantly to save lives.

Now, therefore, on behalf of the Council of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, I do hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as Motorcycle Awareness Month and we urge our citizens to be observant, courteous, and knowledgeable about motorcycle usage in our community. Dated this May 2026.

K. Thank you, councilor Herman. Mister Bellricard, did you wanna say anything? I just wanted to thanks the thank the council for the acknowledgment and the awareness of motorcycle awareness month. It's it's definitely important to me and my my counterparts that ride other motorcyclists. We are fathers, brothers, husbands, friends that are out there on two wheels, and it is dangerous. But we we appreciate people looking out for us and and paying attention because we we enjoy the sport, and we really love what we do. So we appreciate the acknowledgment. Okay. Thank you.

Would you like to get a photograph with Sure. Okay. Thank you very much for, being here and raising the awareness for for motorcycle safety. So the next item is gonna be 55B21152Dash26. It's the proclamation declaring May 2026 as bike month, and May 14 as bike to work day in Los Alamos County.

So I think we'll have maybe mister Martinez, mister Wilson here. Mister Martinez, so I think we have counselor Hammond to read the proclamation first, and we'll let you have some comments.

My bad. A proclamation declaring May 2026 as bike month and 05/14/2026 as bike to work day in Los Alamos County. Whereas the bicycle is a viable and environmentally sound form of transportation and an excellent form of recreation, where parents and teachers can educate children about the benefits of protecting nature. And whereas May has been named National Bike Month for the past fifty nine years, celebrated by offering educational programs, races, commuting events, trail workdays, helmet promotion, charity events, or just encouraging individuals to go out for a ride. And whereas Los Alamos' trail network and bicycling activities attract hundreds of bicyclists each year from all 50 states and across the globe, providing economic and health benefits to our community and the world.

And whereas creating bicycle friendly communities can improve citizens' health, well-being, and quality of life, improve traffic safety, and reduce pollution and congestion. And whereas educate educating bicyclists and motorists about proper bicycle operation is important to ensure the safety and comfort of all involved. Now therefore, on behalf of the Council of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, I do hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as bike month in Los Alamos County and Thursday, 05/14/2026 as bike to work day, and we encourage our citizens to participate in planned events and to share the roads safely, dated this May 2026 and signed by our chair, Randall Reidy.

K. Thank you, councilor. Mister Martinez, do you have a couple of comments?

Thank you, chair Reidy and members of council. Thank you for the proclamation. I think we've been, doing this proclamation at least for the past ten, eleven years since I've been here working with the county. So we appreciate that in recognizing this day. As mentioned, it is proclaiming it as bike month, nationally as and bike to work day, which is already Thursday the fourteenth.

So on that day, we plan to do our our annual Energizer station at the corner Northwest Corner of, Diamond And Canyon, from seven to 9AM. So we invite you all to ride your bike and come join us and take a snack, and we'll have snack and some swag there for for everybody. So please join us and all the members of public here as well. So we'll you can also see our our new green bike lanes that our traffic and street crews installed recently at and near that intersection as well. So something interesting to look at while you're there also.

And then on Friday, the fifteenth, we're having the bike and roll to school event with Pinot Elementary School here in White Rock. I got a really good turnout last year and hope we get a good turnout this year. So we'll have staff there. We have a lot of staff members here in public works that volunteer to go out there and and do that, you know, in the early morning and at both events, so we appreciate that. And so so thank you.

Oh, and last thing. We recently got recertified as a bike friendly community by the League of American Bicyclists. We're at bronze bronze level still. We're hoping to incrementally get our weight, you know, up that, level, but, we were recertified. And thanks to, deputy Pulitzer director, Keith Wilson, to go through the application. It gets longer and longer every year, so thanks for him to do that. And for the public who responds to the surveys that come through that as well. So thank you, mister chair.

K. Thank you, mister Prentice. Counselor, did you wanna get a photo with some of the staff? Yeah. Thank you for everybody working on that.

So the next proclamation is 5C21154Dash26 proclamation designating May 2026 as emergency medical services in Los Alamos. So it'll be accepted by the fire department. EMS chief mister or chief Pacheco and counselor Neil Clinton will read the proclamation for us.

I I just wanted to comment and say that the green bike lanes do work because I rode my bike today, and I saw them. And I was like, that's really cool. So, again, proclamation designating May 17 through the twenty third twenty twenty six as emergency medical services week in accepted by Los Alamos Fire Department EMS Division Fire Chief Manuel Pacheco. Whereas Emergency Medical Services are a vital public service who provide life saving care to those in need twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. And whereas access to quality emergency care provided by first responders, pre hospital nurses, hospital staff, and trained members of the public dramatically improves patient survival and recovery rates.

And whereas emergency medical services provide important out of hospital care, including preventative medicine, follow-up care, and access to telemedicine. And whereas career and voluntary emergency medical services team members engage in thousands of hours of specialized training to enhance their lifesaving skills, and whereas this year's theme of improving outcomes together highlights the shared responsibilities of keep our community healthy and investing in emergency medical services. Now therefore, on behalf of the Council of the Incorporated County of Los Alamos, I do hereby proclaim May 2026 as Emergency Medical Services Week in Los Alamos County. And I encourage everyone to join in recognizing this milestone and to show appreciation for the dedication and service of our Los Alamos County first responders, dated this May 2026 and signed by the council chair, Randall Reidy.

Please go ahead, chief.

Good evening, mister chair and honorable members of the council. On behalf of Los Alamos County Fire Department, I would like to sincerely thank you for your proclamation recognizing EMS Week and the incredible work of our emergency medical providers. Your continued support means a great deal to our department and the men and women who serve the community every day. This year's EMS Week theme is Improving Outcomes Together. To celebrate, LEFD has planned a full week of activities to recognize and engage our EMS personnel.

Each day will focus on an important aspect of emergency medical services, including safety, clinical excellence, teamwork and wellness. We will host daily activities and educational quizzes for our EMS providers, along with opportunities to win EMT themed prizes to make the week both meaningful and enjoyable. A special highlight this evening is recognizing firefighter paramedic Randall Robles, who has been named our twenty twenty six EMS Provider of the Year. We are proud to honor Randall for his dedication, clinical skill, professionalism and compassionate patient care. Joining him tonight are members of his Station 3A crew: Deputy Chief Tim Johnson, A Shift Battalion Chief Jeff Zeiss and Station 6A crew, and our EMS division, all of whom play an important role in supporting excellence in patient care throughout our organization.

I would also like to acknowledge that Fire Chief Eric Litzenberg, truly who wanted to be here this evening to support and recognize our personnel. Unfortunately, he had a prior family obligation that prevented him from attending. However, he has asked that his pride and appreciation for these crews and their accomplishments be shared with all of you tonight. In spirit of this year's theme, I would also like to recognize the team that competed in this year's Active Assailant Response Workshop in Moyoc, North Carolina. This intensive training event brought together DOE protective force members and DOE fire departments from across the country to train and evaluate advanced active assailant response capabilities under realistic high stress conditions.

Our personnel excelled during deliberate practice sessions, graded drills and large scale training evolutions that tested incident management, rescue task force operations, coordinated tactical movement, hemorrhage control, casualty collection, patient care, transport and evidence preservation. Despite difficult weather conditions during the final day of graded drills, our members continued to perform at an exceptionally high level, demonstrating professionalism, resilience and teamwork throughout the week. I am proud to announce that the team earned second place overall, further demonstrating that the Los Alamos County Fire Department remains among the top DOE fire departments in the nation for active assailant response preparedness. Please join me in congratulating Captain Raymond Barrella, Captain Paramedic Andres Maldueno, Acting Captain Aaron Williams, driver engineer paramedic Eric Gonzalez driver engineer paramedic Ryan Wolf firefighter paramedic Randall Robles firefighter paramedic Cory Miller firefighter Britt Parrish and firefighter paramedic Chad Drummond. Thank you all for your commitment, training, teamwork, and outstanding performance.

I would especially like to congratulate Captain Paramedic Andres Madueno for the exceptional leadership, professionalism, and positivity he displayed throughout the week. Captain Maduenho consistently set the tone for the team throughout his work ethic, tactical expertise, mentorship and ability to motivate those around him under demanding conditions. His calm leadership and steady presence during high stress scenarios directly contributed to the team's success, cohesion, and overall performance throughout the event. It is no surprise that he was selected to receive the Warrior of the Week Award, a honor recognized for the individual who best exemplified outstanding performance, dedication, teamwork, and attitude during the training. This recognition reflects not only his tactical abilities but also the respect and admiration he earned from both his peers and instructors throughout the workshop.

Captain Madueno represented the Los Alamos County Fire Department with excellence, and we are extremely proud of his accomplishment and leadership. Thank you again for recognizing the vital work of our EMS professionals. We are honored to serve this community and remain committed to providing the highest level of emergency care possible. Once again, congratulations to firefighter paramedic Randall Robles and captain paramedic Andres Modueno.

I we're that way, do everybody Yeah. You're holding on. Yeah. I think

but we will try our best

to get everybody in this.

Okay. I thank everybody involved in getting all that information prepared and all the

people

that were recognized tonight for the fire department. So if we're ready to go on to the next item, might have to close the door to the lobby. So now we're on to item five d 21134 dash 2 six. It's the briefing presentation to counsel by David Hampton, chair of the transportation board. So, mister Hampton, would you like to go through your slides?

Yes. Good evening, chair councilors. Alright. So our mission statement is provide strategic guidance to the county council on improving traffic operations, enhancing mobility, and strengthening all transportation modes throughout the County. With the addition of Jacqueline Connolly and Herman Geppert Kleinrath, we're now fully staffed.

It's a good team. And our council liaison is Counselor Havelman. And our staff liaison is Director Martinez. As you can see, we have many guiding plans. So our top activities over the last year were to conduct public hearings on New Mexico four crossing and multi use trail improvements.

I think we conducted three public hearings on that one. Provide feedback to staff on the Los Alamos County pedestrian master plan. And we received updates on various Los Alamos County regional projects and operations. Our top accomplishments were we got to endorse the Los Alamos County mid block crossing policy. We were able to recommend application of certain proposed guidelines from the Bicycle Work Group report in future Los Alamos County projects to enhance bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and safety.

And in addition to endorsing the pedestrian master plan, we also approved the 2026 Los Alamos County Snow and Ice Control Plan. Our lessons learned, I think, was the same as the year before, and that's we like it when the staff brings back things that are when things change, and they bring it back to us before they go back to council. Projects are we received feedback on Saturday Atomic City Transit service and developed recommendations regarding future weekend service I think you guys recently received that presentation and provide feedback on approved upcoming scheduled transportation related projects. And then one of our personal favorites is the all things bicycle infrastructure. So projects and activities.

As Director Martinez spoke, this week is real busy with the bike to work activities and the bike and roll event, adopt road cleanup events. And what's becoming really popular is that air air open house. And with that, you open it to questions.

Okay. So I guess recognizing we're gonna have another discussion later about traffic safety, which overlaps a lot with what transportation board does. But certainly, if there's any questions or comments from council or the transportation board Okay. I think I saw council O'Riegard with his hand up first. Yeah.

Thank you, Sherry. Yeah. So I was curious about this, the road diets and and and the recommendation for it. And the one alternative that we never really got into and and discussed was actually having a separate space for bicycles instead of sharing the same roadway. Because right now, you just have lines painted to separate their space from the cars. And instead, we wanted to maybe consider other ways of connecting all of the area downtown to the to the rest of to up up towards the lab and so forth.

So I assume you're talking about Trinity Drive?

Mostly Trinity Drive. And now you have, like, the bus weave, you know, where the when the buses stop, the bikes go around the left side of them, and you can't even see them anymore. They're completely hidden. And so is is that really make sense to anybody, or is it is it with you weren't given other choices?

No. We we were presented with three options. And the first one was a full road diet, the second one was a hybrid road diet, and the third one was no road diet. And I think we had at least two members of Transportation Board support each one, so it was inconclusive. So when it went to council, council selected the hybrid road diet.

Yeah. But how how good is that argument? Are you saying it was a good idea? Because I'm I'm still saying it's the bicycles are best in their own space. Right? Or maybe mixed more with pedestrians? I mean

Well, bicycles on the same road as as traffic, I don't think is an optimal solution. But

But you have to do the But that's that's

based on how I voted when on the on the options. But the Yeah. Like I said, the transportation board itself was, split between all three options fairly evenly.

Yeah. But can you advocate for the other ones at all? I I think it's kind of shortsighted. I think we should have done something specifically for bike safety in terms of a separate space or lane for bikes that is you know, maybe even involves condemnation.

Well, since it was a council decision, I can't speak to it.

Oh, okay. You could dodge the question. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

K. I think councilor Herman was next. Then you can

Thank you, chair. Thank you for your presentation. I I was just wondering for the rating that we have for the bike community, what would it take take to get us from bronze to silver? I don't know if you're the right one to ask that.

I'm I'm probably not the right one to ask. So

Mister chair, councilor Herman, so there's various criteria that the, League of American Bicyclists do look at. One of them, I think that that would help us I think we have really good, you know, as far as progressed on infrastructure. And I think what could help us, you know, in the future is is, more, you know, educational campaigns along with more infrastructure, certainly, and, more programs that revolve around bicyclists. So that's something that that deputy director Wilson and I will talk a little bit more about and see if there's ways that we can improve, you know, in our next reapplication. And, we did bolster our our more recent application, you know, given the the construction of the urban trail.

