 Okay, you're all set. Thank you. Okay, good evening everyone and welcome to the town services and outreach committee is our regular meeting up for October 13 pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 the acts of 2022. So this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public which to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So this time we're going to call to order and I'm going to ask everyone to so worse if they can hear and be heard. So, Anna. Hello everyone. And Andy. I'm here. And Dorothy we just heard you and welcome. Okay, and also let's welcome Jennifer Jennifer can you hear us. And can we hear you. Yes, I can hear you. Okay, we've heard Paul and theta. Okay, so with that we're without further ado, we will move on to our hearing, our public hearing our first hearing will be the public hearing on permanent request to reserve three parking spaces directly in front of the church sanctuary at 16 Gayward Street for use by hope community church. Public hearings are an opportunity for residents to address the council and council committees on specific issues. The comments may be presented orally or in writing. While some public hearings may be required by mgl the town charter or by council rules of procedure, the council may choose to hold a public hearing on any topic it chooses. In this case the council has designated the town services committee to hold public hearings on its behalf regarding the public way. The time allotted to the public hearings at any meeting of the council shall not be more than three hours duration at any one session unless the council votes to waive this limitation, if necessary a future date time and place, certain for continuance shall be required for any uncompleted hearing. And as authorized by the council shall have presidents over other presentations in all hearings the case of the petitioner shall have presidents except when the president or chair shall prescribe otherwise. So with this we're moving right into hope community church and Athena may I please ask that you are able to pull up the map and information regarding hope church and Gayward Street. And would you like me to summarize the proposal. Yes, yes, please. So, just to give you some background I know, Pastor Carlos isn't able to join us tonight, but this is a fairly simple request they the church asks that the town council designate permanently three parking spaces on Gaylord Street directly in front of the hope community church sanctuary. The hope church has no parking of its own. And this is, as Anika says 16 Gaylord Street Gaylord Street is a small narrow street that runs between South Prospect Street and Lincoln Avenue is currently posted as permit parking Monday through Friday eight to five September to May. The proposal would identify their request was to identify three parking spaces and reserve them. And we have reviewed the as a police department fire department and public works to department to review this request, since the proposal does not create or eliminate on street parking they have each determined that there's no impact on public safety or traffic since it is only the use of the spaces that is being changed. So we've looked at this and looked at our general parking and these these are the images of the road that we're talking about. We've looked at this and talk, talked about how we can be consistent with current town. There are no parking. So for many, many for several churches downtown, they have special bags if they have a funeral or something like that, they're able to place these bags over the parking meters, which reserves the spaces so they can have the the spaces in front of their churches. So one of the things that we've talked about and I talked about this with Reverend Carlos was that we could, if the council chose it could designate those three parking spaces in front of the church for use, exclusive use by the church. When they need it, they don't need it 24 hours a day they don't need it every day. What they need it is for when they have a church service for a funeral or some event. And so one of the solutions we came up with is that we would give them some plastic extensions that they could place in the road that would reserve the parking in front of their church. And then when they don't need the parking they could remove them, and it would be open to anybody with a resident parking sticker during certain time, if that's what it's required at that time. But then if they did need them, you know, because they have an event or something like that, they could put them back in front of the church and reserve the space. And I think Reverend Carlos thought that was that would work for them. We could monitor this and I would recommend that we look at this for a period of time say to the end of June of next year and see how it's working for everyone and then revisit it, use it look at it as sort of a pilot program to see if it's acceptable to everyone. Thank you, Paul, and I did speak with Reverend Carlos as well and he did ask me to extend his appreciation he's thankful he thinks this is a great solution. And he also wanted me to let everyone know that he would be here with us, however, his congregation is there holding as we speak, a virtual celebration for his birthday. He does invite everyone to attend the Hope Church Services at 10am on this coming Sunday, which is one of their first openings and full services this Sunday at 10am for his birthday and I guess and I'm sure you will join me in wishing him a very happy first rotation around the sun. So happy birthday Carlos. And with that, I think that was very clear. Thank you, Paul. Do we have what we do have counselor questions Dorothy. So my question is I like the idea, but let's just say that they're having a church event, and they go to put the stanchions up, and a car with a parking permit is parked there. Do the cars, which is, I believe they can do it all the time 24 hours during the week, but on the weekend, they're not do it. I'm just wondering, how would they make sure that they could put those stanchions in, if a car was parked there already. So we would advise them to do it in advance the same thing had the same challenge happens for any church that's trying to block off a parking here. They do it well in advance most people aren't there 24 hours for weeks on end section of Gaylord. This is the people who park here tend to be working downtown and they utilize this as a parking location for their work. Okay. Good. Thank you. Okay, I'm caused to see very confident that this would, you know that this would be an acceptable solution and work well and appreciates that we will be following up and monitor. Were there any other questions here in the council. Okay, so with that like to open up if we have any public questions or comments for the Hope Church parking on Gaylord Street any questions for the Hope Church only questions at this point or public comment. And I'm sorry Athena, I hate to lean on you for everything, but I cannot see if we have hands. Anika there's one hand up for the church. I don't know if it's able to it's James but yeah there we go. Okay. Welcome. Welcome James. Hi, thanks. Thanks so much I'm Jim Barna. And I care deeply about parking in Amherst. I think this is a good solution. I like solutions that don't exclude parking places permanently. And I just want to speak out in favor of the town council, having a comprehensive parking review of all the parking outside of the downtown to enable working people to park during the day. And to walk or bike to the places they want to go to. I am not in favor of private landowners trying to exclude the spaces in front of their property from parking. That's