 I want to welcome everybody to the Amherst community chat for February the 11th, Thursday, February the 11th. I see some of you filtering into the room. Thank you for joining us. Today we have Amherst planner Ben Breger. Did I say that right. Ben Breger joining us to talk about planning projects but specifically the new and upcoming wayfinding science project. Before I ask him to introduce himself and to go over that I'm going to allow your town manager Paul Bachman a few minutes to give any general updates. Thanks Brianna. So yeah there's lots happening in town. And I'm glad that Ben is here because this is one of those positive things we get to talk about that initiative has been around for a while that we're really kind of excited to see move forward so it's good to sort of helping advance this. Two big things for us from the town side is one was the cluster of cases of COVID-19 at the university. The university has put in a self sequester order to all of its students. So students are being struck by the university to stay at home that has obviously created issues for our town because not all students are staying at home. We had a meeting. Significant input from the state the secretary of education and the secretary of Health and Human Services have been involved with this they take this very seriously they call it intrusive oversight because of the scale of this cluster so they it's an important thing. But they the epidemiologists are following the numbers very closely they seem to think that the numbers. You know it takes about two weeks to work through a cluster of this size. The university and the town according to the secretary of Health and Human Services are doing everything right to be able to address this so that's the sort of good thing that we had. Another piece of that went to talk about was the our vaccination program, which is going on throughout February. Initially we were allocated 100 doses a week. The state has up that to 975 doses a week and our vaccinators are able to actually stretch that a little bit further because they're able to get, I think six doses out of a vial versus five, which helps us get more people vaccinated. We started last week on wasn't just last week Wednesday and Friday at the high school and Wednesday we had a 580 people vaccinated. We learned a lot from that day and we changed things up on Friday so nobody had to wait outside and we just, it's working really well, credit to a big team of people who put this together, but led by Emma dragon our health director. And so this is for everybody who 75 and up and people who are in tier or step phase one, which are first responders and things like that. The governor has also opened it up to care taker caregivers of people who are 75 and up so we are this week we are at the bank center giving the second dose of the first responders who got the first dose three weeks ago. We're delivering doses to them next week we're open on Tuesday and Thursday, and you can sign up at the end, we'll talk about this more about how to sign up and we have people entering phones one of the things we've really committed ourselves to is trying to answer every phone call and return a voicemail if you happen to get voicemail. So our staff at the town hall and our coveted band senators and the senior center all returning lots of calls and talking to people, walking people through people have a hard time signing up we're going to help you sign up. People want to get the vaccine we want them to get the vaccine. So that's our mission. And that's our core mission it's the most important mission we have is the public health. So, that's where we stand a little bit longer than I normally talk about but you know, it's an important topic. Yeah, it is very important and you know, the vaccines we do have first dose appointments for next Tuesday and Thursday for 75 plus and phase one. You can sign up online there's still plenty of opening so Amherst coven 19.org slash vaccine. And if you have a senior in your life that might need help, please assist them or direct them to us towards the line and email that Paul just reference. So, again, I want to remind people before I ask Ben to introduce himself we encourage and welcome live questions you can do so by either using the q amp a function and typing in your question, or simply raising your hand from the zoom application. I do see some people joined from a phone, you can raise your hand from the phone by pressing star nine. So I am going to ask Ben Breger to introduce himself give us a little bit about your, your backstory your education and then we can talk, get started with questions on the way finding project. Great. Thanks Brianna and thanks Paul, it's great to hear about all the great things the town is doing for the COVID vaccine it's a quite the effort. It's a great opportunity to come on the community chat this week. Again, my name is Ben Breger I'm a planner in the planning department here in the town. I am happy to say that I grew up here in Amherst and left took a little hiatus went to college in Maine spent a few years in Portland area and then, lo and behold ended up coming back to you mass to get my masters, as many people who grew up in the area find themselves doing. Because it's, it's a great deal, and you get to live, live close by stay close by to where you grew up in your family and also get a great education at you mass and I graduated in, let's see, may. Yeah just may of 2020 so in the in the during the pandemic. What's your degree in. Yeah, so I have a dual masters in landscape architecture and in regional planning. From the landscape architecture and regional planning department at you mass great program and the design new design building at the university. Yeah, I was very, very fortunate that