And, you know, we thought that might that along with some other things would kinda maybe get us over into silver. Didn't quite get us there, but, we do receive feedback from the league, and and we'll use that in our in our planning for, you know, in future programming and and projects.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank

you. K. Thank you, councilor. Councilor Cole?

So just to follow-up, you said that you there's a bicycle working group and that they made some recommendations for future considerations in design. Would that have changed anything in the design as far as you know of the road diet?

No. For one reason complicated question mainly because the transportation board was split between all the alternatives. We have people that don't want road diets. We have people who want full road diets, who see the problem with bikes riding alongside people going 35 miles an hour. And we have people support of the hybrid.

And the other part of that is, so the bicycle work group presented its presentation after even council made it. So this is for future projects. And it was a presentation since it's our work group, we asked them to present to us. And we didn't say anything. We didn't make any motion that meeting. And the next meeting, we brought it back and recommended that some of the recommendations be incorporated in future projects where staff deems appropriate.

Okay.

Since as an advisory board. So

Great. I mean, I would guess the ideal is to have a completely separate path that could be used by pedestrians and and bicyclists. But, I mean, it takes it takes acreage and land that's separate from the road to be able to do that. I think the, we are trying to do that with some of the urban trail. You can't get everywhere on that, but, yeah, I I we're gonna be talking more about this later, so thank you.

Yeah. And connect it. Yeah. It'd be nice to have a direct connection to Canyon Run Trail, which we foresee happening anyway. So that should help to some degree get people off Trinity.

K. Thank you, councilor. Do we have another question just for the transportation board? So I have a strong place in my heart for this transportation board because that's the board I was on a long time ago. So thinking of the board and the issues we have coming before us, so naturally, we had some, community surveys and other things like that.

And we've had the, you know, pedestrian master plan's been updated. But do we see and and just that observation is like we had and that's not atypical. So when we had other proposals for Trinity, they were also equally controversial. So is there some better way to navigate some of these issues when we're using the you know, a public board? You know, it's it seems like it's putting sometimes the public in an awkward position.

Maybe I'm answering my own question, but is there some better mechanism for trying to get input on some of these issues to recognize there's a value in all the boards, but we don't wanna be putting our boards in a position where they're, you know, taking a lot of cut cut you know, criticism for what they're trying to do, which is just try to make recommendations based on the best information we have. So do we see some better ways to try to mitigate, you know, and obtain better input from the community on some of these issues?

So once again, I have to speak from personal experience and opinion. I really enjoy conducting the public meetings, And I've seen it done different ways. I've seen staff on various departments hold their own public hearings in council chambers. And then the board members show up, but they just interact as they see fit. So when we actually host these public hearings at the board meetings, we seem to get a much larger amount of public participation.

And we really saw it on the Mexico 4 Crossing and Pinion Trails project. And we had about 20 at each one, and thirty. And people were very how do I say it? Engaged. Engaged, yeah, yeah.

And so I think we got exactly what we wanted. And in response to all the public engagement, so in the context of so staff gives a brief presentation with a consultant, and then we discuss it amongst the board, and then we ask for public comment. And in those meetings, we suspend the we answer people's questions also. So what that caused is for the opposition to it was mainly to reducing the lane for 900 feet, and then the exact location of where the crossing was going to be. And so staff went back and investigated things like I think one of them was, can emergency vehicles still move through if there's only one lane?

And so they were able to bring back more information for the public. And I think it made it easier for the public to come to understanding about why it needs to be done the way it was planned.

Thank you. I'm not seeing any other questions. We'll be coming back to the general topic pretty soon. So thank you, and we'll look forward to some more engagement later. So let's move on to the next presentation then right now. So we have five e. So it's briefing presentation counseled by the Karen Easton, chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission. You can start your presentation whenever you're ready.

Good evening, chair Reedy and council members. Nice to see you this evening. I am the chair of the planning and zoning commission. We have nine members for a full commission. We are one short at this time. We have had some turnover in our commission, and I wanted to point out David Hampton is our vice chair. And our council liaison is council Havman, so we're thrilled to have her. I can't believe that it's almost June. So this is what our work plan is for '26, and we're almost halfway through. So comprehensive plan, that is a big focus for us.

That is a key component of what we use for deciding cases presented to us. This last time that it was created approved was in 2016. So it's 2026. It's ten years, and now we are really focusing on reaching out to the public. There's a lot of elements to this, and I would guide everyone to the website.

It has a very comprehensive plan who we're working with with the consultant and where they're at with that. There's been several reaches out to the community, opportunities for this community come and participate. And that's very, very important. So I would really encourage anybody who is interested and find out where we're at to please go out to that website, educate yourself. And there's a survey out there. The public is really important. Your voice is really important to this. We don't do this very often. Again, it's been ten years since we did it. So please encourage your constituents and anyone listening to this, please go on to the website and engage.

So the comprehensive plan has a working group. They're providing input on the land use, housing, redevelopment, and infrastructure to ensure alignment with the county goals. Another item on our work plan is commission continuity education. As I said, one of the critical things is this a quasi judicial commission, and so there's a lot of education around what that is and and what their participation as a commissioner is. So it's continuing education, training focused on zoning intent, development code, voting requirements for a KwaZe judicial decision, increase commissioner understanding of land use application processes to enhance review consistency and applicant communication.

We're working on development code updates. So we're supporting staff in identifying code amendments or procedural updates that align with the forthcoming comprehensive plan and simplify implementation for applicants and reviewers. Evaluate accessory dwelling units. This is really important to the commissioners and continues to be an item that we want to continue to work on. So those allowances with selected zoning districts to determine potential for expanded housing opportunities while mitigating neighborhood impacts.

Another item is to revisit the parking requirements in chapter 16 to evaluate opportunities for rightsizing standards, improving efficiency and understanding the broader impacts on redevelopment and infill development. The challenges that we're faced with is balancing competing priorities. Housing, economic development, mobility, neighborhood concerns sometimes conflict, requiring careful policy trade offs. And then onboarding, consistent and structured onboarding framework for the new commissioners, orientation sessions on chapter 16, the comprehensive plan policies, public hearing procedures are needed to help new commissioners quickly understand their roles

and

responsibilities. I apologize. This is brief, but I stand for questions.

K. I just realized I didn't call for public comment on the last item, but we'll catch back up with that when we get to the traffic thing. So councilors have any questions or comments about what planning and zoning is working on? Councilor Nicholene?

Thank you. Chair. I've just got a few questions. How will chapter 16 where it says clarity, consistency, and predictability, how will those amendments specifically change the allowable density that's like the height and the housing types in existing neighborhoods?

I'm gonna defer that to staff.

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, Chair. So Councilor Neil Clinton, with respect to the Chapter 16 amendments, those amendments specifically that you're discussing, the density falls under zoning, and that's Chapter two and Chapter four. We'll be implementing those as the comprehensive plan is completed and adopted. Those were the two articles that we when we gave the update a few months ago.

Those are the two articles that will be implemented after the comprehensive plan. We will be developing those with the comprehensive plan and amending those. So density, parking, height standards, everything that has to do with the real meat and potatoes of our code will be done once we have an understanding of how the public and community want to see this comprehensive plan developed.

And then how do you propose to engage the public to get their comments?

We have held extensive public engagement. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. We've held extensive public engagement. We have had around four community meetings now. We publicize them. We send out mass emails. We try to get as much engagement as possible. We post flyers around the community, the schools, the libraries, Smiths, the banks, everywhere we possibly can. We also have a website, a steering committee.

We've engaged high school students. So we are trying to be as comprehensive with our public engagement as possible. We want to ensure that no one is left out and that everyone's voice is heard, that concerns are noted, and that we are basically being respectful of what the community wants as well as what we need, and being responsible with that development of this plan. So we have a steering committee meeting tomorrow. Steering committee is about 45 members of the public, including working group from Planning and Zoning Commission, which has three current planning and zoning commissioners, as well as one who termed out.

And we are just actively engaging. Also, our survey was we had two eighty participants in our community surveys. So we really hit boots on the ground running and trying to actively engage as many people as possible. So we were pretty proud of our two eighty number. And you couldn't take it twice. So we read the cookies and the IP addresses, and you couldn't take it twice. So we ensured that it was two eighty different people who took our survey.

And then having your finger on the pulse of the community, what are your thoughts right now?

Sustainable growth. The community is very in support of sustainable, responsible responsible growth. Growth. We know we need housing. We know we need to do something with traffic. Community We know that growth and historic preservation and community preservation and open space are very important to the community. So we are now trying to actively create a scenario, a few different vision scenarios, where it's now how do we grow and move forward with respect to community character? How do we do this responsibly? How do we do this sustainably? So all of this will come together hopefully tomorrow.

And then we will be publicizing that to the public in June. So we'll be sending out those invites and the press releases and everything in June to discuss now what the community steering committee, the survey, everything has come together, that data from those.

Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, councilor Lane and Yelklin. Any other councilor Rieger?

We've got a a thing on the agenda for a couple years, which is the cleanup of chapter 16. And there are people I get letters from who were saying that some of the, like, the open spaces in the wrong category and all of that. Is that are we gonna see that someday? Or is it go ahead. Can you give us schedule, like, a promise or even a an attempt at a promise?

Thank you, chair. Thank you, councilor. So we have been cleaning up. This has been an active project. I came to Los Alamos County in March 2025. So I do understand that we do have a lot of issues with our current code. And we are actively working through it. And it seems as we're catching things as we are implementing doing our code analysis to the applications that are coming in. We do understand that a lot was missed in the previous 2023 adoption of Chapter 16. And we are currently on Article five.

So we've done three. We've done six, which was our use and our definitions. Now we are working on the administrative process. So we're currently in the amendments on that. That is going to Planning and Zoning for recommendation to counsel on May 27.

And that should be at Council after following that recommendation. So I would say June, early July. And then the implementation of two and four, that's the zoning and height and density that we would like to get that adopted by the end of the year, but we are also trying to be very thoughtful in how we create these revisions. So, we want the comprehensive plan to be completed before we make changes, and then would have to go back and make additional changes if the comprehensive plan and chapter two and chapter four didn't didn't weren't in alignment.

Which one of these is the land use map?

That would be chapter two, I believe. So there's zoning chapter two, and four is Section Chapter 16, article two, and article four. So those are zoning, those are densities, those are the real substantive categories within chapter 16.

Yeah. Moving in here.

Thank you, chair Reidy, council member Reiger. So, I think what you're asking is when will we be making the necessary changes to the future land use map, that were sort of not fully captured in the last time, we did, both the comp plan and then the subsequent code changes. So the future land use map amendments will be part of the comprehensive plan. So those that future land use map should be amended by the end of this year. That's our target goal to complete the comprehensive plan update.

Then any sort of related, zoning changes, would be sort of evaluated and recommended for, inclusion in chapter 16 after that comprehensive plan is amended. But I think what you're asking specifically is more about the future land use map, which will be reviewed and possibly revised as part of the comprehensive plan. And that's happening this summer? That's happening right now with a goal of having that update adopted by the end of this calendar year.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, councilor Rieger. Any other? Okay. So I'm pleased to hear about the outreach you're doing.

I was curious about because we had this discussion, I think, with the downtown master plans. Are we also looking at what other communities have successfully implemented to address some of the issues we're dealing with here as potential changes to the code? So, I mean, some of those relate to everything you talked about, you know, parking requirements, you know, density, you know, housing density in different zones. And and so is that gonna be part of the information we're gonna look at or part of the information the public is gonna see when they're considering what we could do x, y, or z, and, actually, y has been successful here in New Mexico? So thanks.

Thank you, Chair Reddy. We have with caution. So Los Alamos is very unique to anywhere else. We're landlocked. We're a lab community. We're not like Santa Fe. We're not like Espanola. We're not like our surrounding communities. We've evaluated what Santa Fe has done with short term rentals. It doesn't make sense to us to implement that same type of regulations our community.

We've evaluated what Santa Fe has done with ADUs. We've evaluated what Albuquerque and smaller towns that are similar to Los Alamos have done across the nation with ADUs, with parking. The feedback that we've received, we've done more research on an analysis basis as far as what developers need, what marketing needs, where the investment comes in, and what those investment needs are, how can we work with those accordingly to and specifically to Los Alamos. So we're still gathering the data on ADUs and parking. But I can give you an example of parking requirements.

Let's say we have very generous parking deductions and reductions right now, especially within our Downtown Los Alamos and our White Rock Town Center zoning districts. They're 50% less than any other requirement in a general commercial area. And then we also offer a 20% for transportation, close to transportation reduction, a two for

one

with electronic electric vehicle chargers, and another 10% for having like bike amenities. So we offer up to almost 80% reductions. Our Coyote Mesa project that just went through are building around 400 plus parking spaces in a parking structure. And that is because they wouldn't be able to rent based off of their market data and what their customer base needs. They wouldn't have the same rental desires without having parking for every unit.

So, we are taking all of that into consideration. We will still allow we still want all of our reductions when people need them and want them. But a lot of the time, it's based off of developer desire to include these parkings. So it's not that we don't have the reductions available. It's that they're not being utilized.

Okay. So to clarify, Coyote Mesa is not in the downtown zone. Am right?

It is not. It is mixed use, but it still has

the Big reduction.

The same type of reductions available. Not the 50%, but, you know, up to yeah. 50%.

