 Okay, so I started the recording. So you want to start it. Excuse me. Okay. Today is July 12. This is the July meeting of the disability access advisory committee. We have a quorum. Present. We have. Sarah and Darren. Say here. Right. You want to announce that you're here. Yes, I'm here. Okay. Okay. Tori Dixon. Here. Ruth Smith. She's here. She's muted. Okay. That's okay. We're here. And I'm Myra Ross. I'm here. Marty Smith will not be with us today. And Elise. Link, I believe will be coming. Later. Have not heard that she won't. So we have a pretty abbreviated. And I wish in a way is nice. So Maureen, let's see. Do we have any announcements? Does anybody. Have any announcements. I have a question, Maureen. I wanted to share the. Aging and dementia. The, the meeting on the 25th of July. We'll be having a listening session on transportation. Buildings and outdoor spaces. It will be from two 30 to four via zoom. And I can email you all the flyer. So you can distribute it. Yes. I'll make a note of that. Email. Yeah. We're finalizing it right now. So the agent dementia friendly community project. We're hosting a series of listening sessions. In July 25th, we'll be having a listening session on transportation, buildings and outdoor spaces. And we'll be having a listening session on that. Email. Email flyer to. DAC members. Thank you. Yep. Any other announcements? Let's see here. So I believe Maureen might have mentioned this at a previous meeting, but I just wanted to look back. The mass office on disabilities will be hosting a disability meeting on the 27th. This year's theme is on accessibility in a digital world. And I will email you the link so you can hear more information about it. And to register. It will be a. I guess a hybrid meeting, if you will. Where you could drive to Boston if you wanted to. Or you could be the zoom. I can send you that information and. I just wanted to share that with you so you're aware of that. And I don't have that many specifics about. The sort of. Schedule or who the speakers are, but I just wanted to inform you. It's only three hours. And I think 10 to one or something. And the guest speaker, I got an announcement yesterday. Is Laney fine gold. Who is a blind attorney. From California. And she has done a lot of work on. Sort of structured negotiation resolutions of. Of conflict rather than, you know, what you try to do before you go to court. And I think she should be a good speaker. I don't know. You know, anything about what they have asked her to speak about, but I assume that's it because that's the book she wrote and that's the work she does. And the meetings in Somerville, you know, you would think, okay, well, if you're going to try to get the people from the state to come, you could try to make it a little more accessible, but okay, maybe not. I guess that's where they have space, but. Somerville. You would think that they could at least try to do it. Near South station where the buses and trains come in. If they're going to do it in the Boston area at all, right. But they didn't. Somerville isn't even on the train that comes out of South station. So I attended some very little actually of the. American council, the blind national convention last week, because I had guests and I. I have to go to New York and I just wasn't around. So. One of the things that I did attend was about transportation. And it was about. The kinds of accessible signals that there are. And they were talking about various kinds. Of signals. They had a speaker. Boy, I can't even remember who it was. What was the conference called? Oh, it was American council of the blind national conference. I mean, they do it every July. I just wasn't able to go to most of it. But the, the part about the transportation was two parts. One had to do with roads. And one had to do it. Well, I guess it was about signals and there were two parts, but they discussed these various things. And they talked about bike lanes and they talked about. Warnings, you know, like warning strips. And apparently there are some new. But not yet implemented. Or not yet passed regulations that are going to come. About warnings. Like apparently bike lanes is a big problem. Remember how they wanted to put the bike lane in this on the sidewalk here. Instead, and we asked them to put it in the street. Well. Bike lanes in the street. Are not necessarily the best thing because. They're probably the worst thing. Bicyclists get hit. That's probably not going to happen in this little piece that we've just dealt with here because it's a one way street. And the bikes are on one side. And putting them on a narrow sidewalk would be worse in that place. But what they have now is this new detectable. Surface. And they put these trapezoids on the sidewalk here. With wheelchairs. And I don't know how they don't, but they don't. And they put these trapezoids as markers between. Bike lanes. They're like warning things. Like if you cross these trapezoids, you're going to be in danger. This is not an area that you can go on unless you're a bike. And that is not an area that you can go on unless you're a bike. They have all these different detectable systems that they're devising. And you know, the problem is nobody's going to know what they are and nobody's going to put them in for a long time. But it's really cool. There's a lot of people doing some good thinking about all of this. And also about the detectable warnings. I mean, the accessible signals, the stop lights. And the stop lights. They don't need to know more about what Gilford is determining about the old lights because they need to be, they don't need to have antiquated parts put in to make an antiquated work, a light work in an antiquated way. If they're going to be fixed, they need to be fixed so that they work to as close to a current standard as they can. Because in the olden days, they didn't, you know, they didn't know as much as they know now when they put these things together. So I don't know, I mean, he, we need to get more information from him about the status of these lights all over town that Marty inventoried a year ago this week. That we haven't heard a word about since. And I'm just very interested in what he has found and what he is planning to do. By way of repair, because I'm afraid it's very little. Just to get back to the trapezoid. The lineater, I, I Google that. And it brought me to, it looks like a vendors. You know, they, they make them. So on their website. So this is the lineators, the optimal solution for separating sidewalk level, bicycle and pedestrian pathways and dense urban areas like universities and city centers. Let's see here, I'm just reading this quickly. So it looks like it's like a little bump out like a little bump. That you would put at the sort of edge of the bike lane. So someone just separate and then, and then they have a photo of someone that's blind with a, with a. Crosswalk or something. Crosswalk or something. And then they, they hit that little delineator. And they know that, that they, that that's the, that's the edge that they shouldn't cross that. Well, they know that they're, that they need to look for bikes there. Or for bikes. Yeah. Yeah. When they're crossing it, you have to cross it. If you're going to cross the street. Yep. But. And it's just seemed like an interesting thing. And I think this is something we really should work with Tracy's committee on because they're working on sidewalks. And I think we need to also work on sidewalks. Sidewalks are few and far between and decent condition in this town. And that's, I mean, downtown. You know, they're working on that. But all over town, they either don't exist. Or they are in terrible repair. And, and so I think we really need to start to think with Tracy's committee about what, what is the standard that we want the town to employ when they build sidewalks from now on. And what do we want them, you know, I mean, there's information out there. And we'd like, it would be great if we could do that. In the way that really is helpful to all kinds of people. The wheelchair users do not have trouble with these trapezoids because you're not supposed to go over them. Unless you're crossing the street. Right. Yeah, that's what it looks like. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to bring to your attention that it looks like, uh, Tracy's Afian is in attendance. Would you like to make her a panelist? Sure. I, I was at a, the previous. Age and dementia friendly community workshop or hearing. And there were some people, I think they're elderly. I mean, uh, senior citizens. And, um, they were having, they brought up concerns about, um, crossing signals. And that it was very short. And some of them just not audible signals at all. And also crossing across the streets. And they brought especially Amity street area. And more importantly, was in that meeting too. So you might recall something, uh, Maureen and I said, we are looking at this. Uh, and we have brought this up to the attention of the town, the audible signals and how they are very important. So there is a big crowd of Amherst residents. That suffer from this. They're not disabled, but you know, it's not safe. They don't feel safe crossing these streets or crossing the, the, um, pleasant street and things like that, for example. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad. Sarah was in attendance of that meeting. So, um, I'm not just toot in our horn. That's Aaron can also say that we're, you know, we're this board, this committee is, is, um, been focused on making improvements. Um, yeah. To the, to the audible signals and it, and yeah, that it was definitely expressed from, uh, folks that were in attendance of the listening session. Um, for the last eight, uh, age friendly listening session. It wasn't even on transportation. It was about communication and technology, but yeah, but that's, you know, um, I'm sure, uh, the July listening session will be on transportation as well as, um, like outdoor spaces in buildings. So I'm, I'm. I anticipate hearing similar comments. Well, if this is really good to know, one of the things they talked about, and it's what, um, the woman Allison bowl from the commission talked to, um, Maureen about is the length of time allotted for the crossing, not just the audible signal, but how much time. You know, do you tell people there are anyway, there are all kinds of signals. This is apparently something that we can work with the senior center or the council on aging or whoever it should be. And with the transportation, uh, advisory committee, because it's all part of the same thing. And I think coalitions work better than, uh, individual committees. So I just thought that it might be something that we could really, and I'm glad to hear about what came up. And I will be at the next, um, meeting. I was not. Available for the last one, but I think it's important for all of us. To make sure that. You know, what we do. We do together. And these people that have come up with all the state of the art stuff have considered it from the perspective of people who walk slowly, people who use wheelchairs, people who use scooters, people who are blind, and they've come up with. Things that work for everybody. That, you know, they, they. Over years have made mistakes in coming up with things that didn't work for everybody. But I think they've got it pretty much. You know, I think they have some really good, um, prototypes of how you should build sidewalks, how you should build intersections, what, um, traffic signals should look like even signalizing roundabouts. They talked about. And a lot of what we're going to, or the town is going to do in this roundabout. Is right. They would have preferred probably not the rapid rapid flashing beacons because those are yellow. They're not red lights. So they're warnings, but they're not red lights. So like they're supposed to yield to you, but it's yellow light. Right. It's not a red light. Tracy has raised your hand. Sure. You want to speak. Um, hi. Yeah. Sorry. I tuned in a few minutes late. Uh, so. I think, you know, of course, I'm a huge fan of building better and having better pedestrian infrastructure. And it serves a lot of people. You know, as has been seen with the age friendly communities initiative and the feedback. From the hearings. One thing is that I think a lot about both building new facilities and improving, like making improvements in areas that don't have them and also maintaining what we already have. And those are always coming from different pots of money. Right. There's grants to build a new sidewalk or there's grants to build a new crosswalk or to make those improvements, but then to make sure that. Well, we had, I mean, that's why I had brought it up last time about the enmity, but to make sure that what we have is we continue to maintain it. It continues to be accessible and safe. And I've noticed that some with the, I've been working on stuff with safe routes to school with the school district. And the member of the tack and I, we had been to each of the elementary schools and, you know, walk the different corridors that kids get to school. And like, for example. I noticed along route nine on Belcher town road. That if you will one, I mean, so to me, it doesn't seem like the least accessible place, even though the traffic there is very fast. And which is a big concern, but because there is a sidewalk, it is separated from the road and so on. But like, for example, if a kid's we're ever going to bike along that. I was just there recently and there's still like a lot of winter salt there and sand and. You know, if you have cracks in the sidewalks or like other types of things. And, you know, we've talked to you about like how the vegetation can block sidewalks. And so there really needs to be a concerted effort related to maintenance too. And I think sometimes it's easy to build these new things. And not always have the maintenance. So, I mean, I hope that you do hear back from Gilford about the signals that are there that aren't working. And so on because the maintenance piece is huge for the long-term for long-term accessibility. Tracy, this is. Tori. I've called about. Nine before. And the town has told me that. It's, um, It's the highway. So it's not the town's responsibility as that change. So. I think I, there are different sections of route nine. And I'm not sure I maybe Maureen would know, but, um, like on some of the state roads, right? I'm like 116, the town, it's locally owned, like all the way from downtown to the notch. I believe that route nine is state owned all the way along. But I could think of town. I mean, so I just noticed that. Like how covered in sand and stuff that the sidewalks still are even now, like months after the winter on Delta town road, but you could also point out places like that are definitely Amherst streets where you have the same issue. Right. So. Because you, the street sweeper for Amherst goes along and it sweeps all the Amherst streets. But like, is anybody making sure that the sidewalks are cleaned up too? Right. So, um, yeah. Well, I'm not sure about that section of route nine, but I can bring it up and see, find out. At the section you were thinking about, or other parts of right now. Well, I think that's