City Council Formal Meeting - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone.

My name is John Treeweiler. I'm a senior public information officer with the City of Phoenix. I want to thank everyone for joining us here this evening for the Central Avenue Lane Reconfiguration and Parking Expansion virtual public meeting. We have some members of our street transportation team on this panel today that will help guide this presentation and answer any questions that you may have, and we will introduce them here shortly. Just so everyone is aware, this meeting is being recorded. uh and the meeting recording will be made available on the project page for this project so you can check back and recall something you may have missed and share with any others who maybe were not able to attend we'll provide those details at the end of the meeting we offer a spanish interpretation option to help accommodate those who may need it for this meeting and with that i'd like to turn it over to our spanish interpreters to provide some additional detail and information and introduce themselves

Thank you very much.

Muy buenas tardes. Somos los intérpretes de español y vamos a tener la presentación en un momento más. Para escuchar la versión en español, por favor, tienen que marcar a la línea que se encuentra en la página. El número es 026-534-1000. Después tienen que marcar el número de la reunión con 56964 y después el gato para poder acceder a la interpretación en español. Muchas gracias.

Thank you to our interpreters. I'd like to also take this time to introduce the panelists and ask the panelists to introduce themselves in order of which their names appear on our slides. We have Matthew Wilson and Simon Ramos with us. Matthew, we'll start with you.

Good evening, everyone. Matt Wilson, Assistant Street Transportation Director.

Good evening, Simon Ramos, Traffic Engineering Supervisor with Traffic Services Division.

Thank you both, Matt and Simon. I'd like to take this opportunity to go over the agenda for tonight's virtual public meeting. We have our introduction taking place right now. We'll review the project area, share the proposed changes for the project area, and then we'll take some community input. So answer any questions you may have and take comments from community members. Before we begin, I also want to briefly explain how to use WebEx for those who might not be familiar with this platform or may be new to it. The main thing you want to pay attention to is the chat feature on the lower right portion of your screen. So to chat with us, simply open the chat window. You'll see that highlighted in box number one down there. And then you want to click on direct. You'll see at the top of your screen there in box number two. And then you can click on box number 3 chat with all hosts and from there, our project team will be able to see your comments and questions and we'll respond to all questions or comments during the question and answer answer portion at the end of this presentation. If you opted to speak, when you register for this meeting, we will call on you during the question answer portion at that time. someone from our project team will unmute you you will be able to verbally provide your statement or question please remember that if you are going to speak we ask that you limit your comment or question to two minutes and with that i would like to turn it over to matthew wilson assistant street transportation director matt thank you john