K. So I was wondering about the, I guess, RV parking. So in the current code, that's not allowed in general in open space, or is that kind of camping an allowed use in open space? And is that something that you're looking at? Because I know the subject about RV parking has come up as kind of a a tiny bit of a solution and also can help with, you know, hotel space. We just had the big event, you know, over the weekend, you know, so people would probably appreciate the opportunity to have more RV parking. But what where where is it allowed currently?

Thank you, Tara Reddy. Without having the code zoning in front of me, I wouldn't be able to educate and speak to that with an education. So I don't want to answer that without having that in front of me. Yes, ma'am.

Chair, I can help out here. The camping is, prohibited in Los Alamos unless it's in a designated campground. And I believe that exists at, Camp May. It exists at our two RV camping, spots right now. So in order to expand the allowed use of camping, we would have to designate areas of camping.

Okay. Because that came up when mister Wike was here. He was referring to it as housing, but I think it was actually camping. Okay. I don't think there's any other questions. Let's see if there's any public comment. Not seeing anyone present. Mister Rael, can you check online to see if anybody wants to make public comment?

If you're online and you'd like to make a public comment on this item, please raise your hand. Not seeing anything, chair.

Okay. Thank you. So thank you for being here answering questions and all the work you're doing on the comprehensive plan. So now we're on to item five f, which is 21500Dash26. Let's update a discussion regarding traffic safety. So I think we're gonna have a couple different people presenting. So who's gonna be, I guess, first? So mister Wilson, you're gonna kick us off. I believe we might have the chief's data first, but whoever wants to have some introductory remarks.

Are we good to go? Yeah. Can you hear me? Perfect.

Maybe that one seems like it's Yeah. Pull it closer. Pull it closer to you, please. Yeah. And that's right. Okay. That's better.

I'm a very quiet person, so I need I need that. Good evening, chair and councilors. My name is Keith Olsen. I'm the deputy public works director. And with me here this evening is chief chief scampalone, Eric Martinez, the public works director, Eric Willebarry, who's the county engineer, and online is Tim Walker Foster, who's the traffic and streets manager.

We all have kinda somewhat lead roles in traffic safety in the county, so that's why we're all here this evening. Next slide, please, Juan. So just a quick overview about crash data. So basically, when there's an incident or a crash, the police department are are typically the ones who respond to it, and they fill out a crash report. There's certain criteria for what makes a reportable crash.

If there's an injury, a fatality, or property damage over $500 are typically and and in the state, it has to be on a public right of way. And that data gets fed to the New Mexico DOT crash records system, and they're kinda like the keepers statewide for all the crashes. And this is typical what happens nationwide, and these this data gets then reported up to the federal levels. So the DOT uses UNM to kinda cull through the data, ensure that it meets the requirements for reportable crash data, and then they make that available back to us. So the data in these tables here is kind of the the cleaned up data that comes from PD and other reporting agencies like the sheriff or the state police can also report crashes in this county.

And so one of the things we found as we've been working together on our crash data, their records are more robust than the ones we get back from DOT, and that's primarily because they're reporting practically everything. So there's a fender bender in the Smiths parking lot. They're typically going and creating a report, I guess, in their system, but that gets called out here. So there'll be a couple of slides where you'll see the different numbers than what you see on this initial slide. So when we look at crash data, we also don't want to just focus in on one year or one incident.

We wanna try and build a picture of what's going on. So I pulled the last seven years of crash data 2019 through 2025, and it kinda summarizes number of fatals, number of injured crashes, and number of property damage only crashes. There's a number of factors that impact the severity and the outcomes of a crash. It can be the vehicle type size. I just I was looking this up earlier.

Almost 80% of, the vehicles in Mexico registered vehicles are either a sports utility vehicle or a pickup truck. So on the larger side, only about 20% are kind of sedan type vehicles. So the size of vehicle can make a difference in the severity of a crash. The speed of the collision makes a makes a difference. The type of impact is a head on, t bone, rear end, all have different impacts on on the the outcome of the crash.

And then for the occupants, you know, where they wear in their seat belt, were there airbags in their vehicle that they deploy and stuff like that. So that's all factors that kinda go into kinda the outcomes you see in these tables here. So over the seven years that we looked at, there was a total of eight fatal crashes within the Los Alamos County, two hundred and fifty injury crashes, and over six hundred just property damage crashes. So roughly 900 crashes in a seven year period. For pedestrians, there was eight.

Total, two of those were fatal. Six were injury, and zero were property damage. And then on bicycles, there was twenty five injury and one property damage, so a total of 26 bicycle crashes a seven year period. Again, we're trying to not look at mass numbers. We're trying to look at trends and numbers.

So typically, what we do is we try and look at average over a period of time. So typically, it's five years. If you've got the data, you can go down to three. So the the table below that main main one on the left is basically the average number of crashes per year for each five year bin over the seven year period. If we look at 21 through '20 five, we average about one fatal crash a year or one fatality a year, thirty six injury, and ninety two property damage, around about a 130 reportable crashes per year in Los Alamos County.

We're just over we're point two on average per year fatal pedestrian crash with a an average of 1.4 pedestrian crashes per year over that five year period. And then when we look at bicycles, we're about four just over four pedest bicycle crashes per year. And then building on that, so what does that mean for Los Alamos? How are we Obviously, no crashes would be the ideal, but where do we stand? And probably the the quickest and easiest way is to compare per thousand population.

So, basically, the the the tables on the right hand side of this slide basically are comparing Los Alamos to the state Of New Mexico on our crashes per thousand population. If we look at crashes overall, we're about the third of the rate of the state in the crashes per thousand population. If we look at pedestrians, we're a fifth or a sixth rate of crashes compared to the state as a whole. The one thing that popped out as we were doing this analysis, bicycles were actually a little higher than the state average for for number of crashes per per thousand population. We're about 0.19 per thousand, and the state average is about one 0.14.

So this is one area. You know, it's it's only four an average of four crashes, but, you know, it's an area that we can definitely focus in on and and see what we can do to bring that down. Just looking at some of the factors in the crash report, there's certain criteria they can pick. Out of out of all the 900 crashes, about 47% said inattention was the primary factor in the crash. Failure to yield was about 14%, falling to close 12.

Improper driving was 9%. Speed was only 5% of the crashes, it said, was the primary cause of the crash, and alcohol was only 3% of the the crashes was deemed to to be a contributing factor. Next slide, Juan. So just to to kinda show you where the the fatal crashes were throughout the county, the bottom right is the White Rock area, top left is town site, and then the top right is up in the kinda north part on the Santa Clara Pueblo. So the two fatal crashes down in White Rock were actually where the two pedestrian crashes were.

One was in 2019, and one was in 2021. Then we had four head on crashes up in the town site, one on 502, a couple on the truck route, one on Diamond Drive. And then we had a couple of single vehicle crashes, one over by the Sinai And Diamond Roundabout was a motorcyclist, and it was noted that alcohol was involved in that, and they hit a fixed object. And then the the eighth one was up in Santa Clara. That was a single vehicle rollover, and it it noted that the the occupant wasn't wearing their seat belt and were ejected.

Next slide, Juan. So this next slide shows the locations of the the eight pedestrian crashes in the seven year time period. Again, bottom right is the White Rock area, which is the two pedestrian fatalities we've noted before. The other six are kinda scattered around the town site, one of couple on 502, one on Diamond, one on Central, and then couple up in the North in the neighborhoods over there. And there's no real consistent pattern.

Some appear to have been in crosswalks, others don't. But we we have we'll be drilling down on those just to see if there's a common common feature. But the fact that they're kinda not concentrated either on a specific type of infrastructure or or location kinda makes it hard to draw real conclusions. Next slide, Juan. Add the bicycle.

This shows where the bicycle crashes, the 26 bicycle crashes, primarily concentrated up in the kind of the town site on our main corridors, Trinity, Central, and Diamond, which somewhat makes sense. That's kind of appears to be where we see a lot of the bicycle traffic, but then also a lot of the car traffic. So, you know, you increase the probabilities of these things happening. Down on the bottom left, there were just three crashes out, and then in four kind of West Of Bandelier area, and then one down in White Rock. Next slide one.

In the in the previous safety updates presentation back, I think it was '24, the chief brought the the animal crash data. We've kinda updated it. It still continues to be somewhat of a problem. It kinda dipped down a little bit last year, but the the four months of this year is kinda in line with the numbers we saw in 2024, and we'll address some of some of the actions we're taking related to animal crashes in a future slide. Next slide.

Oh, next one. And this is just kinda a quick snapshot of where those animal crashes are happening. Next slide. If you don't mind, I'll take a drink. So, traditionally, when we were looking at road safety, we had what was called termed the three e's of road safety.

And I covered engineering, which is, you know, the creation of safe infrastructure, an education component where we're trying to promote safe behavior and then the enforcement that holds those users accountable for their actions. And, essentially, it's covering everyone has a responsibility in road safety. And so and there was there later on, they added a a fourth one, which was a emergency response, but we probably got one of the best emergency responses in the probably in the nation given the number of emergency services we have per capita. More recently, we've been the profession's been moving to the safe system approach, where it's kind of a more holistic user model where we're not just looking at, you know, you know, the infrastructure, roadway infrastructure, and stuff like that. We're we're looking more holistically.

So we're looking at the the vehicles and their safety features. How can that improve safety? The the safer people, you know, bicycle helmets and and things like that, the the post crash care, the say safer speeds. And then we're all on board with death and serious injuries that are unacceptable, and we want to make sure that they don't happen. Recognize that humans do make mistakes. Humans are vulnerable. Responsible is shared. Safety is proactive, and redundancy is crucial. So this is kind of the model. If you've heard of Vision Zero, this is kind of the worldwide program.

I think it started in Sweden, but it's kind of been taken off in The US where we're trying to get to zero fatal crashes. So it's probably something that we can is more achievable in Los Alamos and a lot of places just because we have such a low number of fatal crashes. So we'll be working using these systems to to try and make sure that we don't see any more fatal crashes. So the next several slides are just basically outlining some of the road safety strategies or projects that we've been undertaking over the last few years and continued as we move forward. And the first is which was discussed a little earlier is the Trinity Drive Safety and ADA Improvement Project.

This is from Oppenheimer to Connect Street. I think this project's been in front of you at least a couple of times, so you're reasonably familiar with what it is with the road in the westbound direction. We're also adding rectangular rapid flashing beacons on mast arms at the 20th Street intersection. This is kind of an interim improvement, something that we can do now based on what's there for demand for pedestrian crossings. It's anticipated as the 20th Street development comes online, this will transition to a full traffic signal at that location.

You will be seeing this project next week for the award. It has been bid, and we have a low bidder, and staff will be bringing that to you next week for your for your ward. It's anticipated that the construction will be June through December of this year. And given its location and significance, we do have a consultant on board who's helping us with business outreach, and there will be a robust public and business outreach throughout the project to keep them informed as the project, moves forward. Next slide.

The next one somewhat connected to the previous project is the Ashley Pawn Crow crown protection project. This was something we were trying to incorporate into the Trinity, but because of the federal funding involved and the historic nature of the pond area, we couldn't make timing work. We would have held up the Trinity project and probably put the funding in jeopardy for that infrastructure. So this coming Saturday, our crews will be out installing the concrete wall barrier that was there last year as as something that we can put in for this year while we work with Groundwork Studio, who's currently developing potential alternatives for a more permanent structure there that can be used for crowd protection, and there will be public input opportunities on this in the near future. And also, the county and state historic offices will need to approve the chosen option given the significance of Ashleigh Pond.

We're working towards having this designed and implemented for next year's concert series. So by next May, this should be in place, and we no longer will have to see the wall barriers. Next slide, Warren. This is another project I think you're pretty familiar with. This is the NM4 crossing and multi use trail improvement project.

We're just finalizing doing our last design review meeting with NMDOT now in the next week or two, and then we'll be able to put the project out to bid most likely in June. So we anticipate being back at council to award this project July time frame with a construction schedule of September 26 through July 27. Just a quick refresher, this is a project, at least from a road safety standpoint, where we're removing the west one of the westbound lanes, creating a a side path with protected barrier, and then installing a a what's a called a hawk signal or pedestrian hybrid beacon, and this will create a a safe and usable connection from the Mirador neighborhood into into the White Rock area across N M 4. Next slide. So this is, we talked about the crash data related to wildlife.

The county is undertaking a wildlife assessment. We're actually having the kickoff next week or the week after with the consultant that has been hired for this. And one of the one of the things we'll get out of this is some recommendations on how to deal with these corridors where we're seeing high animal vehicle crashes. In the meantime, we have been working on a couple of strategies for things, and we're gonna run them by this this consultant just to get their feedback. But one is that with AI and cameras, there's there's some some pretty cool things coming online where the learning from AI can actually start learning what an elk looks like, what a deer looks like, what a squirrel looks like, and and versus a person, and we can tie that to activating the signs that have the LEDs around the perimeter so that what we wanna try and do is when they start flashing, it's a for a positive, there is something there because we don't want to get to a point where these things are just flashing constantly and people go, there's nothing there.

And then they hit a an elk or a deer. So we actually our traffic manager's been working on this and we once we once we consult with the wildlife assessment people, we we're we're looking to try and do a pilot installation along the golf course areas. A couple locations there we've identified that are kinda high crossing areas. We also did look at a street lighting option along that section of the corridor. Currently, there is no street lighting.

