 Make the meeting official pursuant to make March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the meeting law. This meeting of the attack is being. I don't know conducted via remote. Thank you. And every opportunity will be given to provide opportunity for public comment. Don't know in person comments will be permitted. So, and as there is no, so this meeting of the attack, June 8, 2023 is called to order. Does anyone have any comments they want to make public comments they want to make before we get started? I don't see anyone else in attendance. So. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I know it's a busy time of year. Okay, so the 1st order of business are updates on previous attack. Items including the the 1st 1 is the street lights policy and our motion that we have. Yeah. So, I mean, I can bring them up on the screen. The reason I'm putting this forward. Uh, and it is because my understanding. So the TSO, the town services and outreach committee that they met last week. And we're reviewing the proposed street lights policy. Um, they had a pretty lengthy discussion right before I came here. I was actually watching the recording of it. Um, and they, they do expect it will be taken up again at the next TSO meeting. And they do expect at that time to take a vote and then to forward it to the council. Um, so the reason I brought it up is just, I understand. I mean, I can mention some concerns I still have and I didn't know we did issue that very. You know, general statement about, we'd like you to change this language. Um, so we could revisit that. But if we had anything other specific that we wanted to say. To the TSO and the council before they vote, I wanted to bring it up now. And if it's helpful, I can both pull up the, um, that motion originally and then also, um, and also just the latest version. Yeah, I think you should. Okay, so we'll start with the motion. I mean, our motion, and you know, at the time that we did the motion. We had, um, the 2 council sponsors. Uh, counselors, Hanneke and definitely got there had come to attack meeting and I was under the impression that before they actually moved forward with like an updated version of their policy. That they were actually going to be reaching out to us more. So I was a little surprised when at the next meeting they had on the topic, they said, okay, well, here's our like latest version. So, and they had basically. Not made any of the changes that we suggested. Um, so just the fact that they did move forward. I mean, I guess the 1 thing that they did take out of the policy at this time is the language where they were looking at, which neighborhoods specifically should have street lights and which shouldn't. And, and they also, which I'm happy about is they did make it now where they're leaving the original language in the policy about that there should be street lighting at all intersections because in the original version. My understanding of it is that in some of the residential neighborhoods where they were going to be removing street lights, for example, like Orchard Valley and Echo Hill and things like in the initial version. They thought that they, they were taking out the street lights even at the intersections like of the roads within those community within those neighborhoods, basically that they would only have the street lights. Um, out at the intersections with the main roads. At least that's how I interpreted it. And that's how I interpreted the map that the council sponsors had presented because in the map, they didn't have any street lights at all on those areas, but that's off the table right now. And they do realize that that needs a lot more discussion and people have many different opinions about it. Okay, so let me, I'll just pull up. This is the first and I know too that a few people weren't at our meeting when we discussed this originally and voted on it. I think like Marcus wasn't here and I don't know, somebody else, Stefan or Christine or somebody. Okay, let's see. I'm going to share the screen. I was here for it. Oh, then I guess it was Stefan and I know that Joe is traveling right now. I think he didn't he say he's like an Iceland or something. Which sounds pretty awesome. Okay, so you can see like my screen with the PDF. Alright, so I actually have been thinking a lot about, I mean, we came up with this initial motion. About, you know, where we thought the street lights should be and and I still do really think I mean I thought from the beginning when they first introduced this proposal is that there has never been much focus, at least in my mind on pedestrian safety and traffic safety in general and the focus has always been on like just the negative impacts of light pollution and the negative impacts on human health and on habitats and things like that, which I completely, I do not disagree with those concerns. But I also just from a traffic safety standpoint, and just my background, I'm going to focus, I think a lot about the risks that night, the risk that night for drivers pedestrians bicyclists. I mean, just that so many, you know, over 50% of fatal crashes happen at night. And so we're just disproportionate with like the amount of vehicle miles traveled that and think so it is a risk. I know I don't even as a driver, I don't see as well as I used to see and so on. So, um, so I mean I liked how we initially said that we still support the idea of reducing like pollution and we still have concerns about the safety impacts. So there was this, you know, we initially recommended adding crosswalk and bus stop as locations where street lights will be provided. I mean, I do still believe that those are good locations to have a lighting. You know, and we did talk at one meeting and and I went on the district for neighborhood walk is that there are certain even some of the bus shelters are very dark. And so like somebody could be sitting in a bus shelter at night and the bus driver wouldn't see them. Um, and so I do think that it is helpful to have lighting in those locations, but whether or not they actually have to be street lights. I mean, that may not be necessary. And also some of those places, particularly like some of the bus stops. I mean, they're not not all bus stops are going to get used tonight. Right. Like there could be bus stops near schools and there's some routes that have limited hours and things like that. So just a quick question. The council is is or is not moving forward with location recommendations for street lights. They are not moving forward at this time. Okay. So, I mean, we can, I mean, we can remove that, you know, as part of our recommendations. Yeah, I just think that we could suggest for future. Right. Generation, but I don't know that we necessarily need to focus on it now. Right. I mean, No, no, I agree. I agree with that. Yeah. That's a good point. Um, so I think we could just tell them that, you know, as we've considered it, like that's, that's not a priority. Just that we think there should be some type of lighting. And the one thing that