Well, thank you again for joining us this evening to learn more about the proposed project. The street transportation department was approached by nearby businesses requesting additional parking to better accommodate their customers and deliveries. They have experienced reduced traffic since central no longer continues from south of Washington to the light rail station. In response, we agreed to conduct a traffic study to evaluate the potential impacts of removing a travel lane to create additional parking. We'll walk everyone through the study results in tonight's presentation. We also spoke with representatives from downtown Phoenix Inc. and our partners in the Phoenix Police Department about the proposed plan and gather any concerns. Neither group expressed any concerns about our proposal. Simon Ramos will now walk us through the study findings and the proposed lane configuration.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you everyone for joining us. As Matt indicated, I'm Simon Ramos, Traffic Engineering Supervisor with the Street Transportation Department. Limits of this project are on Central Avenue from Washington Street to Monroe Street, about 750 feet in total. This stretch is a downtown Phoenix corridor with a lot of activity. It is being proposed to remove one northbound travel lane and add 17 meter parking spaces on the east side of Central Avenue. I'd like to share a cross-section visual of what's currently existing today and what design is being proposed. The illustration on the top shows how the roadway operates today and the current number of travel lanes. The illustration on the bottom or below shows the proposed configuration, which adds metered parking while still maintaining necessary travel lanes for traffic flow. What you're looking at here is how the 17 new parking spaces would be grouped along the corridor. They're arranged in clusters of two, five, five, and five spaces, which helps us use the available curb space efficiently while maintaining good site distance and traffic operations. These meter spacings will support nearby shops and services by giving people more short-term parking options, especially for quick stops like coffee or food. Our traffic analysis shows that adding these spaces does not affect travel times nor intersection performance. The design keeps traffic moving and as it does the same today, while also creating a buffer moving vehicles and pedestrians. So I'm sure many of you are wondering how this change could affect the daily travel, whether the traffic will get worse, whether intersections will still flow smoothly, and whether it will remain safe for people walking, biking, or using transit. That's a completely reasonable concern. And that's why we use a very standard engineering tool called level of service, or LOS, to evaluate these kinds of changes. Level of service is simply a way of describing how much delay drivers experience at an intersection. It uses letter grades A through F, just like in school. A means no delay. Things are moving freely. C and D are what most people experience during normal busy travel times. And F means long delays and congestion. Each grade corresponds to a specific amount of delay in seconds, as you can see on the chart on the screen. To understand a lane removal might change traffic, we built the model and tested different roadway configurations and measured how delay is impacted. For this analysis, we use four key pieces of data. Traffic counts that were collected during the busiest hours of the day, existing traffic signal timing, lane configuration, which means how many lanes there are, turn lanes, and how traffic flows today, and also speed or vehicle speeds. By putting all this into a model, we can compare the roadway before and after and clearly see how much delay would change, whether it's a few seconds, more noticeable, or essentially the same. I'm happy to share that we analyze the traffic data at these key intersections. The results show that no changes to level of service at the signalized intersections were happening under the proposed design. The intersections will operate just as smoothly as they do today. Delayed times remain essentially the same between the existing and proposed lane changes for both AM and PM peak hours. For instance, looking at the first row of the chart, the existing level of service at Central Washington and the level of service under the proposed plan remain the same. This is true for each of the intersections. This means the corridor can continue to operate efficiently with the proposed lane change configuration. I'm also happy to share that we didn't just look at today's traffic. We also tested the what-if future growth scenario. Even with those added volumes, the intersections still operate at the same level of service. So now I'd like to hand the meeting back over to John to go over the timeline and the Q&A portion.

Thank you so much Simon. This is the public engagement timeline for this project today. Of course, is July 14th. We're having our public meeting. The comment period will be open from today until July 24th and then proposed seal coat and striping would happen in late summer of this year. And then proposed meter installation would happen in early fall of this year. So, like I mentioned, public comment is being accepted from now until July 24. if you have any questions or comments you'd like to provide to the project team after this meeting has ended, you can do so by visiting Phoenix dot Gov forward slash central Avenue in order to communicate with us tonight. If you have a question and did not register to speak, you can do that again by engaging with us using the chat feature. You'll see the diagram here. Use the chat bubble on the lower right part of your screen with icon number 1. Then click on direct at the top with icon number 2 and then icon number 3 hit chat with all hosts and it'll populate a bubble where you can write your question to us or your comment. So, if you do that during the remainder of this meeting, we will see that you want to speak and we can call on you or we can take your comment. They'll also have an opportunity to do that after the meeting as well. If you want. Once again, I want to mention that this meeting is being recorded and the meeting recording will be made available on the project page for this project. So you can check back and recall something you may have missed and share with others who may not be able to attend. If you opted to speak when you register for this meeting, we'll call on you here shortly. Someone from our project team will unmute you and you'll be able to verbally provide your statement or question. Please remember that if you are going to speak, we ask that you limit your question or comment to 2 minutes. And with that, we have 3 people that have registered to speak. So, I'll start by calling on them. We have 1st, Nicole Rodriguez. I have 1 Nicole listed here and we have 2 Nicole's registered. So I'll unmute Nicole and please let us know if you're Nicole Rodriguez or Nicole Sanderson.

I'm Nicole Sanderson.

Okay. Hi, Nicole go ahead with your question.

