City Council - Regular Meeting

The time for convening has arrived. We'll begin this evening's meetings with our work session. We'll start off with a sidewalk program review presented by Mr. Martin. Not by Mr. Martin. All right.

I'm Wesley Waters, Capital Improvement Unit Manager, working for Mr. Martin. So we handle a lot of the sidewalk delivery, so I get to do this, which is a good thing, I think. Good evening. This evening we bring before you an informational presentation on the city's walkability program, highlighting progress and growth in the pedestrian network and summarizing key sidewalk side path trail and crossing projects from a variety of funding sources that have connected neighborhoods to schools parks transit and commercial areas and as well as to explain the sidewalk program scoring criteria and the net sidewalk network master plan how it guides selection of new segments including those proposed for the tier one t's plus twenty twenty six funding The information on the sidewalk program and sidewalks overall can be found on the city's sidewalks page. There's links to it around, and we can provide that to anyone, including a story map about sidewalk investments over the years that we'll go through in the presentation and offline from the presentation tonight. We'll run through that story map. And again, the presentation tonight will highlight this publicly available online resource as a way for council and residents to access more detailed map-based information about walkability improvements and upcoming projects. So with that, we'll begin the presentation. All right. INCORPORATION IN 2005, WALKABILITY HAS BEEN A CORE ELEMENT OF THE TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE STRATEGY. SO SIDEWALK, SIDE PATHS AND TRAILS INCLUDED IN THOSE. CONSTRUCTED BY THE CITY AND BY PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT. AND WE'VE WORKED TOGETHER TO MAKE CONNECTIONS ON THOSE LEVELS AS WELL. approximately 56 miles of new public sidewalks have been added since 2005. And again, we've worked to fill in gaps created by development and by other GDOT projects and various other sources to take advantage of ways to connect what's available. And so here's the link to the sidewalks page. including the story map. So I'm supposed to have a mouse here that might run it. Let's see if this works. So the sidewalks page includes a copy of the master plan and the previous presentation that has the current scoring list. and some other various information, including how you can request a sidewalk online. You can either call the call center or you can use this form, uh, which has been successful. We've, when we launched this, uh, GIS has helped with much of this and communications as well. Um, when we launched this form, I don't have the numbers. I was pulling those together. We've, we've got a, uh, many requests from the online form and, uh, the user can pick on the map where they're requesting as well. Sometimes that helps so they don't have to get addresses. And so with this story map, I'm going to open it. It will be something we'll maintain that I'll scroll through. So this first map shows... in red it will come up on animation the sidewalks that have been constructed or that have been added constructed by all sources and so this is a through data the city has and through GIS surveying aerial information and other as belts the red lines will be through the years sidewalks that have been added and you can stop and go throughout the city from the original dark lines there. So that's 56 miles of public city invested sidewalks plus any other sidewalks from other investments. IN ADDITION TO THE INSIDE SANDY SPRINGS PORTAL THAT TALKS ABOUT ACTIVE PROJECTS, THIS WILL HAVE THIS MAP ON THE SIDEWALKS PAGE ON THE STORY MAP JUST SHOWING PROJECTS WITH MAINLY WITH SIDEWALK COMPONENTS AND HOW THE NETWORK IS GOING TO BE EXPANDED. THERE WE GO. I'LL SCROLL DOWN OVER HERE. THOSE ARE ACTIVE PROJECTS. AND THIS IS INVESTMENTS. SO THIS IS FROM OUR DATABASE OF PROJECTS SINCE STARTING IN 2014. THAT'S WHEN OUR BEST DATA IS AVAILABLE AND ALSO WHEN THE T SPOTS PROGRAM STARTED INITIALLY AROUND THEN. THE LIGHT BLUE ARE THE INVESTMENTS IN COMPLETED SIDEWALKS AND TRAILS AND SIDE PATHS FROM CITY INVESTMENTS AND WITH PARTNERSHIPS WITH GDOT AND VARIOUS OTHER SOURCES. THE DARK BLUE IS WHAT IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION WITH THE COMPLETED DATE OF WHAT'S CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION IS WHERE THE CHART GOES TO. AND THEN WHAT'S CURRENTLY IN DESIGN THAT'S NOT IN CONSTRUCTION YET. ON THE YEAR OF THEIR COMPLETION IS WHERE THAT VALUE IS SHOWN. SO THESE ARE IN MILLIONS. WE'VE GOT THE SPRINGWAY TRAIL AND WE'VE GOT THEN THE PATH 400 AND OTHER LARGE PROJECTS, TS-191 AND 192 ARE GOING TO BE COMPLETED IN A PORTION OF PATH 400 IN 2026. SO THAT'S A LARGE NUMBER. And then we've got more to come. And these are just some more information on some of these larger and representative projects, the Trail 2A. And I'm not going to read these. Brandon Mill Road sidewalk project, I think everybody's glad we're finished with construction there But it creates the connects the whole neighborhood And the path 400 work that's