It is has a cost concern. I think we've got up a $600,000 quote to put at the the street lighting through that section. And it's also an area that council would have to actually take action to approve that installation. It's not off the off the books yet, but we feel like getting some the flashing signs and the recommendation for the wild flies wildlife people needs to come first before we go to that that third option. And we're also doing some evaluating of the speeds through that section of the roadway and see if we need to do anything to try and moderate speeds.

Next slide. The next project or area that we've been working on is the 502 Corridor, basically, from the county line to the to the airport driveway. This was an area that where the director McMillan was unfortunately killed back in 2024, and that kinda spurred Lano to work with us to do a road safety audit of kind of this section. Basically, it was the area around Camino Entrada that we concentrated on, and that was completed back in 2025. That came up it didn't come up with, pardon the pun, concrete recommendations.

It came up with kinda some potential suggested areas that we need to do some further study of that, including creating raised medians where now they're just painted to try and define those those corridors where people need to be driving and and hopefully try and have somewhat of a traffic calming impact. And so and then, you know, kind

of I just say I I can't quite read your your symbols there. The yellow means what? Injury. Oh, injury. And then green is what?

Property damage only. Thank you. Sorry. It's clear on mine. And then potentially a longer term is do we need to look at some kind of intersection control change either around about our traffic signal?

And so we're currently exploring as our funding options to to get a consultant on board to try and flush these out in more detail and see if there's something that we can move forward to to a concrete on the ground type solution in that area. One of the things that did come out of the the road safety audit, and there was a bad crash at this location a couple of months before we did the road safety audit was implementing a striping and signage plan for the entrance of Camino and Trada before a lot of the striping had been worn off and people were making high speed turns in in there. So we created painted islands, which to help channelize people and force them to slow down and make a much tighter left turn. That seems to be working pretty successfully. We also had at this similar time frame, Lionel has offices on either side of Camino Entrada, and they had been reaching out to us with concerns as crossing Camino Entrada as a pedestrian.

So we kinda extended some of the island areas and put some signage up just to raise awareness that pedestrians are crossing in that area. Also in this area, the center centerline rumble strips. I think this was a presentation to cancel at some point, at least a tea board. So, basically, if you're coming up the main hill, there's rumble strips, basically, divots in the center line. So if you drive on them, it goes.

So we're gonna extend those from county line to the airport, and the the contractor's scheduled to come at the end of this month, June, and implement that. So we should be seeing that soon. And then we are collecting some speed data before those rumble strips go in kinda on that straightaway as you come into town just to see when we have done some speed data. When we did the road safety audit, was during peak travel times. Traffic volumes are heavier, so everyone and a bunch of people on yellow vests in the side of the road people were very observant of the speed limit, so we'll put our devices in the road so that we get some true speed data through there.

Next one. And I just I I think I missed on the the Trinity Drive one, but on the bottom right hand side, there's, a red box. That's where the recommendations in the pedestrian master plan, and this is just noting that that these these items address those recommendations or were made in the in the master plan. This next one's at Diamond Drive Sycamore Road or street intersection. There's already curb ramps in this location across Diamond Drive.

We did look at this pretty intensively back in 2023 when we were looking at other things along. Diamond Drive is one of these locations where you can't just slap down some paint and some signs and call it a day. It's either you have to go to the extremes. More likely, a pedestrian hybrid beacon is what you would put at this location. But the the pedestrian volumes, the desire lines for people getting across just didn't make sense for that level of intervention.

It appears there has been some changes in in those use of this area. We've had, you know, reports from the public that they observe people getting off the bus and going to the Pueblo Complex and stuff like that. So we're taking a new look at this. We just did the data collection last week. I got transit ridership data, people getting on and off the bus.

So we'll we'll do a new look at this, and we will hopefully, by July, we'll have a recommendation of whether to leave it alone as is or or move forward with something more substantial. Next slide. Another area we've been working on recently is the Central Ave pedestrian crossing. We've had a number of requests and then also doing our kind of our own work. The first is kinda looking at the the crosswalks between the central and the justice center.

We've had quite a lot of input from folks saying they can't see the pedestrians approaching the crosswalks. Our engineering group did an assessment and has identified a number of parking spaces right up at that are located right at those crossing points for potential removal to try and open up the visibility to those crossings. We haven't actually implemented it yet. The engineering group's working with the LACDC and the business businesses in the area just to explain what we're coming forward with and why we're doing it before we implement that. So that's ongoing right now.

So, hopefully, in the next few weeks, we'll have completed that process. Primarily, it it just requires some painting and signage to implement this, so it's not a heavy lift or expense to do it. The other one is a number of crosswalks. We had a number of people approach us about the crosswalk at Central And Oppenheimer. Previously, it was just signed.

We added the the pavement markings. Based on recent feedback, I I think we're we're gonna make some additional improvements at this location that we're hearing that people are standing, waiting to cross, and people are either seeing them or or stopping for them. So we're we're taking a fresh look to see if there's additional elements we need to add at this location to improve the compliance of people stopping for pedestrians. Just further down the street, we've been evaluating marking the crosswalks at Rose Street. There's already curb ramps in that location.

It's kind of a tricky location just because the curvatures, and we're evaluating whether signage and striping is sufficient or we need to be looking at a rectangular rapid flashing beacon similar to you see on 502 heading out of town. And then our streets crews will be coming through and refreshing all the pavement markings for the crosswalks in the coming weeks. A little further along where Central Turns to Canyon, this is on our location where curb ramps were in place, but they weren't officially marked. We did did our data collection, found that it was reasonably heavily used by primarily younger generation coming from the swimming pool, and then they'd walk and join the the walkway on the on the on the south side of the street and use that to get to wherever they were going further on. So we made the determination note that we could sign and mark this.

It it made sense to do it, to put those things in there. There's a couple of other locations that we're currently evaluating. One is a little further west from here by the Canyon Village Apartments. And then because Canyon Road is this has this funky alignment, basically, it goes from the east of town to the west of town over by between 15th And N M 502 by the Myrtle Street Green space. We've had between bus stops and and pedestrians trying to cross in that area, so we're evaluating crossing improving pedestrian crossings in those locations too.

Next slide. So this one's a north and urban intersection. A few weeks ago, as you know, the some residents brought forward the the petition following the fatal crash at this location. We've done the data collection. I'm in the process of evaluating all the data we have, crash data, pedestrian crossing data, traffic data, speed data.

At this point, I have no nothing to really report. We are, we'll be going to transportation board on June 4 with our initial recommendations of what we think we can do there. And then we're scheduled to come to council on June 23 to present the final recommendation. Next slide. Getting near the end.

So we did we added in the Canyon Room Trail because of some of the conversations before this is kinda like creates an alternate route a lot instead of being on the canyon I mean, on Trinity Avenue through the center of town. Just a quick update. The the section phase three a is that is designed right now because a lot of these ones go through Llano proper. We're having to do the biological assessment, but we're expecting this section to go out to bid in the fall and be constructed the the months following that. This phase three a gets you to 15th Street by the natural grocers.

As part of the Trinity Avenue Trinity Drive project, we we're gonna be widening the sidewalk between 15th And 20th on the north side to I think it's eight feet where we're gonna get to, so that can be a kind of a de facto connection to the urban trail. Or the alternate, you can go up to Deakin and cut over to the urban trail. So at least in the short term, we'll have some connectivity to the Urban Trail. But once if we can get phase three b and the future phase through the 20th Street development done, hopefully, by '28, we'll we'll have that formal connection all the way to 20th Street and a direct connection into Urban Trail. And then just a couple of things that we don't have slides for, but Eric mentioned it before earlier that we we installed the first green section of green bike lane over on Diamond Drive by South Sullivan Field parking lot entrance and at Canyon Road.

We've been wanting to do this for a while, but it turned out we couldn't because we're controlled by the manual of uniform traffic control devices, and we needed the state to adopt the latest one that officially allowed green lanes, and that happened to December. So this year, we're able to make that implementation. This is our first initial installation. We're looking for feedback. So our bike event on Thursday, we'll be looking for the feedback.

We chose that location, one, because it's next to where we're doing the bike bike workday event, but, also, we we've observed quite a lot of conflicts between bicyclists and drivers turning into that parking lot. And third, it's probably the busiest bicycle corridor in the county, so we can capture input from a good majority of the users. So that's something you'll probably see us roll out more. There's probably refinements based on the feedback we get back. We've chosen a material that should have longevity.

It's basically an epoxy resin with crushed glass colored glass. I've I've experienced with this material in other locations, and it's very durable, so it should stand up to snowplows and and really not if we use paint, typically, wears off in a year or two. This stuff should be there forever. So we're in trouble if people don't like it because it can't come off. No.

I'm just joking. And then just the the the final one that a year or so ago, we were in front of you with some potential improvements to the Grand Canyon And Sherwood Intersection here in White Rock by the school crossings. We haven't forgotten about it. We were were gonna do it last year, but we were waiting for the Grand Canyon supposed to get a a pavement treatment. And so we were holding off on that.

And that but that got delayed, so it's gonna be happening this year. So we'll be jumping in and implementing. It's kinda it's ironic. We're calling it a quick build, but, basically, it's not using concrete and stuff like that. We're using kinda flight quickly installed curbing for that project. So once that pavement treatment's done on Grand Canyon, hopefully, in July, we'll jump in and and get that installed for the new school year. It basically was to tighten up that intersection and move some of the school zone flashers to expand where the school zone is. And then next slide. This is where I hand it over to the chief for his big moment.

Thank you. Just to add a little bit of data to what Keith presented, and this was put together for keyboard, and I understand you have some questions about some other things, which I'll cover here in a minute. But, I wanted to give you an update on just the traffic enforcement piece. This is through the first four months of, of the year for the just for the traffic unit, the two officers. So they're very busy.

50 citations of 26 or more during that time. But as I intimated to you the last time I was in front of you, the traffic unit is is is heavy into enforcement, obviously, but likes to, you know, marry that with education where we can and and other other tactics. We did a DUI checkpoint last week, although, over 2,000, I think, vehicles went through that. We didn't get any DUIs, which is what we want. But we did have three DUIs that week on patrol.

So, still an issue, obviously, for the community, and just, you know, working working regionally with our law enforcement partners to to address traffic related issues. Speed camera update, my understanding, we were hoping to get that to you in May. I'm not sure that that's gonna happen, but I would be hopeful that by June, that will come in front of you again, and then we'll be ready for implementation. Update on the urban and north fatal. Our part is substantively complete.

We're waiting on one report from an an another agency. Once we receive that report, we'll be able to assess assess it and complete our our report. Unfortunately, I don't have a time frame for the other agencies. Obviously, we don't control their their time timeline. When we spoke with the t board, there was a question from the community that I didn't have the answer to.

But the question was during the presentations on the animal versus vehicle discussion, how many people had we cited for feeding of wildlife since since you all approved that ordinance? And we have cited one person. So I think that what that that doesn't mean that was the only complaint. I think there have been numerous complaints. But as I had indicated to you during that time, you know, our process is to go meet with folks, tell them, make sure they're aware of the law, and then, obviously, most people have complied.

This individual, as my understanding, was a fairly egregious, situation and didn't really have a it was either fairly egregious or he did not intend to comply, so he was cited. And I think we have one more slide before we get into questions.

So back to me. So, back in March following the the fatal crash, we we established a what we call a traffic and road safety task force. It's essentially internal to the county and made up of public work staff, the county manager's office, the communications and public relations office, police department, and fire department We've been kind of meeting on a monthly basis. The last meeting was kind of focusing on this presentation and what we're doing, but we'll continue to to meet that. Kind of the last component, which the q the communications public relations office has been working on is developing safety education campaigns.

Kind of the the banner along the bottom, a few years ago, NMDOT developed what what I thought was a pretty effective, safety campaign, the look for me. And, basically, it was saying, as a driver, look for me as a pedestrian. Me as a pedestrian, look for the driver and kind of make that connection before either one makes makes her move. So I thought that was a pretty effective campaign. So we've got some of the materials from that, and then David and his team have been working on another of kinda periodically putting out in social media and and things like that at various safety messages.

So I think that's been working pretty effectively. I think the fact that we're now kinda on a monthly basis getting together. One of the things I've been doing for the last several months has been working with police department on the crash records piece trying to identify a way we can get the data more real time to us. For the DOT data, there's normally, you know, a twelve or eighteen month delay in getting the data. I was quite surprised we were able to get the 25 data so quickly this year.

They did say it was provisional, but, you know, that's great. But, ideally, if we can patch into the PD's traffic records directly, we can be more on top of responding to to issues as they come up, and then building our our knowledge, and and hopefully get more proactive in our intervention rather than being reactive. And that was the final slide and oh, chief Scott. I

understood there was a question about the fatal on 05/2002 last week and if I had any information on that. Obviously, that wasn't ours, but we were called to assist not only with traffic, but the sheriff had called me and, had requested, media notification and laboratory notification for traffic. My understanding is, it was a car went left to center. It was a head on collision. There was an elderly passenger that did that did pass.

The reason why somebody went left to center again, I don't know, and I don't know if it's known in that case or not. That's as we've discussed, it's very hard to determine why somebody did did what they did, why they were distracted. We know they were distracted in many cases, but proving why is difficult in many cases. With that, we'll stand for question.

Okay. Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any questions or comments from counselors? Counselor, did you wanna start?