the sponsors have brought up a number of times is that with crosswalks, you know, instead of having like overhead lighting, it could also be effective to have, you know, flashing lights at the crosswalk or something. So, but then there's a second part where that we wanted to rephrase this section that and this is from the 2001 policy where it says, you know, street lights will not be provided by the town for pedestrians and residential neighborhoods. Um, and remove the phrase because that such lighting could be requested virtually everywhere in town. Um, so I'm going to go ahead and just kind of pull up the reference to that. And I was just listening to the TSO meeting and there was actually some discussion about that with. Okay, so I stopped sharing right now. So, so this is the original language, right? It says here it says, so the reds are the, you know, track changes. Um, so it does. So the policy currently says street lights will generally be provided by the town as follows at intersections at dead ends and end of cul-de-sacs, you know, for road conditions staying potentially hazardous on all downtown streets and on other streets with heavy pedestrian traffic such as vicinity of school and commercial areas. And then it has this paragraph which says the town council shall interpret the application of the above criteria to specific street lights and the town will provide street lights at other locations deemed appropriate by the council. And then there's a section it says however street lights will not be provided by the town of security lighting for private property or for pedestrians and residential neighborhoods unless one of the above criteria is met or the council otherwise deems the situation to require a street light because such street lighting could then be requested virtually everywhere in town. So there was actually a discussion. I mean, as I was saying at the TSO meeting about this and about the language. And I mean, the reason I had wanted this language out. The second part of this language about pedestrians and residential neighborhoods is because it doesn't feel necessary to me. Because right at the front of the section you're saying street lights will generally be provided by the town as follows in these locations and that you can also provide them as other locations as deemed appropriate. So you could just stop there. And I don't think you need to say is added part about, you know, or, you know, we're going to make sure not to have lighting in residential neighborhoods except for when this criteria is met. It just seems like a sort of negative language about sustainability and encouraging other months. That they, that's where they're getting requests right. I don't know if that's where they're getting requests. So I believe it's in the 2001 policy. 2001 policy, but I'm also saying that the counselors have, you know, been getting a lot of requests to remove street lights in residential areas. Because people feel that they're getting, you know, there's too much light or it's, you know, shining in the window that sort of stuff. So I can see why they want to include this sentence because it shows people that they are addressing their concern. And yeah, it's super numery, but it is proving to people that you're doing the job sort of thing. I think it's also not really within our purview to take stuff like that out. I mean, it doesn't really affect us. Okay. I mean, right. So we had originally recommended that it be removed, but. Yes, I agree. We did, but like at some level, it wasn't really, it's not really our purview, I guess. Okay. I mean, I actually think, I mean, I think to me it's, it is a purview a little bit just in terms of like in terms of the how the framing is happening around like street lighting and safety and safety and residential neighborhoods, including at night, which is because we do look at things not, you know, just project by project street by street, but like townwide. And if you're thinking about it in terms of the context of like the transportation plan and sustainability plan and encouraging other modes and things. I mean, that was sort of my thinking. With it, but I mean, we can, we don't have to say that again to them. I mean, and Marcus actually I. I mean, we have heard right that the counselor, the council sponsors you brought this forward had heard from particular individuals that they were not happy with the street lights outside of their house. But when they were asked about it in a meeting, they really only couldn't, they only listed like a few people, including one of the counselors sponsors, like the their families themselves. And so it doesn't, I mean, there has been sort of mixed. What I've heard what I've heard what I've heard from council other council members is that I mean, there are a lot of people who would like more street lights. There are some people who would like fewer street lights. But yeah, I'm not disagreeing with that. Yeah, I'm just saying, you know, squeaky wheel, right, the grease, right. If you show that you're getting the grease, then the squeaky wheel goes away. So you just put it in there and you leave it. And I think I do agree that I think it, you know, with Kevin that I think it's a little bit, you know, we're pushing our bounds a little bit on this. Yeah. All right. Does anybody else have any comments on it. Okay. So, when I've looked through the policy. I mean what they're doing right now is because they aren't focusing on locations they're focusing on the lighting technology and things I'm not an expert at that and also just on having down lighting. And have and decreasing light pollution. I'm a huge believer in decreasing light pollution and I wish for example that whenever source was putting in these new polls that I mean ever source controls at least like 8590% of the polls that have street lights in Amherst is that I wish they were not raising the street lights that like does not benefit anybody. It doesn't help with like traffic safety. It does increase light pollution. It means that it's shining more people's windows and disrupting more people and it doesn't help with safety. So I wish we had more control over that but ever source runs those polls. The town only controls a small percent of them and there's really not that much that can be done. So I mean I support that going forward. And they have said the sponsors have talked with DPW and I mean go for this here too that there is, you know, there will be some time before any of this is implemented in terms of the new lighting because quite a bit of the current lighting will last has quite a bit of left lifetime left right so it wouldn't be changed out until it's like nearing the end of that lifetime. So that's the concern I had had about about the way it's set up. I mean so some of these sections here I'm not even sure how relevant they are to the town because we don't have that much control like for example, some of these things about where the lighting will not be more than 10 to 15 feet in height. Again I don't know. And there's. That this is