an issue for the town council. I really wish Pat were here. There's just so many things that don't get done that are, that are not repairing this and repairing that, but it's just simple maintenance. You know, it's just ridiculous. And I don't think talking about it in this, then you was enough. Can, can you send a note, Tracy? Since you're the one who saw it. Can you, can you send a note to the town council or bring it up in your committee? Or should this committee sign on to it? I'm just really tired of the lack of. Very brilliant. You know, very, you know, what I'll do. Myra is I'll put it in C. Click fix. Which that it's not my favorite way to report things, but it does. It will be, it will be a record that it was there. And then I can see like the DPW's response and say, well, we're not responsible for, you know, maintenance of that road because it's a state. I'm really interested to know if the side, if the sidewalks in North Hampton on route nine and Hadley and root nine and Belcher town and root nine. Oh, are also full of sand. Well, and then of course, then we have the completely inaccessible section near my house, like where they're doing that construction between university drive and. South pleasant, which is, I recommend nobody walk there for a very long time. There's always stuff blocking the sidewalk and. Yeah. So. What road do you live on? Sorry. I live on, I live on Blue Hills road, but I'm just saying that construction project, the states, it's a state construction project from the university drive up to downtown. With redoing route nine. That project will not be finished. Until 2024. So. Wait, isn't that about pipes? Isn't that why they're there? But they're re, but they're also building. They're supposed to be putting in sidewalks on both sides of the street. Okay. Pedestrian pass. There's a few places where it's too tight to have like a full sidewalk. I think there might actually be plans there. My refer some mixed use paths with bikes and. Where the, where the right away. That's where we hear for the announcement of the trapezoid that I heard about. Yeah. No, I heard that. Yeah. I mean, there is some really good tech out there about. Yeah. I agree with you about state of the art design and. Making better signals and things like that. Putting bikes in the street, especially if it's kids riding to school on route nine. It's not a good idea, but putting them on sidewalks that aren't demarcated for pedestrians and bikes is also not a good idea. So there is apparently a state of the art of how to do it. Yeah. We ought to, we ought to be looking into that. And I don't know. I don't know whose job it is to really police how things get done because we know that collaboration is not something we're going to get out of the DPW in other towns. They do. But right now we are not going to get collaboration out of the DPW. We say what we want to say. And so I want to do. Talking of DPW. Two days ago. I saw a new roundabout. Which was formed. On the road on Snell Street. Not on the intersection of Snell. To route nine and university drive. And it's where the new building is being built. And I don't remember. Having it mentioned. At all. In any of our meetings. It's a university drive south. And it was part of Barry Robert. Project. He hooked on that little house and he's building. The multi-story building at the corner of university drive. University drive south that section right before Snell and route nine. And it has offices on the lower floors. It has apartments for students on the upper floors. So that item too. I remember that going to the council. So I remember the council reviewing. University drive south. Including because they're putting like parking meters there. But a lot of that project. It seems like Barry Roberts. They had just decided themselves. About there. Something like really consider. Before any of the councils. Before I mean, I have no idea. And I said. I don't remember looking into any one of these. I mean, that design. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. Mayor of the city. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember it. I don't remember. I don't remember it. It didn't come to tack either. Sharon. I remember asking at the time. Yeah, Barry Roberts is a very. Powerful. Owner of property and business person. In Amherst. Good for him. But anything like that, just because it is. About in his property should not be. without getting any counsel. So the town is not following the rules that we were, I mean, that was expected. His designs, they went to the council. The council are the keepers of the public way. The council reviewed the plans, including the parking plan and the little roundabout. And he's also the one he put in like the street. He separated the lanes and he put in the little area with the trees. I think Barry Roberts put in all that on University Drive South. So the council reviewed it all. And as the keepers of the public way, the council did not refer it to other committees to examine outside of the council. I will say that was a few years ago. That was when that was approved. That was actually, that got approved days before COVID, before the walk down. And, you know, I think since then, you know, Tracy is right. The town council is the keeper of the public right away. And at the time they decided that it didn't need to be referred to any other committees. And so they approved it. You know, we've seen progress with the town council to refer these sorts of public right away improvements to a variety of committees, such as the TAC and this committee, the DAAC. So hopefully as, you know, time continues that, you know, we're currently seeing the town council have these sorts of projects be referred. And we hope that it is a continuing trend. And so since then, Pat D'Angelis, the town council member, Pat D'Angelis is now a staff liaison to this committee for the town council. So having folks like her having eyes on these projects is really helpful to remind folks that, hey, there's other committees that need to review this. So unfortunately, sorry that that particular project didn't go through this committee for review. I have no idea how they address the pedestrian crossing across the street at all. There's no sidewalks there. Yeah, but I mean, what about the people? Well, there's the path on the east side of the street. So it's like the connector path to the Norwa track trail. So it goes from the, right? So it goes from the university drive route nine intersection and that's the path, like it goes past the vet, right? And then it winds up like to the Norwa track trail. At the bridge. And then currently there's no sidewalks or anything on the other side of the street, on the west side of the street. So, and that little roundabout is just right at them. It's a part of university drive south that used to just end. Like it looked like one day it was gonna be a through route. And I think that might still be part, I thought that that was in Barry Roberts plans to connect to like a parking lot. So here I'm pulling up my screen. This was what was approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals back in 2020. This is the site plan and it includes the roundabout. So to orient everyone, this is university drive south down here is route nine. And then here is, it turns into Snel Street here. And so that's where the developer was agreeable to make some public right of way improvements as part of the approved permit. And so there is this roundabout here at the sort of at where it turns into Snel Street and where they have the entrance to get into the development for the mixed use building. And it