Thank you, chair. Thanks for the presentation again. I was fortunate to get to hear it at T Board earlier this week. So I I was wanting to ask questions that night, but I couldn't. I was just there to listen in.

I thought the transportation board members engaged really intelligently with you, and there was some good dialogue. So I apologize. I don't really have a, well thought out sequence of my questions, but, so I'm just gonna start with some different thoughts as as they've come to me the last couple days. One thing maybe bears out from an article written by Stephanie Nachle on this topic, and I from my vantage point at least, she's given a lot of time and study to this topic. And one one approach for road improvements and traffic safety improvements is this notion of LQC or lighter, quicker, cheaper.

And I was kind of struck by that and interested in learning more about that. And it kind of relates to a recommendation by one of the T board members, Herman Gephart, who talked about his experience living elsewhere in the utilization of plastic bollards at intersections. And, as traffic calming devices, as physical instruments, if you will, that really force a driver to change behavior. And one you know, this was kind of re in regard to the discussion of the North Road urban intersection, which is, you know, it's really busy. You got Urban Park there.

You got the approach to Mountain Elementary School, the Baptist Church. Urban just comes down at a slope. There's no stop sign there for the people coming down Urban Road. There is a stop sign on North Road just to reacquaint everyone's memory on that. So, you know, when I looked at the article from Stephanie Nachle, in some of the work by this organization called Living Streets Alliance, there's this really awesome installation at a roundabout.

You and I think it's near Tucson, Arizona, you know, utilizing these plastic bollards, utilizing planters that are, you know, pretty huge, and mural painting art to to kind of make a lighter, quicker, cheaper roundabout. And I found that really fascinating, kinda coupled with keyboard member Gephart's recommendation for the plastic bollards. And so I'm just kinda throwing that out there for consideration by counsel, t board, staff that we kinda shift the paradigm a little bit and not think that everything has to be overstudied and overanalyzed and and do things more quickly and more affordably with maybe a lighter permanency. And maybe it maybe it works as a trial or a a study opportunity because it's not permanent. So if it doesn't work, if we don't get good data from it, people hate it, whatever, you you can change course.

But I really like that, and I don't know if anyone else had a chance to look at that yet. I just love the plastic bollard idea, and not just that intersection. I mean, I I could I mean, there's one in Quemazon. Former county manager Lynn probably drives it every day. I drive it every day.

I rode my husband rides it every day on his bike. You know, you go up Brise Del Bosque, and there's the Montessori school, and then you can go straight on Quimizaro, and can turn left on Brise Del Bosque. And it is insane. And it's and it the reason is, and it's a term that you used in your presentation about how how do we get people to make tighter left turns? And I think it's the shortcutting that people do, making left turns, that is really dangerous.

It's dangerous for other vehicles. It's dangerous for hitting potentially hitting white life. It's dangerous for pedestrians. It's dangerous for cyclists. And I think that anything we can do in a lighter, quicker, cheaper way to to get tighter left turns would be useful.

I was fascinated. I I didn't hear you say this on Tuesday night that you that you said that over 80% of the vehicles registered in our state are either SUVs or large pickup trucks. And certainly, that's that's a factor that increases, the level, the degree of injury and fatality potential. And that's really not anything we can control, but it is definitely a negative externality of, large vehicles that then therefore, knowing that fact, we need to then design in ways to just minimize the chance of injury. So that brings us to Central Avenue.

And the the conversation that was had at T Board on Tuesday about the number of crosswalks, the varying types of crosswalks, that it can be really confusing. You're you're kinda you got bump outs at one point, then you got striped big crosswalks at another point, then you go a little further, and it's a different kind of crosswalk. And then sometimes you have crosswalks at a bus stop, and sometimes you don't have crosswalks at a bus stop, etcetera. We saw a recommendation in an email today about the crosswalk at 15th And Central, and I agree with the person who wrote that letter. And I just wanna back up and say that in the forty years I've lived here, twenty five to thirty of them have spent been spent working literally between 15th And 20th On Central at the County Building, REMAX, the chamber of commerce, all right there.

So I just feel I'm I'm just, like, intimately very familiar with all these intersections and, having to cross over to Title Guarantee so many times and not feeling safe. But back to 15th And Central, a recommendation was made, like, can we make it so that you can't turn right on red? Because because people look for cars, but they don't always look for pedestrians. You get the science museum right there. You get tourists.

You get people enjoying themselves, not paying attention. And I don't think we should put the onus on the pedestrian. I don't think it should be the pedestrian's fault regard you know, if they're not really paying attention, if they're wearing dark clothes that day, if the sun is blocking a driver's visibility. We we need to know that people can be airheady, and therefore, we should be designing in things that that compensate for the airheadedness of pedestrians, or their youth, or their immobility, or their seniority, senioritis. Once again, warned you that my comments were random because I because I kept thinking of things.

We back to Central Avenue, or I guess I was still on Central Avenue. Something that was said at T board Tuesday night, on one hand, I applaud it. On the other hand, it bugs the heck out of me. And it was this notion of waiting to get CDC business input on what we can do with the parking spots right there on Central. And I think we wanna I think we're all unless correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm, you know, I'm thinking that busy area be kinda between almost like Mesa Public Library parking, Fuller Lodge, Batabro over to, like, you know, where the old CB Fox kids was.

I don't I don't understand why that couldn't be done tomorrow. Like, literally and I don't know who has that responsibility, if it's LA CDC, if it's chamber of commerce, Main Street, or county staff. But or maybe maybe maybe we county councilors should do it, maybe t board. I don't know. But I don't I mean, we're talking like four businesses.

I mean, we're talking sugar and cream, two professional offices that are not retail, and the post office. And, you know, that's it. And so I I basically go in and go talk to Laura Cruset at Sugar and Cream and see how she feels about it, And then let's get on with it. Because it's just an accident waiting to happen and we've known this for a long time. So I don't really understand that part.

So I applaud it because I think we all have said that public participation and getting input is super important and we value it as a governing body and a government entity, but sometimes it causes delays and then it's frustrating. And and you you might have some reasons for that that that I I would love to be informed, better informed. I was dying to ask about that on Tuesday. I also I think that that's that covers all my stuff for now. But I did wanna ask I wanted to ask this Tuesday also about ebikes.

If there's been any if there have been any incidents with ebikes, have we thought about what's going on with ebikes? The New York Times did an incredible deep dive into the dangers of ebikes in Marin County, California. And they are becoming I think, you know, e bikes are becoming very popular. Yet, I think those are accidents waiting to happen if we don't proactively think about how we're going to, include them in our modal transportation systems. And because I'm fairly new as a liaison to T board, I don't know if it's been talked about in the past.

Should have asked that when mister Hampton was up at the table. Sorry. So you can kinda see where I'm coming from. I guess what I guess in summary, I would like to do I would like to do things more quickly. I would like us to think outside the box. I would like us to not always rely on education and enforcement. And I think that's it. Thanks for engaging.

Oh, oops. Let me let me start on the fifteenth right turn on red, Dan. What we have done at all our traffic signal is graded what's called a pedestrian lead interval. So you'll notice if you push the walk button, you get the walk signal three to five seconds before the drivers get their green green indication, and and you'll never get a walk signal while someone gets, like, a left turn arrow because that's a direct conflict. But the lead pedestrian lead interval, what's the point of that is is to allow the pedestrian to get out into the crosswalk and hopefully get the driver's attention who wants to make a right turn that they're not just starting off from the edge and they miss them, that they should be about halfway across the crosswalk by the time the driver gets their ball.

To ban right turn on red, essentially, you put up a sign saying no right turn on red. So that relies on the driver seeing the sign. So some not to say we can't do it. We have had conversations. Is that kind of where we need to go next?

But it's kind of you all you're doing is putting up a sign that you're relying on that driver who wasn't paying attention in the first place, seeing and potentially giving a pedestrian a false sense of security. So not to say it can it can't be done. It's just we have to kinda try and think two steps ahead of what are the consequences of doing something like that, But we you know, as I say, the pedestrian lead interval seems to be really effective at allowing the pedestrians to start making their walk so that they're in the visibility of the drivers before they before they cross or make their turn. Do you wanna Yeah. Thank you.

Mister chair and councilor Haberman, to add to that a little bit, there's something when you restrict a a movement at a traffic signal, and that's compliance. So, of course, you always want compliance. And during the times that when, you know, pedestrian traffic is light or nonexistent, you might have a driver there. You know? Well, there's nobody here. Why can't I go? You know? We're used to turning red on red everywhere. So that's another consideration we just kinda have to balance. And so and that also puts enforcement in kind of a bit of a pickle when they see that happen.

It's like, oh, do I have to go, you know, give them a ticket? You know, there's nobody there. And and so when you do these things, you know, we we do them very deliberately, you know, following guidelines, national guidelines that we we adopt. And it's you know, I can broadly put this into perspective if of any traffic device, even a, you know, plastic marker in the middle of the road. There's standards for application of things like that.

And a lot of it does have to do with liability. You know? Well, it was there yesterday, but not today. Somebody hit it. Our crews didn't weren't able to get to it and reinstall it. And so now the county may be liable because it was there before. It would have prevented maybe prevented an accident. You know? So things that are hard to maintain, can put us into a bit of a a liability situation. And even things that we may install that may not be within standards are hard to defend.

And I'm gonna look at our attorneys because that's something we have to be just very conscious of. And so that's why we're very deliberate in making sure we meet national standards in how we install any traffic control device. Another instance could be where a driver was you know, well, I was paying attention not to hit this plastic marker, and I didn't see the pedestrian crossing. You know? So, again, it's just things that we have to weigh and be very deliberate in how we apply the installation of, you know, signs, devices, traffic signals, all those things.

So I think I covered a lot of ground in several of your points. So, if we need to kinda revisit, please let me know. So

And then just on the I guess, the terminology now is quick build that you kinda mentioned where you use not formed concrete and stuff like that is kinda somewhat not fully permanent. That is something that's in our toolbox, and that's kinda what we were looking to do at Sherwood And Canyon or still looking to do at Sherwood And Canyon. And it's something that will be part of our toolbox that we look at for north and urban and other projects as we move forward.

Thanks. Thanks, Jared. Couple of follow ups on that. Real quick. I just I I hope that we're always thinking about ways to get people to make tighter left turns. I I just really feel like that could be a difference maker. I hear the points on the no turn on red at certain places. I also was curious about the ebikes, so I wanted to see if any thoughts on that. And then I forgot one point. I know that people you know, there's a concern about having too many crosswalks, and there are certain standards that have to be met to justify it, I think.

I forget what you call it. There's a term you have, that whatever it is. That I I've and I've I've mentioned this to, keyboard chair, mister Hampton, about the lack of a crosswalk on Canyon Road closer to the Canyon Village Apartments where there's a bus stop. And I've seen people get off that bus and then look all the ways and then run across the street to hit the pathway that goes up towards those apartments that are on Trinity, actually. And also the orthodontist office is up there, etcetera.

And that's pathway is just a nice way then to get to downtown too. So I just I also just feel like that's something that should be looked at is crosswalks at bus stops. I'm not saying it makes sense everywhere, but make sure that we're looking at that. And then I I I get the liability thing is tough because, you know, we we we just lost a value we just lost a life here in our community. And it's I guess it's personal for me because I knew Brian Easton pretty well.

And, so it's always it may be so you know? So I get more emotional about it maybe is all I'm saying. But I I think I just think we need to figure out how to do that risk calculation and decide maybe sometimes we're willing to take the risk on the liability, or we're just gonna put everything, all the stops into place to make sure that if something goes down, we're fixing it just like we fix a power outage. You know, it gets that you know, it gets elevated as a top priority when something that has to do with traffic safety gets broken. It it that we it's not like time to, you know, restripe a center line or well, that's important too.

I shouldn't use a any traffic examples. But, anyway, that's my follow-up. Thanks. So ebikes and left turns and crosswalks at bus stops.

Mister chair, on on a couple of those fronts, so the crosswalk at Canyon, again, that's one of the ones that that Keith touched on that we're looking at. Yeah. And then, on the ebikes, I do recall that the con the T board did have a conversation about that a number of years ago. There was never never any momentum to kinda take it beyond the conversation. And I think it kinda centered around the the speed at which e bikes can maintain on, like, a multiuse trail, like Canyon Rim Trail.

That kinda makes it a little bit dangerous for the bikes and pedestrians given the speed disparity between the two because of the speed that you can attain on an ebike, but it didn't go any further than that. I know there's been a number of communities that have been, you know, trying to find ways to either legislate that or educate on the use of ebikes. So, certainly, if that's something that council wants us to take up with T Board, we certainly can. Thank you.

Thank you.

K. Thank you, councilor Evan. Councilor Culp?

I had a few questions, but then I added a bunch to to my list. Are ebikes allowed on the Canyon Rim Trail?

So there's I'd looked up this because when we were doing the Pignon School Trail and the so there's different classifications of ebike. There's three different classifications. I think two of them are pedal assist, and they're certain wattages, so they can only go a certain speed. And then the third one is basically a throttled ebike. This there's a state law that says you cannot preclude.

I think it's the class one and two, which are, like, the pedal assist bikes. But class three, you you can exclude from trails. Don't quote me on that, and I can when I get back to my office tomorrow morning, I can look that up and share that specific information you with you for for New Mexico. I do know there's kinda, like, this national push. Certain states through the legislature are looking to try and control ebikes, but I think it's more the throttle controlled ones where they're treat trying to treat them more like motorcycles where you need to have a license.