all I have to say. Okay, thank you for your comment James. Are there any other comments. This would be these comments right now are for hope. A large street alone, not seeing any. There is another comment. There is. Okay, welcome. Sophia first please forgive me if I mispronounced your last. Please unmute and share your comment. I just want to say I agree with the solution and I think that is going to work out good. Thank you Sophia. Now with that, I do not see further comment are there further questions. Okay. We have a motion I can make that a thought to close the hearing on the permanent request to reserve three parking spaces directly in front of hope community church sanctuary at 16 Gaylord street for use by hope community church. Okay. Did you need a second to close it. We're closing we're not doing the motion right. We need to close the hearing closed. And as we do have. We do need a vote on that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Can I go ahead and so okay excuse me we need to vote before the hearing is closed. We need to vote you close the hearing. Okay. All right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. Yes. And show me is absent. So that is who's now am I clear we do have a few extra minutes if the committee is okay with this am I clear to make the motion. Yes. Okay, so I would like to make a motion to recommend the town council to recommend to the town council let it approve the designation of three parking spaces in front of hope church on Gaylord street. And I would like to make a motion to approve the designation of three parking spaces in front of hope church for church operations such spaces to be reviewed to be reserved only on an as needed basis utilizing portable parking cones that would be placed by the hope church. This arrangement will serve as a pilot to be reviewed prior to June 30, 2020, 2023, officially established by the town manager to cover the cost of implementation signage, etc. I second it. Thank you. Okay. If I may, I just want to point out that we're that we're now an agenda item three the deliberation portion. Oopsie, which is fine because we have a minute. But there should be an opportunity to have any discussion before. Is there any discussion does anyone have anything to say. No. Are we clear to move forward if you know. Yes, thank you. Thank you. All right, so Anna. Hi. Andy. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. And I am, and I, and Sean is absent. So thank you all. Okay, and I think it is exactly seven 15. So, okay. So, so we are going to move on to the public hearing on the following proposed parking regulation changes to prohibit parking on the east side of Lincoln Avenue between McClellan Street and Amity Street from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. To prohibit parking on the east side of Sunset Avenue between Elm Street and Amity Street at all times to prohibit parking on the side on one side of Elm Street at all times. So with that, I would like to pass the open the floor to Jennifer Taub. Thank you for joining us and please proceed with your presentation. Okay, thank you so much for, for having me. And I would like to, if I could share the screen, I'm going to try, I'd like to, you know, just sort of provide some context and an overview of what's being requested and to prepare a brief slideshow because I thought that would also keep me from talking too much because once I start talking about parking. I could bore you to death. So, if I can share my screen are. Are you seeing it? Yes. Okay. So, and I'm going to have to make you smaller so I can see the screen. And I wanted to start with what the motion that I brought to town council on June 6 of this year, and that the council referred to the town services and outreach committee, and it was very simple and kind of and broad it was a it was a request for consideration of implementing parking regulations on the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Amity and McClellan streets. And it wasn't specifically to restrict parking during certain hours. And I did want to reiterate that the request for some level of parking management and regulations on this portion of Lincoln between McClellan and Amity street where there's currently no restrictions on the east side of the street is that this is first and foremost a public safety issue. That as the town manager wrote to town council, two and a half years ago back in March of 2020, that quote Lincoln Avenue has created a potentially hazardous situation when the parking inhibits the travel of cars going north and south simultaneously. It has also created challenges to residents exiting their driveways and it's made safe fighting a concern. In the same memo it was stated that Lincoln Avenue is one of the busiest streets in Amherst during the work week, especially when you mass is in session. During the last council session, the town services and outreach committee did recommend. So the way we got to requesting or the request before us now of a no parking restriction on the east side of Lincoln Avenue between McClellan and Amity from eight to five on weekdays during from September 1 to May 31 is that that is what the TSO of the last council recommended that the full council adopt or vote to approve. And so I'm quoting the chair on Evan Ross was chair of TSO in October of 2021 and in his memo to the council. You know communicating TSOs vote to to make this recommendation back to the council he said that given Lincoln Avenue is a collector roadway with high traffic flow and pavement with that does not meet the recommended with for two way traffic, plus the parking lane. The criteria suggests that parking should not be allowed on Lincoln Avenue. I do want to, you know, sort of make clear that either myself as the sponsor of this motion, or any of the residents on the affected streets have never asked for a parking ban, and actually, you know I was hoping not to have to bring the motion back to council and have a go to TSO and have us be here again. And so you know I did reach out to the town to see if there were some lesser regulations or restrictions that you know weren't quite so broad such as maybe having a two or four hour parking restriction, which would just sort of break up the long line of cars but it wouldn't take parking you know it would allow some parking on this part of the street during the loop day during the school year. And the residents said they would even be happy if the sidewalks could be painted yellow on either side of the driveway curb cuts, so that cars park right up to the driveways and they're narrow driveways on the street so it really impedes that the sight lines as emergency vehicles or residents, you know, pulling in out of their driveways and not infrequently the cars park over the entrances to the driveway and then the cars only, you know, can't get in and out. And we were told that these lesser remedies are actually not, you know, feasible to enforce. So that's how we got back to, you know, the recommendation that the last town services and outreach committee made. So by way of some background in context. For more than 10 years issues concerning parking vehicle usage in general safety of the bicycle and pedestrian community have been raised in the neighborhood south of UMass. Lincoln has long been used as a through street from the University to Amity Street and Northampton Road. And adding greater urgency to the request now is that in fall 2023 824 residents will be moving on to the north end of Lincoln, when the two new UMass dormitories open at the corner of Lincoln and Massachusetts avenues. For these 824 residents, there will only be 100 onsite parking spaces. So when