Public Utilities and Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Hello, everyone. My name is Naima Saeed. She, her pronouns, Ward 5 Counselor, and your Traffic and Parking Chair. I would like to call to order today's Traffic and Parking Meeting of the Somerville City Council. First, I will read the legal notice that allows us to have this meeting on Zoom. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2023, this meeting of the City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio-video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Yes, I can, Councillor Wheeler.

Sorry, I'm muted. Here.

No worries. Gotcha. Councillor Mbah.

Present, please.

Great. Chair Saeed. Here. All right. With that, everyone is here, so we do have a quorum.

Okay, great. We will start by approving the minutes from the previous meeting. The minutes, any discussion? Seeing none, Claire, could you please call the roll for approval of the minutes?

Yes, and to confirm, would you like to take these both up together?

Yes, both minutes, please, one and two.

Great, so this is approval of the minutes, items number ID 26-0854 and ID number 26-0939. Councillor Wheeler.

Here, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. All right, with that, all votes in favor of approving the minutes.

Okay, great. So just make sure. Okay. So we have Director Rawson in attendance, but as right now showing under attendees, can we promote him? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay, we will take up item number five first and then follow the order of the agenda if there's no objection from the committee members. And item five. Clerk, could you please read item five for us?

Item five, ID number 26, place slash 1412. I'm sorry for the discussion, but please increase traffic enforcement in Teal Square, especially focusing on the lights and crosswalks between Broadway and Holland Street, and especially in the morning when students and families are walking to school.

Thank you, clerk. We're taking up this item out of order because we need both. Yeah, we need SPD to speak to this. Yes, I think just SPD, yeah. All right. We have here Sergeant McCary to speak to the item.

Thank you, Chair. So what we've done with this is we've added it to our standing locations that the traffic unit will patrol throughout their day, especially focusing on the morning that was requested. Also, the officers that normally patrol the area are aware of the request, and they'll cycle through there as well. Usually we do this for a minimum of four weeks, about a month, collecting the data to see if continuation is warranted and to see if the numbers of any infractions that we're seeing are being reduced.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, before we open it up to question, Director Rason, do you have anything to add to this?

No, Chair. Good evening to you and the committee. My name is Brad Ross, and I serve as Director of Mobility. Mobility Division has spoken with the Ward Counselor, and we're glad that Sergeant McCary and SPD are here. So nothing to add to the Sergeant's points.

Okay. Thank you, Director. I know this specifically is asking for SPD to do more enforcement, to make sure if there's anything to be added. Yeah, thank you, Sergeant McCary. Are there any questions from my colleagues?

In general, I'm curious about how the police department works. continually assesses the need for enforcement in different places. Sergeant McCary, you alluded to that about the way that this will be approached is with some attention to are there infractions? Does it merit extended attention? I'm curious if there's an ongoing way that the department is looking at the frequency of issues in different places and and deciding where to direct enforcement attention.

Thank you. And through the chair, usually what ends up happening is as requests come in from either constituents, counselors, you know, the different boards, you know, throughout the city, we'll put them on a list of high priority and we'll dedicate specific time for those to go out and do kind of targeted enforcement in those areas. And as I said, usually about three to four weeks at a time. We kind of see how many infractions we're getting in the beginning, and then we'll compare those to what we're getting at the end of that cycle. And if The infractions aren't decreasing at a favorable pattern. Usually that's when we'll increase the duration of time that we're at a certain location. Also, as our officers drive around the city, you'll see areas where they feel that need additional resources dedicated. And they'll voice that to the traffic department and to the other officers. And we'll add that to our areas of concern. Along with that, there is a quarterly traffic review internal to the department where statistical data is collected. Dave Kuntz, In hotspots based on. Dave Kuntz, citation data. Dave Kuntz, accidents in requests are. Dave Kuntz, kind of put before the administration in the traffic unit. Dave Kuntz, hotspots are added to the list as well. Dave Kuntz, picture. Hope that answers the question.

Thanks. Thanks. It does. And just as a follow-up, is it possible for us to see the, the list that the department sort of currently has about, you know, the, the areas that they are focusing on or have focused on?

I can send that out. I can also send out our statistical data, um, that's created, um, like I said, quarterly, um, It's not something we usually just send out, but with the request, absolutely.

Thanks so much. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chair.

