 So this July 12 meeting of the popular planning commission is called the order. First thing you have to do is approve the agenda. We have a motion for that. And we'll approve all of the agenda. Okay. Second. Okay. It's a motion by area on second by Stephanie those in favor of approving the agenda say I. Hi. Hi. You opposed. Okay. Gender approved. Next thing is comments from the chair. Just briefly, I'd like to just pause for a second because we've done a lot of work lately. And I just want to say that. A lot of work can be, can feel thankless at times like this. So I want to just thank everyone for the work that you're putting in. Obviously the biggest things should go to Mike from all of us. It's easy to take for granted that he's. Doing all this behind the scenes work that makes everything possible. And he also gets to sit through all of these meetings where we're like dissecting like his first draft of things. And just want to say that we appreciate all the thought that goes into that. You know, I did a lot of editing on transportation today. And I could see like how thoughtful that chapter was put together and that goes for all the chapters. So just thanks to everyone. Thanks to Mike. Thanks for the support staff and thanks to Orca. Thank you. Thank you. Talk about thankless. Okay. That's all I've got though. So the next thing on the agenda is general business. We don't have any members of the public. So. No need for that. And we have to consider the minutes from the June 14 and the June 28 meetings. So if everyone could look at the June 14 meeting. If no one has objections to me taking this approach, I will move approval of both of the minutes that we're reviewing today. The June 14th and June 28. And then had a chance to look at them. Yeah. Second, if you need a second. Okay. We have a second from Marcella. Does anyone need a minute to keep reviewing both sets of minutes. Okay. I'm going to start with Ariana. What did I say? Ariana. No, you said Marcella, but that's okay. Oh, I did. Okay. Set the record straight. You know, I mean, I may as well admit now that I never know how to say Arianne's name correctly. And I'm always self-conscious every time I say it. It's actually Arianne. That's why. That's why. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Arianne. Yeah, yeah. Just think our letter. But just to be clear that the, the alternate pronunciation is not Marcella. Yeah. But if you're like, you're, you know, you got to go big if you're going to be wrong. You know. So Arianne seconded Stephanie's motion. Those in favor of approving the minutes. Say I. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Any opposed. Okay. Minutes approved. So the first thing we're going to do before we jump into transportation is that Aaron and the other folks from the working group for natural resources chapter wanted to go over the aspirations and goals. For that chapter. And otherwise I'm not fully caught up on what you guys have been doing. So I'm just going to take it away and. And walk through that. Go ahead. And if you want to share the screen, you're welcome to, or I can pull it up one or the other. Okay. Does anybody. I have it here. Who's going to. It was like it was a while ago and we talked about it. Who wants to speak to this. Looks like me. Okay. You want me to pull it up. You have it up. Yeah. Give me a second. I think it's Marcella, you updated the Excel file. Right. There's a look at that one. Yeah, the Excel, the template. I was looking at the word document that we had. We can do, which one do you want to do the, the Excel document or the word document? We don't want to get into strategies today, right? I think let's start. Yeah. Let's start higher with the Excel file. The aspiration. Then I think. I think we can use. The spreadsheet, then it's just the goals and the aspirations. It doesn't have strategies and it yet. And I think this was me in blue writing in here, but I'm not positive. Yeah. Okay. So hopefully the two reflect each other. They should. Right. Yeah, not seeing you on the share screen yet though. Yeah, I'm pulling it up right now. Oh, okay. My computer is geeking out right now. Marcella, do you have it up? I do. Do you want me? I can share. Yeah. Mike, can you give me permission to share? Oh no, I haven't. I don't think you need permission. I don't know why I couldn't see the green button. In front of my face. Okay. Okay, so. Here's. So, okay, Aaron, do you can talk if you want, but A B and C were the first, where the natural resources, the proposed, was it the, which committee is it that. Conservation Commission. Yes. So it was, it's been about a month. So we're admittedly all a rusty looking back at this document. But the, the natural resources working group met. Yeah, about a month ago. And we wanted to make some sort of broad brush stroke, structural changes to the way that. This chapter is going to be organized just because we thought that it was going to create a more efficient and create some more clarity for the chapter. And so we made some changes where we condensed, there was three aspirations that existed out of the gate. You can see those on the. On the spreadsheet, we are recommending that that be replaced with the following aspiration, which is my pillar, maintain the resilient and healthy environment through stewardship and protection of our natural heritage and resources. And then basically we would. And the remaining. Goals. And so we would, some of those goals would be removed. But I think the important piece that we wanted to outline is, is that all of the strategies that are contained in the current. Sort of outline would remain intact. And so this was just sort of a way to streamline. The aspirations and goals. And so we wanted to sort of just create a better flow and some, and sort of a better focus because there was just, there was just some redundancies that we felt like that existed. And the goals and aspirations level of this chapter. But I think, again, what I just want to stress is, is we haven't made any proposal to make any changes to the underlying strategy. We think that the strategies that are laid out. By the conservation committee, all very good. So we just, we were just wanted to sort of lay out these changes, these proposed changes to the group. To sort of get feedback so that we can move into putting pen to paper and actually drafting the actual. Chapter and also what might condense the strategies. As you normally does with these chapters. So. There is also a Word document that exists in the natural resources. So we have a full there with proposed edits to the Word document. It's the same information. It's laid out in a different way. Again, I just want to stress that there's just a removal of. Basically. All three aspirations are condensed down into one. There is some removal of some of the goals. Of certain goals. And we just sort of shifted some of the strategies around, but they are all remain intact. So we have specific questions about. You know, why we chose to do this. Happy to answer them. But again, I think we just wanted to stress that this was just, we thought that having a single aspiration. With some more. With a smaller number of goals, which is going to make it for a more efficient and, I mean, at least more readable chapter. But again, all the strategies remain intact. And that's just that. We just wanted to give, we just wanted to give the group the opportunity to take a look at it and provide any feedback before we hand it off to Mike, basically. And the next steps would. Be like. The strat like comparing any strategies together. As we have done any others. And. Do we need to, do we decide we want to like, I guess I'll leave it to Kirby. Yeah. I don't know what we want to do with it. If we need to do anything to like move this forward today, but. I think when we did it, we had just talked about. Like we were working on the energy chapter and the housing chapter. And it was, we were talking about this type of approach. And so we tried to. Use that. For this. I think it looks like it's in line with what we've been doing so far. So. I don't have any major. Feedback. I think it seems fine to hand off to Mike and then. When we're ready for that chapter. Work on it fully then. The only other person here that's not on the working group is. Are you on. Do you have any. Comments. That looks fine to me. Yeah. Okay. So. I think that looks good. Thanks for checking in. So feel free to move forward with their next steps. You're