Transportation Board - Regular Meeting

All right. It's 05:30, so the meeting is called to order. And I'll do a quick roll call. Member Chappell, Member Connolly, Member Hrzewski, Member Geppard Kleinrath, and member Hampton in person, and member Edwards online. Member Muck is absent.

Does anyone have any comments on the agenda or changes? All right. The agenda's approved unanimously. Is there any public comment for items on the agenda? I assume no since there's no public.

Minutes, does anyone have anything to say about the minutes from March 5? All right, the minutes are pretty unanimously. Now with that, we'll get to our first presentation.

Been practicing all day. And so we're gonna give you so there's been some recent events, obviously, that there's some fatality a month or so ago, kind of raised the visibility of traffic safety again. The council asked us to put together a presentation of all the traffic safety efforts that we've been been doing over the last little while. So this is kinda like a report back to transportation board. And then next week, we'll give this presentation to the the county council.

This is just what I was gonna do is I'll give a quick overview, some summary of the statistics that I've gleaned from the the crash records we received from the DOT, just some highlights of that data, and then go through kinda through a series of the the projects that we have underway or have completed. So crash data. So what what happens with crashes is that the police department typically, the police department probably about 99% of the crashes in Los Alamos County or Los Alamos County Police. Sometimes it's state police. Sometimes it's Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department.

Typically, it's a LAPD. They collect a crash report, and they feed that data from the school DOT. And there's some rules around once a legitimate crash. So DOT records crashes that are on the within the public right of way. And there's a $500 threshold of damage to a vehicle.

So anything under that doesn't actually get isn't an official crash according to the o to the to the state, the way it's written. PD does collect a lot more crashes than are reflected here. A lot of them either are less than that threshold. They're kinda like minor fender benders, or they actually occur in private property. So, like, said parking lots at Smiths or any other private entity around town.

So kind of one of the interesting things going through this process, the numbers I have are much less than if I pull the data from PD for and, that's that's the reason why. So this has been kinda like data fed from PD to to actually UNM. This is all the records pulling together. So this is what they feed back to us. So and when you're looking at crash data, you don't wanna just focus in on one incident or one year because you wanna kinda build a pattern or or look at multiple years of data to see if there's patterns that get built.

So we've been we've got crash data from 2019 through 2025, so December 31 of this past year. In that period, unfortunately, we've we've had eight fatalities recorded in the county in that seven year period, about two hundred and fifty injuries, six hundred and almost 640 property damage crashes only, close to 900 crashes in that time period. Also, in that time period, we've had eight pedestrian crashes. Unfortunately, two have resulted in fatality and six injuries. And then in this first four or five months of this year, we've had one pedestrian fatality, unfortunately, and one injury pedestrian crash.

So we're kinda already in line with the kind of average numbers per year that we've been seeing. And then on the bicycle front, fortunately, we've had no fatalities, but, twenty five injury crashes involving bicycles and just one property damage. And as I say, when we're looking at crash data, we don't wanna just focus in on one severity or one one year or one day or one week or one month. So what we try and do is we look at, you know, a three to five year average for for crashes to get those rates. So the the table below that first big one has been sort of we're looking at the the crash rates or the average number of crashes per year during the five year period.

So in general, we average one to a little over one fatalities per year, thirty five, thirty six injury crashes, and close to, you know, into the nineties for property damage. So on average, we record around about a

130

crashes per year, reportable crashes based on this thing. On the pedestrian front, we're roundabout point two fatalities per year, and injuries about one one injury pedestrian involved crash a year. And then on the bicycle front, it's around about four. Just a little over four bicycle involved crashes per year when we're looking at five year averages. And then how how do we kinda judge ourselves?

It's kinda hard, but probably one of the easiest ways just by looking at population. It's not perfect, but it's probably kinda the quickest way that we can do it. So the the charts on the or the tables on the on the right hand side are basically comparing Los Alamos Counties per per thousand population with the state as a whole. And in general, we are quite a bit lower than the state average. So on on we're about, you know, point five point zero five per thousand population, whereas the state's almost at point two.

On injury crashes, we're a little less than two, whereas the state's getting close to six. And this is all crashes combined. And then property damage, we're about just below five, and they're up at about 13. And over so overall, our crash rates are about a third of or at least on this metric, per thousand population compared to this compared to the state. And then when we look at pedestrians, we're about a fifth.

The rate for fatalities, a quarter or less, Actually, quite a bit less on injuries. And overall, we're it's at point zero five to point two nine. I I didn't do the math. Calculator that they used to do it for me. I guess the one thing and I was kinda surprised at this, but when we look at actual bicycle crash rates, at least on the injury side, we're actually above the rate per thousand population compared to the state even though we're only averaging about four a year, which is four too many.

But I was quite surprised with that. And part of that could be, you know, UNESCO is such a rural state. Most of the bicycling is limited to urbanized areas. So that may be why. And I think we have probably a higher bicycle rate than than most places just given the how constrained are the how people like to ride their bike to the lab and stuff like that.

But regardless of that, this doing this analysis kinda will raise our how we're looking at bicycling looking for opportunities for countermeasures so that we can bring those numbers down as we move forward. Let's see next slide. I've got control. So as we mentioned in this seven year time period, we've had eight fatality crashes, two down in White Rock, which actually were pedestrian with two pedestrian stalaries were. One was back in let me see.

Back in 2019, it was a nine year old that got hit in the in the crash records that showed they were playing in the road. So I don't fully know the circumstances of that one. That is December 2019. And then the second one in White Rock was in September 2021, and this was over at Pedro Loop. I think a pedestrian crossing at Pedro Loop and got hit by a car turning off NM 4.

And up in the on town site, if we start over on the, I guess, the the right hand side, that was the over by Hilton on 502. That was where mister McMillan was killed back in 2024, a head on crash. If we jump down to the truck road, that one was in '24 as well. Another head on crash. It's your cursor. I know. It's like

oh. You

can see it just moves like crazy. This this one was a '24, another head on crash. You really try challenged me

here. You use that.

And this was a a let me see. Number five. Again, on the truck route in May 2021, another head on crash. This one was up on Diamond Drive near the high school in October. Let me see

what year would have been written here. I think it

was, like, '21. It did note in there that the driver was had was some kind of drugs, but it was a head on. They've crossed the center line. And then what appeared was a motorcyclist,

And then

the rate that there was alcohol involved in that, a single I think they hit a fixed object and unfortunately died. And then there was the the eighth crash wasn't really within Los Alamos. It was out on Santa Clara Pueblo,

up in the

forest roads. A single vehicle crashed. The the the the occupant wasn't wearing their their seat belt and was ejected when their vehicle rolled over. So at least seven of those fatalities did occur in our urban area and have some impact on when we look at the pedestrian crashes, I don't have the level of detail on on each one of those, but, essentially, there there's no real concentration of crashes. It's not like by the high school or any of that.

It's just kinda single events at different locations Yes. Primarily within the way you would expect people walking. Somewhere in crosswalks, somewhere not. As we start moving forward, we'll start looking in more detail on these and start trying to identify common factors and if there's interventions or education or enforcement that's needed on a wider scale to try and prevent

these things moving forward. That's what

we'll that's what we'll work on. When we look at the bicycle crashes, we see only one down well, one pin in the White Rock neighborhood, three over on N M 4 kinda out by Bandelier area, and then the rest are kinda concentrated in the downtown or along the main bicycling corridors. There was a I noticed a cluster of I think it was three or four crashes at the Diamond To Orange Sandia Intersection. So I'll be drilling down on that location to see if there's some common factors there, therefore, we've seen something happening there. The other kind of focus area has been animal vehicle crashes.

This data came from the police department, and this is, like, one of those areas where we see the numbers don't add up with the ones I've been talking about. They've had a 102 involved involving wildlife crashes in '24, 63 in '25, hitting a variety of, sheer elk, one coyote each year, one of the wild cows in '24 and a bear in '25. And then this year so far, there's been a 189, 22 of those involving deer and two elves. So this is a a continued problem, but something we're working on. I'll get to that in the later slides.

This is just a quick snapshot of where these crashes are happening. Some of them some of them are occurring out in the kind of more rural areas, but Iden Drive seems to be an area where there's a concentration of these types of crashes. So when we I mean, I've I've got, like, a thirty year plan the safety, relating stuff. And the original strategies were three what what was called the three e's of road safety engineering, where we build infrastructure or create infrastructure to help or resolve a safety issue, such things as, you know, placing guardrails where we know people might there's a large drop off and people may drive off at a curve or, you know, some of the medians that they put in along corridors, road diets, stuff and like that. Those are kind of engineering interventions to try and improve safety.

Education is where we do education, basically. Promotions are educational things to promote safe behavior or educate people on how best to drive or walk or bicycle. Then the the enforcement piece where we hold those drivers, pedestrians, bicycles accountable for further actions. And so some situations require all three to to resolve a safety concern. Others, one or two.

So so that's kind of and then it equals everyone. So, basically, safety is not just one. It's not just us in public works. It's not just our role to do it. It's not just chiefs and his officers role or educators. It's kind of like a collective, and we actually need the public to participate as well and take responsibility. More recently, there've been you know, you probably heard of Vision Zero and things like that where

we you know, a lot of

communities are looking to try and get to zero fatalities. Can probably get there easier than many others given our low numbers, and that's our goal too. But the trying to introduce a safe system approach or using that as a way to build plans and strategies for for trying to get to that vision zero. And this kinda expands on the three Es and takes it further to look at not just things in the roadway, but things that relate to vehicles and and post crash care and and things like that. So so we're kinda I kinda use these methodologies.

We don't really have a a defined safety plan, but we kinda look at these strategies as well as things come up. And that has been kind of one of my goals is to try and dig deeper into this as time allows. So now I'm getting into where we've got a number of projects that are either have or will be addressing safety aspects. So I'm just gonna run through these real quick. So the first one is the Trinity Drive safety and a d a improvement project.

This has been a project that I kinda started with almost six years ago when I came to the county. We're finally at the stage where we've bid the project. We have bids. They're under review. The service will be going to cancel on May 19 to award.

We anticipate construction starting in June to be completed before the end of the year. There's business outreach underway because it's obviously gonna have an impact on one of our partners as well as robust business outreach through that department. This project, if you're unfamiliar, is basically looking at the section of Trinity Drive from Connect Street all the way to Oppenheimer. It's gonna reduce the westbound travel lanes to one travel lane from the current two. It's gonna maintain the two eastbound travel lanes, and it's gonna incorporate bike lanes on either side and a better sidewalk infrastructure.