And if it's a state where you have to wear a helmet and have insurance and all that stuff, there's some some concerns in the community because they're not quite in the nose, so they're kinda mixing and matching, and it may impact the the more the better pedal assist bikes, which do require you to pedal to actually get that assist, and they're limited. So so that's going on. But I can tomorrow morning, I can find you what the state requirements right now are for allowing ebikes on trails.

So why don't we just post the speed limit for bicycles on these multiuse paths? Just put it on the ground, you know, put a bike and put speed limit whatever. Yeah. Because you don't need an ebike to go too fast. And, you know, I you know, I've seen bikes go way too fast when pedestrians are present on the on the the bridge to the lab, for example, especially on the when they're going downhill.

So maybe consider posting a speed limit, and then we don't have to worry about the complexities of what kind of bike you're riding. Just don't go over these the speed limit. I hope on Urban And North Road, this is kind of a follow-up to councilor Haverman. I know we're evaluating data. You know, I I I hope that you're looking at multiple alternatives for that intersection, anywhere from roundabouts to some of the things that councilor Haberman brought up, not just whether or not we need a four way stop.

Okay. Good. And I was wondering about the crosswalk signs. If if I'm a visitor, if I mean, I I know I should stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. But visitors, not sure if they always know, should and and or could we put stop for heads or anything like that. Is there any allowance to add something to those pedestrian signs?

So New Mexico is a yield state. So it's a yield Or yield. Addition. So just Yeah. Yes.

You could put up additional signage, saying yield to pedestrians, but the this crosswalk signs that go up are basically the nationwide standard for crosswalks. So if you're coming from Texas or the East Coast, those should be familiar signs to you to know that that's a crosswalk. That's why we have the, you know, the uniform sign codes and the manual uniform traffic control devices to ensure that there's uniformity. So it doesn't matter where you're going, and the the general pedestrian symbol is kind of an international symbol known not just in The US, but Canada, Mexico, Europe, and stuff like that. So

Yeah. Well, people people take driver's ed training once in their life and and don't get refreshed on that very often. But, anyway, just something to think about as another opportunity to maybe enhance that. In the wildlife assessment, when will it be completed?

He wants to say the fall.

He wants to say the fall? Okay. One one of the things that I noticed, and and this could be just with how we record crashes with wildlife, there's a cluster right at the clubhouse by the golf course. I am pretty sure that most of those, I would bet, occurred between the clubhouse and 35th Street, not at the clubhouse. I I have very seldom if ever seen deer there.

I see them further up. And I know there's an address that you have to assign, and that's probably why. Is there other data that I mean, are we gonna give more information to this wildlife assessment person and make sure they understand that all of those deer didn't die at the exit to the golf course?

Chair, councilor Call. I was looking at the same thing. And I think, although I don't do patrol anymore, I was thinking back to the days that I did, and I would do that. I would say, you know, I'm out at the golf course for deer accident when, in fact, I was 500 yards down the street. It was just the easy was the easy thing to get the dispatchers to put into the CAD that that's where I was for.

At the same time, I noticed that that data, and I'm not sure if it was your spreadsheet or one that I provided, had, lat long latitude longitude, which is a very specific notation of exactly where that occurred. My guess is that it's probably somewhere in the middle. We my point is we have the ability to definitively say where each accident was by latitude and longitude. Their computers tell them that now. And that's data is included within accidents. At the same time, the person creating that slide probably took some liberty in terms of that's my guess, but I'll have to check on that.

Okay. No. I assumed it might be an address, just the location. Because the other one

I thought so.

That's further up was 35th Street. Right? And and I know we have deer that cross there, so I didn't doubt that one. But and then, chief Bob, you're answering. So there are requirements for that define what a crash is. Do we keep any data on incidents that don't meet crash data or crash definition?

Chair, Councilor Carl, absolutely. We call those non reportables. And if you look at some of the data that Keith provided in the slide, you'll see some disparities. Like, for example, when you look at the animal crash animal versus vehicle data, you're going to see a number that says something like six crashes. Well, that's way more than what what Keith provided. It's because it's including all of those everything. It's including the nonreportable data.

Oh, okay.

We have a significant amount of that. You know, you could figure every every person backing into a a car, it's in in the Smith's parking lot. Well, that's that's a nonreportable, typically, because nobody's injured and the value of the damage isn't very high. So that's the disparity you're gonna see in those numbers. What gets to the state and what he pulls is the actual over 500 or and or injury and or fatality.

Okay. That's helpful. This is kind of a just a pet peeve. The Ashley Pond crowd protection concrete wall barrier, are they the same jersey bounces that we used last year?

We're only putting out the beautiful ones.

It better be. Are they jersey bouncers again?

They're the same company.

Same

barrier. But we're or or or we have more than we need. So our crews, we're gonna go through and find the ones, not not pick the ones that were in the worst state.

Okay.

But we can't promise that we're we have enough to have perfect wall barrier the whole way.

Okay. I just thought I'd ask. And then Sycamore Diamond Pedestrian Crossing, you mentioned that people are getting off the bus there, there's a bus stop. Can't imagine there being a whole bunch of people getting off the bus because our ridership probably hasn't really gotten back to our earlier numbers. But is it possible that folks that are using the overflow parking across the street that belongs to the county is maybe driving some of the pedestrians crossing in that area?

Chair Reidy, councilor Carl, I guess we could look at that. I I know that it there it's something we've talked to the schools about the parking situation at Public Complex. I know we did get one request to look at paving it, but I also know we have a whole spaghetti nest of very large utilities under that. And we also use it for contractor staging, so it really isn't a formal parking area. In fact, I think it's posted, but we certainly are aware of that and can do some further conversations. And I I know mister Wilson said that was an area he was looking at for that crossing.

Yeah. We did data collection. I think it was last week or the week before, and we what we do is we set up a camera. Mhmm. And so we can visually verify basically, we feed it into software that then extracts traffic and pedestrian volumes so that we can actually go and review the video when we know there was a crossing to see if they got off a bus or if they came from somewhere else, and we actually know the the volume of pedestrians.

I think in that vicinity, one thing that may have changed from when we looked before, there's a there used to be a gymnastics place up on North Mesa Mhmm. Where all the kids would go to after school. That closed down this year, but there's a gymnastic place in Pueblo Canyon. So we're we're wondering if those kids who used to go North Mesa are now taking the bus, getting off of that bus stop, and going to Pueblo Complex. So Okay. Hope we we hopefully, we'll capture those activities if they're if they're recurring.

Okay. I have two more questions. Only two more. And these are questions. So I'm I'm pretty sure I have seen maybe in other places at crosswalks something that says stop and look that's painted onto the ground for pedestrians just as a reminder for pedestrians to not I mean, so at the bump outs, you know, people are staying back.

They're not going to the end of the bump out and waiting so that vehicles can see them. That's one problem, and parking's the other problem. But I'm wondering if that that's something you could look at is, am I wrong? I I might be, but I I thought that I've seen something that's that's painted on the on the crosswalk, right where you want a pedestrian to stop and look, before they they, actually enter the intersection. Something to consider. I don't know if you've ever seen anything like that.

My experience with that was in Santa Fe. We we put those it's basically a thermoplastic paint that said Yeah. Luke and all the rail crossings where cyclists cross the the railway.

K.

So they do exist. It's just

Something to think about because a

little bit of a slippy thermoplastic pain.

But Well, that's true. They are kinda slippery.

So but, yeah, it it is something that exists.

Okay. My last question slash suggestion is have we looked at closing the road between 15th Central Avenue between 15th Street and 20th to closing it to any kind of motor vehicles.

For the light parade and the home Forever.

Forever.

And diverting traffic back to Trinity, having them turn right on 20th back to Trinity. Once we get a traffic light in there, it would you know, something to consider in the future and just make that a pedestrian area.

So that I think that was something that the bicycle working group had has raised as a potential then create a kind of a bike boulevard for pedestrians and bicycles. We haven't per se looked at it, you know, done all the analysis, what's what would be the impacts and stuff like that. But, you know, lots of communities have pedestrian streets. There was, like, Boulder, Denver, you know, much bigger places that have a much more more robust road network. It would just be something you'd have to look at and see what the ramifications of you know, would the traffic then be cutting through nectar and and peach and what were the ramifications of that.

So we haven't looked at it per se, but K. Pass it to Eric.

And I'll just add to that. That that was one recommendation from the bike, subcommittee that the transportation board did not recommend. They did not wanna pursue that particular recommendation.

Okay. We'll look into why they said that. I know who to talk to. Thank you.

K. Thank you, counselor Culp. Do we have other counselor Hinquen?

Sir.

Oh, did you want to go? Okay. Thank you. So what are the issues with ebikes? Because I have one. I love it. I'm gonna drive it until it, like, doesn't work anymore. So so what's the issue?

So the I think the issue is with the higher powered non pedal.

Mine is definitely the pedal.

Yeah. So I think the issue is the speeds that these higher end bikes can go. Like, they're not restricted to 20 or 25. They can go thirty, forty mile an hour, and people are riding them.

Well, I I I'm gonna tell you that I was on mine, and I was going uphill by the aquatic center. And this man on a regular bike, he, like, blew by me. I was like, you know, I'm I'm doing this thing, but it didn't matter that he was gone.

Yeah.

So if I was doing, I don't know, 20 miles an hour, don't know what he was doing, but he, like, flew right by. So the issue that I'm hearing you say is that it's for the higher higher powered bikes, the ones that go faster? Because I know mine goes can go up to 30. So it's those bikes.

I I would say, counselor Newklin, that, where we hear the issue is it's on multiuse trails when you're intermixing bikes and pedestrians, and those the the capability of speed that those bikes can attain. Good news, I guess, if it's, you know, if it's kinda, you know, not exact data, but, we haven't received, you know, a lot of complaints or issues, that you know, on on the Canyon Trail or the White Rock Trail that that's become a terrible or intolerable issue. I haven't really haven't heard anything, you know, even close to a concern. That doesn't mean that they might not be out there, but that's just something that our office hasn't, you know, received as far as as any top concerns.

Because I know that when I had my Prius, one of the bigger issues with the Prius is that they're so quiet. And so that's what was causing a lot of that. People just didn't hear

them. Mhmm.

But with the bike, I I guess, yeah, my bike's quiet. But I'm just so okay. You've given me the clarity I need. Thank you very much.

Sir Rieger? Thank you, chair. So I was thinking, looking at the animal data, we haven't had any success with reducing those at all. We passed that animal feeding ordinance, and I as I recall one of the counselors said this wouldn't work at all, but I don't forget his name right now. Was it would you happen to remember who said that? I

It escapes me at the moment. Yeah. It escapes me. You.

Might have been might have been me. Yeah. And and so all the animals still come into town because I don't think they even had do they even have any water out there? They have to come for food and water. Right? There's any reason to. It's not the people that feed the animals. They still come in anyway. Or we're seeing just as many accidents as what you know, right, from the data. We haven't seen a reduction yet.

No, sir. And I and I think that's consistent with what Riadoso had said at the time, which I had I had informed you all of that, that that they didn't they hadn't seen a reduction necessarily in accidents. They felt that the deer population was healthier is what I was told, was healthier, but they didn't indicate that they saw any significant

So when you ban feeding, you think the animal population looks healthier?

That's what they said.

But they have just as many accidents,

sort of That's what I was told. Okay. And again, one citation. Now I wasn't able to pull how many calls for service we've had over this issue because it's a software issue. But we know that we go out on those types of calls. We just ended up writing the one citation, which I was able to show. Maybe I'm gonna guess thirty, forty, you know, where people were contacted and complied, and then so I there is an effect there, but I can't quantify it for you. Yeah.

It's going he had this nice map of the five zero two section with all of the green and yellow and red and the the red dot. And, it was at the fifth. No. The it was before that.

It's keep going down, man. Yeah. It's further So Keep going. It was, the fourth or fifth recommend project.

Yeah. It's identical data with the large animal stuff. Nope. No progress.

That one. Is it that one? I

think it one more.

There you go.

There you go. Now all those are there any bicycles involved in that? Because I couldn't rematch remember the overlap with the bike data, but I think they bypass this area, don't they? They use the there's a tunnel there, and there's a whole bike route.

The, yeah, the Canyon Rim Trail is to the south of 502 through this section, and then the underpass is kinda just west of the coop. But there's not there is shoulders along that section, so there there's nothing precluding bicyclists Mhmm. Riding along 502 through this section.

So how does this data overlap with the bike accident data?

I think there might be on the bike data, I think there was, like, one bicycle crash in this area, if I remember correctly. Actually, I got it. But yeah. So there was one kind of Where is two to the co op. Yeah. So I would have to go in and and look whether that was actually on 502 or actually on Entrada by the co op.

Well, that's where the bikes go because of the tunnel. Correct. That would be there would be bike traffic in there. There's and most of the bike traffic then is successfully diverted off of the 502.

I would say so. I periodically do see, you know, like, the serious bicycle what you call the serious bicycles and or Lycra and and, you know, road

Road bikers.

Road bikers who are, you know, not interested in going along the trail. They just they're out for their 100 mile run and and stuff like that, but it's not frequent. You know? It's maybe once or twice a week, you might see someone on their bicycle on that section of road, but I think the majority are.