not planning on working on strategies, right? I mean, I know the working group. I was just going to ask that. So it's about the, now we hand it back to Mike and say. We're happy with the aspirations and goals. And now you can condense a little like. Is that your preferred? Yeah, that's, that's what my plan would be would be to collapse these down. So we're going to do a couple of different strategies. And then we're going to move forward with the collapsed. Strategies. Okay. So if you're looking in the word document that, that'll show you how we shifted things. If we deleted the goal. Oh, okay. So you'll be able to see where we moved. If we moved some of the strategies under a different goal, because we deleted their goal. Okay. I see now some of the ones that are in red or not new ones. They were just not new. Yeah. Exactly. So we didn't actually edit anything. We didn't edit anything. We didn't edit anything. We didn't edit anything. We didn't edit anything other than to move it under different goals. Do we, do we have a chapter drafted for this chapter? No. No. Don't think I've started the chapter. Yeah. Yeah, I've got someone that I work on on my computer before I dropped them on to the. Working drive. I don't think I've got this one ready to go. Okay. So sounds like we'll. We'll be doing this one later. Okay. Yeah, but we just, we just wanted to get this moving to get over to Mike so that we can get kind of paper on it and get it moved forward. So do we, do we want to just wait to vote on the whole implementation strategy? The other part is done. Once we approve the strategies, then we'll approve the whole thing. That's good. That's fine. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. I think that's just a, okay. Checking thing. Yeah, but we had, we had a really good conversation when we went through it. And I think we all felt really good about what they were proposing. And so it wasn't, it ended up being a much less complex chapter than some of the ones that we've dealt with, I think, like transportation or energy. From the term, from the standpoint of the strategies actions, et cetera. All right. And I do have a draft. Chapter that's on my computer. It just isn't on the drive yet. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. If you want to put. Or if we're ready to put it in the drive, I'm happy to look at it. With an eye for editing before our next meeting. Or before we. Yeah, we could, we could have a quick. Yeah, Mike, if you want to put that up and the working group can take a look at it and. Right. Suggestions before the next meeting. Hopefully we can just get this thing moving. Yeah. Yeah. What part of the plan were you thinking of doing next? Mike. After transportation. I had a couple of them I had been working on. I've been trying to get as far ahead of these as I can. I think I have. I think housing, I have a chapter ready to go as well. Yeah, I've got housing. Natural resources. And we're working on transportation. So those are the three that I have ready right now. And I'm working on utilities and facilities. Okay. Economic development. We've got a strategy, but I don't have a chapter written for economic development. So that's another one that's still. Our work. Our working group hasn't actually met on it. We kind of dropped the ball on that one. I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I'm not sure if that's a good idea. The. The housing group had some proposals, but I'm not seeing it. On the drive right now. The reason why I'm checking is that it might have actually been talking about moving something over to transportation. I'll have to look at that later. All right. Do you remember what, what we had talked about moving. Within the housing chapter. Sorry. I don't remember. You're saying what we had come up with in the structure and the housing chapter is not in the Google drive. I'm not seeing it right now. There's only two things in there. And they're. It may have been one of the things we edited, but I'm not seeing what I'm looking for. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Actually I did find it says should be in the transportation chapter and then the parts about neighborhoods will allow residents to live, work and shop and play without a car. So. Okay. That part I think is transportation. Yeah. So. When we look at transportation, I think we'll have to, we should take into account that that was. Whether it's a, whether. Some of these goals should be in transportation or in housing. So do we have anything more natural resources or should we move on to transportation? Okay. It seems like we're good. Okay. Well, thanks for the update guys. Thanks for the work on that. So with that. We. Have the review and comments for the aspirations and goals for transportation first. So if everyone can pull that up. I did work on the chapter today. For transportation. But the aspirations and goals. I did not really touch because. It's, there's not very much there. So I just thought we could go through it as a group. So do you want to share that or do you want me to share that? Yeah, which document are you looking at? Yeah, I'm looking at the, the spreadsheet one is what we're going to start with. And yeah, feel free to share it, Mike. Hopefully you can all see that. So. The, so the original. Three that kind of came out of aspirations. I came out of the transportation committee. That I think you'll all kind of remember those. It's easy to live and work. Without owning a car. All of Montpelier's transportation modes are safe, efficient, attractive. Balance quality with cost effectiveness and meet the needs of all users and Montpelier's transportation system will be environmentally responsible and sustainable. So really they're kind of three big groups. And so I came up with a couple of suggestions. And I think it's easy to live and work without owning a car. And I think. I don't have the original in front of me. I think it actually had more. Actually it looks like some, there was some editing already. So. Yeah, I did. I did go in and edit this based on what we've done. And I. I'm sorry if I was supposed to leave. The original in there. I didn't do that. And I, maybe I was supposed to. That's one reason why I didn't touch it. Cause I'm not sure that in this format, you can. Track the changes. Yeah, you can't track changes in this one, which makes it trickier to work with, which is why I sometimes would either put them on below or put them on a side column just to go through and say. So I think there may have been more, but basically, and it looks like the, the first one was already gone through. Remove the second sentence. These are all covered in the goal. I think there was a longer sentence to that. And maybe somebody has that in front of them. I don't have a print out. Right with me. I think I did leave some of the goals in the, when I was editing in the next tab, but. I think the aspirations were pretty. I think we just shortened a B and C. And then removed the, or combined the D one about design to create informal spaces to foster. Yeah. My suggestion was to remove that. It kind of seemed more like a land use. Um, aspiration than it was a transportation. That's not safe. It's not important to transportation, but I think as we're doing what we're doing, I think what we have in D is probably just going to get replaced in and get relocated into land use. So yeah, I think, I think what's, what is above an A, B and C are actually the condensed versions of a little bit of what I had suggested with the work of the transportation committee was to go through and say, we, we, we can say what we want to do. For our aspirations in three pieces. And I don't know if we want to jump over to the goals and then kind of come back and look at them in, in context. Yeah, I think that will help. Um, I mean, the aspiration seemed fine. Because there's a lot to transportation and just for everybody's benefit and the public's benefit, you know, transportation is everything from. You know, walking, biking, cars, the railroad, airports, public transportation. So there's a lot that goes into it. You know, wanting to encourage how we try to improve safety and efficiency and quality. So there's a lot that we already do and a lot that we could do. So I think. So I think just take a quick look down. I want to say there were originally, yeah, it looks like they're originally 14 or so. Pieces that were in there. And it looks like. Again, I'm trying to do this a little bit. If I