Chair, if I may. Yeah. Also, we use the 311 system to track areas of concern. I don't want to call them complaints, but areas of concern that citizens have. I also encourage any of the counselors or any of the other city members to utilize that system. That's 1 of the, the ways that we do track these. You know, track the requests that are coming in. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Is this.

uh sergeant mccary or what it's like those are appropriate title sorry for not introducing myself yeah sergeant mccary i'm a member of the traffic unit within the department i oversee several traffic officers whose main focus is um hotspots for traffic enforcement requests and the traffic grants that we operate.

Got you. Thank you, Sergeant. And good to see you, Dr. Rawson. So, uh, and thank you for that info that you sent to me about, about what I asked. Um, I guess, you know, so, uh, Sergeant, would you say two square is, you know, is among those hotspot or like, you know, it's, would you, is that part of your understanding?

Thank you. And through the chair, uh, in general, um, Teal Square classically hasn't had a higher instance of noncompliance than similar squares in the city. So I wouldn't pick it out as a hotspot in general. Usually when the request for specific enforcement comes in, let me rephrase that, for Teal Square, It's only because the specific request has come in that we will dedicate specific resources towards it. Like I said, in general, the officers patrol the area. Locations like Teal Square, they will sit in periodically. But there are other areas in the city where there are higher instances of noncompliance. So to answer your question, no, it's not really on our radar. But now that we've been informed that it's an area of concern, we will dedicate some resources.

Got you. Thank you. Thank you, Sergeant. And then, you know, regarding your, you know, like kind of, you know, data collection methodology, where does near misses fit into that data pool?

Thank you, Counselor. Could you just expand on that a little bit?

Yeah, you know how sometimes, you know, if something happens.

Counselor Mba, can I just interrupt? I'm sorry. I've been trying to do this while you're asking your questions. Just Director Infrin did not get the link. If we can just send the link while we're having this conversation. Again, apologies, Counselor Mba.

No, no, no worries.

Cherise, who needs the link? Director Renfrent, Suzanne Renfrent. Thank you. Yeah, comes on back, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. No, Sergeant Makere, I just, you know how sometimes, you know, there's like traditional way of collecting data, you know, there's an, but the near miss is where somebody, you know, miss being hitting someone, you know, it's like, there's like all this, because you're trying to use preventive, you know, approach, because you don't want design by disaster, you know, yes, they are collecting data, of like, you know, like traffic violation, crash, you know, and all and all. But this is, we don't want even that. We're trying to like prevent that. So I'm wondering like, you know, like those, because I've actually seen like in near me, like North Street and Powder House, like Powder House is perpendicular to North Street. And I've seen how a car just ran through, almost ran over a crossing guard. So how do you, what is like, how do you record that, you know, to be able to like factor, you know, how much you can analyze your data pool?

Thank you, counselor. And to the chair, usually those come in through the 311 system where constituents will see something happening and they'll, uh, inform us of an area of concern, like a near miss, uh, you know, with a pedestrian, a bicycle, uh, or even, uh, car accidents. Um, and then that will trigger us to, as I said, spend some, some time examining that area. So, um, you know, we use that, um, we use that system to kind of collect that, uh, beyond that there is, uh, besides the institutional knowledge of the officers that work that area, I mean, there's not really a specific system that's used to track those. So it would be the 311 system for identifying those near misses and then the institutional knowledge of the officers.

Thank you. Thank you, Sergeant. Thank you, Marenche.

Thank you, Constable Wheeler.

Through the chair, Sergeant, just to follow on my colleague, Counselor Mba's question. If an officer were stationed at a location looking out for infractions and there were a near miss where a driver had the light, but say was was starting when somebody was starting into the crosswalk. and didn't stop, or if there were someone who was crossing where there isn't a crosswalk and the driver came close to hitting them, are those incidents that would be logged and sort of counted towards the need for further enforcement and attention at that intersection? Or would those kind of not really have any category to go into?

Thank you and through the chair. Uh, uh, those kind of separate into two categories. So the, uh, when officers are looking at a certain area, uh, they're pretty aggressive, um, in there, I guess, limit for, uh, what's passable, uh, is pretty low, uh, because you know, we're, we're using the high visibility enforcement to deter, uh, noncompliance. So near misses that do have an actual citable event, you know, where the officer does have the authority to cite, as you had said, someone, you know, comes up to the crosswalk and the car may not have seen them, you know, but there was the opportunity for them to stop. And it's kind of right on the cusp of Is it a good stop? Is it not? They'll usually perform the stop and give out a warning in that case. Your other question, if it's an incident where the officer doesn't have the jurisdictional authority to make a stop, there really isn't a good vehicle aside from officer to officer, as I said, the internal institutional knowledge. you know, the officers sharing that information in knowing their area, you know, there really is a good vehicle for recording that.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. Thank you for the questions. And thank you, Sergeant McCary, for all the responses. We can mark this item as completed.