looks like there's a little like, what would you call this a medium at the entrance? And... Now Maureen, to the, whatever, to the, if you look right, like to upper right from the roundabout, like is that designed to be parking? Is that parking lots there? So none of that's currently there right now. It like currently ends. Yeah, yep. So this is the proposal, you know, the final product will include parking spaces back here. And then so the car could turn in here, park over here and then exit over here. I do believe that they added crosswalks. It's not reflected in this sheet. It might be in a different sheet. But... I've never seen anything with crosswalks there. But I am, I mean... If there is going to be a residential area in the new development, wouldn't these people sometimes want to get on the other side of Snell Street and then walk? Well, so they would go to the other side of the, so they'll be at the university drive, route nine intersection and from there they can access like the existing sidewalks. And then there is a sidewalk that would be placed on the, along university drive in front of the mixed use building. So they are going to provide on-street parking along university drive. Yeah, it's designed to be metered. That's what the... Yeah, and so this proposed sidewalk will then connect you to the existing crosswalk here that has, you know, traffic light and a controlled pedestrian signal to cross the street. And so you could cross over to get to the other side of route nine. What are they doing about bike lanes there? They did not propose any bike lanes. So, you know, someone that is riding their bike from this building, they would cross this street to get over to the other side of university drive and connect to the existing off-road multi-use path. I'm just thinking, I mean, it seems like everyone has their own jurisdiction. This guy goes to that one. The town council doesn't refer that. The state does this. And we are left with a hodgepodge of things that don't make any sense. And we don't even work together. So I think Tracy suggested a month ago that we really put together, you know, some kind of coalition between them and us so that we can come up with. We agree that this is what we would like you to do every time you do X in this town. And we don't need to police every single one down to, you know, what color stripes you're gonna put in because we're going to tell you in a master plan that this is what you should do. And if you wanna deviate from it, then you should come to us, right? I mean, it seems to me like we can't be policemen every single second for every single project, especially when we have a GPW who is not interested in working with us. And I think, I don't know what anybody else thinks, but I think getting this together, and frankly with the council on aging as well, or the senior center or whatever the entity that they have there that we could work with is that we should put together a group of people who is gonna talk about pedestrian safety in Amherst. Pedestrian and bicycle safety because everybody cares about driving. But, you know, the rest of it is the afterthought. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you're yelling about bikes. Yeah, somebody got killed. Oh, we better do something. That's not the way to do it. So I think, I don't know how to create that kind of coalition. I mean, Tracy, you seem interested in working that out. And I don't know, is there an counseling on aging? Is that the right person? That's the equivalent of us? I don't know. Well, and I do think that the pedestrian, the ideas about walking should definitely be part of the whole age-friendly. Well, I mean, this age and dementia-friendly the group should be aware of this too. They should not stay. So we have to have some kind of an idea about what we want so we can have them buy into something. Just have them say, oh yeah, that's a good idea. Or yeah, we should do that. We are the ones who should do it. So we have to figure out how to do it and who's gonna do it. And is it gonna be a priority for this town? Because they are building a lot of roads and stuff like that. And just a little aside, hey, the Massachusetts came up with this major league tax cut package because the state has so much money. They have $3 billion in reserves. So they decided to give some of it back to the people. Why don't they give some of it to the streets? Yes. I mean, nobody, all you need is one axle that goes bad, one tire that needs, that the tires go bad because they are unevenly worn because of the way or the potholes or something. You'll pay much more than you're gonna get back and taxes just fix the damn streets and make sidewalks. Don't give us the money back. I don't know, I'm very frustrated because there isn't any reason for this except everybody has their own little fiefdom. And we have to figure it out. I think we, as this committee, as the tech, as the agent dementia, as the council on aging, Maureen, you're connected with almost all of it. Chris is connected with the tech, right? But is this something for the town people to talk about the staff? Or is this something for us to talk about as joint meetings of committees to see what we can work out? Or see if we can put up a task force combining some people from each of these committees to work on it? Do you think we should go to the council, one of them asked to be at some time to be heard and then we can have some representative from both committees and go and bring our points and how we'd like to have set some standards in the regulations, you know. I don't know how to do it. Is that might be a way to do it? What do you think, Maureen, you know how to play. I don't know, I'm not gonna play. Well, so it seems like, you know, I'm listening to all your comments and it seems like firstly, is there a town policy for improvements for the public right of way? For private, for if it's being proposed by a private entity or being proposed by the town itself, what is the policy and procedures? Is there something in place? There might be. And if so, it would be helpful to review that. And so, and if there isn't one with the town council, the keepers of the public right of way entertain the idea of creating policies and procedures that lay out a uniformed step, you know, step by step of when they have a proposal going in front of them, they'll refer to their policies and procedures and follow them. And so we don't have to reinvent the wheel for each town council member being, you know, elected, that we can use that as a tan, as we can use that for years to come and adjust it as needed. But I think those are two really good questions to start with. Is there a policy and procedures in place that the town council use? If so, could we get a copy and review it? If not, can the town council create that? Because we don't want, we don't want, you know, we have these committees such as the TAC and the DAC and the council on aging and perhaps other committees that might not be thinking of that have interests in weighing in on these sorts of projects. And so we wanna ensure that these groups have the opportunity to review and provide comments for the town council's consideration as they're, you know, approving these sorts of projects. I'll just mention, so I do go to the TSO meetings regularly. The TSO has developed two different policies related to public wave requests. They have one specifically about parking and they have a more general one that they need to reconcile both of those, but they have been using those at least for the parking decisions. Okay, so they need one on special safety. And it does include referrals