currently ongoing So that and then there's a This map has more than just the active projects. It does include the active projects, but then also ones that are in the TSPLUS 2026 list, and then also projects that are contemplated in the Transportation Master Plan. So it's, you know, you'd have to spend some time going through here and looking at these just as a central source of where you can have a more interactive view the future projects versus going to various map sources and documents. So that is the story map from the sidewalks page. And we can definitely go into more of that or answer questions on that. But going through the rest of the presentation, I think. So just a quick update on the Capital Sidewalk Program. It's been advanced by TSPLAS for the past 10 years and funded through the T6000 fund pretty consistently prior to that with some remaining funds in the that source, we got guidance from council or approval to move ahead with some under $200,000 gap fill projects, including a couple that we were able to identify through the simple sidewalk criteria that were on shoulders that are kind of ready to build out without having to get right-of-way. We were able to... generate scopes for contractors, uh, without hiring a design, a surveyor or a consultant design consultant. Um, and we've got the Glen arrow project. So that accelerated the schedule and reduced the cost on this project. And then another one that's been awarded to the same contractor on Colwood way that we intentionally held off because they're the school there has a, uh, program going until the end of June, and they asked us to wait. They were appreciative of the sidewalk that's gonna connect them, but they wanted us to wait, if we could, till they were done with their summer program in June. So we'll have, they're not active in July, and we'll be able to get that one built in July. It won't take more than 30 days. This one took right at the 30 days that was planned for it. on Glen Errol. So again, in TSPLOS 2026, we have the sidewalk program. We've got it programmed at $16 million worth of investment on Tier 1, which is a little higher than we have been doing. But we've got a good plan to get those delivered. 2021, we've got a quick update. We've got 16 of the 20 segments completed and two that are only left to go for construction bids. So they're out, will be out soon. And then there's one more remaining beyond that that is held up with the right-of-way, but it's IT WOULD BE THE LAST ONE FOR 2021. SO, AGAIN, WE'VE BEEN WORKING THROUGH THE PRIORITY SCORING. THIS PRESENTATION ISN'T PRIMARILY ABOUT THAT. WE CAN GO INTO THAT IN MORE DETAIL AS WE HAVE TIME. BUT WE'RE USING THE SCORING THAT'S BEEN ESTABLISHED TO GENERATE THE LIST FOR THE TSPLOST PROGRAM. again from the sidewalks page and from directly from this link, you could request a sidewalk, new sidewalk segment, and it would go into the scoring list. Um, and then the city's, uh, T splash page has a, a list of projects that have been approved for us to present for, for that, uh, program. And then with that, we have the list here on it with a map. Um, and So there's the sidewalk program, tier one, the green, and that's what we generally focus on. We got 16 million shown for sidewalks, the top 16 million in the scored list, but other projects have pedestrian improvements with them. such as Roswell Road, Morgan Falls, most any of them. The Hammond Drive corridor is going to have improved sidewalks in those two areas. The Phase 2 Hammond Drive is on either end of the current Hammond Drive widening, and it'll connect side paths throughout that network. The Northside Drive will definitely have pedestrian improvements and so on. The mid-block crossing program is something new It will help with sidewalks where there currently is maybe not a connection or there's a need to cross. That's a pedestrian improvement that there's a lot of requests for through citizens and identified need. That'll increase pedestrian safety and access. And the other intersections, the Oakland Bridge Drive, Oakland Bridge Road multi-use pass is solely pedestrian. And then there's more in Tier 2 and Tier 3 if we get to those. And then this candidate list is what makes up what's available for the T-SPLOTs through the Capital Sidewalk Program. This has the The right-of-way donation, we don't have that to go over tonight, how that program works, but the apartments, the Arium apartments at Adair Lane provided documentation that they would donate land rights for the sidewalk there, so their score moved up, putting them pretty high on the list. So that's another success in that program. We've built a couple, Windsor Parkway and Dudley Lane are two of the bigger ones that we have advanced through that program where they increase their score by providing intent to donate letters. So I'm hung up here. We can just move through these. come back to them as we need to all right and so talking about walkability and sidewalks we had some council inquiries and and we've kind of drafted some some responses or some highlights of those one of the things we touched on earlier is that we are connecting sidewalks that private development builds. Okay? All right.