sneak over a little bit, I'll see some of my comments. Which kind of included a chunk of these. So the first one implementation would have been removed. Two to five or all distinct. I may have to go and. Just go and grab some of my paper copy so I can see what was there. But I know my suggestions were to kind of combine a number of these understanding that we have a lot of goals, but at the same time. There's a lot that transportation is and does. So it looks like the transportation committee can bind this down to one, two, three, four. Maybe. Four looks like they got it down to four. Different. Five. Yeah, I think we got five there and I just, yeah, I left the numbers and I think I put them. Oh, I can't scroll. I think I put them down below. I think I put them. Sort of under the. I just kind of chunk them down there. These were the ones that were. Either removed or combined. Yeah. So it looks like it'll let me get in between the two. So it looks like the goals balance quality and cost effectiveness to improve accommodations and safety for pedestrians and bicycles on road to transit and shared mobility opportunities. And access through an integrated multimodal transportation system improve efficiency of Montpellier's transportation system through the efficient movement of people and goods, improve the appearance of Montpellier's transportation infrastructure and amenities, especially from the perspective of walkers and bikers and improve the transportation infrastructure to better treat mitigate heat island effect and increase opportunities for informal public spaces. So yes we can we can go through these through the goals one by one I think like and then relating them back to the aspiration. I guess one thing I have on the first aspiration which is is about living without a car right. Immapeliority is easy to live and work without owning a car and so our two goals are right now that we have here are balance quality and cost effectiveness to improve accommodations and safety for pedestrians bicycles on all streets and pathways and increase public transit and shared mobility opportunities and access through an integrated multimodal transportation system. The first question I have is I just threw at the at the bottom to the right there the two housing goals that the working group wanted to move over to this chapter and they both fall under aspiration A. So I guess my question is do we want to include these or do we think that they're already included? They are the goal of improve access to downtown from our neighborhoods by foot, bike or public transit. So they kind of fall under the two goals we have now but not exactly that one and the other one is to improve neighborhood accessibility which is slightly different than accessibility to downtown right. Can you explain more about how you think those two are different because I'm not I'm not understanding. Yeah so the first one goes to being able to access downtown from everywhere through different modes of transportation and I'm reading into that a bit that we're you know not making any mode of transportation dominance that it should be equally attracted to go by foot as by car to access downtown from anywhere so that's kind of what the first one I think is getting at. The second one improve neighborhood accessibility is to get to neighborhoods so it's not so I'm looking at that a little bit broader than just going from neighborhood to downtown. I'm looking at that as traveling within your every neighborhood should be easy and accessible. I really I would see that as one thing and not say that we need to make it two goals it's really it's about access for everyone to all places right. Yeah I kind of tend I kind of agree with Stephanie I think yeah or we just take the broader one you know improve neighborhood accessibility or improve neighborhood accessibility including the downtown neighborhood one can kind of eclipse the other. Yeah so do we do we think we need to like even if we use one just just combine those to figure out one goal based on that. Is it is it additional and different enough from the other two goals that are here which the first one is balanced quality and cost effectiveness to improve accommodations and safe books so that one goes more to safety right not accessibility and then the second one is to increase public transit and shared mobility so that one goes more to car alternatives than about accessibility. I actually wonder oh sorry Kirby. No go ahead Stephanie I'm just I'm just thinking a lot so go ahead. Yeah I wonder if that access piece isn't really better addressed under aspiration B that our transportation modes are safe efficient and meeting the needs of all users to me that that would really be the one that covers ability of everyone to access in whatever fashion they're accessing or needing to. Okay yeah I my mind went to A because it was from the housing chapter and I feel like I don't know I thought A related to housing but uh I guess I'm also I get sort of part of how I'm this challenge that's happening in my head is that I think A and B could probably be a combined aspiration. I don't think that those are necessarily distinct things that it's easy to live and work without a car or that we're for making sure that we have all of these quality other non-car systems in place those to me are really pretty connected. Yeah when I was going through the chapter I would I rephrase some things because I I feel like it's what we're getting at but it doesn't expressly say is I feel like what we really want is for all modes of transportation to be treated evenly and not have a car centric and car dominated place. Right and I yeah to me the second aspiration I think would would get us there that all of our modes are there were balancing cost effectiveness for meeting the needs of all of our users through multiple routes of transportation but I get that the specifically wanting to not need a car piece is really important to the committee but to me I think I don't I wouldn't see that that needed to be its own aspirations. I like I like that being like consciously saying that we're not going to have cars drive transportation the continent. I do think that it's important to to be upfront about that if we can. What does everyone else think about combining a aspirations A and B which I think is what Stephie's getting at. I'm not I'm not attached I'm just trying to figure out whenever I'm looking at these I'm always trying to figure out how we can streamline it and keep it as efficient as possible in in our language so I won't be heartbroken if you disagree with me. No I think combining those two creates that efficiency and I I support it. Yeah I think so I think in theory the way this was broken out was that aspiration A was really looking at the system while aspiration B was kind of starting to look at the pieces and parts so one was trying to you know look at things in a little bit bigger little bit bigger scale. You know how do we make a system that's integrated how do we have how do we have complete streets kind of looking at the big picture while the other ones is kind of getting into how do we make things safe and efficient and attractive which is really kind of getting down to more the on the ground scale which is usually how those are addressed which does not say right or wrong I'm just saying that's that's how the breakout came came to be. I'm all for efficiency I do kind of think that it's good to put a point on the live and work without a car value because I think that was important to the committee so but we could do that in the chapter rather than an aspiration I guess. The chapter does say that a couple at least a couple times you know I agree with Marcella that it's nice to pull it out but I'd be fine with combining them too. Yeah I think as long as it's very clear by what we mean of all Montpelier's transport because I'm I guess I'm not necessarily of the opinion that we're treating all modes of transportation equally I think this plan elevates everything but cars because cars are already elevated if that makes sense so I guess I would want to just make sure that in the chapter we're real clear about what we are talking about by all modes of transportation are safe efficient etc if we dump aspiration A which is which is fine and I think we can do. Oh I don't I don't want to push too far here but I would also now that I'm looking at these three again if we put the words environmentally responsible or sustainable and aspiration