to relevant committees. So there was actually, I attended the last TSO meeting and they are looking at changing parking on Lincoln, you know, near the university and they actually referred that item both to TAC and to disability access advisory committee. The TSO, which is a subcommittee of the town council has the policy and procedure. They do have two policies. But they need to do a pedestrian safety one too. I mean, that's really what it's about. It's about pedestrian safety. Having to do with demarcations, stop lights, how slowly people might walk and because everything is set up for drivers. And it could also include things related to snow, right? And also signal, like signal crossings. I mean, some of these issues as I mentioned- And not being removed from the sidewalk by the middle of July, things like that. I mean, these issues have been going on decades, right? So, but I think one thing like doesn't, does the disability access advisory committee, like aren't you asked to weigh in sometimes in terms of like the budget and expenses? And so, like for example, like for new sidewalks, right? Some towns are using ARPA money for new sidewalks and improving a sidewalk infrastructure. And I thought that Amherst may be doing that too. But there is that piece with the maintenance is like to make sure that there's money in the budget with maintenance related to the infrastructure such as sidewalks and the crosswalks and things that aren't always, all right, I'm sorry, the signals to make sure that there's maintenance money for those too. Once upon a time, we requested that the town collects for parking violations that should be returned back to DAC and we could have access to those funds and use them for ADA related services. But, and I know Joe Tringale who was a member, he was very much pushing for this and he was pushing for the DAC to be a commission which would have more power, but just, it just never. Well, I thought too that some of the parking money went into the, and then parking is an enterprise fund, that means it's supposed to like pay for itself. And they actually used ARPA money to balance the funds when the parking revenues went down so much. All right, so- Let's let Tori speak, she raised her hand. Yeah, please. So what are you saying that the parking funds are being used for Tracy? I mean, maybe you should have a parking person like the head of parking company to speak to. Yeah, because that would be interesting to know because... I mean, as an enterprise fund, parking is supposed to pay for itself. So rates are just like sewer and water is supposed to pay for itself. One of the challenges with the parking fund is that the downtown parking permits, I mean, this is one reason they want to increase the parking fees for downtown because the annual permit has been $25 a year. And so that doesn't even barely cover salaries, let alone any improvements that you need to make to parking structures. Did they raise it? They have raised it for next year. Okay, okay. Yeah. Which is probably ridiculous. But even so, like if you wanted to build, if you want to resurface a parking lot or any of those things, it doesn't cover the money for that. No, it should be five times that. We're giving people essentially free parking. Which is probably why the town wasn't very receptive to this committee having the parking, the ADA. If somebody violated the ADA parking, they would get a ticket and the money would come to the committee or something like that. So that might be why they weren't too amenable because the parking is so low, but I don't know. But back, I wanted to mention the roads, Tracy, you had mentioned that they are, the road sweepers go through every road. We haven't had a street sweeper down my street in ages. And it really needs to be done. I thought that they go through. And what road are you live on, Tori? I'm on Logtown Road. You still have sand in your street from the winter? We have sand, we have asphalt. So don't they, I mean, there's like a schedule that the DPW releases every spring and they say that they're going, you know, section of street to section of street. And I thought that they covered, it's a pretty long list, like comprehensively of all the streets I thought they covered every street, every street that's owned by the town. I don't know. Maybe they did come through, but they need to come through again. I don't know what's happening, but we've got debris all over different sections of our street. It's like the asphalt is falling apart because we have asphalt on, there's curbs and the curbs are falling apart. So Tori, you ever use that like C-click fix because you can always report it there? Yeah, I know I need to do that. I just haven't done that. I have that app, just need to do that. Okay, so maybe to be continued to see if we can come up with a plan about how we can, well, Mori made a suggestion. So should the DAAC write a letter to the town asking? I think maybe, well, what do you think? Anyone want to make a motion about asking the town for any policies that have to do with, well, what were you saying actually? You said private. Yeah, so the town council is the keeper of the public right away. So what's their policy? What's their, how do they go about reviewing any sort of proposed public right away project be it a town project or in the case of U Drive South it was a private developer. So how do they, what's the policy and what are the procedures that the town council utilized? I mean, do they just like make it up each time or do they have sort of a checklist? How do they go about what is the criteria that they use and do they have it specified in their policy that gets into if and when they want to refer it to other committees? I can share, as I said, the TSO has these two different policies, like one specifically with parking and one with public way requests more generally. I can share when I find those documents I can share those links, so. That would be good. I guess we need to know one thing that they do have and then we need to find, figure out. But the parking one has been used by the TSO for a number of parking requests like on street parking requests and including Lincoln and other places and both the TSO and then the town so they looked at those policies. And I know too, I mean, on the parking side, like I always bring up when I go to those meetings and we provide feedback, we always bring up questions about pedestrian safety, like one issue on Lincoln right now. And so I'm surprised because of the TSO meeting they did say they wanted the disability access advisory committee feedback on this, proposed changes on parking. Did you hear about that Maureen? No. So I know sometimes the chair doesn't always refer things as quickly. But one thing that's been happening in that neighborhood is that there's a section of Lincoln doesn't allow parking close to the university in the section farther away from Lincoln, like South and McClellan they do. But a lot of UMass people use it to park because it's free parking there as opposed to parking at UMass. And the vehicles will park like very close together and they'll park very close to driveways. And so there are issues with sight lines for people entering and exiting the driveways and also for pedestrian and bike safety. And so I've always brought up the issues I have, the concerns I have about sight lines with that. So the proposal from a council member, Jennifer Todd, who lives on Lincoln was to not allow parking during the day on the section of Lincoln that currently allows it to address that issue since so much of the traffic is UMass related. My daughter lives in Somerville. Every