One of the other pieces of the project is pedestrian crossing will be placed at the Twenties or marked at the 20th Street Drive intersection with what is called the rectangular rapid flashing beacons or RRFB, which are the devices that you see on 502 heading out of town. But they'll be enhanced, and they'll be placed on mast arms over the road just to give increased visibility to the to approaching drivers that those pedestrians approaching. This measure is kind of an interim. We anticipate when the development on the 20th Street area comes to fruition that this will transition to a full traffic signal all those. But this was this is what we could do now given the the the levels of pressure and activity in the area.

And the thinking also is that that infrastructure can still be used for the future traffic signal.

And the next project is right there as well is Ashley on protection project. If you recall last summer, concrete wall banner was placed along the Trinity side of Ashley Pond for the concert series and the various activities primarily to stop our vehicles leaving Trinity and

and

going into the crowds of people out there. We have been working on alternates, but we are we're not at a stage where we can implement them right now. So we are gonna be placing those wall barriers back in place. I think it's May 16. It says it right there, which is a Saturday with the first concert starting May 22.

So they will be there for the next for this current year. We do have a contract with Groundworks Studio, who's a landscape architect team, and they're working on a permanent option to provide that crowd protection all in such like. So in the coming weeks, they'll be developing different options that will be presented to the public for feedback. And then just to point out that given the historic nature of Ashley Pond, wherever is chosen needs to

get the blessing of the state, the county and state historic offices.

The plan is to have this in place for next year's concert soon. Another project you probably hopefully are familiar with because I've been in front of three times with it is the NM 4 crossing and multiuse trail improvement project. This project is looking at reconfiguring and putting a trail along the North side of N M 4 between La Vista and Sherwood and installing a new Hawk, what's called a Hawk or a pedestrian hybrid crossing across N M 4 about 600 feet East of La Vista connecting into trails that will in Pinon Park that will ultimately connect over to Pinon Elementary. So and then over to the kind of the downtown of Whitelock. We're just working on the final PCs with DOT on the design approval.

We're hoping that's gonna be done by the end of this month. We can get the project out to bid June ish time frame with award, hopefully, in August July, August time frame, and then construction through the middle of next year. So that one should be coming sooner than than we think. You'll start seeing things happen there. And, you know, the the purpose of this was connecting the Meridore community over into the greater White Rock area and primarily providing a a safe way for the kids in Meridore to get to the Pinon School.

The next projects are kind of what we've been working on as a dry Diamond Drive wildlife crash study. We've been looking at this for a couple of years based on reviews of the crash data that discussed earlier. The county does have a is under contract with a entity or a a group who's doing a wildlife assessment for Los Alamos. We are kicking that off this month. And as part of their work, they're gonna give us some ideas about what kind of interventions might be best, particularly along the Diamond Drive by the golf course area, which has kind of been highlighted as a problematic area.

What we have been doing for the last year or so is investigating you know, we were asked about could we add street lighting along that section of corridor? We've we've kinda looked at that at various options. They're expensive. So it's a kind of a cost concern, and then it's something that if we work there's we'd actually need to get canceled to approve street lighting that area. What we've looked at is hardwired street lights with sensors that kinda like, your garage sensor that comes on when when it senses something.

Putting in hardwired is really expensive, so they run conduit. There are solar options, so we can do that. But we're still talking around about $600,000 if we were to streetlight that section, which we just really have to be make sure, and that's why we're waiting for this wildlife assessment to come. The other option we've been looking at is kind of flashing signs so that you see the elk sign with it's supposed to show little flashing LEDs in it. And Aaron Park is our traffic manager.

He's been investigating. There's with AI these days, there's cat there's softwares that you can feed from the from cameras that kinda do self learning. They know it's an elk or a big animal. It's not a false positive, and it'll activate the the flashing things. So we're not getting, like, it just flashing constantly and people just ignore it.

So so that's another strategy we've been working on. And then we're also we'll be evaluating the speeds along through that section. The next kind of effort we've been working on is five zero two looking at the segment, basically, from the county line to the east all the way to where the speed limit drops down to 35 or an airport. We did participate in a road safety audit led by and Texas Transportation Institute, who's a partner in the consortium. They were kinda driven to to work with us on the road safety audit because, as I say, the one fatality of director McMillan occurred kinda in that stretch.

So we did complete the the road safety audit. There's some kind of very general recommendations looking at formalizing. Right now, it's a big white paved area with some yellow and white lines. Nothing's really well defined. So with one of the recommendations was looking at actually making those raised islands and

looking at

ways to formalize that area a little bit more to make it safer and slow speed style and things like that. We also as looking at that area, we identified some deficiencies in the striping at Camino and Trada. The w o lines on 502 kinda ended early, which kinda gave people a reason to cut the corner, which actually resulted in a pretty serious crash at that location where someone made a left turn and right in front of a car coming coming through. So we actually implemented these striping improvements last fall. For the most part, my observations is, in general, most people are now actually turning as we would desire.

Their speeds are a lot slower. They're even though it's just a pain in dialing for the most part, they're observing them. The other piece of this was some folks reached out to us with concerns because they have offices on either side. That area and they're they walk between their buildings, so they were concerned. So we added some signage and some islands to try and help the area.

We couldn't make formalized pedestrian crossings one because the sidewalk network's not here. Plus, we there was no way we could meet ADA to to because of the grade of the roadway to within a a formal crossing. This seems to be sufficient given the volumes of traffic other than that kind of the peak times when their shift change changes for that reason. The other piece of this, I think you had a presentation last meeting or one of one of the last two or three meetings on the rumble strips, center line rumble strips. The contractors on board are scheduled to to start end of the early June.

Should be a few days of work to install the rumble strips, so that should be coming within the next four to six weeks. And then we're we're scheduling to do some speed data collection. We'll we'll capture some speed data before the rumble strips go in, and then we'll do it again after. And then we'll just assess about where where the speeds are compared to the speed limits and see if anything can or should be done to adjust those. The next location, Diamonds just tell me if I'm taking too long or I need to speed up.

Diamond Drive, Sycamore, there's currently curb ramps across Diamond Drive in this location. We did do a pretty serious analysis of this location back in 2023. We collected pedestrian crossing traffic crossing. We evaluated it. And this is one of those locations where you don't just put some stripes and signage and walk away and say you're done.

It's one of those locations where you either do nothing or you go the full Monty. So this location, if it if it was to receive treatments, it would probably suggest the time we can, like we're we proposed down in the in White Rock. So but at that time in 2023, the pedestrian volumes, and we tried to see, you know, are they being suppressed because of the situation? You know, sometimes I catch 22. No one's crossing because no one wants to or feel safe doing it.

But so we looked at, you know, desire lines for for potential things. We couldn't see anything. You know, it would really at that time, it was, like, the Pueblo Complex would need to change use or change its intensity and be a better bigger draw for either people using the bus or coming from the. In in recent weeks, we've received some additional requests about this location. We've suggested that usage of the lot of that crossing, particularly from kids using transit, has increased.

One of our thoughts is the gymnastics program closed up on North Mesa and now the gymnastics program in the Pueblo Complex, so maybe that's changed some of those. So we're doing a whole new fresh study. We did the data collection here last week. So we're taking another look at this location coming forward, probably in the next couple months with a a recommendation of anything we need to do here. Another area is Central Ave pedestrian crossing requests on review.

We've reviewed the visibility of

crosswalks along Central Avenue from 15th to pretty much the justice center. I'm gonna say that the visibility is there's been a lot of concerns, race rules about parked cars right up against the crossings, making it very difficult for drivers to see pedestrians moving into the crosswalk. Eric's Eric Ulla Barry's team has has looked at that, and they have some recommendations for some parking removal to open up the visibility to those crossings. Obviously, in a downtown, removing parking is a sensitive subject. So they're working with the LAC DC.

Did I get that right? LAC DC. The way you say it, he's the way he said it, send it right, the way I said it, so right. And and then we'll do we'll be working with them to do some business outreach before anything is implemented just to make sure everyone understands why why we're doing it and what the ramifications are. So probably the next month or two, primarily, if we move forward with that, it'll require just some striping to to keep up where you can park.

Another location in this corridor was at the Oppenheimer Intersection. There always was a same crosswalk there, but we received people that were asking for it to be marked because they had concerns about their safety cross here. We we reviewed it, and we agreed that in this location, the signage alone wasn't sufficient. So we put some striping in when it was done in September. And then as part of that, we actually moved there's feed speed feedback sign.

Basically, it tells people their speed. So we moved that so that it's more closer to the intersection. So when people are coming up the hill, they see the speed feedback signs. They know how fast they're going as they approach the crosswalk. And then we're we're we're looking at a cross whether the crosswalk at Rose Street across Central Ave, which is just further down the hill here.

We're looking at signage and striping and the potential RFP at that location. So we'll be concluding that assessment here easily shortly. And then we just last year, our striping crews went through and refreshed all the crosswalks. They'll be coming through in the next few weeks and refreshing them again just to raise their visibility. And then the the little red rectangle over in the bottom right, so these these were projects or recommendations in the pedestrian master plan.

So it was part of what's driven some of this as well as those recommendations. So this one kinda matches three of the of the recommendations for the pedestrian master plan. Just further down the corridor when central turns to Canyon by the aquatic center to an hour crossing point that had the curb ramps, but no markings or signage. When we when we studied it, we found there was quite a lot of scope. Kids at certain times of the day crossing at this location, either they've been at the aquatic center and they were going up to to Sala or I'm not quite sure where they were going, but we did deter determined the marking and signing this crosswalk had validity.

So that was done last September by our our traffic crews as well. And there were there's a couple other locations on Canyon Road. It's a little confusing because Canyon Road, years off at central by the aquatic center, kinda loops around and comes out. So we are looking at Canyon Village, which is just a little west from here, but then another one on Myrtle Street, which is a way over on the other side of Canyon, basically just over here. And so a couple locations there we're working on.

And, again, this kinda meets one of the recommendations from the pedestrian master plan. And then North And Urban Street, as you probably know, the council received a petitions petition after the March 15 pedestrian fatality at this location, requesting that a four way stop be placed at this intersection. Council directing staff to review that request and return within ninety days. We've completed the data collection. I'm in the process of beginning the data analysis, looking at traffic cam data, pedestrian crossing data.

We have video cameras up, so we'll look at behavior. We put some sensors in the road to help us identify if and when people are maybe not stopping at the stop signs, then we can validate that with the. So we're so I'll be working that price more quite intensely next week.