this happens, Lincoln Avenue will no longer probably this is what I would anticipate this is me, that when this happens Lincoln Avenue will no longer be providing for commuters who were coming for the day to either work or go to classes at UMass, but it will essentially become a long term parking lot for the residents of the new dorms and I, I'm not, this isn't supposed to be hyperbolic. But you on the stretch of Lincoln we're talking about there you could park 24 seven and we've seen it happen now that you know cars stay on the street overnight, and I've seen cars during like spring break at school just be on the block for the entire week. So it may be that a student went home with a friend. So you could there's no restriction and I would anticipate and I've heard the superintendent of DPW say that he envisions it being a very difficult, you know, difficult situation when the new dorms open, but I don't show you on a map. There are literally 11 houses between the new dorm and this part of Lincoln Avenue, very, very short walk from the dorms to the part of Lincoln Avenue with no parking restrictions. And I would anticipate since this residents there will not need their cars to drive to school that the cars will be there for days or weeks on, you know, continuously they would never have to move. And so I think that when people come to park in the morning we'll see that the spaces are taken with cars that have been there overnight. So, given all this that is happening, the pressure on this, you know, part of the community that the Transportation Advisory Council when they reviewed this motion said quote that no other Amherst neighborhood is facing such a rapid increase in nearby residents related traffic and parking demand with limited parking supply. So the facts on the ground, Lincoln is 24 to 25 feet wide with two lanes of traffic and a parking lane. The recommended width for a road with two lanes of traffic and a parking lane is 27 to 32 feet. Weekdays during the academic year cars park end to end forming a solid line on Lincoln from McClellan to Amity, impeding the flow of two ways draft traffic and obstructing sight lines for residents and emergency vehicles. Cars must slow to a stop and pull over to wait for vehicles approaching from the other direction to pass. And in fact the school bus to Wildwood had to change its approach to the street, because it was getting behind schedule, stopping and waiting for cars to pass. And when cars approaching from opposite directions fail to stop. They come really close to side swiping. I mean I've actually seen cars where the side window. And during winter when it snows the street becomes almost impassable. Yesterday the parent of three young children who live on Lincoln wrote this to the town council quote, the cars on Lincoln and routinely parked on the side of our driveway so close to the driveway that my kids and their friends have a very hard time seeing around them. The cars are also parked back to back so tightly that there is often not a clear path for the kids to cross the street safely without having to step out in front of a car to see if it's safe to cross. This lack of visibility makes it a hazard to cross the street especially for small people like children. Cars also park so close to the line of our driveway that we frequently don't have a clear path to exit our property, not to mention visibility is even very challenging higher in a car. I've almost been hit exiting our driveway several times because cars were parked in the road and I was unable to see the other cars coming. So to provide another visual. This is. Okay, so this is the part of Lincoln Avenue can see my cursor right that we're talking about. This is McClellan and this is amity, and this green line, you can park 24 7365 days a year. Let's go over to this map, because here again, here's McClellan, here's McClellan, McClellan to fearing. There is a no parking restriction on the east side of the street from 8am to 5pm. I'm weekdays. So it will. So the request is the word the request that's now before TSO is to extend this yellow line down to amity. So this is the request that's now before TSO is to extend this yellow line down to the east side of the street from 8am to 5pm. So this is the request that's now before TSO is to extend this yellow line down to the east side of the street from 8am to 5pm. So this is the request that's now before TSO is to extend this yellow line down to the east side of the street from 8am to 5pm. So this is the request that's now before TSO is to extend this yellow line down to the east side of the street from 8am to 5pm. And there's unrestricted parking from this storm here is 11 houses and the houses are, you know, close together. So one can certainly anticipate that the residents of these new complexes, you know, will then have unfettered access 24-7 to parking. So on this street and on Sunset, so on Lincoln Sunset in Elm, the parking, we don't see patrons and employees of downtown business establishments parking here. It's really just during the academic year. It will probably be weekends when the new dorms open, but mostly now it's weekdays. So this picture here was taken on I think Wednesday, August 31st at noon a week before fall semester began. This is one week later, 2.30 in the afternoon on Tuesday, September 6th. So again, the parking is, you know, spillover related to the university not to downtown business establishments. So what we see is, so here's a car, a truck parked on the east side of the street, and then a car goes around it, and there's really very little room for a car to park in the opposite direction. And I believe this is a car that stopped, probably to let this car pass. And then this is what, you know, is also a concern is cars parking over the driveway curb cuts. And certainly when it happens on both sides at the same time, then you just can't get in or out. And there have been situations where emergency medical vehicles were called to a house and they could not get to the driveway. And then there were cars parked, you know, end to end on the street so they had to park down the block. And again, this is just another kind of example of what the street looks like. So I will stop sharing. So that's where we find ourselves. And again, you know, we were open to any suggestions that are recommendations that TSO would have, but, you know, when the last, when it was before TSO last year, the superintendent of public works and the town engineer, and the fire police chief and police chief, you know, concurred that for reasons of public safety, there should be some parking management and restrictions on these streets. Thank you. And any questions. Thank you, Jennifer. If we move into questions will we have it or do we have Tracy is that friend with us. Hi. You're right there. Hi. Hi, how are you. How are you. Good. Yes, please go right ahead. Okay, so I'm here because I was asked to speak briefly about the tax recommendations. The TSO has had the tax recommendations since July. And then they served as the basis for the public hearing notice that went out in terms of the potential possible restrictions. And they were reviewed to that extent, not that TSO fully agreed with everything that we were recommending. So, you know, just to recap what counselor said, so we, we basically were recommending, you know, we were asked to discuss the idea of prohibiting the parking on the east side of Lincoln between McClellan and Amity during the weekdays, eight to five, which would basically extend the current. The area north of there that has restrictions eight to five. And we supported that prohibition, you know, based on the safety concerns that counselor top has raised, and