all part of the stuff that's not going forward this year right. No, no, no this is all going forward. This is the latest version. Yeah, so this is this is the section that is going forward. Right all the red stuff so it's like a track changes version. So this is the language they added. And then the standards what they did is they made it an appendix about the lighting standards are talking about the illumination and the color of the light and all these different characteristics. So the one thing from a safety perspective is that there's a section here about dimming of the lights. And that's one that I've had concerns about. So again, we don't have even the technology to do this yet but when I do support the idea of dimmable lights. You know I've been reading the research about dimmable lights you can save a lot of money with them. They do decrease light pollution. But you know there are some mix like safety results depending on how much the lights get dimmed. And so it does say here you know if possible and not cost prohibitive street scape lighting shall be dimmed to no more than 70% of the normal luminance levels by 11 or within one hour closing time at the last bar. There's a live music venue in the basically the downtown or the village centers, whichever correlator, if possible not cost prohibitive, and that all other street lights shall be dimmed to no more than 70% of their luminance by 11. I mean, one thing I get concerned about just because there are so many crashes at night and there are so many pedestrian fatalities at night is just about places where people are walking that are outside of the village centers, including around you mass and I believe the village center like for example, it's a little hard to imagine now but when I'm downtown like during the school year, you know on a Thursday Friday or Saturday night it's so busy so late. You know when you're there at like midnight one or whatever and that, but when this when the people who are in the bars are like fully capacity with huge lines and everything but when you, when people leave when the college age people leave those bars and they're walking you know are they're not staying within the village center like they're they're going to neighborhoods and things so I. I've just thought that instead of just having it within the village center where you're not going to dim the lights. The other thing I really is that you also just want to think about the places where people are most likely to be walking and where there's also likely to be the most car traffic that can potentially create conflicts. So, I mean but other than that I don't really have any other comments on the policy as it stands because, as I've said they're not really talking about locations. So, or changing locations. So the committee members is just do we want to say anything more to TSO at this time or do we just want to let it proceed to the council. So we just let it play out. Honestly. But did we send our motion. We sent that original motion. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, you know, we are only advisory right. Of course. And we can advise as much as we want if they choose to listen to us that's a different matter. So, ideally, yeah, you know, ideally they listen to us. But yeah, we can't. I mean we can go and bang on the door and tell them what for but yeah. Well, I think, I think as a advisory committee and I feel like we've really. I guess I'm just differing a bit with your attitude, Marcus. Mainly, we all are an advisory committee. Yeah. But we've also been doing this for a long time and this has been our sole focus. Yeah. And I feel like, yeah, okay, they want our advice, but we should provide the most sound. Well, that's all right. Yeah. I mean, because, because yes, I agree. We are just advisory. Take it a bit. But in the end, you know, we're all professionals and we want our advice to be the most sound. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I work for the MITA corporation. We're a very fun. The MITA corporation. I work for the MITA center for aviation advanced aviation system development, which is a federally funded research and development company. And we are government advisors. Yeah. That's my job 24 seven. So yeah, I completely understand, you know, we need to be advisory, but I'm also fully aware of the fact that, you know, it goes in one ear and it goes out the other too. So no matter how much you push for something. So, yeah, I think so long as we push and it's with sound followed sound foundation. That's it. I mean, so I see my role, right? So a lot of what I do for my job is the research on transportation safety studies and so on. So, I mean, since the proposal first came out last summer. And as I said, it always has had like a dark skies focus like less of attention on traffic safety. Like I have myself just personally like contacted counselors in the TSO like a number of times and shared with them like practice shares show them the results of studies and things like that that maybe they weren't aware of. But I agree that we have an advisory role. I just like to inform. You know, the people that counselors are not experts in these areas. So I'd like to like help them provide them with the background information. So hopefully they make an informed decision. I mean, that's my thinking about it. And I mean, that's why I've read about the dam main ends. And I would tell them to just, you know, as I've thought about it more that we don't really feel like there needs to be the street lights at all of the places we indicated we, you know, in terms of crosswalks and things like that, we just think that. I mean, the lighting is helpful there. But maybe crosswalks, I mean, street lights aren't necessarily the answer. Anyway, so we, that's how I see it. So we agree. I mean, basically we don't. We just won't really weigh in anymore and we'll just let it play out. So we'll go from TSO and it will go to the council and they write them individually or whatever, but that's fine. And we'll see where it goes. Okay. Great. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Yeah. All right. And then I'm safe routes to school and the Amherst regional public schools. So, um, as I think I mentioned the last meeting, so Chris Linsom and I had met with the new safety to school coordinator. For what the four Western mascot counties, her name is Tori Haloran. And we had a good meeting with her. And we're trying to meet with the school district over the summer. And there is going to be a back to school event scheduled for August 29th, which is the night. The afternoon before the first day of school and to have like some table in there to promote safe routes to school. And so that was basically just to let people know about that. And if anybody wants to get involved with that. And then also just updates and continue discussions of their attack reappointments. So I'm assuming that Chris and Stefan are aware of this, but they were both recently reappointed to tack for. I guess probably three more years, I guess. And, um, and so at the last TSO meeting and then at the council meeting. The town manager had submitted a number of reappointments for a number of the committees because. A number of terms expire in June and he just wanted to get out ahead of them. And so. They probably went through like 3040 reappointments and appointments and so on and so yay. So thank you both for continuing to serve. So, okay. Moving right along. So the next item, number four. And so tack, you know, it's contacted about transportation safety in certain neighborhoods. So I did share with you the wildflower drive. Email that had been sent around. By a resident there and he has previously commies or professor at UMass he had previously come. He had talked to tack. When we were still meeting in person, I remember him coming to the police station. And, um, and then he's emailed and he's emailed again and people still speed in his neighborhood. I actually went out to his, you know, and met with him once out there. I mean, I know him through UMass as well. And in his neighborhood. I mean, I think it's a good thing. So there are sidewalks on both sides of the street there. But just that the speeds are quite high and there just hasn't really been sometimes and there hasn't been anything. Like any solution to it yet. Um, so I was bringing it up both one. Just to, you know, to follow up on that. I don't know. I mean, we're again, we're an advisory committee. If we had thoughts about that. But. And, um, I mean, the police department was out there as well. And I think after one time, they said to him that some of this, a number of the speeders in that neighborhood actually live in the neighborhood. And so, I mean, the research that I've seen. In terms of traffic calming is that really the most effective way to calm traffic is to make the streets more narrow. Like a lot of other measures like are not that effective. And so, Well, I was thinking about that because some of those side streets, you could actually change the general flow of the traffic. So rather than having wildflower as a, you know, continuous right of way, you just change the right of way so that it goes up one of the side streets. And so you actually have to physically turn off the street to go along wildflower. So if you pull up, let's pull up a Google map, right? Yeah, are you going to pull that? Are you going to pull it up now, Marcus? Yeah, give me a second. It was a visual. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I just, it came to me in a dream. No. I was looking, I was just thinking about it earlier, you know, when you send out the email. Right. Like, I mean, I've been to Matt's house a ton, but sure, that street down there, very straight, very, you know, just great, right? Everybody wants to get to the other end of wherever they're going, Trillium, whatever. Yeah. Sorry, give me a second. There are opportunities to change the flow of traffic as people go down the street. And so this is like, you know, so what we're talking about here is, you know, old farm road goes down here, then wildflower is this street here, right? Very straight, nice curve up and over a hill, which also doesn't help with, you know, what's going on. But wildflower doesn't need to be straight here, right? The road, the direction of the road could actually turn off up here. So there is a, you know, the path of the road goes up and around here. You have to physically, you know, put your blinkers on or whatever and go around, just put out a bump out into the road that forces people to normally go up Tanglewood. So you actually have to then go around the bump. And the same here with, what is it, T-Berry, right? Just do the same, but on the other side of the road. So the direction of the road is going down this way normally. So you are still continuing down the same street. So, sorry. I'm not sure I understand, but. So, right. So, yeah. So here, right? Normally, direction of flow is straight this way. Yeah. Really, what you're doing is introducing a 90 degree turn into the road. But what about if people wanted to like continue on Wildflower? So then they have to turn off and go down that way. So are you, are you talking about like a mini roundabout or something? Not really. Not really. Not really. No. I mean. No, I mean, so, so, no, I mean, so I'm trying to understand. So if you want to go to the right of Tanglewood. And you're coming from the left of Tanglewood and you're on Wildflower. How do you get to the right of Tanglewood? So, sorry. Let me, let me draw it up for you. Does anybody else understand? Cause I'm like confused about how you get to the rest of the neighborhood. So it's just that it's, it would be like a triangle bump out into the road. So the road markings and everything continue. Yeah. Yeah. My, now, now we're getting into how good are my skills? Right. So we've got the situation road going this way. And. I'm in pressure doing this on the fly. You'd like a little road kit. Okay. Yeah. Right. Going up this way. Right. So we're coming from left to right. Yes. Right. So one opportunity is to put a stop sign. You know, an always stop sign at this particular intersection. The other opportunity is to actually. Only have traffic. Coming. And. Shit. Where is that? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know a horizontal curve there kind of like. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So the traffic would. The, the lines in the road or the whatever. Point you to go this way normally. And there would be some bump out on. You know, on the right hand side of the road. That would jet strongly suggest that. So then actually put on your blinker and turn in order. Exactly. To go down the rest of the street. You know, a road down here. We do the same here. Right. So you're actually breaking up this road into. Three sections. So coming this way. You're. Naturally forced to go up. The random street. You'd actually have to physically put your blinker on and go down. Go here and you go down here, but you would normally force it. Yeah. Just a thought. Yeah. But it would that involve, I mean, so that would involve. You'd have to like. Yeah. Well, I mean, it could be done. A few different ways, right? I mean, you could just put a. A little island out. Yeah. With additional asphalt and put a. A metal sign up that, you know, points to the. You know, those ones that you have the Chevron. And then you're going around a corner, right? Going that way. And then you've actually got to go down the other way. That could be that. Or we could go full on mini roundabout. With just the nice little bump of paint that you get over in the UK and kind of do something similar. But yeah, a little bit of mini roundabout action might peak. Guilford's interest. Cause I know he's a. Roundabout fanatic. Or even like stop signs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the stop signs are just like so boring. They're easy. They're easy, but they're boring. I don't know. I want to hear what Guilford has to say. And also, I mean, I guess. But go ahead, Guilford. One, why don't we just tell all the people who live in the neighborhood to actually be respectful of each other. And I'll have to pay any money and keep. Yeah. That would be a nice option. One. Yeah. Option two is yeah, mini roundabouts. I think is what is easiest. There's not. If we're work better, I think Marcus's idea, I liked it, but I'm not sure we have enough layout. Okay. Yeah. I don't have much around in the road. Third thing is we won't recommend stops. Always stop signs to control speed. Cause it says in the manual, don't do this. Yeah. And we pretty much stick to that. Yeah. Next section down. Larks where Larksburg comes in. People, people just drive through the stop sign because it's so straight and you can see so well. Yeah. I like my best idea and think that my best idea is to go ahead and just tell people to be nice to each other. Do something over there. But I think I do like an idea of a mini roundabout. Yeah. Yeah. The show. So the one thing I wonder about too is, I mean, when I've been in some of these. You know, newer neighborhoods and I was also out in a neighborhood that's like off over nine. Out near, you know, Palomado body recently. And it's such a different experience than being on like the downtown roads. Like the street is wide and it's very smooth. And the sidewalk is very smooth. And there's kids like playing in the street. And in this particular neighborhood I was in, you know, there's really no through traffic and I mean, it's just. And I mean, there actually is almost no street lighting at night too, but it's just, it's, it's a completely different, you know, traffic world like neighborhood than where I live. Which is like right after root nine. And so, but I do wonder one thing is when the streets are so wide, like when the streets are wide like that and very few people in these neighborhoods like Park on street, because they have long driveways and things and there's really no need that. I mean, again, as I was saying, the research that I've seen like the best way to calm traffic is to make streets more narrow. And so I mean, the traffic is very slow and it slows cars down and. But it didn't make me wonder about like some of our standards, you know, when those new newer subdivisions are developed, like do the wides need to be as wide as they are. But then also I had mentioned, and I included just. The information about the Boston neighborhoods traffic initiative because what they're doing is they are like different neighborhoods each year to do. They're calling them like traffic speed hump zones or and also redesigning intersections and things. As somebody who lives in an Anton neighborhood that does have speed humps. Like it really has made a big difference in our speed. And so I didn't know if that's something that the town could ever look at sort of. I mean, I know that I know during the capital improvement planning process and when proposals, you know, when the public was making proposals that the North Amherst neighborhood, you know, ask for a number of improvements in their neighborhood to calm traffic and. And it was interesting to me because. There are other neighborhoods and there are other streets where the residents are also concerned a lot about speeding and cut through traffic and things like that, but. Almost none of those other neighborhoods came to that process. I mean, so to me, it's an issue that comes up throughout town. And so that's why the Boston approach is. Interesting to me just because. It would mean that like the town would put together something. You know, a multi-year plan about how to improve different neighborhoods like based on. The data that. Of which neighborhoods need it most like what I've heard is that. And I remember a little bit, but before we had the speed. The traffic humps on Lincoln and. Sunset and. And blue Hills road. I mean, there were on the section of Lincoln near the Southwest dorms. I mean, the traffic speeds were pretty high. They were up to like 50 or 50 miles an hour plus. And now that you have those speed humps, people cannot drive that fast. Even if they weave a little bit around the speed humps, but. So it's made a huge difference in those neighborhoods. So I do think that it can be a successful. I mean, there's another issue though. Speed humps damage buildings. Speed humps damage buildings. Yes. Because if you're close enough to the building, you know, that if you're close enough to the building, and that are heated, you know, action, spending on the size of them. The, the pounding that. Happens when the car goes over it actually induces. You know, Issues in the building as well. So that's why it's certainly over in. The UK, they've actually moved away from speed humps. And they have like small square. actually almost like drive over them but it gives you a visual like oh crap that something's coming at me because of the fact but I mean that's generally brick buildings for one and you know narrow roads with buildings right on the street so but it's just something that you know there are other things to consider around that. Well I think like speed tables are their idea where they're you're saying they're longer and they're longer in distance right like so some of the ones along near on college street near Amherst college are speed tables which if you're going at a high speed you know it still isn't great for your car but I don't know right I mean so so Guilford like from your perspective is it better to do things such as like many roundabouts or better to have you know kind of some speed humps or speed tables or something along those lines or or to have certain sections where you narrow the roadway or I mean what what what are and yes I do agree that you know everybody should drive nicely in neighborhoods and things but if you did have to slow down the traffic do you have preferred measures that you like in neighborhoods? Um what seems to I don't know what's going to work and I really um the speed humps do kind of work pretty well um but I think we're going to end up heading towards many roundabouts because we really can't narrow the roads for two reasons one the neighborhoods that have wide roads they want them because they have parties sometimes they want some place for their people to park and they also want some place for their landscapers to park when they come and mow their grass so when the road gets narrowed because the landscapers park there or there's a party um other people complain so they want the roads wider and they don't want to give it up we we've tried narrowing a couple roads and um we've just ran into pushback um so I don't know so if you have the many roundabouts right and you have larger vehicles like they can there can be an apron where they can like navigate around it so they can drive right like huge like problem yeah no that that just slightly yeah no I mean you're looking at the like the one on university drive at snow street and shrinking it down maybe another oh I see five feet and you'd have you would you'd have the island in the middle which if you're moving are you having a delivery and it's