So you have a solution there that works. So, I mean, why not just do that on Trinity for the instead of the road diet we're doing? Because it looks you just simply separate them. So so right now, if you put the concrete barrier at the edge of the pond and then you have a bike lane there, you have basically paint to the left of the bicyclist marking there's no barrier at all, and then they have the concrete so that when a car makes a mistake, you kinda make bicycle hamburger bicyclist hamburger. I mean, you just smash them against the wall. And so why wouldn't we have the wall separating the bicycles from the cars? Just this it works ever other places.

So In our So what makes Trinity a challenge for us, what what's called a separated bike lane, where you actually put a barrier, is a number of curb cuts So that you're introducing into a you're moving the bicyclists away from the edge of the road, which gets them out the periphery view of the drivers. So in those driveway crossings situations, you potentially can increase the potential for them being hit by a driver. If they're right on the road or, you know, the lane's right adjacent to the roadway, it improves that. So, you know, I think one of the alternatives I I kinda dropped off that project that we were looking at was creating a a separated bike lane, a two way bike path or side path, whatever terminal that you want to use on the North Side Of Trinity through that area. Again, the complexities of curb cuts, trying to get Oppenheimer and and down at Connect, people back on the roads and stuff like that made it really less desirable.

You kinda lose some of the professions proficiencies of doing that. What they did do was they increased the width of the sidewalk from 20th Street West along the pond so that people say they're on the urban trail can actually ride that sidewalk.

Oh, like like the urban trail. Yeah. Just a wider sidewalk.

Yeah. So so it's kind of somewhat accommodates both sides. Some people can ride the sidewalk if they so desire. They just have to be really cautious at those curb cuts. If you're in the bike lanes, we will be as part of the project on those curb curb cuts, we're looking to use the green pavement marking with the dashes like we did on diamond just to raise the visibility that there's a potential conflict there between a bike and a a vehicle.

So there's I guess, there's lots of ways to skin the cat. And as Eric was mentioning before, there's a lot of pros and cons to everything we do, and we're just, you know, ultimately trying to find the best solution to work in each circumstance. And, hopefully, over time, with the road diet, traffic volumes can can kinda slow down a little bit. More people show up in their bicycles, and we kinda hit that nice balance. As more development comes in, it becomes, you know I mean a more vibrant area.

Well, that whole thing is probably very hard on our small businesses because they get the lunch traffic, and so it's the so we don't want to lower our traffic. That's the problem with the road diet. But that's, getting into the whole a much larger issue than we have here. But okay. Thank you.

K. Thank you, councilor Guru. We have any other questions? Oh, okay. Please go ahead.

Mister chair, just another comment on that on the separated bike lanes. You know, if if you know, obviously, that's, like you know, an ideal situation is to totally separate bicyclists from the motor vehicle traffic, and that's kinda one of the one of the advantages of the trail system. Right? The multiuse trail system. On the Trinity Corridor, you know, everywhere beyond the 20th to Oppenheimer section is a challenge just because a lot of property boundaries and buildings are very much up against the back of sidewalk.

And so it's not so much of a challenge between, you know, 20th and Oppenheimer, but everywhere else it is. So that's one of the challenge to make it consistent all the way through. So I just wanted to add that point, mister chair.

Okay. Thank you. So I'm gonna try to start at the top. So I think what I heard in the questions or answers at the keyboard was that we have some different things we're using as guidelines. The three e framework was one. The vision zero, I know we have complete streets too. Right? So but I I was just curious about can you clarify whether or not we actually have a definitive policy that might be or adopted Vision Zero or anything specific for road safety?

Mister Chair, would say specific to road safety, I think I would say the only thing that maybe touches that a bit is the our complete streets resolution that Capital passed a number of years ago.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if there's anything else that, you know, can

Okay. Think of. It's, like, twenty years ago, I think. Yeah. Reference we

reference some of, you know, those those goals in, like, our pedestrian master plan, the

Yeah.

The bicycle transportation plan, that sort of thing.

And I don't know if this was a question that you wanna answer, but should we have something definitive like Vision Zero as a stated policy? Would that be helpful?

Good question. Not sure. You know, as a you know, the effectiveness of it being an actual policy, I know it's kind of an overarching kind of goal. It's how you implement that goal is the you know, is where the devil is in the details. Yeah.

So, you know, us as transportation professionals, you know, are aware of it. And, you know, by reference, you know, in the updated documents that we have are, you know, are striving to meet those goals, you know, in implementing the projects that we that we take on. And so, that's something that we can kinda toss around and and, think about.

Okay. And I guess the other policy related thing was, and they can make a comment about this when we had the, you know, North Urban intersection request. I did I didn't wanna have people have to come to counsel for addressing issues. So because we got you know, we just got another email about the neighborhood where I live. I can tell my own story.

It's about crossing the road there. So we don't wanna have to have people come, but I know that the pedestrian master plan is meant to be flexible. Identify certain locations. You and you identify list of location that was in the master plan. But I guess maybe tagging on to I would rather see us and if this is a policy, but have a bias towards taking action. And then we understand that, oh, this kinda action is hard to maintain. So then we're not gonna do that anymore. So that's not in the toolbox. So if that was a difficult to maintain option, we wouldn't recommend it. But we have we'd have experience with using it here.

Just more generally, I I just would wonder if if we couldn't benefit from having, you know, some more clear statement of the overall policy and goal. I think, you know, the vision zero is zero fatalities and zero serious injuries. Right? So it's like getting the speeds down. If there there is a crash, such and and that that's been what I recall from, you know, transportation board long ago.

And I understand the the wanting to be very careful about implementing, but it seems like we're missing opportunities for just having some things to respond to and not have to wait for, you know, sort of some petition on whatever intersection where where everybody lives. Everybody's aware of these, and they could be directed to come to this, I guess, new group that county has stood up, make that more clear. This is an option. You can bring these things because that was the you know, back, I guess, in the early two thousands. You you could you could petition your neighbors, basically say, we want, like, a traffic control.

You know? And I think that may be still somewhere in the, you know, options. It's like, well, why do I have to go and, you know, do that? I mean, shouldn't the county be helping me do that? If we recognize this is an issue without having to have, you know, an injury or something, let's say, yeah. This is a dangerous thing. I would echo, and this is not a question, but I just would like to see something done about the parking spaces. I mean, there's some of them that are like, yeah. There's no you you could park my car and see most people, but not children necessarily. But there are large vehicles parked there frequently.

And when we see that, why can't we just go ahead and, you know, certainly let the businesses know we're gonna do this. And if we did it more in the vein of this is temporary, let's see if it improves the visibility and people can be seen now. They'd say, I just can't imagine why somebody would say, want to have people not be seen crossing the street to come on my business. It just makes no sense that somebody would say, I'm for people not being seen trying to cross the street. They probably see exactly the same thing everybody else is seeing.

So I don't think we need to be on our tiptoes, you know, with the local businesses to try to influence something. It seems like we could just be more direct. You know, it is and yeah. So I I think that's not a question, obviously. But I I just wish that we could try to be you know, look at these opportunities that we have.

You know, things are brought up to to us various ways, then we go ahead and we can take some action. I mean, a lot of the other good questions you had about some of the data, obviously, when you put in the population of Los Alamos and if we have 10,000 commuters, let's just say 10,000, you have another 10,000 cars on the road. They don't all go everywhere, but that's another part of the data. Right? So but how are and maybe they're not coming downtown.

We you know, like council Reagor said, we want them to be able to come downtown and feel like they can find a place to park and shop at our businesses. So there are competing interests, but and and also the the bikes per thousand. I imagine even though there's a a small fraction of people that cycle, you know, we probably have more here than other places. So there are more cyclists here. I don't know that there's any more people that are pedestrians.

Right? But, unfortunately, I think there's a lot of places where people don't feel comfortable. A question came up about that, a Sycamore Diamond. And I know just one person that used to commute or was could have commuted on the bus, but she wouldn't walk across the street because she had a bad experience go trying to cross Diamond. And I think anybody that has driven on Diamond understands why that could likely happen.

Like, the very first time you try to take the bus, and they're like, you never take the bus again. So, again, we have people that are not, like, using the facilities we have, and they're not using the bike facilities we have because it's viewed to be dangerous. So we understand that. What are we doing? Like, there's limitations on some of this stuff, but I just wish that we had a policy that made it such that we really worked, you know, diligently to find where people would be wanting to walk or ride their bikes and implemented those without, like, a lot of delay.

Some things that we need to have a proper amount of study understand that. But and I guess on the on the wildlife collisions, crashes. So we had there's the one citation, but are we having any difference in the number of people just calls out? So I think that's important also to understand our it's just or maybe get people doing it more discreetly so their people don't see them doing it. So is it the same amount of feeding, but it's, like, where people don't see them feeding.

They just become more clever about where to feed the wildlife. That could affect the numbers. We do empirically know there's a lot of deer on the golf course. And so I imagine they're they're not that one location. You've already had that question. I think we we need to have better data. But, again, we had a comment from somebody about making sure we're a dark sky community. Hopefully, we can have well lit arterial roads and dark skies. We don't have to take one or the other. But it makes sense to go ahead and put flights in because it's very dark there.

And so people have have complained. There was somebody that wrote us a letter about the experience they have. So it seems like, again, that's one where do we have to wait for more information to know what we need to do? And I think that what I recall was that Central Avenue being one way was another option as opposed to completely closing it off. So I think that would in theory, but it was along the lines of when I asked the t board, like, that'd be a controversial topic.

Maybe they can have a discussion about, you know, what are the pros and cons making this one way and and then then making sure that people on ebikes that are going 25 miles an hour don't run over me as I'm walking across the street. So I I think we need to be looking at more options. I think there was certainly, you know, the quick options within, I think, the investment in the bigger infrastructure, which I asked about at the budget hearings. Like, do we have adequate budget to be addressing the whole list of issues that we have for traffic safety and if we're keeping people safe as pedestrians and and cyclists? So I would like to know, are there things that we aren't funded currently that could be expedited?

Maybe one last comment about bollards. So bollards seem like they're a temporary device. It seems like we have no trouble doing those. So maybe we can look at some other temporary devices. I understand the bollards are harder.

You run into them, you're gonna damage your vehicle. It would be interesting to see what other options we have besides just bollards for, you know, looking at trying to change vehicular you know, motorist behavior. And and and I think yeah. I mean, the you know, certainly, pedestrians have a responsibility, but I think we shouldn't make an assumption about, you know, pedestrians paying attention when they're trying to cross, you know, streets. I think that they ought to be, you know they should be fairly well supported by us with the engineering infrastructure that we have.

And then last thing I want to ask about was so so I asked about the wild one feeding ordinance and when you know, what more data on, like, citations. I guess we have the also the traffic unit, and maybe this was already answered when we had the budget hearings. So they're focusing on not just citations, but are we seeing any improvements as a result of having the traffic unit? Because just on the raw crash data because I think they've been in place for about a year. So are we seeing any difference in in crash frequency or severity?

Because there's traffic enforcement and at least people aware that maybe they shouldn't be speeding quite as much. Are we seeing any effect of of the traffic enforcement on the on the on the crash date?

Sure. They started in October of fourth quarter of last year. I think it's too early to tell. I anecdotally, they're telling me they're seeing changes even though those numbers I gave you wouldn't seem to indicate it. But I I I I think they're making a difference.

They're they think they're making a difference, but I think we need more data to to determine that. And, again, a lot of their focus has been on the, you know, the the Main Hill Corridor and and New Mexico 4 and all of that. But, again, they've been doing things in in other areas, like, with, you know, the the the following of the buses to ensure compliance with the bus stops. School zones, I'm sure if you've been out, you've seen them. They're very been very active.

But let me let me let me do a better analysis, but I I I think I think it's too early really to tell on specifically on the impact of just that unit itself because we've got all the other officers doing their thing as well. So

Okay. So maybe later this year. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Mister chair, if I may respond to a couple of the items that you mentioned. So the first, you know, about, you know, the relative expediency on looking at an issue and taking action. And I guess my answer to that is it just depends what it is. If it's a an issue of maintenance, something gets knocked down, well, our crews are pretty pretty responsive at addressing those things pretty quickly. So, you know, there's that.

But when it comes to the new things, like new installations, new crosswalks, the the probably nine out of 10 times, those kind of requests usually come directly to Public Works. Sometimes they do come through counsel, like the four way stop request, you know, the petitions and such are are more of the exception rather than the role. But that's okay. That's part of how our government works. Right?

And we're we're responsive to that. But normally, we'll we'll get those requests and and we'll do the data analysis analysis and determine, you know, if there's something that that needs to be instituted. So for example, the crosswalks that Keith mentioned in his presentation along Canyon Road, those we did a data analysis, we applied our mid block crossing policy, and we determined that we could, you know, institute some some measures there. And, you know, some things may take a little more time. We may have more options, and some may require more capital.

And that's when we would come to counsel and say, okay. Here are the options, and here's the the funds that are involved. So it may require a budgetary decision at that point. Or it could turn into another project altogether, where we, you know, again, take a holistic approach at a corridor. We've had a number of traffic studies that were done on Diamond Drive, to help inform us of, you know, what are the speeds looking like, what are, you know, you know, what are pedestrians doing, what are bicyclists doing, what are cars doing.