And

then our plan is to be coming back to T board with a recommendation at the June 4 meeting. I won't be getting that because I'll be in vacation, And then go to cancel it at the June 23 meeting as a final recommendation. Giving us a few days to spare to meet the ninety day council. Canyon Room Trail. This kind of ties into safety because it's looking to extend the Canyon Room Trail where it currently ends at Connect.

For now, the first phase three a takes you to 15th Street. That piece of the project has been designed. All the all the easements have been obtained. Right now, we're just having to undergo a biological assessment because some of the easements cross property. I'm not sure if that's the only reason.

It might be a bird of concern. But they expect that assessment will be complete to allow the project to go out to bid in the fall. So more likely, summer next year, a piece of the project be done. Phase three b, which is a blue piece, we don't own any of the property in that location right now. So Eric group have been working with the elks, and some negotiations with J and L Storage ongoing on that one.

So that's a little bit behind three a. It'll be forthcoming, hopefully, in the next two or three years. Then the green line, that's tied in with the 20th Street development that council approved a few months ago. They're going through their due diligence phase right now on the property, and it's expected that they will be moving forward with, an estimated twenty twenty eight completion time frame.

So at

least that piece will be done should get done at that point then tying into the.

Then that that time frame Can

I hand it over to chief who

Just add to Keith's presentation, talk a little bit about a couple things? The speed camera issue, which council approved, this this current fiscal year is hopefully gonna return to council either the nineteenth or, is it the fourth or the first June 4, I think. One of those two is a current target for that to return to council, and then there'll be an implementation phase. Probably looking at five static cameras to begin with, and we're looking at two on the truck route, one on Para Rito, one on N M 4, and one on Diamond to begin with. And then we'll evaluate as the program continues to move forward.

Another thing that council did was fund two officers for a traffic unit. The the data you see there on the right is the data from that traffic unit, those two officers, this year. So the first four months. So they've been they've been very active. The value of there's many values, but one value of having a dedicated traffic traffic unit is they don't get calls for service so they can do traffic and stay in an area and not have to return, which is what we were finding in in the previous model we were using.

If you commute to Los Alamos, I'm sure you've seen them out there. And, you know, we're still battling things like, you know, the the apps people use to say where we're at and all those things. But, they've been effective. And, you know, as you can see just this year, what is that? 50 people over 26 miles an hour with speed limit.

So still a challenge. Of course, you probably all heard about the fatal on 502 last night. That was in Santa Fe County, but, you know, we did assist with that. We do assist with things that occur, down to 30. Well, we have an MOU, I should say, down to 30, which just allows us to do enforcement through there.

But we did assist on that one last night. So much of what occurs through that corridor is obviously Los Alamos commuters. So we're happy to have that that relationship with the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office. Similar to Keith's slide talking about the three e's, you know, we like to we're always gonna have that enforcement piece, but we like to look at where we can contribute to education and prevention. We just did a DUI checkpoint last week.

We we typically run over 2,000 vehicles through a checkpoint. We haven't had a DUI come through in the last several. Although we did have three DUIs last week, they weren't part of the checkpoint. But that could be considered both prevention and enforcement. We like to engage in not just, you know, standard speed enforcement, but, so we included some of this on the on the left side too.

We get a lot of complaints from the schools about people passing stopped school buses. So we have our traffic officers following the school buses to enforce that. And just thinking out of the box, the last bullet point there says, you know, working with multi jurisdictional traffic enforcement to target, you know, commuting traffic and and those types of things. We we're part of the school's driver's ed program, for example, where we talk to the kids about distracted driving and, you know, what to do if stopped by the police and that type of thing. So to again, to the degree possible where we can, it's not just about enforcement.

If we can involve ourselves in prevention and education. Safety Town, great program. We'll be celebrating our tenth year this year. That's all about prevention and education for the young kids. Ms. Knockley had a question earlier about have we cited any Wildlife. Wildlife. I'm aware of one that we've cited. As I explained to counsel when we were discussing that ordinance, you know, our typical posture. Well, with anything really, but particularly with new ordinances, is to not be so heavy handed in the beginning to warn people.

And I'm sure that's been our posture. But there is one that I'm aware of, and I think it was a pretty egregious wildlife feeder that we have cited. And the feedback that I've gotten is most people have been, compliant once, warned. And so if you do have information on that, locations or things you want us to look into, miss Nachal, you can certainly email me, and we'll we'll take a look at those as well.

I don't think I have the second slide. So

I haven't been in front of T Board before, but I guess I can stand for questions. Is that the appropriate?

Well, we've got one more slide.

Oh, okay.

So just kind of the last component is that we have established a traffic and road safe what we're calling a traffic and road safety task force. It's basically internal staff from the public works and PD.

County manager's office.

Yeah. And the CPR was it. The PIO's office, like, CPR makes me think of first aid.

Her her PIO and

also fire department. So we've been kinda meeting monthly. And so part our meetings was developing this presentation, but also looking at doing communication and outreach through the PI's office. The kind of the banner along the bottom was NMDOT a few years ago. It started to develop this look for me program. It's pretty prolific, at least down in Santa Fe and across some of the right areas. I'm not

going to look for

up here, but, basically, it's kinda look for me as a driver, look for the pedestrian as a pedestrian, look for the driver. So it's trying to make that connection that it's not just one or the other that has to take responsibility, but it's everyone's responsibility. So we do our our PIO's office have been working on coming

up with

weekly or periodic educational distributions or informational distributions through their social media and stuff like that. So so we're working on that piece as well. So that's that's kinda it. And then now we can do questions and make sure they're all for it.

Thanks, guys. That was excellent. Questions or comments?

You know, this was really interesting.

You guys do a lot of work.

If I look at this, that's five or six stops, traffic stops a day for the time that you've been in business. Are those mostly during the week? Are they on weekends? It would seem to me these would be during the one door. Is that a fair assessment?

With the traffic unit specifically, yes. It's mostly during the week. They've been trying to hit they've been trying to go out there as early as four in the morning when commute starts, just pick up. And they've done that. I wouldn't say that that's a typical time frame. But they do try and mix it up a little bit. But it is during the week.

What does CFS mean?

Call for service.

Call for service.

So that could mean well, this car stop itself is technically a call for service, but it could mean something beyond the car stop. The person had a warrant. The person was impaired. The person, I don't know, had a medical episode that we needed to call. There was an ambulance for. A number of things beyond a car stop could trigger that number.

What about citations for distracting

texting or cell phone use? There are some. I don't know off the top of my head what those numbers are. But there's let me just say, wants to know why. Why did the person go left to center head on, which is what we had yesterday? I don't know that answer. And it's very difficult to determine that. In most cases With

cell phone records, you can't tell.

Even with that. Even with cell phone, you get a warrant. You determine that they were could determine that they were on a phone during the time that the crash happened, which is likely the risk. But knowing and proving something in court, let me say it that way, is two different things. So that's a challenge for us.

But we know that distracted driving is what is contributing to these. Because if not, then it's purposeful, which is unlikely. Or you call it an accident for a reason. The urban one, I know that that investigation is not done. But unless you feel that the guy did that intentionally, it was an accident.

And there's different reasons that could contribute to that. But there could be nothing nefarious about it at all. And it's just we're all human and we all Obviously there's cases where they're on their phone or they're eating, they're putting their makeup on, they're messing with their kids or their dog, or all those things that could happen. And then sometimes it's just you didn't see the person. Sometimes that's a hard distinction. Distinction.

Thank you.

I have a two part question for you, chief, and then one for you, Eric. I lost my sister a year and a half ago as related to speed and pedestrian. So regarding the slide with pedestrian crashes that happened in White Rock, are we able to determine if speed was a factor? And then going to the slide with the numbers of how speed plays into effect, three twenty three are for, what, 16 to 25 miles. How do we succeed in bringing that number down?

What happens with any significant crash is that we will pull what's called like a black box on a vehicle to determine captures a number of different data points, particularly when there's an accident. That's a challenge. It can be a challenging tool to use. We're gonna do it every time, but the older vehicles don't have it. And the new ones, there's there's not a standard in in many situations in terms of how it captures data and how that data is interpreted.

Having said all that, that's typically one of the reasons it takes so long to determine why the investigations of fatalities take so long. And along with that, we're going to utilize a tool that's called a Pharo, which is we set it up and it spins and takes millions of pictures and we can recreate scenes and use that for additional analysis and investigation. If we're doing warrants, search warrants on telephones, and if the person is suspected of being impaired, I mean there's all these things that can go into these types of investigations. I can tell you, we take them all seriously. We're trying to determine to the best of our ability what were the contributing factors.

If it was a distracted driving issue, what was it? I'm just telling you that's a challenge in many cases, unless the person was willing to admit to what was happening. Sometimes that happens. But like I said, sometimes it's not something is nefarious. It's just we're human and we don't see people.

There's environmental factors in the sun and glare and all those types of things. Anecdotally, the officers, the traffic officers are telling me that it appears that they that how do they word that? Generally, the commuting traffic appears they they are appearing to make an impact. It appears to be slowing a little bit. The the sad part is with trying to change any type of human behavior, if we stop doing that tomorrow, it'll probably go back to where it was.

So we're gonna we've gotta continue the enforcement piece. You know, I'd like to think we got an 87 and a 40 a couple weeks ago. That's that's gonna be a significant penalty for that person. So hopefully, that'll change their behavior. But, you know, even those how many 50 over 26 miles an hour, I mean, that's that's gotta be purposeful in my view. So it when we talked with council, we talked at length about really chain what it is is trying to change human

beings. And,

you know, that's why I say we start start young, start with them with the young youngsters talking about traffic safety and pedestrian safety. You know, safety town teaches them how to cross the street. In a crosswalk, it teaches them how to ride the bus and

ride a

bike and use a helmet and all those things. And the hope is just that people and I think it bears out with the statistics that Keith showed. We have work to do. We always will. We have the same issues as anybody else.

But we don't have them in the volume that other communities do, and that's a good thing. But again, if we don't keep our focus on this issue, I think particularly with some of our heavier trafficked areas, we're just going to continue to see some issues. So enforcement's a part of it, and we'll continue to do our part. I just didn't want you all to think that we were all about enforcement, about education and prevention where we can be.

And then for my second, third question ish, is we talked about AI as it relates to wildlife. Have any other communities, like, used this technology? And, like, is there an analysis or, like, cost you know, initial cost. I mean, obviously, AI is

big. Yeah. So the the system we've been looking at, it is freeware at the AI component. You just need a laptop to be able to take the camera feed and then then the AI piece is it's currently free. So at least the one we were looking at. Okay.

Really, the the point of using that is so that the software can recognize that it's an animal and not a human.

Or it's a Volkswagen or And

Right. And so that way, it only activates during those times that it senses an animal. And that it's not on all the time. Because when it's on all the time, people get blind and used to it. Right? And so the the point is that we're trying to put out a system that is only activated when animals are present. And there are other systems like infrared and things like that. But, again, there's, like, no distinction whether it's a human versus an animal.

And they also gave a lot of false positives. It's the research that our traffic manager is done with the are those other technologies? It's

false positives.

People lose confidence in the notification, then they they start ignoring it.

I have several questions. Thank you very much for your presentation. I really appreciate that we were able to see this and get kind of an update as to all the different things you're working on. Starting with the Ashley Pond crowd control project, I hope that people gets to see some of those ideas that are being developed. Because I'm definitely very invested as a citizen then also as an event organizer, I'm really glad that last year the ugly concrete barrier went into place.

I know a lot of grief was given, but I think it was very important to establish that this is an area that you're paying attention to because it helps alert citizens and pedestrians. Oh, there must be an issue if they're changing the way this feels through here. I am curious if there's going to be an intention to hopefully put groundscaping between the pedestrian walkway that's along. Because I was looking at what is planned for the Trinity Drive ADA improvement area. And one of the concerns I've had since I moved here is that I'm and I'm glad all the things that are going to be put in place will be put in place, but it is not a comfortable place to walk along.

It's always it's going to feel that way until we put some sort of barrier that feels a little bit more than just raising the curb.

So I

was just curious if that was planned for groundworks to look at.

I'll try to answer your first question. So yes, T Board will have an opportunity to look at some of the options that Crown is going to put together amongst several other boards, actually. So the historic advisory board will also get a look because Ashley Pond is considered a historic property. The transportation board, parks and rec board, of course, county council will have a look in order to help kinda inform our decision. And all those will have the public engagement component to get feedback from the public as

well. So

next question was about the greenscape and maybe the the separation in the road and sidewalk. So with the Trinity project, think a lot of that sidewalk does have somewhat of a buffer space, but there'll be an introduction of a bike lane that will also create a buffer between motor vehicle traffic and the actual sidewalk itself. So that also puts some space between there. But I totally agree with you because I've walked down Trinity before. It's not a very comfortable walk.

Not with Pilbara and Nitro or what have you. With the bike lanes, I mean, sorry, have a few questions. Hope that's Okay. But along the bike lanes, and I appreciate that the community is putting these in, especially since some of the statistics, it bears conversation to go a little bit more deep into what's going on with our bike riders and what's happening with them. But are you going to place things that really create a real barrier?

Because a stripe doesn't necessarily do so, and especially on Trinity. Maybe that's not necessary everywhere, but even like reflectors or rumble strips or anything that feels otherwise, it's just more road. That's how people treat it. And I'm just curious if that's part of and I don't know. I'll have to go back and look and see what's been discussed in the past, but if those are considerations.

Member Kommi Nong at this point is designed just as with the bike lane and the single lane heading west. Sorry. Was getting my directions

mixed up.

But we hope we get, as as far as the effect of the change in in lane configuration is getting what we're seeing on the other portion of Trinity past Oppenheimer heading towards the medical center. And what we've noticed there is that we've there's a reduction in operating speed in motor vehicles. So that's what we hope to achieve there to further enhance safety as

well. Sorry. I also have a great interest in Central Avenue in particular. So many things I could say about the wildlife stuff. I'm curious if you're hopefully, you're looking at Colorado.

They've really had some incredible impacts into their wildlife numbers in terms of crashes. And not just with the big fancy beautiful things going over I-seventy and whatnot, but they've been looking at some other technologies, kind of like what you're talking about. So I'm glad to hear that. But with Central Avenue, one of the concerns I've had when I am in that area is and I very much appreciate the initial signage and the striping and that you will update the striping. But there are a lot of different crosswalk languages happening as you go down central.

And as a driver, you're like, oh, well, this is another script. But this one looks different than the next crosswalk. And now, Okay, now there's a bump out. That style of crosswalk is happening. There's just so many different styles of approach that's happening. And in that particular area that's in that photo, I have stood there multiple times and watched really well intentioned drivers, not distracted drivers, not speeding drivers go right past me. Not even see me. I'm wearing bright clothes. It doesn't matter. It's the daytime.

There's no sunset. All the things that I'm going, why is it? What is it about this space that doesn't feel like a crossing happening? And all I can think of is that that's the first one if you're headed west that's after the bump outs. So now you've gotten used to a bump out language of crosswalks, and all of a sudden that stops, and now we're doing regular crosswalks again.

So I think I would love to see your analysis. I don't know what we can request. I'll defer to the chair on some of this. But I just wanted to bring up that I'd like to see a similar language happen all the way along, if possible. Be that race crosswalks, be that art crosswalks, be that other kinds of approaches that we know might be even more impactful in the long run.

And then I was going to ask about if even reflectors, if reflectors could be part of the crosswalks as well. And I know cell removal, fire trucks, all those things. But I just thought I would illustrate other options that would be lovely to see. And then I was looking at North Road. And I know that the community is really upset with good reason with what happened at North Road and Urban. And if there's a way that T

Board

can help expedite that by meeting earlier, if that's necessary, so that it's not just a few days before the ninety day. I just wanted to volunteer, that I would be willing to do that. But that's an option. Those would be my remaining comments and questions.

So first of all, my son did safety town last year. And we really liked it. And I appreciate the effort. And it's a great Okay. Just wanted to say something.

Thank you. The other thing I'm thankful for is I noticed every time, both on Barrancamese and at Mountain School, if there is a police officer at the intersection, people drive and act more conservative. And I also appreciate that. So I'm just being present in the midst of the war and enjoyable walk to school. What I noticed looking through the fatalities in crash location and old crashes, it seems to me like they are somewhat clustered on diamond.

Of course they are, because this is where most of the traffic happens. But it also seems like those are the areas where where cars are going fast. And also, when people are stressed, getting to work and and so on. And then this is where engineering controls and designing safe intersections will be very, very helpful. So across the world, statistics show controlling the speed of cars directly correlates with fatalities and injuries.

And everybody gets sidetracked. Everybody gets stressed. And so and it's easy to ignore a stop sign. It's easy to ignore a paint and swivel into the the bike lane. Every time I ride my bike to work, every single time, somebody swivels into the bike lane because it's just a line. And nobody does that on purpose. It's just you're sidetracked somehow. So I I would appreciate backlinks and sidewalks to have more separation to drivers. And on the, Trinity upgrade, there is a portion called CNG. I think that's the gutter.

I was wondering if a buffer like that could be moved over between the cars and the cyclists, something like that. Another thing is you don't have to necessarily make roads narrower for speed control. It just has to appear narrower. I don't know if this holds true, but I think there is this pedestrian island on community at 36 Or 37th Street. And what I noticed is people slowed down And I think there has been an accident issue.

But the lane with things making it the same. People slowed down because the curbs are are closer to the road and so on. And I agree with, like, curves at the crossings. I feel like people are going slower at the crossings, where there are the and such. And I think those and raised pedestrian crossings would be along central.

I think it's also a good idea to consider, As I understand, the fatal accidents a month ago was a truck on North Road turning left, and there is a stop sign. So I was like, either they marked the stop sign or they accelerated really hard to make to to get up to a fatal crash speed. I don't know if there if there is anything. But I think by doing things like centerline hardening,

when you

have a plastic bollard that doesn't allow you to cut the corner, things like that, where you have to turn sharper, those vehicles down reduces speed. You have a completely raised intersection that reduces speed, changing the texture of the intersection. So a lot of European cities do cobblestone in intersection because it feels weird going fast over cobblestone. It doesn't have to be that it would be structured concrete or something like that. But there are ways to communicate without a sign, a speed, and reduce the speed, and control it that way.

And every time you can apply an engineering control, you should do that. That's always more effective than education. The other thing is I'm worried that this is called regression to the mean. We have very few fatal accidents. And if we upgrade this one intersection and then see that nobody had a fatal accident there, we ignore the fact that we have a ton of intersections that are very similar where the next accident could happen.

So what I encourage is to design kind of a template that is applied to all or most smaller intersections in town, especially around school zones don't wait for the next intersection to have a fatal accident to to make changes. And another thing I was curious about is if the Cannon Rim Trail is extended all the way to 20th Street, in 20th Street, there is no pedestrian or cycling crossing. But this would connect directly to the urban trail that I'm very fond of. Is there a plan to put lights there?

So as part of this Trinity Drive project, we'll be putting a rectangular rapid flashing beacons at that crossing with on mast arms, and there'll be advanced ones. So it'll be very visible when someone pushes a button that to the drivers that someone's waiting to cross. When the development comes, and it's probably in the next two years or so, if they keep on their schedule, then a trail will transition to a a natural traffic signal at that intersection. So as, hopefully, timing works and the Canyon Room Trail comes kinda at that time frame, then then when the Canyon Room connects at that location, then we'll have a fully functioning traffic signal crossing at that point of heading by crossing. And as an interim, it will be the rectangular rapid.

Great. And the last thing I was wondering about, are there other communities that tried this AI wildlife flashlights? And are there any studies on on how successful that was? Or or

I think it's relative. Iron Park, who's our traffic manager, has been talking to various vendors who provide the signage. I think it's relatively recent

being used. So our intent was we

were gonna kinda set up a demo or a trial. We're kind of because this wildlife assessment is about to kick off. We're kinda, like, holding off. Starting that demo just to get some feedback from those folks

on on the concept and if they think

it's a valid one to move forward with.

And one

of the reasons for that is the they may come up with recommendations about game fencing and ways to channelize where wildlife is going, and that may inform our decision on where certain things may be. We want to at least get through some initial recommendations from the wildlife study, and that'll further inform kind of what we do next. All right. My turn.

Oh, go ahead.

Sorry. One more quick question about this slide, and it just reminded me. Robust business and public outreach throughout the project. About a month ago, I work at Smith's. We're not part of the construction site specifically, but I received a phone call regarding possible water shutdowns and water adjustments to to us. I was added to a mailer, or at least that's how I it was told to me is I would be added to a mailer or, like, an email distribution list talking about, you know, different things about the project. A month later, I haven't seen anything with regards to that. So I'm just I'm curious to know how we can make sure how we I'm sure each is important.

We'll pull up the county engineer.

We have Eric Gooley, but here, county engineer, and his staff is managing that project.

Hello, chair. Yeah. Thanks for the question. It was a good one. We actually hired a consultant to help us with community outreach.

She's probably the one I spoke to. Yeah.

So something might have just gotten lost in

the mail, so to speak.

But I'll make sure that they reach out to you guys.

Yeah.

Water is a big part of our business, I mean, from a food safety standpoint. I mean

I will definitely let them know. I'm out

of turn. I tried the QR code. Did it work? Did it work?

It work?

It Yes, did it.

Sorry.

Okay. So I wanted to start with a couple of educational things because we have some

new Yeah. We

have some new board members. But specifically on Trinity Drive, so staff brought three options to us. And keyboard was entirely split. They didn't settle on any of the three. And so when I went to counsel, counsel selected the hybrid option. But one of the options was to go full road diet, one lane in each direction, and then protected bike paths on each side or on one side. Can't remember. You said protected? Yeah. So that was there.

Another thing is remember Geppard Kleinrath? So before he joined us, he was on the bicycle work group. And so he gave us a presentation on various things that could be done. And one of the focuses was on central. And so they had a lot of good.

So I'll try and get you that stuff. One of the things we talked about is when you brought up the possible solution to North Road Urban. So there's things that all kinds of things you can do that'll get people to, I don't know what this looks like, so I'm slowing down. And I mean, one the ones that I liked was the delineator in the middle, right dead center in the middle of it, and a circle painted around it. And so it becomes de facto a mini traffic circle, right? But people here, as you know, coming in town, they'll come to complete stops

when they

see it. It works. And a lot of people who live in that community I just got done walking it don't really want no one will say they're against the four way stop. But a lot of them are nervous about it because the slope coming into the intersection from above, it's steep. And so when it's icy, they're worried about that.

I'm living on 48th Street. I go down that road, that intersection, everything. Every time I go to my house and from my house, I would argue because of the steep slope, because this is an intersection where people go to school, it would be even more important to slow people down. And I my problem with putting up stop signs is it's just too easy to ignore them.

I'm sorry. I was not advocating stop signs. Just didn't want to slow the process of getting to a solution.

I think that there should be controls applied on top of that. And I think that this is like just putting something in there that is not dangerous if you hit it with a car, like a plastic ballard, but is a vertical obstruction, Means people drive slower. And I've like, I found a study in Canada where they had a 25 miles an hour or home, and people were driving 35. And they just put a plastic bollard in the middle of the road, didn't change the road width at all. People were driving 10 miles an hour slower just because there was something sticking out and something that people perceived as a potential obstacle.

But humans are sophisticated animals, and and there are instincts like, if there's an obstacle, I will slow down. And it doesn't have to be dangerous to the driver if they need it. Plastic ballers fall over. You might have to buy a new bumper. Seems to be very effective.

So another item on the Trinity project too. So when we saw the pre conceptual design on what this might look like, and all of them had the preference was for bollards, big bollards. They're looking bollards, right, between Trinity and Ashley Pond. Another thing that was being discussed is the possibility of moving the bus stops from central over there. So that would provide an additional possible protection. I don't know where it's at right now, but just

There's a bump out for the bus. Yeah.

Okay. So questions. So why was Santa Clara on Forest Service Road included in our data?

Because it's actually within Los Alamos County. Okay.

That's complicated.

It's within the,

you know, the

boundary for Los Alamos County. It was State Police responding in the record.

And then so on an intraada, I know I've asked this before. So in in the state, at one point, was in that I think it came up with a possibility of a roundabout there at Entrada and 502. But they've decided to go different directions?

No. No. So there was a road safety audit conducted for that area. One of the discussions as a potential countermeasure. So nothing was ever decided or it it these were all just analysis that could take us to the next step of doing a more thorough study, assembly of alternatives, that sort of thing.

What we're trying to do right now so 502 is a is a state road. It's not a county road. But we're trying to work with the state. We're actually leveraging some grant opportunities to see if we can get some momentum going, fund some study and design work. Nothing to report yet, but that's our that's that's what we're working on.

Thank you.

My last one is White Rock. So as a result of the Skolnick petition, several mitigations were suggested by staff. But you guys didn't include them in this report, like the bulb outs at the crossings, know, Grand Canyon, Sherwood, Rover, and Aragon, I think. Is that are those things still on the table?

Or Yeah. Thank you for that, mister chair. We can, you know, speak to that some of that. In fact, Eric and I were talking about that somewhat recently about, you know, trying to get some momentum going on getting some of those things installed. Because I know there's been a little bit

of a

some time between when we've talked about doing that to now.

David and I have some other questions. I only was asking you questions questions so you could sit down. However, just a comment on the crash summary. We look really good compared to the state of New Mexico. But part of that is because the state of New Mexico has very high speeds on most of the roads that crashes happen.

So it might be useful to compare with another or two or three cities that are about our size to see if our statistics are better than better or worse with cities that have similar speed limits. Just so we don't pat ourselves on the back too well. I agree with the comments about the Central Avenue. Just let me see if I can find what I wrote down. There are, it seems to me, too many places that put pedestrians at risk along Central Avenue. I I

don't know

why we have all

those crosswalks just lined up. It seems like people could walk 15 feet and go to a crosswalk.

But removing parking places in order to improve the visibility, I don't think is going to help. Because often people are, even if there's not a car parked

in the space next to the crossing, until they get close to the crosswalk, really close to the crosswalk, you don't see them.

What would really help are those flashing signs. It could be LED lights along the side so that when someone's ready to cross, you simply push a button and the lights

would go on for

a period of time. And that would increase the visibility and reduce the possibility that somebody's going to do that. I don't know if you can accomplish that or not,

but it

must be somebody sells solar powered No. Lights like that.

They do exist. They're I think you're talking about five zero two, like the the RRFBs that we have on 502 and we're closing the Trinity. So so then, typically, you in this case, like downtown, like in Central Ave, traffic speeds are should be low enough that that you don't typically would go to that higher intervention. So you can look at it for those locations, but they typically wouldn't really warrant it. I think what kind of goes back to

everyone has to take some level of responsibility. And so

the pedestrians need to not just walk out into a crosswalk. You know, the the purpose of the the build out sort of curb extensions is to prove a pedestrian in a location that they can be seen by a car. So they walk to that point, to the crossing point, make contact with the driver approaching to ensure that they've seen them before they step into the walkway. And it's the same sort of drivers. The reason we put signs and pavement markings is to raise their awareness that it's a crosswalk. So I understand Herman's point is humans are complex and they don't always conform to what we want. But one of the challenges is if we start putting flashing lights at every crossing

That's why there are too many crossings. You need to have a few crossings with flashing lights so people will cross in those places.

I understand. And we're trying to balance the what what a downtown is with functionality. So if we just take all the every second crosswalk out, then you start losing some of that functionality as a doubt. It's a you know, it's something has some validity, I'm just you know, if you wanna drive fast, take Trinity through town. I don't take Trinity at all. But I totally understand.

Yeah. And just to add to that, every roadway type has its context of how to design different elements to it when it comes to traffic devices. And if you recall some time ago, don't remember exactly when we came to the T board with a mid block guideline policy. What are we calling? Crossing policy. Mid mid block crossing policy. And so that helps us determine, and that's using national standards,

you know,

engineering guidelines to help us inform of when certain traffic devices implemented under certain conditions. So that way, it addresses what Keith mentioned is it's difficult just to put up flashing signs at every crosswalk.

One for cost, the other for maintenance,

and third, the other for compliance. Because if we have those everywhere, then they might not be compliant with.

I'm just pointing out that when people see flashing lights, they stop. Because that means someone's going to cross the street there.

I have one question. So you're not taking turns here.

First of all, I find it very difficult to turn in these narrow lanes where we have the constrained turn at the hospital. So I tend to go straight ahead and go down the bypass to get out of town. Down the Armenial Bypass. So I don't have to go through town with all of the traffic lights

and

constrained turn at the hospital, which I find very tricky.

Chairman, may I recommend let me take a quick

rest of week if possible.

Sure. Do we have time to do I

just need to run

real fast.

Yeah, Okay. Minute or ten minute break.

I never take Trinity. Sometimes I have to go downtown. But if I'm in a hurry, I don't go The other thing that works for the police is just to have a car park.

Often they do that out by the golf course. And I see

these people, brakes go on because they never know if there's

a side of

a 15 ass crosswalk. It was on him.

I see the traffic unit everywhere now. True. There

are just the volume there.

There's a

motion activated. Yeah.

It's not that big of a county. They make the rounds, so I see them. A lot of times, they'll be working. They put them on the Main Hill Road.

I just raised my hand

when you said A lot times I'll just see them

work for it.

I wonder if they you know, the reason I asked that question

I'm thinking about

weekdays versus weekdays. It

seems to me

that they would

be much more productive during weekdays as opposed to weekends. There's so much more traffic. Warning sign and it's always flashing.

This discussion has made this meeting my favorite keyboard meeting of all time.

We'll give it every meeting then. Keith

will be

here. I'll change the date. It's going to get even better with the next presentation.

It was a great report, by the way.

I'm sorry. It's just the people who managed to go by 30 miles an hour over. You have to go 85.

Oh my god.

Because you it was you. No. I don't. I don't.

Recording stopped.

Guy going 95 miles.

You know, I've been I've been past, you know, going the speed limit by somebody who's going It's

on a 45. And they caught him because they have the cameras on either end. And everybody was gonna see him, but they just know there is a passing there's people who

are at the airport. And

Okay.

Guys ready?

Recording in progress.

Is there any more questions, comments from the board? All right. Is there any public comment?

Oh, wait.

Just before we do that, member Edwards, do you have anything to say?

She might have thought it was a full ten minute break.

All right. Is there any public comment on this issue? All right. Next presentation.

I'll ask Ms. Romero if there's anything in the chat just to double check. Cool.

Okay. So May is bike month. Yay. So this is just a a quick run through of bike related things, just a know, of events. And then as we couple of at least one project will start each.

So next Thursday, May 14, is our bike to work day for Los Alamos. We'll be doing our traditional Energizer station from seven to nine on the corner of Canyon And Diamond. So ride your bike or just stop by, get some snacks and knickknacks. So that's next Thursday. We yesterday was actually the official bike and roll to school day.

We'd lined up to go to Pignon School, but there was a little bit of scheduling snafu, so we rescheduled to next Friday, May 15. This is a very from this one, the last two or three years, I think. Last year, we had over a almost a third of the school kids moved or moved to school that day. Their bike cracks were overflowing. So so we'll see if it's something we kinda hope to expand on.

We say it every year, but hope to expand on other schools so they can take advantage. We've just kind of focused on Pinon, one, of the NM4 crossing project. And two, we know that it's a pretty high participation school. Couple of other events are going on. Travis Malden, who's with the Los Alamos with the lab safety group, bicycle group.

He's coordinating a a group commute to the Energizer station next Thursday, starting at Barranca Mesa Pool and heading down Diamond to the thing. So there's a a few stop points where you can join at those times. And then the is it the Tough Takes? Tough Riders are doing a kind of a mini film festival on May 16. So information there.

Hopefully, my QR code works on that slide to take you to their website for that. Travis has also organized a whole bunch of events for for Lano folks. I didn't add them in here because primarily, they're on the lab site, so we can participate, unfortunately. But kudos to Travis for the money effort he does on on setting up events related to bike month. The next piece of bike news is after I don't know.

When did we come up with once did the list three or four years ago, we kinda came up with a concept. It wasn't a it's a it's an active concept, the green adding green pavement markings and bike lanes. This year, we managed to do our first installation. It's basically kinda a trial at this point. We put it on Diamond Drive at the Sullivan Field. So, basically, you could paint the whole length green, but that's a lot of money and probably loses effectiveness. Kind of what we've been transitioning to in the traffic industry is creating

Sorry. Can you speak a little louder? Microphone. No.

I'm doing so well.

I'd to

go back. I'm sorry.

Do you want me to start again?

Maybe at the start of at least the beginning of this slide.

Okay. So

any of that either.

So Green Bank Lanes have been around for a while in the experimental phase in the Federal Highway's manual of uniform traffic control devices. They're now an official part. We've been talking about installing the green bike lanes for a while. The challenge for Los Alamos is finding a material at rooftop in one and we

One of its UV resistant high elevation and the UV and, of course, plowing and

the abuse of just travel.

Yeah. So I twenty it was twenty years ago when I was in Massachusetts. We had a project where we wanted to do a median, basically. No. We didn't wanna paint it, and we identified this product.

It's basically an epoxy resin binder, and then you put an aggregate or something in it that sticks in it. And it's really hard wearing. In Massachusetts, they basically they get a lot more snow than we do here, and their plow blades are basically carbide. So, I I checked recently on Street View, and the treatments are low, bashed up now after about twenty years. But as you go back, you know, in Street View, you can look back.

It was looking pretty good until a few years ago.

About eleven years ago in my in Santa Fe when I worked down there, we did some green lane installations with different materials kinda to test them out. And one of them was this epoxy resin binder, but with a colored clash colored crushed glass. And don't be scared. This is this is the material that you put in it. So we did the first installation in Los Alamos County on Down Drive by the Sullivan Field Driveway.

It's one that I've when we've been doing our bike to work events, just been out there. I've seen lots of conflicts with bicycles and cars turning in, kids going to school in the mornings. We thought this would be quite a good first trial location, one, to test the material, but two, to kind of observe, does it make a difference for for raising the awareness for drivers of bicyclists who are going through this and learning? So we did this about, well, a month ago, two, three weeks ago. So, essentially, our it was installed by our traffic crew.

It's a relatively simple process. We duct taped off the areas that we wanted to place the material. The challenge is you've got about ten to minutes for, basically, like And we find that out the hard way with the first the first bucket. We're all going, oh, this looks good. And then we turn around, and the the bucket of the binder's smoking away, and it's gone, oh, do you think we could remix it?

And we go, So so after that first bucket, we got our system set up, and we're able to do the rest without incident. So, basically, you put the binder down, then you quickly and, basically, just hand throw the the crushed glass into the median. And the beauty of the curse crushed glass is is it's colored on all sides. So even if a plow comes along and takes the top off the the glasses there, because it's embedded in the clear resin, the color comes from below. So the the insulation with this material, we did that in Richards Avenue in Santa Fe eleven years ago.

You go down there, it looks as good as the day it was put in. The only challenge is, you know, rubber from tires. If it doesn't rain a lot, it kinda doubles it a little bit. But I went out there today, this is still looking really good. So this is the first location. One, again, as I say, to test the durability of the material and then also sec get feedback from the cycling and driving community. We'll be putting out a survey in the next week just to get some feedback on what people think of of this. We do have so we did the across the driveway, we had some additional material in one of our locations. This is right where we'll do

the

energizer station. Quite often, I had observed drivers making the right turn there, cutting off bicyclists. So we thought this would be a good secondary location to place material just to emphasize the turning drivers that bicyclists are moving through. So, look for that. And then we do have some additional green bike lane upcoming installations as part of

a couple of projects, the Trinity

Drive safety project that we were talking about. Just a little while ago, we'll we'll be looking to install this product across the driveways and intersections through that where that new bike lane's going in just to raise the visibility of of those bike lanes across those conflict areas. And then also as part of the NM four crossing project where we're putting the reducing the lineage and adding that material in those conflict zones. So we will be looking for input on one on the material and two on the perceived effectiveness. Does it make a difference?

And if people have other locations that they feel are high conflict, we can maybe start prioritizing for for future installations. So that's the green pipelines. And then kinda I know Herman may wonder whatever happened to the bicycle working group's recommendation. I think what we talked about at that point is the recommendations make sense. They're great, They're very infrastructure money to to turn an intersection into a a separated intersection.

It takes a lot of time, head scratching, design, and money. So that kinda one of the kind of had me thinking about how we could really take some interim steps of making some improvements that are doable. So one of areas we started looking at was the West Road Intersection with Diamond Drive right before the bridge. We've received quite a bit of feedback on who use the trail across the bridge and when they're coming back about making that left turn to the bike lane being detected by signals. So one of the one of the concepts is what's called a bike box.

So, basically, you turn for for those cyclists who who are uncomfortable making the left turn with traffic, you turn it into this a two stage left turn. So you'd make a a through movement to the green box in front of the northbound diamond traffic, and then you're in front of traffic so that when you get the green light, you've got a an easy pathway to the bike lane. What's kinda holding up as implementing this concept is it requires us to change where the crosswalks are and move the stop line back to make that area for the bite box, which then brings us into ensuring that the curb ramps meet ADA, and also we can make a nice transition for the bicyclists who are heading southbound to get onto the trail across the bridge. So this is something that we've kind of been working on. One of the things I'm looking at is our regional transportation organization, which we're a member of, has some has a on call consultants who we could get some grant funding to to have them review this concept and kind of flush it out a little more to make sure that we do it correctly and not just based on what I say.

There's also an educational component that would have to go along with this because some might not understand, well, what's this green box for and how do I use it sort of thing. So that would be something that would we have to follow-up with this one.

So as we once we start getting more into this,

we'll we'll obviously come back to the the keyboard

and give you an update on on the concept. The other piece of BISCO related information is is back in 07/01/2025 after the legislature and the governor had approved the law, New Mexico adopted what's called the Idaho stop law. It's called that because it was originally implemented in Idaho. Essentially, what it is is it allows bicyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign. So if no other pedestrian or traffic conflicts are there, they're able to continue through the intersection without stopping.

And it also allows bicyclists to treat a red traffic signal as a stop sign. So, essentially, if you're at a traffic signal and there's no conflicting traffic, you can come to a stop, and then you can proceed on the red. And this this traffic signal piece is less so now, but, originally, bicycles were never detected at traffic signals. So if you're on an approach with no other vehicles creating that detection, you could have been sitting there for a while. So this allows if you're not getting a detection and the it's clear to go, you can continue legally on the red signal.

So this law is now in effect. I'm not sure how many people are aware of it. I know when it initially came in, I received one or two calls from people complaining about a bicyclist running a red light, and and it turned out that the bicyclist was in the wrong country and actually come to a stop first. But it was an opportunity to talk to that person about the new law. But and I asked the chief if they had had any issues or concerns since the law came in, he hadn't heard of any. So he assumed that it hadn't been an issue.

He mentioned in his prior presentation about the task force talking about education campaigns. This could be part of that.

And then kind of bicycle related, just general traffic related. NM DOT has restarted their study of that corridor from over just five zero two. They're having a a public meeting next Wednesday at Fire Fire Station 3 down in White Rock. It's I know we've heard lots of interest, concerns, suggestions about adding bicycle facilities along this segment of NF4. So if if you have strong opinions about adding bicycle or not, doesn't have to be strong, any opinions about the segment of road where it's traffic or bicycle related, this would be a great opportunity to to get those shared with NMDOT so that they can look at seeing how they can incorporate that into the this project.

You can make the meeting. You can submit comments via email at connect@nm4study.com or call them. They set a deadline for public comment for June 12. So and I I did pass out a flip one of the this information and with your packet earlier on. I don't think I have it. Oh, yes. I do. Cool. I got a stack of those. You can take them for your friends and family if

you can.

Thanks. And

then so that's that's just a quick summary given that I talked forever on the first slideshow just of some of the bike related activities. I think the other thing to add is I think you all know we last year was our reapplication to, like, say, the community. We sustained our our bronze designation. Hopefully, with adding things like this, we can start giving green or something that's up to silver or. Hope there's any questions.

Particularly interested in anyone who's ridden their bike over the green material. Any feedback? I know when we first did it, we we had one person who thought we were putting AstroTurf down and thought it would never survive the plows, And they thought it was too bumpy, so they wouldn't write in it. So any kind of pavement treatment would create some kind of raised area. We were more interested in trying to find something that would have the longevity than

So I've been riding there all the time. And the material feels good. It feels like it will not get slippery in the rain or anything. Really feels good driving over it. I do get that if you're riding road bike or a commuter bike, it's a full suspension bike, so I don't care.

But that it is bumpy. But I remember when we had the discussion on the intersection at the hospital, you also said in a new construction project, you can make it level without being. So I think for turnaround, this is good. If we can make it level surface without the bumps, then we'll accommodate the cyclists and the meters better. But I do like the material.

I also noticed a lot of of high schoolers park in the Sullivan Field Park, I noticed that people are less likely to queue for the right turn on the bike lane with the green paintings. Meaning, this effect will go away with time. But as of now, I feel like there is some positive effect. I do have two more comments. One is I practiced the Idaho stop on on red lights because frequently I cannot cross Trinity to Smith's because it doesn't register my bike.

And I got some, let's interesting conversations from feedback. Feedback from drivers that were unaware. And with the cargo bike, I cannot push the the pedestrian crossing button because I just seems that we have to to park our bike on the roads, get off, and and so on. And is one thing. And the last thing is those markings on, I think, M4 in White Rock. Oops.

The one on

my slice? Yeah. Yeah.

Up to this one. Okay. Basically, the bicycle working group report, the recommendation was to avoid intersections like this, but keep the bike path on the far side of the road and have the contact point right before cars turn to fold. One is cars are crossing the bike path at a shallow angle, which tends to put the cyclist in the blind spots of the of the car driver. And second, people are going at speed here, so the conflict is at high speed.

For the turn, they will slow down where the conflict will be in lower speed. And if there is an accident, it will happen at lower speed. So is there a recommendation to to the bike path on the right hand side of the right turn?

So so in that location, there is a separated bike path? This this is just there's a bike lane up M 4, and then there's gonna be a barrier and then a bike path that then does come up to that. So people will have an all an option to ride in the road or ride on

the path

and get you to the intersection. So in that situation, that's because the bike lane's on the road,

and we're

creating a right turn lane. At least the people who would feel comfortable staying in the road would be unlikely to stay to the right of a car who's then gonna turn in front of them. This allows them to get to the stay on the left and be able to maintain their speed through the intersection. So it's kinda in this situation, we're accommodating two two types of bicyclists, those who are probably very comfortable dealing with that situation and those who are not. But, yeah, there's never a perfect solution.

And so we're trying to balance always trying to balance how can we accommodate this wide variety of of users. I I understand. Part of Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

Oh, just for a quick clarification, this would be pig and fig.

No. That's La Vista. Okay.

Yeah. So where is I I live in White Rock, I'm

like, where

is this? La Vista is the western entrance into Mirador.

So So you're further now.

To the top of the screen is the Mirador Subdivision. Okay. And so

So this is further toward the Bandelier?

No. This is by approaching La Vista Drive, which

is the The White Rock Baptist Church is on the

Yeah. The church is on the

Yeah. So basically, the drive that's the bastard yeah. This is the baptist okay. Correct. Thank you. Sorry. I was I was just trying to show the concept of adding green lanes. I could probably go put

Yeah. He's talking about a bump out there. Okay. Okay.

Thank

you. So, basically, like, 600 feet from this intersection is where we're putting the pedestrian hybrid beacon along the north side of N M 4. We're taking that rightmost lane and creating a multiuse path in the roadway that has a I think it was, like, an 18 or 24 inch wall barrier for a better term separating from the roadway.

You know, that's a bus. I know.

So the hatched area, see where the fur I'm sorry. Yeah.

Like the top right corner.

So basically, the this is where the trail comes off the roadway Okay. And then goes basically back of curb up to the intersection. So right here, back here, the trails within the road. Mhmm. That's you know, with a barrier. Mhmm. And then there's a the bike lane, then the travel lane. Mhmm. And then at at this point is we had to pull the to create the right turn lane, the acceleration, we had to pull the trail onto the the upper area. But when you do when you create a right turn lane and you have a through bike lane, you have to have a kind of this crossing area.

That's what where we use that green marking to basically tell bicyclists you're entering a conflict zone. Tell drivers you're entering a conflict zone, and, hopefully, it all plays nice.

So it's added added for all users.

Okay. So it's basically doing the that treatment there, except this would be a right turn lane to it.

I've seen that. Sorry.

It's confusing. Yeah. But that was intentional. When it gets done, you'll go, oh, that's what he was talking

about. Crazy guy.

Cool. A couple of questions.

Because you brought up the NM4 alignment study, I was curious about and I don't know what all this board has talked about in the past. So there's quite a few intersections in crossing NM4 and White Rock that have taken longer than anybody would wish, like for the Hawk Signal, for example, for the school and for the youth to be able to cross and that sort of thing. Has there been discussion about additional treatment for the crosswalk from visitor center would be one question? And then I was curious about bike lane treatment through there. And I can't even believe I'm going to say this out loud, but maybe also on Highway 4 connecting White Rock and Los Alamos has I'm sure there's been discussion about that at some point.

But because obviously buses can't I'm like, I've always wanted to participate in bike to work day, but there's a limitation there too.

So the alignment study will be addressed in the section from White Rock to

But it doesn't start till Rover. Yeah. It doesn't start till Rover.

And so I'm just saying that's so that that piece will address that piece in in town. You know, as I say, we're looking for for locations that you think are high conflict between bicyclists and vehicles where we can potentially put this green pavement marking. And that could be if if it's if we receive feedback on through White Rock, that could be one potential location. You know, that, as you say, there's a number of driveways and intersections. We we haven't looked specifically at the crossing at the visitor center.

It's already kinda got signage and markings and a median and stuff like that. We you know, if there's if there's additional concerns, you know, we're not didn't say they're it's great, but, you know, kind of the evidence we have right now isn't. But I know there's some usage change of uses in that area. So we can probably put that on our list to at least monitor, if not take a closer look at and see if greater interventions are needed. Change.

Sure. And just to to kinda dovetail on that a little bit. So and kinda the toolbox of countermeasures and, you know,

to address

conditions that that crossing that's here now has, yeah, quite a bit. And then it benefits from having a raised median. But any other changes, we'd have to do it to state Road. So we

would have

to, you know, confer with the DOT.

That's the timeline. I'm bringing it up just because I know the development that's happening in the areas I mean, I know you guys are aware of even just as things go for White Rock with updates to the Kenyatta Del Bui Trail, and you're really trying to get people to move across there, we already hear of things whenever there's an activation south of the visitor center. So market pop up on that property that's directly across or anything similar, People have questions and concerns, sometimes ask about, could we do the flag treatment that's in the Ghost Of Springs, things like that. Those kinds of queries we get and we hear about. So I was curious since the timeline for something like that is often longer than you'd like, maybe knowing when that conversation is.

But yeah, but with bike lane more so with the bike lane sort of thing, it would be good to know what has already been addressed in that area. So it sounds like you're already looking at a couple of key areas. Share those

suggestions and questions as you get them also.

Is anyone going to be able to attend the meeting next Wednesday?

I would like to try to go.

I can't, so that's why I'm bringing it up.

Yeah. Would have to turn around and leave. It's probably 06:45.

Steph going? I may have a conflict.

I might not Good. We're we're part of the stakeholder group.

We're we're already met with DOT and the and the their consultant already. And I sent them a number of concerns

and requests that I've

already heard over the years on this corridor. So I'm sure they'll hear some of that again from folks that are from the meeting. But I did inform them of of various issues

towards the ears. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Is there any public comment? If you want to make public comment, use the raise hand function.

All right. Thank you very much. The next item is liaison report. Counselor Haberman.

Oh, my we have so many parties. Can I just talk from

here? Sure.

Okay. Great. Let's see. First of all, I want to just give you all a summary from the budget hearings that we had week before so I guess last week. Last week? Week before last. April. I passed out this little one pager, two sided, all of you, just to kind of give you the FY '27 budget at a glance. That's also going to be on the county's website. In summary, though, we approved a $351,000,000 budget for fiscal year 'twenty seven that begins July 1.

In contrast, our budget for this current fiscal year FY '26 was $368,000,000 So we went down a little bit. Guidance for staff in developing the budget was based on County Council's strategic goals and priorities that were set last fall. General guidance included factors or elements such as salaries can be increased up to four percent. Non labor expenses will decline by 10%. Benefits will remain as per contracts with employees, and we're gonna maintain a flat FTE headcount.

That $351,000,000 budget includes a $113,000,000 for the general fund, about $95,000,000 for the joint utilities fund, dollars 64,000,000 for other enterprise funds. Those includes things like transit, fire, the airport. Dollars 26,000,000 for capital projects, which includes roads and facility maintenance, 23,000,000 internal service funds and $8,000,000 in debt service. Just a reminder that utility funds must be self sufficient by our county charter and the expenditures must be covered by rates charged to consumers. One of the biggest changes to our budget this year was in the revenue line item.

Revenues are projected to increase $17,000,000 to the general fund due to the gross receipts tax increase that council adopted. Gross receipts tax rates will increase to 0.625% effective July 1. Therefore, the new GRT rate for Los Alamos County will be 7.6875%. We did that, made that decision as a council because GRT revenues for the last two years have declined and were below our budget projections by about $20,000,000 And that was in large part due to revenue declines from the laboratory as they begin to take more exemptions from the state for how they pay their GRT manufacturing exemptions, to be specific. Overall, salaries and benefits make up about a third of the total of our budget, and the remainder is various contracts, utilities, etcetera, etcetera.

I could also break it down for you by department if you are interested, but I will say that the department closely aligned with transportation board would be the public works department with a $63,000,000 budget. I think that's right. I hope that's right. And that includes salaries, staff expense, staff costs, and funding for major projects. Because so many correct me if I'm wrong, but, like, for example, the new fire station, that falls under Public Works' budget, right, not Fire Department's budget as an example.

Right, under capital projects. Under the capital projects under thank you, more specifically. Los Alamos County website, if you don't know, has an kind of an open books where you can go in and you could actually look up different departments' budgets by line item. You can look up different contracts. And so if you're kind of concerned or wondering about different consulting contracts we do, you can go and look that up.

And finally, I just wanna let you all know that we had some conversation about and then ultimately amended our financial policy as an overriding, you know, guiding principle for our budget guidance that we will have a new target amount that our general fund a target amount in our general fund revenues for unassigned fund balance to be 20 okay. I'm not saying this right. We're gonna have a new target amount target amount in our unassigned fund balance that will equal 25% of our fund revenues. And in the past, we've operated with a 20% unassigned fund balance. So we're kind of taking a more conservative approach to have a little bit more buffer, if you will, for when we have volatility and less control over our revenues and expenditures.

Particularly the GRT rate.

Yes, that's right. The GRT revenues because that makes up like 75% of our revenues. Okay. So that's budget hearings in summary. Any questions? Excellent. Okay. Any any questions still on that? Okay. At our meeting this week, just two days ago on May 5 Oh, no. Which Jacqueline was at. Did a great job answering questions about Main Street.

Tell us about science.

Yeah. It's about Tell

us talk about science. Oh my lord. We received a really comprehensive presentation from Mark Davis, the deputy director for operations from the laboratory. Lots of q and a about traffic, traffic safety, commuting, housing, the lab's mission, and its new focus on stockpile modernization rather than stockpile stewardship, etcetera.

Are we allowed to ask question? Because otherwise, you'll go on and think of other stuff.

Mind if the chair doesn't mind.

Well, did I never understood the numbers that we hear from and this is relevant for T Board from Lantel about how many they plan to hire. He says around 1,100. And they're specifically changing policies currently so that there will be more new hires, not internal movement, because they need more people for all things. But then it equated to a much lower number of additional commuters. And that didn't make sense to me when already there's a high percentage of people working for the lab that commute.

Do you know what I mean? So it seemed to me like the number wasn't very clear. Did you have an understanding of what we should be aware of as going to be an increase in additional commuters over the next year?

So I know a few others were in the room that night. But I asked Mark Davis what percentage of the employees commute from outside the county. And he didn't really have an answer on that, although we have heard that in the past.

And you started giving percentages that you'd heard. And he was like, yeah, I think that's accurate.

Yeah, he did. He kind of said more than 50%. But I know I've seen pie charts in the past or bar graphs. And I think Tom Mason has addressed that too. But I think part of that too is that because the 1,000 to 1,100 new hires that they project for the next several years per year is gross, not net, because they're they're expecting about 900 attrition. So the net new hires is maybe closer to a 150 ish, you know, plus or minus. That was what I understood. Anyone Eric or David, did you have a different takeaway from

No, I was corrected by someone else about that today. Because I thought he was just saying, no, we're going to hire about another 1,000. But they agreed that most of it is attrition. But with the change in the lab's mission, I don't understand. Agree. I don't They

changed their policy of how like outside hire and applicants, which you said they've done before.

They're no longer allowed to hire somebody for solution that is from a different

part of the bank.

So they put a freeze on that last week?

Yeah. Like, Manage three and below have to be There was a study.

An incremental new employee to

So if we have a for a scientist too in our group, we cannot hire them from a different

Yeah, steal from physics division or something.

Is what I understood. And I think there was a study a few years ago where they said like 40% of lab employees live in Los Alamos County. So

I think

the ratio of people who need is actually higher

Is that 60? Like he said, he think over 50, that's kind

of yeah. Yeah.

But it's just too high of a number, my vantage point, from Bernalillo County. But okay. So did that answer your question kinda sorta not really?

It's hard for me to believe that we're gonna only have an additional 40 commuters. Okay. Yeah. 1,100 new people hired. The attrition will make it actually only 200. I don't know. Just Especially when you

have attrition, a lot of people stay here, right, after they retire. Okay. So then thank you, Diloj. Thank you, Jacqueline. Then we oh, we appointed just because you guys are board members. We appointed a fellow board member, Matthew McClary, to the health council. We introduced an ordinance that will be heard, I guess, in a public hearing at a future no, this one's actually going to go to the electorate for adoption, an ordinance to start allowing three terms to board members instead of just two terms.

That was three year terms.

No, I think it's three terms.

Three terms. Six years. Or

nine years of planning and zoning.

Nine years planning and zoning, six years, ESB or T board, right? So that's what that is. So that happened. And that's boring.

Skip science.

Yeah. You know, you wouldn't want to get the science. Well, think we, you know, we we did do some cleanup on the handheld mobile devices, you know, distracted driving stuff. So I think, you know, we did it. We we we now we adopted a table of penalties that have know, what the dollar amount will be if you're cited for distracted driving or using a handheld device. So, like, that was good. That's always, like, on the radar. And then we had a little presentation from Jacqueline, the director of Main Street, to renew the memorandum of understanding between the county and the Main Street program. And that was approved. And then we talked about some ideas for a temporary sign.

Not a temporary sign, code, code for temporary signs. I think that's a better way to say it. And that was enlightening. I don't know if I have really anything I need to say about it unless you guys want me to say anything

about it.

If I could just go watch it for an hour.

Hour and a half.

Quite some time. We all had opinions. I think all seven counselors spoke on it.

If you couldn't find the farmer's market this morning, that might be why. Because I was like, well, not That's hilarious. Girls already in advance. That's

hilarious. We did learn in the county manager's report that an EPA grant application for a million dollars for our composting facility that we've been working on since I was on the ESB back in forever in the teens, was denied. That was too bad. And but a whole bunch of LEDA applications are in process, and we're making progress on some of them, which is exciting. And we had some new applicants.

LEDA is the Local Economic Development Act. And I wanted to share that the Los Fire Department and Los Alamos Police Department just were accredited, you know, received new inter you know, re re international accreditations, which I think is fantastic. Our polls are open for voting. And on the tickler report, meaning what's coming up on future county council meetings, next Tuesday, at 4PM, we've got the groundbreaking for broadband prior to our county council meeting that starts at 6PM. Those are both down in White Rock at the fire station.

And also next Tuesday, the twelfth, will be the same presentation you heard tonight, I think. Isn't that exactly the same thing? So all the questions I have, I get to ask next week? Okay, good.

I'll get shorter next

week. It'll be better.

It's going to be awesome, man. It's great. And ask great questions tonight, at least from my standpoint. And on May 19, we will have an update regarding the Trinity Drive project and ADA improvements. So those are some things coming up that you guys might care about. And that's my liaison report.

Thank you, Councillor Halvam. Any questions, additional questions or comments? All right. Chair support. Next Tuesday, I also get to give the keyboard presentation. The annual presentation.

Oh, I'm sorry I didn't say that. Wow, that's rotten of me. Our esteemed chair David Hampton will be presenting to us next Tuesday, May 12. So please be there.

And member, Deborah Kleinrath, is the first meeting, I'd to say welcome. And as I said, with Member Connolly, you complete us. It's nice to have a full, very engaged board again. So thank you, guys. And Member Lesowski, too, for re upping. That's it. Next one. Board member reports. Does anyone have anything to report out?

I feel like it dovetails a little bit with what the work that we're engaged in. And so I like to pay attention to these sort of things. Do you all know about SQUIRT survey that's from New Mexico State Parks? This is the they're updating the statewide comprehensive outdoor rec plan. So this touches on trails and all that sort of thing. The public survey is up, and it closes soon. I don't have the date for that. But I could share that out amongst send that to Chair. Believe the local governmental representatives have already been responding to it. But I think those are pretty good to follow.

NMDOT did one not too long ago that was a lot about local vernacular to incorporate that into any road design that intersects with the community. And the same organization that was a consultant for that project is a consultant on this outdoor rec as well.

And you

can send it just to the keyboard. Email address, we just can't discuss it.

So

Corey Styron, our community services director, is usually involved on that effort and provides feedback on the SCORPS.

Awesome. I figured he already knew by. He stopped sending him stuff that he was like, yeah, I know.

I know. I know.

And then I was going to say, just so everybody's aware, our farmer's market has started up again. So there should be additional pedestrians crossing central and moving about. So again, we're honed in and paying attention to all those things that are going on. And then Tuesday concerts start in June. And there's the Friday night ones as well, obviously, coming up soon. So again, just more pedestrian activity in general in our downtown.

You. I have a question, but I'll wait till Eric is done with his staff report.

The man of the hour.

Maybe, Chair Guntherton, just a few things to highlight. I just wanted to say that our bike to work month in bike to work each proclamation is also gonna be heard on at the May 12 council meeting.

So you all

can join us. That'd be awesome.

I'm not

sure if there's a quorum issue with

with that.

Any board members are welcome to come up with us to accept the proclamation. We'll also have another proclamation on May 19 for National Public Works Week. So, again, you're all invited to help us accept that. Quick update on the Finch Street extension project. We did put it out to bid. We received five bids, and we're looking to award that project here in the near future. So I think we're we're scheduled to go to the May 19 council meeting, but it looks likely that we'll be pushing that to the June 9 council meeting.

Do you guys know where Fin Street is? Or the locations of this are? It connects the hospital to where it goes down to the hills.

The hill up front.

Oh, that's going Okay. Awesome.

Yeah. It'll connect it'll it'll essentially push out the entrance to the hospital further to the east away from Diamond Drive and then connect down to the hills, which is 6 37th Street. I always get confused which number it is.

Paul will be able to drive through.

Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Yeah.

There you go. Next thing, I just wanna acknowledge our our traffic and streets crews

for all the work they're

doing right now on freshening up the striping, replacing some sidewalks that are damaged around town, and that sort of thing. They're they're now that the weather's been good, they're they're doing a lot. On the pedestrian activity down central, if there's vegetation issues, they're also doing vegetation trimming. If there's anything that you see out there that could use some trimming back, let let me know and

we can

get them out there to address. They're usually pretty good about driving some of the high pedestrian areas and addressing those in advance.

If you

see anything, feel free to reach out. Our transit, Atomic City Transit, has received a couple of awards lately. We're gonna be celebrating those at Met Council, but they received an award from the Nunitza Transit Authority for the rural transit system of the year, 2025. I object to them. And they also received the standard of excellence award at a recent conference through our system. You could probably talk more about what the system is, but that was a nice recognition that we got also.

That was impressive.

And then lastly, I just wanna say that our fleet manager and our transit manager are out looking at the building of the new electric buses

out in the Oakland. Irving.

Irving. Irving.

So They had to fly into Irvine?

Or Irving.

Irvine. It's California.

They're Oakland. They had to fly into Oakland. Yeah. So so so they're getting a a good education on how those buses are put together. So that's great news. Hopefully, we'll receive the finished product

fall Potentially. July, potentially? Yeah. But But

they won't be put into service till the fall.

Yeah. It'll be a a few months before one. We're have to get the charging system constructed, which we're close to starting at, but then also there's this whole process of getting a bus online. Right. All the drivers need to be trained. All the mechanics need to be

trained. It's

more likely late fall time frame if everything goes on schedule.

The charging system is being managed concurrently now with our capital projects group. It's happening.

It's fantastic.

So that's all, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I'm hopeful for any questions.

I can't remember if we talked about it last meeting or the meeting before that. I know we talked about the number of transit drivers, like the shortfall of, which made me pay attention to the vacancies you have listed in here. The number of vacancies listed, is that going to affect any of the projects coming up or timelines or anything along that line?

Not that we anticipate currently. So

So all the services that we normally do throughout the summer, like Bandolier, the concert series Friday night, transit July 4, as normal. That's Saturday service. So we just kicked off a study with Emtek. They're gonna be helping us evaluate our existing services and areas where we can reallocate resources to potentially, you know, give us different models of how we can proceed with Saturday service. Know council is keen on us looking at even more than that. Yeah.

There was a good discussion about that at the

Sunday stuff. At

the budget hearings. Yeah.

So so yeah. So we've just kicked that off. It'll take about six months to to complete the study. Seems like the the Stantec team are this is their specialty is this type of service, and I'm working with communities. So we're we're hopeful we get some good results.

I think that the challenge, as you've just noted, is not having actual people to do with it to provide the services. So I know I think we interviewed four or not. Folks interviewed four last week or the week before, and they're all potentially good candidates that offers were gonna be made. So we're just kind of playing a stance. We we seem to be able to draw people to apply. It's just by the time we get them trained up, then some others have decided to move on. So