I mean we didn't make, we didn't discuss about whether it should be school year or year round only like most of the restrictions in that neighborhood if you look back at that parking restriction map like most of the restrictions that area are year rounds because it is not part of the downtown parking district. So the downtown parking district is has restriction only September to May, whereas the restrictions in place on say Fearing and Sunset and North Hadley Road and all of those streets are year rounds. So, I mean, when we looked at this issue attack over the summer, and when we did revisit some of the earlier memos have been prepared by the town, including the March 2020 memo that was just from the town manager, which had supported having restrictions on Lincoln, and, and those recommendations were developed, you know, by the town engineer in consultation with the superintendent public works the fire chief the police chief and so on and so I mean we did give quite a bit of weight to the people who had weighed in at that time on their safety concerns. I know that tack members have previously like at the previous TSO, when the council was first forms. This is when the issue of Lincoln came up I think it first came before the council and probably even like 2019 2020. And intact members did attend the TSO meetings at that time and we did express concerns about some of the same safety issues that have been raised both in that memo and my counselor taught tonight including the issues about some of the poor sight lines at the roadway intersections and intersections. And as somebody in my background is in driver safety and driver training and that that is like a major cause of how people get hit. It's a major risk in terms of when you have poor sight lines at driveways and you can hit pedestrians or you can hit other vehicles and so it is a major concern it's something we always train a lot when we're doing driver training. And I think that it is likely that the parking demand on Lincoln will grow with these once these new dorms are open. So my understanding from information provided by UMass is as counselor Tom said that there'll be 824 beds. UMass typically estimates that there are about they need about half a parking space for beds because some students don't have cars. Whether they vary that for undergrad or graduates they also haven't recalculated that I don't think since COVID and there are more students bringing cars to campus. Now and there used to be. But my understanding is that there's also going to be only 100 parking spaces on site there. And that that the other students will be asked to park elsewhere. I know myself as a UMass employee that sometimes the only available parking for me to get a parking permit is really far. You know, across campus or something so if that's the case there will be some students I think who will gravitate to try to park in much more convenient locations. So that is a concern. Just a few other points right so we recommended prohibiting parking on the east side of Lincoln so we extend, you know, because we were looking at it holistically in terms of what other streets could be impacted. If Lincoln becomes more restricted that there could be some carryover pressures on sunset sunset. We didn't measure it but since it is about the same width as Lincoln and Lincoln currently if you look at the current restrictions Lincoln is restricted on one side of the road. All the whole length of Lincoln north of Amity where there's no parking allowed at all. And I think that those there's valid reasons for that safety reasons and for those same reasons we recommended prohibiting parking on one side of sunset. Almost every property on Lincoln and sunset I'll have driveways and things and if you prohibit on the one side people are still able to park on the other side. And if we look at, you know, other practice like other parking restrictions elsewhere in town. So if you're looking north of the campus right like Hobart Lane and Valley Lane, Old Town Road they also banned parking on one side of the street and there's some that banned parking on both sides of the street. But even some of the ones that were shown on the map like, like fearing North Hadley Road and so on. I also mentioned here just as you bring up North Hadley Road that when it came before the council originally some one argument for not doing anything to restrict parking on Lincoln more at that time was that well Lincoln is going to be closed at Mass Ave while all this construction is going on and that is true that when you go, when you go on Lincoln north of fear and you can't get through on Lincoln however, if you are going in that direction. And a lot of people have realized this you know even I as somebody who drives the campus sometimes didn't realize it first you can actually take North Hadley Road. And like right past the Southwest dorms and come out right on Mass Ave the same way. So, you know at first people might have been when they got to fear and they see it's closed they say oh no I can't drive that way but then you say oh but wait I actually can and so I mean the people on Lincoln anecdotally I don't know data has been collected but it seems like there's basically the same amount of traffic as there was before and, and the Lincoln residents also report that they haven't seen a change in like the parking patterns. But it's still pretty easy to get all the way to the center campus by taking Lincoln. And then so, so one of the things is so we recommend a prohibiting parking on the east side of Lincoln not that I mean on sunset. Not that there's so many parking pressures on sunset right now but just the issue of is if there is going to be more parking pressure. It made sense to us to only have parking on one side of the street. Same with Elm. So Elm is currently restricted on both sides of the street eight to five Monday through Friday there are only a few houses on Elm. They do have driveways, but again it's just a small street and I thought about like what we were thinking about what if, you know all of a sudden like all weekend or things there's like cars parked on both sides of Elm. You know on both sides of the street and you can't really again you have the same issues with the sight lines and the safety and things like that and so it just didn't really seem necessary. And again, people are welcome to park on the other side of Elm. And there's the driveways as well and and we did recommend. I mean I know that Council's agenda is very full but like once the dorms are open that it all be revisited. And I've heard that one concern that people on Sunset have is even with this new proposal that it doesn't go far enough in terms of helping address potential safety issues that could be raised there but until the dorms are open. And until we see where how much traffic there actually is and things we don't know that for sure. So, so that was where we made that recommendation. But I'm happy to answer any questions if that's helpful. So, and I will also just mentioned sorry. When Jim Barna was speaking during the common period for the first hearing. I mean I think you know tack does agree with his suggestion that there be a comprehensive parking review of parking all over town and on street parking policies I mean it really can vary significantly neighborhood to neighborhood like I remember. And I know in North Amherst there's some neighborhoods where they actually allow parking during the day but then restrict parking like they banned parking at night, because what they found is that students going to, or you know, college age people going to late night, you know, late night events of people's houses were parking in their quiet