Meeting #6 Minutes: Feb. 26

Franklin Street Arterial Study Group

Meeting #6, February 26th, 2008

Notes

Com. Members present: Alex Landry, Greg Martin, Liz Hoglund, Boyd Marley, Markos Miller, Katie Brown,  Mark Adelson, Mike Laberge, Cathji Debo, Cyruss Haggee
Staff: Mike Bobinsky, Kathi Earley, Carl Eppich, Gerald Varney, Alex Jagerman, Greg Mitchell
Consultant: Lucy Gibson
1. Welcome and Introductions: Greg Mitchell, Economic Development Director in attendance  

2. Updates

• PSA to be approached regarding helping w/ Public Workshop facilitation
• Rachel Talbot Ross will be meeting with multi-cultural community liaisons on March 12th to discuss outreach to East Bayside community.
• PHA offers to host future meeting to directed at this community
• Mark Adelson and Rachel to coordinate on surveys

3. Refining Vision Statement   

• committee work to finalize and streamline Vision Statement. Co-chairs asked to address final wordsmithing. Final Vision Statement reads:

Franklin Street will be a critical transportation facility for all modes of travel, linking the highway & Back Cove to the waterfront & Island ferries.
Franklin Street will be a vibrant urban corridor serving as an attractive gateway to the city connecting neighborhoods and destinations while enhancing the urban fabric of the city through the mixed use development of appropriate and functional residential, commercial and recreational space in the midst of attractive streetscapes.

All modes of travel, including motor vehicle, transit, bicycle and pedestrian shall be able to coexist in a design that is safe and environmentally sound for an urban setting through state of the art design utilizing optimum architecture, street widths, curbs, sidewalks and street level crosswalks and other appropriate amenities such as vegetation, trees and art.

• • • • • • • some comments on order of statements offered by members

4. Follow Up with Lucy        

• Roundabouts: yield lines for entering traffic, safer, fewer accidents, little direct collisions, less delay, higher capacity, lower speeds. Some key differences from Rotaries-Roundabouts have smaller diameter, clear yeilding rules.
• Roundabouts work best in high pedestrian areas. Cars slow for peds in crosswalks before entering roundabout; drivers need to be aware of/expecting peds,
• Roundabouts best on flat cvorridors
• difficult for visually impared since traffic is not forced to stop
• do not integrate well with signalized intersections nearby
• Congestion Mitigation Bonds can be used for roundabouts
• Commercial trucks?
• not good for change in grade
• take up space
• Request for overlays of Roundabouts at various intersections
• Reversible Travel Lanes: Franklin volumes are imbalanced (am/pm peaks)- is ideal for RVL, can increase capacity, require lot’s of signage, education; mostly used in long, high speed corridors; may increase speed, more capacity, less pavement.
• Connectivity:
• Vehicles: grid give more options, same # of lanes over grid increases capacity vs fewer, wider roads, dispurses left hand turning options, less time needed inleft hand turn phases
• Pedestrian: smaller streets are easier to cross, better control of speed, signal progression better maintains desired target speed
• Traffic Counts: nature of street varies as move away from Marginal (high volume) to Commercial (light volume); greater connections may decrease demand for left turns at Fox St (130 pm count). IDEA: limit hours you can make a left hand turn here.
• Data on Speed/Travel Time/ Economic Development: key to travel time is how intersections function, not speed; goal is predictability of travel time; 20-25 mph range is ideal for pedestrian safety; slower design speed allows more compact development.
• Golden, CO case study: Roundabouts in a corridor: much fewer accidents, increase in sales tax
• Burlington, VT, US 2, Main St.: similar volumes to Franklin (30,000 AADT), along university campus: lots of pedestrians. New at grade crossing: push button ped crossing, light traffic volumes crossing at intersection. Bikelane and sidewalk changes to wide sidewalk accomodating bike lane; undersized median.
• State Street, Portland: similar volumes to Franklin one-way. Nice features for pedestrians: raised sidewalk, wide buffer between sidewalk and road, scale of development

5. Performance Criteria: Committee begins work on articulating Performance Criteria categories and measures. To continue next meeting.         

6. Homework: follow up on Performance Standards        

7. Comments                       

• We need to know what volumes we will be designing for.
• What can we learn from Bayside traffic projections for new devlopments?
• What role can we expect TDM to play?
• Summarize Lucy’s Economic Development information for Business Community
• Concerns about Pedestrian Safety w/ Roundabouts
• Take a field trip to Auburn to see new roundaboputs near (Walmart?) Greg Mitchel has contacts.
• Lucy can send video links for roundabouts
• Steve Hirshon: commitment to neighborhood connectivity
• Don O’Neil: Vision Statement- include water and road, emphasize ped context, don’t lose sight of residential development
• Liz Trice: a ped count for Franklin is needed

Next Mtg  Business/Property Owner’s

Mar 4  Performance Standards/Design Criteria

Discussion Points