B I don't even I would very happily just see one aspiration and that's me and that's how I think but I don't see the need to to pull any of these out from from each other what is the what's the one thing that we're really trying to do how do we say it and efficient one sentence possible but but again don't bite me on it if you want it's fine I'm not attached. I think that's fine actually I think by by further combining them I think it makes me less worried that we're going to inadvertently appear to be car-centric. Yeah I agree and and I think the living without a car piece will shine through in the in the goals and in the strategies but really if we are meeting the needs of all of our users it is possible to live and work without a car. Okay I'll stop now that's me. Yeah um I'll give it a shot. I'll say for the transportation committee that with their foundational building block was you know that was their vision if you if you go back to the basically the aspiration for the transportation system that is for them that was what they built their this working document around it so I think if if if we get comments back from them they'll be probably disappointed to see that line was removed but I think we're very good with their goals we can go ahead Aaron sorry. I'm just gonna say you're when you say that was their foundational block it's the living without a car. Yeah in Montpelier it's easy to live and work without owning a car. Yeah I was thinking that that was pretty foundational to them too and I I think it but I think if we if we put it in the chapter I don't think if I get lost I mean yeah not as explicit. So I I just took a shot at combining them all so if you look at B now which would be A, B and C combined all of them up I moved meet the needs of all users up to put more emphasis on that because of the car thing. All of Montpelier's transportation modes meet the needs of all users by being safe efficient attractive balanced quality with cost effectiveness environmentally responsible sustainable and meet the needs of and I need to change that of course. That is a serious sentence. It is when I started reading it I realized that I might just that that balance one I mean what if we just said quality and cost effective I mean I think it's implied that all these things are being balanced all of Montpelier's transportation modes meet the needs of all users by being safe efficient attractive quality cost effective environmental responsible and sustainable. You might say all of Montpelier's high quality transportation modes meet the needs of users by being safe efficient cost effective environmentally responsible and sustainable. But then we will have low quality transportation that will not be influenced if you fall and it begs the question of like yeah what is which ones are quality. It's it's built into the sentence all of Montpelier's transportation modes are high quality by being high quality transportation modes because they all are high quality. Oh I see I see and we do we lose I'm trying to remember from the original did we lose something about accessibility and also in B if we go with that can we not use by being can we just say modes meet the needs of all users comma are safe efficient. And then does anyone remember if there was something about accessibility I feel like I also I'm trying to think of sorry no yeah I think so I think that's a good piece to add I'm trying to think of these specific words that we're listing out are really the right ones and also I kind of just wanted to say I don't want I don't know I guess we want all of the modes of transportation to be meeting all of those things but it might be more efficient to just say Montpelier's transportation system is safe efficient attractive and accessible exact and accessible and environmentally responsible I don't think we need all of those words and we don't need yeah but I think it's it's a simpler sentence to say Montpelier's transportation system meets the needs of all users if that's still getting at what we're striving for because we don't need every mode to meet well we do need we want every mode to meet whatever their users needs are but then if the whole system is meeting everyone's needs that's what we're looking for Montpelier's transportation system meets the needs of all users through safety efficiency attractiveness quality cost effectiveness environmental responsibility and sustainability I didn't change this last two but do we do we like this sentence better or it still needs to be improved I think it's okay a thrilling endorsement yeah well I feel like we're getting closer yeah when we when we list out adjectives I feel like there's always probably something we've forgotten but I wonder if safety efficiency quality kind of gets at um as long as we have goals and strategies that meet each of those adjectives I mean that that's fine I guess I do think one downside of us condensing things the way we are is we are we are creating these monster aspirations well I think when we get to the end of the plan how many aspirations do we think we're gonna have and to me these are sort of like vision statements within each and if there's a way to succinctly say it like when Marcella and Aaron and I were talking about the natural resources section it just sort of we had some wordsmithing and then it fell together and we were like yes that's it that covers all of it and it was this beautiful moment where we figured it out and I this sentence isn't there yet but I think it could be I think we could I think we could make it a sentence that covers all of that that feels like it's the right fit yeah okay um unless we unless we have some further ideas we could go back to goals now and the better idea of what aspiration we're linking to if we do do the combined aspiration we don't have to worry so much about the accessibility goal falling into either A or B because now it'll fall into the to the one monolithic aspiration so okay let's go back so we have we have goal one and goal two that we've talked about so far um include uh the other thing we were talking about real quick here improve accessibility to okay uh so we have I just I just created one that said improve improve accessibility to downtown and within neighborhoods through all modes of transportation that was just my rough first shot at that I'm seeing here that we also have as goals improve the efficiency of modular transportation system through the efficient movement of people and goods I guess that's a little similar a bit different improve the appearance of modular transportation infrastructure and amenities especially from the perspective of walkers and bikers one overarching question that came up for me when going through the chapter was we call out walkers and bikers a lot and I wonder if it would be better to just talk about non-vehicular travel or something like that because there's there's other ways to get around of course I mean there's scooters and segues and I don't know I mean how much if we want to use I don't know if there's a terminology like not an expert in this area there's probably terminology that that references non-r travel like there's probably some jargon but I don't know what are your thoughts about calling out walkers and bikers and do you think it's fine I like using no yeah I agree unless we're specifically not yeah non-motorized still like if you want like from a language perspective it still centers cars though so um but it might be the thing we do I don't know if there is any like terminology from the planning world I'm googling now I would really love if we didn't say efficiency twice in line six there because that feels very inefficient to me I figured how to reword that one like improve the flow of goods and people through Montpellier's transportation system improve the movement or movement yeah something like that the efficient movement or if we need to include it in there once I mean you can also just improve Montpellier's transportation system through the efficient movement of goods and people and goods yeah it makes me that efficiency one makes me wonder what strategies we have that are tied to that oh there's a lot that goes into the efficiency of okay yeah yeah all the existing goals we have have lots of strategies to them okay so uh so we have I'll just go ahead and do make that change to the efficiency one is that is everyone okay with the appearance one or we want to go ahead and change walkers and bikers now what did you find