So there's been that sort of engagement over the years. So I just wanted to, just mention that that and then it just depends on on the findings of of the expediency or, the need that the recommendations may that may come from that. Jumping back to Central Avenue, the design of Central Avenue, you know, through downtown was very deliberate in that, you know, the number of parking spaces, the tightness of the corridor, the number of crosswalks, was to encourage, traffic calming. And that's why things were designed in that way, not necessarily to put anybody crossing as a at a disadvantage. In fact, there's been, you know, a lot of thought into, well, the tighter things are, the more hyperaware someone may be to be a little more cautious on cross before line.

But we're we're seeing these requests come in that, you know, knock on wood, we haven't had any incidents that resulted of that, but and hadn't taken that expedient action that that we're hearing about today, and we're happy to do so. But there hasn't been any any any data to say that, you know, it's been a a wide problem. But we have heard about it, so we want to address it. And that's why we're wanting to inform be before we make that decision. But we're happy to take that action, you know, in a more expedient fashion if if that's what council would like us to do. Thank you, mister chair.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you, mister Haynes. I mean, I'm fully aware of the theory behind the bulb outs, and so I was paying very close attention to all that. And I I you know, used to work downtown and walk across there a lot.

But I think it's just the the design at the time and people's behavior now, you know, and the size of vehicles, I think, is different. So And I think they're they're still not I mean, some some people just don't like them at all. They wish it was back the way it was, and there weren't any crosswalks. You just but I don't think that's conducive to what we want the downtown to be like and what people have told us they want the downtown to be like and and also the White Rock Town Center. So I know that this seemed like that was one where I understand the hesitancy to not move right away, but there's, what, two crosswalks basically right there on Central between 15th and 20th.

I guess maybe there's a third one. There's three. So one of them has no obstacles already, I believe. And then it's the other two. I mean, in the sense of just doing, you know, adaptive management, you would just say, well, let's take the one where there's more businesses, talk to them, and just say, is it okay? If we temporarily, you know, remove these parking spaces because, I think, hypothetically, you could probably take away half a space. Right? And still have the sight distance, but I think it's like you'd wanna see what would happen with the visibility of people and maybe, you know, pedestrians pay behavioral change too. So I don't know. It's just something to think about.

And I would just like to encourage I mean, I know we're we try to make sure that everybody is communicated with in a very deliberate way, and we had problems with, you know, public works projects and businesses not being communicated with. It's their satisfaction. And I think you've been doing a very diligent job, but there's some things I think that people wouldn't disagree with. I I don't know that somebody's gonna say, oh, well, we just we need these parking spaces no matter what, no matter if they are creating a hazard. But I think we can do, like, minor experiments.

I'm not talking about putting in a new crosswalk. I understand that. Are some places where we told people, don't cross. Like, perhaps, I guess there's a couple in where in my neighborhood, but people just cross there anyway. And so I guess in theory, they could be cited by the police for crossing there. But if you actually have to cross, like, you were on the bus and coming up the Mesa, you'd have to cross there. It's like it's like you're probably not gonna walk all the way up to the middle school. You're not gonna walk, you know, half mile later away to cross the street. So, anyway, it just seems like we ought to be paying attention to what people are actually doing in terms of where we put efforts. And if we have bus stops, we heard that.

If there are bus stops, it makes sense to kinda pair that with crosswalks. But we're trying to encourage people to ride the bus and feel like, yeah. There's a safe way for me to get across a fairly busy street. I was just walking, you know, across the street here. It's like, it's very interesting to try to figure out where you're supposed to cross and then for. There aren't any obvious places for a very long stretch here. So let's see. Think I've yes. Edmund, did you wanna add something?

Yes, please. Yes, please, Tara. Thank you. And I I was before I didn't ask a whole lot of questions because I was doing the work session format where we were just talking this all through, I wanted to just comment a little bit on the ebike question that councilor Neil Clinton had. Certainly, there's a safety issue with the high speed throttle ebikes.

They're, you know, they're basically like little mini motorcycles, and many many some people who ride them haven't been through driver's training. Although I think in some places, they're they're legislating that as you mentioned. But the growing issue from my understanding is young people riding the other two categories of ebikes, you know, to to grade school, to junior high, to high school, students and kids who've never had taken a driver's ed class. And then they get into where they're not riding on pathways like our Canyon Walk. They're they're riding in the middle of the road racing, you know, in neighborhood streets or on on bigger thoroughfares.

And that's what's causing problems in areas where ebikes have become very popular. And I think, you know, this is just inevitable. It's it's gonna come to New Mexico and here. Also, I don't know. I have no clue what's going on in Albuquerque with them. But it's not just the high speed ones is really what I wanna say. The the lowers, the non throttle ones can also be a high risk factor when, especially when young people are riding them. That's when and they and they can go fast. You know, you can still pedal them. You can still go pretty fast on them.

So, that that makes them dangerous. I'm I'm all for e bikes. I just wanna make sure that we have transportation systems that are thinking about them as we move forward.

Okay. Thank you, Councilor Adnan. I think, Councilor Inklin, did you

I do. I do. I do. So I hadn't thought about that, about young people. But in all honesty, young people don't get to make the mistakes that we did when we were older. They don't. They I mean, you do something now. You're already on your mama knows because somebody's already uploaded it. So they don't have the luxury of making the mistakes that we did. Having said that, I do see how having an ebike for a young person could be very alluring because, you know, especially if they're guys, there's some machismo, there's some testosterone going.

They wanna race and show their buddies whatever it is they wanna show them. And having said that, though, it's just one of the things we have to be aware of. It's not necessarily something we're gonna be able to legislate or fix or put an ordinance in place because kids are gonna be kids. So you can have the conversations with the education through the parents and having conversations about the dos and the don'ts, and hopefully, they'll listen. And if not, then life has a way of teaching you, and you would hope that, again, they'd listen to their parents, which is a much easier way to understand.

Again, I'm older, and I have no desire to be racing anybody going up Trinity doing the thing. But I do see how it could be an issue for younger folks, and that's just in education. That's just what I think it has to be.

K. Thank you.

As you're as you start to wrap up this item, I just had a couple thoughts because it is a nonaction item, but, obviously, we have a lot of thoughts about it, which is good. So I'm just thinking there might I I heard staff make a lot of comments on what they're following up on, and I completely trust that that's going to happen. I'm wondering on the more policy questions or guidance or vision if maybe you should consider how you want to maybe task your transportation board with wrestling with this. I'm thinking about some of these topics and how you've used parks and rec board. And maybe there's some things and maybe that's difficult right now if the transportation board is not is there if if there's a divide of thoughts.

But maybe that's where some of these things could get a little bit more debated on the policy level. And I'm not talking about the things, like, staff has already taken on and willing to move forward. Just a thought for you to ponder.

Okay. Thank you, miss Rand. So I think now, finally, can see if there's any public comment. I know we had a lot of people interested in the discussion. So it would be also anything having to do with the parks no. I'm saying parks and rec board. Transportation board presentation from earlier, which covers some of the same ground, but any of the any public comment on the traffic safety discussion? So we can take looks like we have. So you just have to state your name for the record, as you know.

I'm David Hampton. And I just wanted to clarify what the transportation board recommended in regards to the bicycle work group presentation. And that was that staff consider the recommendations that were made on pages eighteen and nineteen. And in general, on speed control, it was a recommend to rely on physical speed control measures instead of speed limit signs. And that's basically the bollards in the middle of the intersections.

And one of the enhancements to that is literally to you put the bollard there and draw a white circle around it. People look like they're, oh, no, it's another traffic circle. So they slow down, they look around. The other one was recommend enforcing lower speeds in residential areas. And I think that's through physical controls again.

And then specifically for Central Avenue, the one item which we didn't recommend was we didn't recommend turning central to one way. But we did recommend modal filtering to block through traffic and redirect it back onto Trinity. And that could be just maybe an experiment with the sections. One of them could be between Oppenheimer and Bath Hebrew, right? So it basically protects that one crosswalk that goes from the library auxiliary parking lot into Ashley Pond.

Anyways, so the idea is and also pedestrianizing is one of the things. And so pedestrianizing is the actual closure of Central Avenue for only pedestrian use. But one of the things that was discussed is obviously and I think one of the counselors alluded to that that we need to engage business in this. And we need to experiment, do it slowly. And we have done it for Chamberfest and a few other events where we closed sections of Central.

And the idea would be is to experiment, close certain sections, and see how it affects business. Do it like on a Saturday or a weekend, and maybe expand it. And also, one of the things specifically for Central in regards to physical features would be to reduce traffic speed with speed tables and raised crosswalks. And a speed table is basically like a speed bump, except it's really long, and it usually has a crossing in the middle. And yeah, so those these are things that that, I mean, Herman Gepper presented on behalf of the bicycle working group to us last August, and and we made the recommendation in September.

So that's all. Thanks.

Okay. Thanks for stopping. K. See anybody else here. Is there anybody that's taking up the offer to make public comment from Zoom?

If you're online and you'd like to comment on this item, please raise your hand. Not seeing anything, chair.

K. Thank you. So there is no action planned. I guess, would council like to see any follow-up, I guess, potential for action in a future meeting in terms of officially tasking the transportation board with anything. Just indicate yes or no, or I see it one nod. Yes. Not right now. That's rigor.

Well, I I don't think we've properly examined the option of instead of the road diets, the bice a separate bike lane in condemnation of land that we you talked about a year ago. Yeah. But we never have seen the option come back to us. Nobody's looked at it or given us another story about that. And I think it could go to transportation board to be reviewed, but we've never seen that that option.

Okay. So has that been on the list for staff or the transportation board already? That's right. So it is. Yeah. Yeah. It is. People are nodding their heads that they're all there looking at that. So we just haven't seen that yet, I I believe, is the answer.

Mister chair and councilor Greg Gray, we believe that fall into the conversation of when we talked about Canyon Rim Trail, who we're considering phase four Right. From Oppenheimer West. That's something that's on our radar, but right now, it's not a project on the CIP currently in the budget. Yeah.

You have three a and three b. Right. Right.

Okay.

Right. That's yeah. The part I'm talking about is from Oppenheimer West towards Diamond. Right. That was the the substance of the conversation about a multiuse trail on the side that would require some condemnation of land Right. Through there. Yep. And that would interconnect with what you see on the on this slide to try to have some connectivity with the Canyon Rim Trail corridor from that point all the way to the west.

Yeah. That might be in a couple years. K. So I think that's the answer, Ron. Right? Okay. Thank you. Okay. So thank you for the presentation and availability for answering questions. So we just have one business item tonight. 6A is 21498Dash26. It's gonna be the approval of the county council minutes for the April 2026 budget hearings. So is there a councilor interested in making a motion about the minutes? Councilor Cullen?

I move that council approve the minutes for the April 2026 budget hearings. Second.

K. So we have a motion by councilor Cullen, second by Neil councilman Neil Clinton. I'm not seeing any discussion. I think we'll have to do a roll call.

Councilor Herman?

Yes.

Councilor Haberman? Yes. Councilor Cole? Yes. Councilor Regoor?

Can I abstain?

Councilor Neil Clinton? Yes. Councilor Reidy?

Yes.

Councilor Han? Yes. Motion passes six two one with Regor abstaining.

Yeah. So, yeah, you can abstain. So we do so the motion passed six affirmative, one abstention. Okay. So now we're on to item number seven, which is if counselors have any working group or external entity reports, which we don't have any written reports. But is there anything a counselor feels like they need to let other counselors know about tonight? Counselor Huffman?

Thank you, chair. I'm a I'm our liaison to the coalition of sustainable communities New Mexico, which has a member meeting one once a month, and then a kind of a another board meeting once a quarter. We've got one this next week. But we met the the coalition members met last Friday. And for the last couple months, a group of them have been looking at a concept called on bill financing.

And our sustainability director, Angelica Gruelet, has been working on this as well with our BPU manager, Filo Shelton. And it's gonna be going to BPU in early June, the Board of Public Utilities, this concept of on bill financing, and then I think it'll be coming to county council sometime after that. And the concept of it is where a utility customer may wanna make an investment, say, at their home, like to put in a new panel to support an electric vehicle or to install a mini split or a heat pump to get off natural gas and then to have the benefits of cooling and heating in one unit. And to finance that, they could then, through this program, get a low interest loan and then make payments back on the loan through their utility bill every month. Hence, the term on bill financing.

So I just wanted to give you a heads up, just to tell you, you know, that there's that we're still members of the coalition, and they still do things, and we interact with our other members across the state. And that Angelica is very involved, and that this will be coming up. And I think it has some exciting potential. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. It is exciting to see that moving forward. Okay. Do we have any other items that Claire I think the only other thing we already talked about the trip we took to Augusta where we actually got a trip report that'll be in the package for next week next week's meeting. So nothing else there. So I think we're on to then item eight.

I have one

more thing. Oh oh, okay.

Tonight. Sorry. I I I was gonna bring this up in the tea board thing, but in the transportation, but I just wanna remind people that there's this public meeting tomorrow night from the New Mexico Department of Transportation. It's tomorrow night heater in this fire station regarding the New Mexico four alignment study. Today was the deadline to give public input, you so could still do it before you get home tonight, or when you get home to give public input if you can't make the meeting tomorrow night, but it's regarding the part of State Route 4 from Rover up to the truck route.

Okay. Excellent reminder.

Sure people knew about that.

Okay. K. Well, now I guess we're on to item number eight, which is adjournment. So if there's no further objections, we'll be here to adjourn.