Wesley, if you could. Sure. Let me take the counseling. All right. Sure thing. Thank you. No problem. Any questions of Wesley and the material he's covered thus far? The counseling inquiries kind of go in several different directions, so I'd like to take those on. back to the information presented thus far about Wesley. If you've got any questions specific to those in the, and I can come back to please.

And you already know. Oh, can I get the floor? All right. Thank you. I have a, hold on.

Here they go.

All right. Um, can you clarify the simple, so the, just to be clear, this, what you refer to as like simple sidewalk criteria that's been applied only to gaps.

So the gap fill, uh, it has been applied only to gap fills. It, it's, uh, the criteria is more of a guideline on how to identify, um, simple sidewalks. It, Before we decide not to hire a design consultant, it's a way to filter out or filter in ones that would be candidates for the program. So they would generally be gap-filled. They would start out as under $200,000. because if they get much more than that, they tend to need a survey.

So North river gap fill didn't qualify. No, it did not.

But it's being advanced already.

It's in the sign out.

Pardon me?

You all have a sign.

That's right. And it, it will be to right of way acquisition. That's why it's in it. We need driveway easements for that one. Oh, okay.

Got it. Um, the, uh, There is an interactive sidewalk master plan that I have occasionally played with. Can we post a link to that on the sidewalks page? That's pretty cool.

Sidewalk Access Explorer, that's another resource. We'll get that on there as well.

Access Explorer. Last question for me. Project 2010. is the Adair Lane project, and thank you all for working with the multifamily community to get that right-of-way figured out. But my question is, where does it... Hold on, I'm pulling it up. Oh, there it is. Where does it... I'm a little curious about the boundaries. I know it goes from Morgan Falls, but it doesn't go to Grogan's Ferry, I guess because you're going to connect it with 2C? Is that the idea?

That's correct, yes. 2C is going to bring a pedestrian facility down to, it's in between two entrances. One goes to the west and one to the east. Correct. So it's the design, we're coordinating with that design to connect to that pedestrian connection that the trail will bring.

Okay, understood. Thank you. All right.

Ms. Mueller, then Mr. Paulson, and then Ms. Ford.

Hey, Wesley, just a question about the we have 56 miles that we put in. Is there a breakdown of how much of that was city funds versus TSPLOST funds?

We can break that down.

Just curious. I mean, that would be good to know because we heavily leverage the TSPLOST for that, right?

Yes.

Thank you.

Mr. Paulson.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Wesley. A couple questions. One, the table that has the scoring for the different sidewalk projects, how often do you update that? And here's why I'm asking. Let's say a neighbor was interested in a sidewalk and they get wind of it and they realize if they could get everything donated, their score would go up. Once they get that... does it automatically go up and can it move up immediately once you get all the approvals in so it becomes a higher priority project? Do you update these monthly, yearly?

What's your frequency? This isn't the direct answer yet. I'll answer it. But we continually update it. We meet monthly, the committee, and so we keep a running list. But we do at certain times have to cut it off immediately so that the people that are, would be donating, don't have new competition come in that they don't know about. So there there's that. And then there's also, we publicly post the, the, the list before we put out a call for right of way donation. So we will, it's an ongoing call in a sense, but to formally, be able to process it, we bring the list to council and before we publicly post it, we bring it to council so that it's transparent and there's opportunity for questions and if you know, or comments or questions, uh, that we, we typically bring it in a couple of rounds and then we'll post it to the website and that's when we'll say, you know, we're, we'll add a deadline for a formal right of way donation letters and then we'll post a, we'll bring it for consensus or approval and that'll be the list. So it, I think the, The previous before this February of this year was probably right before the TSPLOST update last time. We can do it more frequently. We've got a backlog of probably 15 more candidates that aren't on here, aren't able to be on here. We used a little bit of funding that's outside of TSPLOST to advance these gap fills. So it would be at... Council request, we could bring it more often or at a specific time. But it's basically kind of on a funding cycle. We used to do it about once a year when T6 is out during the budget season. Since we've been advancing things with T-SPLOST, we've kind of been on a longer cycle. So I hear you.

If we have a neighborhood that actually is working an issue and they get it resolved, I'd hate to have them wait four years for the next T-SPLOST. to get moved up the ranks. All right, that's one. And then simple sidewalks. We've talked about simple sidewalks ad nauseam. Sometimes a sidewalk's just a sidewalk. The idea was to try to have lower costs per square foot for the simple sidewalks. When you get the second one done, if you come back and just tell us, did we save any money by going to this simple sidewalk? I'd really like to know. Absolutely.

Thanks.

Ms. Ford.

Well, so thanks for all this information. I wanted to just point out the sidewalk story map resource I think is a really great visual representation of everything that the city has accomplished on sidewalks. 56 miles over 20 years is, I think, a great accomplishment to tout. And if there is any way on the sidewalk web page to make that more obvious, I've been on that web page many, many times, and I guess I just had never, like, scrolled down far enough to actually see that that story map was there, so... i just think it's a great resource and anything we can do to help people understand the progress that's been made and the to the point about how much we've gotten funds from other places to make that happen would would be great my second point is that i i have some memory of some previous sidewalk presentation that it seemed that we were targeting 12 million dollars worth of sidewalks out of t's flossed the next he's boss. And now I see that's up to 16. So I appreciate the, that increase, at least that's in my mind that that was an increase.