there was an opening in the planning department with the town. About January this time last year, and was brought on almost a year ago part on a part time basis and then when I graduated in May started ramped up full time in June 1 and certainly have hit the ground running no shortage of projects, especially when you come in in the middle of a public health crisis, economic crisis, lots of work to do with help mitigate those effects and think about the recovery so you know, I think the planning department and planning department always jokes that I, you know I came in during quite a surreal time, and especially with the everything going on to zoom. You know that was somewhat natural to me because that's how I finished my grad program was everything was remote. And so it wasn't too much of a learning curve but another whole hurdle to get over is running all the public meetings online and not having that face to face contact but it's been, it's been a wild ride and I'm very excited to be here and get to work on exciting projects like the way finding signs. Great Ben thank you for that introduction and I have to echo that was not an easy time to graduate. We are so well done and we're so glad that you were able to join our team. So, for the folks who do not know what the way finding project is, can you give a quick couple sentence description about what it is before we launch into a little bit of the background of that project. Absolutely, thank you so the way finding signs, the way finding project is basically the goal are to place signs throughout the town basically to let people know first let people know they've entered Amherst. And also once they're in Amherst to direct people to various destinations within the town, specifically within town center but also the town as a whole. Yeah, the idea so it has a few different dimensions it's both a way to help people navigate to the town and within the town it's also to help with economic development to point out key destinations and business areas. And then also it's kind of a sense of giving the town an identity and a character so you know when you see this sign you're you've entered Amherst and this is what kind of Amherst represents and what's it what is it all about so. It has kind of those dimensions and you know right now there's kind of a mishmash of way finding styles within the town. There's you know signs that point to parking which is great but those don't necessarily match the signs that let you know you're in town center or the. You know kind of state route on route nine the traffic signs that point to town center so there's kind of just a variation of styles and the idea is to synthesize that into one cohesive system. Interesting to hear about that aesthetic alignment of you know those those signs so I've heard about this project so now I've been working with the town for just over six years now and I've been hearing about this project. A little bit here and there since then and it might predate my history there so can you talk a little bit about the background of this project. Yeah, when it started and how it got to where we are now. Certainly and likewise it certainly predates me. My tenure with the town I. Chris breastrupt the planning director she's referred to me as kind of the closer who gets to see these projects that have been dwindling for a while and then bring them to hopefully to completion. Yeah, certainly my understanding is that it started with a state grant in around 2015 to address the way finding system and develop a new design. This select board at the time was in charge of kind of along with the planning department and public work staff kind of built this working group a coalition of interested parties and developed a you know public process to design, both the actual signs themselves but also the whole system thinking about locations and destinations. I think there was, you know, various iterations of the design of the sign and it developed over time. And then I think in 2018 2017 2018 town meeting allocated around $90,000 for the project. And so, since that's been allocated we've been kind of just slowly building and the process building the way finding system over time thinking finalizing locations. You know, working with a great great designer in Northampton Seth Gregory, who's really developed a cohesive system and design for this for the town. And, you know, it's not always simple there's you know, permitting to get through both from the sizes of the signs the design of the signs but we're finally at the point now where a lot of the designs have been vetted by the and approved by various committees and boards and now just on Monday. We presented to town council to and the role town council plays is to approve the use of the sign placing the signs in the public right of way. And so that's where we're at now. Kind of the catching us up on the timeline the history of this project. Now there's a question. Someone says that there's two signs in the middle of the triangle street roundabout. Yeah, is this what you're talking about is it is it related to these signs are they going to be matching or can you talk a little bit about those existing Yeah, exactly. So the sign, there's two signs in the roundabout a triangle street those were paid for and fabricated by the business improvement district the bid, I believe in 2018. It's certainly related to what we're doing and those signs match are going to match the proposed welcome signs that we have the colors are a little bit different but it's the same the same concept. And so, yeah, I think it'll people will recognize the way finding signs the welcome signs, because they do relate to the ones at the roundabout. And what, when you're talking about these signs going in and being in the public way