neighborhood and then coming back to their cars. Later at night like two, three in the morning and so on and it was disturbing the neighbors so the neighbors at that time had requested said we don't want anybody to park on our street at night. And so, I know that, you know, tack, I've only been on tack a few years. But parking parking recommendations are part of tax charges that still stands I know that that charge is being reworked, and I've been in touch with the town manager on that. But also we have tack also has made some recommendations regarding townwide parking. And so, but I do agree with the idea that not just the downtown area but overall in town we should be looking at some of the parking issues parking needs. So thanks. Okay, thank you so much Tracy will open with Council questions for Jennifer and or Tracy, please go ahead on. Sounds, you know what I'm not going to preface my question. How did you choose the east side versus the west side of the street, in terms of which side to pick for people to park on. Well, we based it on the fact that there were more driveways on the east side of the street so we saw more potential conflicts with with the sight lines and with passersby, both pedestrian and other vehicles. So on the west side you have like sunset farm and you have some larger properties. And so you don't have as many driveways. Thank you. Any other. I do have. Oh, if Dorothy wants to go first that's fine. I already asked one so she can go. Okay, this is a question for Paul. When we had the parking study. We paid these experts a number of years ago. One of my suggestions had been this is just an overall parking comment that we explore public part private partnerships and that there were many, many private little lots scattered all over the place particularly near the downtown area that some kind of arrangements could be made maybe for parking of people staff so that they don't have to park on the streets. I'm just wondering if anything ever happened in that area. The study did not include Lincoln. So it wouldn't be relevant to this but you know I don't know if there have been. We have reached out to people who own private lots but no one has been open to engage you with the town to to provide. Thank you. So this is something and this is maybe on us as TSO but we have. Do we have comments on this situation from the fire department and APD on the safety element of this. So the original proposal from the town staff included the recommendations from APD, AFD and DPW. And what I suggested to the chair is that if you have questions for them during during the discussion you can identify what those questions are, we can invite them during your deliberation when you meet next if there are individuals that you would like to have here if there's specific questions that you need answered we can pose those questions as well. Thank you. Jennifer. I was just gonna say I think it also speaks to that in the packet in the town manager's memo from March 5, 2020. Thank you Jennifer. Are there any other questions here. Okay. So if we could let's open up to public comment and questions. Thank you. Okay, if I can see I don't know why I'm having a partial view. But I see is it David Slovage here. Excuse me if I'm pronouncing your name. Hi David please unmute unmute I'm unmuted. Can you. Can you hear me and maybe even see me. We cannot see you we can read your name but we can't see. I didn't know what to expect in terms of was I going to be visible so I will just make my my brief comments. Thank you for calling on me. You've already heard the reasons why Lincoln Avenue needs a restriction on weekend parking on weekday parking, the close calls block driveways and paired sight lines near misses. There is an unimpeded traffic flow including emergency vehicles, and the basic problem of the street that is too narrow to accommodate parking. But also important to consider are the reasons that do not apply, but have become distortions and distractions from the real issue, which is safety. The issue is not about one neighborhood asking for special treatment. The problem being safe. It is not about opposition to UMass, it is about safety. It is also not about FedEx UPS, Amazon, or landscapers, all of which are there for brief periods, and easy to get around. Definitely not about an us versus them attitude towards UMass students and staff. It is only about safety. It certainly is not about a failure to sympathize with people who are seeking an alternative to high price parking. I understand that but do not feel it is the responsibility of one high volume narrow street to provide an alternative for a limited number of cars. UMass has come up with a policy that provides UMass has to come up with a policy that provides parking for its employees. The 20 to 24 cars which regularly park on Lincoln, do not put a dent in the UMass parking issue, yet it drastically alters Lincoln Avenue both for the residents and drivers. The issue is also not about the right to park on public roads. The right to park does not override public safety. The problem of weekday parking on Lincoln Avenue originates with UMass's failure to provide enough reasonably priced parking for its students and staff. It is neither fair nor appropriate for the town of Amherst in general, a particular neighborhood or a specific street to be asked to assume the burden for UMass's failure to address the issue. Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity. Thank you David for joining us and for your comment. Okay, I see. Ken Rosenthal. Yeah, it might be appropriate to remind people if they'd like to make a comment they should raise their hand. And right now we have 23 people in attendance but four people with their hands raised. Okay, if there is anyone else aside from the four out of 23 that have their hands up please raise your hands now so we can make sure to get to you and account for time. Okay, and with that thank you for joining us Ken Rosenthal please proceed with your comments. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me to speak. I'm Ken Rosenthal I live at 53 Sunset Avenue. I've owned my house here for 18 years, and I have lived in Amherst on and off since 1956 so I've seen the changes in Amherst and I've seen changes in my neighborhood in particular. I don't want to be redundant but I do want to emphasize a couple of things, and I appreciated Tracy's comment, but I want to make one correction. Sunset Avenue is not the same size as Lincoln, it's a it's a foot narrower, and I've measured it three times. I've measured both. So the difficulty of car passage and sight lines on Lincoln are increased on Sunset Avenue. I want to emphasize again that we are in a neighborhood close to the University of Massachusetts by choice. We understand that this is a neighborhood that serves the university in many ways, residential in otherwise and for traffic. Simply as David Sloveter put it, a question of safety. We are on our own street and Lincoln so I would hope that any regulations you adopt or recommend to be adopted for Lincoln would apply also to sunset, because I can tell you that as soon as there are limitations on sunset that inconvenience a few people and it's only a few people, those few people, if they're inconvenienced on Lincoln they'll come to sunset. I've already had people who are UMass day trippers park in front of my house for a semester when the semester is over, they're gone, I know not where. I hope they graduated. We know that worse is going to come not just because of the housing that's going to be on Lincoln, but because there was a new housing development at the end of sunset to right opposite Southwest. So, we can expect that those folks will