Transportation Board - Regular Meeting

Vice Chair Muck, Chair Hampton, Member Lazowski, Member Clyde Rath, and Member Chappell. Thank you. Members Connolly and Edwards are absent, although I think Member Edwards might join us later. Is there any public comment for items not on the agenda? And I see no public, so I'm going to say no. And no one's joined us online, right?

Not at this time, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Right. Is everybody okay with the agenda?

Mr. Chair, just to note that the public comment for items not on the agenda isn't printed on the agenda. So if you want to add that, obviously there's no public comment, but it does look like we are having one attendee being admitted. So

All right. Would someone like, since we're amending the agenda, and I already have because I asked the question, do we, someone want to make a motion that includes the amendment?

I don't know if I have to push this button.

Yeah.

Okay, I so move.

Is that okay, or do you want us to state it?

We caught that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

All in favor? Passes unanimously. And with that, first presentation, our only presentation.

Hi, everyone. I'm Jennifer Morrow, and I'm with the Public Works Engineering Group, and I'm here to talk to you about bollards. Unfortunately, in today's day and age, it's not uncommon for us to turn on the TV and to see where a road departure has resulted in a fatality or a severe injury for pedestrians, whether the road departure was intentional or unintentional. And at Ashley Park, we all know that we have large gatherings, especially with the music in the park, and we have festivals there and fairs, and it's just a kind of marquee location of this Los Alamos County. And so... Just to ensure that we kept the safety of the public in mind, we started with the Jersey barriers. And apparently, those didn't go over well with the public. There were quite a few complaints, and they were always a temporary solution. And so we started looking into permanent bollard solutions. I quickly learned that there's more about bollards than I can ever kind of come to terms with. And after several conversations, Luckily, Anne Lawrence said, why don't we get a landscape architect in? And I thought, oh, what a great idea. This is not a job for an engineer. So we hired Ground Studios to evaluate and look at some ballard designs. And they came up with three designs that we have put out for a survey. Can you bring up that first design? And... So the survey went into effect on June 4th, and it will go through June 28th. And here's the first option. This is what we're calling the peer option. They are ballers that can be utilized as seats. So they have two functions. They do have an engineered foundation to them. This is the view you see from the sidewalk. And if you'll scroll, you can see the view of those bollards looking up from the pond. And then we can scroll on to the next one and see the view from the roadway. And here we've jumped into the second option. You can go ahead and go with the second option. The scrolling goes fast on there. So this is the planters and the piers combined. This gives a little bit different aesthetic of that look to it. And once again, the first option shows it from the sidewalk. The second option will show it from looking at the Ashley Pond out. And then the third option will look at it from if you're on Trinity. Oh, you went past. But you guys have these in your packet, so you can look at them there. And then our third option is our natural boulders option. This has in-ground plantings with large boulders. It does require a four ton weight to be considered a traffic rated for crash rated. A four ton rock is about a four by four by four rock. So that gives you an idea. And here's once again the three different views of the of the options for the natural boulders. And if you guys have been to Ashley Pond, you will have noticed that we have these banners that we have hung on the Jersey barriers out there. And these banners let people scan the QR code, and then they can go to our survey, and then they can choose which one of those three options is the preferred. I've done this presentation in front of the Historic Board, and the Historic Board They preferred the natural boulders. When I did it in front of the Parks and Rec Board, their choice was to support whatever the public supported. So that was their selection. At this time, the Ashley Ponds survey, this is what it looks like. The green is the natural rock. We have 507 people who have responded, which I think that is amazing. And we still have you know, more time before the end of the survey, before it closes. And 69% have voted for the natural rock. Approximately 18% have voted for the rustic planters, and 13% for the piers. And like I said before, this will close on June 28th. All of the options are right about the $100,000 mark. The option one with the piers is the least expensive, sitting around $75,000 The option two of the planters is, um, that one is around about 120, 130,000. And then the, um, let's see here. Where's my one with my natural there's the, there's the landscape that one's coming in at about 120,000 as well. So they're all sitting right about 120,000 for all options. And that's it for my presentation at this time. Chair, I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, before you go to questions, I'd just like to thank the board for having this special meeting. Our target is to take your recommendation along with the other two boards to council on June the 30th or June 30th. Right.

June 30th. Yes, we would like to take all the recommendations.

And that way we could, you know, eventually move forward with design and then after that installation. So we're looking to get these bollards or rocks or, you know, whatever option we go with installed before the next year's summer concert. So that's our goal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for the research and the presentation. I can't help but notice that the rocks in the rendering are not four by four by four feet. And I assume that the other options need to be anchored in the ground. So will the rocks also be anchored in the ground or how does that work?

If we do not have rocks that are four by four by four, we will have to do an engineered anchoring system. So it'll be one or the other.

Will this make it more expensive?

Chair, board member, it would make it more expensive to do a engineered foundation. Yeah, the more affordable would be the four by four by four. And at this time, we actually have some developers who have some large basalt boulders that they need to dispose of. So that would actually bring our costs down quite a bit if we can work with them. And quite a few of those boulders look like they would meet our criteria.

would just add that normally like with boulder placement they're normally embedded some distance below ground and set inward into the ground so okay and the other thing is uh it seems like option one is the only one that doesn't require much maintenance for the plans um is that taken into account

Yes, chair, board member. We have worked actually closely with Parks and Rec, and I have to say I've learned so much from Wendy Parker on things like we don't want something that skateboarders are going to just really find appealing. We want things that don't lend themselves to graffiti, which is, if you noticed, a lot of the piers were a darker color because we talked about the problem of paint and the darker color helps. And the plantings was a large one as well, and the irrigation system. And when it came to plantings, the option three was parks preferred because having the in-ground native is a lot less maintenance on their part than having the above-ground planters.