what geographic area are you talking about is this all over town or are we talking about downtown could you speak a little bit about that. Yeah, exactly. So, at this point we're focused on downtown. And the idea there's a there's a few goals one is to, you know, when I think when this project was first set out in 2015 one of the reoccurring themes was this idea of, you know, there's so many shortcuts to get to UMass, and that's the major destination for so coming to Amherst, both visitors students faculty, you know, and student yeah certainly students and so the idea is to place these signs at critical locations where, you know, you know, this day and age of GPS Google maps is going to send you, you know, down University or, you know, you know, and just bypass down or up Triangle Street, for example, and bypass town center completely and so the idea is to place these signs in those areas where we know, you know, the most efficient route to get to the university might be to turn left but if and if that if people take that route they're never even going to go through downtown Amherst, and know that that really even exists so we've had a lot of anecdotal comments where people come in through route nine and then they say oh and they leave and they don't even see the center of town and you know they'll you'll say well did you go downtown and they'll say like I think so is that where McDonald's is like no that's Hadley and it's like oh I thought that was the center of Amherst and people don't know, you know, municipal boundaries and stuff and so that is to you know you're right then it's to intercept people and say hey, there's a pretty cool downtown just off the street. Yeah. Right yeah if you're staying at a hotel on on route nine and Hadley you would never really have to go through. Yeah, you think of Amherst with Applebee's and Chili's and you know all these great restaurants there but not our great restaurants. So we have a live question from the room. Let's see everyone recognizes the blue and white public parking signs I hope those won't be altered for the sake of uniform design. So that's something you can speak to Ben. Yeah, no I think the the blue and white parking signs there they're typically large banners that are high up on the polls, and I, as far as I know there wasn't any intention on replacing those I think those are effective in, especially for drivers, calling a question to where parking is. You know I think our way finding signs there's also there's the welcome signs but then also these post signs that will, you know point to different destinations, and parking will be included on those signs as well. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the blue and white parking signs have to be taken down as well. Yeah I think that the blue and white parking signs is a universal language for everybody wherever you travel you expect to see a blue and white P with a circle around it to find your parking and I think we'll maintain that and enhance it actually as one of the recommendations from the downtown parking working group study was to make those more visible and easier easier to see by by drivers. So I want to remind folks in the room I do see a hand I'm going to invite Ken in just in just one second but feel free to use q amp a raise your hand to ask your questions live. I do see that Council President Lynn Griezmer is here so if, if she would like to pop in to make any comment, I do ask her to just raise her hand and we'll pull her in as well. So, let's see. Ken, if you could unmute and introduce yourself. I'm Ken Rosenthal I live on Sunset Avenue, and there's a there's a bit of a conflict of objectives here I know. One is to get people where they want to go, who have never been to Amherst before where they want to go fast and easy. And the other is to bring them to the center of town so that they know there's a center of town. And Paul won't be surprised to know I'm thinking of Hampshire College here I'm thinking of when when we're back to visiting colleges, the most attractive place will be of course UMass which will bring the most people in for the first time, but also to Amherst College which of course is right in the town center. And then they're the folks who are coming in wondering where in the world is Hampshire college. Yeah, so we really got to think about trying to get them there in a comfortable way. At the same time we want to bring them into town center. So I just put that on the table as a challenge you have. You know, there are there are 120,000 tickets sold at Amherst Cinema every year, but I suppose there's no reason to put Amherst Cinema as one of the destinations because most people who buy those tickets have been there before. And they once they get to town center they'll find it. So you have you have attractive destinations like that that don't need directions. And then you've got remote destinations like Hampshire and South Amherst that might as a good point can because I think one of the things I mean this first phase is to get people to get downtown. And then once you're downtown we also want to provide directional to get to where you want to go once you're downtown. So if you have lunch in town. Where is the Eric Carl museum, you know where is the meat art museum things like that and helping the directional science there's multiple there's three different layers of science that we have we have the sort of big welcome in the name of Amherst on it. The second is a direct directional science that have sort of fins on it that can, you can direct people this way or that. And then the third is sort of information kiosks, and we can talk a little bit more about how Sufa inter plays with that but those are there's multi functions and we don't want to have create clutter on our streets