Chair, I'm seeing a hand from Director Rawson.

Oh, yeah, Director Rawson.

Chair, thanks. I just wanted to quickly acknowledge the importance of this discussion and these questions. Thanks, Sergeant McCary and the team for being here, and thank the counselors for their questions. One of the things that this committee has discussed over the years, Chair, is that compliance, meaning motorists actually stopping when signalized or stop-controlled intersections call for them to do so, or at mid-block crosswalks where a state law is to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, Those compliance rates have been shown to increase when slower vehicle speeds are observed. And it kind of makes sense when you think about it, right? The faster that somebody is driving, the less reaction time that they have, the more likely they are to continue driving aggressively. And so I think the dialogue here just needs to always reorient itself to the importance of speed control. I know this committee, SPD, many of our departments are working together to On traffic calming, particularly on higher risk arterial streets. SPD has done a great job of publishing open data on the city's open data portal. And so counselors and constituents who want to follow up on this type of dialogue can find our open data portal with a really cool interactive map. And as always, we invite constituent counselor feedback. SPD, mobility, engineering, parking are constantly working to identify these hotspots and get ahead of things rather than be reactive. So again, I really appreciate the spirit of these questions in this dialogue.

Thank you for adding that, Director. Again, we'll mark the item five as completed, and we'll move to item number three. Claude, could you please read item number three? And thank you, Director Winfred has joined us.

Right. Item number three, ID number 26-1021, sent for discussion by Councillor Hart, that the Director of Mobility install additional signage and the Chief of Police increase enforcement to ensure compliance with the one-way traffic direction on Whitfield Road.

Thank you. Yeah, Director.

Chair, if I may, perhaps I can kind of frame things and then invite Director Enfrid and Sergeant McCary to chime in from their perspectives as well. I've spoken with the Ward 7 Counselor on this issue. The Counselor has relayed constituent concerns about wrong-way driving. There's a hypothesis that the residents and the council are offering up, which is that they tend to see this behavior a little bit more frequently in the fall season after move-ins and during kind of university session. And I think that this might be consistent with what many of us have observed over the years is that often wrong way driving is not just cut through traffic going from the end of the street to the end of the street. somebody who lives on that street and starting and making a very intentional decision to drive the wrong way to save themselves time at the risk of everybody else's safety. So I just wanted to make sure that the committee knew that Councilor Hart has relayed this concern. Staff has spoken with her. Parking, NSPD, Mobility and Engineering can follow up.

Thank you, Director. Director Renfrit. I thank you through the chair.

So we did go out and look at this location to ensure that the signage is properly posted. And there is properly posted signage for this for this. And as as director Ross and say stated, many times it's it's familiarity or, or the fact that people just want to make it easy on themselves to come the wrong way. So people usually that live on the street, we've seen this behavior in other areas of the city. But it is part it is posted correctly.

Yeah, thank you, Director. Yeah, Councillor Hart did reach out to me today. So one of the residents or the constituents was saying that they went to look at the street and there's no do not enter. There's no. one do not enter and one one-way sign at the Curtis end of the street or the street seems to have do not enter and one way signs on both sides of the street rather than just one. Yeah, so with this additional information, do we, yeah, what's the, I guess the, yeah, is this, are all streets like this having both sides in both sides or what's the good practice here?

Okay. I do have some pictures. One moment. Let me just go through my emails real quick. Okay.

Okay, some attachments.

So I see it. Do not enter. I have five attachments here. I'm sorry.

No worries. Take your time.

I'm going to see if I can forward do this.

No, director, if you say that these signs exist on both sides of the street, we're good. I just want to make sure that this constituent, I don't know if they didn't see them both, but we're just making sure we have both of these signs on both ends of the streets.

So when I sent out my staff, they said they could possibly add one-way blade on this Whitfield Road sign blade at the intersection of Packard. But other than that, it looked fine.

I think that's the concern, just adding the one-way sign on the other end. Okay. And I will send you what we saw.

Okay.