another term Marcel I missed I spaced out for a second no I haven't yeah I mean non-vehicular sounds okay yeah non-vehicular traffic yeah so it's just changed it to especially from the perspective of non-vehicular travel or we I can even take out the especially and just say improve the appearance of Montpellier's transportation infrastructure and amenities from the perspective of non-vehicular travel travelers I would probably say the perspective of travelers yeah that's good can we just say four instead of from the perspective of okay so I don't see anything more I'll go into this next one which is the one that just coupled together improve accessibility to downtown and within neighborhoods they're all modes of transportation I could be another round where we just say for all users improve accessibility to downtown and within neighborhoods for all users I don't know maybe not then we need the context of it's a goal in the transportation section so maybe that's not a good suggestion yeah I like modes of transportation because I think it's more specific I think users could be more ambiguous improve accessibility to downtown so was this meant to to address the the quote needs of all users is that what this is kind of meant to get at I think it was in housing you know relating to you know letting people making sure that all of our neighborhoods and access to the downtown are accessible through various means other than just cars so I think that you know we would have to pull the strategies from the housing chapter and what was there for the strategies that answer your question Mike yeah and I think if you were to look in those it was most of those were probably talking about supports the transportation plans strategy or goal to make complete streets was probably what it was just getting at and usually a lot of those we we tried to address through the in other chapters we've addressed it in the chapter section so when we've had these ones which talked a lot about you know a lot of references this plan supports the goals or strategies of another plan we kind of pulled most of those out and put them into the written chapter in that section that talks about how this chapter relates to other chapters so that was a lot of times how we would kind of get at that piece I think I think for this stuff I think it's important for the plan to expressly encourage really doing more I mean we have the complete streets studies but on the ground we don't have great bike lanes in most places there's still a lot of areas without sidewalk there's similar fringe neighborhoods that don't have good sidewalks there's we don't you know we you know I could go on so just to make sure that we actually have those parts in there and that we're follow I don't know maybe maybe it's good enough to say we should follow the complete streets if that's what if that's what those plans are saying what do you think well I know what the the way the plans are laid out or way was kind of laid out in here is it's going to talk about an initiative so you've got the plan to have the complete streets we kind of know what our street typologies are what where we want to get to the issue is how long is it going to take us to build out that build out that plan and what we're doing now is step by step putting it into the capital improvement plan putting money in the budget and then addressing these one at a time before we didn't have an overall transportation plan we just kind of ad hoc would decide which streets would have sidewalks and which streets wouldn't so we have a system of you know sidewalks to nowhere in some cases gaps and sidewalks and what we have now is at least a plan that says this is how the whole system should connect and work if you want to walk from town hill to downtown this is how you would make a you know be able to safely make that trip and if you wanted to bike from town hill down this is the safe route that you'd be able to you know from bike lanes or taking a lane or whatever the rule is you have a system that would let you get there now that's not to say it's there and it exists on the ground we just have a plan that says this is how we would be able to do it now we just have to go through over the next you know 10 years 15 years 20 years it depends how much money we put towards it depends on how quickly we get ourselves to to get these all constructed yeah yeah we'll have to we'll have to look at the strategies to see if it you know it makes all that stuff express well enough or not think about it um okay well we could uh does anyone else have any more about that goal or is it fine okay so the next the next one we have is improve the transportation infrastructure to better treat storm water generated decreased greenhouse gas emissions mitigate heat island effects and increase opportunities for informal public spaces uh first question oh go ahead oh sorry clear fine question on this i'm just want to make sure i understand so this is specifically transportation related storm water so there would be other places where like other places in the plan where we could talk about like other types of storm water which is probably a pretty a smaller section of the storm water universe right like housing housing specific so i just wanted to make sure it makes sense to call out transportation infrastructure related storm water does that make sense like categorizing it like that yes that's what this is kind of looking at um our transportation system has two big well three big things that it does that create negative impacts one is it generates a lot of storm water whether it's the public roads and the public parking lots but also the private parking lots so transportation overall creates a lot of storm water not all of it there's obviously rooftops and other things but it does generate a lot of it so we we're planning for our transportation infrastructure we could do we should do a better job of treating the storm water um and then obviously um there's the green greenhouse gas gas emissions and then there's the heat island of all that asphalt so there are three big negatives that we need to do our best to try to mitigate and i think in my suggestions i had said to take out the informal public spaces because we could talk about that under land use but we could also keep it here if we wanted to um really that is a looking at um what in planning we call these third places um it's it's how people um you know nowadays especially with more and more stuff that's by e-commerce and working remotely and everything else there's less places and opportunities where people um just kind of meet kind of meet your neighbors and bump into them on the street and have casual um you know kind of unplanned conversations and so these having sidewalks and pocket parks and other places um become important for you know these kind of informal conversations that might come up so that's that's what is to try to make sure that we have our our roads and sidewalks are not just about getting people from point A to point B but also giving opportunities where people would stop and stand and talk and meet and that's what it's talking about whether that's here in the transportation plan or whether that's discussed in the land use plan it really depends how we want to organize it yeah that was the piece that was throwing me off with this one because it feels like it doesn't fit with the other ones because it's kind of a to me it's a separate thing we're talking about the sustainability more broadly here and environmental responsiveness and that one I'm confused as to that being in here whether it's its own goal here that has its other its own strategies and ideas behind it or whether it goes in land use I don't know but it feels like it doesn't quite fit with this one okay are we thinking we want to move it to a different goal within this chapter or to move it to the land use chapter I feel like I need to better understand this is on me what goes in the land use chapter to answer that well but yeah it's kind of the connection to transportation or is it is it making sure that transportation like includes or is it an accessibility question so not just the transportation systems don't just make like neighborhoods in downtown more accessible but also parks and pocket parks and is that and then we talk about that in the land use or the rec chapter yeah I mean some of the like one of the strategies is why you know why do we have the parklet ordinance you know that can be economic