either so we're trying to do this as thoughtfully as possible. Along these long during this time. So Ben you probably thought about that or Brianna you can talk about that too obviously. Well, I was going to say that's a great question to Ken because another, another person asked, is it just going to be downtown or we in Paul mentioned this being a phase of maybe multiple phases. How are we going to expand that to other, you know village centers that we're developing and. So is there any thought around expansion of these wayfinding science to other areas in town. My understanding is that that's always been the goal. And it's kind of a phased in project. And so, and that that came up with the town council meeting on Monday certainly is this idea of, you know, building this identity for the town with these signs and expand expanding the signage, you know to the village centers north and south Amherst certainly East Amherst. So but I mean that's not to say that the phase one in downtown isn't going to point to South Amherst, you know as as people are leaving downtown, going south on 116, you know I think our thinking is to have signs that point to you know Eric Carl Yiddish Book Center, you know destination south to let people know, you know, again their GPS might tell them to turn right or left on route nine but hey look at all these great options and South Amherst so I have a question for Ken. So in Amherst there are signs to say downtown Amherst and their science has been pointed town center. So how do you think of downtown or town center Ken and what do you think is the more familiar lexicon for people as they think as they're trying to find a destination. If you go back far enough to Alan Tory, he would call the middle of town uptown. Yeah, Alan Tory would say I'm going uptown when he's moving coming from Bay Road to to Hastings. That's a very good question Paul because in talking with some of my neighbors, the name town center keeps coming up among some of them as the favored way to describe the middle of town. But that may be a losing battle if everybody talks about downtown and fewer and fewer people talk about town center. I like town center, because to me, center. At that intersection that's the middle of things that's the center of things. The intersection I'm talking about is South and North Pleasant Street and Amity and Main Street. So, if you asked my personal preference it would be town center. But I think you need to ask others than I. Yeah, because so one of the anecdotal things with someone said town center sounds like a shopping mall, you know, like your native town center I'm going to the mall. And I feel like it implies some sort of heart of, you know, our community the center of things. And some people in the room are responding. I like town center to town center is New England, which I love that. I love that word so. So it looks like in this room right now town center has it but what does Ben think. So, you know, growing up in Amherst, I always said I'm going I'm going to town, you know, and, you know, I guess and so I don't know really what that means we're not just going to say town on there but town center, especially in relation to the village centers I think that is a good distinction. So, yeah, I think I would lean towards town center but Triangle Street now say downtown this way. Yeah, they say downtown because the bid is the downtown Amherst everything they use the term downtown so yeah, I think we need a poll. I think I'm gonna have to spin up a poll for the But it's also has to do with what outside it's really for not for us, right? Because we know what we're saying whether we say town center downtown but it's for people who've never been here before was going to help them understand. Yeah, where to go. Yeah. Interesting debate so I guess we can't close the book on that one just yet. It's for those New Yorkers. Yes, I see that we had another comment downtown is New Yorkie and it to me implies direction. You know which way you need to move. And I know I'm not sure I don't want to monopolize this but it's also more than just the business area. It's where the town hall is. And it's where the library is. And so center downtown sounds more like a shopping destination town center sounds more like a destination for government and business, and all of those things together. Thank you for, thank you for giving me this time to talk. Thank you can it sounds like Ken and I are firmly in the town center team camp so I'm going to get some t shirts for us made. So I have another question here. Will the tiny white signs at conservation properties and trails be made more obvious and legible for people in a moving vehicle at some point, maybe not related to wayfinding but perhaps any any thoughts or comments on that. So that's a standard sign that that we that actually the conservation staff make themselves they have a little system in place to build them so they can, when they get stolen they just replace them themselves if they're not store bought or anything like that. And I don't, I don't think they're really designed to be to catch your eyes just to it's just a designation, but the one thing we did talk about once we standardized if the council is in agreement with these the wayfinding system that we've presented is to extend that to recreation areas like Mill River, Gough Park that we're sort of have a mishmash of signage and trying to unify the image of the town of Amherst. It's a sort of it's practically it's more as much a branding thing is a wayfinding thing. Yeah, for us and I think I know folks have seen the design I think it's really, really great looking. I think they did a really wonderful job. I can, I can pull that up now if you'd like. Yeah, that'd be great Ben I think since it's such a