a big truck they can drive over that island but if you're driving your little um bolt or even if you're driving your suburban um when you hit that um I drove my truck across it it was not something to drive full speed across the truck um so it works really well you should have been slowing down and being observant of everybody else in the right in England yes I mean and there are some communities like I had lived in Madison Wisconsin and there were certain you know like bike boulevards there that they would just have like many roundabouts at like certain you know every certain number of intersections just to help slow the traffic down so huh that's interesting so um another reason that I brought it up is that I know that like I know that um the resident on wildflower who had contacted us that he's writing tack like tack at whatever the tack at Amherst MA.gov or something but like when that when people write to that email we don't actually usually get it do I mean do many emails come in there you'll throw it or do okay because it's not actually on our webpage or anything I think it used to be um it does I mean actually um I used to just go to one member and I don't know if they changed it so maybe they didn't change it to you and like no oh okay I mean but it comes to like you know the DPW um it comes to it comes to the attack email and it's actually like if you want email a DPW you go DP you go to um public works at Amherst MA.gov that goes to secretaries in the office and they then send it to where it needs to go so tack just goes to two of the same two secretaries and they usually me got it okay and we don't get that many this guy he's just desperate he actually grabbed he actually is the town engineer lives in that neighborhood too so the town engineer has to whose friends with him tries to avoid it when he's in his I got it yeah why did you shouldn't live where you work whereas Marcus is going over there with all that hockey connection now so anyway he's a big hockey player Marcus this kid plays hockey so okay um and then you know I know I mean I think we are trying to go through this at some point and then we just you know whatever we're going to put it on our agenda like you weren't available and um but is there still like a running spreadsheet of the requests that people get I mean that come into the town um you know about different neighborhoods or anything like that I know it seemed for a while you were sort of keeping a running list and some of them used to come to tack um not that you know it should just be like squeaky wheel type stuff but it's it's always sort of interesting to at least see where people are complaining you know and how representative of town like if we ever did want to move to a plan you know prioritizing like different neighborhoods or something just to just to see what what you hear the most about I don't know we actually don't hear that much anymore except pave my road that's the one we hear constantly which then when you say when people say pave my road and it's paved they're like well we need a safe place for bicycles so then you want the road to stay wider too so that's the second one I was going to say but I forgot oh that they want a wider for bicycles is that right especially wildflower you can go all the way from station road to route nine on wildflower so that's one they kind of want they they would like to have wider but then the cul-de-sacs is more of the parking issue and landscapers and so forth I'm surprised that people are pushing back at saying that they don't want the streets narrowed at all because to me like in some I mean again I was in this one neighborhood and there aren't that many cars speeding around because there's not a lot of through traffic there but if there ever was like cars could go really fast because nobody ever parks on street hardly or I guess at least when I was there I mean they just seem so wide and without a lot of on-street parking you know whereas I've been looking at um like on sunset now with the contractors that have been there for a long time like if there weren't restrictions with parking on sunset you could not have so the contractors are parking on one side of the street on sunset but there would not be sufficient room for there to be like two lanes of traffic um and the contractors are all parked like you know back like in the line like right next to each other so you couldn't even kind of like pull over like you could with neighborhood parking and kind of go around so yeah so I'm glad there are some restrictions on the on-street parking and sunset okay that's interesting so I guess yeah so Guilford at a future meeting like maybe at the next meeting could you still show us that um running spreadsheet are you really not maintaining it anymore I mean I sort of I mean I sort of remember what's on there but not I think we haven't talked about it in like a couple years so okay um let's see we're moving right along and we can have a short meeting today yay um so other updates like informational updates uh so there is this bylaw about the snow and ice removal and um so it's like 5a so it had been before it had gone to gol last summer and um it came to gol because there was a bylaw review committee I mean Bernie Kubiak was one of the members of it and when they went through all the bylaw the town bylaws and tried to update the things about where it said um you know select board and change it to council and they cleaned up some other things there were questions about the snow and ice bylaw and so it came to gol and um it seems like it's pretty close to going to the council for review and approval um one thing they have made some changes to it and so one of the changes to it is to um put make the enforcement for snow and ice clearing well actually there's two things so one is to add um other types of instructions on the public way and on sidewalks including when there's like vegetation overgrowth um such as like you know bushes and hedges and sometimes like private trees or in the way and so that's actually in the bylaw now too explicitly I think it used to just there used to be a section that just talked about general like obstruction the public way but the vegetation is mentioned and um so that's one thing and then another big change was to also change it because currently with the snow and ice the enforcement is with the police department um but there are always some been some questions about that because you know dpw is the one to plow some of the sidewalks is a courtesy they're the ones who own the plowing equipment and when I I know that when I've called the police to complain about people not shoveling they often say well hey you need to call dpw and so it's like well are you gonna remind the property owners or not and so um they actually the gol committee they put it under the enforcement under inspection which and the inspection department also looks at other home related you know enforcement in terms of like safety issues parking issues things like that so I think that should be a good place for it to