want to park where we live weekend parking is not a problem here. And I have sat with David Sloveter on his porch and watch where people go when they park their cars. We have seen no one walk the town. We have seen everyone walk to the university. And I've watched cars pull up there, two cars in a row, the person in the first car parks the car and locks it gets into the second car and off they go on to the campus. And that tells me that what they've done is decided to have one driver, split the parking fee on the university parking lot with the other driver. So, let me again say, we're interested in safety. It's not necessary that parking be banned all the time. If you find it convenient just to park it during term time at the university that's fine with us. So, please, whatever you do for Lincoln, make sure that on both sides of the street on sunset you do the same thing, where we will simply be back with you in another six months telling you that we have the same problem now that Lincoln had before, only on a street that is one foot narrower. And thank you very much for listening to me tonight. Thank you. Okay, next I see Marlon Schultz. Excuse me if I mispronounce your last name. It's okay everyone does. Can you hear me all right. Very well. All right. I am a commuter student at UMS Amherst. And I do park on that street. My first question is, is there a record of how many accidents have actually happened along that street and say the past 10 years. Thank you very much for the PowerPoint I hadn't heard the other side of things and I'm glad to have been able to hear the opposition. I agree that it definitely does make the street rather narrow and difficult to pass on but I wonder how many times anything dangerous has actually happened. Because in my experience, when two cars pass they slow down to about five miles an hour and go very carefully. Is there a record of that anywhere. Tracy. I know that it's not, you know, during public hearings right the account, the committee doesn't need to respond to comments, but I'll just say that I have been looking at, I mean, there are records to the mass DOT databases for crashes. For Lincoln, and it's quite extensive, but I haven't like summarize some of that data. I think that the DPW did summarize it at one point. I don't have my hands on that data, but that incidentally smaller incidents are reported on Lincoln pretty regularly. So, but I'm sure that that information could be provided to you in more detail. All right, thank you. Thank you, Tracy and thank you, Molly for your comment and question. Dorothy will we will come back to you when we go back to counselor questions. Next, I have Michelle Miller. Welcome Michelle. Thank you. Can you hear me. Okay, thank you. Just a couple of disclosures one I'm here in my personal capacity tonight I am a town counselor representing district one. And just along the same lines. I do not obviously live on Lincoln or near Lincoln so coming, you know without a whole history except the history tonight was very interesting so I thank counselor top for that. I'm coming because I this past weekend visited Montreal. And I wanted to share something that Montreal is doing that I thought was really interesting and maybe something for Paul and TSO to consider. So, I was staying in an Airbnb in a mostly residential neighborhood. I think the parking users were permanent residents, Airbnb users, maybe some students, definitely business owners. So there was a mix of people using the streets and what they have is a essentially a parking permit that is sold at the local grocery stores and convenience stores it's for a 24 hour period. It costs $6 per 24 hour period. It's a super creative design. It's, it looks like a scratch off ticket. So that they, they can use these for long periods of time because essentially the day that you're using it you scratch off the month, the day and the year. You can buy a stack of them and you can use them throughout the year. And you just to fix them onto your window. So I thought it was a really creative way to deal with parking, their issues were probably more leaning toward the Airbnb usage. But it's not completely unsimilar to, you know, what we might be dealing with in our residential neighborhood so I will send, I brought actually I will physically bring Paul. I brought a couple copies for Paul. It is in French. So somebody in the town hall might know how to read it but it's pretty simple. It's pretty. And it's really, really neat. It's just something worth considering so thank, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. Thank you Michelle. I might be able to help you out with a little translation. Yes, awesome. Thank you Michelle. Okay, and I have next we have Shannon, please unmute and hear me out. Yes. Okay, thanks so much for hosting us for this meeting I'm sorry I have a really bad sinus infection so I'll try to speak clearly but I'm pretty So I live on Lincoln with my family and I wanted to just share the perspective of somebody who has children on this street. I work in higher ed, my partner works at UMass, we are, we chose to live in a college community and share the community with students were really happy to do that is what we desired. At the same time, we feel very concerned about not only the parking on the street but also how frequently cars speed up and down the street, and you know to respond to the last a few participants ago, commenting about the rate of traffic, I can tell you, I'm very worried that when there is an accident that it could be a fatal one for children. The cars on Lincoln are routinely parked so close to the side of our driveway that we don't have a clear exit with our own vehicle and even high up sitting in a car. It's very difficult to back out safely and we have a driver who is teenager and she's learning how to drive and she's been almost hit several times as have we when we're exiting the driveway so it's, it's a little bit scary. We also have an elementary school age child who has friends all around the neighborhood, and they are constantly crossing the street to get to each other's houses. The cars are parked so closely together that these little kids have no clear line of sight. So the only way that they can see as to whether they can cross the street safely is to actually get between those cars and try to find a place to look between them. It's just very unsafe, and I think all the time that one of these kids is going to potentially be hit by a car so I just want to echo other folks who have spoken and say that for me it's really a safety concern. It's not about sharing the neighborhood with students. Thank you. Thank you Sharon and I hope you feel better soon. Thank you. And now can we welcome back James Barna. Welcome back. Hey thanks. I appreciate it. Aren't you guys tired of this. Two years ago, this issue had a full airing and it was decided. And here we are again with the same arguments and a lot of the same untrue. I want to start with the fact that so much that's put out as factual information regarding this issue isn't factual at all. Excuse me the town manager has refused to consider viable doable alternatives that will resolve the parking issues on this street. With regard to the people that are too close to the driveways and the town can set whatever limits next to driveways at once. And he says that the police won't monitor that. Well, people can call and ask the police to ticket people. And if you've got a police force that can't do that, then this town has a lot bigger problems than I think. What I want to do is that this, the, the, the one of the suggestions is that painted lines could be put on the sidewalk to the demarcate the no parking places that