Okay. So director, is this something the department can do? Adding the sign? Okay, great. Yeah. Counselor Wheeler.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, it sounds like we're on the right track here. I know Google Maps can be very out of date. So with a big grain of salt, I'm just sharing the observation that when I look at that Whitfield and Packard intersection, at least on Google Street View, When the photo was taken, I don't see a one way sign at that intersection. So yeah, you know, no matter what the sort of current status is there, the idea of adding a one way sign I think sounds like a good one. Thank you.

okay that's great um okay we like uh you know straightforward these solutions uh so thank you director and fred for uh having your staff add the sign here another an additional sign for one way on one of the end of the streets uh any other questions yeah

Thank you, Madam Chair. Another question, I'll never miss a good chance to thank Director Renfrew for her service to the city. Thank you, Director Renfrew. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe this is the only item where Director Renfrew is needed. Is that correct, Director Rosson?

Chair, we always welcome Suzanne's professional experience and judgments and contributions here. However, I think that those two items that the committee has dealt with are the only that have a real explicit enforcement lens. I think the rest of them are more about design. Item seven is about clear corners with parking works on with the rest of us, of course. But I think those two were the ones that were specifically about signage and enforcement.

Okay, great. Yeah, I just want to make sure, you know, folks, you know, understand, like, like prepare. The other thing is that director and Fred did not get a link. So got the agenda, but not the link. So if this was not, the director was not planning on attending the whole meeting. That's, yeah, just give me that, you know. So you can prepare accordingly. And then the next item will be item number four. Before we do that, let's mark item number three as item completed. And then we'll move to item number four. Could you please read item number four?

Item number four, ID number 26-0837, sent for discussion by Councillor McLaughlin, that the Director of Mobility use urban neighbor ways art on Perkins Street in front of the playground to increase pedestrian safety.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We will, yeah, Director Rossett to speak to this item.

Sure, Chair. Thanks. And I appreciate this order from Councilor McLaughlin. Happy to provide a quick update for the committee and then acknowledge that there will be work ahead. So as committee members and constituents may be aware, Perkins Street in East Somerville is actually designated as part of the city's official bicycle network plan. And as committee members know, the bicycle network plan includes two different types of safety treatments. One is the traditional separated bike lane that we use on higher stress, higher speed, The second is a traffic calmed back streets program that we use, we call Neighborways. And the idea is that you use pavement markings, limited traffic calming, and wayfinding signage to provide alternative routes that connect our residents to useful destinations like schools, parks, transit connections, libraries, senior housing, etc., So Perkins Street and East Somerville is designated as a neighbor way on the official Somerville bicycle network plan. And furthermore, Chair, it's identified on what we call the priority network, which is all of the routes and links that we have recommended for completion by the end of 2030. So good news for East Somerville residents and for Ward Counselor who's advocating, we will be working on Perkins Street in the years ahead. And it will complement some great work that we've done in partnership with Councilman McLaughlin and many others in the East Somerville neighborhood. If folks are not familiar, you can actually become familiar with these neighborhood treatments by looking at Glenn Street, which connects the Capuano Early Childhood Education Center up to the East Somerville Community School in East Somerville, or Otis Street, which connects the East Somerville past the Winter Hill at Edgerly and over towards the Otis Street Flip Bridge on McGrath. So those routes are complete using movable planters, purple wayfinding signage, share the road markings, and some very specific safety treatments at the intersections with busier streets. Chair, I will note that NeighborWays is bigger than public art. A mural in the street is a wonderful thing and it supports community building. It occasionally can support traffic calming, but our NeighborWays toolkit calls for more. And so again, that's why it's important to reference the work that we've done together on Otis Street and on Glen Street. Because parking restrictions occasionally are needed where neighborways meet busier streets, we want to make sure that we're providing opportunities for the public to be involved, to understand the trade-offs and the design intent, and actually to work with us on placement of traffic calming and other features on these streets. So what this means is that when we identify a project in our work plan, we typically use a 12 to even 18 month project development process. Quick build tools are sometimes imagined to be the kind of thing where you flip a switch and you go out and you put a bunch of pavement markings on the street. And although quick build pavement markings are faster than construction, we remain committed to meaningful community process. And that's why you still have that 12 month any iterative community engagement process where we flyer, where we speak with folks, where we do workshops, virtual meetings, in-person meetings, pop-ups, set up a website, et cetera. So I just wanted to provide that background for the committee and for the counselor. We look forward to working on Perkins Street and really building out that East Somerville Neighborways Network. But at this time, we do not have a specific start date for the community engagement or the design development. Please know that we intend to complete it by the end of 2030. Happy to answer any questions.