resident gets one. You get a pass for your own vehicles and you get a visitor pass. And the visitor puts a car on the street, you go in the house, you take the pass and put it in your car. And if you don't have a pass in your window, even if you're a visitor, you can get a ticket. And why can't we do that here? Those people live there, they're entitled to park on the street if they need to, if as long as it's not a weather emergency or something, and they can have a visitor pass for whoever visits them. And everyone else gets a ticket. Right, Cambridge does that also. Yeah, I mean, in Somerville, we have to run in the house, get the visitor pass from my daughter to every time we park on the street, which is every time we go there. So I don't know, why can't Amherst figure that out? Anyway, so I guess the step one might be that if Tracy can send us those materials that show us what the current policy is, at least for the pedestrian, for the town ways, I'm sort of interested, because if what we need to know is already in there, that's great, then it's just an enforcement problem. And if what we need to know isn't already in there, then we have something to work on to make a request, right? Does that sound like the way to do this? I'm not sure. I think it sounds like a way to proceed. Yeah, so the, and the council has a general policy they've updated it, like if you look on the town council page, you can see current council policies. They do have a general thing about public ways, just about which stuff is under the town manager, which items the council has delegated to the town manager, such as, for example, like if you're going to close a street temporarily or like some of the temporary requests. But that's not the stuff we want to talk about. No, I know, but just to start with the framework about the council as the keepers of the public way, certain things have already been delegated to the... So I guess we have to read that. Maybe we should all look at it for the next meeting and see if we have any ideas about what it covers that we know is an enforcement problem and what it doesn't cover so that it needs to cover it. Because we have two issues. Sometimes there are lots of regulations and no one's enforcing them. And sometimes the regulations or the policies aren't there. So I guess that's what we need to figure out as a first steps. So maybe for the next meeting, which is September, so we all plenty of time to do it, we can look at those policies and I would appreciate it if at some point, Maureen, you could even send us links to them rather than having us dig around in the website, which I never find to be honest. I'm gonna send you what I have. If I may, instead of me digging around for this and God forbid, maybe the website's outdated, et cetera, et cetera, things change. I think I'm gonna email the chair of the TSO the question and say, hey, if you guys have current policies or current information, please send it to us. Just so we can put it on them and that they can reply. They might just be like, here's the link and there you go or there could be, I'd be curious to see what their response will be. Yeah, and any rules and regulations or policies that pertain specifically that were designed, specifically with pedestrian safety in mind, not as an afterthought after the traffic, after the cars, after the parking. That's what I'm interested in. Like, where does pedestrian safety fit into the town priorities? So, Maureen, one question or one suggestion I have is that you CC the council president. Thank you. What did you say, Ruth? No, Myra is Tracy, my suggestion. I heard Ruth say so. Oh, go ahead. No, no, no, I didn't say anything. No, I just said ditto. I worked too hard. Oh, there's Elise, you said ditto. I knew it was somebody, okay. Ditto, I'm sorry, I should have identified. Okay, okay, great. So Elise is here, I don't know when she came, but that's great. I was late, yeah. Yeah, no, it's fine. Just when you come in late, sometimes it's good to say I'm here because then everybody will notice it for the, I mean, everybody does notice it. Maybe it's me. Anyway, so Maureen, you're gonna write to the TSO. That's great. I mean, this wasn't even an agenda item, but it came from announcements. And I think it's timely with what Sarah reported about the agent and dementia-friendly people because of what they wanna talk about. And maybe we should all try to make sure we're at the transportation one, which is the next one. And yeah, okay, so we have an agenda and I don't even know, let's see. You wanna tell me what's on the agenda more? Oh, sure, okay, so moving on. Well, let's see here, old business. So the Mass Office on Disability, the ADA Improvement Grant Project for the front door and walkway at the bank center should be nearly complete, if not completed. I haven't walked over there this week. So we can check that off our list. It was to fix the broken automatic door opener that's been broken for a while. And then there were some slight slope issues for the sidewalk right outside of that door. And then I believe the Amity Street sidewalk improvement project has been completed. I have no update for the Pomeroy Village intersection projects. And, oh yeah, so yesterday, I received a nice email from a planner from Northampton. His name is Keith Bennett. Bennett, Bennoite, Bennoite, something like that. He sent me a quick email that said that they just had their IT department install a new assessment accessibility widget tool on their website. And it has features for people who have vision impairment, among other disabilities, users may change. Yeah, so that's something about dyslexia. I don't know about that. Yeah, dyslexia. It does that. Yeah, I'm not really sure. It reads it to you. It does. Yeah, I don't know. Users may change. Does it have an audible part, LaRuth? Is that what you mean by it does? I don't know. I didn't listen to it. I just saw the photograph of it and it looked impressive. I would assume that the, I might be wrong in assuming this, but I would assume that they have an audio for people who are dyslexic. Yeah, so I'm on the website. Let me click out of it. So this is the city of NorthamptonMA.gov. If you go to their top right corner of the screen, there's a accessibility icon. You click on that, it's like green or, I see, I look screened to me. Keith said it looked yellow to him, but you would click on that and then it takes you to this widget. And there's a screen reader. I guess you can contrast the colors on the website. A smart contrast. Don't know what that really means. Yeah, I'm really interested in Elise looking at this. She can tell us, I mean, she can tell us, but it actually works. I have to go into it and look further. I mean, right now, looking at the screen right now, it looks good, but I'd have to really look at it more. You can make the text smaller or larger. So I'm kind of just goofing around doing that as I talk to you. You can space out the text more if you want, and then make the font bigger. And it looks like you can do all kinds of things. You can make them... Oh, it looks like you can make the cursor a lot bigger. Oh, I like that. Yeah. I like it too. Yeah, it looks like... Screen reader. Yeah. Whoopsies, I don't know what that's doing. Yeah, I haven't tried the screen reader thing. But it looks like dyslexia-friendly. I don't know what that does, but that's great. It looks like it changed... I don't know what that does. That... You just clicked on something that gave a line, Maureen? Yeah, I saw that. I don't know what I did, though. That would help someone stay on their line when they're reading. Oh, I love it. Yeah. To be honest, unfortunately, I don't know what I clicked on to make that happen. That's OK, but it was a green line. Yeah. That would help someone stay on the lines as they're reading. Oh, yeah. Here you go. So let me find some... There you go. And I don't know. But if you know it's called reading mask. Yeah, so there's a button called Reading Mask so it could help you focus on what you're reading. You know, hey, that would be helpful for me sometimes. Oh, that's great, actually. Yeah. A lot of people have trouble with that. There is one thing that I, one criticism I have. The yellow highlights are great, but I wish that they had the highlight, but then they had like where it says Reading Mask in yellow. That's hard to read. The text, do you mean? Well, you can make the color. Oh. It's very, yeah. I wish that would stay black, but have that yellow icon on top. Hmm. But have the text be black because I can't, I can barely make out Reading Mask. Gotcha. It's yellow on white. It's yellow. It's like that greenish knee on yellow on white. Yeah. It's a little bit tough. Yeah, so that's not, that doesn't conform to what the ADA would say you have to do. But that's why I wanted to know, you know, it's a cool thing and it sounds like it's cool as far as it goes. But I wondered if it is, I wondered who made it. And I wonder who agreed that it was good rather than just the designer. Well, I'm sure this meets regulations, but you know, regulations are regulations. It's not a human being. Well, yellow on white, yellow and white doesn't. But, but so I think it's great if they can maybe put in a note at least and ask them to. OK, make some adjustment. But that's really so can we I think it would be do people think it would be an improvement on our website? Does it does it when I'm the way the website looks 100% I mean, should should I raise my hand but I'm going to speak 100% and we should have that on their town website. So do you want to make a motion that the town adopt or purchase or whatever they have the widget? Yes, I will make a motion that the town adopt or the widget for their town website. And I've seen it on other sites. So I'm I'm sure they are saying that it's up to 88 standards. But if you, at least if the yellow or greenish yellow doesn't work for you, you should say something. But I wonder if you change the color contrast on. You might have to play around the screen because if you change the color contrast, it might change the contrast on that that yellow green. I don't know, though. I think you'd have to play with the website for a while and see if it does that. So Tori made a motion. Does someone a second it? I'll second it at least. OK. I never thought of changing the country. Yeah, I'll play with it. They probably offer opportunity to do it. So that's pretty cool. Do we want to do a roll call? We have a motion. Yeah, we have a motion to ask the town to get or use or install. What word do we use to purchase and install and to maintain? Yes, good purchase, install and maintain. Keep updated. Yeah, yeah. What what is the thing called? It's called a widget. The widget. Accessibility with accessibility for their website. OK, I don't know if we need discussion. We ready to vote? I'm ready. OK, Ruth. Yes, Tori. Yes, Sarah. Yes, Elise. Yes, and me. Yes. OK, so we have a motion that came out of this. That's great. That's great that he sent that to you. Thank you for presenting it. Yeah, we have two action steps under this little meeting. OK, and I sent him an email thanking him for sending it and that I would forward along to our IT department and to this to this committee to help nudge the conversation along. So. So we have to let Pat know about it. Let her know that we. That we I guess she just needs an email that said we have two action steps and I can send that short. Yeah, and I'll type this up with the email from Northampton and pass it along to. Lynn Lynn and Paul Bachleman, I guess, and whoever else in our IT director. Yeah, that's cool. All right, what do we have any? We don't really have anything else. Oh, do we have any updates about the North Amherst Library? I do not. But Tracy has raised her hand. Oh, OK. Oh, I mean, I just had a few other items. I mean, I had wanted to comment on the amity. Just that I had mentioned at the last disability access advisory committee meeting just about some of the the hedges that are like been growing up, like on amity on the lower parts of it, especially between I guess it's between Lincoln and Dana. So both sides of the street are actually the hedges are infringing on the that's the property of the way. And so there was a one property owner. I think I told you that I had actually I had brought up the issue. I know that that's the route that at least takes to Dana. And it was pretty bad. It was like covering up to three quarters of the sidewalk. And I actually lent the person an electric hedge trimmer, but they barely trimmed it. They said, oh, there's nothing we could do. It was like the tiniest little trimming. But then I noticed that he was trimming it back more there. And and the other on the other side, the property, their neighbors and friends with Dorothy Pam and Dorothy Pam said she would follow up with them too. But just in terms of I mean, again, this is some of this is like a maintenance issue. And it's like snow. I mean, they're you know, it's in the public way, like with the first property owner who I know it. I mean, I know his family and, you know, his kid goes to school with my kid and things, but he just said there's nothing I can do. But it's like it's in the sidewalk, you know, you got to trim it back. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's got to be sort of aggressive and do something because it's not acceptable. And so while this is part of the pedestrian safety thing, this is the thing as the enforcement of the snow removal policy. Yeah. And and also since the last meeting, I had also like followed up with the walk bust and I had brought up the issues just about how sections of Amity are steep, right? And so at the TAC meeting, Guilford-Maurin said, well, the slope is to is not ADA compact, you know, it doesn't comply with the ADA. So there's nothing I can do to fix the sidewalks there. So I'll let you know if I hear more from walk Boston on that. I mean, just because you have a sidewalk on a hill doesn't mean you should do nothing ever. So it's pretty clear, right? But that's sort of what Guilford had told us. And I have a totally different I mean, so that was about Amity. But I had a totally different issue is that somebody, a council member had mentioned to me that the council is currently looking at like the street lights policy and that in terms of, you know, back in 1991, they turned off a number of street lights to save money. Right. And it seems like that could be coming again, possibly. But I was actually looking at the way the street lights policy is written in Amherst, it seems like it's from 2001. And it's not very like pedestrian friendly in my mind. And and I was looking actually at the street lights policies in other towns and some of them really do focus on pedestrian. So I know just even even on Amity, I was walking on Amity last night and there's some sections that are very dark. Though Amity overall is lit pretty well. So I don't know if that was something that's of interest to me as the Transportation Advisory Committee. It might be of interest to you, too. That's why, you know, I come to meetings. I'll just say in general, if assuming that this is the current policy, it says that the street lights, according to the policy, street lights and Amherst will generally