development but it's also a little bit of this you know activating your streets and making streets lively you know certainly that was a conversation that that comes up is having these vibrant lively streets and so that's that's a little bit of where this was coming from your streets are a resource you know they're publicly owned and they're an asset that we can develop in in a number of ways and I think that's what this was trying to to look at is how how else we can use transportation or transportation resources beyond just for transportation and maybe by saying it that way maybe that kind of leads to go and say maybe it should be in in land use but it's use you're using the transportation infrastructure to do more than just transportation I feel like I feel like informal public spaces is a bit broader than just the roads and sidewalks so what was that um so is everybody okay to just I guess the way that might just explain it I feel like that was worth calling out in the transportation calling out somehow would you be okay with having it as a goal within the land use though and then referring to the transportation side of it as well as other public spaces what are other people's thoughts about about the informal public spaces I think it makes more sense in another chapter chapter that may be but yeah to me it's more about social infrastructure almost anybody else I think we could maybe get at it by adding to the accessibility improve accessibility to downtown and within neighborhoods and natural areas if we're talking mostly about parks and then you could get rid of it in that I mean I know what else what else are informal public spaces besides parks and transportation infrastructure well we really wouldn't want to be talking about the parks part here which is why it might make sense to put it in transportation you mean land use excuse me I mean the goal that existed before said improve the city's transportation infrastructure to increase opportunities for successful third spaces especially in the downtown core I'm good with putting it in land use I mean there's and there's there's reference when we get to the chapter about this there's references to the connection between transportation and land use and so we can keep that in mind when we get to that paragraph okay that makes sense okay so I did move it Mike I'll put it somewhere else so is everyone good with improve the transportation infrastructure to mitigate stormwater emissions and heat island effects caused by roads and sidewalks I rephrase that is everybody okay with that yeah sounds fine to me okay and so that's that's what we that's what we have for the goals there so we have these these are these alternatives down below I think those are ones that had been removed or combined so let's look through these and see if that makes sure something's not left out make sure that any strategies that would fall under these are still strategies we could put under the other goals so I just remembered the goals by the way so now we have one through six I'm not seeing any that where where we're leaving anything out well when I combine the strategies I'll point out or I'll highlight on the side if there's any of them that that don't fit into this new set of boxes and we can decide whether or not we want to add another goal in order to keep that strategy because obviously you don't have you don't do something unless it's helping us accomplish a goal so if we've got a strategy that doesn't fit somewhere then I'll just highlight it and put it off to the side and we can have a conversation about whether or not we need to make a change to accommodate it or if we just go and let it go that sounds good so it looks like we've made some progress here do we want to go over to the chapter now or yeah I think maybe it makes sense to go to the chapter and look at it and hopefully we'll still have time to to vote these out so that Michael has something to work with should we just vote on them now since we just looked at them or yeah it's sometimes it's like there's pros and cons to each one like if people are comfortable we can vote it out now what do you think yeah I mean we just did the same thing in the natural resources and we just said we weren't gonna because we didn't have the strategies done we'll vote it all in when we finish the strategies I thought the difference though is that we haven't like formally looked at natural resources chapter yet but this is us formally looking at transportation I'm happy having it voted out too is anyone anyone want to wait to vote it out do we have a motion to vote out the aspirations and goals as they are now yeah I'll vote voting the aspirations and goals for that transportation plan to the next step okay so to clarify it is uh having one aspiration which is currently aspiration B and the six goals is that right aspiration B has been rewritten in the dock right yeah aspiration B is has been rewritten to encompass all three of the previous aspirations all second okay we have a motion from area on the second from our cell out those in favor of passing these aspirations and goals for the transportation chapter say I hi hi hi can you post okay so then Mike has something to proceed with there uh that's why we do that uh okay let's take a look at the chapter then and I'll let you share screen for that one as you did most of the work on it okay I don't know about that but I definitely scribbled on a lot can everyone see it okay yes if you can go to 125 or something just go up to the percent we'll make it a little bigger okay and yeah other people can just pull it up and read for yourselves or go off this screen uh so I'll just I'll just read it uh based on the changes you can just just generally to let you know what I was doing when I went through this uh it was I was I was trying to make it uh as succinct as possible but keep most of the same points and and ideas though that uh Mike had had included in his first draft uh some of them are short and a lot and some of the some of the paragraphs are about the same size probably just has some words smithing so here goes introduction transportation is a critical part of everyday life it includes driving finding parking shipping goods delivering packages and travel to recreation and work if anyone can chime in if they have suggestions as we go the decisions we make as a city can favor the old technologies that contribute to climate change or can favor other modes like walking and biking that move the city towards sustainability while improving our overall health and quality of life for more than a century the use of cars is the primary mode of transportation in the united states largely controlled how people lived and how cities were designed and planned today the transportation field is changing fast with a new emphasis on ensuring that streets work just as well for walking biking and other alternatives as they do for cars looking forward we know that we need a system that accounts for new technologies like e-bikes e-scooters microtransit ride share and ride hailing these new technologies and services may hold some of the keys that could help us make the societal shift to a non fossil fuel future for transportation and more equitable urban and suburban communities mob healer strives to be a welcoming inclusive welcoming and inclusive community to better achieve that goal our community must allow people to work attend school shop and recreate without regard for the ability and means to drive whether someone is living without a car for economic environmental philosophical or other reasons mob healer should have a full range of options that make life possible without a car we hope the mob healer becomes a city where people can live and work without needing to own a car so i think you know that the chapter is pretty clear even though we took that one aspirational that you know a big priority here is is no car or having the option of no car this next paragraph i cut down quite a bit uh i left a couple of the points out but these these were just uh anyways you'll see the the new version just says although we strive for mob healer to be a place where car ownership is optional we also recognize that automobiles and associated infrastructure will continue to be a central part of life for the foreseeable future to balance both of these those realities this chapter tries to establish a transportation system that treats almost a transportation equally and where safety for all travelers is a top