Yeah, thank you, Director Ross and Councilor Mba.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. I mean, Director Ross, I'm just curious. Thank you. You know, I mean, like, you're like one of the engines, man, behind, you know, like, street safety, you know, improvement and stuff. I guess this is just for curiosity. Because we are all talking about budget, finance, and stuff like that. What is the estimated cost and maintenance for this kind of stuff?

Chair, through you. Thanks for the question, Councillor. And I'm embarrassed because I just put my physical copy of the bike network plan out of reach. I will try to pull it up online because we actually were really intentional, Councillor. We included rough estimates and in our official Somerville bicycle network plan, not only for the installation costs, but for the maintenance costs over time. So if I can quickly query it, I can tell you. But again, this is a good question and it has been thought of, and I just don't have those numbers at my fingertips.

Implementation chapter.

Standby, please share. I found it. Chair, through you, roughly speaking, the per mile estimate in the city's official bicycle network plan using 2022 cost estimates and vendor quotes brings us to an all-in cost that includes design, installation, and operations and maintenance of about $250,000 per neighbor way mile. If we just talked about the materials and the installation, it would be about $180,000 per mile. I hope that's helpful.

Yeah. Thank you. Wow. Interesting data point. I mean, we can talk all... You know, I just kind of like, I'm just, again, because of this, you know, time when we are all, everybody's kind of like, you know, with the budget constraint and stuff like that, that's what I'm just curious. But thank you, useful data, Dr. Rawson. Thank you, Maranche.

Yeah, thank you. Okay, great. Are there any further questions regarding this item? Okay, no further questions. We will mark this item as work completed and really glad that this tree, that's already the plan for this tree. Okay. And then we'll move to item number six. Madam Clerk, could you please read item number six? Before you read it, I just wanted to mention that the rest of the items, I think they're all related to mobility. Sergeant McCary, you're welcome to stay. But also, if you need to leave, you can do that. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you.

And thank you for having me. Anytime questions come up, feel free to contact myself. Well, Lieutenant Holland, he apologizes. He was not able to attend tonight. Or if any of the Councillors need to put in requests for specific enforcement, the queue alert system is probably the best vehicle. It's our way of tracking. Or you can contact any of the members of the SPD Traffic Unit directly. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you for your work, Sergeant.

All right, item number six ID number 26-0124 sent for discussion by counselors Ewan Campin and counselor Scott that the director of mobility implement colored lane markings for bus and bike lanes on Prospect Street between Webster Avenue and Somerville Avenue.

Director Rossi.

Chair, through you, again, thank you for the order to Councillor Scott, Councillor Ewen Campin. Prospect Street is an important transit corridor and staff are feeling the same way that enhanced pavement markings will be a helpful part of an overall strategy to keep buses moving efficiently and safely through that congested area. As counselors may recall, Prospect Street between Somerville Avenue and Webster Avenue had dedicated bus and bike lane markings installed in 2017, but it actually never received that red carpet, you know, continuous red pavement markings style that we have since used as our standard to try to increase compliance and really be a clear statement of intent that these are spaces for transit vehicles. um Prospect Street chair is an important bus transit corridor already but I want to make sure the committee and our constituents know it's going to be even more important in the near future The official MBTA bus network redesign program calls for high-frequency new route linking East Somerville to Union Square to Inman and to Kendall and actually to Longwood. It's called the Bus Route 47, and it's scheduled for implementation sometime relatively soon. So the city is working in partnership with the MBTA to actually upgrade the transit priority facilities along the Prospect Street corridor. So we have an active project that will deliver the improvements that the councilors have asked for with this order. Our project includes more than pavement markings. It includes traffic signal upgrades so that we get better live detection and traffic signal overrides to get the bus through those intersections, just like we already use in many other locations around Somerville. So that project is underway right now. We've been in contact with Councilor Scott, Councilor Hugh and Campin. We set up a project website. Our staff were out flyering in the neighborhood just recently. to make sure that folks are aware of this upcoming work. The implementation schedule chair is currently showing that the pavement markings work could begin in early August. So we're really excited about this work. We really feel it's consistent with Somerville's climate plan, consistent with our own transportation justice and equity priorities. We know that any minute that a bus spends waiting in traffic has the potential to hold up 40 people instead of one person in a single occupant vehicle. And of course, the time savings then domino effect throughout the day, and thousands of other people stand to be later as a result. So we just really take it as a sacred responsibility for the city of Somerville to do what we can with our local streets, our local infrastructure, to get MBTA buses through congested intersections like Union Square. We've already done some of this work in other places, and we look forward to delivering even more of it on the Prospect Street corridor.