be provided as follows at intersections at dead end and a cul-de-sacs for road conditions that are potentially hazardous, such as when you have severe curves or hills on downtown streets, mainly the downtown central business district. But we know from experience that some of those streets are not very well lit, too. And it says also on other streets with heavy pedestrian traffic, such as in the business native schools or other commercial areas. But it also says that street lights will not be provided by the town for pedestrians in residential neighborhoods, unless one of at least one of the above criteria is met or the select board. Again, this is no policy. Otherwise, it seems a situation to require a street light because such lighting could be requested virtually everywhere in town. So I mean, I think, as you know, as we have, like, if we're trying to encourage, right, we have the climate action plan and we're trying to be an age-friendly community, I personally support having more street lights than fewer. So I agree. And one of my neighbors. So she started paying for the street light when they turned them off in 1991. She's been paying for the street light outside her house for 30 years. And she's ready to stop paying for that. So. So it's actually that's one reason it's coming before the council, because she said, you know, 30 years, I'm going to turn it off. And the town said, OK, so. So, Tracy, I am another question and I think this is so. On I live on Longtown and I believe that section of route nine is. Is. Part of the state, it's not town, but even though I'm in town, I mean, Amherst, but we have bus stops that are on the opposite side of the street and students. Well, we have lots of students that live on our street. College students and they cross the street and they cross the street at night and there's no crosswalks. There's not even a striped cross, just a white, simple, you know, crosswalk anywhere by the bus stops. It's so dangerous. Is there a street light there? I don't think so. I mean, it sounds like yeah, I'm not familiar with that stuff. I mean, I am hesitant to like if you are going to have a crosswalk, it has to be done in a way that cars will actually stop there. Like it does need to have some traffic calming measures or some signage and or, you know, rapid rectangular flashing beacons or other things that will actually make people stop because I'd be really hesitant to strike crosswalks unless you actually change the other conditions. OK. And I mean, and I did I was meeting with the town manager last week about TAC and, you know, I did bring up a few places where I would love to see better, you know, lighting or rectangular rapid flashing beacons or other things to make crosswalks safer, including near Wildwood, Pleasant Street and Strong Street. And and also I know like Lincoln and Amity, people also talk about there is that's a place where there's some car accidents. And Lincoln is very, I mean, Amity is very wide at that point. And there's the hill like it's hard. I mean, and sometimes the cars are going really fast. And I mean, I think that's a question. Back note and amend by adding Tori's concern to the list you gave. But but what the town manager said to me is I think, you know, there are questions about at what level, like, should people be weighing in on individual locations of crosswalk improvements or like at what level should it be the staff or, you know, at what level should it be counselors? And so I mean, there's still questions with how it's done with the council about I mean, to me, it seems appropriate for a council to a committee advisory committee or a council committee say or a counselor to say, I have concerns about a specific intersection, please fix this. But then I mean, there could be some that say, well, some of these decisions should be handled primarily by staff, like using the criteria that have been established or whatever. So I mean, they have other options. They can wait. It goes down to all Belcher Town Road and comes back around and it will come on. The side of the street that is right where the entrance to our road is, but, you know, students, they're impatient when they want to get off. Well, I know, like for some of the school buses, right? Like if you look along 116, like north of Crocker, like coming up the hill into Amherst Center, that the school buses won't let students off the school bus until it's like on that side of the road. You know, just because they're concerned about the safety of it, even if parents say I can wait there on the, you know, or whatever. I mean, so and I mean, there are other streets, too, that people have talked about having more crosswalks, too. But it needs to be done like in a, you know, way that makes sense and falling like some consistent policy. I mean, I think Tamira's point about having some overall pedestrian safety. Maybe having even a pedestrian safety plan or guidance in general about like these are things that are priorities for us. So I mean, I hope that, you know, I hope that we can make progress on that as a town. So I hope so, too. Thank you. OK, anything else? Oh, we were going to invite. My mind has left me. The DEI director, Pamela. Yeah, what's her name? Can't think of it. Something too young. Yeah, so I will send an email out to Paul Baucherman making this request. And see. I haven't I haven't met Pamela yet. Maybe she doesn't work physically in the town hall. Maybe that's why I haven't met her yet. But I'll send an invite via Paul Baucherman. So 10, you know, the September meeting or or, you know, sometime in the fall, whenever it's sort of convenient and makes sense on their end. Well, why don't we do it in October and in September, we should put together a list of things we want to touch base with her. I like that idea. So we could ask her to come for our October meeting. So our September meeting can really be about the questions that we would have for her follow up with on the pedestrian signals. That we never got any information about. And finding out what we can do about coalition building for pedestrian safety. Right, we can figure those things out. All right, I feel I feel really good about the possibility of working with other groups on the pedestrian safety thing. And it's it's not even only pedestrians. If there's a better way to do bicycle, you know, stuff, other than having them in the street so that they can get hit, then we should do that. Right. I mean, if they're going to build a new sidewalk someplace, put those trapezoids in the middle of the sidewalk and then keep the bike people safe, too. So I mean, I think there are lots of things we can do. I just think that it's sort of haphazard the way it's done now. And we don't have enough. There's not enough of us and, you know, we don't have enough of a plan so that everything is done in a collaborative way. And if we were, we would be a lot further ahead. So I think that's what we should do. OK, and that's it that we have listed on the agenda. I do not have meeting minutes and want to make a motion to adjourn, I'll make a motion to adjourn. Thank you. This is Tori. Sorry. This is a lease. I'll second. OK, all right, Ruth. Yes, vote. Yes, vote to adjourn. I think she may have stepped away for a minute. OK. She's already adjourned. She's already adjourned. Sarah, she's muted, but I heard her say I saw her say yes. Yeah. OK. Elise, yes, Tori. Yes. OK. And I see us to any time you have an idea, just email it to me. I'm back from my three weeks of my son's wedding and I went to chamber music camp and my brother was here. And now I'm all by myself and it's it's good. Definitely good. OK. OK.