priority the diversity of users can make planning and managing transportation infrastructure and service is a challenge we need to ensure that roads are efficient to allow good movement of drivers but slow enough to maintain safety for bikers and walkers we need room for delivery vehicles emergency vehicles on street parking and bike lanes we also need space for bike parking drop-off locations for rideshare and microtransit and space for parklets and outdoor seating the challenge for the department of public works is to provide all this infrastructure maintain it and do it cost effectively this is why mob healer uses a complete streets approach that accounts for all users the city then uses a capital improvement plan to schedule repairs and reconstruction which includes everything from sidewalks and retaining walls to bridges and street paving after many decades of underfunding capital and after many decades of underfunding capital improvements the city now has a fully funded paving a street reconstruction program this means many of the projects in the cip are now catching up on some long overdue needs while sustainably maintaining our streets and sidewalks anybody have anything so far okay the city has completed two six this is this is one where this is covered down below just and so keep that in mind if we may want to end up cutting this paragraph actually this the city has completed two signature projects in recent years the mob healer transit sitter at 61 Taylor street and the I did not know this thing had a name side boy nebby is a side boy nebby seaboo new a b i believe is or it's it's uh the native american word for i think it was river walk or something like that so oh okay there was a competition to name the the bike path oh winning one cool that we should put up some signs because I had no idea that had a name so okay the the shared use path connecting granite street to gallison hill road those signs should also have the way to pronounce it the phonetic uh so anyway uh the department of public works continues to work on other important projects including the baryon main intersection east state street reconstruction and implementing pieces of the downtown master plan in the future our transportation system must do better to address problems caused by storm water as well as trans trans as well as transition to electric vehicles to address global climate we must do this while continuing to design our downtown streets and sidewalks in a way that fosters the social and civic interactions that make molecular a vibra an interesting place to be how does the transportation plan relate to other chapters this chapter and the energy chapter are mutually dependent on one another for example the transportation sector contributes 40 of all carbon emissions this chapter includes support for public transit ride sharing options and electric vehicle charging stations that are essential to meeting the aspiration and goals aspirations well is there multiple aspirations in the energy chapter now i can go and check on you know it was we we combine the 2030 and 2050 and the one so essential to meeting the aspiration and goals of the energy chapter encouraging active mobility such as walking and biking requires a transportation system that has complete streets which make alternative modes of transport alternative modes of transport as desirable as using an automobile land use and transportation are also closely connected land uses generate car bike and foot traffic uh transportation impact studies are required for larger projects and transportation infrastructure is critical to a safe vibrant and walkable downtown the land use chapter favors mixed use developments that create fewer trips we'll keep this in mind to make sure that we actually include this stuff uh mixed use developments that create fewer trips as opposed to single use zoning districts that necessitate a vehicle to travel between homework and shopping all while requiring additional space to park in each location so that's all we have there do do we want to throw in a sentence about informal public spaces we anticipate putting that in land use i think i'd be better sorry no you got i was just gonna say i think i'd be better prepared to do that once i see how it goes in the land use but if you've got an idea for this one yeah i think it's it's still good to point out here that we're hoping within our transportation infrastructure that there are those opportunities i think it's still worth bringing that up in this section my first shot at it transportation infrastructure can be used to create informal public spaces which is a priority of the land use chapter it's a good space holder place holder for going back to it if we need to okay anybody have an idea to improve it or should we go move on i'll keep going transportation is also closely tied to economic development um i highlighted this next part because a lot of the examples used below were like traditional thoughts about economic development like industry stuff and i just wanted more of a tone to come through that we also recognize that people and human capital are a big part of economic development so i threw something in that kind of played into that so it says transportation is also closely tied to economic development much of this chapter helps ensure that Montpelier stays economically strong through being a highly desirable place to live work and create offering attractive streets and cityscape while providing numerous alternatives for personal transportation will make sure Montpelier maintains its ability to attract talent and prosperity further nearly all traditional industrial developments use trucks to deliver materials and to ship final products while commercial buildings receive deliveries and need parking or similar accommodations for patrons our rail lines carry large freight through the city which is connected to our regional economies ensuring that our transportation system supports the various commercial and industrial land uses in the city as part of future growth our on-road and off-road bicycle network will draw visitors through transportation amenities that's a bit of a non sequitur but i don't know how does everybody think about how that flows i almost feel like can we just be shortened you talk even more and say transportation is closely tied to economic development and we want to make sure that our transportation system supports our economic development goals i mean i i guess i just don't find that maybe it's it's helpful to think about the ways in which transportation supports businesses etc but i i guess i just don't find if i get a little i get a little lost in it myself in that paragraph i mean it does cover a lot of ground but um do we have other thoughts on this one um okay so let's see if we can shorten it even more i mean i would say i like i like how you set it up because i think sometimes it's people miss and we get we get this a lot when we have conversations about you know um you know parking in the downtown you know maybe we don't need as much parking and you know it starts coming back to that that strong connection that exists between you know you know parking and economics um and economic development um and i think sometimes just making sure that's it's clear to understand that this transportation plan does tide economic development because you know a lack of parking or a lack of good accessibility um you know or as you said the streetscapes you know i think that was an interesting and a good addition to kind of put in there that these are the types of things that make it different to attracting talent or or conversely how do you know i know when we were talking above about um the importance of making sure that this is you know Montpelier's the city for everybody well you know um if you don't have a car how do you get to work so you know transportation is tied to economic development in a lot in a lot of different ways and i think you captured a bunch of it in here um that just helps to remind people that that we can't talk about this chapter without talking about another chapter um and that's really the point of this section i'm i'm looking at ways to shorten it but to keep some of the to point out to still point out some of the connections um the bicycle network thing to me it does um it fits in awkwardly like i'd be fine cutting that sentence and i and i'm fine either way with the rail lines i mean it's important to point out rail lines is part of everything but um it's not as significant overall as compared with some of the other aspects of the chapter um what do you think about that arianne um yeah that sounds good um and if i may offer one more edit um i think that sounds great just taking out those and shortening it a little bit i actually agree with my i think thinking about deliveries and trucks is probably important to highlight um i also just thinking about that sentence offering attractive streets and cityscapes while providing numerous alternatives for personal transportation can we say something more like we'll ensure Montpelier is an attractive place to live or i don't know there's something about attracting talent and prosperity that i find a little like um like yeah what about people like service workers you know i want to attract those people too and i just don't want to i i just want to be thinking about the language what about human capital or is that not good enough yeah i think i mean i don't know that people know what human capital is but i think that's fine i i did think that it sounded a little snobby and i and i got a little poetic when i threw prosperity in there but um we'll make sure Montpelier maintains its ability to attract human capital i'm still open to like changing that further if you guys want to i'm not in suggestions mode anymore here so the rail line sentence delete yes or no personally but okay before i press the button does anyone object one two three okay so now it says transportation is also closely tied to economic development much of this chapter helps ensure that Montpelier stays economically strong through being a highly desirable place to live work and create offering attractive streets and cityscape while providing numerous alternatives for personal transportation will make sure Montpelier maintains its ability to attract human capital further nearly all traditional industrial developments use trucks to deliver materials and to ship final products while commercial buildings receive deliveries and need parking or similar accommodations for patrons ensuring that our transportation systems ensuring that our transportation system supports the various commercial industrial land uses in the city as part of future growth i cut out the last sentence because it it made just a couple of add-on points and i just thought it was like a good thing to be able to just reduce size so it we don't mention storm water there and we don't mention inclusivity but inclusivity is addressed above um so i did not change the summary of past efforts because that there's still stuff to be added in there this is like similar to the other chapters where we've left that alone to be more fleshed out later by staff uh same thing with the maps and then for the aspirations i had i had changed this one aspiration because it had been modified before but um i'm gonna stop sharing and then change that up uh to to meet the thing that we just agreed on yeah the aspirations and goals will that's why i put in there complete after aspirations and goals are approved because i really couldn't write this out until we got done wordsmithing and it was a good thing i didn't spend a lot of time writing it because it got changed significantly so yeah i'll go ahead and i'll make that change now yeah so i'll try to draft something quickly and then you can go through and start to edit it unless you want to write something up from scratch yourself and i just i just changed the i deleted those other aspirations and changed it to the one that we just agreed on um and at the same time it told me that there was misspellings yeah it's possible because excel doesn't have any spell check so as soon as you bring it yeah format it'll go through and okay as well i corrected those in the spreadsheet okay do we have any more thoughts about the chapter obviously those last few sections have to be fleshed out do we want to vote on it i feel like well it's in kind of the similar spot to the one the energy chapter right i'd be a if we you know a little bit more probably to do but find to keep moving so i'd be okay voting it out yeah i mean yeah that's just i think just the nature of how the like workflows happening where we need to do some things to free up mic to do some more things yeah there's a little bit of back and forth on these guys because the we're writing an introduction to the aspirations and goals so we have to approve the aspirations and goals and so it kind of has a little bit of back and forth there oh maybe that we guess we didn't we waited until that part was done for energy didn't we yeah i think we have that maybe we should just wait then yeah i don't know if we approved it in two parts i don't know we have the minutes there may have been i'm fine waiting because i it's not final yet and it's hard to it's still hard to look at it with all those track changes until we're looking at a clean version sure we can we can i don't i don't think it's that big of a deal is that mic for you to like i think you have the gist of it so we can we can wait on that that's fine me because we'll we'll be revisiting transportation to go over strategies in the near future i take it yeah i'll be putting together the strategies come you know kind of compressing those down into different initiatives like we've been doing for the other chapters and then we'll approve the strategies and then approve the text here so it should go fairly quick i would think it's not as much to approve okay so we can look at strategies and then we'll take a look at the more polished up version of the chapter at that same time and then at the next meeting or do you think we're gonna do do that mic or do you think we'll do housing well we could keep working on the natural resources if we wanted to i mean i i've got housing i've got natural resources it's up to you guys what you want to jump into next was was the working group planning on doing something more or you guys are good now you move for natural resources yeah no we haven't looked at a chapter yet but the we felt good about the aspirations and goals so i don't think there's anything on our plate right now until mic condenses the strategies then we have a chapter to look at yeah mic said he did have a chapter so we were just saying we could go through and edit a chapter but i don't know that we would meet to do that i would probably do it kind of individually between now and next meeting yeah that seems reasonable to me okay uh okay mic so we i guess we don't have to we don't have to nail it down now so it sounds like we have some options if we end up doing natural resources we'll let uh you guys know and i'll i'll keep in my mind that you'll edit the chapter one of you will and if it ends up being housing then i'm fine with editing the chapter does that sound good okay well do we have anything else we want to do right now it'd be a shame if we got to go back to our normal lives like 15 minutes early you seen any more bears arian that's what that's the last thing i want to do find out if any more bears have been on college street i haven't seen that bear in college street since what was that two or three weeks ago my neighbor saw moose walk through our drive our shared driveway a week ago did you see a moose up by youtube my neighbor sent us a picture of a moose on luma street i think like a small moose yeah and i'm on charles street which is really steep it had nowhere to go i don't know if it came from saban but it like went across our street and then there's a cliff on the other side so i have no idea where it went but anyway very unrelated but that was my last note well that's natural reason right we're yeah trying to figure out moose passage through month failure yeah well this i think hubbard's had a moose or a bear this summer he tends to have a bear he gets the same one or is it a different one than you saw there was definitely a bear last summer who was or in the same vicinity like crossing main street i have a neighborhood raccoon that's kind of like a stray cat like it'll walk within five feet of me it's a little nerving we just have a bunch of stray cats but well they're not stray cats a bunch of people's house cats that do that like jump on my porch i'm like no that's not you don't belong in my porch not my cat okay well do you guys want to adjourn do we motion to adjourn moved okay motion by stephanie second by arian sure yeah okay those are favorite adjournings say i hi hi thanks everybody okay thank you in two weeks have a good night bye