Sure, thanks. Yeah, I was wondering, so I believe this project, you said it's from Washington to Monroe, so that means north of Monroe, Central will continue to have three car lanes in addition to turning lanes. What's the reason that it would stop at Monroe? Would like to know if the traffic volumes north of Monroe justify having the 3 lanes and if not, if the car lane. Could be removed north of Monroe as well.

1st, thank you for your question. I believe north of Monroe. Those are 2 through travel lanes. And then regarding your question about the, the counts. The volumes on that stretch and just north of Monroe is about 350 vehicles. And that's at the during the peak hour time. So. Out of the am period, I believe that was just shy of under 200 vehicles.

Per hour for the for the peak hour.

Okay, so that seems significantly lower than what would support the number of lanes currently.

Okay, thank you Nicole for your question.

Yeah, I'll just yeah, I'll just comment just 1 follow up to that that the north of Monroe. The curb lane, which is the 3rd through lane becomes a right turn lane only onto Van Buren and that space is also shared with Valley Metro buses. that use that for the rapid and express route pickup, I believe. So that space there is already in use for lanes. That's why we didn't extend the meters or look at any other lane configuration north of Monroe. And then north of Van Buren, it's two through lanes that carry forward north with opening up to add turn lanes at intersections.

Thank you, Matt.

That's the only Nicole I have registered. Nicole Rodriguez was registered to speak, but I don't have that name appearing in the list of attendees. We have Jamie Trufen, and I have a Jamie here listed. I'll unmute Jamie. Jamie, if that's you, go ahead and ask your question to the panel.

Absolutely. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can hear you.

Awesome. So I own property nearby. I'm very supportive of putting the on-street parking. I would believe it'd also be great to keep it going north. On-street parking helps slow traffic down. It makes walking safer downtown, and that's what we want as residents of downtown. My only concern is even if it would be worth taking a spot or two away to add some trees, We lost a lot of our trees on Adams when that hotel development came by, and that was really helpful for being able to walk safely. We talk about a lot heat safety and mitigation. And if there's any chance we can look at it, I'm assuming we're doing parallel parking, not angled. So if we're doing parallel, even if it takes one or two spots away to add a tree, that would be very lovely. We had an incident last year on Central and Adams. Uh, April 8th to 2025, I witnessed a. Scooter get hit right there taking a right turn. Um, actually I. Work at that Bistro that's right there, so I understand the business need. Um, but also from a safety and pedestrian standpoint, we do need some. Precautions to make our streets down here safe.

Thank you Jamie. Thank you so much. Matt or Simon, did you have anything to add to that?

No, thank you. Definitely. Thank you for your feedback.

Thank you Jamie at this time. I'd also like to check in with our interpreters. See if there's any questions that the interpreter has. They'd like to share with us.

We have anything not at this time.

Okay, thank you very much. We also have a question that came up in the chat from Samantha Matthews. If the request came from businesses for deliveries, why are metered spots proposed? Why not a loading zone or a flex lane depending on the time of the day? Matt or Simon?

Matt, do you have anything to add to that?

Yeah, I would note that the primary purpose for the parking wasn't, uh, deliveries as I understand it, it was to support, you know, business use. Right? So customer parking during the day, um, the meters would remain, uh, operational until about 10 PM, in which case, then it would be on meter parking. Um, we just support the business need. That's where we looked at, um, meters. Not not doing a loading zone since that that wasn't the request.

Okay, thank you very much, Matt. Um, well. We appreciate those who were able to join us today for our central Avenue lane, reconfiguration and parking expense and virtual public meeting. You'll notice a QR code here on your screen as well as the project web page. So, if you didn't get a chance to engage with us tonight, don't worry. You still have an opportunity to ask a question or leave a comment for the project team. The presentation, along with a full role plot of the proposed plans is available on the project web page for anyone who would like to take a closer look after tonight. And if you have any additional questions or comments, once you've had time to review the materials, you're invited to share your comments or questions in the public engagement section of the project page. You can do that. by visiting phoenix.gov forward slash central avenue and if you scroll down you'll see the question and answer box where you can submit your question or your comment thank you so much for everyone for joining us tonight that concludes our virtual public meeting