go and we appreciate I still appreciate uh dpw's willingness to also be enforcing but um the town manager wanted to be under one committee so it's going to be under inspection so I'm hoping that this will make a difference next year and I'm hoping that there will be a lot of outreach and we will see um and one one thing I had asked them to look at to adding is um explicitly including curb cuts and like curb ramps with the snow and ice removal on the sidewalks is because historically those areas are not always cleared and sometimes plows push snow onto those and when that happens it takes even longer for them to ever melt and things and so I'm hoping having that language in will help so maybe we can do some sort of outreach in the before the next winter to encourage people to do that and also about bushes I know there's some places where I walk where the bushes are very overgrown already so I don't know if anybody else finds I mean we walked when we did that walk up north pleasant right yeah that was pretty bad yeah on the east side of well the sidewalks are very narrow there too right that too so like it just compounds the issue right yeah yeah so I mean currently like Gilbert had shared with the GOL community that currently when the when when DPW is contacted you know about a tree obstructing like the site of view for like roadway safety and you know or other bushes that are in the sidewalk that they'll write a letter you know they'll write a letter to the owner and say how will you remedy the situation you know this is blocking the site lines or things like that um but hopefully having it in the bylaw will help too so and it is enforceable I mean I think I feel with the one thing I like about it not being with the police department is with any of these measures I feel like the most important thing is to clear the sidewalk and not like to just like issue a ticket because you could issue a ticket and it could still not be cleared and so I mean I'm hoping it will make the sidewalks more accessible maybe I'm too hopeful yeah I also wonder about if that interfaces with um rental properties the you know you can flag certain things on property site on on the I don't know what it is to rental I don't know the town website is there is there a site where you can flag stuff with rental properties if you have to contact no I mean I do parking I don't know oh you do up on the inspection like on the inspection website there's a special like rental property part I don't know okay cool and so you could do that with um I mean yeah I guess you could do that with and and I guess maybe that would go with inspection thing too because I I notice at least in in our neighborhood there's a number of the I mean it's personal property but it's also um there are a few rentals that just don't and I'm like how do you get away with this how do you get away with not clearing the sidewalk if you have a rent oh sure yeah well in some landlords we'll put it into the lease yeah but in Massachusetts I mean what I what I've read and in like the state supreme court cases and so on it's said that the even if it is in the lease it's still the landlord's responsibility yeah no it is it absolutely and that you can't so you can't really rely on the tennis to do and if and if somebody gets hurt or whatever they can still sue the landlord and no but I I wasn't even thinking it was the tenant's responsibility I'm thinking no no but some people have had that in leases I mean I in another state you know it said like this tenant will shovel the this month this other ten and shovel this other month but that's not really a lot in Massachusetts I don't think so well well let's hope let's hope the sidewalks will be better okay and sorry okay no bye thank you so then the next thing is the PBTA route update so I was pretty excited and last Friday I went to the Western Mass Transportation Advocacy Network meeting in Holyoke and Tate was there presenting about his work in the Berkshires and there were also some UMass faculty presenting but what you may recall like that Tate and his classmate like came and they were talking about their route changes possible route changes to the PBTA system and it will be exciting to see like what happens next with those so they're under they're currently under review but they did really look at you know equity issues and so on like that to try to expand the routes and serve the community better so I don't know Tate if you have any comments about like a time frame for implementation or when they'll be out for public comment or anything yeah so PBTA hired me this summer on a very part time basis which is fine because I mean don't you already have another job yeah yeah anyway so okay like you know just here and there working on um sort of like scheduling and run cutting to basically they're filling out because it's it's sort of like a level level funding redesign so it's not like oh we're pumping in many millions of dollars more into the system it's more like what can we better what what can we do better with the funding we already have anyway so now the next step is sort of working out logistics of that and there's some neat software that I get to use that automates part of that anyway so that's the next step there because they have to make sure that everything checks out in terms of drivers shifts and whatnot for in terms of how much it will cost because they don't want to put anything out to public comment obviously before um fleshing it out more fully I mean the whole project was put out to public comment last fall but in terms of specific changes um yeah I don't know maybe in the fall maybe next spring I mean things don't move exactly super fast over there but at some point in the near future I believe I would be happy to as Tracey and I discussed I'd be happy to go over like some of the changes that are proposed I mean I mean it's public right now but it's like the fleshed out thing is no I know yeah I was very excited about them yeah and he was even meeting I'd be happy to just go over some of the changes proposed for Amherst with the understanding obviously that this isn't like the finalized proposed like this isn't the fine-tuned version but well and of course there will have to be like a official public comment period and I think like in public hearings like obviously yes yeah I mean sorry yeah of course and the route and the route changes right or like pvta system wide that are being proposed yeah are they you know focusing on specific communities uh no it's system wide okay I think I shared the map with you yeah I thought the map was great can I show that can I show the committee the map or yeah I mean I was going to I have or you could pull it up yeah I was just gonna talk with or let give a pvta a heads up first okay sure that's our next meeting yeah we can happy to like share it with the committee it was awesome I was excited that's why I put it on the agenda even though we can't so anyway so what um Tate had showed me is like some GIS mapping that showed you know the different areas like