We did, we had it, we had a 12 million because that was the previous funding level. And then we, we also kind of sketched in a $20 million line. And what ended up through our discussions is we kind of split the middle there and then put the other 4 million in tier two. So if we could get to 20 million, that'd be great as well. But, uh, we, heard a desire for more. So we moved it up.

Yeah. So thank you. I just wanted to acknowledge that I, that I noticed that. So that's great. And then also thanks for explaining that the big jump in 2026 is going to be attributable to the project going on over here and the path 400. So that was good to know. And then finally, at some point, probably in all of this, we'll also talk about mid block crossings as an important part of the walkability.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody else? All right, I know.

All right, thanks, Wesley. All right, thank you. Mr. Martin.

All right.

Council Member Chinsky, thank you. Can I attribute the source for the inquiries there, please? Anyhow, thank you for the questions. I think these are a pretty broad reach back across the program, so I think it's good to refresh everyone on where we've been with the sidewalk program and MANY OF THE THINGS WE WORK THROUGH AS WE TAKE ON THE PROGRAM. SO SPECIFIC TO SOME OF THE INQUIRIES, HISTORY OF SIDEWALK REQUIREMENTS AND MORE TO THE STORY THERE IS, AND COUNCILMEMBER CHINSKY IN THIS CASE, YOU WERE ASKED BY SOME, THERE WAS A TIME WHEN TEAR DOWN REBUILDS ON SINGLE FAMILY, FOR INSTANCE, WERE REQUIRED TO BUILD A SIDEWALK AND THEY CITED INSTANCES WITHIN THE CITY WHEN THAT HAPPENED AND THEY KNOW THE SIDEWALKS. IN 2015, OUR CODE CHANGED. SO PRIOR TO 2015, IN A TEAR DOWN, LET ME QUALIFY THIS WITH PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT, FOR INSTANCE, COMMERCIAL REDEVELOPMENT ON ROSWELL ROAD, ET CETERA, OR SUBDIVISIONS ARE STILL REQUIRED TO BUILD SIDEWALKS AS A PART OF THAT. WHAT CHANGED IN CODE THEN WAS FOR SINGLE FAMILY TEAR DOWN REBUILDS, THERE WAS NO LONGER THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE HOME BUILDER, THE NEW AUCUMENT TO BUILD SIDEWALK WITH THAT. we went to a policy of sidewalks not required then, don't build segments of sidewalk. Instead, as a part of that right-of-way dedication process associated with that redevelopment, provide the city the necessary right-of-way, and this is where Wesley and his team get involved again, and any easements required to ultimately construct the sidewalk on that frontage as a part of that. But That change did happen in 2015 that removed the sidewalk construction requirement. The other thing that we still do require is that the driveway apron, that's where the sidewalk is going to intersect the driveway anyhow, is and has always been required to be ADA compliant. So as you tie in a sidewalk there... wheelchair-bound pedestrians can safely traverse the driveway as they go across. So I think that answers the question on history, on the change with housing, especially single-family rebuilds, when that changed and where we are now with the practice and the process. Sidewalks versus other infrastructure funding. So I'll qualify that first bullet up there where it says since 2012, the city has invested about $44 million in sidewalks. That is capital sidewalk program alone. So T6000, whatever dollars were in that, which is our capital program number for that, TSPLOST1 sidewalks and TSPLOST2 sidewalks, That's the sum of those sidewalks, not to say that many other fund sources have, have gone primarily and predominantly to sidewalks inside pass in the city. Mayors, you recall when we first started the HUD program, for instance, CDBG, everything we invested from our entitlements with CDBG and HUD went to sidewalks on Roswell road. The vast majority of those funds that we've employed with FHWA funding, GDOT, have been streetscapes and side paths here within the city. T8, T12, up and down Roswell Road, CC10, over on Sandy Springs Circle.

Marty, you might explain the difference between a side path and a sidewalk and why on GDOT projects there are side paths rather than sidewalks.

Well, in the case of Side Path, we're building a larger facility. That's the major difference there. We're going to make it bike and ped accessible in that case. So we're sidewalks, the sidewalk program, primarily built in the neighborhoods. And that's where our focus has been with Capital Sidewalk Program. And it usually translates into a six-foot sidewalk with a two-foot grass strip, by and large, for most footprints that we put out there. But pretty much every project that we touch, with the rare exception of, say, our ATMS, automated traffic management system projects, some very minor intersection projects, or, say, stormwater, Pretty much they all will generally have a sidewalk or a side path component in them. TS-191, 192 does a significant amount of sidewalk and side path as a part of it as well. They're named differently, but when it's all said and done, there's a major feature, a major facility provided there as well.