are next to the driveway. It would require a total of 22 right 22. But Mr. Brockman says that his town and not do that. That is a flat out lie. The other problem he said was that Oh, those lines won't last anymore. Well, you know what those lines will last several years. There are many easier alternatives that it's just astounding that that the same sampling craziness is put forward. Let me talk about another issue here. Okay, all of these UMass people, all of these students you talk about those are all your town residents. It's been months out of the year. There is not some mystical line between the university and the town. You guys have parking issues, you have parking demand. You have a community that needs places to park inexpensively to learn and study. And all I see is this town, trying to exclude people, because they're the wrong kind of people. The other matter is Lincoln Avenue is safer for the parking than the lack of parking. You take away the parking and the seed that people drive down that street is going to cripple. Now we do have issues with safety, but those issues of safety are at Amity Street and Lincoln Avenue, and your town still has done nothing to address the safety issues there. That's what the accident saw. The other issue is that you guys have never thought any input from the people that actually park there. And you know what, it doesn't really matter if they're students or not. They are all your residents. This town needs a comprehensive way for regular people to park, whether they're going to universities or not, without you guys just excluding parking every time a resident, excuse me, a property owner demands it. Start doing your job. Start providing parking to all of your community. This is a community of 70,000 people, 70,000, quite obviously there needs to be parking on the street. There needs to be parking all over the place. And this community still acts like it's 1955. We're on our way to having parking restrictions like in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where nobody can park on the street if they don't own a piece of property. This is the next mark. And then you know what, you're going to have another group of landowners doing the same thing because they don't like students in front of their house. Thank you, James Barnard for your comment. And I just say one last thing. Without the university wrap up. Okay, without the universities in this community. This place would be Turner's Falls. I mean the fact of the matter is, the universities are the engines that drive this out. And this, this town needs to take steps to provide resources parking and not treat people who live here as students, as if they don't belong here, or they are special kind of people who need very special rules about how to live. Thank you. Thank you, James Barna. And we can now welcome back to the room Ken Rosenthal. Thank you. I just want to quickly respond to Mr Barna, who says these are all our people and we're denying them their parking. It's not so Mr Barna. Mr Barna, thank you so much for the call. A lot of a number of those cars that park there have out of state license plates. I would suggest to you that probably the majority of the other cars there that have Massachusetts plates do not live in the town of Amherst. They're not paying their auto excise taxes to the town of Amherst. They're not paying the real estate taxes to the town of Amherst. The number is a small number of people every day, just maybe 20 or 24 people taking advantage of the fact that we happen to have a road that is too narrow to accommodate them. And I would emphasize again, just for the record, that Sunset Avenue is even narrower. Thank you again for letting me have another opportunity to speak. Thank you Ken Rosenthal. So we are coming to the end of at least the hands that I see up. Okay, yes I see one more. Could we this will be last call if there's anyone else who has not yet made a comment, and would like to do so please raise your hand. If not, we will end with Tom Bernard. Thank you. I just wanted to note I live on Lincoln Avenue also, and I was looking today and there are a number of rental properties on Lincoln that are occupied by students but I just visually saw that they all have parking off the street. So we're not at least to best of my knowledge we're not excluding on any of the residents of Lincoln including the many students who live here. And I would certainly support the university charging less for parking. I think it's a simple cost benefit analysis that people make. And I would love to see the people visiting university parking and university on lots for free. That'd be great. So thanks so much. Thank you Tom Bernard and have a great night. So I think this will conclude up. Okay, I guess that we will conclude our public comment and questions and come back now to counselors do we have counselors with questions for Jennifer Tracy, and or Paul. Okay Dorothy your hand was up please go ahead. You're muted. Yeah, thank you. Do we have stats on accidents. Yes, those were provided by DPW. I don't have them at my fingertips, but he was questioned in detail. Was this more than other places and whatever. And the fact was, according to Guilford mooring. There were the number of accidents caused him to say no parking at any time on Lincoln, whereas that's the residents that asked for much more limited thing. So yes, there are records on that. And yes, we did ask about lines being painted but we were reminded that we're in New England, and that we have snow, and that you cannot even that that line is beautifully bright yellow you can't see it under the snow. So that wouldn't work and then somebody asked well what if we put stanchions all up and down the street and that was a pretty unattractive alternative. I have to say I was very touched by the mother of children because the description she gave of children trying to cross between tightly parked cars. That's how cars parked on my street. When I lived in Sunnyside Queens, because you can imagine New York City parking is a real real problem. And you would park with your car touching the car in front of you. Yes, in fact, a child on my street did die. And it was surprising it wasn't a little child. It was a 10 year old. We think that they're safer. But following a dog, you know, just following a dog that ran through the street and went between the cars and got killed. So I see that as a very real possibility. So I'm hoping that we can, I do agree, we've gone through this a lot. And I think we've got a lot of things we want to spend our time on. So I'm hoping that we can agree to go forward with the proposal that Jennifer is bringing. Thank you. Thank you, Dorothy. Thanks. Yeah, I would. Paul, if it's possible to have. Chief Livingstone, or someone from, from fire and police look at the, the proposal that's on the table right now, and just kind of get their feedback on whether or not. This would solve, well, one, whether they believe that there is a safety problem at this point on those streets and then two, if the proposed changes as written would. Would solve that, or if they believe that there's a different solution that would, that would solve a problem if there is a problem that they believe. Does that make sense? Yeah, I'll do that. And also can ask the chief, the police chief for a history of any accidents over the last 10 years or whatever. Yeah, and I appreciate I know that Jennifer had mentioned there's info in your last report and so I'm looking back through that as well but it would be helpful to specifically get feedback on the proposal that's on the table as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Andy, very well. Yes. It was on the TSO