Thank you. Only general question I have right now is with option three, the natural boulders, what would the spacing be on those?

Chair, board member. So the spacing would be depending on the boulder itself and how we set it. But in between the boulders would be five feet because that would stop a car from being able to go between the boulders. So it would be a boulder, five foot gap, boulder, five foot gap. Okay.

Sorry, one more quick question. The $120,000, does that take into effect the natural planting?

Yes, Chair, Board. It does take into account the irrigation and the plantings.

Awesome. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Well, thanks for becoming an expert on boulders and bollards. I just have one question. Are the illustrations... Typical is, for example, are the large ones of an appropriate size or are they going to be larger than these that are shown in the illustration in order to get the weight you need?

Chair, board members, I think those ones, we've got to remember graphics are concepts, right? And as Eric Martinez had pointed out earlier, so if we had a 4x4x4, we're probably going to embed it at least 6 to 12 inches. So it might be a 4x4x3, or we might have a 5x3x4, or we might have, right? Like boulders aren't nice and perfect like the numbers I'm throwing out. So each one would be individual and each one would be addressed. But if you can imagine, in general, they're going to be about four feet long with a five foot gap. So that kind of gives you an idea of how much space. It'll be just a little bit more space than the boulder in between them.

Thank you.

Again, thank you for going through all of this and doing the research and whatnot. I was a little concerned with the first two options in terms of my background with military and pro force and opposition force training and everything. I'll tell you that the 19 inch tall bollards would be insufficient to stop most SUVs from crowd control at 35 miles an hour. Generally you need something about anywhere between three to four feet tall in order to effectively stop, you know, medium to especially larger size vehicles. So yeah, but I am glad to hear the dimensions and such for the natural stone. So with the natural stone, I think this was asked and maybe I didn't hear the answer about how much embedding would that be required of that? And I apologize if I'm re-asking that question.

Fair board member. So this is where we're wanting to go from the concept to actual finalizing the design. And those are the items that we didn't want to have our consultant doing a lot of work over something until we knew which one they were going to be focusing on. So at this time, we have not asked that question, but that would be definitely defined in the final design once we 100% know which concept we're taking forward.

Perfect. Thank you.

You're welcome.

So if pedestrian safety is the number one reason we're doing this, why aren't we protecting the sidewalk with them?

Chair, so some of the issues that we have with protecting the sidewalk is This is a state highway road, and so we would have to get permission from NMDOT. And one of the things NMDOT would require is they would want something that is a breakaway because if someone smashed into it accidentally and there was either a high, like, injury or a death, then they become liable. So NMDOT is not going to allow a crowd control rated bollard to be in their right of way where they have to deal with the liability.

Thank you. Are there any further questions?

I was wondering if there is a plan for a road diet here, and I was wondering if I don't remember what the council voted on, but I thought there was a buffer for the pedestrians planned.

So it's a hybrid road diet, so it's two heading east and one heading west with a suicide lane in the middle? I'm sorry, left turn lane?

We actually are adding a strategically placed median, so it will not be a suicide lane. It will regulate traffic making left turns in and out. And then in addition to what the chair said, he's correct. We have two lanes, one direction, one lane, the other. And then we have a bike lane, a five-foot bike lane. So we have a two-foot curb and gutter, a five-foot bike lane, and then we have the traffic. So that design will add some protection to the pedestrians.

And in that area where there's also, they're going to move some of the bus traffic from Central over to Trinity. So there'll be places for the buses to turn in so that provides additional protection for sidewalk pedestrians, correct?

Chair, at that location in front of Ashley Pond, we are adding a bus turnout. So yes, in that location on the... west end of the Ashley pond, you'll have that bustling as well. That'll get the extra protection.

Would that mean that the sidewalk 6x in and out to accommodate for that?

Is there any public comment on this item? If if you want to make public comment and you're online, go ahead and use the raise hand function. All right, no public comment. Would someone like to make a motion?

Chair, I'll make a motion. I move that the Transportation Board recommend concept three, the boulders, to the County Council for the Ashley Pond Safety Improvement Design. I second.

Is there any discussion?

So I appreciate the comment about the height of the bollards and with so many trucks with lift kits on the road, I'm worried that the first two options are just not tall enough. Second, I like that option three looks natural and not as sterile as the first two options. I'm also worried I like the idea of having drought resistant plants that need less maintenance, as well as rocks are just harder to graffiti on than the other two options. I think there are a lot of benefits to option three.

Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just need to make clarification so I understand correctly. Are we making the motion today to go with the option, or are we making a motion to go with public opinion on the matter?

The way the motion was worded is to just go with option three, the natural rock. It does coincide with the vast majority of the respondents on the survey, though, so... Any more? All in favor, say aye. Or raise your hand. Passes unanimously.

Thank you.

And with that, we're adjourned.