But there's some GDOT reasons why we utilize side paths in certain situations because they are considered transportation vehicles. infrastructure as opposed to sidewalks or not. Yes. They're eligible for different funding.

Is that not correct? They're eligible for funding. And plus, uh, our burden is to keep the work within the right of way. That's, that's one of the key distinctions as well, as we go, as we go that way. But yes, it's a walkability issue and that's why GDOT has been so supportive of us. For instance, with the some $40 million. We have under construction right now out on path 400 to get up to 285 and 400. So I'd say a big portion of transportation investments within Sandy Springs almost always have a sidewalk, side path component within them. And especially when you look at other funding sources coming into the city, by and large, they contribute significantly to sidewalk and side path construction there. Sidewalk's a top priority. So with opportunities to accelerate, as a rule of thumb, when we estimate schedule for project delivery, as does the Georgia Department of Transportation or our peers, one of the indicators we look for in estimating delivery linked on a schedule of a project is how many parcels of right-of-way are required for that project. It'll go from a few months to 18 months. depending on the number of parcels, be it a sidewalk project or be it a major roadway project. The greater the number of parcels, the greater the number of time that's required to be invested in those property acquisitions and multiple property owners to deal with. So that's one major element in considering timeliness and urgency on the project. On this capital sidewalk program exclusively, that's T6000, And our current sidewalk program, we have an expectation, again, back to most capital sidewalk program work is done inside the neighborhoods, that as Mayor Galambos framed it many, many years ago, we look for the neighborhoods to have skin in the game when we build sidewalks in neighborhoods. That expectation got translated into this expectation that neighborhoods by and large would be expected to donate right-of-way as a part of capital sidewalk program and so that's where we've been and that's the genesis so to speak of that policy and that priority and then as we talk again one thing we did recognize when we stopped building sidewalks though they might be segments and not connected with individual single family tear down and rebuilds is we now don't have those potential sidewalk gaps back to council member the the simple sidewalk opportunity with smaller gaps to fill in. So the gaps aren't there now or not as available as they might have been at one time. But that change also limited where we might have gaps in the network that we could then relatively straightforwardly simply go in and gap fill. I think TSPLOST has been a great benefit for the sidewalk program. It's given us a very predictable fund stream for forecasting staff and with the unit managers here in public works, we do periodic workload forecasts looking at when construction is going to land on a particular program or whatever the case might be so that we can predict and forecast design workload, consultant acquisition workload, construction workload, all of those things associated with it to include right-of-way acquisition workload. So we're looking at appropriate levels of staff, what we may need in terms of consultant support, et cetera. That's what predictable funding does in terms of developing a game plan for getting design, engineering, testing, and project delivery support and staffing and consultant support on board. There was a question about trail, specifically recreational trail. And to that end, Mr. Walker and his folks, they're getting a... more concise understanding of trail use history. And they're now considering, working with PATH Foundation, the opportunity to employ or use trail counters to give them a better understanding of trail use on, say, Trail 2A. A little bit about project delays. Delays are driven, we'll call it time. I'll call it more so time. The more parcels, again, the more time we have to invest in right-of-way acquisition. It can expand the project delivery schedule. Right-of-way acquisition is one of those time constraints. As the designer's moving along with that design, then the negotiations that we do, and in some cases, right-of-way acquisition is an iterative process with design. We meet with a property owner, we find out what's tenable, and what's untenable for that property owner. In some cases, then that informs design, and we go back and we revise design. So we work on the designer's part in order to stay off of certain features or come up with some accommodation that is acceptable to the property owners. We try to make right-of-way decisions. So it's not always as clear-cut as, here's what we need exactly per city standards. Here's what we're going to do okay. We do revise design in many cases to accommodate needs out there, especially, again, it's neighborhood-centric. We're building in front of people's homes. We're creating their neighborhood while we're at it. And then we have the other design-related issues that are challenges that are associated with any time we need to flatten the road shoulder, which is what we have to do in order to construct a sidewalk. In many cases with the topography in Sandy Springs, we're building retaining walls. In many cases we have to get some degree of engineering on those retaining walls as standard TEMPLATE RETAINING WALL JUST WON'T DO THE JOB IN SOME CASES BECAUSE, AGAIN, IT'S PRIVATE PROPERTY NEEDS. WHEN WE BUILD RETAINING WALLS, THAT'S GENERALLY WHERE WE START TO GENERATE UTILITY CONFLICTS AS WELL. WE'VE GOT TO GET A WALL FOUNDATION IN THERE, MORE EXCAVATION WORK, THOSE KINDS OF THINGS, MUCH AS WE HAD TO DO ON THE PROJECT WITH BRANDON MILL THAT WE FINALLY HAVE COMPLETED NOW. As well, especially some areas of the city are more sensitive to storm drainage and storm drainage needs. We have to accommodate drainage as well, and as we put in the sidewalk, do nothing to