Awesome, great, great to hear that. And it's happening so soon. I like when items really align with Mobility's work. Are there any questions from colleagues? Okay, no questions. Okay, then we'll mark this item as completed and we'll move to the next item, item number seven. Madam Clerk, could you read that item?

Item number seven, ID number 26-0614, sent for discussion by Councilors Link and Scott, with the Director of Mobility at the intersection of Durham and Hanson Street to the list of crosswalks that require daylighting improvements to enhance visibility and pedestrian safety.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Director Rawson. Chair, thanks very much. We also appreciate this order, but our discussion will be a little bit more limited. This has just come in. So, Chair, what I can say to the committee is that staff will add this location to our evaluation list. When we receive questions like this, typically mobility, engineering, and parking staff will examine a location in question at one of our many regular internal meetings that happen every month. We can update the ward counselor and counselor at large who submitted this order after we reviewed this location. Folks may know that just half a block up, we were able to reconstruct an intersection in front of Palmachi Playground just about a year ago. to improve ADA accessibility, provide some traffic calming benefits with a raised intersection and include pavement markings and signage to make sure that motorists were not parking illegally and blocking those sight lines. That project was a little bit of a one-off in terms of its ability to get designed and implemented coming out of ADA work and sidewalk upgrades. We do not typically have the ability to do clear corners markings in isolated locations. So we will work with Counselor Scott and Counselor Link to make sure that they and constituents understand those criteria for our clear corners program. That typically exists, as you all know, at the corridor scale. We try to use much larger arterial streets and gain efficiencies with our contractors to go through systematically and apply those clear corners markings. However, the last thing I'll note, Chair, before I invite questions is if residents, counselors, or city departments observe challenges, Suzanne's team at the parking department will do targeted enforcement and spot checks because motorists are not allowed to park within 20 feet of a crosswalk, even if signage or pavement markings are not in place today. If larger vehicles and fire apparatus are having a hard time making a turn, Fire command staff will often request fire lane markings be installed, and that's another mechanism to deliver those types of sight lines and turning radii that I think could be part of this order. So we'll look forward to following up with the sponsoring counselors, but I hope that's helpful context.

Thank you, director. And thank you for adding that. I imagine if the counselors submitted this item, it's because we are already there where enforcement needs to happen. So we don't have the director, director, but if you could mention this during your monthly meetings to do more enforcement in this area, I think that would be very helpful.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Dr. Rawson, I guess. I'm curious to, you know, like know like the criteria you use, you know, to prioritize intersections, you know, for daylight, daylight, you know, like, what do you see, how does this rank, you know, in that sphere relative to maybe, you know, other requests that, you know, you see certified.

Chair, through you, thanks for the question, Councillor. I'm sorry, I probably should have explained it a little bit more clearly. We have resources on a public website to describe the city's daylighting or clear corners program and the criteria that we use. It's on the city's traffic calming webpage, and there's a little tab called clear corners and daylighting. So this describes our criteria and our selection process. And it notes that we do prioritize these higher speed, higher volume, higher risk corridors. We've done several around the city over the years. Broadway was the first one. Summer Street was the second one. Medford Street was the third one. This year, Highland Avenue is the priority corridor. And so that's where we achieve those economies of scale of going through, making sure that we're flyering, doing the outreach, speaking with residents and business owners to then implement those enhanced pavement markings. And Chair, I'll just add one more thing, which again is that when we add those pavement markings, we are reinforcing regulations that already exist. Regardless of whether signs or pavement markings are in place, Mass General Law and local ordinance prohibit parking within 20 feet of a marked crosswalk or 30 feet of a signalized intersection. So again, we understand that plenty of folks have been parking or loading within those zones historically, which is part of the reason that we door knock and speak with folks on the street. Just wanted to make sure everybody knew that those programs are intended to reinforce existing regulations rather than just create new ones.

Okay, great. Are there any further questions on this item? All right, I see none. We'll mark this item as completed and we'll move to the next item, item number eight. Yeah. Could you please read?

Item number eight, ID number 26-0806, sent for discussion by Chair Saeed, that the Director of Mobility install a speed bump on Vernon Street.