and when this was considered a year ago. And one thing that we had developed in TSO as a policy and was adopted by the committee, since it hasn't been revealed it's still a policy of the committee. And that is, there was a list. There was a parking criteria document that was developed and we haven't really discussed it yet in this round of the consideration, but I would actually urge us to do so. So I don't think this is going to necessarily change minds, but I think it will inform the discussion if it did. And I can put it up on the screen if I, if it was agreeable to the chair to just point out a couple of things in it that would be particularly helpful and give or the alternative is to just make sure it gets sent again for the next time when we reach a conclusion on this. I don't think that it matters strongly. Please go ahead and pull it out. Okay, let me see if I can find it really quickly. I believe this is it. So let me try. Nope, it's the wrong one. So I have to stop share. Okay, I'll give it one last week. I'll give it one last try and if not, I'm going to go to plan B. Because it's just. Thank you, and you got, I just wanted to point out that we're still in the hearing portion of the meeting. And the last part of the hearing is. Excuse me. The last part of the hearing is questions from counselors and then there would be a vote to close the hearing we didn't notice deliberation and recommendation on this agenda. You're correct. I think a little bit into the discussion part. And thank you for putting that out. And Andy, if you wanted to, to share that parking criteria document with the committee before the next meeting, that would be appropriate. I think I will do that is the easier because we're going to have further discussion at that time. So I'll leave it as the question as well as the committee was interested in looking at it. And the answer seems to be that it is so I'll just forward it for the next meeting. Okay, send it to the chair tonight. Thank you Andy. So do we have any other council questions. Okay. Well with that, I guess we can take you first. Thank Jennifer and Tracy for joining us. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Thank you. I'm an effort. Thank you. Thank you. We go in the. So I'll just sign off. I can turn back on. Thank you, Jennifer. I can move you to attendees Jennifer, if you wanted to stay. Thank you. And so we'll have a vote to close the hearing. Motion to close the hearing. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Andy. And okay. So Jennifer. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say Jennifer. I'm looking right at your door. Excuse me, Dorothy. You're muted. I see you mouthing. Yes. Okay. Yes. I vote yes. Okay, Andy. Yes. Yes. I mean, yes, and shall be something with us. Okay. So hearing is closed. Were there any other comments? Thoughts. Dorothy, you look like you're ready. We want Dorothy. I just wanted to say it's really ironic that the new dorms are being built on parking lots. The big, big visitors parking lots. So I, I do, there's one place where I agree with Mr. Barna, which is that I think UMass has got to. Come up with some better parking options. Cause it's really important people who want to see the campus should be able to park without having to go on a big five mile hike. That's it. I was, I was curious. I did walk the area with Jennifer and I know that we're right next to where the, the dorms are coming up. There is parking lot base. I know that we'd be taking it, but I'm not sure is, will that remain a parking lot or. Will there is that slotted for another coming door? Not sure. Okay. Anything else? All right. So with that, we're moving on. Now, I think I'm going to lean to you with this one. I think we've had a lot of public comment. Does that conclude our public comment? Would we still have enough? You can take general public comment at this point. Okay. Oh, I see Andy first, Andy. Actually, I have an additional question for Athena and for the chair. That is the council and the committee have received a tremendous. Number of emails related to this issue and. Do they get considered automatically a part of the record or does somebody have to move to make them part of the record? They're automatically part of the record. They're posted in the council comments on the website. They're not differentiated by topic or anything like that. So they're just posted along with the rest of the council comments. Periodically. Then lose the question. Are they part of the. Consideration that. The committee can. You may use during its discussion of the issue. Yes. The way the hearing is noticed. I would say that the committee would take comments. In person at the meeting or virtually at the meeting and in writing. Thank you, Andy. With that. I can see the hands now. If there is anyone who would like to make a general public comment with us in the audience, would you please raise your hand. Okay. I see Pam Rooney. Hi, Pam. Thank you for calling on me. I wanted to reiterate what I heard from a couple of people, and that is that we take a serious look at the park at a parking review and to, to really assess what we have in town. This, this is one of many issues of parking concerns throughout the downtown and obviously now in the surrounding areas. I would also encourage us broadly. To, to reach out. Seriously and strongly with landowners. I would say around the perimeter of, of the town where we could generate. Or encourage the creation of. Park and ride areas. Sounds like, sounds like maybe that was pursued for a while. But I think that we have a decent enough bus system. And, and close to campus neighborhoods for this parking drive. I would strongly disagree with the gentleman that said, these are our people. I think given the presentation that I saw that they in fact are not here during the summer. They do not live in Amherst and they, and they are folks that need to park close to the campus, whether it's for staff or whether it's for classes. So having a better. Referee system of park and ride would be something that I would. Love to participate in. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. Okay, so that concludes our area of public comment. And we can move right along into what we do not have appointments for today. So we can move on to the minutes as everyone had a chance to review the minutes. Okay. We have a motion to move to approve the minutes. Is there a second? Did you make the motion? Yes. Okay. And then made it. Okay. Thank you. So Dorothy. You're muted again. Yes. Thank you, Dorothy. Anna. I. I and Andy. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And with that. We have. Right along this evening. I would like to. Thank everyone for their time and patience. Thank you to everyone who joined us this evening. And with that, we will. Join the meeting. And let me just say for our next meeting, I would like to move on to the next meeting. We have two regulations. And bylaws. We have again. Amy. And Anna added again. So we're very thankful for that. That will be next week. And we should also expect some appointments and let me just pause. Paul, did you have a question? Yeah. Just a note. So next week. October 20th is your next meeting. Correct. Yes. And that's when you will be deliberating, and then we'll be back. We'll be back in a minute. We'll be back in a minute. We'll be back in a minute. And I'll talk with you about who needs to be there. Yes. That will be helpful. Definitely. So we can get all needed here. With us. I expect that to be a. A thoughtful deliberation. Okay. So with that. Everyone have a wonderful evening and we will reconvene on 10, 20. I believe we are six 30 p.m. Okay. Good night. Good night. Okay.