make things worse for the neighbors as we go through those, as well as utilities, stream impacts. We even have to get core permits for some of our sidewalk projects where we have discharge additional storm drainage. We're doing that on Windsor Parkway right now. For instance, where we're getting a core permit, it'll work, it'll happen, It just takes a while to get through that process because of the storm drainage we've had to deal with over there. And for projects like Lake Forest, delays are not only about funding, but it's also about things like utilities again. I'll bring to you tonight a utility agreement with Georgia Power Company in regular session to get Georgia Power to relocate poles so that we free up the space we need to build a sidewalk there. and a little bit more about how to speed up projects. We believe, so if council were to consider that, and we could certainly study it further, and we'd take that for action if you like, that additional right-of-way staff, I think potentially maybe one more specialist or right-of-way acquisition agent on our staff could add and potentially accelerate project delivery on the part of right-of-way acquisition. We routinely reevaluate the number of project managers and their skill sets that we have on our staff, and we can reevaluate that as well over time, and we will, and we'll do that. Again, back to workload forecasting as we look at schedules, et cetera. We'd be glad to take that on. Historically, and Councilman Paulson, you recollect and you've seen us propose this before, Our answer, we do have a cadre, a core of construction inspection staff within Public Works as city staff. But when we get to the larger projects, and especially where they might be federally funded, where we've got even more specialized inspection and compliance and reporting requirements, we've relied on consultant services to augment our staff. And that's been a very effective way to keep up with that construction load, maintain our audit worthiness those folks that are sending us money from outside, especially with GDOT-funded projects, and augment the staff so that we don't end up with staff surges and then a decline in workload later. Councilman Chinsky, you proposed the idea of maybe we take a look at a right-of-way dashboard. I would offer, we can gladly, we have the information, put up which parcels have donated and which ones we're still waiting on. The only thing I offer there is we like to leave a degree of discretion with the neighborhoods as we're working with each of the homeowners. So that public awareness of who's in and who's still talking can work both ways with neighborhood harmony in whatever the case might be. So we just offer that caution. But we have the information. We can show which parcels are in, which parcels are out, and as they come in. I look at that every week as I look at right-of-way acquisition for all of our projects so I can see where we're taking our parcels and turning them all green and getting them ready to go to construction. More funding alone speed things up. Additional funding could help. It may not be. I think I've talked about staff. Plus we can look at, and we will, and we do look at other tools that we may use in addition to staff and consultant augmentation to help us there. More predictable funding. I think TSPLOST has given us a very predictable stream. Councilman Paulson, you mentioned the dilemma of we draw a line, we advertise, especially for transparency's sake, Here's what we believe $16 million is gonna buy in TSPLOS III right now. And so those neighborhoods can look at that program list and see, am I on there or not? So our challenge is, I now wanna maintain that contract, implied contract here, with those neighborhoods that are above the funding line. This is where the dollars go as budgets allow and cost increases, whatever, don't happen. So we wanna live to that. So there is the potential that maybe we want to look for other funding sources periodically if we get another surge or whatever. But at $16 million plus a Tier 2 right now, I don't know that I'd recommend that today, especially looking at, as Wesley explained, first 16, and then we're looking at potential for another 4 in Tier 2 and T-SPLOS 3. So then connectivity and scoring. Now, underneath it all with the sidewalk program, especially in neighborhoods, is the sidewalk network master plan. We build sidewalks on those streets identified in the sidewalk master plan. Smaller neighborhood streets, we don't pursue sidewalks there, nor does the city require that when somebody builds homes on those streets, they don't build sidewalk either. So no one is required to build there. So we kind of use that as our rule set, our core guidance there. And we periodically review and update that as well. When we went through the last major transportation master plan update, for instance, we got a lot of feedback there that informed us to suggest We needed to add several streets, and Wesley brought that to council at the time. Here's a proposed update to the sidewalk network master plan, adding these streets. It's usually been adding, not taking off while we're at it, but adding these streets to the network master plan in the interest of connectivity and enhanced connectivity. One of the concepts we looked at with the last transportation master plan, for instance, was this concept that a 20-minute neighborhood, reasonably, That's about how far someone, for the purposes of life in general, is gonna leave the house, walk to the store, go get a recreational walk in, whatever, about that 20 minute time frame. Anything beyond that becomes a real commitment. That's where something like Path 400 Trail comes into the mix. And our scoring system already provides weight to connectivity, gap closures. Again, there's an emphasis on gap closure within that, and links to parks, schools, and the broader network of sidewalk system. I think that was the last of the questions, if I'm not mistaken. Are there any other questions about sidewalk program and overall program delivery, where we've been?

Mr. Chinsky.

THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING ALL THESE QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE AND THANK YOU TO MY COLLEAGUES FOR HAVING A LITTLE BIT OF AN EXTENDED WORK SESSION BECAUSE I THINK THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ISSUE. SO I'LL BE BRIEF. SO I THINK I APPRECIATE THAT THE PRESENTATION ENCOMPASSES SIDEWALKS, SIDE PATHS AND TRAILS BECAUSE AS I'VE SAID BEFORE, FOR OUR RESIDENTS, I KNOW THAT THE FUNDING SOURCES MAY BE DIFFERENT AND THE SIZE MAY BE DIFFERENT, BUT TO THE AVERAGE SANDY SPRINGS It's a paved surface where you could walk or ride a bike or maybe scooter. So I think it's correct to look at all this together rather than sort of segment them because they're connectivity. JUST A COUPLE QUICK COMMENTS AND THEN TWO QUESTIONS. SO ON THE SCORING, I THINK SOME CONSIDERATION MAYBE NEEDS TO BE GIVEN TO WHERE THERE'S ALREADY A SIDEWALK ON ONE SIDE OF THE STREET AS THE OTHER. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT, BUT THERE ARE SOME ITEMS THAT ARE SCORED WHERE THERE'S ALREADY A SIDEWALK ON ONE SIDE OF THE STREET AND THE OTHER SIDE MAY STILL BE SCORED REALLY HIGHLY. I'LL JUST POSE THAT AS SOMETHING FOR YOU ALL TO CONSIDER WHETHER WE NEED TO UPDATE THAT. ON THE DASHBOARD, COMPLETELY APPRECIATE THE RESIDENT PRIVACY CONCERNS. PART OF THE REASON I ASKED THIS, THOUGH, IS ALL OF OUR RIGHT-OF-WAY ACQUISITIONS ARE PUBLIC, RIGHT? THEY'RE ALL ON THE AGENDAS. WE APPROVE THEM EVERY WEEK. SO THEORETICALLY, SOMEONE CAN LOOK AT ALL OF OUR PREVIOUS AGENDAS AND PIECE TOGETHER THE INFORMATION THEMSELVES OR USE AI TO DO IT IN A MUCH FASTER FASHION, PROBABLY. so um appreciate the privacy concern but it's it's it is already in the public domain so i want to i want to keep thinking about that because i i just thought you're something to consider yep and i and i hear you say about neighborhoods needing to have skin in the game and this may be a way to help generate some of that community support um i'm also really excited that we're going to have some data to show how much our trails are getting used i think that's important because we have a lot of money left to fund a lot of different trails around the city um Two questions for you to pose. You don't necessarily have to answer these tonight. This is sort of longer term. So one on new developers building sidewalks, and we took that requirement away in 2015 for the teardowns and rebuilds. If we're not wanting to keep the requirement for the new developer to build the sidewalk, because we don't want to do it piecemeal before the neighborhood's ready, could we require the developer to pay into a fund whatever they would have spent to build the sidewalk? and have that set aside so that when the time comes, we have the money on standby. I don't know if it would be like a usage fee or something like that, but maybe something to think about so that we're not building the project piecemeal before it's ready, but we have the money available once we can do it. And the second thing is just more of a challenge to you all. So I am interested in how to accelerate these projects, and a lot of my residents are too, a lot of my constituents are too. between now and the next budget year, because I'm not going to give our city manager a heart attack and try to amend the budget tonight. Dream big. Think about if it's one staff person, if it's two, if there's other resources that we can give you. I don't want to hire staff unnecessarily, but we heard in the last budget workshop that we have a very small staff compared to most other cities of our size. And I would love to consider ways that either staff or technology or something can be used to help accelerate this program. BECAUSE IT'S A HUGE THEME THAT I HEAR FROM ALL PARTS OF THE CITY. AGAIN, NOT SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO ADDRESS TONIGHT, BUT JUST THANK YOU AND WANT TO THROW THAT OUT THERE.

SO I'LL ASK TO WORK WITH COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT TO GIVE YOU A MORE RESEARCH RESPONSE ON SPECIFICALLY SINGLE FAMILY. FOR OTHER CAPITAL, FOR INSTANCE WHERE THERE IS A DEVELOPER, say, for instance, on Roswell Road that has a requirement to construct streetscape, and we have a capital project right there that's going to happen at the same time. We already have that provision there for that developer to effectively pay forward. We'll prepare the estimate. Here's how much it's going to cost. Here's what the going rate for construction and design is for that. They can pay forward in that. For instance, at the Glenridge and Roswell Road, intersection project a few years ago. We had a requirement for streetscape to get constructed on the Scientology side of the road there. They paid in. It didn't make sense for them to put something in that the intersection realignment was going to just tear asunder just a year or two later. So they paid in on that case, and then when the time came to build that side path, the money was there to build the side path there. I'll have to give you more research on that.