different populations with transit dependent riders and low income riders and things like that and how the new routes were like serving those areas better and it seemed great yeah and like I said that is that is public but again yeah before I explain no no of course yeah I'd prefer to just yeah well and also I think too I mean just in terms of our time I think for us if if tac wants to advise at all as an advisory committee that we probably want to wait until the version that's like out to the public right and then we could say something you know about it as an advisory committee and the council could weigh in and say like we love it or whatever you know that everybody would respond at that time because you know until it's actually out like who knows what could change sure if I were to explain it to the purely informational no exactly yeah but I mean really I mean it's exciting that your class did that project for the pvta looked at overhauling some of the routes and you know some of the segments you and I talked about are just things that have like bothered me for a long time that they don't really work as is so it's great that you guys did that comprehensive look exactly yeah so thank you for that and thank you for pvta for hiring these really smart grad students to do all cool all right so to be continued okay does um I guess if we don't have Andy here tonight he probably has another meeting there about like seven or eight meetings happening right now in Amherst that's so Amherst of us so I haven't heard any referrals from any from the council or any other committees and we didn't get any minutes from Amber and so we had talked about the next having our next meeting on June July 6 and do we have any items that we want to put on that agenda so do you guys have anything specific so I guess we can I mean maybe if we don't have much of an agenda we don't need to meet we could take the month off but if we do want to I mean again we could have a short meeting like we're tonight about um reporting back about you know what's happening with the uh street lights and assuming that the public way thing went through and things like that and then go ahead we're gonna be short staff to support that meeting oh okay so you mean so is it better if we wanted to move it to like a different week in um a different week in July yeah right because you had mentioned that you and Jason are both out yep so okay well we don't need to have it that week then can our people available later in July to do it like if we moved it to like the 13th or something it should be a month out I could do that I can't do the following week but yeah the following week is the 20th yeah I'm fine with moving it to the 13th yeah anyway that works for me okay all right so let's do that then okay yeah that looks okay good okay so it so it shall be so are you back Guilford are you or Jason back in the office by then yeah I actually fly back to night at 13th of the 6th okay nice you're going somewhere where you get to fly that's exciting we'll see it's exciting and so uh I mean Guilford since we're basically did you have any other updates for attack right now or no yes no okay did you want to I noticed that TSO had talked about Cushman Scott did you want to talk about that or no maybe a future meeting no okay well I got that impression I got that impression from your email so well it's gone to the town manager he's talking to everybody well and also um yeah so Cushman Scott I had been CC'd on some of the emails but they had submitted a public comment to the council just about concern about the safety of the so Cushman Scott is a preschool in North Amherst and they're concerned about the safety of their preschool students and families and some who are crossing the road yeah and sometimes they're speeding in that neighborhood so they had reached out to the council and there had been some internal um at the TSO meeting the town manager mentioned that the police had been out there you know looking at like the speeds and traffic and and DPW has been involved in this discussion they're going to go back and meet with Cushman Scott and there's probably going to be a proposal to the council so where is that summer thank you that's the old um like Cushman's building yeah there had been a school there so I think it's on Henry Street my kids my one of my kids went there yeah and they're not open in August right is that right Marcus they are but it's like uh they follow the school calendar and then over the summer they have uh camps which are okay because I just remember when I had little kids and I was still working full-time and you know when I was calling daycares and they said oh we're not open we're only open in 11 months and I was like okay that's not gonna work yeah yeah I guess they're technically not open but they are right there's like uh they do have like a one week break or something like two week break maybe I remember what it was it was a pain well I don't know it also might have been different then but it was like yeah I can't like do that so um yeah so it's like Henry Street and it's just it's just a street that some people go for yeah no I mean it's always been that's sort of an issue it's just always the fact that I guess up until recently there was never really enough people parking on the other side of the street dropping their kids off that it was a huge problem uh because there's parking on both sides of the street so it's probably just the case that more people are using it um yeah so yeah so that is one of the issues is that I think sometimes people have parked next to the building like on the same side of this building but then families are sometimes parking across the street and a parking lot there so then they the the parents are like walking back and forth with like preschoolers and stuff right right right yeah so I'm just like same to like that people on the committee who might not be aware of what that is about yeah I used to walk my uh kid to school walking along Henry Street down towards like Market Hill Road to just to walk through the woods was always um a little dodgy but it was fine but yeah I can see why you know there's a concern about it so anyway to be continued and perhaps it will come our direction so the concern is with the the people who are parking there not the traffic speed and vehicles not stopping for the pedestrians who are crossing oh I see it sounds like why I mean sounds like the school should have more parking that's what it sounds like well I mean the school the school actually rents the building from the town right oh because it's an old like um school yeah like a 99 year lease or something I heard but I don't know the details anyway okay all right well so do we have so I guess we'll we'll look at meeting on July 13th and um and we'll see if we have more items you know to discuss okay all right well everybody thank you and it's like end of school week and graduation so many things going on I know Kim has a senior I have a senior yep have fun guys all right all right take care bye everyone thank you