Yeah, so this is my item. I can speak to that. So I, yeah, so residents have approached me saying that this is a concern, you know, like many streets in Somerville face high speed. And I submitted the order and I spoke to Director Rawson. As you, we know there will be a crosswalk on Lowell Street that's closer to, so the intersection of Lowell and Vernon Street, the Basically, one of the designs that was submitted to MassDOT is a crosswalk that would be very close to Vernon Street. And you mentioned at one of our meetings that when that crosswalk is constructed, there will be an improvement of the intersection of Lowell and Vernon Street. So I was just wondering if we, as we're looking at this location, if this tree can be studied and can staff go there and kind of collect data and see if a speed bump is what makes sense. Yeah, so we'd like to hear from you here.

Yes, Chair, thank you for sponsoring this order and for engaging with constituents and asking us to look a little deeper here. So Verdon Street follows our typical standard operating procedure, which is when we receive constituent 311 or council or staff observations about a safety concern. whether it's speed or volume related, often our first step is to go out and commission formal count data to make sure that we can look apples to apples at all of our streets citywide. As you all know, we have far too much demand for traffic calming. related to time and money and contractor availability to meet it all. As a result, we have to work through a prioritization process, and often that starts with collecting quantitative data. So we've been able to take that step, Councillor, on Vernon Street. I don't have the ability to give you a comprehensive evaluation. We've got the data, but we haven't run it through our other criteria to look at apples to apples with all of the other city streets that are in that particular cohort. Again, our methods are explained on the city's traffic calming webpage. They include speed and volume data, like I've just mentioned, but they also include other important criteria. For example, proximity to schools, parks, senior housing, community path crossings, places of worship, high-use transit facilities. Those things all come into the mix in terms of prioritizing and recommending streets to then move to the next stage of the evaluation. Then additional parts of our due diligence process, Chair, include interdepartmental review with key partners like DPW, FIRE, MBTA, and others. And lastly, it includes utility engineering review to make sure that we understand Are the gas companies, city water and sewer, have any upcoming construction work? Is our sidewalk and resurfacing and repaving plan going to be out of street anytime soon? All those things help us understand efficiencies. Because it actually does take several days worth of crew time to go install speed humps. So again, all those criteria are described at our city traffic economic webpage. Vernon is on the queue list. And within a month or two, Chair, I do hope to have more systematic information for you and for your constituents to know how Vernon could rank against all of the other streets in that cohort that are being considered.

Yeah, thank you, director. It's always great to hear, you know, what the process is for us, the council, new councillors, but also for members of the public. As I said, the intent of this is more so we can take a look at this, what makes sense. Maybe this is not what, maybe, you know, we need more than this. Like, again, you are the experts here. So I appreciate you looking into this and providing us with that data. And any questions from colleagues on this item?

Thank you, Chair, just to echo your words. I appreciate the comprehensive approach that your department's taking to questions like this. And I have a lot of confidence that you'll look at this question, you know, in a comprehensive light and it's much appreciated.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I will never miss the chance to give Director Rossi another accolade, too. You know, I appreciate Director Rossi. You know, it's like I see you every morning. We don't say thank you enough, but I appreciate the work you do.

Chair, let me just hold the mirror up to our partners on the City Council. It takes a village, and you all are part of our team, so thank you so much.

Okay, great. All right, we'll mark this item as we're completed and we'll move to the next item, item number nine, Madam Clerk.

Item number nine, ID number 26-0822, sent for discussion by Councilors Embaugh and Hart, that the Director of Mobility install speed bumps on Elmwood Street and assess whether closing the street to non-residents during rush hours would be possible and useful to reduce the cut-through traffic to and from Cameron Avenue.

Director Austin? Chair, I'm happy to speak to this one as well. It will be very, very similar to our Vernon Street discussion a moment ago. I have connected with the ward counselor and provided some of the background on our traffic calming program. We understand that constituents on Elmwood have expressed concerns that traffic calming on Cameron, one block over, may be motivating some drivers to, in my opinion, inappropriately cut through a private way called Tannery Brook Row and access Elmwood as a bypass. And as we all know, in this era of navigation apps, these things do happen. So, regardless of the origin story here, Elmwood is on our evaluation list. Data have been collected. We've begun the preliminary analysis. Like Vernon Street, we have not completed that analysis, nor have we stacked up Elmwood against all of the other competing streets. But we are taking these concerns seriously, and we look forward to providing more information as soon as we're able to find the staff time to do it right.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Rawson, as the primary maker of this policy order, you know, and you didn't connect with me. I'm checking my email as soon as you said that. I'm like, did I miss any email from Director Rawson? So I guess, you know, this is the one that... You know, this is my neighborhood too. It's like a neighborhood that I've had, I mean, I've lived how many years? So I go around a lot. I know my people and I see them regularly. And I guess the point I'm making here is it's, I did not hear just from one constituent. So usually when you have this critical mass of people, into an issue you know i don't you know all those you know uh procedure like the bureaucratic process has to you know because you want to prevent something from happening so uh i guess where i'm getting at is like because i want to close this item and i don't want us having this just talking points and then nothing changes. And then tomorrow again, I'm going to walk because literally I'm going to go down there again to see another friend that lives on Enwood Street. I don't want to give you anything because I was excited that, oh, the item is coming before the traffic and parking. I need like some concrete stuff to tell them and not to say, oh, this is under evaluation.

Chair, through you, Counselor, please accept my apologies. I was corresponding with the ward's counselor on a few different items and I failed to actually open up the order and make sure that I realized that the counselors at large could be co-sponsoring. I apologize. I've just forwarded that to you for your records.

No worries. So can you give me like a timeline for this?

Yes, Chair, through you. So staff will be reviewing all of the data for Elmwood and Vernon and a couple dozen other streets that are in our queue. We expect that work to be happening in July, not June. We hope to provide public updates on the next couple of years worth of traffic calming priorities in the late summer. Amazing. Typically, we try to do that in the spring, and we're tracking behind. We've had two key members of our team out on family leave with new babies, new healthy babies, and they're transitioning back to the workforce quite soon. So we're super excited to be back in full capacity quite soon.

Amazing. Thank you. And Madam Chair, I'm happy to... I don't want to have to resubmit this. That's all I'm saying.

So you cut off there for a second. So you're happy with us marking the work as completed?

Yes. And just, you know, putting on record, I don't want to have to resubmit it again after July because there wasn't any momentum or tangible, you know, solution to like what the problem raised. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Counselor. All right, we'll work this. We'll mark this item as we're completed. Then we'll move to the next item, item number 10. Yeah, item number 10. Okay.

All right. Last item in the evening, item number 10, ID number 26-0840, sent for discussion by Councilors Link and Ewan Campin, that the Director of Mobility evaluate the feasibility of implementing a raised intersection or crosswalk at the intersection of Columbus Avenue, Prospect Hill Parkway, and Stone Avenue, and report findings to the City Council.

All right. Chair, through you, thanks for this order. Staff, appreciate it. I was out walking in this neighborhood just over the long weekend and looking at this site. Interdepartmental staff have not done a technical review. This is a very tricky location, as many counselors and constituents know, with the steep hills of Prospect Hill coming down to meet Columbus. So grades, sight lines, and cut through traffic are all challenges that we've heard about from constituents and from counselors over the years. A more detailed evaluation has not yet taken place, but I think engineering, parking, mobility, and others will be looking at this over the summer. So we don't have any detailed information at this time. Just wanted to acknowledge receipt and let counselors know that we'll be looking into this location.

Okay, thank you for this update.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to add here, and Director Ross, and I think you and I have talked about this, and I imagine you've talked to some of the ward counselors about all the complications of this intersection and the tendency in particular for people not to realize that part of Columbus Ave is two-way and part is one-way. So, you know, I know there's a lot of different pieces of the puzzle there and you know i just want to encourage you to you know be looking as holistically as possible at the at the overall traffic conditions there there are you thanks counselor yes uh signage review as we discussed with whitefield road earlier um uh this evening will be part of that evaluation

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank Dr. Rothstein for his multitasking skills. You know, it's like while he was talking, he was also sending me an email. So I have got your email. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Thank you, Counselor. We all miss seeing one another face-to-face, but I appreciate the ability to do that while we meet.

okay great um yeah if there are no further questions on this uh last item we'll mark this item as we're completed and that brings us to the end of the agenda um yeah so this was a good meeting you know mix of like really good updates things are happening very soon and things that you know need more evaluation and uh more staff's attention. Yeah, so again, let me just double check that we marked all the items with Madam Clerk and we approve the minutes. All right, that brings us to the end of our meeting. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll for adjournment?

All right, on adjournment, Councillor Wheeler.

Yes.

Councillor Mbappé.

Yes, please.

Chair Seat.

Yes.

All right. With that, it is 7.05 p.m. and we are adjourned.

Thanks, everyone. Have a good evening. Thanks all. Thank you all. Thank you.