No, that'd be great. Look, it's a work session. I'm brainstorming a little bit. I think the timing is really good, though, with the comprehensive plan kickoff underway now. I think this conversation is really timely to tie into some of the broader planning that we're looking at. So thank you.

And thank you for your... support of the staff with let's look for some resources potentially if we want to try to make things go differently or more smoothly. We'd certainly appreciate that support as well.

Any other discussion or questions about sidewalks? Yes, ma'am.

Just specific and small. Has anything been brought to your team around adding a segment of Coquit Road to the sidewalk master plan? Has that come to you guys? And I expected you would get up.

The segment, I think it's south of... Northwood, I believe, or not Northside. Yeah, Pitts. I think it would be South of Pitts. It was considered in the last round of updates, and there's a criteria we went through, and it ended up getting excluded through some of the rounds of review based on the criteria, and I don't have all those, but I can tell you that it was considered, and it's also in... GDOT right-of-way on that southern portion. So that's another complicating factor. We could see about working with that, and we can... Yeah, Wesley, let me add to that, if I could, please.

Until...

The microphone. Mr. Martin.

Thank you, Wesley. Until 400 managed lanes is constructed, I would offer that... Within that GDOT right-of-way, it's not a very wide swath at all between Colquitt and the edge of 400, and those express lanes are built. We probably, again, put any work we would consider in jeopardy over there. Again, GDOT right-of-way, they control it. Once they get this managed lanes project built, then's the time to consider that. And I think there were some trail studies as well that proposed trail on the shoulder of Coal Quit over there as well from a few years ago. But until we get 400 managed lanes in and done, GDOT will then free up the use of the right-of-way, I think, so we can look at... network connectivity projects like that then.

Okay. And that applies to, I just want to be clear, what you're saying applies to even having it on the master plan, because right now it's not even on the master plan.

Yeah, I think we've had some debate on whether it's a trail or it's a, again, that's for us to work out there. Okay.

That segment is on your trail master plan.

Oh, so on the trail master plan, not necessarily the sidewalk master plan.

Correct.

That's interesting.

Thanks.

Ms. Mueller.

So, Marty, just on the screen, I don't know if we want to update. I think we did the last update was in January 2020. Well, it was in February to us in 26. So we've updated the master plan since January 2024, right?

Yeah, I double-checked back with wetness. So we updated the priority list and all of that. Earlier this year. But I asked the question, when did the network, as in which streets are eligible for sidewalk, actually change? And Wesley looked back and he believes the date was January 24.

And then I just want to say that the mobility tools that we have today, whether it's sidewalks or paths or trails, what we do for our transportation, I mean, they're all different. They solve different problems. But together, and I think that's, and I want to give a shout out to the GIS team for that little pictorial over time. It's really important to have that network and that network view, not just of what have we done, right, but what are we going to do going forward. And then I think that just a question or a comment really about the trail usage is we just have one segment done. And I think it's whatever that usage turns out to be, we need to be, mindful of that's part of an overall segment that's a five mile loop up there where we have that and we still have 31 total miles that are in I believe the the master trail plan so that is that will be a point in time but I think you have to you know same thing we'll probably have that with the path 400 as we get the different sections because they're going to come online at different times. And then I just want to say that I think we've done a really great job with the sidewalks. I know when I moved here 27 years ago, we didn't have sidewalks on Brandon Mill Road. Didn't know we would ever have those. I believe on Dalrymple, there were only a few. So now you actually can do a loop if you wanted to all the way around from the Greenway down to Brandon Mill to Dalrymple to Roswell Road. That's just one example where that was somewhat challenging to do, and I know those projects individually had challenges, but you and the team really did a great job. So big supporter of all of that. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

All right, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Ford, yes.

Can I just make a couple comments? I'll be quick. I understand we'll come back and look at the scoring matrix for mid-block crossings at some point in the future.

We've got some ideas in mind. Those haven't ripened yet. We've got to do that yet. That's great.

And then to the point about the dashboard and making it more visible about the progress of a particular segment, if we had a resident who were to approach the call center and ask what is the status of a particular sidewalk, we would be able to tell them things like we're working on a drainage situation or we're X percent done with our right-of-way, just any insight. And I think specifically about the Windsor Parkway situation where the sign has been up for...

here i know that i get questions about that which generally are updates are more about here's when we anticipate taking the project if we're in design and right away acquisition right away acquisition is going well which in most of the cases it is uh... more down the one barcelone windsor at this point plus the finals uh... corporate meaning that we've got to get through typically provided can here's when we believe constructions can start and we can attack can probably provide reasonable fidelity with a question at that time. And then here's about how long it'll take once we get into it. So they can get some expectations on outcomes associated with the sidewalk project.

Thank you.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to close the work session and move to regular order.