visual project if you don't mind pulling that up and I'll take a second to just say, you know, the, the pilot project we're doing some of the informational science Paul mentioned earlier we did work closely with the planners, based off of the wayfinding designs intentionally to make sure that those were in line. And we have opportunities to expand the design of those signs right now they display public health information but it's not to say that in the future if the signs are kept, we could incorporate more wayfinding elements to a map or something like that. Yeah. Okay so tell us what we're seeing right here. Yeah exactly so the this is the welcome sign so there will be four of these in phase one placed that kind of key gateways around town center or downtown whatever we call it. So we have this kind of like dark brown color within a slightly lighter brown for the welcome faded into the back with the town seal, and then Amherst and Massachusetts really pop with the white slightly off white that was another point of debate was what type of white do we have there. And then this town center panel will point, you know, whatever direction you're coming from towards town center. It actually isn't the town seal it's the town shield. It's what's on the town flag it. Relatively new. In the last six or seven years or so. Guys, this is the this joins the welcome signs these are called the directional post signs. And these are meant to be, you know they're large enough font and height to be viewed, you know from a moving vehicle, but also small enough and scale to not be out of out of scale with pedestrian and cyclists downtown. So the idea is that you know the welcome signs would bring you to the center of town. Here I am using all these different terms downtown town center I'm all confused now that welcome signs would bring you to the center and then once you're there. The these directional post signs direct you to various destinations with within the town center, you know both actually directing you there and just letting you know they exist like something like the West Cemetery is tucked behind the building and isn't really obvious but that's an incredibly about historic place with incredible historic and cultural value for the town and with the Dickinson museum as well. Jones Library Kendrick Park so these are just a sample of some of the destinations we might put on the signs but just to point out what it looks like and then lastly as Paul mentioned these two types of kiosks the on route and the arrival kiosks. The same thing just a little bit bigger for the arrival kiosks, those would have maps with destinations and cycling and walking times to those places. And this is where we could have, you know maybe a map for town center but then also a blown up map of the town to show where we are in relation to destinations and South Amherst North Amherst East Amherst and other types of places. I think those visuals really help Ben. So, you know, I just want to say we're getting close to our 30 minutes, I know we could probably keep talking about this for a long time because there's a lot of interest. What, what would you say to people who are interested in, you know, a learning more about the project or be wanting to follow along with next steps and timelines where where should they tune in. Yeah. So our immediate next steps. The town council referred this project to the TSO the town services and outreach subcommittee of town council. And we're going to be working closely with TSO to develop the way finding system further talk about locations and getting the ultimately their recommendation to town council for the approval of the signs. You know, I think that process is hopefully going to happen, you know, late, late winter into spring and I think there's a recommendation for me by May 3 was the suggestion. And so yeah we'll be moving through the process with TSO and folks can keep track of those meetings. I'm talking with Brianna about possibly putting some of this information also on the planning department webpage just have the signs up there and a little blurb about the project overall. So you can look for that coming up on the planning department's website as well. And we're going to definitely include the poll town center versus downtown. I would say as when I was an undergrad at UMass, even though we were north of town center we always called it uptown. We're going uptown. Yeah, so I don't know if that was, that's aging me maybe but we might have to put that on the list too. I do want to just thank Ben Brigger for joining us today and if you have follow up questions about this project feel free to email us at info at AmherstMA.gov and I'll get you connected to the correct person. Paul anything you want to leave folks with before we wrap up. I think there's going to be a tough couple of weeks I think because the way we understand with the challenge at UMass is that it takes two weeks, a good solid two weeks to get something like this out under control. If we do the do it, you know, they said if you if you hit it hard early and hold on with these shutdown, you'll get it under control faster so that's what our mission is right now. Great. Thank you for that reminder. And I'll just leave you know if people are concerned or have questions related to COVID vaccines anything like that please call us at 413-259-2425. We have people ready and staffed up to help answer your questions. And one last comment that came in the signs look great. Sarah says so. Thank you. Thank you Sarah. All right, so we are going to wrap up and we'll be back next Thursday with the architects from Cune Riddle superintendent of Public Works Guildford mooring to discuss the North Amherst Library project. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone.